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dog.
    This made Annika row faster and more vigorously. Right when she was ready to give up, she caught sight of the sauna and the beach house.
    ‘We’re almost there,’ she said, squinting to see the island where the castle was located behind its cloak of rain.
    Something was going on there on the beach. She could make out some little black figures milling around outside the buildings. She could also see a large and colourful logotype on a white wall near the canal inlet.
    Pulling out a camera from a plastic bag, the photographer said: ‘That’s the outside-broadcast bus, isn’t it? Could you hold the boat steady? I might as well snap a few shots in case they run us off the place . . .’
    Annika paid no attention to Strand and rowed the boat further from shore, almost grateful for the bad weather. If they were in luck they could row clear around the island without being seen, land by the flagpole and make their way up to the estate.
    It worked. Chilled through and exhausted, Annika was shaking all over by the time they pulled the boat ashore through the reeds and up on the lawn.
    ‘Do you know your way around this place?’ Bertil Strand asked.
    She spent a few seconds gasping for air and tried to suppress a cough.
    ‘My grandmother used to bring me here every year, on her birthday. We would take a walk in the park and then have a three-course meal in the dining room.’
    ‘What fancy habits,’ Bertil Strand said as he wriggled into his backpack.
    ‘Gran was the matron of Harpsund. It’s less than ten kilometres away, through the woods. She knew the former manager at Yxtaholm. The meal was a gift.’
    Annika pointed to the right, into the mists.
    ‘The terrace,’ she said. ‘That must be where they taped the shows.’
    She waved to the left.
    ‘The North Wing: suites and two-room apartments. Straight ahead there’s the manor house, the dining rooms and the different lounges. Let’s go.’
    The manor house towered in front of them like a glistening palace, white and slick with rain. They approached the house from the direction of the north gable, its mansard roof blacker than the stormy sky. Halfway up the slope leading to the house, a bed of roses was on the verge of blooming. Three police cars were parked along the drive.
    ‘What kind of a place is this, anyway?’ Bertil Strand wondered as he unpacked a camera.
    ‘It’s an old country seat,’ Annika replied, ‘dating back to medieval times. Now it’s a conference centre and a hotel owned by the Swedish Employers’ Confederation. It was built in 1753.’
    The photographer shot her a quick glance.
    ‘Not 1754, then?’
    ‘Check it out,’ Annika said, pointing to the year written over the entrance. It struck her that she hadn’t ever seen it closed before, the double doors had always been wide open and welcoming. Now the solid brown doors seemed massive, heavy and dismissive.
    She pointed across the slope, past the South Wing.
    ‘The first buildings were made of wood and they were located over there. The castle and the annexes have a core of brick that was fired in a furnace over there behind the trees. Want to see the crime scene first?’
    Bertil Strand nodded.
    They walked around the castle, progressing slowly and carefully from tree to tree through the park. They passed the terrace with its well-tended gravel paths, manicured lawns, hedges and flower beds. With a sideways glance, Annika looked at the exterior of the building – so austere and whitewashed, tidy rows of windows. The hundreds of intricately mullioned windows in their lead frames reflected the silvery surface of Lake Yxtasjön.
    ‘You can almost see people running around in crinolines,’ the photographer said, shooting away.
    They went down to the lake, passing the small labyrinth of hedges and walls and the jetty, and reaching the gable of the New Wing, the one that faced west.
    Pointing, Annika said: ‘There’s the bus.’
    Bertil Strand switched cameras and stretched out