But her illness had changed that. Had changed everything. It had come roaring through their life like a tsunami, tearing up everything by the roots. And he had allowed himself to be swept along. He had made a mistake. One fateful mistake. One phone call that he should never have made. But he had been naïve, believing it was time to air out what was musty and rotten. He had thought that if he just showed how Britta was suffering because of what had been hidden away for so long in her mind, then it would be clear that the time had finally come. It was wrong to fight it any longer. What had happened in the past had to come out so that they might have peace of mind. So Britta would have peace of mind. Good Lord, how naïve he had been. He might just as well have put the pillow over her face himself. He knew that. And now he couldn’t bear the pain.

Herman closed his eyes in an attempt to close out everything, and this time he didn’t see Britta’s dead face. Instead, he saw her in a hospital bed. Pale and tired, but happy. Holding Anna-Greta in her arms. She raised her hand and waved to him. Motioning for him to come closer.

With one last sigh he let go of everything that was painful and, smiling, went towards them.

Patrik was staring straight ahead. Could Erica be right? It sounded completely crazy, and yet… logical. He sighed, aware of what a difficult task lay ahead of him.

‘Come on, sweetie. We’re going out for a little excursion,’ he said, lifting up Maja and carrying her out to the hall. ‘And we’ll pick up Mamma on the way.’

A short time later he drove up to the gate of the cemetery where Erica was waiting, so impatient to get going that she was practically jumping up and down. Patrik had started feeling equally impatient, and he had to remind himself to ease off the accelerator as they drove towards Tanumshede. He could sometimes be a rather reckless driver, but if Maja was in the car, he always drove with the utmost caution.

‘I’ll do the talking, okay?’ said Patrik as they parked in front of the station. ‘You get to come along only because I don’t feel like arguing with you about it – you’d win in the end anyway. But he’s my boss, and I’m the one who has done this before. Understand?’

Erica nodded reluctantly as she lifted Maja out of the car.

‘Do you think we should drive over to my mother’s first, and ask her to watch Maja for a while? I mean, I know how you hate it when I take Maja into the station,’ Patrik teased, getting an exasperated look in reply.

‘Come on, you know I want to get this over with as soon as possible. And she doesn’t seem to have suffered any harm from working a shift the last time she was here,’ Erica told him with a wink.

‘Hi! I didn’t expect to see all of you here,’ said Annika, surprised, her face lighting up when Maja gave her a big smile.

‘We need to talk to Bertil,’ said Patrik. ‘Is he in?’

‘Yes, he’s in his office,’ said Annika, giving them an enquiring look. She let them in, and Patrik headed briskly for Mellberg’s office with Erica in tow, carrying Maja in her arms.

‘Hedström! What are you doing here? And I see you’ve brought the whole family along,’ said Mellberg, sounding grumpy as he stood up to say hello.

‘There’s something we need to talk to you about,’ said Patrik, sitting down on one of the visitor’s chairs without waiting for an invitation. Maja and Ernst had now caught sight of each other, to their mutual delight.

‘Is he used to being around children?’ asked Erica, hesitating to set her struggling daughter down on the floor.

‘How the hell should I know?’ said Mellberg, but then relented. ‘He’s the world’s nicest dog. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.’ His voice betrayed a certain pride, and Patrik raised one eyebrow in amusement. His boss seemed to have really fallen for that dog.

Still not entirely convinced, Erica set her daughter down next to Ernst, who enthusiastically began licking the little girl’s face. Maja reacted with a mixture of alarm and delight.

‘So, what is it you want?’ Mellberg stared at Patrik with some curiosity.

‘I want you to obtain permission to open a grave.’

Mellberg started coughing, as if something was stuck in his throat. His face turned redder and redder as he struggled to breathe.

‘Open a grave! Are you out of your mind, man!’ he finally managed to splutter. ‘Being on paternity leave must have affected your brain! Do you know how rare it is to get permission to open a grave? And I’ve already done it twice in the past few years. If I ask for another one, they’re going to certify me as insane and lock me up in the loony bin! And whose body are we going to exhume now, by the way?’

‘A Norwegian resistance fighter who disappeared in 1945,’ said Erica calmly as she squatted down next to Patrik and scratched Ernst’s ears.

‘What did you say?’ Mellberg stared at her open-mouthed, as if he thought he must have heard wrong.

Patiently Erica recounted everything that she’d learned about the four friends and the Norwegian who had come to Fjällbacka a year before the war ended. She explained that there was no trace of him after June 1945, and their efforts to track him down had got nowhere.

‘Couldn’t he have stayed in Sweden? Or gone back to Norway? Have you checked with the authorities in both countries?’ Mellberg looked extremely sceptical.

Erica got up from the floor and sat down on the other visitor’s chair. She stared at Mellberg, as if she hoped to make him take her seriously through sheer force of will. And then she told him what Herman had said to her. That Paul Heckel and Friedrich Hück should be able to tell them where Hans Olavsen was.

‘I thought the names seemed vaguely familiar, but I had no idea where I might have come across them. Until today. I went over to the cemetery to visit the graves of my parents and grandparents. And that’s when I saw it.’

‘Saw what?’ asked Mellberg, puzzled.

She waved her hand. ‘I’ll get to that, if you’ll allow me to.’

‘Sure, okay, go on,’ said Mellberg, who was starting to get interested, in spite of himself.

‘There’s a grave in the Fjällbacka cemetery that’s a little different. It’s from the First World War, and ten German soldiers are buried there – seven of them were identified and are listed by name, but three of them are unknown.’

‘You forgot to tell him about the scribbled note,’ said Patrik, who had resigned himself to taking a back seat while his wife explained things. A good man knows when it’s time to give in.

‘Oh, right. There’s one other piece to the puzzle.’ Erica told Mellberg about the page in Erik’s notebook that had caught her attention when she studied the photograph from the crime scene, and the fact that it said ‘Ignoto militi.’

‘How did you happen to see photos from the crime scene?’ asked Mellberg angrily, glaring at Patrik.

‘We’ll discuss that later,’ said Patrik. ‘Please, just listen to what she has to say.’

Mellberg grumbled but acquiesced and indicated with a wave of his hand for Erica to continue.

‘Erik Frankel wrote those words on a notepad, over and over, and I found out what they mean. It’s an inscription on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, or rather on the tomb of the unknown soldier. It means: “To the unknown soldier”.’

This still wasn’t making any lights go on in Mellberg’s head, so Erica continued:

‘That note stayed in the back of my mind. Here we have a Norwegian resistance fighter who disappears in 1945, and nobody knows where he went. We have Erik scribbling about an unknown soldier. And Britta talking about “old bones”, and then we have the names that Herman gave me. It was only when I walked past that grave in Fjällbacka cemetery that I suddenly realized why those names had seemed so familiar: they’re etched on the headstone.’ Erica paused to catch her breath.

Mellberg stared at her. ‘So Paul Heckel and Friedrich Hück are the names of two Germans from the First World War who are buried in a grave in Fjällbacka cemetery?’