I Will Miss You Tomorrow

by Heine Bakkeid

  I crawl forward until I reach the bag and can empty out the contents on the floor. The air is suddenly filled with a foul stench: the smell of salt sea and wet fabric pushes into my nose and down through my respiratory system. My mobile phone, miraculously, has outlasted its stay in the sea.

  I lean towards the edge of the bed and bring my mobile underneath the quilt. The battery-charging light is flashing, signalling that the phone is about to give out. The first peep I had heard was obviously the alert, because I had received a new text message, and the next had indicated that the phone was about to run out of juice. The message is from Gunnar Ore, and just short enough for me to manage to read it before the mobile switches itself off: ‘Formal interview tomorrow at three o’clock. Chief Interviewer from Kripos on his way.’

  In other words, the police have received the results of the tests they carried out during the crime-scene investigation at the lighthouse. In that case, these must confirm that the blood they found comes from either Bjørkang or his sergeant. That they have already summoned a chief interviewer also means that they have constructed a satisfactory sequence of events, and agreed that now is the strategic moment for further questioning of the suspect.

  I let the phone fall to the floor and turn over on my side with the quilt over my head. ‘Now it starts all over again,’ I murmur to myself. ‘This time they’re going to crucify you if you don’t do something.’

  I am on the verge of closing my eyes when another wave of oxycodone hits the stimulation centre in my brain and pulls me inwards. I throw off the quilt and clamber carefully out of bed and approach the man at the window. The tingling in my hands and toes tells me that my pain receptors are wakening again.

  ‘Hey, you, do you have a phone I can borrow?’

  The man gazes mutely at me for a long time until, in the end, he points to a jacket hanging on the footboard of his bed. I approach and find a mobile phone in one of his jacket pockets. ‘Thanks, it’ll be a short one,’ I assure him, as I bring the phone across to my own bed, and sit down to key in Anniken Moritzen’s number.

  ‘I found him,’ I whisper as soon as she answers. ‘I found Rasmus.’

  ‘Yes,’ she replies in a hollow voice. It sounds as if she is in her office, despite the news. That is if she doesn’t have the same machines grumbling and groaning in the background at home as well. ‘A man phoned this morning. Where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you all day long.’

  ‘Did he give you his name?’

  ‘His name? What do you mean?’

  ‘What was the name of the man who phoned?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Anniken says, hesitating.

  ‘Could it have been Gunnar Ore?’

  ‘No, I think it was Sverdrup or something like that. Maybe Martin. Why do you ask?’

  ‘OK, forget it. It doesn’t matter. What did they tell you?’

  ‘That they had found a man in the sea, and they thought it was my son.’

  ‘What else? Did they say anything else?’

  ‘They asked if Rasmus had been with anyone else while he was there.’

  ‘And had he been?’

  ‘Yes, some of his friends had been there earlier in the autumn, but they left long ago.’

  ‘Did they mention a woman?’

  ‘Yes. They wanted to know if there was a girl among them, or if he had met anybody up there. I told him that he had been alone.’ I can hear Anniken let out a sob at the other end. Her voice is muffled, as if she is holding the handset close to her mouth. ‘What was it that actually happened?’ she finally whispers.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I answer, ‘that I couldn’t do any more.’

  ‘No, wait, Thorkild,’ Anniken sniffles at the other end. I cut her off and click off the phone. There’s nothing I can do for her now. She will have to walk the rest of the road herself. That is the only way. The old man at the window glances at me without moving his head.

  I get to my feet and walk across to his bed. ‘I can’t bring the dead back to life again, can I?’ I say, returning the phone to his jacket pocket. ‘Not me – I have a hard enough job looking after myself.’

  I lie looking up at the ceiling as I try to conjure up the man and woman in the apartment with the high windows. Instead, a bird of prey appears, and shortly after that a hand materialises between us. It grabs hold of me and refuses to let go, no matter how loudly I yell and how hard I fight to free myself.

