‘They believe all that nonsense about Australia, because they’ve sent messages to Dan’s email address and received replies saying everything’s fine.’

‘Sorry if I sound confused, but are you telling me the police have been in contact with your brother?’ Alex said.

‘No, that’s my point! Dan didn’t write those messages, someone else is using his email account. The fact that I even need to point out something so obvious is just crazy. I know my own brother. He’s not in Australia. Or maybe he is, but there’s still something very wrong about the whole situation.’

Alex scratched his head, trying to work out what Noah was telling him and what he wasn’t telling him.

‘If the problem is in Australia rather than in Sweden, then you ought to contact the police over there,’ he said. ‘But you need to be sure they are there and not somewhere else.’

Alex allowed his thoughts free rein for a moment. There was clearly a problem, but did that problem lie with Noah, or were his claims about the family’s disappearance true? Alex didn’t really know the man, didn’t know anything about his physical or mental health. People imagined things, especially those who had too much time and too little going on in their lives. Noah was a single man in his forties who ran a funeral business. Alex was wary of reading too much into that, but he wondered what Noah’s relationship with his brother was like. Was Dan the most important person in Noah’s life? If so, it was hardly surprising that he would be upset by the family’s decision to move to the other side of the world, and had come up with a different explanation for their disappearance from Stockholm.

Disappearance.

That word made everything so difficult. According to Noah, an entire family had been abducted and were being held captive. Unless of course they were dead. Did that kind of stuff really happen? It was a question that had become less and less relevant over the years as far as Alex was concerned. Everything happened, and rather too often. But an entire family?

‘I’m not the only one who thinks it’s weird,’ Noah said. ‘One of my sister-in-law’s friends came to see me – she’s really worried too. Her name is Tina, Tina Antonsson.’

Alex jotted down the name and thought it was probably the least important note he’d ever made. He’d already come to a decision. When he had time – and not before – he would contact the officer Noah had been dealing with, find out what had been done and what he or she thought.