51.

Axel Fgelsjo is standing quietly in front of the sitting-room window. The fog that drifted in when the rain stopped is obstructing the view of the Horticultural Society Park, the naked trees are like thin silhouettes of bodies, and Axel seems to be looking for something, as if he has a feeling that someone down in the park is watching him from a distance and was just waiting for the right opportunity to attack him.

It was as if he knew why they were there, as if he knew what had happened, and, while they still were in the hallway, he said, 'Out with it, then!' to Malin and Zeke, as if he had spent all night waiting for them. They asked him to go through to the sitting room and take a seat, but the old man refused: 'Just say what you've got to say here,' and Malin sat on a worn old rococo stool by the door and said straight out: 'Your son. Fredrik. He was found dead in the chapel at Skogs this morning.'

The terrible meaning of the words blew away her insecurities.

'Had he killed himself? Hanged himself?'

And in Axel Fgelsjo's face, in the pink confusion of wrinkled skin stretched over fat, Malin saw a hardness, but also something like clarity.

I despised my son. I loved him.

He's dead, and perhaps now his sins can be forgiven. His sins against me. Against the memory of his mother. His ancestors.

And, deep in his shiny pupils, grief, yet still somehow hidden behind layer upon layer of self-control.

'He was murdered,' Zeke said. 'Your son was murdered.'

As if he wanted to provoke a reaction in Axel, but he merely turned away, went into the sitting room, and over to the window where he is now standing, his back to them as he answers their questions, apparently unconcerned by the circumstances. Malin wishes she could see his face now, his eyes, but she is sure there are no tears running down Axel Fgelsjo's cheeks.

'We can tell you the details of your son's death if you want to hear them,' Malin says. 'We know a fair amount already.'

'How he was found, you mean?'

'For instance.'

'I'll be able to read about it in the paper soon enough, won't I?'

Malin still tells him what they know, without going into any great detail. Axel remains motionless by the window.

'Did Fredrik have any enemies?'

'No. But of course you know that I wasn't happy with him after the financial debacle.'

'Anyone who might be trying to get at you?'

Axel shakes his head.

'What were you doing yesterday evening and last night?' Zeke asks.

'I was at Katarina's. We were talking about the possibility of buying back Skogs from the estate. Just her and me. It was late when I walked home.'

Father and daughter, Malin thinks. They're together on the night when Fredrik, the brother, the son, is murdered. Why?

'Nothing else you think we should know about Fredrik? Any other business deals that might have gone wrong?'

'He didn't have that level of authority at the bank.'

'No?'

'He was a middleman.'

'Could he have had anything to do with Jochen Goldman?'

'Jochen Goldman? Who's that?'

'The embezzler,' Zeke says.

'I don't know of any Goldman. But I can't imagine Fredrik had anything to do with an embezzler.'

'Why not?'

'He was too cowardly for that.'

Malin and Zeke look at each other.

'What about Fredrik's wife? What was their relationship like?'

'You'll have to ask his wife about that.'

'Do you want us to arrange for someone to come and be with you? We'd prefer not to leave you alone.'

Axel snorts at Malin's words.

'Who would you send? A priest? If you don't have any more questions you can go. It's time to leave an old man in peace. I need to call an undertaker.'

Malin loses patience with the old man.

'I don't suppose your family had Jerry Petersson killed, and then Fredrik was on the point of cracking up and confessing? So you murdered him?'

Axel laughs at her.

'You're mad,' he says.

And Malin realises how much it sounds like a conspiracy theory.

'We're going to see Katarina now,' Malin goes on. 'Perhaps you'd like to call her first?'

'You can tell her the news,' Axel Fgelsjo says. 'She stopped listening to me long ago.'

Malin and Zeke take the stairs back down, their steps echoing in the stairwell. Halfway down they pass a black cleaner washing the steps with a damp mop.

'He's a cold bastard, that one,' Zeke says as they approach the door.

'He can shut off completely,' Malin says. 'Or rather, shut himself in.'

'He didn't even seem upset. Or the least bit curious about who might have killed his son.'

