The Ice Child. Camilla Lackberg

witness,’ Martin reminded him.

      ‘Right. Well, this is the only case with a witness – an eighty-year-old woman. The information she provided is a bit hazy, and she had difficulty remembering the exact time, but it appears to have happened the first day Minna didn’t return home. The witness stated that she saw Minna get into a small white car outside the ICA supermarket on Hisingen.’

      ‘But she wasn’t able to identify the type of car?’ said Gösta.

      ‘No, she wasn’t. The Göteborg police have tried everything they can think of to get more details from her about the car, but it was no use. All she could tell them was that it was an “older white car”.’

      ‘And the witness didn’t see who was sitting inside?’ asked Martin, even though he already knew the answer.

      ‘No. She thought it might be a young man sitting behind the wheel, but she couldn’t say for sure.’

      ‘I can’t believe this,’ said Gösta. ‘How the hell can five teenage girls just disappear? Somebody must have seen something.’

      ‘Well, so far no one has come forward,’ replied Patrik. ‘And that’s in spite of all the media coverage. After all the column space the papers have devoted to the missing girls, you’d think someone would have contacted the police if they’d seen anything.’

      ‘Either the perpetrator is extraordinarily clever, or he’s so obsessive that he never leaves any evidence behind.’ Martin was thinking aloud.

      Patrik shook his head. ‘I think there must be a pattern. I can’t say why I think so, but it’s there somewhere, and once we discover it …’ He threw out his hands. ‘By the way, have you had any luck finding someone to put together a psychological profile of the perpetrator for us?’

      ‘Turns out it’s not that straightforward,’ Martin said. ‘There aren’t many specialists in that field, and most of them are booked up. But Annika just told me that she’s found an expert who does profiling. A man named Gerhard Struwer. He’s a criminologist at Göteborg University, and he can meet with us at his office this afternoon. She emailed him all the information we have. It’s rather strange that the Göteborg police haven’t already talked to him.’