Death By Water (24 page)

Then a figure appeared over by the stone steps. I had a feeling it was Jo. He passed by in the darkness without spotting me, wandered on through the sand. I could see he was taking his clothes off. That scrawny white boy’s body in the cold moonlight. I waited until he was undressed before getting up and sort of casually strolling up behind him. He was standing staring out to sea, still hadn’t noticed me. I saw there was a note in one of his shoes. There was something written on it, like
Forget me,
in big, scrawled handwriting. He was going to drown himself. I saved him, Liss. He saved me. On the beach that night, with the breakers washing in over our feet, we made a promise to each other, without a word being said.

J
ENNIFER
P
LÅTERUD STRUGGLED
across the grass. The hill was coated with a layer of fresh snow some fifteen or twenty centimetres thick. It was Christmas Eve, approaching two o’clock, and still it hadn’t been cleared away. Trym, the elder of the boys, was on shovelling duty that day. The last thing she did before going out to shop was call up to his room and remind him of the fact. Now she was furious as she went over in her mind how she would confront him, firmly, but short and effective, so as not to ruin the Christmas mood. Trym was the phlegmatic type. It wasn’t something he got from her; on the contrary, he was exactly like his father. Only a touch worse. A characteristic like that was probably more strongly reinforced through the succeeding generations, she shuddered. The phlegm had accumulated in her husband’s family over the centuries, she had long ago realised. Now and then with an undercurrent of melancholy. As a pathologist Jennifer demanded the highest standards of scientific accuracy, and she was always dismissive of facile conclusions in the field of genetics, neurobiology and anything else that had to do with it. But when it came to psychology, to which she had a contemptuous attitude, she was oddly enough a sworn upholder of the ancient teaching about the four bodily fluids: depending which of these we have in the greatest abundance, one of four characteristics will be predominant. She herself was decidedly sanguine, but with a touch of the choleric, she had to admit. The fact that she had fallen for a man with quite the opposite characteristics – a brooding and silent bear from the other side of the world – and allowed herself to be transported to his much too cold and much too dark homeland only showed that opposites attract, another idea she sometimes advanced, with as little scientific basis as when applying it to the psychology of human beings.

In the hallway she put down her bags of shopping and pulled off her boots, which were made of antelope hide and had stiletto heels, and then called out to her oldest boy. She got no answer, not surprisingly, since the bass notes from his amplifier were making the ceiling above her shake. She was about to run upstairs to deliver the necessary rebuke when her mobile rang. She pulled it out of her jacket pocket.

– Flatland here.

The moment she heard that grey voice, she knew she had to be off. At the institute they had discussed who should be on duty over the Christmas weekend, and she had volunteered. As a rule, things were quiet on days like this; the odd call maybe, questions that could be dealt with over the phone. But Flatland was an experienced technician who never called about trivial matters.

Passing the crossing at Skedsmo on the slushy motorway, she took a quick look at her watch and assessed her chances of getting back in time for Christmas dinner at six o’clock. Missing the tidying up and the decorating was nothing to get upset about. And Ivar was cooking the rib of pork, the sausages and the sauerkraut. He was a keen and competent cook, and she would never get the hang of that Norwegian Christmas food anyway. She had introduced a few Australian traditions to the family. Stockings filled with small presents hung on the boys’ beds on Christmas morning. And in the afternoon, they would eat turkey and Yorkshire pudding, followed by mince pies with brandy butter.

She would even miss the traditional lighting of candles on her father-in-law’s grave, and the rice pudding at her mother-in-law’s that the boys, a few hours before their own Christmas meal, had to gorge themselves on in order to find the hidden almond. And then there was all the mulled wine, and as many ginger biscuits as they could get down while subjected to Grandma’s alternating cries of encouragement and admonishment. Ivar’s brothers and sisters and their children would also be there, and sitting there in the car Jennifer felt a relief that she would be getting out of it all.

Karihaugen appeared through the haze. She turned on the radio. Located a station she didn’t have to listen to. Eight days earlier, she had been unfaithful. It had happened so unexpectedly that she had to shut her eyes tightly every time she thought of it. Not from shame, but surprise. A man whom she had not remotely suspected she was attracted to. And maybe she wasn’t either, neither before nor after it happened. But he had turned her on in a way no one else had in years. Not since Sean. But
that
was different. She had been in love with Sean. More than that: unhappily and incurably obsessed from the moment he placed a hand on her shoulder in the lab. When he went back to Dublin, she would have gone with him unhesitatingly if he had suggested it. Of course she would have hesitated. But it might have ended with her leaving the boys and the farm and this wintry land … Sean was a scar that evoked a delicious pain when touched, and what had happened eight days earlier was fortunately nothing like that. Just frantically and crudely exciting. It began and ended there. Possible it might happen again, though not necessarily with
him
, but it might well force itself to the surface once again. That reminder of the part of herself that kept everything else going.

She parked in the drive outside Oslo police station and called Flatland. A few minutes later his silver-grey Audi emerged from the gates. She sat beside him in a front seat that was draped in thick plastic. The man seemed to worry more about dirtying his car than anything else.

– Good job it’s you that’s on duty, he said, and she didn’t doubt that he meant it. He was in his fifties, hardly more than ten years older than her, but greying and as scrawny as an old dingo.

– What’s the news? she asked as he swung down Grønlandsleiret.

– We may have found the woman who’s been missing for over a week.

– The psychologist?

– We’re pretty sure it is.

– And since you want me along, I assume she’s in no condition to give an account of herself.

He glanced across at her without answering.

– Where are we going?

– Down to Hurum. A disused factory.

Jennifer sighed.

– Not more than an hour’s drive, Flatland added in his usual monotone.

– Who found her?

