The Crow Girl (19 page)

On the clinically clean worktop lay a range of common tools. There was an axe, a saw, and various pairs of pliers, some flat-nosed, some for cutting, and a large pair of pincers.

The smaller instruments were laid out on a towel. A scalpel, tweezers, needle and thread, as well as a long tool with a hook at one end.

When she was finished she wrapped the body in a clean white towel. She placed the jar containing the amputated genitals beside the other containers in the kitchen cupboard.

Using a bit of powder she dusted his face, then carefully applied eyeliner and some pale lipstick.

The last thing she did was to shave all the fine, downy hair from his body, because she had discovered that formalin made the body stiffen slightly, and the skin swell. Now the hair would be pulled in, and the skin would end up smoother.

When she was finished the boy looked almost alive.

As if he were asleep.

THE THIRD BOY
was found four weeks after the first at the boules club below Danvikstull, and was, according to the experts, a good example of successful embalmment.

Jeanette Kihlberg was in a terrible mood. Not only because her football team had lost their match against Gröndal, but also because she was now on her way to yet another murder scene instead of going home for a shower. She arrived at the scene sweaty and still wearing her football gear. She said hi to Schwarz and Åhlund, then went over to Hurtig, who was having a smoke next to the cordon.

‘How was the match?’ Åhlund asked.

‘Lost three to two. One bad penalty decision, one own goal and one torn knee ligament for our goalie.’

‘You see, just like I’ve always said,’ Schwarz said with a grin. ‘Girls shouldn’t play football. You always get knee trouble. You’re just not built for it.’

She could feel herself getting wound up, but couldn’t face having the same argument again. It was the standard comment from her colleagues whenever her football matches were mentioned. But she still thought it odd that someone as young as Schwarz could have such tired, obsolete opinions.

‘I know all that. What’s it look like here? Do we know who it is?’

‘Not yet,’ Hurtig said. ‘But I’m afraid it looks alarmingly similar to our previous cases. The boy’s been embalmed; he looks alive, if a bit pale. Someone laid him out on a blanket so it looked like he was sunbathing.’

Åhlund pointed towards the clump of trees beside the boules club.

‘Anything else?’

‘According to Andrić, the body could have been there for a couple of days, in theory, anyway,’ Hurtig replied. ‘I think that’s pretty unlikely, myself. I mean, he’s out in the open. And I’d certainly think it was a bit weird if I saw someone lying on a blanket in the middle of the night.’

‘Maybe no one walked past last night.’

‘Maybe, but all the same …’

Jeanette Kihlberg did what was expected of her, then asked Andrić to call her as soon as he finished his report.

Two hours after she first arrived at the crime scene she got back in the car to drive home, and realised how sore she was after the match.

As she was passing the Sickla roundabout she called Dennis Billing.

The commissioner sounded breathless. ‘I’m on my way home. How did things look out there?’

‘Another dead boy. How’s it going with Lundström and von Kwist?’

‘I’m afraid von Kwist is unwilling to let us interview Lundström. There’s not much more I can do right now.’

‘I see. Why’s he being so fucking unhelpful? Do they play golf together?’

‘Be careful, Jeanette. We both know that von Kwist is a very talented –’

‘Bullshit!’

‘Well, that’s just the way it is. I have to go now. Let’s talk tomorrow.’ Dennis Billing hung up.

As she turned right into Enskedevägen and pulled up at a red light beyond the roundabout, her mobile rang.

‘Um … hello, my name’s Ulrika. You were looking for me?’

The voice sounded brittle. Jeanette realised it must be Ulrika Wendin.

‘Ulrika? Thanks for getting back to me.’

‘What was it you wanted?’

‘Karl Lundström,’ Jeanette said.

There was silence on the line. ‘OK,’ the girl said eventually. ‘Why?’

‘I’d like to talk to you about what he did to you, and I was hoping you might be able to help me with that.’

‘Shit …’ Ulrika sighed. ‘I don’t know if I can bear to go through all that again.’

‘I understand that it’s difficult for you. But it’s for a good cause. You can help other people by telling me what you know. If he gets put away for what he’s been accused of, you’ll get some sort of justice.’

