The Black Path

by Asa Larsson

  He glared at her, amused despite himself.

  “And Robert farts in his sleep,” she added.

  He sneezed to hide the fact that he was mollified, stood up and jerked his head to indicate that she should go with him.

  Anna Granlund had just arrived. She was standing in the sluice emptying the dishwasher, just like any housewife. The only difference was that it was knives, pincers, tweezers, scalpels and stainless steel bowls she was taking out instead of cutlery and crockery.

  “She’s such a hätähousu,” said Pohjanen to Anna Granlund, nodding toward Anna-Maria.

  “Stress pants,” he added, when he saw that Anna Granlund didn’t understand.

  Anna Granlund gave Anna-Maria Mella a restrained smile. She liked Anna-Maria, but people shouldn’t come in here stressing out her boss.

  “Has she thawed out?” asked Pohjanen.

  “Not completely,” said Anna Granlund.

  “Come back this afternoon and you can have a preliminary report,” said Pohjanen to Anna-Maria Mella. “Some of the tests will take a while, but that’s always the way.”

  “Can’t you tell me anything at this stage?” asked Anna-Maria, trying not to sound like a hätähousu.

  Pohjanen shook his head, as if he had given up completely when it came to Anna-Maria.

  “Okay, let’s take a look,” he said.

  The woman was lying on the fixed autopsy table. Anna-Maria Mella noticed that fluid had run out of the body and down into the drain beneath the bench.

  Down into the drinking water? she thought.

  Pohjanen caught her expression.

  “She’s thawing out,” he said. “But it’s going to be difficult to examine her, that’s obvious. The muscle cell walls split and become loose.”

  He pointed at the woman’s chest.

  “This is an entry wound here,” he said. “You could assume that’s what killed her.”

  “A knife?”

  “No, no. This is something else, probably something pointed.”

  “Some kind of tool? An awl?”

  Pohjanen shrugged his shoulders.

  “You’ll have to wait,” he said. “But it seems to have been perfectly placed. You can see she’s bled comparatively little onto her clothes. Presumably the blow went straight through the cartilage in the thorax and into the pericardium, so you end up with a cardiac tamponade.”

  “A tamponade?”

  Pohjanen became snappy.

  “Haven’t you learned anything over the years? If the blood hasn’t run out of the body, where has it gone? Well, presumably the pericardium has filled up with blood, so that in the end the heart couldn’t beat any longer. It happens quite quickly. The pressure drops too, which also means that you don’t bleed so much. It could be a pulmonary tamponade too, a liter in the lungs, and that means it’s curtains. And it has to be longer than an awl, there’s an exit wound on her back.”

  “Something that went right through! Bloody hell!”

  “Also,” continued Pohjanen, “no external signs of rape. Look here.”

  He shone a torch between the dead woman’s legs.

  “No bruises or scratches there. You can see she’s been hit in the face, here and…look here, there’s blood in her nostril and a slight swelling above the nose, and somebody has wiped blood from her upper lip. But there are no strangulation marks, no sign of restraints around the wrists. This, however, is strange.”

  He pointed at one of the woman’s ankles.

  “What is it?” asked Anna-Maria. “A burn mark?”

  “Yes, the skin is very obviously burnt. A narrow, circular injury around the whole ankle. And there’s something else that’s odd.”

  “Yes?”

  “Her tongue. She’s chewed it completely to pieces. Very common in serious road traffic accidents, for example. With a shock of that kind…but from a stabbing, I’ve never seen that. And if it was a tamponade and it happened so quickly…No, that’s a little mystery, that is.”

  “Can I have a look?” asked Anna-Maria.

  “It’s just mincemeat,” said Anna Granlund, hanging up clean towels by the sink. “I was going to put some coffee on, would you both like a cup?”

  Anna-Maria Mella and the medical examiner accepted the offer of coffee as Pohjanen shone his torch into the dead woman’s mouth.

  “Ugh,” said Anna-Maria. “So maybe the blow didn’t kill her? What was it, then?”

