Hair strands fell in the sink, slowly covering the white porcelain in a woolly layer. In the bathroom mirror Kasper Skytte’s jawline was hummed into view under the beard trimmer. He puffed out one cheek and ran the trimmer over it—up, down, and diagonally, until his beard was only an eighth of an inch long. Though it was a struggle, he forced himself to meet his own eyes. Grooming helped his self-esteem a little, even if the extra padding around his gut and the bags under his eyes were starting to pull his appearance in the wrong direction. He wasn’t an ugly man. Even the birthmark, which he had hated so intensely when he was younger, had turned out to score him points in the eyes of the opposite sex.

“Dad! Are you almost done? I have to pee.” Iben knocked on the door, hard.

“Yes, sweetie. Just give me a minute!”

He knew she knew something. Obviously Oscar had blabbed. The question was how much she knew and where her loyalties lay when it came down to it.

His phone had been ringing all day, and in the end he had turned it off. They had even come by and rung the doorbell. The police, presumably. He was under pressure from all sides. Kasper took a swig from the small bottle next to the sink. Aquavit again today, brought home from a hotel minibar. It was lukewarm and already tasted of tomorrow’s regret, like so much did these days. He had been drinking since he came home from the ER, and knew he would have to stop soon if he was going to preserve some modicum of functionality for tonight.

Kasper cleaned the hair out of the sink, turned on the water, and rinsed the last remaining clippings down the drain, then wrapped the empty aquavit bottle in toilet paper and put it in the bottom of the trash can. He should have been relieved, but he felt anything but. If only he could say that his guilty conscience was eating him up from inside, but that would be yet another lie. Though he was certainly struggling with feelings of guilt, mostly he was just afraid of being caught.

The police. He would have to talk to them sooner or later, even if the thought was inconceivable. Maybe he could call them tomorrow morning and explain that he had been so shocked by the corpse in the claw that he had taken a sleeping pill and gone straight to bed. What could they say to that?

“It’s all yours, honey!” he called.