Every time he had to attend an autopsy such images haunted him with an inevitability he dreaded. In this place, barely a week ago, he and Ewert had observed the meaninglessly peaceful face of a little girl whose body had been ripped apart. He had not had to watch the damage done to her, he had been allowed to look away in an attempt not to face the lack of meaning all over again.
Perhaps that was why she had seemed so unreal. Far too young to die, still promising so much life. He couldn't help remembering her tiny feet, their sadistic cleanliness.
Ewert's concerned voice, without a trace of sarcasm, brought him back to the present.
'Hey, Sven. How are things?'
'This place gives me the creeps. I can't help it. Errfors seems a perfectly nice, normal bloke, so why did he pick this hellhole for his place of work? How does he stand it? Rooting around in cadavers. What kind of a life is that?'
They were walking through the central archive, past sliding metal shelving packed with files, folders, boxes. It was a vast catalogue of death. The dead had become lines on paper, arrayed in alphabetical order. Sven had been here once before, he and a young medic who had helped him in a search. He hoped he'd never have to do it again, these data searches made him think uneasily about interfering with graves.
Ludvig Errfors was waiting for them in the same autopsy room as before. He was in civvies, no sterile wraps, and as jolly and easy-going as ever.
'It's quite spooky, you know. I dealt with the victims in the Skarpholm case, then with the Steffansson girl, and here I am doing the PM on their killer.'
Ewert slapped the dead man's leg lightly.
'This monster was bound to end up here. But you feel sure he did it this time?'
'As I said last week, the MO was as good as identical with the Skarpholm case. Gross violation. I've been doing this job for longer than they advise anyone should, and I must say, I haven't seen anything like it. Not towards a child.'
'But you'll get your conclusive proof,' he went on, pointing at the body. 'In time for the trial we'll have checked the DNA in a semen sample and compared it with samples taken from the victims' bodies. You and the judges and so forth will get the data, in black and white.'
'The prosecutor lad is going for life. For Steffansson.' Ewert paused, looked at the surprised faces. 'Oh, yes. Trying to grow into his posh suit.'
Errfors pushed the trolley into the circle of strong light, then remembered about Sven.
'I believe you took it a bit badly last time,' he said with a kind smile. 'This body is rather mauled, so maybe you'd better look away for a moment.'
After registering a quick nod from Ewert, Sven turned away.
'Obviously, the face is well and truly gone,' Errfors was saying. 'One of Steffansson's bullets hit the forehead, with explosive effect. The teeth were reasonably intact, so we could identify him from his dental record.'
He adjusted the light to illuminate the lower torso.
'The other bullet hit his hip. It seems to have been the first shot. The pelvic bone is partly shattered. The bullet went straight through the body, here. The two impact wounds fit with what the witnesses said about having heard two bangs. That's it. We've finished now.'
Sven turned back to the shrouded body. He remembered Lund's face. What was the point of being Lund, of living with such sickness? If you must destroy your own species, do you still have the right to be counted as a human being? In this building, prompted by the presence of all the lifeless bodies, Sven felt unable to escape these apparently unanswerable questions.
They got ready to leave.
'Before you go, I think you'd want to see these. I kept them for you. Here. I found them on Lund's body when I undressed it.'
A handgun. A knife. Two photographs. A hand-written note.
'The gun, you'll be able to check it out, was in a holster strapped to his lower leg. The knife was also in a strap-on holster, on his forearm this time. By the way, this type of knife is new to me. The edge is exceptionally sharp.'
Ewert took charge of the plastic bags with the weapons. So Lund had been armed, prepared to defend himself.
'Fancy that young idiot going for life. Banging up someone who rid the land of an armed crazy, out hunting little girls.'
Sven took the bags with the photos and piece of paper. He looked at them under the light and was still staring at the amateurish images when he started to speak.
'New photos, these. Little girls, same ones on both pics. Photographed outside the nursery school where Lund was lurking when he got shot. Seems that the girls went to that school. We'll confirm it of course, but it's likely.'
Ewert wanted to see.
'Christ, look at this. Lund must've made a note of their names. It looks like he wanted two victims this time too.'
He looked at the photographs once more. Two little girls, about the same age as Marie Steffansson, blonde hair bleached by the summer sun, sitting on the edge of a sandpit, smiling towards life. He cackled, as he had when speaking to Ågestam earlier that day.
'What have we got here? Proof that Steffansson saved the lives of two children by killing Lund. It's thanks to the accused that two sweet six-year-olds can still smile today.'
Then he did the weird thing that Sven had observed before, slapped the body on the trolley, pinched it and shook it a bit, mumbling inaudibly with his head turned away.
Bengt Söderlund and his family were spending the summer holidays at home for the fifth year running. Once they'd tried Gotland, the lovely island everyone talked about, but never again. Hiring the cottage was expensive, it rained all the time, there was nothing to do and the week they had paid for seemed endless. The following year they hired a cottage in Ystad on the south coast instead, but the whole place was windy and dead flat. They travelled around a bit but Osterlen looked just the same, so that was that, no need to go back for more. Two years in a caravan, but what with gridlocked roads and kids who wouldn't go to sleep that was a wash-out, and then, to cap it all, that stay on Rhodes in a nightmare heatwave lasting the entire fortnight, well, thanks, but no thanks. They had figured a city break in Stockholm might be a good idea, but even that was a disappointment; the place was packed with crazed townies, the types who walk up escalators.
They had agreed that enough was enough. Staying at home meant Bengt could keep an eye on the business. It was good for family life too. They could take the kids swimming in the lake, go for walks in peace, even get some sex in peace when the girls were away on sleepovers with their friends. And they could see more of their own friends, drink coffee in the garden, have folks round for supper once in a while.
Bengt and Elisabeth were drinking morning coffee when Ove and Helena came strolling past their open kitchen window. They waved. Come in! Time for elevenses, coffee and cinnamon rolls, two each. Ove and Helena were easy to get on with. Almost ten years ago now, things had become tense for a while, just a silly episode at a party when Ove and Elisabeth had ended up doing rather more than holding hands. The coolness between the couples lasted until it dawned on everyone that Tallbacka was too small to hide in. They had a shouting match, it cleared the air and afterwards they tacitly agreed to bury the whole affair. Both Ove and Elisabeth had had a bit too much to drink, but it had been a harmless fling; neither had had the slightest intention of ruining their marriages.
Ove had brought a morning paper and over the coffee and buns the four of them started talking about the case that dominated that national news. Now that the Russian plane accident had been sorted, the headlines were all about the paedophile who had killed a little girl, and the dad who then shot his daughter's killer. They could all engage with this; the girl and the dad were part of every family in the land.