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cardboard. The window had been broken a long time ago, and was covered by a piece of transparent plastic sheeting.
    Eriksson paused for a moment. Tintin strained at her leash, whimpering.
    He had discovered dead children before. He recalled a twelve-year-old girl who had taken her own life. That was up near Kalix. He shut his eyes tightly in an attempt to obliterate her image. She had been sitting under a tree, and it had looked as if she were asleep: her head had not fallen to one side.
    Tintin had found her after a search lasting for three hours. And as Tintin is not a fan of doggy treats and wasn’t even especially hungry at the time, Eriksson rewarded her the way he always did when she had carried out a task to his satisfaction: he played with her. That was the best reward she could possibly wish for. And it was important that she should feel that a successful end to a search was something to celebrate with a bit of fun.
    The dead girl had remained sitting under the tree while Eriksson larked around with Tintin only a few metres away, shouting: “There’s a good girl! Now I’m coming to get you, what a lovely girl you are!”
    Meanwhile two colleagues had turned up at the scene. They looked at the dead girl, then they stared at Eriksson as if he wasn’t quite right in the head. Eriksson put Tintin back on her lead and led her away in silence. He made no attempt to explain why he did what he did. Why should he? They would never have understood. But no doubt all kinds of rumours about him circulated around Kalix.
    The boy was lying there in the playhouse. Eriksson was almost certain of that. Tintin was whimpering, tugging at her lead and wanting to go there. No point in hanging about. He must investigate without delay.
    There was an old flowery mattress lying on the floor. Lots of empty bottles were standing on a rickety table. Somebody – perhaps several people – used this playhouse as somewhere to relax and sink a few beers. But just now there was a little boy lying on the mattress, under several blankets and rather a dirty and tatty cover.
    “Well done, my lovely!” Eriksson said.
    Tintin swaggered around, bursting with pride.
    Eriksson moved to one side the blankets and cover. Placed his hand carefully on the boy’s neck. His skin was warm. There was a pulse. Eriksson examined the white jumper and the bare feet: no blood. He seemed to be uninjured.
    The relief was so massive that Eriksson shuddered, as if from the cold. The boy was alive.
    At that very moment he opened his eyes. He stared at Eriksson, his eyes wide in horror.
    Then he screamed.

Sivving circled round the car once more, dragging his crippled limbs after him.
    He’ll fall down at any moment, Martinsson thought. I’ll never be able to get him up again.
    “Shouldn’t you sit down?” she said.
    “It’s pretty obvious that she hasn’t had a man about the place for a while,” Sivving said, seeming not to hear her. “Just look at that fence. The snow will bring it down next winter. How do you reckon he’ll get on?”
    He gestured in the direction that Eriksson had headed, together with Tintin.
    Martinsson looked at the fence, which was leaning in all directions. The posts were rotten. She refrained from observing that her own fence was solid and upright, despite the fact that there was no handyman in the house, and that there were several layabouts in the village whose fences had given up the ghost long ago.
    “Did you say that her son was run over?” she said instead.
    “My God, yes,” Sivving said, standing still for a few moments. “Poor little sod. First his mum runs off to Stockholm. Then his dad gets run over. And now his grandma …”
    “How was he run over?”
    “They don’t know. It was one of those hit-and-run affairs. Maybe you’re right and I should sit down for a bit. Is that allowed? Won’t it leave all kinds of traces to confuse the scene-of-crime boys?”
    “You can sit in the car. I’ll pull back the driving