The Nightmare

‘Right?’ Lennart laughs.

They walk over to the boat and stop on the jetty beside the gangplank.

‘A Storebro 36, Royal Cruiser,’ Lennart says. ‘Good boat, but it’s seen better days. Registered to a Björn Almskog.’

‘Have you contacted him?’

‘Haven’t had time.’

They take a closer look at the damage to the boat’s hull. It looks recent, there’s no algae among the glass fibres.

‘I’ve asked a forensics specialist to come out – he should be here soon,’ Joona says.

‘She’s taken a serious knock,’ Lennart says.

‘Who’s been on board since the boat was found?’

‘No one,’ he replies quickly.

Joona smiles and waits with a patient expression on his face.

‘Well, me, of course,’ Lennart says hesitantly. ‘And Sonny, my colleague. And the paramedics who removed the body. And our forensics guy, but he used floor mats and protective clothing.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Apart from the old boy who found the boat.’

Joona doesn’t answer, just looks down at the sparkling water and thinks about the girl on the table in the Department of Forensic Medicine with The Needle.

‘Do you know if your forensics guy secured all the surface evidence?’ he asks after a while.

‘He’s done with the floor, and he’s filmed the scene.’

‘I’m going on board.’

A narrow, worn gangplank leads from the jetty to the boat. Joona climbs aboard and then stands on the aft-deck for a while. He looks around slowly, scanning everything carefully. This is the first and only time he will see the crime scene like this, as a first impression. Every detail he registers now could be vital. Shoes, an overturned sun-lounger, large towel, a paperback that has turned yellow in the sun, a knife with a red plastic handle, a bucket on a rope, beer tins, a bag of charcoal, a tub containing a wetsuit, bottles of sun cream and lotion.

He looks through the large window at the wooden furnishings of the saloon and helm. From a certain angle fingerprints on the glass door stand out in the sunlight, impressions of hands that have pushed the door open, closed it again, reached for it when the boat rocked.

Joona enters the small saloon. The afternoon sun is glinting off the wood veneers and chrome. There’s a cowboy hat and a pair of sunglasses on the navy-blue cushions on one of the sofas.

The water outside is lapping against the hull.

Joona’s eyes roam across the worn floor of the saloon and down the narrow steps to the front of the boat. It’s as dark as a deep well down there. He can’t see anything until he turns his torch on. The cool, tightly focused beam illuminates the steep passageway. The red wood shimmers like the inside of a body. Joona goes down the creaking steps, thinking of the girl, toying with the idea that she was alone on the boat, dived from the foredeck, hit her head on a rock, breathed water into her lungs but somehow managed to get back on board, change out of her wet bikini into dry clothes. Perhaps she was already feeling tired and went down into the cabin, not realising that she was as badly hurt as she was, not realising that actually she had a serious concussion that was rapidly increasing the pressure on her brain.

But Nils would have found traces of brackish water on her body.

It doesn’t make sense.

Joona goes down the steps, past the galley and bathroom, into the main cabin.

There’s a lingering feeling from her death on the boat, even though her body has been moved to the Department of Forensic Medicine in Solna. It’s the same feeling every time. Somehow the objects stare silently back at him, full of screams, cramps, silence.

Suddenly the boat creaks differently and seems to lean to one side. Joona waits and listens, then carries on into the cabin.

Summer light is streaming through the narrow windows by the ceiling, onto a double bed with its top end shaped to fit the bow of the boat. This was where she was found, in a seated position. There’s an open sports bag on the floor, and a polka-dotted nightdress has been unpacked. On the back of the door are a pair of jeans and a thin cardigan. A shoulder bag is hanging from a hook.

The boat sways again and a glass bottle rolls across the deck above his head.

Joona photographs the bag from various angles with his mobile phone. The flash makes the little room shrink, as if the walls, floor and ceiling all took a step closer for an instant.

He carefully takes the bag down off the hook and carries it up on deck. The steps creak under his weight. He can hear a metallic clicking sound from outside. When he reaches the saloon an unexpected shadow crosses the glass door. Joona reacts and takes a step back, into the gloom of the stairwell.

12 (#ulink_4a2cc621-8e2e-5c77-9e18-88fdca46b773)

Unusual death (#ulink_4a2cc621-8e2e-5c77-9e18-88fdca46b773)

Joona Linna stands completely still, just two steps down on the dark flight of steps leading to the galley and front cabin. From there he can see the bottom of the glass doors and some of the aft-deck. A shadow crosses the dusty glass, and suddenly a hand comes into view. Someone is creeping across the deck. The next moment he recognises Erixon’s face. Drops of sweat are running down his cheeks as he rolls out his gelatine foil over the area around the door.

Joona takes the bag from the cabin up into the saloon with him. He carefully turns it upside down over the little hardwood table. Then he pokes the red wallet open with his pen. There’s a driver’s licence in the worn plastic pocket. He looks more closely and sees a beautiful, serious face caught in the flash of a photograph booth. She’s leaning back slightly, as if looking up. Her hair is dark and curly. He recognises the girl from the table in the pathology lab, her straight nose, eyes, South American features.

‘Penelope Fernandez,’ he reads on the driver’s licence, and thinks that he’s heard that name before.

In his mind he goes back to the pathology lab, with the naked body on the table, the tiled roof, the smell of death, her slack features, a face beyond sleep.

Outside in the sunshine Erixon’s bulky frame is moving very slowly as he secures fingerprints from the railing, brushing them with magnetic powder and using tape to lift them. Slowly he wipes one wet area, adds some drops of SPR solution and photographs the imprint that appears.

Joona can hear him sighing deeply the whole time, as if every movement required painful effort, as if he’d just expended the last of his energy.

Joona looks out at the deck, and sees a bucket on a rope next to a training shoe. A faint smell of potatoes is coming from the galley.

He turns back at the driver’s licence and the little photograph. He looks at the young woman’s mouth, at the slightly parted lips, and suddenly realises that something is missing.

It feels like he’s seen something, was on the point of saying something, but forgot what.

He starts when his phone begins to vibrate in his pocket. He takes it out, sees from the screen that it’s The Needle, and answers.

‘Joona.’

‘My name is Nils Åhlén, and I’m a senior pathologist at the Department of Forensic Medicine in Stockholm.’

Joona smiles: they’ve known each other for twenty years, and he’d recognise The Needle’s voice without any introduction.

‘Did she hit her head?’ Joona asks.

‘No,’ Nils replies, surprised.

‘I thought maybe she hit a rock when she was diving.’