  “I might be able to tell you that this afternoon. The stab wound is fatal, I must emphasize that. But the course of events isn’t clear at all. And look at this.”

  He turned up one of the woman’s palms toward Anna-Maria.

  “This can also be a sign of shock. You can see the marks. She’s clenched her fists and driven her own nails deep into her palms.”

  Pohjanen stood there with the woman’s hand in his, smiling to himself.

  That’s why I like working with him, thought Anna-Maria. He still really enjoys it. The trickier and the more difficult, the better.

  She realized with a twinge of guilt that she was comparing him with Sven-Erik.

  But Sven-Erik has become so halfhearted, she defended herself. And what am I supposed to do about it? I have enough to do injecting some enthusiasm into the kids at home.

  They drank their coffee in the smoking room. Pohjanen lit a cigarette, pretending not to see the look Anna Granlund gave him.

  “The business with the tongue is very peculiar,” said Anna-Maria. “It’s often a result of shock, you said? And then that faint mark around her wrist…But the stab wound went through her clothes, so she must have been dressed when she was murdered?”

  “Although I don’t think she’d been out running,” said Anna Granlund. “Did you see her bra?”

  “No.”

  “Top of the range. Lace and underwiring. Aubade, that’s a really expensive label.”

  “How do you know?”

  “One might have treated oneself from time to time, in the days when one still had hopes.”

  “Not a sports bra, then?”

  “Not even close.”

  “If only we could find out who she was,” said Anna-Maria Mella.

  “I keep thinking there’s something familiar about her,” said Anna Granlund.

  Anna-Maria perked up.

  “Sven-Erik thought so too,” she said. “Try to think where you’ve seen her! In the supermarket? At the dentist’s? Big Brother?”

  Anna Granlund shook her head thoughtfully.

  Lars Pohjanen stubbed out his cigarette.

  “Right, go and disturb somebody else,” he said. “I’ll open her up later on today, then we’ll see if we can find out more about that circular mark around her ankle.”

  “Who am I going to disturb at this time?” complained Anna-Maria. “Twenty to seven on a Sunday morning. There’s nobody up but you two.”

  “Excellent,” said Pohjanen dryly. “Then you’ll have the pleasure of waking them all up.”

  “Yes,” said Anna-Maria seriously. “I’ll do just that.”

  Chief Prosecutor Alf Björnfot stamped the compacted snow off his boots and carefully scraped the soles clean when he entered the corridor of the police station. Three years ago he’d been in a hurry, slipped on his icy soles and banged his hip. He’d been on painkillers for a week after that.

  A sign of old age, he thought. Being afraid of falling over.

  He didn’t usually work weekends. And certainly not this early on a Sunday morning. But Inspector Anna-Maria Mella had telephoned the previous evening and told him about the dead woman who’d been found in an ark up on the marshes, and he’d asked for a briefing the following morning.

  The prosecution offices were located on the top floor of the police station. The chief prosecutor glanced guiltily at the stairs and pressed the button to call the lift.

  As he passed Rebecka Martinsson’s room he had the feeling for some reason that there was somebody in there. Instead of going into his office, he turn
ed around, went back, knocked on the door and opened it.

  Rebecka Martinsson looked up from behind her desk.

  She must have heard me in the lift and the corridor, thought Alf Björnfot. But she doesn’t let on. Just sits there quiet as a mouse, hoping not to be discovered.

  He didn’t think she disliked him. And she wasn’t shy, even if she was a real lone wolf. She wanted to hide how hard she worked, he presumed.

  “It’s seven o’clock,” he said as he walked in, removed a pile of documents from the visitor’s chair, and sat down.

  “Hi there. Come on in. Have a seat.”

  “Okay, okay. We operate an open door policy here, you know. It’s Sunday morning. Have you moved in?”

  “Yes. Would you like a coffee? I’ve got a flask. Instead of the wastewater from the LKAB pelletizing plant that’s in the machine.”

  She poured him a mug.

