Page 118 of The Sleepwalker

Peck was conscious when he was airlifted to hospital, and remains in a serious but stable condition. Gregory has been suspended from duty, and a case has been opened by the Special Prosecutor’s Office.

The first three police cars arrived at the scene ten minutes after the explosion, and just twenty minutes later the yard androad up to the farm were packed with emergency vehicles. Their blue lights swept over the fields and the bare trees, illuminating the increasingly heavy snowfall.

The fire was put out, and the children were looked after by two female officers while they waited for social services to arrive.

As they walk down the corridor, the prison officer tells Joona that they are trying to create a humane atmosphere in this particular wing.

‘I’m not saying the women here are angels, but just about all of them have been forced into crime or addiction by men .?.?. threatened, abused and raped.’

Someone has been baking, and the sweet aroma of cinnamon and caramelised sugar fills the air.

After forcing the front door, Joona entered what was left of the farmhouse and found Ann-Charlotte dozing on the sofa in front of the TV.

She is a tall woman with large breasts, glasses and short blonde hair, and is wearing pink velour trousers and a Taylor Swift T-shirt.

There was a pack of oxycodone on the table in front of her, alongside an empty ice cream tub with a spoon in it.

‘He actually did it, huh?’ she slurred, unable to fully open her eyes. ‘I was starting to think it was all just talk .?.?.’

The officer pauses outside a door and gives it a firm rap.

‘Lotta? You’ve got a visitor,’ he says, opening the door slightly. ‘Can we come in?’

Through the narrow gap, Joona gets a first glimpse of her sitting on the narrow bed in a green prison-issue tracksuit and a pair of slippers.

Lotta has an angry-looking rash around her mouth, and her glasses are dirty, her eyebrows plucked to thin lines.

The small room smells of stale coffee and hand cream.

‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,’ Joona tells her,taking a step forward, ‘but forensics have confirmed that Åke Berg died in the explosion at your farm .?.?. My condolences.’

‘Boom,’ she says flatly.

She picks up a pot from the table, opens the gold plastic lid and pushes a pouch of snus beneath her top lip.

‘I’m going to be recording our conversation from now on,’ Joona continues, taking out his phone.

‘Åke was a conspiracy theorist,’ she says, her eyes on the wall. ‘Which is pretty bloody convenient, especially for blokes .?.?. you know? Means it’s not your fault that life turned out the way it did. You’re a winner, you’re smart, you really see what’s going on in the world, but since everything’s rigged against you, there’s no point even trying.’

‘Ann-Charlotte, you’re being held here on suspicion of a number of different crimes,’ Joona begins. ‘But I’m here to talk about—’

‘I don’t know where he got the idea that social services were trying to take the kids and sell them, but he was obsessed with it,’ she goes on. ‘Really put his foot down and decided he’d be willing to die for the sprogs, even though he’d barely paid them any notice for years.’

‘I know this is a lot, but—’

‘But the truth is it’s really bloody hard for social services to take your kids away, even if you wish they would,’ she says, burping quietly. ‘We had hundreds of reports, concerned chats, and they did millions of investigations .?.?. But, like, I already know I’m not mum of the year. I’ve got a bad back, I pop all sorts of pills and the kids don’t go to school. Even the bailiffs had given up. There was nothing left to take wh—’

‘Listen,’ Joona interrupts her. ‘A witness saw you at Bredäng Campsite early in the morning on 26 November.’

Her eyelids flutter. ‘Me?’

‘Yes.’

Lotta’s thin lips curl into a crooked smile.

‘OK, except .?.?. I’ve never been there, didn’t even know it existed .?.?. Why the hell d’you think I’d be running about some shitty campsite when I’ve got a yard full of crap at home?’

‘We found your DNA.’