‘What’s he accused of?’

‘I can tell you all about it tomorrow, if you could see me then? Is it OK if I come by your place?’

Another silence, and Jeanette listened to the girl’s heavy breathing for a few seconds.

‘That’s probably OK … What time?’

IT WAS WAY
past midnight when Jeanette was woken by the phone.

It was Ivo Andrić.

He told her that by coincidence it turned out that one of the night cleaners at the pathology institute was a Ukrainian who had studied medicine at the University of Kharkov. As soon as the cleaner caught sight of the body he said it reminded him of Lenin. Ivo Andrić had asked him to elaborate, and the cleaner said he remembered reading something about a Professor Vorobyov who had been given the task of embalming Lenin’s corpse in the 1920s.

‘I checked online,’ Ivo said. Jeanette could hear the tiredness in his voice. ‘One week after Lenin’s death his body had started to show signs of decay. The skin was starting to turn darker, more yellow, and was getting mottled, with signs of fungal growth. The person charged with preserving the body was Vladimir Vorobyov, a professor at the Kharkov University Institute of Anatomy.’

Jeanette listened with fascination as Ivo Andrić explained the process.

‘First they removed the internal organs, washed the corpse with acetic acid, then injected the soft tissues with formaldehyde. After several days of intensive work they put Lenin into a glass bath and covered the body with a mixture of water and chemicals, among them glycerine and potassium acetate. I realised at once that whoever had embalmed the boy could have been following Vorobyov’s notes.’

The medical officer admitted that his initial assumption that it must have been done by someone with specialist knowledge had been overly hasty.

‘Nowadays it’s enough to have access to the Internet,’ he said, and sighed. ‘And, seeing as we can probably assume that the person responsible was also the perpetrator in the earlier cases, and that that person had access to large quantities of anaesthetic, it shouldn’t have been too difficult for them to get hold of the chemicals needed to embalm a body.’

The injuries were the same as on the two other boys. More than a hundred bruises, needle marks and wounds to his back.

As Jeanette expected, this boy’s genitals had also been removed. With a similarly sharp knife, and with the same precision.

Andrić concluded by saying that he had made a plaster cast of the boy’s teeth, which – miraculously enough – were intact, and was going to send it to the forensic odontologists for identification.

It was half past two by the time they hung up.

Someone out there has now committed three murders, Jeanette thought.

And they were unlikely to stop at that.

She felt frozen as she finally closed her eyes to get some more much-needed sleep. Åke’s snoring wasn’t making it any easier, but she’d learned how to deal with that. She gave him a nudge, and he rolled over onto his side with a murmur.

By half past four Jeanette couldn’t bear lying there awake, twisting and turning, any longer, and went quietly down to the kitchen and put some coffee on.

While the machine was brewing she went down into the basement and filled the washing machine. She made herself a couple of sandwiches, got a cup of coffee, and went out into the garden.

Before sitting down she walked to the mailbox and got the newspaper.

Obviously the main story was the news about the boy at Danvikstull, and Jeanette almost felt like she was being stalked.

On the other side of the road, next to one of her neighbours’ mailboxes, stood an abandoned pram.

The morning sun coming through the hedge was blinding her, and she raised a hand to her eyes to see what was going on.

Movement from the bushes. A young man hurried across the street, doing his trousers up, and she realised he’d just had a pee in her hedge.

He went up to the pram, took out a newspaper and put it in her neighbour’s mailbox. Then he moved on to the next house.

A pram, she thought, as an idea occurred to her.

THE FIRST THING
Jeanette Kihlberg did when she got to the office was to call the main company responsible for delivering newspapers.

‘Hello, my name’s Jeanette Kihlberg, I’m calling from the Stockholm police. I need to find out who was on duty in the area around the teacher-training college on Kungsholmen on the morning of 9 May.’

The operator sounded nervous.

‘OK … that ought to be possible. What’s this about?’

‘Murder.’

While Jeanette waited for them to call her back, she called Hurtig into her office.

