"I think the cemetery is farther down toward Sankt Göransgatan," 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 Göransgatan. 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 cliché, 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 her back. She had a scar in her armpit."
Annika felt her blood pressure drop and leaned her head against her knees and did some deep breathing.
"Not a pretty sight, eh?" Berit said.
"I'm okay."
After a minute or so, Annika felt better. The sounds came back to her in full force, hitting her brain with the earsplitting noise of a car factory: the roaring traffic on Drottningholmsvägen; two sirens blasting out of time; loud voices, their pitch rising and falling; clattering cameras; a child crying.
Bertil Strand had joined the small media posse that was forming down by the entrance to the cemetery; he was chatting to the Rival's photographer.
"What happens next? Who does what?" Annika asked.
Berit sat down next to Annika, looked at her notes, and began outlining their work.
"We've got to assume it's a murder, right? So we'll have a story on the actual event. This has happened: a young woman has been found murdered. When, where, and how? We need to know who found her and talk to him- have you got the guy's name?"
"A speed freak; his pal gave a care-of address for the tip-off money."
"Try and get hold of him. The emergency switchboard will have all the information on the call-out," Berit continued, ticking off her notes.
"I've got that already."
"Great. Then we need to get hold of a cop who will talk. Their press officer never says anything off the record. Did the Hawaii detective tell you his name?"
"Nope."
"Shame. Find out. I've never seen him before- he could be one of the new guys at Krim. Then we need to find out when she died and why. Have they got any suspects? What's next in the investigation? All the police aspects of the story."
"Okay," Annika said, taking notes.
"Christ, it's hot! It never gets this hot in Stockholm," Berit said, wiping the sweat from her forehead.
"I wouldn't know. I only moved here seven weeks ago."
Berit took out a Kleenex from her bag and wiped around her hairline. "Okay- we have the victim. Who was she? Who identified her? She'll have a family somewhere, no doubt brokenhearted. We should consider contacting them one way or another. We need pictures of the girl while she was alive. Was she over eighteen, would you say?"