A police car is still parked on the sidewalk outside Skeppsbron 28, and from a distance Klara sees two uniformed police officers on the stairs. She slows her pace, walks slowly down the wide sidewalk. The traffic is flowing as usual now. If she hadn’t been here just ten minutes ago, she’d have a hard time believing a SWAT team arrested someone in the middle of the street.

Fifty metres before reaching the office, she stops. What should she say when she gets there? If Säpo wants revenge on Gabriella for what she exposed this summer, isn’t Klara also in danger? Sure, Gabriella became a very visible and committed critic of Säpo’s methods, and even though Säpo refused to make any comment on the whole affair, there’s no doubt it had an impact on the public’s trust in the organization. But the idea that they would actually seek revenge? It sounds insane.

She’s on the stairs now and goes over to two police officers, a young woman with a blonde ponytail and a middle-aged man with a shaved head.

‘Excuse me. What’s going on here?’ Klara says. ‘I drove by and saw someone being arrested.’

Both police officers turn around and look at her. ‘Nothing,’ the male officer says. ‘Just routine.’

‘But it looked so dramatic,’ Klara tries. ‘You blocked off traffic, there was even a SWAT team, right?’

‘Like I said. Routine.’

Klara turns her attention to the young woman instead, trying to find a way through that cool look. ‘Where did you take her after you arrested her?’ she says. ‘To the city jail?’

‘The person who was arrested is being taken in for questioning. Not sure exactly where,’ the woman says. ‘We have no more information for you regarding this.’

‘But this is a law firm,’ Klara says. ‘It surely can’t be routine to arrest a criminal lawyer?’

‘How do you know we arrested a lawyer?’ the woman says. ‘Do you have some connection to the person we arrested?’

‘No. I was just driving by, like I said. Just curious.’

The woman exchanges a look with her partner; obviously Klara has piqued their interest. ‘Were you the one driving the car that the suspect got out of?’ the man asks.

Klara instinctively knows this is no longer a good idea, she shouldn’t have asked them anything, and she takes a few steps back on the sidewalk. The female officer takes half a step towards her and holds up her hands to show she’s harmless. ‘We’d like to ask you a couple of questions,’ she says.

But Klara has already turned around and started running as fast as she can. Blood pounding through her body. They took Gabriella; they can’t take her too.