Part 11 (1/2)

Lindell had experienced this so many times before, how the apparent idyll concealed a streak of unexpected eruptions of violence and grief. The landscape itself was innocent, it was only a stage for human failings, a backdrop against which people acted in all their foulness.

From her professional perspective, Lindell felt that it was worse to investigate a crime in the countryside where nature, in its inconceivable diversity, concealed man. She often thought about the last homicide case when two farmers had been murdered in their homes. It was as if nature was tripping up her thoughts. How could something so horrible happen here? There was not only a crime victim to contend with, it was as if the whole area had been raped. The crime, to deprive someone of his life, appeared even more monstrous against the backdrop of a peaceful forest.

A murder in an apartment, by contrast, appeared more natural. No one was surprised that someone killed someone else in a kitchen filled with the items that people acc.u.mulated. It was rather the opposite: how could it be that more people didn't fall victim to violence? A pool of blood in the street surprised no one. A pool of blood on a mossy bed in the woods seemed to fly in the face of reason.

”The philosopher Lindell in action!”

She turned around. Ottosson was standing there with a coffee mug in his hand. She had not heard him enter. She smiled but did not like being interrupted in her thoughts. If it had been anyone other than Ottosson she would have registered her dissatisfaction.

As it was, she told him what she had been thinking. Ottosson refilled his mug and sat down.

”You are right,” he said when she had finished, ”but you're also wrong. A kitchen, a little refuge, even if it is dingy and small, stands for security. Or it should. To have a roof over your head, warmth, and food on the table are the preconditions for becoming someone else, if you know what I mean. We are always striving for ...”

He trailed off, as if he couldn't manage to finish his train of thought, or as if he did not himself fully understand, or was unable to formulate, what he meant.

”Man is a strange creature,” Ottosson resumed, and employed a worn cliche that only expressed their usual frustration.

”Hasn't anyone called in?” Lindell asked.

Normally the phone at the station would ring off the hook after a murder had been committed. Spontaneous tips that in most cases did not lead to anything.

”No, nothing that gives us an ident.i.ty,” Ottosson said. ”I thought for a while that he did not come from Uppsala, that someone transported him here in order to dump him in the river.”

”But why there?” Lindell asked and then realized the ridiculousness of her question. Many times there was no rationality to a killer's actions.

Ottosson shrugged.

”Perhaps our rounds in the city will give us something,” he said.

They had made copies of the murder victim's photograph and detectives from the violence and intelligence units were looking up individuals who would perhaps recognize him. It was the usual roundup of drug users and petty thieves. Sometimes they were willing to drop a little information in the hopes that it made them look good or for the simple reason that a murder was a disturbance to their own business and they wanted a quick resolution.

The investigative team in the violent crimes division had discussed possible motives as a matter of routine. These were freewheeling speculations that perhaps did not yield much, especially since they did not know the victim's ident.i.ty, but that nonetheless set the machinery of their brains in motion. One tossed-out idea gave way to another that was rejected that led to a third possible explanation that was taken seriously. Everything mixed, became layered, was judged more or less believable. Together this resulted in a concoction of loose a.s.sumptions, out of which one could finally perhaps distill a motive and a perpetrator.

”It is the tattoo, or rather, its removal, that is the key,” Lindell said.

Ottosson agreed.

”Why does one get a tattoo?”

”To show one's affiliation,” Lindell said. ”A brotherhood.”

”It used to be a mark of cla.s.s,” Ottosson said. ”Only workers used to get tattoos. Now little girls have tattoos everywhere.”

”It functions as a kind of marking. You choose a design that says something about yourself or the life you lead, or with the direction you feel life should take.”

”Or it's just a fun thing you do when you're drunk,” Ottosson added.

”He doesn't look the type.”

”Perhaps in his youth?”

Lindell shook her head.

”I can't say why, but this guy is no common ... alcoholic who likes to get loaded in Nyhavn.”

”But in his youth,” Ottosson insisted. ”Perhaps he went to sea?”

”He did end up in the water finally,” Lindell said.

”And almost naked to boot.”

”I think that was done in order to humiliate him,” Lindell said. ”Why would you otherwise take the trouble to remove his clothes?”

”Two possibilities,” Ottosson said, ”either the clothes say something about the victim or else he was only wearing his underpants when he was killed.”

”A betrayed man who finds them naked in the bedroom and kills the lover?”

”Or a h.o.m.os.e.xual.”

Ottosson had trouble with the word bog bog, which was slang for ”gay.” Lindell already knew this. He claimed it was denigrating, even though many h.o.m.os.e.xuals used the word themselves.

Lindell looked at the picture in the paper. She didn't bother with the text. She had enough of an idea what it said.

”Going door to door in the area may still give us something. There were some houses in the area where no one answered yesterday.”

”Fredriksson and Riis are out there right now, but the victim may just as well have been thrown in from the other side of the river and floated across,” Ottosson said. ”It's not very wide. Or else he was dumped farther upstream.””It would be strange if no one had seen anything. After all, it takes awhile to carry a body from the road across the meadow and into the river.”

”I think he was thrown in higher up,” Ottosson said.

They continued to speculate before Lindell got up from the table.

”I went to the hospital,” she said suddenly.

”How was she?”

”She was sleeping.”

Ottosson nodded.

”Have you talked to-”

”No,” Lindell said.

Sixteen.

She was riding her bike into the wind. Eva regretted not having taken the bus, even though this way she was saving money and improving her fitness, maybe even losing a few pounds. into the wind. Eva regretted not having taken the bus, even though this way she was saving money and improving her fitness, maybe even losing a few pounds.