The mobile phone had been in the dead man’s hand. The first police officers on the scene had assumed that was how he’d died – with the phone in his hand and terror in his eyes. A woman passing by on the street had heard someone shouting for help – only once, but it was enough. She had kept walking, hailed a taxi and called the police from the back seat as the vehicle sped away.

Thanks to the phone, Alex Recht’s name had come up immediately. The investigating officer had established that Alex was one of the last people Noah Johansson had contacted. Alex informed Berlin briefly – very briefly – about his dealings with the deceased. At a later stage, when he knew what was going on, he would tell her a hell of a lot more. Above all he would tell her about Ross.

‘Stay away,’ Berlin ordered. ‘It’s nothing to do with you.’

Fifteen minutes later he was on his way to the scene. He left HQ without speaking to Fredrika or anyone else. She rang his mobile, but he rejected the call. He knew she was wondering what had happened, and that she wanted to tell him what she’d found out from Linda Sullivan, but that would have to wait.

Because there’s something else I have to do right now.

His chest hurt when he parked outside Noah’s funeral business. The brain could tidy things away, but the heart remembered.

His mind cleared as soon as he saw the police tape and officers moving in and out. Alex had no right to be there, but no one else knew that. He walked purposefully to the door, showed his ID and went inside.

Nothing had changed. He recognised the wallpaper, the pale oak parquet flooring, the armchairs in one corner. There was no sign of a struggle.

‘In here,’ said a uniformed colleague who appeared from nowhere. She pointed to a doorway on the right.

Alex followed her into the office. He couldn’t help recoiling when he saw Noah lying on the floor, his head surrounded by a pool of blood.

‘We think it was the head injury sustained in the fall that killed him, but of course we’ll have to wait for the postmortem report,’ the young officer told him.

Only then did Alex notice the blood on the edge of the desk.

Shit.

He looked around: chaos. Papers everywhere, a total mess. Two cabinets were open, the shelves empty. This wasn’t like the other crime scenes Alex had visited over the past few days. This time the murderer had been searching for something, determined to find it at all costs.

‘Could the killer have been interrupted?’ he asked. ‘The victim might have been out, and caught the perpetrator searching his office when he got back.’

‘It’s a possibility.’