And Jerry Petersson. Who pops up in the middle of the family scandal and is later found dead in a moat that is said to house the unquiet spirits of Russian soldiers. Jochen Goldman.

People who are said to have disappeared. Murdered.

Ruthlessness and inadequacies.

Malin closes her eyes again.

Waits for sleep, feeling her consciousness drift away inside itself, and soon the world outside is just one electrical impulse among many for her memories to navigate by.

The world outside the window gradually disappears, turning into a crackling sound, and she hears someone whisper, wonders: who’s trying to tell me something?

Is it the voice from the forest, from the bar in the Hamlet?

The figures aren’t there, don’t want to show themselves, and in the borderlands between sleep and waking Malin gets a sense that he, or they, or whoever it is, is afraid for their own fate, afraid to entertain the idea of their own pain.

Then she sees a lawnmower in the beginning of a dream, moving across grass, and she sees it from the perspective of the blades.

Not a manual rotary mower like her dad had, but a red Stiga chasing a pair of filthy feet across dew-wet grass. She sees the blades lick the boy’s ankles, hears a voice shout: ‘Now they’re going to eat up your feet, now they’re going to tear your little feet to shreds.’

The images in the dream are black and white, but the machine and the blades are red and the noise of the engine and the petrol fumes blur her thoughts.

Then the boy stops. Lets the mower’s blades run over his feet.

Malin wants to see the boy’s face, but he keeps looking the other way.

Then he runs, on bloody stumps now, he takes aim and drifts right out of her vision.

Sunday, 26 October

Malin Fors has dreamed a dream about a person who is a mistake, not an unwanted person, but a mistake. She can’t remember the person, she can’t even remember the dream, but its narrative is inside her like a slow earth tremor as she stands in front of the counter of freshly baked bread in the Filbyter patisserie that has started opening on Sundays to fight off the competition from the cafes out at the Tornby shopping centre.

Empty fridge. Waking up hungry. Toiletries, clothes, and that was where her shopping spree had ended.

Zeke on his way there for a quick breakfast before the morning meeting at the station. Sunday like a normal Monday when they’re dealing with a case of this size, Saturday working yesterday, Sabbath working today.

Two days since they found the body, no chance of any time off while the investigation is still in its infancy.

She should really have had the day off today. Come up with something to do with Tove. Going to the pool, anything. Maybe even picking up her wretched things, talking to Janne, they could have had lunch together, Sunday steak and cream sauce.

That could have worked.

Couldn’t it?

That whole life feels like a mockery. And she wishes that Janne would call and shout at her, but he hasn’t even done that. Should I call and shout at him because he hasn’t called to be cross with me? Or to criticise me for ignoring Tove? But he must realise that I’m working today, the papers are full of the case.

She sits upstairs, with her three cheese rolls and a large mug of coffee, looking out at the desolate square, where a transparent, persistent rain makes all the shop signs pale, and only a few pigeons can bear to face the day, pecking away just as they always seem to.

She’s finished one of the rolls by the time she sees Zeke’s shaved head appear over by the stairs, and he smiles as he sees her, calling to her: ‘You look a hell of a lot better today. And that top suits you.’

‘Shut up,’ she says, and Zeke smiles.

‘You know I’m only concerned about you. And that is a nice top.’

Malin adjusts the pale blue top she’s wearing, one of her new purchases from H amp;M. Maybe Zeke’s being serious, she must have looked like a pig in that red top yesterday.

He’s arrived empty-handed, and she wonders if he’s not going to have anything, but at that moment her mobile rings. Sven’s name on the screen. He sounds anxious: ‘Malin, we’ve had a call from someone who says he’s Petersson’s lawyer. Says he wants to meet one of us. Sounded like he’s got something to tell us.’

Zeke’s face opposite her, watchful now.

‘So the lawyer has a lawyer?’ Malin says.

‘Had, Malin. They all have.’

‘And where is he?’

‘A Max Persson, office at number 12 Hamngatan, close to Tradgardstorget.’

‘So he’s there on Sunday morning?’

‘He is.’

‘What about talking to Fredrik Fagelsjo?’

‘I’ll deal with that myself. Without his lawyer. Just a polite conversation in his cell.’

‘OK, we’ll talk to Petersson’s lawyer. We’re at the Filbyter cafe having breakfast. We can skip the morning meeting.’

‘Yes, not much has happened since yesterday,’ Sven says.

‘Anything else at all?’ Malin asks.

‘Nothing,’ Sven says. ‘And no tip-offs either.’

‘Let’s see what secrets the lawyer’s got for us,’ Malin says.

‘Fingers crossed.’

‘Our secrets are what make us human,’ Malin says. ‘Isn’t that what you usually say, Sven?’

Sven laughs as he hangs up.

Max Persson’s office is on the top floor of a yellow brick building from the fifties. Outside the room is a terrace where a couple of abandoned wooden chairs are fighting a losing battle against the wind and rain, and Malin can almost see the varnish disintegrating in the autumn weather.

Malin and Zeke are each sitting in a red armchair. Max Persson is sitting in majesty on an office chair on the other side of a gigantic glass-topped desk.

A pink Oriental rug on the floor.

Garishly coloured paintings on the walls, silhouettes made with what looks like spray-paint. The man behind the desk is a similar age to Jerry Petersson when he died. He’s wearing a shiny grey suit, the cheapness of which is accentuated by a pink tie on a pale blue shirt.

Max Persson seems to think a lot of himself, Malin thinks.

A clown of a lawyer.

But very good-looking.

Clearly defined features, prominent cheekbones.

‘We understand that you were Jerry Petersson’s lawyer?’ Zeke says.

‘Well, that’s not quite right. But I did help Jerry with the purchase of Skogsa, with drawing up the contract. It gets quite complicated when you’re dealing with such a large, special property.’

‘So you weren’t his lawyer?’

‘Absolutely not,’ Persson says.

And Malin suddenly realises that Persson wants to tell them something confidential, and that he doesn’t want Jerry Petersson to look like his former client, because then he could be accused of breaching his code of confidentiality as a lawyer.

‘Jerry,’ Malin says. ‘Were you friends?’

‘Well, not friends as such. We studied together down in Lund, and I ended up here in Linkoping, which was his home city of course.’

‘So you go way back?’ Zeke wonders.

Persson nods.

‘And there’s something you want to tell us?’ Malin says.

Persson nods again.

Then he starts talking.

‘Like I said, I helped Jerry when he was buying Skogsa. I met Axel Fagelsjo and his children when I was out inspecting the property, and I have to say that they seemed extremely bitter about the sale. Not that they said anything specific, but the whole time I got the impression that they didn’t want to sell. Don’t ask me why.’

‘Had you heard anything about financial difficulties?’ Malin asks. ‘Did the Fagelsjos say anything?’

‘No, but, like I said, I got the impression they were forced to sell up, and that they didn’t really want to. And that impression was reinforced by what happened last week.’

Persson, evidently taking great delight in everyday drama, lets what he is about to say hang in the air.