The Nightmare

‘Can you estimate the height of the drop?’ Joona asks.

‘There are no fractures in the cervical spine or the base of the skull – so I’d guess ten, twenty centimetres.’

‘Right …’

Joona thinks about the briefcase and the prints from Palmcrona’s shoes. He opens the report again and leafs through to the external examination: the skin of the neck and the estimated angles.

‘What are you thinking?’ The Needle asks.

‘I’m wondering if there’s any chance he was strangled with the same cord, and then just strung up from the ceiling.’

‘No,’ Nils replies.

‘Why not?’ Joona asks quickly.

‘Why not? There was only one groove, and it was in perfect condition.’ Nils begins to explain, ‘When a person is hanged, the rope or cord obviously cuts into the throat, and …’

‘But a perpetrator could also know that,’ Joona interrupts.

‘It’s practically impossible to reconstruct, though … you know, with a real hanging the groove around the neck forms the shape of an arrowhead, with the point uppermost, just by the knot …’

‘Because the weight of the body tightens the noose.’

‘Exactly … and for the same reason the deepest part of the groove should be exactly opposite the point.’

‘So he died from being hanged,’ Joona concludes.

‘No question.’

The tall, thin pathologist bites his bottom lip gently.

‘But could he have been forced to commit suicide?’ Joona asks.

‘Not by force – there’s no sign of that.’

Joona closes the report and drums on it with both hands, thinking that the housekeeper’s comment that other people were involved in Palmcrona’s death must have been just confused talk. But he can’t get away from the two different shoeprints Tommy Kofoed had found.

‘So you’re certain of the cause of death?’ Joona says, looking The Needle in the eye.

‘What were you expecting?’

‘This,’ Joona says, putting his finger in the post-mortem report. ‘This is exactly what I was expecting, but at the same time there’s something nagging at me.’

The Needle gives him a wry smile:

‘Take the report away and read it at bedtime.’

‘Yes,’ Joona says.

‘But I think you can probably let go of Palmcrona … suicide is about as exciting as this case gets.’

The Needle’s smile fades and he lowers his gaze, but Joona’s eyes are still sharp, focused.

‘I daresay you’re right,’ he says.

‘Yes,’ Nils replies. ‘I’m happy to speculate a bit, if you like … Carl Palmcrona was probably depressed, because his fingernails were ragged and dirty, his teeth hadn’t been brushed for a few days and he hadn’t shaved.’

‘I see,’ Joona nods.

‘You’re welcome to take a look at him.’

‘No need,’ he replies, and gets heavily to his feet.

The Needle leans forward and says with great alacrity, as if he’s been looking forward to this moment:

‘But this morning I got something considerably more interesting. Have you got a few minutes?’

He gets up from his chair and gestures for Joona to follow him. Joona goes with him into the corridor. A pale blue butterfly has got lost and is fluttering in the air ahead of them.

‘Has that young guy left?’ Joona asks.

‘Who?’

‘The one who was here before, with the ponytail and …’

‘Frippe? God, no. He’s not allowed to leave. He’s got the day off. Megadeth are playing in the Globe, with Entombed as the support act.’

They walk through a dimly lit room containing a stainless steel post-mortem table. There’s a strong smell of disinfectant. They carry on into a cooler room where the bodies are kept in refrigerated drawers.

The Needle opens another door and turns the light on. The fluorescent tubes flicker and illuminate a white-tiled room with a long, plastic-covered examination table with a double rim and drainage channels.

On the table is an extremely beautiful young woman.

Her skin is suntanned, her long, dark hair lies glossy and curly across her forehead and shoulders. It looks as if she’s gazing up at the room with a mixture of hesitancy and surprise.

There’s something almost cheeky about the set of her mouth, like someone who laughs and smiles a lot.

But there’s no sparkle in those big, dark eyes. Tiny dark-brown spots have already begun to appear.

Joona stops and looks at the woman on the table. He guesses she’s nineteen, twenty at most. No time at all since she was a young child sleeping with her parents. Then she turned into a half-grown schoolgirl, and now she’s dead.

Across the woman’s chest, on the skin above her breastbone, is a faint curved line, like a smiley mouth drawn on in grey, some thirty centimetres long.

‘What’s that line?’ Joona asks, pointing.

‘No idea. An impression from a necklace, perhaps, or a low-cut top. I’ll take a closer look later.’

Joona looks at the lifeless body, takes a deep breath, and – as usual when he is confronted by the absolute implacability of death – a gloom settles on him, a colourless loneliness.