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moment you know more than we do,’ said Martin. ‘But go on. You were thinking of going inside, and then what happened?’
    ‘Mattias found a window that was open, and he climbed in first,’ said Adam. ‘Seems funny now, because when we came out we discovered that the front door was unlocked. So we could just as well have walked right in. Anyway, Mattias climbed in through the window and pulled me up after him. When we jumped down on to the floor, we noticed something crunching under our feet, but we didn’t see what it was because it was too dark.’
    ‘Dark?’ Martin interrupted him. ‘Why was it dark?’ Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Gösta, Paula and Bertil were now standing behind him, listening.
    ‘All the blinds were down,’ Adam explained patiently. ‘But we rolled up the blind of the window we’d come through. And then we saw that the floor was covered with dead flies. And the smell was horrible.’
    ‘Really awful,’ Mattias chimed in, looking as if he was fighting off another wave of nausea.
    ‘Then what?’ Martin said, in an effort to keep them on track.
    ‘Then we went further into the room, and the chair behind the desk was turned so the back was facing us, and we couldn’t tell what was there. But I had a feeling that . . . well, I’ve seen CSI , and with such an awful smell and all those dead flies . . . you don’t have to be Einstein to figure out that something had died in there. So I went over to the chair and turned it around. And there he was!’
    Apparently the scene was still all too vivid for Mattias; he turned and threw up on the grass. He wiped off his mouth and whispered, ‘Sorry.’
    ‘That’s okay,’ said Martin. ‘We’ve all done the same thing at some point when we’ve seen a dead body.’
    ‘Not me,’ said Mellberg arrogantly.
    ‘Me neither,’ said Gösta laconically.
    ‘I never have either,’ Paula added.
    Martin glanced over his shoulder and gave them all a stern look.
    ‘He looked really gross,’ Adam told them. In spite of the shock, he seemed to be taking a certain pleasure in the situation. Behind him Mattias had doubled over and was retching again, but he seemed to have nothing more in his stomach.
    ‘Could someone take the boys home?’ said Martin, turning to face his colleagues. At first no one answered, but then Gösta said:
    ‘I’ll take them. Come on, lads, hop in the car.’
    ‘We only live a few hundred metres from here,’ said Mattias weakly.
    ‘Then I’ll walk you home,’ said Gösta, gesturing for them to follow. They slunk after him in their typical teenage way – Mattias with a grateful expression, while Adam was obviously disappointed to miss out on what was going to happen next.
    Martin watched until they were out of sight round the bend in the road and then said, without any hint of anticipation, ‘Well, let’s see what we have here.’
    Bertil Mellberg cleared his throat. ‘I have no problem with dead bodies and the like – absolutely none; I’ve seen quite a few in my day. But somebody ought to check . . . the surrounding area too. Maybe it’d be best if I took on that assignment, since I’m the boss and the most experienced officer here.’ Again he cleared his throat.
    Martin and Paula exchanged amused glances, but before replying, Martin was careful to put on a serious expression.
    ‘You’re got a point there, Bertil. It’d be best for someone with your experience to make a careful inspection of the site. Paula and I can go inside and take a look.’
    ‘Right . . . exactly. I think that would be best.’ Mellberg rocked back on his heels for a moment before sauntering off across the lawn.
    ‘Shall we go in?’ said Martin.
    Paula merely nodded.
    ‘Careful now,’ Martin told her as he opened the door. ‘We don’t want to disturb any evidence in case it turns out that this was not a death from natural causes. We’ll just have a quick look around before the techs get here.’
    ‘I have five