A patrol car with two constables, Joensuu and Kellermann, was already on the spot. Joensuu was standing on the road next to the dead woman, with his back towards her and his arms folded over his chest. Legs wide apart, and uncompromising. Kellermann was standing beside the bus, pen and notebook in hand, talking to the driver and passengers. Three old women were standing pressed up against each other by the side of the yellow bus, as if they were trying to keep one another warm. All three were wearing dark-coloured overcoats and ghastly hats. They reminded Reinhart of crows, their feathers ruffled, jumping around on the road looking for scraps of food. The driver was marching nervously up and down, smoking.
Why don’t they sit inside the bus instead? Reinhart wondered. Haven’t they noticed that it’s snowing?
He ordered Moreno to go and assist Kellermann, and approached Joensuu in order to look at what he needed to look at.
For two seconds at first. Then he closed his eyes for five. And then looked once more.
That was what he always did. He didn’t know if it made things any easier, but it had become a sort of ritual over the years.
Anyway, a dead woman. Almost certainly naked, but inadequately wrapped up in something looking like a sheet, exactly as Vlaarmeier had said on the telephone. She was lying more or less flat on her back, her head resting on a clod of earth, her feet just reaching as far as the narrow strip of grass verge. Red toenails in the midst of all the mess, he noted: it looked almost surreal, or at any rate intensified the impression of unreality. Quite a well-built body, as far as he could judge. Somewhere between thirty and forty, it seemed, but that was only a guess, of course. Her face was largely hidden by her longish, dark red hair. Snowflakes were falling on the woman as well — as if the sky had wanted to cover up what it preferred not to see, it struck him. A tactful shroud. That was typical of the thoughts that usually occurred to him on occasions like this. Words, phrases, images: the same vain attempt to cover up the truth that the sky was busy with, more or less.
‘What a bloody mess,’ said Joensuu. ‘A good-looking woman. Not now, of course…’
‘How long have you two been here?’ asked Reinhart.
Joensuu checked his watch.
‘Fourteen minutes,’ he said. ‘We got the call at ten thirty-nine. We were here by fifty-eight.’
Reinhart nodded. Clambered down from the road, bent over the body and studied it for a few seconds.
‘Blood,’ said Joensuu without turning round. ‘There’s blood on the sheet. And on her head. Somebody’s clocked her one there.’
Reinhart stood up and clenched his fists in his pockets. The sheets — for there seemed to be two — were stained not only by soil and dirt: there was a series of stripes and drops of blood over one of her shoulders, and as Kellermann had said, her hair on the left side of her head and face was clogged with something that could hardly be anything else but blood.
Although he supposed it could possibly be brain substances.
Two more cars arrived. Reinhart greeted Intendent Schultze, who weighed 120 kilos and was acting head of the scene-of-crime team.
‘It’s snowing,’ he said grimly. ‘That’s a damned nuisance. We’ll have to set up a canopy.’
Reinhart stayed there for a while and watched Schultze’s assistants hammering thin metal poles into the soft ground, then stretching a thin sheet of canvas a metre over the body. He wished them good luck with their analyses and went to the bus. Told Kellermann to go and help Joensuu and to cordon off the scene of the crime.
And also to do whatever they could to assist Schultze and his men.
Moreno seemed to have already squeezed out of the bus driver and his passengers what little contribution they could make. They had travelled past in the bus, and one of them had happened to see the body, that was about it. After checking their names and addresses, Reinhart told them they could continue on their way. But a bit of a palaver ensued, since none of the women wished to continue to Keymer Church — the service was already under way — and eventually Vlaarmeier rolled over and agreed to turn the bus round and take them back to Kaustin instead.
The timetable had gone to pot ages ago anyway, and there were no other passengers to take into consideration. There never were on a Sunday.
Half an hour later Reinhart and Moreno also left the scene. They had with them a record of the first oral report from Schultze: the dead victim was a red-headed woman of average height, round about thirty-five years old. She had been killed by several blows to the side and back of the head, probably during the night or in the early hours of the morning. It couldn’t have been any later than four a.m. in view of the state of rigor mortis. She was completely naked, apart from the two sheets she had been wrapped up in, and it seemed highly likely that the body had been dumped on the verge from a car. Nothing that could be of value for the investigation had been found, but the scene-of-crime team were still creeping around and searching, and would continue to do so for several more hours yet.
Both underneath and around the canopy that had been set up.
Just as Reinhart and Moreno were clambering into their car, the green body bag was being lifted into another car for transport to the Forensic Laboratory in Maardam. No unauthorized spectators had turned up at the scene, and the few cars that had passed by during these godforsaken Sunday hours had been waved on authoritatively by Joensuu or Kellermann. Or both.
The snow continued to fall.
‘The first of Advent,’ said Reinhart. ‘It’s the first of Advent today. A nice setting. We ought to light a candle.’
Moreno nodded. The thought occurred to her that Good Friday and death on the cross might be more appropriate; but she said nothing. She turned her head and looked out over the barren landscape and the occasional large snowflakes drifting down over the dark soil. Grey. Only shades of grey for as far as the eye could see. And hardly any light. She’d intended to have a lie-in this morning. Then sit up in bed with a newspaper, and spend two hours over breakfast. Go for a swim in the afternoon.
Had intended. That’s not the way things turned out. She would have to spend the day working instead. All day, most probably: especially if they succeeded in identifying the dead woman. Interrogations and interviews with her nearest and dearest. Questions and answers. Tears and despair. It wasn’t especially difficult to see the whole thing in her mind’s eye. While Reinhart led the way over the narrow, wet road, muttering and cursing to himself, she began to hope that they wouldn’t find out who she was… That the anonymous dead woman would remain anonymous for a few more hours. A whole day, even. It was probably a thought that would make things easier for those nearest and dearest, whoever they might be; but hardly compatible with her work as a detective officer. It didn’t fit in with the long-established rule that the first few hours of an investigation were always the most important ones — fitted in better, much better, she had to admit, with a vague hope that she might be able to spend a few hours at the swimming baths in the afternoon despite everything.
It was wrong to falsify one’s motives, Moreno thought with a sigh. That had been one of The Chief Inspector ’s favourite sayings, one she found it impossible to forget. Why is it that I always want to take a shower after looking at a dead body? she wondered out of the blue. Especially if it had been the body of a dead woman. Must have something to do with empathy…
‘I wonder why he left her there,’ said Reinhart, interrupting her train of thought. ‘In the middle of this flat plain. It would make more sense to have hidden her up in the forest instead.’
Moreno thought that one over.
‘Maybe he was in a hurry.’
‘Could be. In any case, there must surely be blood in his car. He must have had a car. If we can find it, there must be proof of his guilt there. What do you think?’