The girl still didn't say a word but ran a little way down the hall and turned left into a room that Patrik guessed was the kitchen, lie heard a low murmur and then a dark-haired woman in her thirties came out to meet them. Her eyes flitted nervously and she gave the two men standing in her hall an inquisitive look. Patrik saw that she didn't know who they were.

'Good afternoon, Mrs Karlgren. We're from the police,' said Martin, apparently thinking the same thing. 'May we have a word with you? In private?' He gave Frida a meaningful glance. Her mother blanched, drawing her own conclusions about why they didn't think what they had to say was suitable for her daughter's ears.

'Frida, go up and play in your room.'

'But Mamma -' the girl protested.

'No arguments. Go up to your room and stay there until I call you.'

The girl looked as if she had a mind to object again, but a hint of steel in her mother's voice told her that this was one of those battles she was not going to win. Sullenly Frida dragged herself up the stairs, casting a few hopeful glances back at the adults to see whether they might relent. No one moved until she reached the top of the stairs and the door to her room slammed behind her.

'We can sit in the kitchen.'

Veronika Karlgren led them into a big, cosy kitchen, where apparently she'd been making lunch.

They shook hands politely and introduced themselves, then sat down at the kitchen table. Frida's mother took some cups out of the cupboard, poured coffee, and put some biscuits on a plate. Patrik saw that her hands were shaking as she did so, and he realized that she was trying to postpone the inevitable, what they had come to tell her. But finally there was no putting it off any longer, and she sat down heavily on a chair across from them.

'Something has happened to Sara, hasn't it? Why else would Lilian ring and then hang up like that?'

Patrik and Martin sat in silence a few seconds too long, since both hoped the other would start. Their silence was a form of confirmation that made tears well up in Veronika's eyes.

Patrik cleared his throat. 'Yes, unfortunately we have to inform you that Sara was found drowned this morning.'

Veronika gasped but said nothing.

Patrik went on, 'It seems to have been an accident, but we're making inquiries to see whether we can determine exactly how it happened.' He looked at Martin, who sat ready with his pen and notebook.

'According to Lilian Florin, Sara was supposed to come over here and play with your daughter Frida today. Was that something the girls had planned? It is Monday, after all, so why weren't they in school?'

Veronika was staring at the tabletop. 'They were both ill this weekend, so Charlotte and I decided to keep them home from school, but we thought it was okay if they played together. Sara was supposed to come over sometime before noon.'

'But she never arrived?'

'No, she never did.' Veronika said no more, and Patrik had to keep asking questions to get more information.

'Didn't you wonder why she never showed up? Why didn't you ring and ask where she was?'

Veronika hesitated. 'Sara was a little… what should I say?… different. She more or less did whatever she liked. Quite often she wouldn't come over as agreed because she suddenly decided she felt like doing something else. The girls sometimes quarrelled because of that, I think, but I didn't want to get involved. From what I've heard, Sara suffered from one of those problems with all the initials, so it wouldn't be good to make matters worse

She sat there shredding a paper napkin to bits. A little pile of white paper was growing on the table before her.

Martin looked up from his notebook with a frown. 'A problem with all the initials? What do you mean by that?'

'You know, one of those things that every other child seems to have these days: ADHD, DAMP, MBD, and whatever else they're called.'

'Why do you think something was wrong with Sara?'

She shrugged. 'People talked. And I thought it fit quite well. Sara could be utterly impossible to deal with, so either she was suffering from some problem or else she hadn't been brought up right.' She i ringed as she heard herself talking about a dead girl that way, and quickly looked down. With even greater frenzy she resumed tearing up the napkin, and soon there was nothing left of it.

'So you never saw Sara at all this morning? And never heard from her by phone either?'

Veronika shook her head.

'And you're sure the same is true for Frida?'

'Yes, she's been at home with me the whole time, so if she had talked to Sara I would have known. And she was a bit peeved that Sara never showed up, so I'm quite sure they didn't talk to each other.'

'Well then, I don't suppose we have much more to ask you.'

With a voice that quavered a bit Veronika asked, 'How is Charlotte doing?'

'As can be expected under the circumstances,' was the only answer Patrik could give her.

In Veronika's eyes he saw the abyss open that all mothers must experience when for an instant they picture their own child a Victim of an accident. And he also saw the relief that this time it was someone else's child and not her own. He couldn't reproach her for feeling that way. His own thoughts had all too often shifted In Maja in the past hour. Visions of her limp and lifeless body had forced their way in and made his heart skip a few beats. He too was grateful that it was someone else's child and not his own. The feeling may not have been honourable, but it was human.

He made a practised judgement of where the stone would be easiest to cleave and then brought the hammer down on the chisel. Quite rightly, the granite split precisely where he had calculated It would. Experience had taught him well over the years, but natural talent was also a large part of it. You either had it or you didn't.

Anders Andersson had loved the stone since he had first come to work at the quarry as a small boy, and the stone loved him. But it was a profession that took its toll on a man. The granite dust bothered his lungs more and more with each passing year, and the chips that flew from the stone could ruin a man's eyesight In a day, or cloud his vision over time. In the cold of winter it was impossible to do a proper job wearing gloves, so his fingers would freeze until they felt like they would fall off. In the summer he would sweat profusely in the broiling heat. And yet there was nothing else he would rather do. Whether he was cutting the four-inch cubic paving stones called 'two-örings' used to construct roads, or had the privilege of working on something more advanced, he loved every laborious and painful minute. He knew this was the Work he was born to do. His back already ached at the age of twenty-eight, and he coughed interminably at the least dampness, but when he focused all his energy on the task before him, his ailments were forgotten and he would feel only the angular hardness of the stone beneath his fingers.

Granite was the most beautiful stone he knew. He had come to the province of Bohuslän from Blekinge, as so many stonecutters had done over the years. The granite in Blekinge was considerably more difficult to work with than in the regions near the Norwegian border. Consequently the cutters from Blekinge enjoyed great respect thanks to the skill they had acquired by working with less tractable material. Three years he had been here, attracted by the granite right from the start. There was something about the pink colour against the grey, and the ingenuity it took to cleave the stone correctly, that appealed to him. Sometimes he talked to the stone as he worked, cajoling it if it was an unusually difficult piece, or caressing it lovingly if it was easy to work and soft like a woman.