  He’d thrown her straight into the job as special prosecutor. She wasn’t the type to start off gently, observing somebody else for weeks on end, and he’d realized that from day one. They’d gone to Gällivare, sixty miles to the south, where the rest of the district prosecutors were based. She had gone round politely saying hello to everybody, but had seemed restless and ill at ease.

  On the second day he’d dumped a pile of files on her desk.

  “Small beer,” he’d said. “File the prosecution and let the girls in the office do the processing. If you’re not sure of anything, you only have to ask.”

  He’d thought that would last her a week.

  The following day she’d asked for more work.

  Her work rate made her colleagues uneasy.

  The other prosecutors joked with her, asking if she was trying to put them out of a job. Behind her back they said she didn’t have a life, and in particular that she didn’t have a sex life.

  The women in the office were stressed out. They explained to their boss that the new woman couldn’t possibly expect them to keep up with processing the summons applications in all the cases she was raining down on them, they did actually have other things to do as well.

  “Like what?” Rebecka Martinsson had asked when the chief prosecutor explained the problem as delicately as he could. “Surfing the Net? Playing solitaire on the computer?”

  Then she’d held up her hand before he could open his mouth to reply.

  “It’s okay. I’ll do it myself.”

  Alf Björnfot let her carry on working that way. She could be her own secretary.

  “It’ll work out fine,” he said to the office manager. “You won’t have to come up to Kiruna so often.”

  The office manager didn’t think it was fine at all. It was difficult to regard oneself as indispensable when Rebecka Martinsson seemed to be managing perfectly well without a secretary. She took her revenge by dumping three criminal court sessions a week on Rebecka Martinsson. Two would have been too many.

  Rebecka Martinsson responded by not complaining.

  Chief Prosecutor Alf Björnfot didn’t like conflict. He knew it was the secretaries, led by the office manager, who ruled his district. He appreciated the fact that Rebecka Martinsson didn’t moan, and found more and more reasons to work in Kiruna rather than Gällivare.

  He turned his cup around. It was good coffee.

  At the same time, he didn’t want her to work herself to death. He wanted her to be happy here. To stay.

  “You work hard,” he said.

  Rebecka Martinsson sighed and pushed back her chair. She kicked off her shoes.

  “I’m used to working like this,” she said. “You don’t need to worry. That wasn’t my problem.”

  “I know, but…”

  “I have no children. No family. Not even houseplants, actually. I like working hard. Let me get on with it.”

  Alf Björnfot shrugged his shoulders. He felt relieved; at least he’d tried.

  Rebecka took a gulp of her coffee and thought about Måns Wenngren. In the law firm you just worked yourself to death. But that was fine by her, she’d had nothing else.

  I must have been out of my mind, she thought. I could work all night just for a brief “good” from him, or even a nod of approval.

  Don’t think about him, she told herself.

  “What brings you here today?” she asked.

  Alf Björnfot told her about the woman they’d found in the ark.

  “I don’t think it’s all that strange that she hasn’t been reported missing,” said Rebecka. “If somebody’s killed his wife or partner, he’ll be sitting there drinking himself under the table, crying and feeling sorry for himself. And nobody else has had time to miss her yet.”

  “Could be.”

  There was a knock, and after a second Inspector Anna-Maria Mella stuck her head round the door.

  “Oh, so this is where you are,” she said cheerfully to the chief prosecutor. “We’re ready to go over the whole thing. Everybody’s here. Are you joining us?”

  The question was addressed to Rebecka Martinsson.

  Rebecka shook her head. She and Anna-Maria Mella bumped into each other sometimes. They said hello, but not much more. It was Anna-Maria Mella and her colleague Sven-Erik Stålnacke who’d been there when she cracked up. Sven-Erik had held on to her until the ambulance arrived. She thought about it sometimes. Somebody holding on to her. It had felt good.

  But it was difficult to talk to them. What would she say? Before she went home from work, she usually glanced out the window at the parking lot below. Sometimes she saw Anna-Maria Mella or Sven-Erik Stålnacke there. When that happened, she’d hang about for a little while until they’d disappeared.

  “What’s happened?” asked Alf Björnfot.

