‘I’m sure there was,’ Alex insisted.

Renata called them over. She and her assistant had just lifted Lovisa Wahlberg and turned her over. There was a large wound in the back of her head.

‘This could be pretty straightforward,’ Renata said.

‘You think she was killed by a single blow?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Let’s not waste time speculating,’ Alex said firmly. ‘Let me know when you’re sure.’

He and Fredrika set off for the car park, but within seconds Renata called them back.

‘You need to see this.’

She was holding up Lovisa’s wrist, showing them the underside. The skin was dirty, but traces of a tattoo were clearly visible. Fredrika couldn’t work out what it was: dots and lines, plus a few apparently unconnected letters and numbers. Renata gently brushed away the soil.

‘So she had a tattoo,’ Alex said.

Renata was clearly unimpressed by his reaction.

‘Can’t you see what it is?’

Fredrika took a closer look.

‘If I saw this in a different context I’d think it was a chemical formula,’ she said.

Renata sighed. ‘It is a chemical formula.’

Fredrika and Alex exchanged a glance, both equally grateful that the other hadn’t been smarter.

‘Cocaine,’ Renata clarified.

‘Sorry?’ Alex said. ‘She has the formula for cocaine tattooed on her . . . ?’

‘Exactly. And it looks as if it was done fairly recently. Then there’s this. It was in the grave beneath her head.’

Renata held up a red-painted face mask.

Alex frowned, and inside Fredrika’s head the possibility of associations with occult movements exploded. But most of all she was still thinking about the unanswered question: what was she doing here? What did this murder have to do with them?

We can’t do everything.

‘Why are we here, Alex?’

He didn’t answer.

‘Made in Haiti,’ Renata announced after checking inside the mask.

Fredrika put on a plastic glove and held out her hand. Haiti. A place where myths about voodoo and zombies originated. What the hell was going on here?

She turned to Alex.

‘Tell me. Why are we here?’

‘Because of this,’ Alex said. He passed her an evidence bag containing a sheet of paper.

On the paper were the words:

I’m doing it again. Putting everything right.

Chapter 3

And looking back, this was how they would choose to recount the story of property developer Malcolm Benke’s strange death and everything that followed in its wake.

It began with his daughter’s wedding ring on his little finger.

That was followed by a victim who was buried in such a shallow grave that her fingers and toes were sticking out.

And even when our perpetrator was kind enough to send us letters, we didn’t dare call him anything other than an ordinary, run-of-the-mill killer.

They went into one of the smaller meeting rooms and closed the door. The place stank of curry. Alex tried to open the window, but without success.