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the living room. The girl banged on the door leading to the balcony. Yrjö saw that there was a little boy out there, wearing only a nappy. He looked about two years old. Yrjö hurried across the room to let the child in, and that was why he noticed the drunken man just a little too late. He was sitting in complete silence on the sofa just inside the door, his face turned towards the balcony. Yrjö had to use both hands to undo the catch and turn the handle. It was only when he heard the click of the shotgun that Yrjö froze. The shot sent a total of thirty-six small lead pellets straight into his spine and killed him almost instantly.
    Eleven-year-old Joona and his mother, Ritva, moved from the bright apartment in the centre of Märsta to his aunt’s three-room place in Fred-häll in Stockholm. After graduating from high school, he applied to the Police Training Academy. He still thinks about the friends in his group quite often: strolling together across the vast lawns, the lull before they were sent out on placements, the early years as junior officers. Joona Linna has done his share of desk work. He has redirected traffic after road accidents and for the Stockholm Marathon; been embarrassed by football hooligans harassing his female colleagues with their deafening songs on the underground; found dead heroin addicts with rotting sores; helped ambulance crews with vomiting drunks; talked to prostitutes shaking with withdrawal symptoms, to those with AIDS, to those who are afraid; he has met hundreds of men who have abused their partners and children, always following the same pattern (drunk but controlled and deliberate, with the radio on full volume and the blinds closed); he has stopped speeding and drunken drivers, confiscated weapons, drugs, and homemade booze. Once, while off from work with lumbago and out walking to avoid stiffening up, he’d seen a skinhead grab a Muslim woman’s breast outside the school in Klastorp. His back aching, he’d chased the skinhead along by the water, right through the park, past Smedsudden, up onto the Västerbro bridge, across the water, and past Långholmen to Södermalm, finally catching up with him by the traffic lights on Högalidsgatan.
    Without any real intention of building a career, he has moved up the ranks. He could join the National Murder Squad, but he refuses. He likes complex tasks, and he never gives up, but Joona Linna has no interest whatsoever in any form of command.
    Now Joona sits listening as Carlos Eliasson talks to Professor Nils “The Needle” Åhlén, Chief Medical Officer at the pathology lab in Stockholm.
    “No, I just need to know which was the first crime scene,” says Carlos; then he listens for a while. “I realize that, I do realize that . . . but in your judgment so far, what do you think?”
    Joona leans back in his chair, running his fingers through his messy blond hair. So far he does not feel any tiredness from the long night in Tumba and at Karolinska Hospital. He watches as Carlos’s face grows redder and redder. Joona can hear The Needle drone faintly on the other end of the line. When the voice stops, Carlos simply nods and hangs up without saying goodbye.
    “They . . . they— ”
    “They have established that the father was killed first,” supplies Joona.
    Carlos nods.
    “What did I tell you?” Joona beams.
    Carlos looks down at his desk and clears his throat. “Fine, you’re leading the preliminary investigation,” he says. “The Tumba case is yours.”
    “First of all, I want to hear one thing,” says Joona. “Who was right? Who was right, you or me?”
    “You!” yells Carlos. “For God’s sake, Joona, what is it with you? Yeah, you were right— as usual!”
    Joona hides a smile behind his hand as he gets up.
    Suddenly he turns grave. “Reconnaissance hasn’t been able to track down Evelyn Ek. She could be anywhere. I don’t know what we’re going to do if we can’t get permission to talk to the boy. Too much