She was known for her attention to detail and her intuitiveness. Her gaze swept across the walls, floor and ceiling with laser-like precision. There was no sign of the words she was looking for. Couldn’t it be easy, just this once? In an attempt to make the situation less embarrassing, she started searching with an almost ferocious energy. Under sofas, behind paintings, beneath rugs – places where she couldn’t possibly have seen the words she was certain she recognised, words that linked the deaths of Malcolm Benke and Lovisa Wahlberg.

Alex joined her.

‘Did you find anything in the hallway?’ Fredrika asked.

‘I don’t know what I’m looking for.’

That makes two of us.

His tone was neither accusatory nor condescending. If he’d thought the whole idea was ridiculous, he wouldn’t have come with her. He might even have dissuaded her from returning.

He went over to the window, pushed his hands into his pockets and waited for Fredrika to finish. She knew he’d noticed the change in her, that he could see something was tearing her to pieces, but until it was all over, she didn’t think she could talk about what lay ahead. A journey to Switzerland, an assisted suicide, a professor who had taken control of his own death.

She took a quick walk around the rest of the house.

‘Okay, I give in,’ she said when she came back to the living room. ‘I must have got it wrong – there’s nothing here.’

Alex shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t say you got it wrong – you thought you remembered something, so we needed to investigate.’

Fredrika gave him a grateful smile.

Then she spotted the book on the table next to the armchair. It was upside down, but the spine was facing her. She read the title silently to herself and felt the floor give beneath her feet.

‘Look,’ she said to Alex, pointing.

‘What do you think I am, an eagle? It’s at least fifteen years since I was able to read something that far away.’

As he came closer, Fredrika read the title aloud.

I Am Putting Everything Right

Chapter 8

Margareta Berlin had two pieces of information for Alex when they got back to HQ. Firstly, a decision had been made as to who would lead the separate investigation into the murder of Lovisa Wahlberg: Detective Inspector Torbjörn Ross. Secondly, Detective Inspector Torbjörn Ross was looking for Alex and Fredrika.

That fucking leech.

Who crawled along the corridors ‘bumping into’ Alex, who had decided that the inquiry into Noah Johansson’s missing brother wasn’t worth pursuing.

Alex was so stunned he didn’t know what to say. When Berlin had gone, he turned to Fredrika.

‘Ross? What the fuck? Is she out of her mind?’

Berlin was back in a second.

‘Is there a problem?’ she snapped.

Alex laughed dryly. ‘Are you joking?’