‘Do you want to hear what they said or not?’ asked Erica indignantly, even though she was inclined to agree with Anna. It hadn’t been very sensitive of her.

When Erica had finished her story, Anna sat staring at her with a frown on her face. ‘It sounds as if they knew a completely different person. What did Britta say about the medal? Did she know why Mamma had a Nazi medal in her possession?’

Erica shook her head. ‘I didn’t have time to ask her. She has Alzheimer’s and after a while she started getting confused, and then her husband came home and he was really upset and…’ Erica cleared her throat. ‘Well, he asked me to leave.’

‘Erica!’ cried Anna. ‘Are you telling me that you tried to interrogate a confused old woman? No wonder her husband threw you out! Don’t you think you’re getting a bit too carried away with this?’

‘Okay, but aren’t you in the least curious? Why did Mamma keep all these things hidden away? And why do people who knew her then describe someone who bears no resemblance to the mother we grew up with? Somewhere along the way something happened… Britta was just starting to tell me when she got confused. She said something about old bones and… oh, I can’t remember, but it seemed to me that she was using that as a metaphor for a secret that’s been buried away and… Maybe I’m just imagining things, but…’ The phone rang, and Erica stopped mid-sentence and got up to answer it.

‘This is Erica. Oh, hi, Karin.’ Erica turned to face Anna, rolling her eyes. ‘Yes, everything’s fine. Yes, it’s nice to finally have a chance to talk with you too.’ She grimaced at Anna, who hadn’t a clue what it was all about. ‘Patrik? No, he’s not at home right now. He and Maja went over to the station to say hi and then I don’t really know where they were going. I see. Uh-huh. Yes, I’m sure they’d love to go out for a walk with you and Ludde tomorrow. Ten o’clock. At the pharmacy. Okay, I’ll tell him. He’ll have to let you know if he has other plans, but I don’t think he does. Uh-huh. Thanks. I’m sure we’ll talk again. Thanks. You too.’

‘What was that all about?’ asked Anna in surprise. ‘Who’s Karin? And what’s Patrik doing with her at the pharmacy tomorrow morning?’

Erica sat down at the kitchen table. After a long pause she said, ‘Karin is Patrik’s ex-wife. She and her second husband recently moved to Fjällbacka. And it just so happens that, like Patrik, she’s on leave from her job to take care of the baby, so they’re going to take a walk together tomorrow.’

Anna laughed. ‘Did you just set up a date between Patrik and his ex-wife? Good Lord, I can’t believe it. Does he have any ex-girlfriends you could phone to see if they’d like to go along too? We wouldn’t want him to be bored while he’s on paternity leave, the poor guy.’

Erica glared at her little sister. ‘In case you didn’t notice, she was the one who phoned me. And what’s so strange about that, anyway? They’re divorced. Have been for years. And they’re both at home all day with a toddler. No, I don’t think it’s so strange. I really don’t have a problem with it.’

‘Oh, right!’ Anna snorted. ‘I can tell that you don’t have a problem with it, not at all… Your nose is growing longer and longer by the second.’

For a moment Erica considered flinging a bun at her sister, but decided to refrain. Anna could think what she liked; she was not jealous.

‘How about paying the cleaning woman a visit next?’ asked Martin. Patrik hesitated, then took out his mobile phone.

‘I just need to check that everything is okay with Maja.’

After listening to Annika’s report, he put his mobile back in his pocket and nodded.

‘Okay, everything’s fine. Maja has just fallen asleep in her pushchair.’ He turned to Paula: ‘Do you have the address?’

‘Yes, I do.’ Paula looked through her notebook and then read the address aloud. ‘Her name is Laila Valthers. She said she’d be at home all day. Do you know where the place is?’

‘It’s one of those yellow buildings near the roundabout on the southern edge of Fjällbacka,’ Martin said. ‘Turn right up ahead at the school.’

They were there in a matter of minutes, and Laila was at home, as she’d said. She looked a bit frightened when she opened the door and seemed unwilling to let them come in, but it wasn’t as if they had many questions for her so they remained standing in the entry hall while they carried out the interview.

‘You do house-cleaning for the Frankel brothers, is that right?’ Patrik’s voice was calm and soothing in an effort to make their presence as unthreatening as possible.

‘Yes, but I’m not going to get in trouble because of that, am I?’ said Laila, her voice nearly a whisper. She was short and wore comfortable brown clothing of some sort of soft fabric, perfectly suited to spending the whole day at home. Her hair was a mousy grey, cut short in a style that was undoubtedly practical but not particularly attractive. She shifted her weight nervously from one foot to the other as she stood there with her arms folded. She seemed very anxious to hear their response to her question. Patrik thought he knew what was bothering her.

‘Do you mean because you didn’t declare your earnings? I can assure you that we’ve no interest in that side of things, and we don’t plan to report you for it. We’re conducting a murder investigation, so our focus is on completely different issues.’ He ventured a reassuring smile, and Laila rewarded him by stopping her nervous shifting from one foot to the other.

‘It’s true. They would put an envelope with money for me on the hall bureau every other week. We had agreed that I should come in and clean every Wednesday.’

‘Did you have your own key?’

Laila shook her head. ‘No, they always put the key under the doormat, and I put it back when I was done.’

‘Why didn’t you clean their house all summer?’ Paula asked. It was the question they most wanted to have answered.

‘I thought I would be doing cleaning for them in the summer. At least, we hadn’t discussed any change in the arrangement. But when I went over there, the key wasn’t in the usual place. I knocked, but no one answered. So then I tried phoning, to see if there’d been some misunderstanding. But nobody answered. I knew that the older brother, Axel, was going to be away all summer. That’s what he’s done every year since I’ve been cleaning for them. So when I couldn’t get an answer, I just assumed that the younger brother was gone for the summer too. I did think it was rather rude of them not to tell me, but now I understand why…’ She looked down at the floor.

‘And you didn’t see anything that struck you as out of the ordinary?’ asked Martin.

Laila shook her head vigorously. ‘No, I can’t say that I did. No, nothing comes to mind.’

‘Do you know what day it was when you went over there but couldn’t get in?’ said Patrik.

‘Yes, I do, because it was my birthday. And I thought it was very unlucky that I wasn’t going to do any cleaning that day. I’d planned to buy myself a present with the money I made.’ She fell silent, and Patrik asked her tactfully:

‘So what was the date? When is your birthday?’

‘Oh, how stupid of me,’ she said. ‘It was the seventeenth of June. I’m positive about that. June seventeenth. I went over there two more times to have a look, but nobody was home and there was still no key under the doormat. So then I assumed that they’d forgotten to tell me that they wouldn’t be home all summer.’ She shrugged to show that she was used to the fact that people forgot to tell her things.

‘Thank you, that’s extremely helpful.’ Patrik held out his hand, shuddering slightly at her limp handshake. It felt as if someone had stuck a dead fish in his hand.

‘So, what do you think?’ he asked when they were back in the car and heading for the station.

‘I think we can be pretty certain that Erik Frankel was murdered sometime between the fifteenth and the seventeenth of June,’ said Paula.