‘Helena Tryste?’ he says incredulously. ‘What on earth are you doing here? Where’s Karen?’

She looks down at her shoes without responding. The female constable squatting next to her puts a protective arm around her drooping shoulders just as Karl hears the sound of Thorstein Byle’s voice behind him.

‘What the . . . ?’

‘Yes, I know,’ Karl says. ‘It’s not her. But she’s wearing Karen’s clothes. And was driving her car.’

Byle walks over to Helena. He stops in front of her and something about his presence compels her to look up.

‘What the fuck is the meaning of this?’ he says, his voice hard.

Helena Tryste stares back at him apathetically.

They keep at it for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes without any kind of result. Nothing seems able to break her paralysis, not hot tea, not kind questions, nor harsh ones. No one manages to make Helena Tryste utter a single word. Not Karl Björken, not Cornelis Loots, not Thorstein Byle. She doesn’t touch the tea, doesn’t cry, her hands in her lap don’t move. Twenty minutes, and Helena Tryste doesn’t even seem to blink.

Then the doctor arrives.

‘She needs to be taken to the hospital,’ Sven Andersén determines after a quick look at her pallid face and seemingly lifeless dark eyes.

‘No. She has to talk to us first,’ Karl says and turns back to Helena Tryste.

‘Where the fuck is she?’ he bellows. ‘Open your goddamn mouth!’

‘Having much luck?’ Andersén asks coolly and opens his bag.

He takes out a syringe and a glass phial. Draws the liquid, flicks the syringe and squirts out a small spray. Then he squats down next to Helena Tryste.

Karl is furious.

‘Has it occurred to you that while you’re treating this woman, Karen is out there somewhere? She’s likely in grave danger and we need to find out where she is.’

‘I understand, but this woman is my patient now,’ Andersén replies calmly, pulls the needle out and applies a tiny white compress to Helena Tryste’s arm.

There’s no visible reaction. Nothing in her ashen face seems changed by what the doctor injected.

‘Is William Tryste still not answering his phone?’ Karl demands.

Byle shakes his head.

‘I’ve sent a patrol up to Tryste’s house, but they’re not even halfway there. Conditions are pretty difficult,’ he adds.

‘Send everyone we have, half of them to Tryste’s and the rest up to the distillery – he could just as easily be up there. The three of us will have to split up and get a move on. Now!’

Karl picks his coat up off the floor.

‘You’re going to have to open the gun locker, I didn’t bring anything,’ he says to Byle, who nods.

Karl shoots Helena Tryste a final baleful glare and turns to leave.

‘Come on, let’s go! What are you fucking waiting for?’