‘I don’t know how much you know, so I’ll go over the facts first. Fredrik Stuub, seventy-two years old. Found dead in a water-filled old quarry in Karby, just north of Skreby. Clear signs of Stuub having been dragged to the edge were found, both at the scene and on the body. According to Brodal, he was given a powerful blow to the chin before that, a proper wallop, to put it simply, and he was likely subsequently kicked in the head, before he was dragged about twenty-five feet. Then he was rolled over the edge and cracked his skull open as he landed on a protruding rock shelf. And that was where his sister, Gertrud Stuub, found him.’

‘Keep going,’ Jounas Smeed says tersely.

So this is how it’s going to be now, she thinks. Until a few months ago, his tone had been very different. Mocking and provoking but at least informal. Too informal even, especially after that drunken night they’d spent together in a hotel room. A big mistake on every level, as she had made clear to him afterwards. But then a grave error in judgement on his part almost cost Karen her life and, in the wake of that, Jounas Smeed had showed her a different side of himself. The constant sarcasm and needling had been toned down and when he came to visit her in the hospital, there had been glimmers of regret and a wish for conciliation. And Karen’s plan to ask for a transfer, or to simply quit, had in the end turned into a decision to return to service at the end of her sick leave.

She’d spent her convalescence fruitlessly pondering how they were going to work together again after everything that had happened, wondering how Smeed would ever be able to assert his authority over someone he’d not only slept with but was now beholden to. Someone his own daughter prefers over him.

And here’s my answer, Karen realises. He’s going to be looking over my shoulder. Checking every single thing I do. Demonstrating his power by demanding reports every step of the way, never waiting until I feel I have something to tell him. That’s going to be his little revenge. Fine, let him have it his way.

She consults her notes and resumes her summary, adopting an exaggeratedly formal tone.

‘Both Thorstein Byle and the emergency services arrived on the scene within minutes. Byle resides in Skreby and was personally contacted by the on-duty constable. The doctor, a Sven Andersén, arrived just after ten, at which point Stuub had, according to his preliminary assessment, been dead for approximately two hours, give or take thirty minutes. This means the murder took place sometime between—’

‘Half past seven and half past eight,’ Smeed cuts in.