Assistant Chief Prosecutor Carl von Post stood at the door of the Crystal Church and stared at the people who were getting on with the business of packing up Viktor Strandgård’s body. The police surgeon, Senior Medical Examiner Lars Pohjanen, was drawing heavily on a cigarette as usual, mumbling orders to Anna Granlund, the autopsy technician, and two burly men with a stretcher.
“Try and loop his hair up so it doesn’t get caught in the zip. Pull the plastic round the whole thing and try to keep the intestines inside the body when you lift it. Anna, can you sort out a paper bag for the hand?”
A murder, thought von Post. And a sodding awful murder. Not some miserable bloody tale of an alky who finally kills the old woman more or less by mistake after a week on the booze. A terrible murder. Worse than that-the terrible murder of a celebrity.
And it was all his. It belonged to him. All he had to do was take the helm, let the whole world switch on the spotlights and sail straight into fame. And then he could get away from this pit. He had never meant to stay here, but his qualifications had only been good enough to get a place with the court in Gällivare. Then he’d got a job with the prosecutor’s office. He’d applied for plenty of jobs in Stockholm, but without success. All of a sudden the years had gone by.
He stepped to one side to let the men carrying the stretcher, with its well-sealed gray plastic body bag, pass by. Senior Medical Examiner Lars Pohjanen came limping behind, shoulders slightly hunched as if he were cold, eyes fixed on the ground. The cigarette was still dangling from the corner of his mouth. His hair was usually plastered over his shiny bald head; now it was hanging tiredly down over his ears. Anna Granlund was just behind him. She was carrying a paper bag containing Viktor Strandgård’s hand. When she caught sight of von Post her lips tightened. He stopped them on their way out.
“So?” he said challengingly.
Pohjanen looked uncomprehending.
“What can you tell me at this stage?” asked von Post impatiently.
Pohjanen took his cigarette between his thumb and his index finger and drew heavily on it before he allowed it to leave his thin lips.
“Well, I haven’t actually performed the autopsy yet,” he answered slowly.
Carl von Post could feel his pulse rate rising. He wasn’t going to stand for anybody being obstructive or awkward.
“But surely you must have noticed something already? I want ongoing reports and detailed information at all times.”
He snapped his fingers as if to illustrate the speed with which all this information was to be passed on.
Anna Granlund looked at the snapping fingers; it occurred to her that she used exactly the same gesture to her dogs.
Pohjanen stood in silence, looking at the floor. The sound of his breathing, slightly too fast, quietened only when he raised the cigarette to his lips and inhaled with great concentration. Carl von Post met Anna Granlund’s fierce gaze.
You can stare, he thought. A year ago at the police Christmas party you were giving me a very different look. For God’s sake, I’m surrounded by spastics and morons. Pohjanen looked worse now than before the operation and his sick leave.
“Well, then?” he said challengingly, when he thought the doctor had been silent for long enough.
Lars Pohjanen looked up and met the prosecutor’s raised eyebrows.
“What I know at this moment,” he said in his rasping voice, which was not much more than a loud whisper, “is that first of all he’s dead, and that secondly death was probably due to externally applied force. That’s all, so you can let us pass now, sonny.”
The prosecutor saw how the corners of Anna Granlund’s mouth twitched downward in an attempt to suppress a smile as they walked past him.
“When will I get the autopsy report?” snapped von Post as he followed them to the door.
“When we’ve finished,” replied Pohjanen, and let the church door slam shut in the assistant chief prosecutor’s face.
Von Post raised his right hand and caught the swinging door; at the same time he was forced to root in his inside pocket with his left hand because his cell phone had started to vibrate.
It was the girl from the police switchboard.
“I’ve got a Rebecka Martinsson on the line saying she knows where Viktor Strandgård’s sister is and she wants to arrange a time for an interview. Tommy Rantakyrö and Fred Olsson have gone to look for the sister, so I didn’t know whether to put her through to them or to you.”
“You did exactly the right thing; put her through to me.”
Von Post allowed his gaze to wander up the aisle of the church as he waited for the call to be connected. It was evident that the architect had had a clear vision in mind: the long red handwoven carpet ran along the nave right up to the choir stalls, and on either side stood rows of blue chairs with wavy contours on the back. It made you think immediately of the Bible story of the parting of the Red Sea. He began to stroll up the aisle.
“Hello,” said a woman’s voice on the telephone.
He answered with his name and title, and she went on.
“My name is Rebecka Martinsson. I’m calling on behalf of Sanna Strandgård; I understand that you wish to speak to her with regard to the murder.”
“Yes; you have information about where we can find her.”
“Well, not exactly,” continued the polite and almost too well-spoken voice. “Since Sanna Strandgård wishes me to accompany her to the interview, and since I am in Stockholm at the moment, I wanted to check with whoever is in charge of the investigation to see if it would be more convenient for us to come in this evening, or if tomorrow would be better.”
“No.”
“Sorry?”
“No,” said von Post, not bothering to hide his irritation, “it isn’t convenient this evening and it isn’t convenient tomorrow. I don’t know whether you’ve quite grasped this, Rebecka Whatever-your-name-is, but this is actually an ongoing murder investigation, for which I am responsible, and I want to talk to Sanna Strandgård right now. I think you should advise your friend not to stay in hiding, because I’m quite prepared to issue a warrant for her arrest in her absence and to post her as wanted by the police straightaway. As for you, there is a crime called obstructing the police in the course of their duty. If you’re convicted you can end up in prison. So now I would like you to tell me where Sanna Strandgård is.”
For a few seconds there was silence. Then the young woman’s voice could be heard again. She spoke extremely slowly, almost drawling, and she was clearly exercising considerable self-control.
“I’m afraid there has been a slight misunderstanding. I am not ringing to ask your permission to come in for an interview with Sanna Strandgård at a later stage, but to inform you that she intends to cooperate fully with the police and that an interview cannot take place before this evening at the earliest. Sanna Strandgård and I are not friends. I am a lawyer with Meijer & Ditzinger; I don’t know whether you are familiar with the name up there-”
“Well, actually, I was born in-”
“And I’d think twice about making threats,” the woman interrupted von Post’s attempt to pass a comment. “Any attempt to frighten me into telling you where Sanna Strandgård is seems to me to be bordering on professional misconduct, and if you issue her name as wanted by the police without her being an actual suspect, simply because she is waiting to be interviewed until her legal representative can be present, I can guarantee that a notice from the Justice Department will be heading your way.”
Before von Post could answer, Rebecka Martinsson continued, her tone of voice suddenly friendly.