  I open my eyes and sit up in bed, gasping for air. The man at his post by the window is still sitting on the edge of his bed, gazing dreamily out through the glass. ‘Fuck it,’ I growl, and pull off the quilt. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ I rip off the tape holding the cannula on my hand, yank out the device and ditch it. Then I head for the door.

  I have to know what it was that I found out there.

  CHAPTER 46

  I open the door and peek out into the corridor. My whole body is shaking uncontrollably, the hairs on my arms are bristling, and I can feel the cold from the floor slide like icy fingers up over my bare skin. All I am wearing is a plain hospital nightshirt that buttons down the front.

  To my surprise I find that the mortuary is not situated in the basement of the hospital. On the contrary, it is on level seven, only two floors below where I am now.

  The lift stops, the doors slide open with a rattle and rumble, and I walk towards a door marked ‘A7 Clinical Pathology’. Inside there is another corridor with a reception and duty room. Farther along I see a number of doors on both sides, and I can hear voices and idle laughter from the duty room. Reception is deserted.

  I sneak in and continue on along the corridor until I reach another door marked ‘Post-Mortem Room’ and ‘Mortuary’. Inside I find a changing room with a wardrobe and a shower. On the opposite side, a door leads into the autopsy room itself and the mortuary refrigerator. I can smell the unmistakable odour before I have even opened the door.

  I come to a standstill in front of the wardrobe. Beside it I spot a big shelf for shoes with three pairs of boots on it. I open the wardrobe doors and pick out some green scrubs from inside of it then put them on over my nightshirt. I also pull on a pair of the boots from the shelf in an attempt to fend off the cold from the floor outside, and cross to the door to the autopsy room to open it a crack.

  The room is bright, with white walls and shiny metal equipment. There are saws, bowls, basins, scales, tongs, scissors and knives. In the centre of the room, a group of ten or twelve people are fanned out with their backs to me round one of the autopsy tables.

  I am about to turn away and close the door when I hear a voice behind me: ‘Are you late too?’

  I peer into the face of a young woman with frizzy blonde hair pulled back in a knot. She is standing in the changing room with a camera slung over one shoulder, buttoning her green coat.

  ‘I’m Astrid,’ she says. ‘Police crime technician.’

  ‘H … hi,’ I stammer, clutching the doorframe to have something to hold on to.

  ‘Yep, I’ve got to attend the post-mortem with you lot.’

  ‘Fine,’ I answer, struggling to control my shivers.

  ‘You’re one of the students, aren’t you?’ She approaches after pulling on a pair of boots, and stands in front of me. ‘My goodness, you don’t look too good,’ she says, shaking my hand. ‘Do you think you can cope with this?’

  ‘Apologies,’ I start to explain, ‘I’m really not on top form today.’

  ‘Is it the smell?’

  I give an exaggerated nod, and Astrid leans towards me with one hand on my chest as she whispers: ‘I’m afraid I have to warn you right now. These sea corpses are always the worst.’ She winks conspiratorially and pats me lightly on the shoulder. Then she opens the door to the autopsy room and leads me towards the group standing waiting inside between the metal benches.

  Astrid grabs two hairnets, face masks, gloves and shoe covers from the baskets just inside the door and hands one set to me. She walks on past the students to stand on
the other side of the autopsy table beside the pathologist and the autopsy technician.

  I head over to the huddle of students and take a place at the very back. I have observed a few such post-mortems in the past, the first one when I was just a police trainee. The smell and anticipation of what is taking place is the same: your senses do get used to what is in store, and you have to find the proper distance to stand.

  This time I regret it at once as soon as I catch sight of the black body bag on the autopsy table in front of us. My legs feel numb and the weight in my gut is aching. I notice how profusely I am sweating under the hairnet and on my temples.

  It takes a strenuous effort to stay upright. The sour, bitter smell from the cadaver in the bag fills me with an absurd sensation that I am about to see my own scarred face underneath the zip.

  ‘My God,’ I gasp, bumping into one of the students in front of me. The student shrugs and changes position, something I can at least take as a sign that I am still a human being, and not merely an aimless, ethereal, pain-filled substance.

