Because that was where he’d found the words that suited him so perfectly. I am putting everything right. That was exactly what Peder was trying to do. He had been so pleased when he realised those words were also the title of a book. As an author once said: I am putting everything right. The book wasn’t easy to find, but after a few days Peder had managed to pick up several copies. Spencer’s letter had given him the perfect link; Peder’s concept had its unique signature. And now he was going to have to break off, in spite of months of preparation, after just a few days.

But what days they had been.

At some point in the future he would resume his task, he knew that. However, there would be no signature, no books left behind. Maybe he would also review his modus operandi, consider killing his chosen victims in a different way from the one in which those they’d let down had died. He didn’t regret his messages to Alex; quite the reverse, they were important. Alex in particular must understand that there was an intelligent person behind everything that happened. Peder felt no sympathy for those who’d died; they didn’t deserve any better. Alex would agree, if only he sat down and thought about it. He might even forgive Peder for having lied to him, necessary white lies to keep the police away from him and Ross, but also from Noah.

You understand that, don’t you, Alex?

Eventually Peder fell asleep. The fluttering butterflies of fear and anxiety had settled.

He hadn’t done anything wrong.

And as long as he behaved himself, he wouldn’t get caught.

AUTUMN 2016

Chapter 1

The sun shone on the day Spencer Lagergren died. In fact it shone uninterruptedly, wherever Fredrika Bergman happened to be. First of all in Switzerland, then in Stockholm.

Alex rang her when she was sitting on the kitchen floor, crying. Five days after she came home from Switzerland with Spencer in a coffin.

‘I just wanted to see how you were,’ he said.

‘Terrible.’

‘And the children?’

‘They’re with my parents today.’

‘But they’ll be at the funeral tomorrow?’

‘That’s the plan.’

‘Sounds like a good idea.’

Alex ended the call, got in the car and drove over to see her. And that was how it came about that on a September afternoon, not one but two people were sitting on the kitchen floor crying. Fredrika would always be grateful to Alex for that.

‘I miss him so much I think I’m going to die,’ she said. ‘But I don’t. I go on living, and I just don’t see the point.’

Alex wiped the tears from his cheeks.