foam, as if she had vomited. He bent down and blew on it; it didn't move. Her face was only a few centimetres from the water. He placed two fingers over her carotid artery. The skin had lost all elasticity, and felt as cold as he had expected.
'Gone,' he said.
On her earlobes and on the side of her neck he found some faint reddish-purple marks. The skin on her legs was goosebumped but undamaged. He went back the same way. Skarre stood waiting with his hands in his pockets looking a little puzzled. He was terrified of making a mistake.
'Totally naked under her jacket. No visible external injuries. I should say about 18 to 20 years old.'
Then he telephoned Headquarters and requested an ambulance, forensics, photographer and technicians. Explained the route that went up from the back side of Kollen and was accessible by car. He asked them to park some way off so as not to disturb any tyre tracks. When he'd finished he looked round for something to sit on, choosing the flattest stone. Skarre sank down next to him. They stared silently at her white legs and blonde hair, which was straight and shoulder-length. She lay almost in a foetal position. Her arms were folded over her breasts, her knees drawn up. The wind-breaker lay loosely over her torso and reached to mid-thigh. It was clean and dry. The rest of her clothes were piled in a heap behind her and were wet and soiled. A pair of dungarees with belt, a blue-and-white checked blouse, brassiere, dark blue high-school pullover. Reebok trainers.
'What's that above her mouth?' muttered Skarre.
'Foam.'
'But… foam? What would that come from?'
'I suspect we'll find out soon enough.' Sejer shook his head. 'Looks like she lay down to go to sleep. With her back to the world.'
'People don't undress to commit suicide, do they?'
Sejer didn't reply. He looked at her again, at the white body by the black water, surrounded by dark spruce trees. The scene had nothing of violence in it; in fact, it looked peaceful. They settled in to wait.
Six men came tramping out of the woods. Their voices died out except for a few faint coughs when they caught sight of the men by the water. A second later they saw the dead woman. Sejer stood up and gestured.
'Stay on that side!' he shouted.
They did as he ordered. They all recognised his grey shock of hair. One of them measured the terrain with a practised eye, trod a bit on the ground, which was relatively solid where he stood, and muttered something about a lack of rain. The photographer went first. He didn't spend much time by the body, but instead looked at the sky, as if he wanted to check the light conditions.
'Take pictures from both sides,' Sejer said, 'and get the vegetation in the shot. I'm afraid you'll have to go out in the water after that, because I need pictures from the front without moving her. When you've used up half the roll, we'll take off her jacket.'
'Mountain lakes like this are usually bottomless,' he said sceptically.
'You can swim, can't you?'
There was a pause.
'There's a rowboat over there. We can use that.'
'A dinghy? It looks rotten.'
'We'll soon know,' Sejer said, brusquely.
While the photographer was working, the others stood still and waited. One of the technicians was already working further up the shore, searching through the area, which proved to be quite free of litter. This was an idyllic spot, and in such places there was usually bottle caps, used condoms, cigarette butts, and sweet wrappers. Here they found nothing.
'Unbelievable,' he said. 'Not so much as a burnt match.'
'He probably cleaned up after himself,' Sejer said.
'It looks like a suicide, don't you think?'
'She's stark naked,' he replied.
'Yes, but she must have done that herself. Those clothes were not pulled off by force, that's one thing for certain.'
'They're dirty.'
'Maybe that's why she took them off,' he smiled. 'Besides, she threw up. Must have eaten something she couldn't digest.'
Sejer bit back a reply and looked at her. He could understand how the technician had come to that conclusion. It really did look as if she had lain down herself; her clothes were piled carefully next to her, not thrown about. They were muddy but seemed undamaged. Only the jacket that covered her torso was dry and clean. He stared at the mud and dirt and caught sight of something that looked like a shoe print. 'Look at that,' he said to the technician.
The man squatted down in his coveralls and measured all the prints several times.
'This is hopeless. They're filled with water.'
'Can't you use any of them?'
'Probably not.'
They squinted into the water-filled ovals.
'Take pictures anyway. I think they look small. Maybe a person with small feet.'
'Roughly 27 centimetres. Not a big foot. Could be hers.' The photographer took several shots of the footprints, then got into the old rowboat and sloshed around. They had found no oars, so he had to keep paddling into position with his hands. Every time he moved, the boat tilted alarmingly.
'It's leaking!' he shouted anxiously.
'Relax, we've got a whole rescue team here!' Sejer said.
When the photographer was done, he had taken more than 50 photos. Sejer went down to the water, took off his shoes and socks and placed them on a rock, rolled up his trousers and waded out. He stood a metre from her head. She had a pendant around her neck. He fished it out carefully with a pen he took from his inside pocket. 'A medallion,' he said in a low voice. 'Probably silver. There's something on it. An H and an M. Get a bag ready.'
He bent over and loosened the chain, then he removed the jacket.
'The back of her neck is red,' he said. 'Unusually pale skin all over, but extremely red on the back of her neck. An ugly blotch, as big as a hand.'
Snorrason, the medical examiner, waded out in his gumboots and inspected in turn the eyeballs, the teeth, the nails. Noticed the flawless skin and the light red marks – there were several of them – scattered seemingly at random across her neck and chest. He noticed every detail: the long legs, the lack of birthmarks, which was uncommon, and found nothing more than a few small spots on her right shoulder. He cautiously touched the foam above her mouth with a wooden spatula. It seemed solid and dense, almost like a mousse.
Sejer nodded to her mouth. 'What's that?'
'Right off I would think it's a fluid from the lungs, containing protein.'
'Which means?'
'Drowning. But it could mean other things.'
He scraped away some of the foam, and soon new foam began oozing out.
'The lungs are collapsed,' he said.
Sejer pressed his lips tight as he watched. The photographer took more pictures of her, now without the jacket.
'Time to break the seal,' Snorrason said, rolling her carefully on to her stomach. 'A slight incipient rigor mortis, especially in the neck. A big, well-built woman in healthy condition. Broad shoulders. Good musculature in upper arms and thighs and calves. Probably played sports.'
'Do you see any sign of violence?' Sejer asked.
Snorrason inspected her back and the backs of her legs. 'Apart from the reddening of the neck, no. Someone may have grabbed her hard by the back of the neck and pushed her to the ground. Obviously while she was still clothed. Then she was pulled up again, carefully undressed, laid in place, and covered with the jacket.'
'Any sign of sexual assault?'
'Don't know yet.'
He proceeded to take her temperature, quite unperturbed, in the presence of everyone, and then squinted at
