Identifying the killer in each season of The Killing has become a huge guessing game, especially in Denmark. “Everybody has a lot of theories,” says Sveistrup, “much better and more fantastic than mine.” As such the plots use a lot of sleight of hand distractions to keep Lund (and the audience) off the scent.

“The red herrings, even though they didn’t give us the actual killer, had to reveal something else; a hidden agenda or a hidden thing in a person’s life. You have to give the audience a secret so that Sarah Lund didn’t get the whole secret, just a little piece of the puzzle. It proves that the whole whodunnit engine of a story is incredibly strong. It’s an excuse for telling other stories, of course. If you find a body in the first two pages, the audience is always looking for the killer. It’s natural. We are looking for the conclusion. The audience are the real detectives.”