  ‘Are we all present?’ The pathologist shakes hands with the crime-scene technician before passing a fractious glance over the assembled company. ‘Astrid is from the police. She is here because it is suspected that this may not be a death from natural causes and the police have requested a forensic autopsy of the deceased.’ He scratches his nose with the back of his hand before rounding off: ‘You’ll soon see why.’

  ‘Can I ask a question?’ enquires a tall, skinny lad with a Trøndelag accent.

  ‘By all means,’ the pathologist answers curtly. ‘Ask away. That’s why you’re here.’

  ‘I’ve read that there will soon be robots that can conduct virtual autopsies, and that these will soon replace the traditional—’

  The pathologist raises his hand, tilting his head slightly to one side, as if he finds the question amusing: ‘Look, my dear student.’ He pauses briefly then continues: ‘Smelling, cutting and holding give us medical insight that no machine will ever be able to replace. However, I’m not someone who stands in the way of progress, so who knows?’ He looks across at Astrid, who is now preparing her camera for action. ‘Perhaps you have something to add here?’

  Astrid looks up from her equipment and shakes her head.

  ‘Well,’ the pathologist says, taking hold of the zip on the body bag and starting to tug it down, ‘then we’re off. And remember, if anyone feels unwell, just take a seat or go outside if you wish. The canteen is an excellent place to re-evaluate your career choice, and decide whether you’d rather have a nice tidy office job.’

  The stench hits as soon as he starts to pull on the thick zipper. The plastic creaks, and several of the students sway slightly and start to breathe through their mouths, leaning against one another to keep their balance. The face that comes into view is yellowy and has swollen since the last time I set eyes on it. The skin is thick and doughy, with goose pimples on the cheeks and around the mouth.

  ‘So,’ the pathologist says, once he and the autopsy technician have removed the bag to reveal the prostrate body in front of us on the table. Rasmus Moritzen is wearing a diving suit that has burst in a number of places and is bulging in the stomach area and around the thighs. Anniken was right, after all – he had gone out diving when he disappeared.

  The students are standing totally still, staring at the same thing as me – the torn-off forearm attached with cable ties to Rasmus’s wrist. ‘We’ll come to that later,’ the pathologist comments as the technician uses a showerhead to rinse out the bag. He folds it up and puts it aside on a nearby metal table. ‘What are the two most critical questions we have to ask when it comes to diagnosing a body recovered from the sea?’ The pathologist looks at us while Astrid takes the initial photographs.

  One of the students holds up her hand: ‘Finding out whether the deceased was alive or dead when he ended up in the water.’

  ‘In other words, to see whether drowning is the cause of death. Good. And how do we find the answer to that?’

  ‘By examining the circumstances surrounding the death,’ the student answers. ‘That will tell us when he landed in the water in addition to the discoveries made during the actual autopsy.’

  ‘Clever girl,’ the pathologist replies joylessly before turning to face the crime-scene technician, who has by now finished taking preliminary pictures. ‘Anything you’d like to add, Astrid? From a crime-scene technician’s point of view?’

  ‘We look at the factual and technical evidence, then compare that with the autopsy evidence to see whether they coincide.’

  ‘And what does the investigation say about this case so far?’

  Astrid hangs her camera over her shoulder again. Her lips have a slightly peachy colour that glistens in the powerful ceiling lights. ‘The deceased disappeared last weekend,’ she begins. ‘It was assumed that he had succumbed in a drowning accident. Last night the body was found floating in the sea in a clump of seaweed and flotsam, together with another person who is now in the intensive care unit here at the hospital.’

  ‘Alive after such a long time? How is that possible?’ the pathologist asks.

  ‘No, the corpse was found by someone who had attempted suicide – he claims he jumped into the sea last night. We don’t know yet whether there’s any connection between the two.’

  I take a step back and out of the group of students as I search for something to sit on. My muscle tremors are harder and harder to control, and I feel dizzy, with an insistent pressure at my temples and in my stomach. I draw a stool towards me and am about to sit down when I hear the pathologist’s voice: ‘And then we have this.’