‘Did you know that people delivering papers sometimes use prams instead of bikes with trailers?’ she said when Hurtig had come in and was sitting opposite her.

‘No, I didn’t. How do you mean?’ He looked at her questioningly.

‘Do you remember that we found the tracks from a pram at Thorildsplan?’

‘Sure.’

‘And who’s out and about early in the morning?’

Hurtig smiled and nodded. ‘People delivering papers …’

‘The phone should be ringing shortly,’ Jeanette said. ‘Why don’t you answer it?’

They sat in silence for a minute or so until the phone rang and Jeanette pressed the speaker button.

‘Jens Hurtig, Stockholm police.’

The girl from the delivery company introduced herself. ‘I was just talking to a female police officer who wanted to know who was on duty in western Kungsholmen on 9 May?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

Jeanette could see that Hurtig had worked it out.

‘His name is Martin Thelin, but he no longer works for us.’

‘Have you got a number we can reach him?’

‘Yes, there’s a mobile number.’

He made a note of the number, then asked the operator if she had any other information about the former employee.

‘Yes, I’ve got his personal details. Do you want them?’

‘If you wouldn’t mind.’

Hurtig wrote down Martin Thelin’s ID number and ended the call.

‘Well, what do you think?’ Jeanette asked. ‘A suspect?’

‘Either that or a witness. It would be perfectly possible to transport a body in a pram, wouldn’t it?’

Jeanette nodded. ‘Or else it was Martin Thelin who found the body at Thorildsplan when he was delivering papers. And called the police.’

She gave Åhlund a ring and asked him to try to track down Thelin. She gave him the phone number.

‘OK, quick run-through,’ she said afterwards. ‘Tell me which name you think is hottest right now.’

‘Karl Lundström,’ Hurtig replied, without hesitation.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Why?’

Hurtig seemed bemused by the situation.

‘Paedophile. Knows how to buy children from the Third World. Thinks castration’s a good idea. And has access to anaesthetics because his wife is a dentist.’

‘I agree,’ Jeanette said. ‘So, let’s concentrate our fire on him. I got hold of the file from the preliminary investigation into the Ulrika Wendin case this morning, so I suggest we do a bit of homework before driving over to see her.’

THE GIRL WHO
opened the door was short and thin, and didn’t look a day over eighteen.

‘Hello, I’m Jeanette Kihlberg. My colleague here is Jens Hurtig.’

The girl avoided eye contact, nodded and led the way into a small kitchen.

Jeanette sat down opposite her while Hurtig remained standing in the doorway.

‘There was a different name on the door,’ Jeanette said.

‘Yes, I’m renting third- or fourth-hand.’

‘I know what it’s like. Stockholm’s completely hopeless. It’s impossible to find somewhere to live if you’re not a millionaire.’ Jeanette smiled.

The girl no longer looked quite as scared, and risked a small smile back.

‘Ulrika, I’ll get straight to the point, so you don’t have to put up with us for longer than necessary.’

Ulrika Wendin nodded, fiddling nervously with the tablecloth.

Jeanette gave her a short summary of the case against Karl Lundström, and the girl seemed to relax a bit when she realised that the evidence against the paedophile was so strong that it was likely to lead to a conviction.

‘Seven years ago you reported him for rape. Your case could be reopened, and I think you’d stand a good chance of winning.’

‘Winning?’ Ulrika Wendin shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t want to start that up again …’

‘Do you feel like telling us what happened?’

The girl sat there silently staring down at the tablecloth while Jeanette studied her face. What she could see were fear and bewilderment.

‘I don’t know where to start …’

‘Start at the beginning,’ Jeanette said.

‘It was …’ she attempted. ‘It was when me and a friend answered an Internet ad …’ Ulrika Wendin fell silent and glanced at Hurtig.

Jeanette realised his presence was putting Ulrika off, and with a discreet gesture let him know that it would be best if he left the room.

‘To begin with it was just for fun,’ the girl went on when Hurtig had gone out into the hall. ‘But soon we realised we would earn money. The man who placed the ad wanted to sleep with two girls at the same time. And we’d get five thousand …’

Jeanette could see how hard it was for the girl to tell her story.