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the other end was shouting. He was forced to hold the receiver away from his ear to grasp what she was saying. Two things were clear from the start: the woman was very upset, and she was sober. He sat down at his desk and fumbled for a notepad. After a few minutes he made enough notes to give him a good picture of what he thought she was trying to make him understand. The woman’s name was Hanna Tunberg. Twice a month she used to clean for a man called Herbert Molin, who lived some miles outside Sveg in a house called Ratmyren. When she arrived that day she found a dog lying dead in its pen, and seen that all the windows in the house were broken. She didn’t dare stay as she thought the man who lived there must have gone insane. She drove back to Sveg and got her husband, who was retired for health reasons. They went back to the house together. It was about four in the afternoon by then. They considered phoning the police right away, but decided to wait until they had established what had actually happened—a decision they both bitterly regretted. Her husband entered the house but emerged immediately and shouted to his wife, who’d stayed in the car, that the place was full of blood. Then he thought he saw something at the edge of the forest. He went to investigate, took a step back, then sprinted to the car, and started vomiting into the grass. When he recovered sufficiently, they drove straight to Sveg. Since her husband had a weak heart, he lay down on the sofa while she called the police in Sveg, and they passed the call on to
Ostersund. Larsson noted down the woman’s name and telephone number. After they finished talking he called her back in order to check that the number was correct. He also made sure he’d gotten the name of the dead man right. Herbert Molin. When he put the receiver down for the second time, he abandoned any thought of having his hair cut.
    He immediately went to Rundström, who was in charge of emergencies, and explained the situation. Just twenty minutes later he was on his way to Sveg in a police car with blue lights flashing. The forensic boys were making preparations to follow as soon as possible.
    They reached the house some time after 7:30. Hanna Tunberg was waiting for them at the turnoff, along with Inspector Erik Johansson, who was stationed in Sveg and had just returned from another call, a truck laden with timber that had overturned outside Ytterhögdal. It was already dark by then. Larsson could see from the woman’s eyes that the sight awaiting them would not be a pretty one. They went first to the spot on the edge of the forest that Hanna Tunberg had described to them. They found themselves gasping for breath when they shone their flashlights on the dead body. Larsson understood the woman’s horror. He thought he’d seen everything. He had several times seen suicides who’d fired shotguns straight into their faces, but the man on the ground in front of them was worse than anything he’d been obliged to look at before. It wasn’t really a man at all, just a bloody bundle. The face had been scraped away, the feet were no more than blood-soaked lumps, and his back had been beaten so badly that bones were exposed.
    They then approached the house with guns drawn. They established that there was indeed a Norwegian elkhound dead in the pen. When they entered the house they found that Hanna’s description of what her husband had told her was in no way exaggerated. The floor was covered in bloody footprints and broken glass. They closed the door to make sure that nothing was disturbed before the forensic team arrived.
    Hanna was in the car the whole time, her hands clutching the steering wheel. Larsson felt sorry for her. He knew that what she’d been through today would stay with her for the rest of her life, a constant source of fear or a never-ending nightmare.
    Larsson sent Johansson in Hanna’s car to the junction with the