And…’ He paused for effect. ‘I’d guess that it was some kind of fish knife,’ Pedersen said with satisfaction.
‘How can you tell?’ asked Patrik. ‘There must be a million different kinds of knives.’
‘You’re right. And I can’t prove that it was an actual fish knife. But I do know that it was a knife that had been used to clean fish.’
‘Okay, but how do you know that?’ Patrik was feeling impatient, and he wished that Pedersen wasn’t so fond of injecting drama into his report. The medical examiner already had his full attention.
‘I found fish scales,’ said Pedersen.
‘You did? But how could they still be inside the body after it was in the water so long?’ Patrik could feel his pulse quicken. He wanted so badly to hear something, anything at all, that would give them a lead so they’d know what direction to take.
‘Probably a lot did disappear in the water. But I found several scales embedded deep in the wounds. I’ve sent them to the lab to see if the type of fish can be determined. I hope that might be useful to you.’
‘It’s possible,’ said Patrik, although he thought the information was basically unimportant. This was Fjallbacka, after all. A community in which fish scales were a regular part of daily life.
‘Anything more about Kjellner?’
‘Not really.’ Pedersen sounded a bit disappointed that Patrik wasn’t more enthusiastic about his find. ‘He was stabbed to death and presumably died instantly. He seems to have bled a great deal. The crime scene must have looked like a slaughterhouse.’
‘Was his body tossed into the water right afterwards?’
‘Impossible to know,’ replied Pedersen. ‘The only thing I can tell you is that he’d been in the water a long time, and it seems most likely that his body was dumped there soon after he died. But that’s based more on how the killer would most likely react, and not on any scientific evidence. So it’ll be hard to prove. I’ll fax over my report, as usual.’
‘What about Lisbet? What did you decide about her?’
‘She died of natural causes.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I performed a very meticulous post-mortem on her body.’ Now Pedersen sounded insulted.
‘So you’re saying that she wasn’t murdered?’
‘That’s correct,’ replied Pedersen, still a bit miffed. ‘To be quite honest, it was a small miracle that she lived as long as she did. The cancer had spread to all the vital organs in her body. Lisbet Bengtsson was a very sick woman. She simply passed away in her sleep.’
‘So Kenneth was wrong,’ Patrik murmured to himself.
‘What did you say?’
‘It’s nothing. I was just thinking out loud. Thanks for giving our case priority. We need all the help we can get at the moment.’
‘It’s that bad?’ asked Pedersen.
‘Yes, it really is that bad.’
He and Alice had something in common. They both loved summertime. In his case, it was because he was out of school and free from his tormenters. For Alice, it was because she could go swimming in the sea. She spent every possible minute in the water. Swimming back and forth and tumbling about. All the awkwardness that her body displayed on land instantly disappeared as soon as she slipped into the water. There she could move about unhindered and with ease.
Mother would sit and watch her for hours, clapping her hands at her daughter’s tricks in the water and encouraging her to practise her swimming. She called Alice her mermaid.
But Alice didn’t care much about her mother’s enthusiasm. Instead, she would look towards him and call:
‘Watch this!’ Then she would dive off the rocks, and when she resurfaced, she would smile.
‘Did you see that? Did you see what I did?’ she’d ask eagerly, giving him that hungry look of hers. But he never answered. Just glanced up for a moment from the book he was reading as he sat on a towel that he’d spread out on the flat rocks. He didn’t know what she wanted from him.
Mother used to reply in his stead, after first casting an annoyed and astonished look in his direction. She didn’t understand it. She was the one who gave all her time and love to Alice.
‘I saw it, sweetie! That was wonderful!’ she would shout. But it was as if Alice didn’t hear her mother’s voice. Then she would call to him again:
‘Watch me now! Watch what I can do!’ And she would start swimming the crawl, heading towards the horizon. The movement of her arms was perfectly coordinated and rhythmic.
Mother would stand up, looking nervous. ‘Alice, sweetie, don’t go any farther than that.’ She held up one hand to shade her eyes.
‘She’s swimming too far out. Go get her!’
He tried to be like Alice and pretend that he hadn’t heard. Slowly he turned the page, focusing on the words, the black type on the white paper. Then he felt a burning pain on his scalp. Mother had taken a firm grip on his hair and was pulling as hard as she could. He sprang to his feet, and she let go.
‘Go get your sister. Move that fat arse of yours and make sure she swims back to shore.’
For a moment he remembered her hand holding his that time when they went swimming together – the way she had let go, and he had been dragged under. Ever since that day, he hadn’t liked to swim. There was something terrifying about the water. There were things below the surface that he couldn’t see, and didn’t trust.
Mamma grabbed hold of the roll of fat around his waist and squeezed hard.
‘Go get her. Now. Otherwise I’ll leave you here when we go home.’ The tone of her voice gave him no choice. He knew that she meant it. If he didn’t do as she said, she really would leave him here on this island.
With his heart pounding, he headed for the water. It took all his willpower to make his feet move forward and then jump in. He didn’t dare dive in head first, like Alice; he simply dropped feet first into the blue and the green. He got water in his eyes and had to blink so he could see again. He felt panic coming over him. His breathing was fast and shallow. He squinted. Far away, moving towards the sun, was Alice. Clumsily he started swimming in her direction. He could feel his mother watching, standing on the rocks behind him with her hands on her hips.
He couldn’t swim the crawl. His strokes were uneven and choppy. But he kept moving forward, the whole time aware of the depths beneath him. The sun dazzled his eyes, and he could no longer see Alice. He saw only the white, blinding light that brought tears to his eyes. All he wanted to do was turn around, but he couldn’t. He had to reach Alice and make her go back to Mother. Because Mother loved Alice, and he loved Mother. In spite of everything, he loved her.
Suddenly he felt something around his neck. Something holding on hard, pulling his head underwater. Now panic really set in, and he flailed his arms, trying to escape and get back up to the surface. Then the pressure around his neck was gone as swiftly as it had appeared, and he gasped for breath as he felt the air on his face.
‘It’s just me, stupid.’
Alice was treading water without any effort at all, looking at him with those bright eyes of hers. The dark hair that she’d inherited from Mother gleamed in the sun, and salt water glittered on her lashes.
He saw those eyes again. The eyes staring up at him from under the water. The body was limp and lifeless, not moving, just resting on the bottom of the bathtub. He shook his head, not wanting to see those
