Park. She's naked and has probably been strangled.'
'Who called?'
'A speed freak. His pal was taking a leak by the fence and spotted her between the bars.'
'Why did they think she had been strangled?'
Annika turned the paper round and read something she had scribbled in a corner of the paper. 'There was no blood, her eyes were wide open, and she had injuries to her neck.'
'That doesn't have to mean that she was strangled, or even murdered,' Berit said, and turned to face the front again.
Annika didn't reply. She turned to look out through the tinted windows of the Saab, seeing the sun worshipers of Ralambshov Park slide past. The glittering waters of Riddarfjard Bay lay before her. She had to squint, despite the UV coating on the windshield. Two windsurfers were heading for Langholmen Island, but slowly. The air barely moved in the heat.
'What a great summer we're having,' Bertil Strand said as he turned into Polhemsgatan. 'You wouldn't have thought it, after the amount of rain we had in the spring.'
'Yeah, I've been lucky,' Berit said. 'I've just had my four weeks' holiday. Sun every single day. You can park just behind the fire station.'
The Saab sped down the last few blocks along Bergsgatan. Before Bertil Strand slowed down, Berit had undone her seat belt; she jumped out of the car before he had even started parking. Annika hurried after her, gasping in the heat that hit her outside the car.
Strand parked the car while Berit and Annika set off alongside a redbrick, fifties building. The narrow asphalt path skirting the park was bordered by high paving stones.
'There's a flight of steps farther on,' Berit said, already out of breath.
Six steps later they were in the park proper. They ran along a path leading up to a well-equipped kids' playground.
On the right were several barrackslike buildings. Annika read the sign Playground as she ran past. There was a sandbox, benches, picnic tables, a jungle gym, several slides, swings, and other things that children could play with and climb on. Three or four mothers with children were in the playground; it looked as if they were packing up to leave. At the far end two police officers in uniform were talking to a fifth mother.
'I think the cemetery is farther down toward Sankt Goransgatan,' Berit said.
'You know your way around here,' Annika said. 'Do you live in the neighborhood?'
'No. It's not the first murder in this park.'
Annika saw that the police officers were each holding a roll of official blue-and-white tape. They were evacuating the playground to cordon it off from the public.
'We're just in time,' she mumbled to herself.
They veered to the right, following a path that took them to the top of a hill.
'Down to the left,' Berit said.
Annika ran ahead. She crossed two paths, and there it was. She saw a row of Stars of David standing out against the deep green foliage.
'I see it!' she yelled over her shoulder, noting out of the corner of her eye that Bertil Strand was catching up with Berit.
The fence was black, made of beautifully rendered wrought iron. Each bar was crowned with a stylized Star of David. She was running on top of her shadow and realized she was approaching the cemetery from the south.
She stopped on the crest of the hill; she had a good view from here. The police hadn't cordoned off this part of the park yet, which they had on the north and west sides.
'Hurry up!' she yelled to Berit and Bertil Strand.
The fence surrounded a small cemetery with dilapidated graves and granite headstones. Annika quickly estimated there were around thirty of them. Nature had virtually taken over; the place looked overgrown and neglected. The enclosure was no more than thirty by forty yards, the fence at the far end no more than five feet high. The entrance was on the west side, facing Kronobergsgatan and Fridhemsplan. She saw a team from their main tabloid rival stop at the cordon. A group of men in plain clothes were inside the cemetery, on the east side. That's where the woman's body lay.
Annika shuddered. She couldn't afford to screw this up, her first proper tip-off.
Just as Berit and Bertil Strand came up behind her, she saw a man open the gates down on Kronobergsgatan. He was carrying a gray tarpaulin. Annika gasped. They hadn't covered her up yet!
'Quick!' she called over her shoulder. 'We might be able to get some pictures from up here.'
A police officer appeared on the hill in front of them. He was unrolling the blue-and-white tape. Annika rushed up to the fence, hearing Bertil Strand jogging heavily behind her. The photographer used the last few yards to wriggle out of the backpack and fish out a Canon and a telephoto lens. The man with the gray tarpaulin was only three yards away when Bertil fired off a sequence of pictures in among the bushes. He moved a yard to the side and fired off another. The officer with the tape yelled something; the men inside the cemetery were made aware of their presence.
'It's in the bag,' Bertil Strand said. 'We've got enough.'
'Hey, you, goddammit!' the officer with the tape called out. 'We're cordoning off this area!'
A man in a flowery Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts came toward them from inside the cemetery.
'That's enough now, guys,' he said.
Annika looked around, not knowing what to do. Bertil Strand was already on his way to the footpath leading down to Sankt Goransgatan. Both the man in front of her and the police officer behind her looked mad. She realized she would have to start to leave soon, or they would make her. Instinctively, she moved sideways to where Strand had taken his first shots.
She peered in between the black iron bars, and there she was, the dead woman. Her eyes were staring into Annika's from a distance of ten feet. They were clouded and gray. Her head was thrown back, the upper arms stretched out above her head; one of her hands seemed to have injuries to it. Her mouth was wide open in a mute cry; the lips were a brownish black. She had a big bruise on the left breast and the lower part of her stomach had a greenish hue.
Annika took in the entire picture, crystal clear, in a moment. The coarseness of the gray stone in the background; the sultry summer vegetation; the shadow play of the foliage; the humidity and the heat; the revolting stench.
Then the tarpaulin made the whole scene gray. They weren't covering the body with it, but the fence.
'Time to move on,' the officer with the tape said, placing a hand on her shoulder.
What a cliche, Annika found herself thinking as she turned around. Her mouth was dry. She noticed that all sounds were coming from a long way off. She moved, as if floating, toward the path where Berit and Bertil Strand were waiting behind the cordon, the photographer with a bored look of disapproval, Berit almost smiling.
The policeman followed her, his shoulder against her back. Annika thought it must be hot in uniform on a day like this.
'Did you manage to get a look?' Berit asked.
Annika nodded and Berit wrote something in her pad.
'Did you ask the detective in the Hawaiian shirt anything?'
Annika shook her head and ducked under the cordon, kindly assisted by the policeman.
'Pity. Did he say anything?'
' 'That's enough now, guys,'' Annika quoted him.
Berit smiled. 'What about you, are you okay?'
Annika nodded. 'Sure, I'm fine. And she could very well have been strangled; her eyes were almost popping out of their sockets. She must have tried to scream before she died- her mouth was wide open.'
'So maybe someone heard her. We could try the neighbors later. Was she Swedish?'
Annika needed to sit down for a moment. 'I forgot to ask…'
Berit smiled again. 'Blond, dark, young, old?'
'Twenty, at most. Long blond hair. Big breasts. Silicone implants, probably, or saline.'
Berit gave her an inquiring look.
Annika dropped down on the grass, legs crossed. 'They were pointing straight up even though she was flat on