– A patrol from the sheriff’s office down there.

– And what were they doing in a disused factory on Christmas Eve?

The technician looked over his shoulder before gliding on to the E18.

– We got a tip-off. The woman’s partner and her sister turned up at the crime response unit with her mobile phone. Claimed it arrived in the post. There was a video on it.

He changed lanes and accelerated down into Festning Tunnel. – Someone videoed the missing woman. A factory tower was shown in the film. From the postmark on the package, we were able to locate the place within an hour.

– Videoed her and sent it to her partner? Jennifer exclaimed. – So we’re talking about premeditated murder?

– I’m not prepared to commit myself on that.

Jennifer had worked with Flatland many times before. He was the type who never said more than was strictly necessary. She glanced round the inside of the car. It wasn’t just her seat; the others were covered in the same thick protective plastic. The man is more than a touch compulsive, she thought. Definitely an advantage in a job like his.

On the roof of the factory there was still a large sign bearing the name
Icosand
. At the gate was another:
Stop at red signal
. It had to be years since that broken light had given any signal at all. A tall woman in uniform waved them in.

Two quick-response vehicles and an unmarked car were parked by the factory tower. The policewoman approached them when they stopped. Clearly she knew who they were and identified herself by name, rank and where she was stationed.

– We’ve cordoned off the whole area, she told them. – And we’re using the lower entrance. She pointed to the largest of the buildings, a concrete block four storeys tall. – That’s the one least likely to have been used by the perpetrators.

Each carrying their own case, they headed off towards the furthest end of the building, a rusty door that was stuck open and refused to be closed behind them. Inside, it was dark. Flatland took a long-handled torch out of his case. They found a staircase, followed it up to the second floor, as the constable had told them, and turned into a corridor. Several of the windows were broken, the glass lay in piles along one of the walls.

They emerged on to a gallery in a hall illuminated by two powerful lights. In the middle of the pool of light lay a naked body, propped against a concrete pillar. Two figures in white moved about down there, and a third was bent over a camera pointed at the floor.

Flatland pulled out protective overalls, hoods and shoe covers. Jennifer was still wearing her high-heeled antelope leather boots, and the shoe covers didn’t fit very well. She found a couple of unused hair bands in her pocket, and that helped them stay on.

They clambered down a rusting metal conduit, Flatland went first, making sure it was safe for her.

– We’ve made our entry point there, the technician with the camera said, pointing.

Jennifer stood a couple of metres away from the unclothed body. The head was held up by a strap around the neck, fastened to a hook in the concrete pillar. A line of blood ran from the hairline and down over one cheek, but otherwise she looked unharmed. The eyes were half open.

– When was she found?

– According to the sheriff, they entered the building at about one thirty; that’s to say almost two hours ago.

The technician’s breath misted as he spoke. The temperature inside the hall was no higher than it was outside.

– Has a local doctor been here to verify death? Jennifer asked.

– The people who found her didn’t think it was necessary. There’s no doubt that what we have here is a death.

Jennifer frowned. The body lying there was probably suffering from severe exposure; great care must be taken to ensure that death really had occurred. She approached the body directly. Only then did she notice the pool of dried blood the woman was partially lying in. It was mixed with something of a lighter consistency. She leaned forward and shone her torch on the back of the head. Beneath the caked and bloody hair there was a gaping half-moon-shaped hole. A greyish substance had seeped out of it and down the neck.

– Agreed, she commented between gritted teeth. – Not much room for doubt there.

All the same, she pulled her stethoscope out of her case. Listened to the heart and lungs, careful not to touch the strands of hair that lay between two accretions of blood around the navel and obviously did not come from the woman herself. Having ascertained that there was no sign of a pulse or respiratory sounds, she dug out a penlight to take a closer look at the pupils. Squatted there for a long time studying the woman’s eyes. They were badly damaged, the membranes covered in blood, as though jabbed with a pointed object. One eye was almost completely ripped to pieces.

Having completed her examination, she withdrew to a corner of the hall to dictate her notes. Flatland came ambling over. Stood waiting until she was finished.

– Well? he said, offering her a liquorice pastille.

– The woman is dead, Jennifer confirmed.

Flatland grinned mirthlessly. – You’re usually a little more forthcoming than that.

– I know. She grinned back at him. – And since this is Christmas Eve, I’ll give you everything I have, and a bit more too.

The edge of a pouch of snuff appeared under his lip. She realised that what she had said might be open to misinterpretation and hoped he wouldn’t immediately make a certain kind of joke. Under different circumstances she would have had no objection. Fortunately, Flatland wasn’t the type to get carried away.

– Not much marbling, she hurriedly added, – nor blistering of the skin. As you know, those are early signs of decay, but at low temperatures the appearance is delayed.

– What you’re saying is that she’s been here for some time.

Here or somewhere else equally cold for several days. Maybe as long as a week. The temperature in the rectum and the vagina is two degrees, and the lividity on the stomach and in the groin is lighter than usual.

– Cause of death?

– You want a provisional answer? The markings on the neck show that the strap has been pulled tight.

– Choked?

– Yes, but not necessarily to death. She may have been alive when the skull was crushed.

Flatland pushed the snuff bag back into place with the tip of his tongue.

– On the floor at the back by the wall there’s an area with a lot of bloodstaining.

Jennifer peered over at the dark corner he was pointing to. – In other words, she was dragged from over there and hung from this pillar by the neck. In addition, her eyes are, as you can see, covered in marks from being jabbed by some sharp object. Didn’t you say they looked to be damaged in the video on her mobile?

Flatland gave a quick nod of assent.

– Before she was choked and had her skull crushed, Jennifer concluded, – she could have been sitting here in the freezing cold staring blindly out in front of her.