Erica hauled herself out of the armchair. She was feeling a bit guilty because she’d been so engrossed in the book that she’d ignored her daughter. With great effort she now managed to lower herself to the floor to sit next to Maja, who was overjoyed that her mother was going to join in her games.

But still hovering in the back of Erica’s mind was the mermaid in the book. She wanted to say something. Christian wanted to say something. Erica was sure about that. She just wished she knew what it was.

Patrik couldn’t resist taking his mobile out of his pocket again to look at the display.

‘Stop that,’ said Paula, laughing. ‘Annika isn’t going to call any sooner just because you keep checking your phone all the time. I promise you’ll hear it when it rings.’

‘I know,’ said Patrik, smiling with embarrassment. ‘I just feel like we’re so close now.’ He went back to pulling out drawers and opening cupboards in the kitchen of the house belonging to Christian and Sanna. It hadn’t taken them long to obtain a warrant to search the premises. The problem was that he didn’t know what they were looking for.

‘It should be easy enough to find out where Alice Lissander lives,’ Paula consoled him. ‘Annika will probably ring any minute to give us the address.’

‘Right,’ said Patrik, looking inside the dishwasher. There was no sign that Christian had received any visitors the day before. Nor had they found any indications of a forced entry or that he might have left the house against his will. ‘But why didn’t the Lissanders mention anything about their daughter?’

‘We’ll find out soon enough. But I think it’s wise for us to make our own enquiries about Alice before we talk with her parents again.’

‘I agree. But they’re going to have answer a lot of questions.’

Patrik and Paula went upstairs. Here, too, everything looked the same as it had on the previous day – except in the children’s room. There the text on the wall, the blood-red words, had been replaced by a swathe of thick black paint.

They stopped in the doorway.

‘Christian must have painted over the words yesterday,’ said Paula.

‘I can understand it. I probably would have done the same thing.’

‘So what do you really think?’ asked Paula, going into the bedroom next door. She put her hands on her hips as she surveyed the room before starting a meticulous search.

‘About what?’ said Patrik as he joined her, going over to the wardrobe and opening the doors.

‘Was Christian murdered? Or did he take his own life?’

‘I know what I said at the meeting back at the station, but I’m not ruling anything out. Christian was an odd person. The few times we talked to him, I had the feeling that things were going on in his head that simply defied comprehension. But apparently there’s no suicide note, at any rate.’

‘People don’t always leave a note. You know that as well as I do.’ Paula carefully pulled out the bureau drawers, putting her hand inside to go through the contents.

‘You’re right, but if we’d found one, we wouldn’t have to speculate about what happened.’ Patrik straightened up, pausing to catch his breath. His heart was pounding, and he wiped the sweat from his forehead.

‘I don’t think there’s anything here that’s worth a closer look,’ said Paula, closing the last drawer. ‘Shall we go?’

Patrik hesitated. He didn’t want to give up, but Paula was right.

‘Let’s go back to the station and wait for Annika to find something. Maybe Gösta and Martin have had better luck with Kenneth.’

‘We can always hope so,’ said Paula, sounding sceptical.

They were just on their way out the door when Patrik’s mobile rang. He yanked it out of his pocket, but he was disappointed to see it wasn’t the station calling. In fact, he didn’t recognize the number.

‘Patrik Hedström, Tanum police,’ he said, hoping to keep the conversation brief so that the line wouldn’t be busy if Annika tried to call. Suddenly he froze.

‘Hello, Ragnar.’ He motioned to Paula, who stopped halfway to the car.

‘Yes? I see. Well, we’ve also found out a few things… Of course. We can discuss that when we meet. We could drive out there now. Should we come to your house? Oh, all right. We’ll find it. Right. See you soon.’

He ended the call and looked at Paula. ‘That was Ragnar Lissander. He says he has something to tell us. And something to show us too.’

All the way back from Uddevalla, the name had kept whirling through his mind. Lissander. Why was it so hard to remember where he’d heard that name before? And his former colleague Ernst Lundgren kept turning up in his thoughts too. Somehow the name was linked to him. Approaching the exit to Fjällbacka, Gösta finally came to a decision. He deliberately turned the wheel to the right and got off the motorway.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Martin. ‘I thought we were heading back to the station.’

‘We just need to make a brief stop at someone’s house first.’

‘At someone’s house? Whose house?’

‘Ernst Lundgren’s.’ Gösta shifted down and turned left.

‘Why are we going to see Ernst?’

Gösta told Martin what he’d been thinking about.

‘But you have no idea where you’ve heard that name before?’

‘If I did, I would have told you,’ snapped Gösta. He suspected that Martin thought his age was making him forgetful.

‘Take it easy,’ said Martin. ‘We’ll go over to Ernst’s house and ask him, to see if he can spark your memory. It’s great that he might actually be able to make a positive contribution for a change.’

‘That would be a new development, wouldn’t it?’ Gösta couldn’t help smiling. Like his colleagues, he didn’t have a very high opinion of Ernst’s competence or his personality. At the same time, he didn’t detest him as wholeheartedly as he knew the others did, with the possible exception of Mellberg. After working with Ernst for so long, Gösta had grown used to him. Nor could he ignore the fact that over the years they had shared a good many laughs together. On the other hand, Ernst certainly had a tendency to make a mess of things. Especially the last time he had been part of the investigative team, before he was fired. But maybe he’d actually be of some help this time.

‘Looks like he’s home, anyway,’ said Martin as they pulled up in front of the house.

‘Yes, it does,’ said Gösta, parking the police vehicle next to Ernst’s car.

Ernst opened the door before they even rang the bell. He must have seen them from the kitchen window.

‘How about that? I wasn’t expecting such important visitors,’ he said, letting his former colleagues come in.

Martin looked around. Unlike Gösta, he’d never been to Ernst’s house before, but he was not impressed. Even though he hadn’t kept his own flat very neat when he was a bachelor himself, it had never approached the chaos he saw here. Dishes were piled high in the sink, clothes were scattered everywhere, and the kitchen table looked like it had never been wiped clean.

‘I haven’t got much to offer,’ said Ernst. ‘But I can always come up with a wee dram.’ He reached for a bottle standing on the counter.

‘I’m driving,’ said Gösta.

‘What about you? Looks like you could use a pick-me-up,’ said Ernst, holding out the bottle towards Martin, but he declined.

‘Okay, okay. I can see you’re a couple of teetotallers.’ He poured a healthy shot for himself and gulped it down.

‘All right. Why are you here?’ He sat down on a chair at the table, and his former colleagues followed suit.

‘I’ve been wondering about something that I think you might know about,’ said Gösta.

‘Aha. So that’s it.’

‘It has to do with a name. It sounds familiar to me, and for some reason I keep associating it with you.’

‘Well, we worked together for a lot of years, you and I,’ said Ernst, and he almost sounded on the verge of tears. This was probably not his first drink of the day.