prosecutor was perched on the edge of his desk with a small child on his lap. The boy was tugging happily at the light cord dangling above the desk.
“Look!” exclaimed the prosecutor as Sven-Erik came in. “It’s Uncle Sven-Erik. This is Gustav, Anna-Maria’s boy.”
The last remark was addressed to Sven-Erik with a myopic squint. Gustav had taken his glasses and was hitting the light cord with them so that it swung to and fro.
At the same moment Inspector Anna-Maria Mella came in. She greeted Sven-Erik by raising her eyebrows and allowing the hint of a wry smile to pass fleetingly across her horse face. Just as if they’d seen each other at morning briefing as usual. In fact it had been several months.
He was struck by how small she was. It had happened before when they’d been apart for a while, after holidays for example. It was obvious she’d had time off. She had the kind of deep suntan that wouldn’t fade until well into the dark winter. Her freckles were no longer visible because they were the same color as the rest of her face. Her thick plait was almost white. Up by her hairline she had a row of bites that she’d obviously scratched, little brown dots of dried blood.
They sat down. The chief prosecutor behind his cluttered desk, Anna-Maria and Sven-Erik side by side on his sofa. The chief prosecutor kept it short. The investigation into the murder of Mildred Nilsson had come to a standstill. During the summer it had taken up virtually all the available police resources, but now it had to be given a lower priority.
“That’s just the way it has to be,” he said apologetically to Sven-Erik, who was gazing out of the window with a stubborn expression. “We can’t tip the balance by abandoning other investigations and preliminary examinations. We’ll end up with the ombudsman after us.”
He paused briefly and looked at Gustav, who was removing the contents of the wastepaper basket and arranging his treasures neatly on the floor. An empty snuff tin. A banana skin. An empty box of cough sweets- Lakerol Special. Some screwed up paper. When the basket was empty Gustav pulled off his shoes and threw them down. The prosecutor smiled and went on.
He’d managed to persuade Anna-Maria to come back half-time until she went back up to working full time after Christmas. So the idea was that Sven-Erik should carry on as team leader and Anna-Maria devote her attention to the murder until it was time for her to go full time again.
He pushed his glasses firmly up to the bridge of his nose and scanned the table. He finally found Mildred Nilsson’s file and pushed it over to Anna-Maria and Sven-Erik.
Anna-Maria flicked through the file. Sven-Erik looked over her shoulder. He had a heavy feeling inside. It was as if sorrow filled him when he looked at the pages.
The prosecutor asked him to summarize the investigation.
Sven-Erik worked his fingers through his bushy moustache for a few seconds while he thought things through, then he explained without digressions that the priest Mildred Nilsson had been killed on the night before midsummer’s eve, June 21. She had held a midnight service in Jukkasjarvi church which had finished at quarter to twelve. Eleven people had attended the service. Six of them were tourists staying in the local hotel. They had been dragged out of their beds at around four in the morning and had been interviewed by the police. The other people at the service had all belonged to Mildred Nilsson’s old biddies’ group, Magdalena.
“Old biddies’ group?” asked Anna-Maria, looking up from the file.
“Yes, she had a Bible study group that consisted only of women. They called themselves Magdalena. One of those network things people go in for these days. They’d go to the church where Mildred Nilsson was holding a service. It’s caused bad blood in certain circles. The expression was used both by their critics and by themselves.”
Anna-Maria nodded and looked down at the file again. Her eyes narrowed when she came to the autopsy report and the remarks of the medical examiner, Pohjanen.
“She was certainly smashed up,” she said. “ ‘Impact marks from a blow to the skull… fractured skull… crush damage to the brain at the points of impact… bleeding between the soft tissue of the brain and the hard outer layer…’ ”
She noticed fleeting expressions of distaste on the faces of both the prosecutor and Sven-Erik and carried on looking through the text in silence.
Pointless, uncharacteristic violence, then. Most injuries about three centimeters long, with connective tissue between the edges of the wound. The connective tissue had been shattered. But there was a long wound here: “Left temple straight reddish blue contusion and swelling… the furthest edge of the impression wound is three centimeters below and two centimeters in front of the auditory canal on the left-hand side…”
Impression wound? What did it say about that in the notes? She flicked through the file.
“… the impression wound and the extended wound above the left temple with clear demarcation along its sides would suggest a crowbar-like weapon.”
Sven-Erik continued his narrative:
“After the service the priest got changed in the sacristy, locked the church and walked past the folk museum down to the river where she kept her boat. That’s where she was attacked. The murderer carried the priest back to the church. Unlocked the door and carried her up to the organ loft, put an iron chain around her neck, attached the chain to the organ and hung her from the organ loft.
“She was found not long afterward by one of the churchwardens who had cycled down to the village on an impulse to pick some flowers for the church.”
Anna-Maria glanced at her son. He had discovered the box of papers waiting to be shredded. He was ripping one sheet after another to bits. Sheer bliss.
Anna-Maria read on quickly. A considerable number of fractures to the upper jaw and zygoma. One pupil blown. Left pupil six millimeters, right four millimeters. It was the swelling in the brain that caused it. “Upper lip extremely swollen. Right-hand side discolored, bluish purple, incision shows heavy bleeding, blackish red…” God! All teeth in upper jaw knocked out. “Considerable amount of blood and blood clots in the mouth cavity. Two socks pushed into the mouth and rammed against the back of the throat.
“Nearly all the blows directed just at the head,” she said.
“Two chest wounds,” said Sven-Erik.
“ ‘Crowbar-like object.’ ”
“Presumably a crowbar.”
“Extended wound left temple. Do you think that was the first blow?”
“Yes. So we can assume he’s right-handed.”
“Or she.”
“Yes. But the murderer carried her a fair way. From the river to the church.”
“How do we know he carried her? Maybe he put her in a wheelbarrow or something.”
“Well, there’s knowing and knowing, you know what Pohjanen’s like. But he pointed out which way her blood had flowed. First of all it flowed downward toward her back.”
“So she was lying on the ground on her back.”
“Yes. The technicians found the spot in the end. Just a little way from the shore where she kept her boat. She took the boat across sometimes. She lived on the other side. In Poikkijarvi. Her shoes were on the shore too, just by the boat.”
“What else? About the bleeding, I mean.”
“Then there are lesser bleeds from the injuries to her face and head, running down toward the crown of the head.”
“Okay,” said Anna-Maria. “The murderer carried her over his shoulder with her head hanging down.”
“That could explain it. And it isn’t exactly gymnastics for housewives.”
“I could carry her,” said Anna-Maria. “And hang her from the organ. She was quite small, after all.”
Especially if I was kind of… beside myself with rage, she thought.
Sven-Erik went on:
“The final signs of bleeding run toward the feet.”
“When she was hung up.”
Sven-Erik nodded.
“So she wasn’t dead at that point?”
