'OK ... that was what we agreed,' Jenny says quietly.

'I've got to go now, but I'll be home as soon as-'

Margot stops when she realises that Jenny has hung up on her. She carries on into the lobby, pa.s.ses the security doors and heads towards the lifts.

Maria Carlsson, the first victim, had her hand in her mouth, Margot thinks once more.

That wasn't enough for her to discern a pattern. But when she saw Sandra Lundgren lying there with her hand over one breast, she had a fleeting sense of a connection.

It didn't look natural, it was arranged.

She walks along the empty corridor to her office, closes the door behind her and sits down at the computer, and searches for arranged bodies.

She can hear sirens from emergency vehicles somewhere.

Margot kicks off her shoes as she clicks through the results. Nowhere does she find any similarity to her murders. Her stomach feels tight and she undoes her belt altogether.

She expands the search to cover the whole country, and when the list of results appears she knows she's found what she was looking for.

A murder in Salem.

The victim was found with her hand round her own neck.

She had been arranged like that after she died.

The preliminary investigation had been conducted by the Sdertlje Police District.

As she read, she remembered more details. Far too much had leaked to the press. The extreme level of brutality had been focused primarily on the victim's face and upper body.

The dead woman had been found in her bathroom with her hand around her own throat.

The victim's name was Rebecka Hansson. She had been wearing pyjama bottoms and a sweater, and according to the post-mortem she had not been subjected either to rape or attempted rape.

Margot's heart is pounding in her chest as she finds the information about Rocky Kyrklund, a priest. She reads that an arrest warrant was issued for him in his absence, and he was subsequently apprehended in connection with a traffic accident. The forensic evidence against him was compelling. Rocky Kyrklund underwent a forensic psychiatric examination and was consigned to Karsudden District Hospital with specific restrictions placed on any parole application.

I've found the murderer, Margot thinks, and her hand is trembling as she reaches for the phone and calls Karsudden Hospital.

When she finds out that Rocky Kyrklund is locked up and that he has never been let out on licence, she demands an immediate meeting with the head of security.

Barely two hours later Margot is sitting in the office of the head of security, Neil Lindegren, in the gleaming white main building, discussing the security arrangements for Section D:4.

Neil is a thickset man with a fleshy forehead and neat, stubby hands. He leans back in his chair as he explains the secure perimeter fences, the alarm system, the airlock and pa.s.scards.

'That all sounds very good,' Margot says when Neil falls silent. 'But the question is: could Rocky Kyrklund have managed to get out anyway?'

'You're welcome to meet him, if that would make you feel any better,' he smiles.

'You're absolutely sure you'd have noticed if he escaped and came back the same day?'

'No one's escaped,' Neil says.

'But hypothetically,' Margot goes on. 'If he got out immediately after you did your round at eight o'clock when would he have to be back today in order for his absence not to be noticed?'

Neil's smile fades and his hands fall to his lap.

'Today is Sunday,' he says slowly. 'He wouldn't need to be back before five o'clock, but you know ... the doors are locked and alarmed, and the whole area is covered by surveillance cameras.'

52.

On a large monitor, thirty squares show what's being picked up by the facility's security cameras.

A technician in his sixties shows Margot the system of CCTV cameras, motion-activated cameras, their locations, and the laser and infrared barriers.

Recordings from the surveillance cameras are stored for a maximum of thirty days.

'This is Section D:4,' he says, pointing. 'The corridor, dayroom, exercise yard, fence, the outside of the fence, the outside of the building ... and these show the park and the driveway.'

The monitor shows an image of the hospital as it was at five o'clock that morning. The static glow from the lamps make the park look strangely lifeless. The clock in the corner of the screen moves on, but everything remains perfectly still.

When the man speeds up the replay, a few trees appear to move in the wind. The night-time security guard walks along the corridor and disappears into the staffroom.

Suddenly the technician stops the film and points at an area of gra.s.s that spreads out like a patch of grey water. Margot leans forward and sees a number of dark shapes against the bushes and trees.

The technician enlarges the image and plays the footage. Three deer appear in the glow of a lamp. They walk across the gra.s.s, all stop at once, stand still with their necks craned, then carry on.

He shrinks the image and hits fast-forward again. Daylight arrives and the transparent shadows grow sharper as the sun rises.

Cars arrive and staff go inside and spread out through the corridors and tunnels.

The technician stops the recordings to show the night-staff leaving. Margot watches the morning round in the various sections in silence.

