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on a pair of latex forensic gloves then handed a pair to her. It was like pulling on an old uniform.
    ‘They were getting divorced,’ Strange said. ‘He’d had an affair with his secretary. The wife threw him out a month ago. She wouldn’t talk to him. Hung up if he
called.’
    She followed him down the hall. There was a photograph on the wall. A wedding portrait. A pretty woman with long fair hair. She held the arm of a beaming man in a smart suit. They had
lawyers’ smiles, all well aimed at the camera. Then a later shot, with a young child.
    ‘Where was the kid?’
    ‘Daughter. At her grandparents’.’
    Into the narrow kitchen. The walls by the room were covered with childish paintings. A dirty frying pan on the cooker. A dirty plate, a pen circle round it.
    ‘At 7.41 p.m. she used her laptop to go on the Internet in here,’ Strange went on. ‘Opened a bottle of wine, looked at some estate agency sites, and took a bath.’
    Lund kept following the details through the autopsy report.
    ‘Was that her usual routine? Coming home late, taking a bath? Eating alone?’
    ‘How would we know?’
    ‘You’d ask the husband.’
    ‘The husband isn’t saying much. She was attacked before she got round to eating. In here. Then he took her into the dining room.’
    They went through. Floor-length windows gave onto low trees just visible from some far-off street lights. A leather office chair was tipped on its side on the bloody carpet. A matching footstool
close to it, a tall studio lamp by its side.
    ‘She was stabbed twenty-one times,’ he said, tapping the report. ‘Once in the heart, which was fatal. We don’t know what the weapon was.’
    ‘A knife?’ Lund asked.
    She wasn’t sure he appreciated that.
    ‘More like some kind of sharp tool.’
    He walked to a standard lamp near the window, kicked the on switch at the base. The detail came to life. A painting on the wall was crooked. Glass from some broken ornaments lay strewn across
the timber floor.
    Strange walked round the furniture to stand by the window.
    ‘She was forced into the chair. The amount of blood indicates that.’
    Lund was looking at the photos. There was a small cellophane wrapper near the body.
    ‘Did he smoke? Did you find ash?’
    ‘It’s the wrong size for cigarettes. We don’t know what it is.’
    ‘Chewing gum?’
    ‘We don’t know what it is,’ he repeated. ‘The husband says he called round after midnight. He wanted to talk about selling the house. He told us he’d had a few
drinks. More than a few from the blood test.’
    ‘He was drunk?’
    ‘Stinking.’
    ‘Where was he beforehand?’
    ‘With his girlfriend. He still had time.’
    ‘What does he say happened?’
    ‘She didn’t answer the door. He saw the basement window was open. Got worried. Climbed in that way.’
    ‘Didn’t he have a key?’
    ‘She’d changed the locks a few weeks before. And put in a new alarm.’
    Lund went to the window, turned on the outside light. The garden led down to scrubby woodland. There was the sound of a train. One of the lines running out through Østerbro. Maybe the
same one by Mindelunden where she was found.
    A rap on the door behind them. Brix was there.
    ‘Dragsholm must have been really scared of him,’ he said. ‘She’d fired her old security company, hired a very expensive one in its place. They’d ordered new sensors
for the garden.’
    Lund nodded.
    ‘She was scared of something.’
    ‘It’s good to see you,’ Brix added. ‘I’m sorry. There was never time in the Politigården to say that.’
    He took a deep breath, like a man facing a difficult decision.
    ‘If there’s nothing more here shall we look at the place we found her?’
    They had no idea how the killer had brought Anne Dragsholm to Mindelunden. The place was locked up at night, but scarcely secure. Open ground close to the centre of the city.
Anyone could get in, from any number of directions, if they tried.
    Strange turned on his