‘You were able to stabilize his condition?’

‘I would venture to say that we did a superb job. Quick and effective. Thanks to excellent teamwork.’

‘Did Mats Sverin tell you what had happened to him? Did he talk about the assault?’ asked Patrik.

Dr Lund tugged at his beard as he tried to recall. It’s a wonder he has any beard left, thought Patrik, considering the way he keeps pulling on it.

‘No, I can’t remember that he did.’

‘Did he seem scared? Did you get the sense he felt threatened or was trying to hide something?’

‘Not that I recall. But as I said, it was several months ago, and a lot of patients have come and gone in the meantime. You’ll have to ask the officers who were in charge of the police investigation.’

‘Do you know whether he had any visitors while he was here?’

‘It’s possible that he did, but I’m afraid I have no idea.’

‘Then we’ll thank you for your time,’ said Patrik, standing up. ‘Are these copies?’ He pointed at the file lying on the desk.

‘Yes, you can take them with you,’ said Dr Lund, getting up as well.

On their way out, Patrik suddenly had an idea.

‘Shall we stop by and see Pedersen? Find out if he has anything for us?’

‘Okay,’ said Paula, nodding. She followed Patrik, who now seemed to know which corridors to take. She was still feeling slightly ill, and she wasn’t sure that a visit to the morgue was going to help matters.

What was the point of living any more? Signe had hauled herself out of bed to make breakfast, and later on she fixed lunch. Neither of them had any appetite. She had vacuumed the entire ground floor, washed the bed linens, and made coffee, which they didn’t drink. She had done everything she usually did, but she felt as if she were as dead as Mats. She was merely moving her body about the house, a body without purpose, without life.

She sank down on to the bench in the kitchen. The hose to the vacuum cleaner fell to the floor, but neither of them reacted. Gunnar was sitting at the kitchen table. He’d been sitting there all day. They seemed to have switched roles. Yesterday he had been the one moving around, while it had taken her an enormous effort merely to get her muscles to cooperate with her benumbed brain. Today he sat there while she tried to fill the hole in her heart with feverish activity.

She stared at the back of Gunnar’s neck, noticing as she had so many times in the past that Matte had inherited the same whorl of hair at the edge of his shirt collar. Now it would never be passed on to the little blond boy that she had pictured so often in her daydreams. Or it could have been passed on to a girl, for that matter. It didn’t matter whether it was a boy or a girl; either would have been welcome. If only she’d been given a grandchild to pamper, offering sweets before dinner and far too many gifts at Christmas time. A child with Matte’s eyes and somebody else’s mouth. Because that was something she had always looked forward to, wondering what sort of girlfriend he would bring home. What would she be like? Would he find someone like his mother, or somebody who was the exact opposite? She couldn’t deny that she’d been curious, but she had vowed to be nice. She didn’t want to be one of those dreadful mothers-in-law who meddled. And she would have been ready to babysit whenever needed.

But as the years passed, she had begun to give up hope. Occasionally it occurred to her that Matte might not be interested in women. That would have required some getting used to, and she would have regretted not having any grandchildren, but she could have accepted the situation. All she wanted was for him to be happy. But he had never brought anyone home, and now all hope was gone for ever. There would be no towheaded child with a whorl of hair at the nape of his neck; no grandchild to whom she could slip a sweet before dinner. No heap of Christmas presents that cost too much and fell apart in a matter of weeks. Nothing except emptiness. The years stretched ahead of them like a desolate country road. She glanced at Gunnar as he sat motionless at the kitchen table. Why should they keep on living? Why should she keep on living?

‘You really wanted to go to Göteborg, didn’t you?’ Annika glanced up from her computer screen and gave Martin a long look. He was her protégé at the station, and they had established a special bond.

‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘But this is important work too.’

‘Do you want to know why Patrik took Paula with him?’ asked Annika.

‘It doesn’t matter. Patrik can take whoever he wants,’ he replied rather sullenly. Before Paula joined the force, he had almost always been Patrik’s first choice. To be honest, that was because at the time the station didn’t have anyone else worth considering, but Martin couldn’t deny that it hurt.

‘Patrik thinks that Paula has seemed a bit depressed lately, so he wants to give her something else to think about.’

‘Is that so? I hadn’t noticed,’ said Martin, feeling a pang of guilt. ‘What’s going on with her?’

‘No idea. Paula isn’t exactly a talkative person. But I think Patrik is doing the right thing. She hasn’t been herself lately.’

‘Well, just the thought of having to live in the same flat with Mellberg would be enough to break me.’

‘You can say that again,’ said Annika with a laugh, and then turned serious. ‘But I don’t think that’s the problem. We’ll just have to let her be until she feels like talking. At least you know now why Patrik wanted her to go with him.’

‘Thanks for telling me.’ Yet Martin felt ashamed that he had reacted so immaturely. The important thing was that the job got done, not who was assigned to do it.

‘Shall we get started on this?’ he asked, stretching his spine. ‘It’d be great if we could find out more about Sverin by the time they get back.’

‘Good idea,’ said Annika, and she began tapping on the keyboard.

‘Do you ever think of him?’ Anders took a sip of his coffee. He and Vivianne were having lunch together at the Lilla Berith restaurant, which they did almost daily in order to get away from all the construction noise at Badis.

‘Who?’ asked Vivianne, even though she knew exactly who he meant. Anders noticed how her knuckles turned white as she gripped her coffee cup.

‘Olof.’

They had always called him by that name. He had insisted on it, and nothing else had seemed natural. He deserved no other name.

‘Of course. Once in a while.’ She looked at the patch of lawn at the top of Galärbacken. The town had started coming to life. More people were out and about, and it felt as if Fjällbacka was slowly thawing out, stretching its limbs, and getting ready for the onslaught. It was a dramatic transformation from the torpor that gripped the small town the rest of the year.

‘So what do you think?’

Vivianne turned to face Anders, giving him a sharp look.

‘Why are you suddenly talking about him? He no longer exists. He’s of no importance.’

‘I’m not sure,’ he replied. ‘It’s something to do with Fjällbacka. I don’t know why, but I feel safe here. Safe enough to think about him.’

‘Don’t get too comfortable. We’re not going to be here long,’ she snapped, immediately regretting her tone of voice. She was angry at Olof, not Anders. But she was cross that he’d started talking about him. What good would it do? She took a deep breath and decided to answer Anders’s question. He had always supported her, gone with her everywhere. She depended on him, and the least she could do was to give him an answer.

‘I think about how much I hate him.’ She felt her jaw tighten. ‘I think about how much he destroyed, how much he took from me and from us. Isn’t that what you think about too?’

She suddenly felt scared. They had always shared a hatred for Olof. That had been the glue that held them together, the reason why they hadn’t gone separate ways but had always stayed together, through good times and bad. Mostly bad.