He felt for the pulse. Not there.
Next, the heartbeat. Nothing.
He shone a light into both eyes, recorded the rectal temperature, palpated the abdomen.
His routine examination did not take very long, ten or fifteen minutes. Opening the body up, the real work, came later and took longer.
Sven had escaped from the stairwell long ago and stood looking down the eternity of blue corridor that ran from the lift area to the ward doors. He remembered the last time he had seen Errfors at work. He had left the room in tears. It was just as tough for him now. He couldn’t cope with death, not like this, not at all.
Errfors changed position, looking quickly from Ewert to Sven and back to Ewert again.
‘He can’t handle it,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Remember last time.’
Ewert called to his colleague.
‘Hey, Sven.’
‘Yes?’
‘The witness statements. I want you to take them now.’
‘We’ve only got Ohrstrom.’
‘That’s fine.’
‘And we’ve already talked to her.’
‘Talk to her again.’
Sven cursed his inability to handle death, but was grateful to Ewert for understanding how he felt. He got up, walked away from the stairs and towards the end of the corridor and opened the door to the ward that Hilding Oldйus had left in terror just hours ago.
Ludwig Errfors watched him go and then concentrated on the corpse lying at his feet; a human life turned into nothing much and soon reduced to a few notes on a form. He cleared his throat and started speaking into a Dictaphone.
‘External examination of a dead male.’
He kept it brief, one set of observations at a time.
‘Pupils dilated.’
Pause.
‘Four fingers broken on left hand. The haematomas indicate that the fractures occurred prior to death.’
A couple of breaths.
‘The left knee appears to be crushed. Oedema indicates that the injury was sustained prior to death.’
He was precise. Considered every word. Grens had asked for an unassailable report and he would get what he wanted.
‘The abdomen is contused in several places and distended. Palpation and percussion indicate the presence of free fluid, possibly due to an intra-abdominal haemorrhage.
‘Several injection punctures of varying age, some infected. Drug addiction is the likely cause.
‘Time of death estimated to be approximately thirty and no more than forty minutes prior to inspection of body. This is supported by a witness statement.’
He carried on talking into the Dictaphone for a minute or two. The autopsy would take place later, when the body had been transferred to the forensic medicine building, but was not likely to change anything significant in his on-site report. He had done enough of those to know that.
Jochum took his hand from Slobodan’s face. The cheeks were marked with red blotches which moved when he spoke.
‘Did I hear you right, Jochum? Someone saw you?’ Slobodan slipped his fingers over the hot spots on his face and sighed. ‘Not so good. If there are witnesses, we’ll have to talk to them.’
‘Not witnesses. Just one witness, a doctor.’
The interminable rain made it difficult to see out. When the warmth of their bodies and their breathing and mutual aggression hit the car windows from the inside, the condensation eliminated what little vision they had had before. Slobodan waved at the windows and pointed to the fan.
Jochum nodded and handed the car key back.
‘I can’t go back in there,’ he said. ‘Not now. That doctor’s still there. And the cops are probably there too, now.’
Slobodan waited in silence, watching the moisture slowly evaporate from the windscreen. Let the fucker stew for a bit. The power balance between them had shifted. Every time it tipped Slobodan’s way, Jochum lost the same amount.
When half the window had cleared, he turned to Jochum.
‘OK. I’ll fix it.’
Jochum hated running up a debt of gratitude, but he had no choice.
‘Lisa Ohrstrom. Thirty to thirty-five. Tallish, about one metre seventy-five, and slim, almost thin. Dark shoulder-length hair. Glasses, narrow with black frames, but she keeps them in the breast pocket of her white coat.’
They had exchanged a few words, so he knew how she spoke.
‘Trace of dialect from somewhere up north. Light voice and a slight lisp.’
Jochum settled back, stretched out his legs and turned the fan off.
He watched in the rear-view mirror as Slobodan passed the automatic doors and disappeared into the entrance hall.
She was singing. As always when she was upset and worried, she sang her song.
She sang it quietly, under her breath, because she couldn’t risk being discovered.
She wondered how long it would take before the unconscious guard came back to life. It had been a hard blow, but he was a big man and might be able to take quite some force. Maybe he had raised the alarm already.
Lydia walked along the brightly lit corridor underneath the big hospital, her mind still full of how it had felt to press the gun to the guard’s temple when he hesitated. She was back in the world of the nine-year-old, in the room where her father was kneeling while the military policeman kept hitting his head and shouting that death was too good for weapon smugglers.
She stopped and checked her notebook.
The Polish nurse had let her have the hospital information booklet she had asked for, and Lydia had studied the maps of the various floors very carefully. Lying in bed, watched by the guard, she had made shaky copies in her notebook and added notes in Lithuanian.
Yes, she was going the right way to the mortuary.
She walked faster, with the carrier bag in her right, functional hand. She walked as fast as she could, but her hip ached and made her limp. The sound of each firm step with her good leg seemed to echo along the corridor and she slowed down again, didn’t want to be heard.
She knew exactly what to do next.
No Dimitri-Bastard-Pimp would ever again order her to undress and let a stranger look her over to decide which part of her naked body he had bought the right to touch.
A few people had passed her, but didn’t seem to see her. She was aware of their eyes clocking her and felt they must know that she was in the wrong place, until she realised that she was invisible, because she looked like every other patient walking along a hospital corridor in her hospital clothes.
That was why she was unprepared.
She had relaxed and she mustn’t.
When she saw who it was, it was too late.
Perhaps it was his way of walking that she noticed first. He was tall and took long strides. His arms had a long
