Where Ravens Roost

by Karin Nordin

  ‘I’m taking Dad home,’ Sara said.

  Stenar looked over at Kjeld. His eyelids were drooping and his lips turned downward in a heavy frown. He looked like a man asleep on his feet and Kjeld surprised himself by the sudden sense of worry that his father might fall over.

  Sara wrapped her own scarf around Stenar’s neck and tied it in a knot near his throat so it wouldn’t fall off. When she looked away to get her car keys out of her purse, Stenar began to pull at the scarf.

  ‘I’ll be along in a bit,’ Kjeld said. He wanted to catch the attorney before he left and ask some of his own questions.

  ‘Don’t be too long. I have to pick up Tom in a few hours.’ She sighed when she realised Stenar had undone the scarf. ‘Come on, Dad. It’s cold outside.’

  ‘Aren’t you coming?’ Stenar asked, his tired expression fixed on Kjeld as Sara retied the scarf.

  ‘I’ll meet you at the house, Dad.’

  Sara walked Stenar to the exit. When she held the door open for their father she glanced back at Kjeld. ‘Maybe you can pick up some groceries on your way home. If you’re going to stick around, the least you could do is help with the day-to-days.’

  Then they left.

  A wave of relief washed over him as Kjeld found himself alone with his own thoughts for the first time since he showed up on the front steps of his father’s home. He’d forgotten how mentally exhausting Varsund was. Even without his father’s illness, the act of juggling family, old friends, and small-town life was enough to drive him crazy. Adding an unexpected crime scene to the mess just tipped it over the edge.

  It seemed Kjeld couldn’t do anything right. Even the right thing, in this case the decision to help uncover the mystery his dad could no longer remember, turned out to be the wrong thing.

  The attorney shuffled past him.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Kjeld said, catching the shorter man by the shoulder.

  Erik turned and looked up at Kjeld. His eyes were sullen and chronically hyperthyroid. The reflection from the fluorescent ceiling lights beamed off his bald head, reminding Kjeld of a bowling ball after getting a fresh wax. The man didn’t say anything. He just stared at Kjeld with his protruding eyes and waited for him to say more.

  ‘My name is Kjeld Nygaard. I’m the one who called your office,’ Kjeld said. ‘Stenar is my father.’

  An uncomfortable pause on Erik’s part followed. ‘Really?’ Erik replied, furrowing his brows and eyeing Kjeld more keenly than before.

  That struck Kjeld as an odd reply, but he continued without comment. ‘I was hoping you could update me on how the interview went.’

  Erik pursed his lips and shifted his weight from one leg to the other. ‘Do you have legal power of attorney with regards to your father’s health?’

  Kjeld hesitated. ‘Uhm, I’m not sure. Probably not. My sister does most everything. I don’t live around here anymore.’

  ‘Legally I’m not supposed to consult with anyone outside of my client and his healthcare power of attorney,’ Erik began. Kjeld could sense an unspoken “but” in there, but the word never fell from the lawyer’s lips. His expression did falter, however, and Kjeld could see that the man was struggling with a decision.

  ‘If it helps, I’m a detective inspector from Gothenburg. I was with my father when he found the body. In fact, he called me last week about having witnessed a murder. That’s why I came up here. To see if there was any truth to what he said.’ Surely that warranted some information. This was his father, after all.

  ‘And did he tell you whose murder he witnessed?’ Erik asked.

  Kjeld could feel himself growing more and more impatient with the way the attorney was avoiding his questions. He was hitting one dead end after another. First with his father, then with Gunnar, and now some hotshot lawyer who Kjeld knew nothing about. And the fact that Norberg refused to answer even the simplest of his questions was enough to make him lose his cool again. This time, however, he managed to temper himself.

  ‘Not yet.’ Kjeld paused. ‘But I believe he was there. I believe him when he says he saw something.’

  ‘From what I understand a forensic team is still collecting evidence from the grave site. The body has been sent temporarily to the local morgue. There’s a pathologist working on the preliminary findings as we speak, but I suggested to the interviewer that they might want to have it transferred to a larger facility. Some place more familiar with these kinds of discoveries.’ A single tear dripped down Erik’s face and he took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the corner of his left eye. ‘My apologies. My eyes swell in this weather.’

