'Martin?'

He was on the phone when Patrik came in, but he motioned towards a chair. The conversation sounded like it was winding down, and Martin concluded it cryptically with a quiet 'hmm… sure… me too… hmm… likewise,' as he flushed from his scalp downwards.

Despite his own concerns, Patrik couldn't resist teasing his young colleague a little. 'So who were you talking to?'

He got an inaudible mumble in reply from Martin, whose face flushed even more.

'Someone calling to report a crime? One of our colleagues in Strömstad? Or Uddevalla? Or maybe Leif G. W. Persson, interested in writing your biography?'

Martin squirmed in his chair but then muttered a bit more audibly, 'Pia.'

'Oh, I see, Pia. I never would have guessed. Let's see, what's it been – three months, right? That must be a record for you, don't you think?' Patrik teased him. Up until this past summer Martin had been known as something of a specialist in short, unhappy love affairs, usually because of his unfailing ability to get mixed up with women who were already taken and were mostly out for a little adventure on the side. But Pia was not only available, she was also an extremely attractive and serious young woman.

'We're celebrating three months on Saturday.' Martin's eyes sparkled. 'And we're moving in together. She just rang to say that she'd found a perfect flat in Grebbestad. We're going out to look at it this evening.' His colouring had returned to normal, but he couldn't hide how obviously head over heels in love he was.

Patrik remembered how he and Erica had been at the start of their relationship. P.B. Pre-baby. He loved her fiercely, but that stormy infatuation all of a sudden felt as distant as a woolly dream. Dirty nappies and sleepless nights were no doubt having their effect.

'But what about you – when are you going to make an honest woman of Erica? And don't you want to be recognized as Maja's legal father?'

'That's for me to know and you to find out…' said Patrik with it grin.

'So, did you come here to root around in my private life, or did you have something you wanted to tell me?' By now Martin had regained his composure.

All at once Patrik's face turned serious. He reminded himself that they were facing something that was as far from a joke as one could get.

'Pedersen just rang. He's sending the report from Sara's postmortem by fax, but he summarized the contents for me. What he told me means that her drowning was no accident. She was murdered.'

'What the hell are you saying?' Martin threw out his hands in dismay, knocking over his pen-holder, but he ignored the pens that had spilled onto his desk. Instead he focused his undivided attention on Patrik.

'At first he assumed as we did that it was an accident. No visible marks on the body, and she was fully dressed, in clothing appropriate to the season, except that she had no jacket, but it could have floated away. But most important of all: when he examined her lungs he found water in them.' He fell silent.

Martin threw out his hands again and raised his eyebrows. 'So what did he find that didn't gibe with an accident?'

'Bathwater.'

'Bathwater?'

'Yes, she didn't have sea water in her lungs as you might expect It she had drowned in the sea. It was bathwater. Or rather presumably bathwater, I should say. Pedersen found residue of both soap and shampoo in the water, which suggests that it's bathwater.'

'So she was drowned in a bathtub?' said Martin, sounding sceptical. They had been so convinced that it was a tragic yet normal drowning accident that he was having a hard time adjusting to this new theory.

'Yes, that's what it looks like. It also explains the bruises that Pedersen found on the body.'

'I thought you said there were no injuries to the body?'

'Well, not at first glance. But when they lifted the hair on the back of her neck and checked more thoroughly, they could clearly see bruises that match the imprint of a hand. The hand of someone who held her head under the surface by force.'

'Jesus Christ.' Martin looked like he was going to be sick. Patrik had felt the same way when he first heard the news. 'So we're dealing with a homicide,' said Martin, as if trying to make himself face the fact.

'Yes, and we've already lost two days. We have to start knocking on doors, interviewing the family and friends, and finding out all we can about the girl and those who knew her.'

Martin grimaced, and Patrik understood his reaction. This wasn't going to be fun. The family was already devastated, and now the police would have to go in and stir everything up again. All too often, children were murdered by someone who ought to grieve the most over the death. So Patrik and Martin couldn't display the sympathy that would normally be expected when meeting with a family that had lost a child.

'Have you been in to see Mellberg yet?'

'No,' Patrik sighed. 'But I'm going there now. Since we were the ones who took the call the other day, I thought I'd ask you to join me in conducting the investigation. Do you have any objections?' He knew that the question was merely rhetorical. Neither of them wanted to see their colleagues Ernst Lundgren or Gösta Flygare be put in charge of anything more challenging than bicycle thefts.

Martin nodded curtly in reply.

'Okay,' said Patrik, 'then we might as well get it over with.'

Superintendent Mellberg looked at the letter before him as if it were a poisonous snake. This was one of the worst things that could have happened to him. Even that mortifying incident with Irina last summer paled in comparison.

Tiny beads of sweat had formed on his brow, although the temperature in his office was rather on the cool side. Mellberg wiped off the sweat absentmindedly and at the same time managed to dislodge the few strands left of his hair, which he had carefully wound in a nest atop his bald head. Annoyed, he was trying to put everything back in place when there was a knock on the door, he gave his hair one last pat and called out a surly, 'Come in!'

Hedström seemed unperturbed by Mellberg's tone of voice, but he had an uncommonly serious look on his face. Normally the superintendent thought that Patrik too often displayed a distasteful lack of decorum. He preferred working with men like Ernst

Lundgren, who always treated their superiors with the respect they deserved. When it came to Hedström he always had the feeling that the man might stick his tongue out as soon as he turned his hack. But time would separate the wheat from the chaff, Mellberg thought sternly. With his long experience in police work, he knew that the guys who were too soft and the ones who joked around always broke first.

For a second he had managed to forget the contents of the letter, but when Hedström sat down in the chair across his desk Mellberg remembered that it was lying there in full view. He quickly slipped the letter into his top drawer. He would have to deal with that matter soon enough.

'So, what's going on?' Mellberg could hear his voice quavering a bit from the shock of the letter, and he forced himself to bring it under control. Never show weakness – that was his motto. If he exposed his throat to his subordinates they would soon sink their teeth into it.

'A homicide,' Patrik said tensely.

'What now?' Mellberg sighed. 'Has one of our old iron-fisted acquaintances managed to hit his wife in the head a little too hard?'

Hedström's face was still unusually resolute. 'No,' he said, 'it's about the drowning accident the other day. Or rather it wasn't an accident after all. The girl was murdered.'

Mellberg gave a low whistle. 'You don't say, you don't say,' he murmured as confused thoughts ran through his head. For one thing, he was always upset by crimes perpetrated against children, and for another he tried to do a rapid evaluation of how this unexpected development would affect him in his capacity as police chief of Tanumshede. There were two ways to look at it: either as a damned lot of extra work and administration, or as a means of advancing his career that might get him back to the excitement of the big city, Göteborg. Although he had to admit that the successful conclusion of the two homicide investigations he had been involved with up to now had not yielded the desired effect. But sooner or later something would convince his superiors that he belonged back at the main station. Perhaps this was just the ticket.