Page 57 of We Chase Shadows

All it took, in the end, for Steve to finally visit Sweden was a widely feared murderer and torturer with a Stockholm penthouse.

Sara Lindstrat is wearing sunglasses and a fur coat. ‘Rosie D’Antonio, I can’t believe it’s real. I am such a huge fan of yours.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ says Rosie. Rosie is also wearing sunglasses and a fur coat.

They are on the roof terrace of a grand townhouse in central Stockholm. Rosie had spoken to a famous Swedish crime writer, who had spoken to Sara Lindstrat, who had invited them straight round.

Steve is happy because their travels almost always take them somewhere hot, but up on this Stockholm rooftop it is cold and windy. It is nice, every now and again, to be able to investigate a murder without sweating. And it’s also nice to pay some sort of respect to Yngwie Malmsteen.

From everything Steve has read on Wikipedia, Palm Springs will be a lot less fun.

‘You know your book where the policeman tortures his victims in a dungeon?’ says Sara.

‘Yes,’ says Rosie. ‘The Slaughterhouse Massacre.’

‘That’s my favourite, I think,’ says Sara. ‘So funny.’

‘Funny?’ says Rosie.

‘So funny,’ says Sara. ‘And the one with the threshing machine?’

‘Death Farm?’

‘Death Farm, yes,’ says Sara. ‘I remember I would read it in bed, and I would keep waking up my husband with laughing so much.’

‘I mean, it’s not necessarily a comedy,’ says Rosie.

‘I would read him out lines,’ says Sara. ‘When you kill the one guy in the threshing machine, and the other guy is watching. I was hooting, and my husband was, Let me sleep, woman!’

‘Well, it’s nice to meet a fan,’ says Rosie.

‘Thank you for seeing us,’ says Steve. ‘We wanted to ask you about a man called Jakob Eriksson?’

‘Yes,’ says Sara. ‘You set a thief to catch a thief, I think.’

‘You know him?’ asks Amy.

‘I know everyone,’ says Sara.

‘So you know him?’ Amy says. ‘Could you –’

‘I have a quiz question for you,’ says Sara.

‘Go on,’ says Steve, leaning forward. He’s somewhere cold, Rosie has been unsettled by a psychopath, and now there’s a quiz. This might be the best interrogation they’ve ever done.

‘Which country has the best criminals in the world?’ Sara asks.

‘Umm, Russia?’ guesses Steve. Surely?

‘No, but you can have another guess,’ says Sara.

Steve is quietly furious with himself.

‘Albania?’ says Amy.

That’s a good shout, fair play to Amy there.

‘No,’ says Sara. ‘Albanians are very good, but they are not the best.’