‘In any case it’s a lot more fun and more productive than spending a whole day running from one clothing boutique to another.’

In reply to this blatant attack on her greatest vice in life, Erica wrinkled her nose and made a face at Patrik. Then she saw how his eyes suddenly took on a glazed look.

‘Damn.’ He sat up straight in bed.

‘Pardon me?’

‘Damn, shit, bloody hell.’

Erica looked at him wide-eyed.

‘How the hell could I miss something like that?’ He struck his forehead several times with his hand.

‘Hello, Earth to Patrik! Would you please tell me what you’re talking about?’

Erica waved her hands in front of him. Patrik lost his focus for a moment when he saw how the gesture made her naked breasts jiggle. Then he hopped briskly out of bed, naked as a newborn, and rushed downstairs. He came back up with a couple of newspapers in his hand, sat down on the bed, and started leafing through them frantically. By this time Erica had given up trying to get any answers and merely watched him with interest.

‘Aha!’ Patrik shouted in triumph. ‘What luck that you didn’t toss your old TV listings.’

He waved the paper in front of Erica. ‘Sweden vs. Canada!’

Still silent, Erica made do with raising a very puzzled eyebrow.

Impatient, Patrik tried to explain. ‘Sweden beat Canada in an Olympic match. On Friday, January twenty-second. On TV4.’

She still looked at him without expression. Patrik sighed.

‘All ordinary programmes were cancelled because of the match. Anders couldn’t have come home at the same time as Separate Worlds that Friday, because it was cancelled. Do you understand?’

Slowly, it dawned on Erica what he was saying. Anders no longer had an alibi. Even though it was tenuous, the police would still have a hard time getting past it. Now they could bring Anders in again, based on the evidence they already had. Patrik nodded with satisfaction when he saw that Erica understood.

‘But you don’t think that Anders is the killer, do you?’ said Erica.

‘No, of course not. But for one thing, sometimes I can be wrong, even though I know you have a hard time believing that.’ He winked at her. ‘And for another thing, if I’m not mistaken, I’ll bet that Anders knows considerably more than he’s told us. Now we have a chance to press him a lot harder.’

Patrik began hunting round the bedroom for his clothes. They were strewn here and there, but most alarming was that he discovered he still had his socks on. He quickly pulled on his trousers and hoped that in the heat of passion Erica hadn’t noticed the socks. It was hard to look like a sex god with white tube socks embroidered with ‘Tanumshede IF’.

Suddenly it felt like there was no time to lose, and he dressed with fumbling fingers. On his first attempt to button his shirt he got it wrong, and he swore when he had to undo all the buttons and start over. Patrik realized all at once how his rash behaviour must look, and he sat down on the edge of the bed, took Erica’s hands in his, and gazed steadily into her eyes.

‘I’m sorry to rush off like this, but I have to. I just want you to know that this has been the most wonderful night of my life and I can hardly wait until the next time we see each other. Do you want to see me again?’

What they had shared still felt fragile and delicate, and he held his breath waiting for her reply. She nodded.

‘Then I can come back here when I finish work?’

Erica nodded again. He leaned forward and kissed her.

When he left she was sitting on the bed with her knees pulled up and the covers wrapped loosely round her body. The sun was shining in through the little round window, creating the illusion of a halo round her blonde head. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

The snow was wet and stubbornly seeped through Bengt Larsson’s thin loafers. His shoes were more suited to summer weather, but alcohol was an effective way to deaden the cold. And faced with the choice between buying a pair of winter shoes or a whole litre of schnapps, the decision was easy.

The air was so clear and clean and the light so delicate on this early Wednesday morning that Bengt had a feeling in his breast that he hadn’t had in a long time. It was alarmingly like a sense of peace, and he wondered what it was about a normal Wednesday morning that could call forth such a peculiar sensation. He stopped and breathed in the morning air with his eyes closed. Imagine if his life could be full of mornings like this.

It was clear to him when he had come to the fork in the road. He knew precisely what day his life had taken its unhappy turn. He could even tell you what time it was. Actually he’d had all the usual excuses. There was no abuse to blame it on. No poverty, hunger or emotional deficiencies either. The only thing he had to blame was his own stupidity and an excessive faith in himself. Naturally there was a girl involved too.

He was seventeen years old, and back then there was nothing he did that didn’t involve a girl. But this girl was special. Maud, with her exuberant blondeness and feigned modesty, who played on his ego like a well-tuned violin. ‘Dear Bengt, I just have to have…’ ‘Dear Bengt, couldn’t you get me a…’ She had held the leash and he had obediently let himself be led by the nose. Nothing was ever enough for her. He saved all the money he earned and bought her fine clothes, perfumes, everything she wanted. But as soon as she got whatever it was she’d been so eagerly begging for, she tossed it aside and begged for something else, which was the only thing that could make her happy.

Maud had been like a fever in his blood. Without noticing it the wheels had gradually begun to turn faster and faster until he no longer knew what was up or down. When he turned eighteen, Maud had decided that she wanted to ride around with him in no less than a Cadillac convertible. It cost more than he made in a whole year, and he lay awake night after night as he wracked his brain, trying to figure out how to get the money. While he was going through this agony Maud would pout and hint in more and more obvious terms that if he didn’t get the car, there were certainly other guys who could treat her the way she deserved to be treated. Then jealousy was added to the torment of those sleepless, anxious nights, and finally he couldn’t stand it any longer.

On 10 September 1954, at precisely two o’clock in the afternoon, he went into the bank in Tanumshede, armed with an old army pistol his father had kept at home for years, and wearing a nylon stocking over his head. Nothing had gone right. The bank tellers had tossed banknotes into the bag he brought with him, but not nearly as much as he had hoped. Then one of the customers, the father of a classmate of his, recognized Bengt despite the nylon stocking. Within an hour the police were at his parents’ flat and found the bag of money under the bed in his room. Bengt never forgot the expression on his mother’s face. She had been dead now for many years, but her eyes still haunted him whenever the alcoholic gloom kicked in.

Three years in prison had killed all hope of a future. When he got out Maud was long gone. He didn’t know where, and he didn’t care. All his old friends had gone on to secure jobs and family life and didn’t want anything to do with him. His father had been killed in an accident while Bengt was inside, so he moved in with his mother. With cap in hand he tried to find work, but was met by rejection everywhere he went. No one wanted to hire him. What finally drove him to seek his future in the bottom of a bottle were all the looks that kept following him.

For someone who had grown up in the close-knit confines of a small town where everyone says hello to each other on the street, the feeling of being frozen out was just as painful as physical torture. He had thought about moving away from Fjällbacka, but where would he go? It was easier to stay and let himself sink into a blissful alcoholic torpor.