Alex wanted to protest, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. Peder had been like a son or a younger brother to him. Someone he cared about, someone he liked having around. The current situation hurt far more than he could have imagined.

He heard his own voice: ‘I should have done more.’

Fredrika placed a hand on his arm. ‘So should the rest of us.’

‘I couldn’t have imagined . . .’

‘Nor could anyone else.’

Fredrika removed her hand. ‘I wonder if he’s done.’

‘With the murders? Of course not. He’s busy tidying up; I think there will be plenty of names left on his list,’ Berlin said.

Alex was turning into a pressure cooker. This was worse than anything he’d experienced in the past. ‘So what do we do now? We have no evidence linking him to any of the crimes.’

‘We start a new round of interviews, we knock on doors.’ Berlin was resolute. ‘He must have made a mistake somewhere along the line. I’ve already got him under surveillance, because as I said, I don’t believe he’s finished.’

‘So we wait for the next murder and take him then?’ Alex said.

Berlin’s face lost its colour.

‘You do realise we might have to wait for quite some time?’ Fredrika pointed out. ‘Peder isn’t stupid; he knows we’ve arrested Ross, which means he stands a chance of getting away with it if he keeps his head down, doesn’t rock the boat.’

‘My feeling is that his desire for revenge has become an itch he just has to scratch,’ Berlin replied. ‘He knows he can get away with it, but he has so much more to do. So much more to put right.’

Alex couldn’t stop thinking about the messages they’d found. The messages that were addressed to him.

‘Shit,’ he whispered.

Berlin gave him a surprisingly sympathetic look. ‘I believe this will be over before the week is out. It’s Friday today. We’ll have him by Sunday.’

‘I think you’re wrong,’ Fredrika said.

Chapter 17

It was just before midnight when Peder Rydh went to bed. The boys must have sensed his unease, because they woke up more than once during the evening. Peder went into their room, stroked their backs gently and whispered:

‘It’s all right, I’m here. Everything’s fine.’

Everything’s fine.

And that was the way it would stay.