A faint bell began to ring in the back of Alex’s mind, and for the second time within a comparatively short period, he looked down at his scarred hands. The hands he had burned while trying to save a child. A child who would otherwise have met the same fate as two other children. They had been murdered with an overdose of insulin. In one of the cases, where the victim was a baby, the fatal injection had been given via the fontanel. The other child had been too old for that, so the overdose had been injected . . .

. . . into the back of the neck.

Alex’s mouth went as dry as dust. He wished he had something to drink.

Then he pulled himself together. From a purely practical point of view, an insulin overdose was an excellent way of murdering someone. The method used in this latest death could be pure coincidence, a red herring.

‘A few years ago – well, almost ten – we were looking for a perpetrator who murdered his victims exactly the same way,’ he said. ‘But all his victims were children. Small children.’

‘That’s what my colleague told me; he was the medical examiner back then. And of course this doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a link.’

No. God forbid.

‘I appreciate the call,’ Alex said. ‘I’ll have to ask someone else to check it out – I don’t have the time.’

‘I just report whatever I find. It’s up to you to take it from there.’

‘Thank you.’

‘There’s a lot going on,’ Renata said.

‘Way too much.’

The last thing they needed was another murder. Even though Alex knew he couldn’t take it on, he still had to ask:

‘What was the victim’s name?’

‘Henry Lindgren.’

He ran a hand over his chin, felt the stubble beneath his fingertips. Diana didn’t like it when he didn’t shave properly.

‘Means nothing to me.’

‘Good.’

They ended the call.

*

Alex sat there with the phone in his hand, reflecting on what he’d just been told. Henry Lindgren. In fact Alex had partly lied to Renata; the surname meant nothing, but the first name wasn’t unfamiliar. The problem was that he couldn’t remember in which context he’d heard it.

He had to let it go, prioritise.

The murder of Malcolm Benke.

The murder of Lovisa Wahlberg.

The murder of Noah Johansson.