‘Sigrid Jansson,’ said Patrik, squinting. ‘Look here, doesn’t it say Sigrid Jansson?’

He moved over so Gösta could take a look at the book page and the name that was visible in the light from the springtime sun.

‘It looks that way to me,’ said Gösta, sounding pleased with himself.

‘Funny that the NCL didn’t notice this,’ Patrik said, but then remembered that they asked them only to look for fingerprints. But apparently the owner of the book had written her name on the first page and the pen had left an imprint on the page beneath it, the first page, the one found next to Elsa Forsell’s body.

‘What do we do now?’ said Gösta, still with the same satisfied look on his face.

‘The name isn’t particularly uncommon, but we’ll have to start by doing a search for all the Sigrid Janssons in Sweden and see what turns up.’

‘The book was old. The owner could be dead.’

Patrik thought a moment before he answered. ‘That’s why we’ll have to expand the search to include women other than those alive today. Instead we’ll have to include, say, women born during the nineteenth century.’

‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Gösta. ‘Do you think it means anything that Elsa got the first page? Could she be connected somehow to this Sigrid Jansson?’

Patrik shrugged. Nothing would surprise him in this case. ‘It’s something we’ll have to check out. And maybe we’ll find out more when Uddevalla calls back.’

As if on cue, the phone on Patrik’s desk rang. ‘Patrik Hedström,’ he said, waving to Gösta to stay put when he heard who was on the line.

‘An accident. 1969. Yes . . . Yes . . . No . . . Yes . . .’

Gösta was shifting his feet with impatience. He gathered from Patrik’s expression that he’d heard something crucial. Which turned out to be quite true.

When Patrik hung up he said triumphantly, ‘That was Uddevalla. They found the information about Elsa Forsell. She was behind the wheel in a head-on collision with another car in 1969. She was drunk. And guess the name of the woman who died.’

‘Sigrid Jansson,’ Gösta whispered.

Patrik nodded. ‘Are you coming with me to Uddevalla?’

Gösta merely snorted. Of course he was.

‘Where did Patrik and Gösta take off to?’ asked Martin when he came out of Patrik’s empty office.

‘They went to Uddevalla,’ said Annika over the top of her glasses. She’d always had a soft spot for Martin. There was something puppylike about him, something unspoiled, that aroused her maternal instincts. Before he met Pia he had spent many hours in her office discussing his love woes. Even though Annika was happy that he now had a steady relationship, sometimes she did miss those days.

‘Sit down,’ she said, and Martin obeyed. Not obeying Annika was an impossibility for anyone at the station. Not even Mellberg dared otherwise.

‘How are you doing? Is everything good? Do the two of you like your flat? Talk.’ She gave him a stern look. To her surprise she saw a big grin spread across Martin’s face, and he could hardly sit still.

‘I’m going to be a pappa,’ he said, and his smile got even wider. Annika could feel her eyes tearing up. Not out of envy, or sorrow that she had missed the experience herself, but out of pure and unadulterated joy for Martin’s sake.

‘What are you saying?’ she said, laughing as she wiped off a tear running down her cheek. ‘God, what a fool I am, sitting here and crying,’ she said with embarrassment, but she saw that Martin was also moved.

‘When’s the baby due?’

‘End of November,’ said Martin with another big smile. It warmed Annika’s heart to see him so happy.

‘The end of November,’ she said. ‘Yes, I must say . . . Well, don’t just sit there, give me a hug!’ She held out her arms and he came over and gave her a big hug. They talked about the coming happy event for a while longer, but then Martin turned serious and his smile vanished.

‘Do you think we’ll ever get to the bottom of all this?’

‘The murders, you mean?’ Annika shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I’m worried that Patrik is in over his head on this one. It’s just too . . . complicated.’

Martin nodded. ‘I had the same thought. What are they doing in Uddevalla, by the way?’

‘I don’t know. Patrik just said they’d called about Elsa Forsell and that he and Gösta were driving down there to find out more. One thing is for sure – they looked awfully serious.’

Martin’s curiosity was definitely aroused. ‘They must have found out something important about her. I wonder what . . .’

‘We’ll find out more this afternoon,’ said Annika, but she couldn’t help speculating about what had made Patrik and Gösta take off in such a rush.

‘Yes, I suppose we will,’ said Martin, getting up to go back to his office. All of a sudden he was longing so terribly for November.

It took four hours before Gösta and Patrik were back at the station. As soon as they stepped in the door, Annika could see that they had important news.

‘We’re meeting in the break room,’ Patrik said curtly, and went to hang up his jacket. Five minutes later everyone was present.

‘We’ve had two breakthroughs today,’ said Patrik with a look at Gösta. ‘First, Gösta discovered that a name could be read on Elsa Forsell’s book page. The name was Sigrid Jansson. Then we got a call from Uddevalla, so we drove down there to learn all the details. And everything fits together.’

He paused, took a drink of water, and leaned against the worktop. Everyone was staring at him, eager to hear what he would say next.

‘Elsa Forsell was the driver in a fatal car accident in 1969. Like the other victims, she was driving drunk, and was sentenced to prison for one year. The car she crashed into was driven by a woman in her thirties, who had two children with her in the car. The woman died instantly, but the children miraculously survived without a scratch.’ Here he paused for effect and then said, ‘The woman’s name was Sigrid Jansson.’

The others gasped. Gösta nodded in satisfaction. It had been a long time since he’d felt so pleased with his contribution to a case.

Martin raised his hand to say something, but Patrik stopped him. ‘Wait, there’s more. At first the police assumed that the children in the car were Sigrid’s. But the problem was, she didn’t have any children. She was a recluse who lived in the country outside of Uddevalla, in her childhood home which she had inherited after her parents died. She worked as a shop assistant in an elegant clothing boutique in town and was always polite and pleasant to customers. But when the police interviewed her co-workers they said that she always kept to herself. As far as they knew she had no relatives or friends. And definitely no children.’

‘But . . . whose were they then?’ said Mellberg, scratching his forehead.

‘Nobody knows. There were no missing persons reports for children of that age. No one called in to claim them. When the police drove out to Sigrid’s house to have a look, they could see that the two children had definitely been living with her. We talked with one of the officers who was there when the accident happened. He told us that the children shared a room that was full of toys. But Sigrid had never given birth, as the autopsy showed. They also took blood samples to determine whether she was related to the children, but their blood types didn’t match Sigrid’s.’

‘So Elsa Forsell was the cause of it all,’ said Martin. ‘Yes, that’s how it looks,’ said Patrik. ‘It seems as though her accident set in motion a whole chain of murders. Apparently the killer began with her.’

‘Where are the children now?’ Hanna asked, giving voice to what everyone was thinking.

‘We’re working on that,’ said Gösta. ‘Our colleagues in Uddevalla are trying to get the documents from the social welfare authorities, but that may take some time.’

‘We have to keep working on the investigation based on the information we have,’ Patrik said. ‘But the key to the case is Elsa Forsell, so we’ll focus on her.’