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Oh really, Lindell thought, what does all this have to do with our murders? Ander pointed out what everyone in the investigative team had discussed that morning, that the murders appeared so deliberate but that it was impossible to find a reasonable explanation as to why specifically Blomgren, Andersson, and Palmblad had fallen victim to the serial killer. “The motive must still be on high,” as Ander put it, “somewhere beyond the three victims. They were chosen at random to fit a pattern. Each of them was cleverly chosen in that they lived isolated and that the perpetrator could approach them without being intercepted.”

To hell with it, Lindell thought and shut the folder, getting up and standing at the window.

“The sun shone on the bones of the dead,” she recited out loud while she tried to gather herself for something that would sound like a counterargument when she now had to report to Ottosson. She was convinced that he had already read the report and had simply pretended not to know that Ander had delivered it. He had apparently wanted her to make up her own mind first.

She took the folder and went in to see Ottosson, who was speaking on the phone. He waved to her to sit down. Lindell heard that it was a higher-up on the other end. Ottosson always had a special tone in his voice when he spoke to higher command. It rubbed Lindell the wrong way but she sensed that she probably did the same thing.

Ottosson hung up with a sigh.

“The top dog,” he said in a tired voice.

“Which one of them?”

“The absolute highest,” Ottosson said. “The chief. Yes, well,” he continued quickly, apparently unwilling to comment further about what had transpired on the phone, “what do we think?”

Lindell shook her head.

“It’s doubtful,” she said. “It sounds a bit science fiction-y.”

“I was just talking to outer space,” Ottosson inserted and smiled in that kindly, sad way that only he could, “so it fits a little with science fiction.”

“I don’t believe in the fact that the murder scheme has been dictated by a seventy-year-old chess game,” Lindell started and listed all her reasons.

When she finished, Ottosson sat quietly for a while.

“Fredriksson believes it,” he said suddenly. “He can’t say why and he agrees that it sounds implausible, but something tells me we are dealing with someone this crazy.”

“Is that what you said to your superiors?”

Ottosson immediately looked embarrassed.

“No, not exactly.”

“Not even indirectly I take it? I really don’t want to learn more about chess,” she said and cursed her unusually passive tone.

“I understand,” Ottosson said.

“Put Fredriksson on it then. Oh fuck,” it slipped out of her, “I was supposed to talk to Allan. I knew there was something.”

“What?”

“In Blomgren’s house I thought I saw something like a photo album, but then Fredriksson was the one who examined the room and I forgot about it in all the activity.”

“And now you want to look through it? Don’t mention it to Allan, he’s sensitive about things like this.”

“Don’t worry,” Lindell said, “I’ll just go out there. I know where the key is.”

Lindell stood up but before she left she couldn’t help asking Ottosson: “What did the top dog say?”

“He had apparently spoken with the professor who lives next door because he said that we should, and I quote, ‘remove all bicycle officers and rookies from the investigation.’”

The maple outside Blomgren’s house was now completely denuded and the leaves lay strewn across a large portion of the lawn like a thick rug. The pale sun was filtered through the tops of the fir trees in the west and reflected across the red and yellow shades of the leaves, creating the illusion of an impressionistic painting.

Lindell felt that Dorotea Svahn had noticed the fact that she had come by and she decided to visit the old woman after she had examined Blomgren’s bookshelf.

The TV room looked even more ordinary this time. Everything was in the same place as she remembered. She opened the little cabinet next to the bookshelf. The album was still