That phrase was acceptable only when uttered by a child, not an adult. Sometimes when Fredrika allowed her thoughts to roam free, usually at night when sleep refused to come, she would remember how easy everything had been when she was a child. No conviction had been stronger than the one that told her anything was possible.

How she missed that feeling, that illusion.

She was over forty now, and knew all too well that so many things we wish for will never happen. Never.

It had been Spencer’s idea to take an early holiday. He had come up with the idea back in January, long before anyone even thought of booking their annual leave, long before life fell apart. He got his way in the end, and they went to Italy, rented a villa in Tuscany. They spent the last few days back in Stockholm, surrounded by concrete and steel. When it was time for Fredrika and Spencer to return to work, the children joined their maternal grandparents at their summer cottage. The fact that she was working and the children were getting a taste of the summer they deserved kept Fredrika on an even keel.

‘Why do you have to work with things the way they are?’ her mother had asked. ‘Why can’t you take some time off, be together?’

With things the way they are.

Was that an adequate description of a life from which virtually every scrap of joy had been removed?

‘Spencer doesn’t want to do that,’ Fredrika replied.

She could have expressed herself more clearly. She could have said that Spencer really didn’t want to spend all summer on holiday.

‘Why the hell would we do that?’ he said when she broached the subject. ‘So that we have all the time in the world to sit here and stare each other to death? No chance.’

His anger made her laugh then cry, but not until she had left the apartment to go shopping on her own.

Alex Recht called when she was in the car on the way to a music session. The violin that she had once hoped to make her career had become more important than ever. Music was her breathing space, her refuge.

‘Fredrika.’

‘Hi, Fredrika, it’s Alex. How quickly can you get to Nacka?’

Fredrika sighed.

‘I can be there first thing tomorrow morning.’

‘How about in half an hour?’

‘Alex, it’s my day off.’

Spencer hadn’t completely won the battle over their summer plans. Fredrika had sneaked in odd free days in July, days when she didn’t go to work, but made time for reflection, for playing the violin. And – like today – time for a meeting that couldn’t be postponed.

‘That might be the case,’ Alex said. ‘But tomorrow and for many days after that you’ll be investigating a murder.’

Fredrika didn’t respond.

‘I need you,’ her boss said.