  “Nothing since we last spoke,” said Anna-Maria Mella. “Nobody’s seen a thing. We still don’t know who she is.”

  “Can I have a look at her?” said Alf Björnfot, reaching out his hand.

  Anna-Maria Mella passed over a photo of the dead woman.

  “I think I recognize her,” said Alf Björnfot.

  “May I?” asked Rebecka.

  Alf Björnfot passed over the photo and looked at Rebecka.

  She was wearing jeans and a sweater. He’d never seen her like that since she’d started working for him. It was because it was Sunday. She normally had her hair up, and wore well-tailored suits. It made him think she was a kind of strange, exotic bird, somehow. Some of the other prosecutors would put on a suit if they were involved in proceedings. He himself had given that up long ago. Made do with pulling on a jacket if he had to go to court. He ironed just the collars of his shirts, and wore a sweater over the top.

  But Rebecka always looked expensive, somehow. Expensive and very simple in her gray and black suits with a white shirt.

  Something stirred in his mind. That woman. He’d seen her with a suit on.

  Like Rebecka. A white shirt and a suit. She was an exotic bird too.

  Different from the others.

  What others?

  A picture of a female politician came into his head. A suit, with the shirt collar on the outside. The hair in a blonde bob. She’s surrounded by men in suits.

  The thought was lurking just out of reach, like a pike among the reeds. It could feel the vibrations of something approaching. The EU? UN?

  No. She wasn’t a politician.

  “Now I remember,” said Alf Björnfot. “I was watching a news item. They were filming a gang of suits who’d got together for a group photo in the snow here in Kiruna. What the hell was it about? I remember laughing because they weren’t dressed for the weather at all. No overcoats. Thin black shoes. They stood there in the snow lifting their feet up like storks. They just looked so funny. And she was there…”

  He beat his forehead as if to get the coin to drop down into the machine and pay out.

  Rebecka Martinsson and Anna-Maria Mella waited patiently.

  “I’ve got it…” he said, clicking his fingers. “It was that former resident of Kiruna who’s
got one of those new mining companies. They were having their company meeting or something like that up here…Oh, what’s the matter with my brain!

  “Come on!” he said pleadingly to Rebecka and Anna-Maria. “It was on the news before Christmas.”

  “I fall asleep on the sofa after the children’s programs,” said Anna-Maria.

  “Oh!” exclaimed Alf Björnfot. “I’ll ask Fred Olsson. He’s bound to know.”

  Inspector Fred Olsson was thirty-five, and completely indispensable as the unofficial computer expert for the entire building. He was the one everybody rang when the computer had frozen or when they wanted to download music from the Net. He had no family, so he was happy to come over in the evening and help his colleagues with their electronics at home if need be.

  And he kept an eye on people in town. He knew where the villains lived and what they were up to. Bought them a coffee from time to time and kept himself informed. He knew the fine-meshed net of power. Knew which of the important people in town were watching each other’s backs, and whether it was because they were related, because they had something on each other, or because they were doing each other a mutual favor.

  Alf Björnfot got up and plodded along the corridor and down the stairs to police headquarters.

  Anna-Maria gave Rebecka a signal, and both women ran after him.

  On the way to Fred Olsson’s office, Alf Björnfot suddenly turned back to the pursuing women and shouted:

  “Kallis. Mauri Kallis, that’s his name. He was born here, although it’s a long time since he moved away.”

  Then he carried on toward Fred Olsson’s office.

  “What’s Mauri Kallis got to do with anything?” Anna-Maria muttered to Rebecka. “It was a woman we found.”

  All three of them were standing in the doorway of Fred Olsson’s office.

  “Fredde!” puffed the prosecutor. “Mauri Kallis! Didn’t he have a meeting up here with a load of bigwigs in December?”

  “He did,” said Fred Olsson. “Kallis Mining has a company here in town called Northern Explore Ltd., one of the few companies of theirs that’s listed on the stock exchange. A Canadian investment company sold off all their holdings at the end of the year, so there were a lot of changes on the board….”