‘That’s what makes it easier,’ he said, leaning across the table. ‘The fact that you remember.’

Fredrika started crying again. Spencer put both arms around her and drew her close. The person who was dying consoling the person who was fit and well. And all he could say was:

‘Why does it have to end like this?’

Chapter 15

The letter weighed exactly thirty-two grams. Almost nothing at all. And yet Alex suspected that it made a huge difference. He looked at the copy he’d brought home. The short lines, the assertion that something needed to be put right, and that Alex was incapable of doing what must be done.

Diana had been shaken when he got back. She realised the letter was important, and was afraid it might also be dangerous.

‘If we’re under threat then I need to know,’ she’d said.

Alex had calmed her, assured her there was no threat, that he had no idea why the letter had arrived. She’d looked resigned when she went off to meet a friend a little while ago, almost as if she didn’t believe him.

Now he was alone in the house, slumped in the chair behind his desk. He had called forensics, learned that there were no fingerprints on either the letter or the envelope. No trace of the sender. Hardly unexpected, but a disappointment nevertheless. A couple of colleagues had made discreet door-to-door inquiries in the neighbourhood; no one had seen the letter being delivered.

He wondered whether to call Fredrika. They hadn’t finished discussing the letter; in fact they’d hardly started, because as usual Berlin had got in the way with her stupid questions, making a fuss and showing off, pretending to understand what was going on. As if there was anything to understand at such an early stage.

Alex reached for his phone, then hesitated. He had other things to think about, such as the conversation with Noah Johansson about his missing brother. Alex was very sceptical about the idea that an entire family could have been abducted from their home and were being held in an isolated location without arousing suspicions. It just didn’t make sense, even after Noah had passed on the story of the client who’d killed his family and himself. According to Noah, he was more or less the only one who thought something was wrong – apart from a friend of his sister-in-law. As far as Alex was concerned, this was a clear sign that Noah had got the wrong end of the stick.

Anyway, if they have been abducted they’re no longer alive.

It was a troubling thought, but surely it was the only answer. In which case, would they ever find the bodies of the missing family?