ELLEN

5.00 P.M.

Soon after the police and ambulance arrived at the scene, Ellen left. They could immediately determine that Carola was dead. A dog walker had witnessed the whole thing, and the police could dismiss Ellen as a suspect.

They took her witness statement, but said that they would be in touch again soon for follow-up. They clarified that she was part of the investigation and took care to inform her that nothing could be leaked to the press.

The ambulance personnel tried to attend to her, but all she wanted was to go home.

Carola had died instantly. The bullet hit the target, as they say.

The sound of the sirens echoed in her head as Ellen stood in the shower. The clothes she’d had on she had crumpled into a plastic bag. The bloodstains would never go away. The image of Carola’s brain matter on the window showed up as soon as she closed her eyes. She scrubbed her whole body until her skin was completely red and raw. It stung as she rubbed her whole body with disinfectant. After the shower, she crawled into bed. She was shaking and had a hard time settling down, but in the end, she must have fallen asleep from pure exhaustion, because when she woke up, she had several missed calls on her phone.

The police wanted her to come to the police station on Kungsholmen to provide a proper witness statement.

Ellen put on clean clothes and tried to drink a glass of water, but found it difficult to swallow. The nausea lingered on.

Then she caught sight of the wall and stopped in shock. Everything had been taken down except the passport picture of her. It must have been Didrik, she thought, trying to imagine what he’d been trying to communicate. Ellen went up to the wall and took down the picture of herself and threw it out along with the clothes.

An hour later, she was sitting in an interview room with the police.

They asked her what she knew, and Ellen told them the whole story. From beginning to end.

It felt as if they wanted to steer away from the fact that Carola was behind the murder of Liv Lind — that in fact they questioned Carola’s involvement in the murder. They wanted to mould Ellen’s story, influence her, and insist that she’d misunderstood, and that perhaps it happened some other way.

It felt familiar.