But there was still the problem of Äke. Agnes's brain began working at high speed. In the mirror she saw her daughter's plump face and the big eyes hungrily watching her.

Despite having taken a long shower and changed his clothes, Martin thought he could still smell the odour of vomit in his nostrils from the day before. The suicide and then the call from Patrik telling him that someone had attacked Maja had shaken him, and he'd been filled with a feeling of helplessness. There were so many threads in this case, so many odd things happening all at once, that for the life of him he couldn't understand how they would ever make any sense of the mess.

Outside Patrik's door he hesitated. In view of what had happened he wasn't sure that Patrik would be working today. But sounds from inside his office told him that Patrik had already come in. He knocked cautiously.

'Come in,' Patrik called out.

'I wasn't sure you'd be here today,' Martin said. 'I thought you might be at home with Erica and Maja.'

'I wanted to stay home,' said Patrik. 'But more than that, I want to catch the psycho who's doing this.'

'But did Erica really want to be at home alone?' Martin said tentatively, unsure whether that was the right thing to say.

'I wanted somebody to come over and stay with them, but she insisted everything was fine. But I did ring and talk to her friend Dan, the guy who was at our house yesterday when it happened, and he promised to drop by and look in on them.'

'Did they get any prints?' Martin asked.

'Unfortunately no. It was raining, so all the tracks had been washed away. But I sent Maja's overalls with the ashes to the lab, so we'll see what that turns up. In my view, it's merely a formality; it would be much too big a coincidence if the ashes didn't match the other sample.'

'But why Maja?'

'Who knows?' said Patrik. 'Presumably it was a warning directed at me. Something I did, or didn't do, during the course of the case. Oh, I don't know,' he said in frustration. 'But the best we can do now is to keep working full speed ahead, so that we get this solved as soon as possible. Until then none of us can relax.'

'What do we do first, interrogate Kaj?'

'Yes,' Patrik said grimly, 'we interrogate Kaj.'

'You do realize that Kaj was in custody yesterday when -'

'Yeah, of course I do,' Patrik said, sounding annoyed. 'But it doesn't mean that he isn't mixed up in this somehow. Or that he won't have to answer to other things.'

'Okay, I was just checking,' said Martin, holding up his hands defensively. 'I'll just hang up my jacket and meet you there.' He headed for his office.

Patrik was gathering up his things to go to the interrogation room when the phone rang. He saw from the display that it was Annika and picked it up, hoping that it wasn't anything important. He was really looking forward to getting into it with the shithead they had in custody. Now more than ever.

'Yes?' He could hear that his tone was curt, but Annika had a thick skin and wouldn't be offended. At least he hoped not.

But Patrik ended up listening with increasing interest and then said, 'Okay, send them in.'

He dashed over to Martin's office. 'Charlotte and Niclas are here, looking for me. We'll have to wait a bit with the interrogation until I hear what they want.'

Without waiting for a reply he ran back to his office. A few seconds later he heard footsteps and a low murmur in the corridor. When Sara's parents stepped into the room, Patrik was shocked to see how Charlotte looked. In the short time since he'd seen her last she had aged considerably, and her clothes hung loosely on her body. Niclas, too, looked tired and worn out, but not as bad as his wife. They sat down in the visitors' chairs, and during the silence that followed Patrik had time to wonder what was so important that they would come here unannounced.

It was Niclas who spoke first. 'We… we lied to you. Or rather, there are some things we didn't tell you, and that's probably almost as bad as lying.' Patrik felt his interest rising, but decided to wait Niclas out. After a moment he went on.

'Albin's injuries. The ones you thought, or believed, that I gave him. It was, it was…' He seemed to be searching for words, and Charlotte took over for him.

'It was Sara.' Her voice sounded mechanical and empty of all emotion. Patrik recoiled in his chair. That wasn't what he was expecting to hear.

'Sara?' he said, baffled.

'Yes,' said Charlotte. 'You know already that Sara had problems. She had a hard time controlling her impulses and would get the most terrible attacks of rage. Before Albin was born she turned her anger on us, but we were big enough to defend ourselves and make sure she didn't hurt herself or us. But when Albin arrived…' Her voice broke and she looked down at her hands, which lay trembling in her lap.

'Everything escalated out of our control after Albin was born,' Niclas said. 'We thought, foolishly, that maybe it would be a positive influence on Sara to have a little brother. Someone she could feel responsible for and protect. But in hindsight that was probably naive of us. She hated him and the time he demanded from us. She took all the opportunities she could to do him harm, and even if we tried to be there and watch them every second, it was impossible. She was quick…' He looked at Charlotte, who nodded feebly.

Niclas went on. 'We tried everything. A social worker, a psychologist, aggression management, medication. There was nothing we didn't try. We experimented with changing her diet, took away all sugar and all fast carbohydrates because some findings suggested that might have a positive effect. But nothing, absolutely nothing, seemed to work. Finally we were at the end of our rope. Sooner or later she was going to do serious harm to someone. We just didn't want to have to send her away. And where would we send her? So when this position at the clinic in Fjällbacka was advertised, we thought that might be the solution. A complete change of scene, with Charlotte's mother and Stig close by to help relieve some of the pressure. It sounded perfect.'

Now it was Niclas's voice that broke. Charlotte put her hand on his and squeezed it. Together they had been to hell and back, and in a way they were still there.

'I'm truly sorry,' said Patrik. 'But I also have to ask: do you have any proof of what you're telling me?'

Niclas nodded. 'I understand that you have to ask. We brought a list of everyone we consulted about Sara. We also contacted them and told them that the police might ring them and ask questions. And we told them they didn't need to preserve patient confidentiality, but to tell the police everything.'

Niclas handed the list to Patrik, who didn't doubt for a moment the veracity of what he'd just heard. But it still had to be corroborated.

'Have you made any progress? With Kaj, I mean?' Charlotte asked hesitantly.

'We're in the process of interrogating him on various points. Unfortunately that's all I can tell you.'

Charlotte merely nodded.

Patrik saw that Niclas wanted to say something else, but that he was having a hard time. He waited him out.

'With regard to the alibi…' He glanced at Charlotte, who again nodded almost imperceptibly. 'I recommend that you have a talk with Jeanette. She lied when she said I wasn't there, to get back at me for ending our relationship. I'm sure that if you press her a bit, the truth will come out.'

Patrik was not surprised. He'd thought that something sounded phoney in Jeanette's account. Well, they could deal with her when the time came. If necessary. Hopefully the question of whether Niclas had an alibi or not would be superfluous after this afternoon's interrogation.