Fredrika picked up the little girl and held her close. Soon she would be too big for that kind of thing, wouldn’t want Mummy cuddling her like a soft toy. The days could be endless, but for some reason the years just flew by.

She went into the kitchen. Spencer had his back to her. He was chopping onions and didn’t turn around, even though he must have heard her.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi,’ said Spencer.

Spencer who was going to die, Spencer whom she’d loved for so long, who wasn’t the murderer they were looking for. But he was still a man who had once run over a young woman and left her lying in the road without calling for help.

Saga insisted on being put down, then ran off to find her brother. They headed for Saga’s bedroom like a mini-tornado.

‘Did you miss them?’

‘Terribly.’ At last he turned around. Fredrika struggled to hide her shock at his appearance: he looked exhausted, hollow-eyed. Almost gaunt.

‘I called Noah Johansson’s assistant today. I wanted my will so that I could pass it on to the new funeral director, but I couldn’t have it. Apparently the police had taken all the wills to examine them.’

Fredrika didn’t move, didn’t say a word.

‘I know that you know,’ Spencer said. ‘I know you’ve read the letter.’

Fredrika still didn’t speak. She’d kept a little spark of hope alive, she realised. Hope that he hadn’t written the letter, hope that he had nothing to do with any of it, hope that he hadn’t run over that woman.

Shit.

‘How could you do that?’ she whispered. ‘Run over someone and just leave her lying there?’

‘What was the alternative? Go on, tell me! I’d finally managed to get out of my miserable marriage, finally embarked on a life with you. I even had a child. Do you understand how miraculous that was for me? And then I’d had that terrible accident; I thought I was going to die right there in the car. I didn’t, but it was a long road back. It was hell.’

Fredrika remembered. That had been the most difficult period of all, but the fact that it had made Spencer indifferent to the lives and wellbeing of others had passed her by.

‘You wrote that you’ve put everything right now,’ she said. ‘What did you mean by that?’ She hardly dared breathe.

‘I’ve made a bequest to Miranda, and I wanted you to know why.’

‘Miranda?’

‘That’s her name.’

Fredrika stood on a piece of Lego. It hurt and she kicked it away. The apartment had once been so clean and tidy that you could walk around barefoot; these days she was grateful if she managed to get from one room to the next without falling over something.