Two months later, Alex flew to London. No one could understand why the hell he was going there in November, but he missed Fredrika as a friend and colleague, and wanted to see how she was getting on. That was reason enough for the trip. He took his daughter with him; she didn’t know Fredrika, but he wanted company, and they didn’t see each other often enough. Diana understood, and stayed at home.

Alex adjusted his jacket, thought about the note in his inside pocket. The note he was going to show to Fredrika, a final message from Peder.

I’m stopping now.

It had arrived in the middle of August, and Alex had taken it straight to Berlin.

‘What does he mean?’

Alex thought it was perfectly clear; Peder meant exactly what he said. There would be no more murders.

‘Do you think Fredrika’s okay?’ his daughter asked. ‘I’ve thought about her a lot, about how fragile life is. I realised that when Mum died, but you kind of forget, don’t you?’

‘You do. And it’s probably just as well.’

His daughter took out her book and settled down to read while Alex looked out of the window. Eden Lundell had called him just as they were about to board. She asked if there might be an opening for her in Alex’s department, if he knew of any interesting senior posts. He did, because rumour had it that Berlin was on her way out.

‘Could you seriously cope with me as your boss?’ Eden had said, laughing.

‘Yes. You couldn’t possibly be worse than Berlin.’

Which was a little harsh. Berlin had improved, upped her game, but she was still a long way from the kind of boss Alex wanted to work for.

His daughter gave him a nudge.

‘You didn’t answer my question. Do you think Fredrika’s okay? And what do we do if she’s in a total mess when we arrive? What if she can’t cope?’

Alex stretched, fixed his gaze on one of the clouds.

‘Fredrika Bergman will always be able to cope,’ he said.

Afterword and Acknowledgements

AFTERWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I think you’ve just read what will be the last Fredrika Bergman novel. I say ‘think’, because of course one can never be sure. Both Fredrika and Alex are alive and in good health, so who knows – maybe one day they will be reunited in the hunt for some dreadful criminal. But the way things look right now, there are no plans for such a reunion.