set in more quickly.”
“Right.”
“But I’m trying to factor that in.”
Winter looked at the dead woman’s face once again. It had an oval shape, rounded off. The eyes were set wide apart; the mouth was large. Her long hair looked unkempt, but Winter wasn’t sure. That sort of thing could have to do with the victim’s age, maybe with her style.
“She’s got nothing on her,” Beier said, standing next to Winter. “There’s nothing there. No papers or ID, nothing.”
Winter blinked at the technicians’ flashbulbs. They were almost finished with the crime scene photographs. Photography of the naked body would begin at the autopsy. Then the professionals in the lab would take over, meticulously photographing each piece of clothing, each finger.
Another flash went off down in the ditch, and Winter was surprised that the flashbulbs were so intense in the daylight.
“I think she was moved here,” Froberg said. “The body hasn’t been lying here for very long.”
Winter nodded. It was pointless to ask any more questions right now. For the moment, they would assume that the woman died somewhere else and was brought to this place. Someone had been moving around here.
She was unidentified. It was no accident that she didn’t have any ID. Winter knew that, felt it. There was a reason why she had no name-that, by itself, was a ghastly message. They would have to spend a long time searching for a name. He felt cold again, a chill through his head.
“What’s that marking over there on the pine tree?” he asked Beier.
“I don’t know.”
“Is it from the forestry service?”
“I don’t know, but somebody’s painted something on the bark there.”
“Is it red paint?”
“It looks like it. But the light-”
“There’s something written there. What does it say?” Winter asked, but the question was really directed to himself.
“We’ll take a sample,” Beier said.
“I’ll check with the timber company or the municipality or whoever it is that manages the forests around here,” Winter said. “Can I continue along the path?”
Beier looked at one of his technicians. “Walk in the middle of it,” he said.
Winter continued along the water’s edge. The ditch on the left came to an end a few yards farther on. He passed several pine trees, but none of them had any markings, so far as he could tell. There’s a meaning behind it, he thought.
I don’t like murderers that paint on walls, or trees.
Winter looked out over the water. He saw no movement and couldn’t hear seabirds anymore. Weren’t there sports fishermen operating around here at all hours of the day and night? Someone who rowed past? Had the murderer come here by boat, disposed of his victim, and slipped away again?
“Check the entire length of the shoreline,” he said when he got back to the dump site. “She might have come by boat.”
Beier nodded. “You could be right.”
Winter continued back to the parking lot. Attached to the far fence was a sign from the Sportfishing Association of Gothenburg and Bohuslan, stating that fishing in Big Delsjo Lake required a yellow fishing license. They would have to check everyone with that license.
After two hours the officers from the crime scene unit were finished with the preliminary processing. It was still early in the morning. The technicians covered all the surfaces of the body with clear tape and waited for the undertakers, who laid the body in a plastic bag on a gurney and drove it to the pathologist at Ostra Hospital.
The woman’s body now lay on a stainless steel slab. The lights in the autopsy room replaced the morning light that had shone in Winter’s eyes as he drove behind the hearse.
In here, under the spotlight, death was definitive; the woman died a second time. She still belonged to the world while she was lying out there in that damn ditch, thought Winter, but now it’s over. Her face was glowing with an obscene light and her skin looked taut and translucent.
Pia Erikson Froberg and the two technicians, Jonas Wall and Bengt Sundlof, began undressing the body. The tape was in place, securing any trace evidence of a possible murderer: hair, fibers from close contact, skin, dust, rocks.
When the body was naked, Froberg began the autopsy, the external examination. The technicians took photographs while Froberg spoke into a tape recorder, detailing all the visible injuries. Winter heard her describe the defensive wounds he could see on the body’s forearms. He could see the petechial hemorrhaging that occurred when the woman’s blood pressure shot up and the airways from her head were constricted and the hyoid bone fractured as she was strangled to death. If that was the cause of death. Froberg spoke about the injuries sustained around the neck. The woman had worn a turtleneck sweater. Underneath it, around her throat, there were clear signs of bruising.
She had white spots on her stomach and chest and on the front of her thighs. She had been lying on her back when she was found. That confirmed that she had been moved after she was killed. Winter didn’t believe this to be a case of suicide, with someone else moving the body afterward. But why not? It was a possibility.
What was certain was that she had died and then lain facedown for at least an hour, and as her circulation ceased, her blood gravitated to the lowest point in her body, and the blood vessels collapsed, and the body surfaces in contact with the ground turned white and still remained so, there beneath the lights.
The technicians took the victim’s fingerprints.
Froberg continued with the extended medical examination-the expensive one-ordered by Goran Beier. Winter had hoped for some clear distinguishing marks that might help them with the identification: tattoos, burn scars or marks from operations, piercings. But there was nothing other than smooth bluish purple skin, with patches of white. He hadn’t noticed any smells.
“She’s never colored her hair,” Froberg said.
“How old is she?” he asked.
“Around thirty is all I can say right now. For closer than that, you’ll have to wait. She could be older or younger, a few years either side. She’s got pretty nice skin. Smooth around the mouth and eyes.”
“No smile lines.”
“Maybe she didn’t have much to be happy about.”
Winter wondered briefly why Froberg would make a comment like that.
“But now the sadness is over. Are you still going to be here when I start the medical assessment?”
“I’ll stay a little longer,” Winter said.
“I’m leaving now,” Beier said, glancing at Winter. “I’ll call you.”
Winter nodded. He turned his gaze back to the woman’s face. She looked older now with her eyes closed.
Pia Erikson Froberg had examined the internal organs, saved the contents of the stomach, and taken a urine sample and a blood sample from the thigh vein when Winter stepped out of the autopsy room for a moment to call Ringmar.
“What are you still hanging around there for?” Ringmar asked.
“I thought we might get some help with the identification.”
“Yeah, maybe. People tattoo themselves in the most bizarre places. So, you find anything?”
“No. Just a naked face. She wasn’t wearing any makeup.”
“What?”
“She didn’t use makeup.”
“Is that unusual these days?”
“It depends on your social scene. In more refined circles it may well be, but I don’t think she belonged to any
