Anette beheld the man who this last week had sent her galivanting through the entire spectrum of emotions and made her doubt her marriage. She saw an attractive man, masculine and warm, down-to-earth and sweet. She saw a man in grief.

And there was not even a shadow of attraction left. Whatever had made her fantasize about him in the shower had now been replaced by an overwhelming flood of compassion, nothing else.

“Mads, I wish I could comfort you and ease your pain, but my guess is that no one can. Not yet, anyway.”

He nodded, put his hand on hers, and squeezed.

“Let me take you back to the mainland.”

“Thank you, you’d better. I have a case to solve.”

The girl picks up the little posable wooden mannequin and looks at it, moves its small head around on its axis as she has done so often, then puts it back in its place on the shelf and sits down in the armchair. She’s been given a soda, which she drinks in big gulps and gets the hiccups. She hasn’t had anything to eat since that morning and is feeling dizzy. The soda doesn’t help.

Their talk isn’t going as she had hoped.

It begins well, even though she’s nervous. She relaxes quickly and says what she knows without being scared. They love each other after all. She has always been told that love is stronger than everything else. Family first. But now the mood seems ruined. She has done something wrong.

The girl feels stupid and has trouble remembering how she had hoped it would go.

She is scared. She wants to get up and run away, but she isn’t feeling well. Like that time they took the ferry to Bornholm and it was rocking so bad that everyone got seasick. She has trouble resting her head against the sides of the wingback chair and slides down the seat until she is lying on the floor.

The room is spinning.

A figure comes toward her, its contours blurred by the bright light. She blinks. Then she closes her eyes.

CHAPTER 33

Jeppe was on his way down the stairs from the Nordhjem office when Sara called. The sound of her voice was so familiar that he momentarily forgot their new reality. Her cool tone reminded him that right now they were no more than colleagues.

“I found something, pictures of Oscar on the home page of something that looks like a pedophile ring.”

“Pedophilia?” Jeppe stopped with his hand on the door handle.

“I’ve informed PC and currently I’m trying to figure out who made the page. But as you know, this kind of thing is complex. It never takes long before they start dismantling their sites, so we’re working fast. I’ll send you screen dumps after I hang up.”