'And he seemed even less concerned about Fredrik's wife,' Malin says.

'And his grandchildren. He didn't mention them at all,' Zeke adds.

'Presumably he's too old for rage,' Malin says.

'Him? He'll never be too old for that. No one gets that old.'

Axel has sat down in the armchair in front of the open fire.

He clenches his big, spade-like hands, feels his eyes well up and the tears run down his cheeks.

Fredrik.

Murdered.

How could that happen?

The police.

No one to talk to, the fewer words spoken, the better.

He sees his grandchildren running through the living room out at the Villa Italia, chased by Fredrik, then they run on through the pictures inside him, children's feet running across the stone floors of the rooms of Skogs. Who are the children? Fredrik, Katarina? Victoria? Leopold?

I want my grandchildren here with me, but how can I approach her, Bettina? His wife, Christina, she's never liked me, nor I her.

And really, what would they want me for?

The truth, Axel Fgelsjo thinks, is for people who don't know any better. Action is for me.

You're a widow now.

Your two children fatherless.

Johan Jakobsson looks at the woman sitting in front of him on the sofa in the large living room of the Villa Italia, hunched up and tear-streaked, yet still radiating a sort of faith in the future. She must be financially secure, and Johan has seen this before in women with children when he arrives to break news of their husband's death, the way they immediately seem to focus all their energy forward, onto the children, and the work of limiting the damage to them.

Johan leans back on the sofa.

Christina Fgelsjo looks past him, towards Waldemar Ekenberg, who is sitting on a stool by the grand piano, rubbing the bruise on his cheek.

Christina has just explained that she decided to spend the night at her parents with the children after drinking wine at dinner. That she often ate dinner with the children at her parents without Fredrik, 'they've never got on very well, Frederik and my parents', and that her parents can confirm that she was there.

'You didn't call home?' Waldemar asks.

'No.'

'And he wasn't here when you got home?' Johan asks, and he is struck by the idea that Christina could have murdered her husband to get a share of the recent inheritance before it was spent trying to buy back Skogs.

A long shot, he thinks. The woman in front of him is no murderer. And the inheritance must have gone mainly to Axel. But she does appear to be right-handed. Along with practically everyone else.

'I assumed he must be at the bank.'

'Did he have any enemies?' Waldemar asks, and it strikes Johan that it's just the right moment for that question, phrased in that way, and reluctantly he has to admit that he and Waldemar work well together as police officers. He is convinced that Christina is telling the truth when she replies.

'Not that I know of.'

'His father? His sister?'

'You mean because of the debacle?'

Christina shrugs her shoulders.

Waldemar Ekenberg strikes one of the keys of the piano gently. Light in Christina Fgelsjo's eyes.

'I know we've asked before,' Johan says. 'But do you know why he tried to escape from us? Could it have . . .'

'We talked about it the day he was released. He got scared, panicked. Anyone might have done in those circumstances.'

'Do you think it occurred to him that driving under the influence of alcohol is illegal as well as dangerous?'

'Sometimes he thought he was above that sort of thing. Sometimes rules were meant for other people.'

'What was your marriage like?' Johan goes on, and Christina answers without thinking.

'It was a good marriage. Fredrik was a generous man. The Fgelsjo family are good at love.'

And at the moment Christina says the word love, two small children run into the room, a little girl and an even younger boy. The children rush over to their mother, talking at the same time: 'Mummy, Mummy, what's happened? Mummy, tell us.'

'Mum? Is that you? It's a bad line.'

Tove.

It's not yet half past two and it's already starting to get dark over on the horizon beyond the jagged, shredded ostgota plain. Malin is sitting in the Volvo with Zeke, on their way to Katarina Fgelsjo's address.

She wants Tove to say she's coming round this evening, that she'll stay the night in the flat in the city and not out at Janne's.

They drive past Ikea, the car park full at this time of day, and at the petrol station near Skaggetorp, people are filling their shiny, well-kept cars. She looks at the spot where she parked when she went to buy clothes and seems to see two men gesturing to each other beside a car.

Malin blinks.

When she opens her eyes again the men are gone.