  ‘Is there something wrong with having the body analysed locally?’

  ‘As I’m sure you’re aware, Herr Nygaard, this is a tight-knit community. Word travels fast. And in an effort to protect your father who, whether directly or indirectly involved in the scene in his barn, may come under police scrutiny, I think it best that the remains are processed by people unfamiliar with the town. Everyone knows everyone here, after all.’

  ‘I don’t know you,’ Kjeld said.

  Erik slipped the handkerchief back into his pocket. ‘I don’t live in Varsund. Thank God. I only come up here when business demands it.’

  ‘Business?’

  ‘I have other clients in the area.’

  ‘I see,’ Kjeld said. ‘Well, I appreciate you coming out here. I admit that I was a little surprised to find the name of a lawyer in his records. I didn’t think he’d ever needed one.’

  Erik smiled. The action was forced and it looked unnatural on his face. ‘People rarely like to admit having need of an attorney.’

  ‘That I can understand.’ Kjeld despised talking to his own lawyer even more than his ex. Not just because there were so many similarities between the two. ‘How can I go about paying you for your time?’

  Erik shook his head. ‘No need.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you work pro bono.’

  ‘I have an agreement with your father that dates back a few years. There won’t be a charge for my services.’

  Now it was Kjeld’s turn to stare. ‘An agreement?’

  ‘There’s really no cause for concern, Herr Nygaard. Besides, I understand the strain that your father’s illness must be having on your family. I wouldn’t want to burden you even further by adding an unnecessary expense to your situation. I’m happy to help out free of charge.’

  There was something insincere in the man’s voice. Kjeld didn’t trust anything that was free.

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ Kjeld said. ‘I’m happy to pay. I want to be sure that my father is getting the best advice there is. I’d feel more comfortable paying. If you’ll just send me an invoice—’

  ‘There isn’t any advice better than what I’m offering you right now,’ Erik interrupted.

  Something changed in the lawyer’s expression. He was clearly annoyed, but there was something else in his look. An uncanny fear in his eyes, not unlike what Kjeld was used to seeing across the table in police interview rooms. The fear that someone might find something else. The fear that forced someone to lie.

  ‘And what advice is that?’ Kjeld asked.

  ‘To let me do my job.’

  ‘For nothing in return? Without payment?’

  Erik shook his head, but Kjeld suspected it was more in frustration than disagreement.

  ‘You couldn’t afford me anyway.’

  Kjeld didn’t think Erik meant to be callous or disingenuous, but it was hard not to feel like the man was mocking him in some way. ‘What can I do then?’

  Erik dabbed at his eye again. ‘You can find out whose body that was in your dad’s barn and who put them there.’

  Chapter 19

  The last time Kjeld visited the Varsund Kommun morgue was when his mother died. It had been warmer that day, the snow long since melted into the rainy months of spring, but in his memory it had been chilly. He remembered standing behind the window, alone, while the local doctor who’d been Kjeld’s p
aediatrician growing up tried to convince him to hold off until the funeral home had prepared her. Kjeld couldn’t wait. He had to see her.

  Some people say the dead look like they’re sleeping, but that had never been Kjeld’s perception. Every time he’d seen a cadaver, whether it was his mother’s in Varsund or an unknown victim of some heinous crime in Gothenburg, he saw death as it actually was. Impermeable. Changeless. Forever. Perhaps his mind lacked the imagination to trick itself into believing the bodies lying on those cold metallic tables were in a temporary state of unconsciousness. Or perhaps he needed to cling to that permanence of death in order to appreciate life. Regardless, he could never convince himself that the dead looked like they were sleeping.

  To him that was more of a nightmare than a dream.

  It was Erik Norberg who had, unconsciously or not, planted the idea of attending the pathological examination in Kjeld’s mind. If he could get a head start on discovering whose body they’d found then perhaps he could use that to jog his father’s memory. Kjeld knew it was a long shot getting into the morgue. Varsund was such a small town that most people were keenly aware of who was allowed to do what. But he couldn’t rely on Gunnar to keep him in the loop. And Kjeld needed to understand what his father was unable to tell him. Which was why he did the one thing he knew would get him some answers.

