Fredrika made a note, and Jussi supplied her with all the details he had.

‘I’m glad you called,’ he said again. ‘I was going to contact the police yesterday, but I spoke to a former employee who was responsible for Dan’s case, and he thought we should wait until Noah’s name had been confirmed.’

‘That was probably good advice. Who was this former employee, by the way? It might be interesting to hear what he has to say.’

‘No problem. He used to be a police officer.’

Fredrika frowned.

‘A police officer?’

‘Peder Rydh – maybe you two know each other?’

Fredrika made a huge effort to control every muscle of her face, not to show her surprise.

‘Rydh? Yes, we were part of the same team at one point, but that was quite a few years ago.’

Jussi reacted with interest.

‘What was he like back then?’

‘What was he like? Competent, hardworking – possibly a little hot-headed, but definitely one of the good guys.’

Jussi didn’t respond right away; he seemed to be thinking about what to say.

‘I couldn’t keep him on,’ he said eventually.

Fredrika straightened up. Alex had hinted that he didn’t feel as if Peder had told him the whole story.

‘Too many problems,’ Jussi went on. ‘He started with us in late summer, finished in April. At first I believed him when he said he’d left the Solomon Community because he wanted to try something different, but that wasn’t the whole truth. He was so restless, so uneasy – that was what drove him. And then when his family . . . he . . . I assume you know what happened?’

Fredrika shook her head slowly. ‘I don’t – please tell me.’

It was Jussi’s turn to shake his head now.

‘It’s not my place to talk about Peder’s private life – you need to ask him.’

Fredrika felt a spurt of irritation. Peder’s family, Peder’s private life. Had he still not grown out of his very unpleasant habit of bringing his personal problems into work? Was he still allowing his marriage and parenthood to influence the way he behaved in a professional environment?

‘He can be pretty immature,’ she said. ‘We noticed that.’

Jussi expression grew wary.

‘I’m not sure what we had to deal with here could be attributed to a lack of maturity.’

Fredrika decided it was time to bring the meeting to an end.

‘Just to be clear: as far as you’re concerned, Peder never worked with Noah Johansson, but only with his brother Dan?’

‘Exactly – but there are plenty of security firms in Stockholm. Peder could have come across Noah through a different company.’

Fredrika thought that was unlikely. Peder had worked for Solid Security, and that was where he must have been employed when he claimed that he’d had Noah – not Dan – Johansson as his client. Had he mixed up the names? Hardly.

Peder was lying.