Stalker. Ларс Кеплер
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went with him to the inhabited part of the island. Less than forty people live there. The warden’s house is tucked behind the white chapel and freestanding bell tower.
‘He said he found a dead body on the shore towards the end of April …’
‘A whole body?’ Åhlén asks in a low voice.
‘No, just the torso and one arm.’
‘No head?’
‘No one can live without a torso,’ she says, and can hear how agitated her voice sounds.
‘No,’ Åhlén replies calmly.
‘The warden said the body must have been in the water all winter, because it was badly swollen, and very heavy.’
‘They look terrible,’ Åhlén said.
‘He brought the body back through the forest in his wheelbarrow, and laid it on the floor of the tool-shed behind the chapel … but the smell drove his dog mad, so he had to take it to the old crematorium.’
‘He cremated it?’
She nods. The crematorium had been abandoned for decades, but in the middle of the overgrown foundations was a sooty brick oven with a chimney. The warden used to burn rubbish in the oven, so he knew it worked.
‘Why didn’t he call the police?’ Åhlén asked.
Saga thinks of the way the churchwarden’s house stank of fried food and old clothes. His neck was streaked with dirt and the bottles of home-brew in the fridge had dirty marks from his fingers.
‘He had a still at home … I don’t know. But he did take a few pictures with his mobile in case the police showed up and started asking questions … and he kept the finger at the bottom of his fridge.’
‘Have you got the pictures?’
‘Yes,’ she says, and pulls out her phone. ‘It must be him … look at the gunshot wounds.’
Åhlén looks at the first picture. On the bare cement floor of the tool-shed lies a bloated, marbled torso with just one arm. The skin has split across the chest and slipped down. There are four ragged gunshot holes on the body. The water has made a black mark on the pale grey floor – a shadow that gets narrower towards the drain in the floor.
‘That looks good, very good,’ Nils Åhlén said, handing her phone back.
There is a tense look in his eyes as he gets to his feet and picks the glass jar up from the desk, and he looks at her as if he were about to say something else, but walks out of the room instead.
Saga follows Nils Åhlén through a dark corridor with narrow wheel-tracks on the floor, into the closest pathology lab. The chilly fluorescent lights in the ceiling flicker a few times before settling and lighting up the white tiled walls. Beside one of the metal tables is a desk with a computer and a large bottle of Trocadero.
The room smells of disinfectant and drains. A bright yellow hose is attached to one of the taps. A trickle of water runs from the end of the hose towards the drain in the floor.
Åhlén walks straight over to the long, plastic-covered post-mortem table with its double trough and drainage runnels.
He pulls over a chair for Saga, then places the glass jar on the slab.
She watches him put on protective overalls, a mask and latex gloves. Then he stops, quite still, in front of the jar, like an old person disappearing into a memory. Saga is on the point of saying something when Åhlén takes a deep breath.
‘The right finger of a body found in brackish water, preserved in strong alcohol at a temperature of eight degrees for four months,’ he says to himself.
He photographs the jar from various angles, then unscrews the lid bearing the words BOB Raspberry Jam.
Using a pair of steel tweezers he removes the finger, lets it drip for a while, then puts it down on the post-mortem table. The nail has come off, and is still lying in the murky liquid. A nauseating smell of rotten seawater and decaying flesh spreads through the room.
‘It’s certainly true that the finger was removed from the body long after death,’ he says to Saga. ‘With a knife or perhaps a pair of pliers or secateurs …’
Åhlén is breathing audibly through his nose as he carefully rolls the finger over so he can photograph it from every angle.
‘We can get a good fingerprint from this,’ he says seriously.
Saga has backed away, and is standing with her hand over her mouth, watching as Åhlén picks up the dead finger and holds it against a print-scanner.
The machine bleeps when the print has been scanned.
The tissue is swollen and pudgy, but the fingerprint that appears in the little screen is still very clear.
The papillary lines are really the ridges between the cells and sweat pores that develop in the epidermis while an embryo is still in the womb.
Saga stares at the oval containing a labyrinth of swirls.
The room feels full of suppressed anticipation.
Åhlén takes off his protective clothing again and logs into the computer, hooks up the scanner and clicks on the icon with the text LiveScan.
‘I’ve got a private AFIS system,’ he says straight out as he clicks another icon and types in a new password.
Saga sees him search for ‘Walter’, then click to bring up the digital image of the ID form that was compiled at the time of Jurek’s arrest. The sharp reproductions of the thumb and fingerprints from both hands were made in ink.
Saga tries to control her breathing.
Sweat is trickling down her sides from her armpits.
Åhlén whispers something to himself, and drags the best image from LiveScan across to the search box of the AFIS system, then clicks the button saying Analysis and Comparison, and immediately gets a result.
‘What’s happening?’ Saga says, and swallows hard.
The reflections of the fluorescent lights slide across his glasses. She sees his hand shake as he points at the screen.
‘The details of the initial level are rather vague … mostly just patterns,’ Åhlén explains, and clears his throat quickly. ‘The second level are so-called Galton details … you can see the length of the papillary lines and the way they relate to each other. The differences are only the result of tissue breakdown … And the third level, that’s primarily concerned with the layout of pores, and there the match is perfect.’
‘Do you mean that we’ve found Jurek?’ she whispers.
‘I’ll send the DNA to the National Forensics Lab in Linköping, but purely as a formality,’ he replies with a nervous smile. ‘You’ve found him, there’s no doubt that it’s him. It’s over now.’
‘Good,’ she says, feeling hot tears well up in her eyes.
The initial relief is full of contradictory impulses and emptiness. Her heart is still pounding hard in her chest.
‘You’ve said all along that you were sure you killed Jurek – why was it so important to find his body?’ Åhlén asks.
‘I couldn’t try to find Joona before I’d found it,’ she replies, rubbing her cheeks with her hand to wipe the tears away.
‘Joona’s dead,’ Åhlén says.
‘Yes,’ she smiles.
Joona’s jacket and wallet were found in the possession of a homeless