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can’t.’
    ‘Yes, you can. Shh …’ And he rocked her rhythmically until the darkness and the dreams enveloped her again.
    The news had spread through the police station while Patrik and Martin were out. Dead children were a rarity; usually the victims of a car accident, one every few years. Nothing else could cast such a pall of sadness over the whole building.
    Annika gave Patrik a questioning look when he and Martin passed the reception desk, but he didn’t feel like talking to anyone. He just wanted to go to his office and close the door. They ran into Ernst Lundgren in the corridor, but he didn’t say anything either, so Patrik quickly slipped into the silence of his little den and Martin did the same. There was nothing in their professional training that could have helped prepare any of them for situations like this. Informing someone of a death was one of the most odious tasks of their profession. Informing parents of the death of a child was worse than anything else. It defied all sense and all decency. No one should have to be forced to deliver such news. Especially not to a friend.
    Patrik sat down at his desk, rested his head in his hands, and closed his eyes. Soon he opened his eyes again, because all he could see in the dark behind his eyelids was Sara’s bluish, pale skin and her eyes staring unseeing at the sky. Instead he picked up the picture frame that stood before him and brought the glass as close to his face as possible. The first picture of Maja. Exhausted and bruised, resting in Erica’s arms in the maternity ward. Ugly, yet beautiful in a way that only new parents can understand. And Erica, worn out but smiling feebly with a new sense of resolve and pride at having accomplished something that could only be described as a miracle.
    Patrik knew that he was being sentimental and maudlin. But it was only now, this morning, that he had understood the scope of the responsibility that had been placed in his hands with his daughter’s birth. Only now did he realize the extent of both his love and his fear. When he saw the drowned girl lying like a statue on the deck of the boat, for a moment he wished that Maja had never been born. Because how could he live with the risk of losing her?
    He put the photograph carefully back on his desk and leaned back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head. It suddenly felt utterly meaningless to continue with the tasks he’d been working on before they got the call from Fjällbacka. Most of all he wanted to drive home, crawl into bed, and pull the covers over his head for the rest of the day. A knock on the door interrupted his dismal ruminations. He called, ‘Come in!’ and Annika cautiously pushed open the door.
    ‘Hi, Patrik, excuse me for disturbing you. But I just wanted to tell you that Forensic Medicine called and said they’d received the body. We’ll have the autopsy report the day after tomorrow.’
    Patrik gave a weary nod. ‘Thanks, Annika.’
    She hesitated. ‘Did you know her?’
    ‘Yes, I’ve met the girl, Sara, and her mother a few times recently. Charlotte and Erica have been spending a good deal of time together since Maja was born.’
    ‘How do you think it happened?’
    He sighed and fidgeted absently with the papers before him without looking up. ‘She drowned, as I’m sure you heard. Apparently she went down to the wharf to play, fell in the water, and then couldn’t get out. The water is so cold that she probably got hypothermia very quickly. But driving out to tell Charlotte, that was the most terrible …’ His voice broke and he turned away so that Annika wouldn’t see his tears.
    She tactfully closed the door to his office and left him in peace. She wasn’t going to get much done on a day like this, either.
    Erica looked at the clock again. Charlotte should have been here half an hour ago. She carefully shifted Maja, who was snoozing at her breast, and reached for the telephone. It rang many times at