There's very little activity, given that it's Sunday. There's no sign of Rocky Kyrklund among the patients who have opted to go out into the exercise yard.

They carry on fast-forwarding, stopping occasionally to look more closely at anyone in the corridors, but everything seems to be calm as the hours tick by.

'And there you are,' the technician says with a smile.

He enlarges one square to show her struggling to get out of her car, and her wrap dress slips open, revealing her pink underwear.

'Whoops,' she mumbles.

Margot sees herself walk across the car park with her big leather bag over her shoulder, her hands round her stomach. She goes round the corner of the building and disappears from view, but the next camera picks her up outside the entrance. At the same time she is visible from another angle on a camera above the reception desk in the lobby.

'I disappeared for a few seconds as I went round the corner of the building,' she says.

'No,' he says calmly.

'It felt like it,' she insists.

He goes back to the image of her getting out of her car, flashing her underwear, follows her across the car park, and stops the recording as she walks round the corner of the building and disappears from that screen.

'We've got a camera here that ought to ...'

He enlarges another square, showing the end of the building, and lots of leaves, but not her. He plays the footage slowly, and she comes into view outside the entrance.

'OK, you're gone for a few seconds,' he eventually says. 'There are always going to be tiny gaps in the system.'

'Could someone exploit them to escape?'

The technician leans back, and the wad of chewing tobacco beneath his lip slips down over one of his teeth as he shakes his head.

'Not even theoretically,' he says firmly.

'How certain are you of that?'

'Pretty much one hundred per cent,' he replies.

'OK,' Margot says. She gets up laboriously from her chair and thanks him for his help.

If Rocky couldn't have escaped, she's going to have to think again. The murder he committed has to be linked to the recent killings.

There are no coincidences on that level.

The priest must have had someone helping him, an apprentice on the outside, she thinks to herself.

Unless they're dealing with a completely independent copycat, or someone with whom Rocky Kyrklund has been communicating.

The technician leads her back through the deserted corridors to Neil Lindegren's room. The head of security is talking to a woman in a white coat when Margot walks in.

'I need to talk to Rocky Kyrklund,' she says.

'But it's not even certain that he'll be able to remember what he's been doing today,' Neil says, gesturing towards the doctor.

'Kyrklund has a serious neurological injury,' the doctor explains. 'His memories only come back to him as tiny fragments ... and sometimes he does things without being aware of them at all.'

'Is he dangerous?'

'He would already be getting prepared for rehabilitation back into society if he'd shown any indication that that's what he wants,' Neil says.

'He doesn't want to get out is that what you're saying?' Margot asks.

'We start socialising most of our inmates fairly early ... they get a chance to meet people outside the hospital, have supervised excursions, but he mostly keeps to himself and won't accept any visitors ... He never phones anyone, writes no letters, and doesn't use the Internet,' the doctor says.

'Does he talk to the other patients?'

'Sometimes, as I understand it,' Neil replies.

'I need to know which patients have been discharged from Section D:4 during the time he's been there,' she says, sitting down on the chair she sat on earlier.

She looks round Neil's tidy office while he searches his computer. He's got no photographs on display, no books or ornaments.

'Have you found anything?' she asks, and can hear how anxious her voice sounds.

Neil turns the screen to show her.

'Not much,' he says. 'That section has a very low turnover of patients. There are a few who have been moved to other psychiatric inst.i.tutions, but we've only had two inmates discharged in the time Rocky has been here.'

'Two in nine years?'

'That's normal,' the doctor says.

Margot opens her leather bag, takes out her notebook and writes the names down.

'Now I want to see Rocky Kyrklund,' she says.

53.

Two guards with emergency alarms, batons and tasers on their belts accompany Margot through the airlocks and into the corridor where Rocky Kyrklund's section is located.

He's sitting on the bunk in his room watching a Formula 1 race on a television fixed to the wall up near the ceiling.

The shimmering cars move round the track like dragonflies, with their bursts of speed and metallic colours.

'My name is Margot Silverman, I'm a superintendent with the National Criminal Investigation Department,' she explains, leaning back against his desk chair.

'Adam f.u.c.ked Eve and then she got pregnant and gave birth to Cain,' Rocky says, looking at her stomach.

'I've come here from Stockholm to talk to you.'

'You're not observing the day of rest,' Rocky states, then looks back at the television.

'Are you?' she asks, pulling the chair out and sitting down. 'What have you done today?'