He knew that love could be a senseless, destructive force. Many people had been driven to the brink of insanity by what they called love. Perhaps it was Mikael’s faith in God that had kept him alive in the darkness, together with the fact that Eden had fallen pregnant again. And this time Mikael knew that the child on the way was his.

He could hear Eden playing with their daughter in the living room.

‘Look at these lovely colourful bricks!’ she said.

She’d never behaved like that with Dani and Saba. Her approach to parenting had been to have as little as possible to do with the children.

And I allowed it to happen.

Mikael liked an orderly life, but not to the point of fanaticism. He was a pragmatic individual. The events of the past few years had made him a little more spiky, he was aware of that. He had grown harder, while Eden had grown softer.

He listened to Eden and their youngest daughter for a while longer. This couldn’t last forever, and that was probably a good thing. There would come a day when Eden would want to go back to work, when being with her family wasn’t enough to fill her life. Mikael had asked himself what they would do then. Eden could hardly apply for jobs in Israel, which meant going back to Sweden. At the moment that didn’t tempt her at all.

Mikael went and sat at the computer. He wanted to check if there was anything new on Malcolm Benke’s death. Eden had insisted that they couldn’t be sure it was him – the newspapers hadn’t named the victim – but Mikael was in no doubt that Malcolm was dead. And Mikael was afraid he knew why.

Eden wasn’t happy; she didn’t like the fact that he knew things about Malcolm, that the outside world was encroaching on their safe bubble. However, Mikael couldn’t help it if he’d once been drawn into Malcolm’s life. Or rather his daughter’s. It was an encounter he was unable to forget. Not that anyone had blamed him, regarded his input as a failure, but that didn’t stop him from feeling that way. Things had taken a very unpleasant turn, and he had withdrawn before it was too late. Too late for him. That was what he’d told himself at the time: he had to protect his own interests. And the question that haunted him was whether this was what had cost Beata Benke her life in the end.

That wasn’t the only reason, he thought. My failure wasn’t the only thing that led to her death. But I was a part of it.

At that moment a phone rang. Eden’s. Saba had changed the ringtone to one so shrill that you answered immediately just to make it stop.

‘Eden,’ he heard her say.

Then: ‘Yes?’

Like a question.