“That’s what we have to find out.”
“Did she have any defensive wounds?” Helander asked, eyeing the two photos in her hands. “It’s hard to tell from these.”
“She appears to have fought for her life,” Winter said. “There were injuries to her forearms, but we’ll have to wait for the report to know when they were inflicted. Here are the photos from the autopsy,” he said, and handed her a thin pile. “You can see there.”
“So she’s unidentified, huh,” Halders mumbled.
“She’s also had at least one child,” Winter said. “That could be of help to us.”
No one commented on this last statement. Winter studied the faces in front of him and started to hand out the day’s assignments. The work they did that day could prove to be the most important of the entire investigation.
He already had people sifting through the lists of persons reported missing.
DNA samples were being analyzed, of course.
They would go through the criminal-records database in hope that the woman had previously been arrested and charged, maybe even sentenced, and that her fingerprints would help them find the murderer. But the chances of that were slim.
The photograph on the desk in front of Winter didn’t reveal much of death. The woman looked like she was still part of the world, like she was resting.
They would hope that some fellow human being missed her, but they weren’t going to sit around waiting for that fellow human being to get in touch.
Winter thought about the woman as a mother.
They would knock on the door of everyone who lived in the vicinity of the dump site. They would track down newspaper deliverymen and others who might have been moving around there during the night.
They would check the taxi companies. Halders was assigned that job, and he grimaced despite his interest in cars. It’s pointless, he thought, but he didn’t say it.
“I know you think it’s pointless, but it’s gotta be done,” Winter said.
“This time it could be different,” Halders said. “There must have been a few fares from the recreation lodge. But fuck, man, cabbies never get in touch and they never see anything. It was better back in the old days.”
It was better back in the old days, thought Winter. Back in the day when he could have picked up the phone and dialed 17 30 00, and the central dispatcher would have made an announcement to all cars, “Anyone working last night call Winter,” and the job of an investigator would sometimes be made a little bit easier.
The Migration Board needed to be notified. The woman could be a foreign national. Interpol. Easy does it, Winter.
He looked at the arrows and numbers on the whiteboard-almost nothing there. Just a point of departure.
“Well, welcome back for real now,” Ringmar said. It was eleven o’clock, and they were sitting in Winter’s office.
“I was starting to get bored anyway. Summer vacation.”
“It’s better to have a hobby,” Ringmar said. “Then you make better use of your free time.”
“I went biking and swimming,” Winter said. “And listened to rock. You know, rock could become a hobby for me. Jazz is work but rock is like a hobby. It takes time to learn how to listen to it.”
“Yeah, you said it,” Ringmar said.
Winter heard the sound of engines outside and the jeering shrieks of the seagulls that followed the comings and goings of the radio cars.
“No one reported missing,” Winter said. “That could be good or bad.”
“What’s good about it?”
“She was somewhere less than twenty-four hours ago, was moving around somewhere. Somebody saw her, maybe even spoke to her. And I don’t mean the person who killed her. Just maybe.”
“One might come in over the course of the day. Or tomorrow.”
“Until then, her teeth are of no use to us.”
“We need a dentist,” Ringmar said.
“We need a name and a home address and leads,” Winter said. “It feels like-as if it’s indecent to speak about her. Do you feel that way?”
“No.”
“I always feel that way when we have a murder victim with no identity. Well, you know. No peace.”
Ringmar nodded.
“I’d like to hold off on the newspapers and posters for twenty-four hours,” Winter said.
“Posters? We’re gonna start putting up posters?”
“Yes. Our counterparts in London have started working with them, and I want to test it out here.”
“Is it producing any results in London?”
“I don’t really know.”
“I see.”
“I’ll write up a draft tonight.”
“What are you going to use?”
“I don’t really know that either. Can’t we use this?” Winter held up the image of the dead woman’s face.
“Let me see,” Ringmar said, and reached for the photo. He studied the portrait and handed it back.
“Doesn’t really sit well. But I guess we’ll have to if nothing happens soon. Freshly deceased and a reasonably good picture. It’ll probably be the first time it’s been done in Gothenburg.”
Ringmar stood up and stretched his back, then raised his arms above his head and groaned. “It’s evening for me,” he said.
“Pull yourself together,” Winter said.
“And then there’s the press conference,” Ringmar said, and sat back down again with one leg crossed over the other. His khaki pants and short-sleeved gabardine shirt were infinitely more elegant than Winter’s shorts and washed-out hockey shirt.
“Press conference? Who ordered that? Birgersson?”
“No. They tried to get hold of you when you were on your way in from Östra. Wellman.”
Henrik Wellman was district chief of CID. He was the one homicide inspectors had to turn to for money for any trips they had to make. Or new cars.
Above Wellman there was District Police Commissioner Judith Söderberg. After that, God.
“Is Henrik going to be there himself?” Winter asked with a smile.
“You have to understand him,” Ringmar said. “Young woman murdered, unidentified. Parliament isn’t back in session yet. The hockey season hasn’t gotten started. The press is all over this. A summer murder.”
“A summer murder,” Winter repeated. “We’re taking part in a classic summer murder. A tabloid’s wet dream.”
“It’s the fault of this goddamn weather,” Ringmar said. “If it hadn’t been for this unrelenting heat, it would have been a different thing. For the press, that is.”
“A fall murder,” Winter said. “If it is murder. It is murder, of course, but it’s not official yet. Well. Maybe it’s a good idea to have a conference with our friends from the press. I assume I’ll be the only one representing us.”
“At two o’clock. See you later.”
Ringmar stood up and walked out.
They needed a room now, a house or an apartment. If they couldn’t get a name, they needed a space to start in. The possibilities would fade quickly if they didn’t get an address to work from.
He took an envelope from the top left-hand drawer and opened it. Inside were more photographs from the dump site. He tried to imagine what had happened in the minutes leading up to the woman being deposited there. She could have been carried through the forest, across the bog. That was possible for a strong man. She didn’t weigh more than 120 pounds.
She had been carried. So far they hadn’t found any drag marks in the parking lot or on the path or in the grass. The parking lot. Had she been driven to the parking lot and hauled out of the car and carried over to the ditch? That was a possibility. The two stolen cars? Why not one of them? He would soon know. Somebody kills someone and walks down the street and steals a car and carries out the body and drives off? Would you do that if you had murdered somebody, Winter? Would you drive to Delsjö Lake?
He thought about the lake. Perhaps she’d come in a boat. He had people combing the entire lakefront. Almost seven miles of shoreline. How did one go about concealing a boat?