  He used his police ID to lie to the pathologist on duty.

  ‘I’ve just finished my initial assessment,’ Helen Akerman said, jotting down a few notes on a clipboard before setting it aside and dropping her pen in a stainless-steel kidney dish.

  Helen, like many highly educated professionals working in Varsund, wasn’t a native of the town and for that Kjeld was grateful. It saved him that cramping sensation of claustrophobia he experienced whenever he was in town, knowing people were watching him and whispering behind his back. There goes Kjeld Nygaard, he imagined them saying. The boy who left his hometown roots for the big-city life. The man who didn’t stick around to care for his family. The detective who befriended a serial killer.

  Helen pressed a button on her phone’s playlist. It skipped over to a new song. The Yardbirds began their chant-like opening to “Still I’m Sad”, but the small speakers emitted a tone that was too top heavy. Without the bass the harmony was tinny. A discordant whine.

  ‘I’ve been stuck in a oldies-but-goodies phase for the last three months,’ she said without encouragement. ‘Can’t get enough British psychedelia. Much to my family’s dismay, of course. But it helps me focus. Keeps me in the moment. And this fellow’s not complaining.’

  She gave the partly decomposed remains of the body on the slab a tap on the shoulder. Or what was left of it.

  ‘Beatnik?’

  Kjeld canted his head to the side. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Are you into classic rock?’

  ‘Oh.’ Kjeld shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. The room was cool and his fingers felt stiff. ‘Sure, but I think my tastes are a little more mainstream.’

  ‘Beatles or Stones?’

  ‘Late Beatles. Early Stones.’

  ‘Lennon or McCartney?’

  ‘Harrison.’

  Helen’s attention perked. ‘Interesting.’

  Kjeld stepped closer to the edge of the table. The lack of smell was what struck him first. He was too accustomed to fresh bodies. Recent killings. There was no odour of death here. Only a whiff of earth and dirt. Not unlike the smell of clothes that had been tucked away in the back of a dark closet for too long. ‘What can you tell me about the body?’

  ‘Aside from the fact that he looked like he was a real hand jiver back in the day?’ She stepped around Kjeld to the top of the table where there was a better view of the skull.

  Helen ran down the basics, some of which Kjeld had already reasoned. The body was that of an older male. Somewhere in the range of fifty to seventy years of age. The clothing found among the remains had been removed upon arrival and placed in plastic bags on the counter to be sent back to the police for further analysis. Helen had discovered some blood on the shirt, but little else. Normally a pathological examination would expect to find minimal to no traces of skin, but the temperature of the ground had been cool enough that there were still some patches of leathered dermis along the arms and chest cavity. The organs had long since liquefied into the dirt and the face had been eaten by all manner of insects. Not the normal blowflies one would expect in a body left above ground, but those few six-legged subterranean dwellers who took whatever sort of nutrition nature provided for them. Dead or otherwise, it didn’t matter. All in all, a nicely preserved human specimen. Of course, it would have made everyone’s job easier if the body came with a wallet.

  ‘How long was he underground?’ Kjeld asked.

  ‘Difficult to say without more invasive testing. The conditions of the burial site and the temperature of the ground have preserved him better than if he’d been left out in the open or buried outside of a structure where the weather could have done more damage. But my educated guess would be at least a few years. Maybe longer. I’ll have to send in some samples for testing. That will give us a more accurate indication.’

  ‘No indication then of who he was?’

  Helen shook her head.

  ‘A driver’s licence with the victim’s name and birthdate would have been the cherry on the cake. But that would be too much to ask for,’ Helen said. ‘And it makes your job less exciting, too, I imagine.’

  ‘Discovering a body is exciting enough,’ Kjeld replied drily.

  ‘Really? I always thought investigators lived off the thrill of a challenging puzzle.’ Helen shrugged. ‘Then again I see bodies every day. Guess you could say I’m a little numb to them by this point.’

