His colleagues.

Karim.

And Malin. How are you doing, Malin? She hasn’t had a good year, Sven thinks as he takes the rough bowl off the lathe. Then he switches off the machine and enjoys the silence that quickly fills the room.

It probably wasn’t a good idea for you to move back in with Janne again. Not a good idea at all, but I could never tell you that. You have to take care of your own life, Fors. I can sometimes show you the way at work, but that’s happening less and less; there’s no longer much need for it.

But in life.

You reek of drink more and more. You look grey, exhausted, sad.

Oh well.

As long as it doesn’t get any worse. Janne, your husband, or rather the ex-husband that you’re back together with, called me, wanted me to do something. He told me about your drinking, and it’s certainly pretty obvious. At least sometimes. And I made him a promise. But to do what? Talk to you? You’d be furious. Suspend you? There’s no justification for that. Send you to an expert? You’re so stubborn, you’d refuse to go.

Getting a bit drunk is part of being a detective.

What with all the crap we see, it helps ease the pressure.

He tightens his belt. Four holes in, now, twelve kilos down. Better blood results. But far too many dull evening meals.

‘Put your overalls on. Now. I don’t want to have to tell you again.’

Detective Inspector Johan Jakobsson is standing in the hall of his terraced house in Linghem. His five-year-old daughter is in a world of her own, singing, and his words don’t come close to penetrating her bubble.

Why the hell did they agree to go to the in-laws this weekend, now that he finally has a Friday off? The last thing they need is another panicky morning with a load of unnecessary aggressive words firing through the air like stray bullets.

‘Can you sort Hugo out? I’ll take Emma.’

His wife nods and bends down for the boy’s blue jacket.

‘I don’t want to have to tell you again.’

‘Do you have to get so cross?’ his wife asks.

And so it starts.

‘It wasn’t my idea to set off for Nassjo at this ungodly hour.’

‘It’s Dad’s birthday.’

‘Yes, sixty-three. It’s not like he can’t manage without us.’

His wife’s mouth tightens. She’s not going to dignify that with a reply, Johan thinks as he reaches for their daughter, grabbing her thin but strong arm and pulling her to him.

‘Get your jacket on.’

‘But she won’t need it in the car.’

He lets go of his daughter’s arm.

Shuts his eyes.

Wishes he was on call this weekend. Then he could have invented some incident, or something might really have happened.

The children. His eyes are closed, but he can still hear their voices and it’s as if they become more distinct to him now, and they sound happy, full of confidence about life in spite of their sullenness, and he thinks that the thousands of hugs and kisses, the hundreds of thousands of words of praise, a million smiles and reassurances that they’re loved more than anything actually work. It is possible to create happy individuals, it’s simple and definitely worth the effort.

‘Johan,’ his wife says. ‘Relax. We don’t have to rush if you don’t want to.’

On the grubby, whitewashed wall in front of him there are four coat hooks. One of the middle ones is loose, dangerously close to falling off.

Waldemar Ekenberg has opened the terrace door and is taking deep drags on his cigarette. The terrace is out of the wind, otherwise he wouldn’t be standing here. He’d be crouched under the extractor fan over the cooker.

He looks up at the sky. At the dense grey-white roof of the world.

His morning cigarette.

There’s nothing better. Even if his wife will complain that he smells of smoke when he goes back to bed.

Waldemar didn’t hesitate when a temporary position in Linkoping came up. He had enjoyed his earlier secondment there in connection with a gruesome case into the murders of teenage girls.

They didn’t want him, he knew that, but they couldn’t ignore his experience when all the other applicants were fresh out of Police Academy.

Fors. Sjoman. Jakobsson. Akbar. Martinsson.

Not a bad collection of cops really. A decent clear-up rate. Not too burned out.

Fors.

Completely manic, apparently much worse after what happened to her daughter, and since she got back together with that fireman.

But she’s a fucking good detective. And very easy to tease.

And that can be a lot of fun.

And she’s hitting the bottle. A lot of his colleagues over the years have succumbed to drink. And he’s never been able to do a thing about it. Once they’ve fallen to the bottom of the bottle there’s no way back.

Jakobsson.

Worn out by his kids.

He and his wife back in bed never had any, and that’s probably just as well.

Now there’s just us to worry about. They were in Thailand last winter, just the two of them, and they could take it as easy as they liked, unlike all the families with little kids in the hotel.

The love of a child. Love for a child.

You can’t miss what you’ve never had, Waldemar thinks, taking the last drag on the cigarette.

Can you?

Malin is standing at the counter in the 7-Eleven on Agatan.

Her hair is wet with rain and her underwear is cutting into her buttocks, it feels as disgusting as the bloody weather outside. She found a pair of old stone-washed jeans and a pink top at the back of the wardrobe in the flat. They must be ten years old, but they’ll have to do. H amp;M isn’t open yet and she’ll have to pick up her things from Malmslatt when she has time. That’s what she’s going to do: pick up her things, and Tove, and reconstruct life the way it was before they moved back in together, before she put Tove’s life in danger.

A toothbrush, deodorant, toothpaste and coffee are on the counter in front of her, the fat cashier looks sleepy as he rings up her purchases.

‘Playing away?’ he asks.

Playing away. Did the ice hockey team have an away match last night?

Then she realises what he means, and feels like punching him in his fat face, but just shakes her head.

‘OK, no away match. Just a late night, I guess. When I feel the way you look, I don’t bother getting out of bed.’

‘Just cut the crap and take the money.’

The cashier throws out his hands.

‘Just trying to have a laugh. That normally helps. Sorry.’

Malin grabs her change and walks the hundred metres back to the flat through the rain.

Soon she’s in the shower.

Water colder than the rain envelops her skin.

Driving out the evil.

Helping it freeze.

Don’t think about what happened yesterday, she tells herself, just drink the coffee in the mug on the soap-rack and pretend the headache pills you found in the medicine cabinet are having some sort of effect.

Her skull is thudding.

Tove can move in later this week. Maybe even tonight.

I’m working today. But nothing’s going to happen that can take my mind off this damn headache, is it?

Gote Lindman, just turned fifty-two, runs a hand over his wet, shaved head. He’s only been inside Skogsa Castle once before.

At the age of eight he stood with his father in Axel Fagelsjo’s study and listened as Fagelsjo dictated the terms of that summer’s work, and the future, in return for them being allowed to rent an old soldier’s cottage over in the far south-west corner of the estate.

‘When I call, you come.’

Lindman imagines he can hear the count’s voice, the harshness and violence concealed in it, as he and Ingmar Johansson, a few years older than him, walk along the corridor on the first floor, looking at the bare, grey stone walls and the peculiar pictures that adorn them every five metres or so.

‘He’s got a dog,’ Lindman says. ‘But it can’t be here, or we’d have heard it by now.’