  I take a deep breath and stand up again, this time leaving the white stool beside my legs so that I can sit down again if need dictates. The pathologist’s eyes scan the gathering before stopping at me: ‘As you have probably already worked out, the corpse is tightly tied to a foreign object, using cable ties.’ Cautiously, he picks up the grey-green forearm lying on top of Rasmus Moritzen’s cold body. ‘It looks as if it once belonged to a young woman, and after a rapid visual estimate it appears to have spent a long period in the water.’

  He waves the arm in such a way that the wrist takes on a feminine curve just as Astrid is about to snap a photograph, and then he puts it back in place beside Rasmus on the metal table. ‘A suicide candidate found barely alive, the corpse on the table dead for over a week, and a forearm from an unknown third person who has presumably been in the water for at least a month. Explain that,’ the pathologist demands triumphantly before winking at Astrid, who also pulls a smile.

  ‘Do we know who she is?’ I ask.

  ‘No,’ Astrid replies. ‘The police know of no one reported missing who corresponds with …’ She glances down at the arm for a moment and then looks back at me, ‘the profile.’

  ‘Was the suicide candidate attached to the two others with the same cable ties?’ the lanky boy asks.

  ‘No. They were all found floating in the middle of the fjord on the remains of a quay that the storm had torn loose. If the police had not already had a rescue helicopter in the area searching for the two missing police officers, the attempted suicide would also be lying on the table in front of us.’

  ‘OK, I’ve got it,’ the student says. ‘The suicide candidate jumped into the sea, but found the body and changed his mind.’

  ‘There are some aspects that link the candidate to the deceased,’ Astrid says. ‘But I can’t go into that here.’

  ‘I know,’ gasps a young ginger man in front of me with red and yellow pimples on his neck. ‘The suicide candidate murdered the owner of the arm first, then this guy here, and then dumped them both in the sea.’

  ‘Oh, a murder mystery even before the pathology examination has begun.’ The pathologist sucks in his cheeks. ‘Well, someone will always want to start at that end.’

  I sigh with relief when I finally feel the cold steel of the stool on my fingertips. Letting my body sink down, I bury
my face in my hands as Spotty Neck concludes his idiotic analysis to everyone’s entertainment: ‘He couldn’t live with himself after what he had done, so he jumped into the sea after them.’

  ‘Right, that’s enough fun for now,’ the pathologist breaks in, before addressing Astrid: ‘Anyway, what does the suicide candidate say himself? Do you know?’

  ‘The person in question hasn’t been interviewed yet,’ she answers. I press my fingers into my facial skin and feel the pain receptors in my cheek switch on, one by one, until the heat sets my whole face burning. ‘But as you can see,’ she goes on, ‘he has a bit of explaining to do.’

  ‘OK, students. Enough chatter and chitchat for now.’ The pathologist claps his hands quietly. I take one last deep breath and rise from the stool again as the pathologist leans forward, poised above Rasmus Moritzen’s dead body. ‘Let’s get the autopsy under way.’

  CHAPTER 47

  ‘We’ll start by recording what the deceased is wearing.’ The pathologist hovers over Rasmus Moritzen’s face. ‘In this case it’s simple. The deceased is wearing a dry suit. Without flippers or any other paraphernalia.’

  The suit has tears and gashes from the feet all the way up to the neck. Astrid, the crime-scene technician, takes pictures and writes key words as the post-mortem progresses, while the pathologist measures and examines. At the back of the head, a cluster of pale, lifeless starfish has gathered around an indentation in the skull. The skin there is greyer, almost brown, and the hair is torn off, or scraped away.

  ‘What is it?’ Spotty Neck is pointing at the same indentation in the back of the head.

  The pathologist looks up at him. ‘A head injury,’ he answers sourly, keeping his eyes on the student for several prolonged seconds. ‘We’ll come to that shortly.’ He returns to the injuries on the back. The pathologist confers with his colleague as he works. Once they are satisfied, the body is turned over on to its back again and they set about removing him from the diving suit.