  Kjeld couldn’t argue. He was numb to them as well.

  ‘Anything else you can tell me that might help?’

  ‘He has a relatively intact dental set. Aside from one of the molars on the bottom right which is missing he has good-looking teeth. Definitely someone who took pride in their biannual checkup with the dentist. Which reminds me that I need to make an appointment for my kids. My boy’s already had two cavities this year. And God knows I could have saved myself some trouble if I’d flossed more. No more Lördagsgodis for us.’ Helen’s face reddened. ‘Sorry, I don’t get to talk to people very often. Well, not to someone who talks back anyway!’

  Helen picked up her pen and made a note in her autopsy report about the missing second molar.

  ‘So … older male who took good care of his teeth?’ Kjeld was hoping for something more. ‘Do you think we can rule out lower socioeconomic background?’

  Helen shook her pen at him. ‘I don’t like to make those kinds of assumptions. Some people just have really good luck when it comes to genetics. Maybe he won the good teeth lottery. If you’re asking if he was fit with an expensive bridge or had veneers, then no. But, like I said, he didn’t need them.’

  She clicked her tongue against the back of her front teeth. ‘I’ll be transferring the body to the lab in Östersund. They shouldn’t have any trouble finding a dental match. All you have to do is file a subpoena for medical records.’

  Which would be simple if Kjeld was in Gothenburg. If he knew who the victim was. And if the body hadn’t been found on his father’s property.

  ‘There’s also an old leg injury.’

  ‘How old?’ Kjeld asked, hoping that might be something he could uncover without lying to another doctor.

  ‘Long before whoever did this to him. Early adulthood, I would surmise. You can see the residual fracture in the left tibia where it never fully healed.’

  The last song ended and was quickly followed by the fuzzy echo and reverb sounds of Pink Floyd’s “See Emily Play”. Kjeld knew the song, but only liked the piano bridge and the awkward way Syd Barrett’s voice faded out at the end hitting an almost dissonant tone. And it was during that dissonance that he noticed something on the back of the skull.

  ‘What’s th
at?’ he asked.

  Helen leaned forward, cradling the skull between her gloved hands, and ran a thumb over a long crack near the base of the parietal bone. When she turned the skull completely over Kjeld could clearly see a fragment missing from the occipital plate.

  ‘Hm? Oh, penetrating trauma,’ she said. ‘Something sharp entered the left side of the skull and dug directly into the brain.’

  ‘Is that the cause of death?’ Kjeld peered over her shoulder to get a better look.

  Helen gave him a dry stare. ‘It was a sharp object jabbed into his brain.’

  ‘Any idea what it could have been?’

  ‘Hard to say. But whatever it was, it hurt.’ Helen sighed, her expression more disappointment than sorrow. ‘All that money on a set of straight bicuspids. What a waste.’

  Chapter 20

  Kjeld thought about calling Hanna after he left the morgue to see how she was doing, but realised after the fact that he didn’t have her phone number. His wry and often unkind inner voice told him that was the consequence of following a drunken one-night stand with a rotting cadaver. That was no way to impress a woman.

  Before getting on the road that led back to his father’s house, Kjeld stopped at the ICA supermarket in Varsund’s city centre. He barely made it through the produce department before he realised that people were staring at him and he cursed his decision not to drive to the Coop thirty minutes away just to avoid their accusatory glares. Word travelled fast. Not just about his situation in Gothenburg, but about the discovery in his father’s barn. While he was in the dairy aisle trying to remember if his father had any milk at home, he overheard an elderly couple behind him whispering about a murder.

  He left without buying anything.

  Instead he stopped at an OKQ8 petrol station with an attached kebab shop instead. He ordered two pizzas, one with tuna and shrimp and one with mushrooms, from the boy behind the counter and then walked next door to the service station shop for cigarettes, two bottles of Coca-Cola – which told him to share a Coke with Matthias and Emily – and a bag of salty salmiak liquorice. At the register he added a last-minute pack of spearmint gum and a Bounty chocolate bar to the purchase.