Nina Jebsen had stopped on the step below him. He had picked her up on the way. An impulse shot through him: shield her from the sight of this. The dead woman – what was left of her – lay with her head twisted to one side, staring towards the stairs they had just ascended, though the eyes were almost caked over with dried blood. Deep rifts, what looked like claw marks, ran from the lower part of the face and down across the shoulder and back. One corner of the mouth had been ripped open, and the tongue lolled through the opening in the cheek.
Viken looked at the constable standing beside the door.
– Is this the neighbour who contacted the switchboard?
The name Miriam Gaizauskaite was written on a sign under the doorbell.
– Yes, she called the emergency number about, – the constable glanced at his watch, – fifty-five minutes ago.
– Technical?
– Not here yet.
Something had struck Viken on the way up. He turned and went downstairs to the floor below.
– Jebsen, he called up to her.
Nina came down the twisting staircase. She was pale and held on to the banister as though afraid the timbers would collapse beneath her at any moment.
Viken pointed to the sign on the door: Anita and Victoria Elvestrand live here.
– The missing woman, she confirmed.
Viken hurried back up again, over the first reaction now. He borrowed the constable’s torch and peered at the floor around the mutilated body. Not much blood; obviously the killing hadn’t been done here. The small amount there was came from the severed legs. He could see the clear imprint of a foot in it.
People were talking as they made their way up the stairs. Viken recognised one of the voices, a crime-scene technician. At the same instant he noticed something on the door and the door jamb. He squatted down and shone his torch. A broad marking across the woodwork, five deep downward scratches.
– What’s the first thing that hits you when you see this, Jebsen?
She squatted down beside him.
– Claws, she said at once. – Marks made by a large paw with claws.
Miriam Gaizauskaite sat on the sofa with her legs curled under her. She was wearing jogging pants and a thick sweater. She sat rocking from side to side and staring in front of her.
– So you didn’t hear anything until you tried to open the door? Viken asked again.
She shook her head.
– Listen, Miriam, Viken began, and noticed that Nina Jebsen was watching him. She was probably not used to hearing him address a witness using their first name. – You called the switchboard at seventeen minutes past five. Can you tell us why you were up and about so early?
She glanced at him, then over at Nina. Her pupils were wide open. Is she on something, or is it just the shock? Viken wondered.
– I… woke up early. Couldn’t sleep. Then I heard someone open the gate, thought it was the paper boy. I got up and went to fetch the paper.
– And you neither saw nor heard anything unusual from the time you went to bed at about twelve until you heard the gate open.
Miriam looked down at the floor.
– I didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything.
Half an hour later, Viken made a sign to Nina Jebsen: time to wrap it up.
– We don’t know yet who it is lying out there, said Nina, – but we can’t exclude the possibility that it’s your neighbour.
Miriam began to tremble.
– It is her, she said in a low voice.
– Do you think so?
– Something’s very wrong. I’ve had a feeling about it the whole time.
Viken said: – You know her quite well, I gather. I want to ask something of you. It won’t be easy. It isn’t easy for us either, if that’s any comfort. And you can say no if you don’t want to do it.
Miriam released the hold she had around her knees and let her feet drop to the floor. Her phone rang; it was on the coffee table. She picked it up, looked at the display, turned it off.
– It’s all right, she said. Her voice was clearer now. – I’ll identify the body for you.
The two women went out while Viken had a look round inside the flat. When they came back in again, Nina had an arm around Miriam.
– You’re quite certain?
Miriam leaned towards her.
– I recognise the tattoo, she muttered. – On the shoulder. The picture of a naked man.
– Did you have a visitor here yesterday? asked Viken.
Miriam didn’t answer.
– There are two wine glasses out in the kitchen. And one empty and a half-full bottle.
– I didn’t have visitors. I drank it myself over the last couple of days.
– In other words, you like your wine, said Viken. – Did you drink much yesterday evening?
She closed her eyes.
– A bit too much. I must have fallen asleep.
Before leaving the room, Viken went into the sleeping alcove and lifted the duvet and the two blankets that lay on the bed.
42
AT ONE O’CLOCK on Tuesday afternoon, the investigating team gathered in the meeting room. Four new tactical investigators had joined the group. Agnes Finckenhagen was also present, as was Jarle Frøen, the police prosecutor who was the nominal though far from actual leader of the investigation. The room was divided by sliding doors and there were no windows in the part they were sitting in. Already the air was starting to get heavy and close.
Detective Chief Inspector Viken summed up recent developments.
– We won’t get the DNA results today. But there is no doubt that the victim is Anita Elvestrand, the thirty-six year old who was reported missing from her home on Sunday afternoon by her neighbour on the floor above. The same neighbour gave a positive ID of the body.
– What about next of kin? asked Finckenhagen.
Viken nodded to Arve Norbakk.
– Parents dead, the sergeant informed them. – She has a sister living in Spain and a brother who is an oil worker out on the Gullfaks rig. They have been contacted, but neither of them has any imminent plans to come over.
Viken resumed.
– The neighbour’s name is Miriam Gaizauskaite, a Lithuanian citizen. She is studying medicine here in Oslo. We’ll come back to her. I’ve had pictures sent over from the pathology lab; let’s take a look at those first.
He clicked his way to the file on the computer.
– Jebsen and I were there and saw this abomination. Strong stuff, I warn you… One great advantage in your favour: the pictures don’t smell.
Sigge Helgarsson seemed to be about to make a comment, but instead tipped back on his chair and said nothing.
Viken pulled down the screen.
– As you will note immediately, the victim exhibits distinctive injuries to the face, neck and down the back.
He clicked through a series of pictures of the ravaged body.
– As you will also note, these wounds are similar to those we have seen on the other recent murder victims. Here, however, is what is left of the lower body. Both legs have been severed, directly below the hip joint.
– For fuck’s sake, Helgarsson exclaimed.
– Precisely, Sigge, Viken observed. – I couldn’t have put it better myself.
He showed an enlarged image of one of the stumps.
– Does this look like a leg that has been bitten off by an animal?
– It’s been sawn off, Norbakk said.
– Dr Plåterud’s conclusion precisely. So we are dealing with a perpetrator who goes further each time in the mutilation of his victims. This is a well-known feature of this type of crime.
Viken clicked on, stopped at a picture of an arm, zoomed in. A tattoo of a muscular naked male body appeared.
– I would ask female members of the gathering to avert their eyes, he suggested, after debating with himself how far it was permissible to joke about such things under the circumstances. – It was, by the way, the tattoo that the neighbour recognised.