“We’d better check up on that call.”
“Of course.”
“What time was it?”
“When he called? Quarter to four, give or take. Dispatch has the exact time.”
“So, what did he see? Anything else?”
“Nothing, he says. Nobody coming or going.”
“Find anything on the other cars?”
“We’re working on it.”
“Morning prayer has been pushed back half an hour.”
“You want everyone there?”
“Without exception.”
Back in the autopsy room, the woman on the steel slab remained a dead body with no name. Usually when somebody was murdered, there was at least a name that could be laid to rest and, the terrible ordeal over, be handed back to the family.
“Decent teeth,” Fröberg said. “Some discoloration but in good condition.”
“That’ll only help us if she’s been reported missing,” Winter said. “I want the autopsy report just as soon as you can get it to me. Thanks.”
“As always.”
“You’re doing a good job, Pia.”
“That kind of talk makes me suspicious.”
Winter said nothing more. He walked toward the door. The dry air had made him feel thirsty and tired.
“What are you doing tonight, Erik?” Fröberg asked when he was halfway out the swinging door.
He stopped and looked at her. She was clearing off the autopsy table.
“I thought you were remarried or whatever you call it.”
“It didn’t work out. Again.”
“I don’t think it’s a-”
“No. You’re absolutely right. And the main reason I asked was to tell you not to push yourself too hard right at the start of the case.”
“Tonight I’m going to sleep with Angela and maybe talk about the future.” He was answering a question that was no longer being asked. “And think about this one lying over here.”
“One last thing, just to give you something more to think about. This woman has given birth.”
“She’s got a child?” Winter repeated.
“I don’t know if she does now, but she has had at least one child, maybe more.”
“How long ago?”
“I can’t say, at least not yet. But she shows signs of-”
“You don’t have to give me all the details,” Winter said, “not right now anyway.” He felt a shiver spread across his head.
There could be some family out there. It could help in the investigation, or be a source of frustration, or maybe something worse.
7
THE WATCH COMMANDER WAS FANNING HIMSELF WITH A double-folded form, possibly “Lines of Inquiry in Felony Cases.”
The corridor smelled of sweat and sun, and the waiting room off to the right smelled of stale booze. Some joker had hung a poster of a beach with a palm tree next to a recruitment ad for the homicide department. Winter stepped into the elevator and rode up to his office on the third floor.
He had perked up again on the drive down from Östra Hospital. Adrenaline was pumping through his body while sweat ran down his back. This was no ordinary murder investigation. He knew that much without knowing it. He felt the tension in his body. A tension that might not leave him for months.
He poured himself a mug in the coffee room and lingered there for a few seconds, gazing at the morning outside. The thermometer in the window showed eighty degrees, and it was only twenty past eight in the morning, but Winter knew that for him the swimming season was over.
The situation room filled up with people. The ones who’d been at it since the start looked tired; the others waited impatiently, their bottoms literally on the edges of their seats. On the whiteboard Ringmar had written, “Visualization relating to the murder.”
Well, here we are again, after the summer’s rest, Winter thought to himself.
He drew an X on the board.
“We’ve got an unidentified woman, approximately thirty years of age, probably strangled, discovered between three thirty and quarter to four this morning by a man whom we’re going to question further over the course of the day. For the moment, this man is not a suspect, but as you’re all aware, you never know.”
Winter fell silent and stared at his X, then began sketching out a rough map as he spoke. “She was found here.” He drew a circle at the spot where the body was dumped. “We’ll take a closer look at the map later, but I just want to mark out the relative positions. If you continue underneath the highway on Old Boråsvägen, you come to a junction that leads toward Helenevik and Gunnebo, but we’ll wait on that. So here’s where she was found,” he repeated, and pointed at his circle.
“That’s where the lodge is,” Halders said.
“That’s right. As most of you know, the police department’s recreation lodge is located a bit farther down the road.”
“That’s where I had my fortieth birthday party,” Halders said. “Wasn’t there something going on there yesterday?”
“Our colleagues over at the investigations department had a little do there in the early evening,” Ringmar said.
“How early?” Janne Möllerström asked.
“The last man walked out of there at around four,” Ringmar said. “Or rather hopped a cab.”
“What the fu-,” Halders began, but was interrupted by Ringmar.
“Naturally we’re going to question our esteemed colleagues on the subject.”
“That lodge can’t be more than a few hundred yards away from the ditch where the body was found,” Bergenhem said.
“Isn’t there a dog kennel just before it?” Halders asked.
“Yes. Right after the intersection. We’re going to question them too.”
“What, you mean the dogs?” Halders asked, putting on an innocent expression.
“If necessary,” Winter said. “There are a lot of houses along that road. The Örgryte shooting range is a few hundred yards farther up and then the Delsjö Golf Club and the GAIS football club’s training facility. There are a number of houses at the intersection of Old Boråsvägen and Frans Perssonsväg. Here.” He drew a few small squares on the board.
“And then we’ve got a bunch of drunken cops,” Halders said.
Winter didn’t answer. He finished sketching on the board and turned back toward his team sitting in the room.
“The site where the body was discovered is not where the murder was committed. She was moved postmortem to the ditch where she was found at least one hour after she was killed. She had been dead for eight to ten hours when we arrived on the scene. That’s where we are now. I’m waiting for the autopsy report.”
“Sexual violence?” Halders asked. He felt rested despite the late night.
“We don’t know yet. But her clothes seemed undisturbed and Pia Erikson Fröberg saw no immediate indication of sexual violence.”
“Any other witnesses?” asked Möllerström. He was Winter’s database expert, a meticulous detective who saw to it that all materials were entered into the preliminary investigation database.
“So far no one’s gotten in touch voluntarily, except for the guy sitting downstairs.”
“We’re looking at four cars,” Ringmar said. “Two of them were reported stolen.”
“That’s good,” Bergenhem said.
Everyone knew a stolen car could lead straight from a murder scene to a dump site.
“We’re scouring the vehicles today,” Ringmar said.
“What do the owners say about it?” Sara Helander asked.
Winter studied her. She had become part of his core group during the last investigation-an agonizing one-and he wanted to hold on to her permanently and not just have her on loan from surveillance. “Two of the owners were very happy that we’d found their cars-at least that’s what they’re saying-and the other two will just have to make the best of it.”
“Why had they parked there in the first place?” Halders asked.
“Yeah,” Veine Carlberg filled in, “why leave your car in that godforsaken parking lot overnight?”