She went over to the window and looked up at the sky again. It was grey and dirty-looking. Sara wouldn't like living there, would she?

Then there was the whole secret about the old man, too. Of course she'd promised Sara to keep quiet. But Mamma said that she should always tell the truth, and not saying anything was almost the same as lying, wasn't it?

Frida sat down in front of her dollhouse. It was her favourite toy. It had belonged to her mamma when she was little, and now it was Frida's. She had a hard time imagining that Mamma was once the same age as Frida was now. Mamma was so… grownup, after all.

The dollhouse showed clear traces of being from the '70s. It was supposed to represent a two-storey brick house and it was furnished in brown and orange. The furniture was the same as when her mother had played with the dollhouse. Frida thought all the pieces were super, but it was a shame that there weren't more pink and blue things in the dollhouse. Blue was her favourite colour. And pink had been Sara's favourite. Frida thought it was odd. Everyone knew that pink and red clashed, and Sara had red hair, so she shouldn't have liked pink. But she did anyway. That was how she always was. Contrary, sort of.

There were four dolls that went with the house. Two child dolls and a mamma and a pappa doll. Now she took the two child dolls, both girls, and set them facing each other. Usually she wanted to be the one in green, because she was the nicest-looking, but now that Sara was dead she could be the green one. Frida would have to be the doll in the brown dress.

'Hi, Frida, do you know that I'm dead?' said the green Sara doll.

'Yes, Mamma told me,' said the brown one.

'What does she say about it?'

'That you've gone to heaven and won't be coming over to play with me anymore.'

'How boring,' said the Sara doll.

Frida nodded her doll's head. 'Yes, I think so too. If I knew you were going to die and wouldn't come over to play with me anymore, you could have had whatever toys you wanted and I wouldn't have complained.'

'What a shame,' said the Sara doll. 'That I'm dead, I mean.'

'Yes, what a shame,' said the one in brown.

Both dolls were silent for a moment. Then the Sara doll said in a serious tone of voice, 'You didn't say anything about the man, did you?'

'No, I promised.'

'Because it was our secret.'

'But why can't I tell? The old man was nasty, wasn't he?' The brown doll's voice sounded shrill.

'That's why. The old man said that I mustn't tell. And you have to do whatever nasty old men say'

'But you're dead, so the old man can't do anything, can he?'

The Sara doll had nothing to say to that. Frida carefully put the dolls back in the house and went over to stand by the window again. Imagine that everything had to be so hard, just because Sara had died.

Annika was back from lunch and called out to Patrik when he and Ernst returned. He merely waved, in a hurry to get to his office, but she insisted. He stopped in the doorway with a curious expression on his face. Annika peered at him over the top of her glasses. He looked exhausted, and the rain had given him the appearance of a drowned cat besides. But between the baby and the murder of a child he probably didn't have much energy left to take care of himself.

She saw the impatience in Patrik's eyes and hurried to tell him what she wanted to report. 'I got a number of calls today, because of the media coverage.'

'Anything of interest?' said Patrik without much enthusiasm. It was so seldom they got anything useful from the public that he didn't have very high hopes.

'Yes and no,' said Annika. 'Most of them are from the usual gossips who ring up to pass on hot tips about their sworn enemies and all sorts of people, and in this case the homophobia has really been rampant. Apparently, any man who works with flowers or cuts hair is automatically suspected of being homosexual and capable of doing horrid things to children.'

Patrik was shifting from one foot to the other, and Annika rushed on. She took the top note from the pile and handed it to him.

'This one seems like it might be something. A woman rang, refused to give a name, but said we ought to take a look at the medical records of Sara's little brother. That's all she would say, but something told me there might be something to it. Could be worth following up on, anyway.'

Patrik didn't look nearly as interested as she had hoped. On the other hand he hadn't heard the urgency in the voice of the woman who rang. Her tone differed markedly from the poorly disguised malice of those who loved to spread gossip.

'Yes, it could be worth checking out, but don't get your hopes up. Anonymous tips don't usually pan out.'

Annika started to say something, but Patrik held up his hands.

'Yeah, yeah, I know. Something told you that this one is different. And I promise to follow up on it. But it'll have to wait a while. We have more pressing things to deal with right now. There's a meeting in the lunchroom in five minutes, then I'll tell you more.' His fingers beat a quick tattoo on the door frame, and Patrik walked off with her note in his hand.

Annika wondered what new information had come up. She hoped it would be something that broke the case open. The mood at the station had been way too gloomy lately.

Niclas could find no peace and quiet to work. The image of Sara's face wouldn't leave him alone, and the visit from the police this morning had brought all his feelings of anxiety to the surface. Maybe it was right what everyone said, maybe he'd gone back to work too soon. But for him it had been a means of survival. It helped him to put aside the thoughts he didn't want to think about and instead focus his attention on ulcers, corns, three-day fever, and ear infections. Nothing mattered as long as he didn't have to think about Sara. Or Charlotte. But now reality had mercilessly intruded, and he felt himself rushing towards the abyss. It didn't help that his anxiety was self-inflicted. To be honest, which was unusual for him, he couldn't really understand why he did the things he did. Something inside seemed to keep driving him forward in a hunt for something that lay just out of reach. Despite the fact that he already had so much – or at least used to have so much. Now his life was in pieces, and nothing he said or did could change it.

Niclas leafed listlessly through the records in front of him. He always hated paperwork, and today he was having serious trouble concentrating. During his first appointment after lunch he had even been brusque and impolite to the patient. Normally he was charming with everyone, no matter who came in. But today he hadn't had the energy to pamper yet another old lady who came to see him about her imaginary pains. The patient in question had been something of a steady customer at the clinic, but now it was doubtful she would be back. His candid opinion on the state of her health had not been to her taste. Oh well, such things no longer seemed important.

With a sigh he began to gather up all the medical records. He was suddenly overwhelmed by the feelings he'd been trying to suppress for so long, and with a single motion he swept everything off his desk. The papers fluttered lazily to the floor and landed in one big heap. Niclas suddenly couldn't get his doctor's coat off fast enough. He flung it to the floor, pulled on his jacket and ran out of his office as if pursued by the Devil himself. Which he was, in a sense. He stopped briefly to tell his nurse with forced composure to cancel all his appointments for the afternoon. Then he rushed out into the rain. A tear found its way into his mouth, and the salt called up an image of his daughter, floating in a grey sea while whitecaps danced on the surface around her head. It made him run even faster. His tears merged with the rain as he fled. Most of all he was fleeing from himself.