Stalker

‘Bosses,’ she sighs. ‘What the hell are they thinking? The evening tabloids are going to speculate, it doesn’t matter what we say; the police are fair game to them, but we have to follow the rules. It’s like shooting a fucking barrel.’

‘Fish in a barrel,’ Adam corrects her.

‘We don’t know what effect the media are likely to have on the perpetrator,’ she goes on. ‘He might feel exposed and become more cautious, withdraw for a while … or all the attention could feed his vanity and make him overconfident.’

Bright floodlights are shining through the windows of the house, as if it were a film location or the setting for a fashion shoot.

Erixon the forensics expert opens a can of Coca-Cola and hurries to drink it, as though there were some magic power in the first bubbles. His face is shiny with sweat, his mask is tucked below his chin, and his protective white overalls are straining at the seams to accommodate his huge stomach.

‘I’m looking for Erixon,’ Margot says.

‘Try looking for a massive meringue that cries if you so much as mention the numbers 5 and 2,’ Erixon replies, holding out his hand.

While Margot and Adam pull on their thin protective overalls, Erixon tells them he’s managed to get a print of a rubber-soled boot, size 43, from the outside steps, but all the evidence inside the house has been ruined or contaminated thanks to the efforts of the victim’s husband to clean up.

‘Everything’s taking five times as long,’ he says, wiping the sweat from his cheeks with a white handkerchief. ‘We can’t attempt the usual reconstruction, but I’ve had a few ideas about the course of events that we can talk through.’

‘And the body?’

‘We’ll take a look at Susanna, but she’s been moved, and … well, you know.’

‘Put to bed,’ Margot says.

Erixon helps her with the zip of her overalls, as Adam rolls up the sleeves of his.

‘We could start a kids’ programme about three meringues,’ Margot says, placing both hands on her stomach.

They sign their names on the list of visitors to the crime scene, then follow Erixon to the front door.

‘Ready?’ Erixon asks with sudden solemnity. ‘An ordinary home, an ordinary woman, all those good years – then a visitor from hell for a few short minutes.’

They go inside, the protective plastic rustles, the door closes behind them, the hinges squealing like a trapped hare. The daylight vanishes, and the sudden shift from a late summer’s day to the gloom of the hallway is blinding.

They stand still as their eyes adjust.

The air is warm and there are bloody handprints on the door frame and around the lock and handle, fumbling in horror.

A vacuum cleaner with no nozzle is standing on a plastic sheet on the floor. There’s a trickle of dark blood from the hose.

Adam’s mask moves rapidly in front of his mouth and beads of sweat break out on his forehead.

They follow Erixon across the protective boards on the floor towards the kitchen. There are bloody footprints on the linoleum. They’ve been clumsily wiped, and then trodden in again. One side of the sink is blocked with wet kitchen roll, and a shower-scraper is visible in the murky water.

‘We’ve found prints from Björn’s feet,’ Erixon says. ‘First he went round in his blood-soaked socks, then barefoot … we found his socks in the rubbish bin in the kitchen.’

He falls silent and they carry on into the passageway that connects the kitchen with the dining and living rooms.

A crime scene changes over time, and is gradually destroyed as the investigation proceeds. So as not to miss any evidence, forensics officers start by securing rubbish bins and vehicles parked in the area, and make a note of specific smells and other transitory elements.

Apart from that, they conduct a general examination of the crime scene from the outside in, and approach the body and the actual murder scene with caution.

The living room is bathed in bright light. The cloying smell of blood is inescapable. The chaos is oddly invisible because the furniture has been wiped and put back in position.

Yesterday evening Margot saw the video of Susanna as she stood in this room eating ice cream with a spoon, straight from the tub.

A plane comes in to land at Bromma Airport with a thunderous roar, making the glass-fronted cabinet rattle. Margot notes that all the porcelain figures are lying down, as if they were asleep.

Flies are buzzing around a bloody mop that’s been left behind the sofa. The water in the bucket is dark red, the floor streaked. It’s possible to see the trail of the mop by the damp marks left on the skirting boards and furniture.

‘First he tried to hoover up the blood,’ Erixon says. ‘I don’t really know, but he seems to have mopped the floor, then wiped it with a dishcloth and kitchen roll.’

‘He doesn’t remember anything,’ Margot says.

‘Almost all the original blood patterns have been destroyed, but he missed some here,’ Erixon says, pointing to a thin spatter on one strip of wallpaper.

He’s used the old technique and has stretched eight threads from the outermost marks on the wall to find the point where they converge – the point where the blood originated.

‘This is one precise point … the knife goes in at an angle from above, fairly deep,’ Erixon says breathlessly. ‘And of course this is one of the first blows.’

‘Because she’s on her feet,’ Margot says quietly.

‘Because she’s still on her feet,’ he confirms.

Margot looks at the cabinet containing the prone porcelain figures, and thinks that Susanna must have stumbled and hit it when she was trying to escape.

‘This wall has been cleaned,’ Erixon shows them. ‘So I’m having to guess a bit now, but she was probably leaning with her back against it, and slid down … She may have rolled over once, and may have kicked her legs … either way, she certainly lay here for a while with a punctured lung.’

Margot bends over and sees the blood that has been exhaled across the back of the sofa, from below, possibly during a cough.

‘But the blood carries on over there, doesn’t it? It looks like it,’ she says, pointing. ‘Susanna struggled like a wild animal …’

‘And we don’t even know where Björn found her?’ Adam asks.

‘No, but we do have a large concentration of blood over there,’ Erixon says, and points.

‘And there,’ Margot says, gesturing towards the window.

‘Yes, she was there, but she was dragged there … she was in various different places after she died, she lay on the sofa, and … in the bathroom, as well as …’

‘So now she’s in the bedroom,’ Margot says.

12 (#ulink_9c85906d-9585-5bb5-8810-47f9d61ca005)

The white light of the floodlamps fills the bedroom, forming blinding suns in the glass of the window. Everything is illuminated, every thread, every swirling mote of dust. A trail of blood runs across the pale grey carpet to the bed, like tiny black pearls.

Margot stops inside the door, but hears the others carry on towards the bed, then the rustling of their overalls stops.

‘God,’ Adam gasps in a muffled voice.