Åsa Larsson - Until Thy Wrath Be Past

One of the forensic officers shouted to Mella. They were going to take the body away. Did Mella want to see it before they did? Shouting “I’m coming,” she turned back to Martinsson.

“I want to have a look at her,” she said. “It will feel better, somehow, if I’ve seen her when I talk to her next-of-kin. They usually want to view the deceased, to reassure themselves that it really is their relative we’ve found. So it’s good to know what state the body is in. I can well imagine. She’s been in the water since last autumn.”

Mella suddenly bit her tongue. For Christ’s sake, she shouldn’t be babbling on about dead bodies to Martinsson. Martinsson had killed in self-defence. Three men. Smashed the skull of one and shot the other two. She had been on sick leave for a long time. Nearly two years later, when Lars-Gunnar Vinsa killed his son and took his own life, it had all been too much for her. Martinsson had ended up in a psychiatric ward.

“I’m O.K.,” Martinsson said, as if she had read Mella’s mind. “May I have a look as well?”

The skin on the girl’s face was white and bloated from the water. One hand was without its diving glove, and there was next to nothing left of it. The flesh had come away and exposed the bones. The little finger and thumb were missing. So was her nose. Most of her lips too.

“That’s what happens,” one of the forensic officers said. “When they’ve been in the water for a long time. The skin tears easily and peels away, and then they drift around and bump into things. That causes noses and ears and such-like to fall off. Pike might have been nibbling at her as well. We’ll have to see how she holds together when the pathologist cuts away her diving suit. Will Pohjanen be doing the post-mortem?”

Mella nodded, keeping an eye on Martinsson, who was staring at the girl’s battered hand as if transfixed.

A little way off, Inspector Sven-Erik Stålnacke pulled up in his Volvo, got out and shouted to Mella.

“We’ve found the kids’ car. Over by the rapids.”

He walked towards them. Gingerly, legs wide apart so as not to slip, just as they all were doing.

“It was parked in the felling area,” he said. “A hundred and fifty metres from the rapids. They must have driven as far as they could over the rough ground so they wouldn’t have to carry their heavy diving gear.”

He rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully.

“Then of course it was covered in snow during the winter. They’re digging it out now. That’s what we thought was so odd when they disappeared last autumn – the fact that nobody had seen their car. But it’s obvious now. If it was in the forest, completely covered in snow… Not even people riding snow scooters along the riverbank would have noticed it. The lad did well to drive it that far, though. The trees have all been felled down towards the rapids, but the area’s full of big stones and stumps.”

Martinsson seemed to snap out of her trance, standing there in front of the girl.

“She might have been the one driving,” she said, nodding towards the body. “According to the statistics, women are better drivers than men.”

She gave Stålnacke a knowing smile.

Normally, he would have responded with a snort, making his greying scrubbing brush of a moustache stick straight out. He would have said that statistics were lies, damned lies, and then asked where Martinsson got her ideas from. He would have had a self-satisfied giggle while Martinsson and Mella rolled their eyes.

But all he said was: “You may be right.”

He asked Mella what she wanted them to do with the car.

Oh dear, Martinsson thought. Things really are frosty between the pair of them.

“There’s no reason to suspect a crime,” Mella said. “If we can get hold of a spare key, someone can drive it back to town.”

“Well, we can try, I suppose,” Stålnacke said doubtfully. “If we can get it onto the road, that is.”

“I’m only asking you to try,” Mella said, a splinter of ice in her voice.

Stålnacke turned on his heel and walked away just as Eriksson was returning.

“Oh,” Mella said, disappointed. “I’d hoped to hear her barking.”

“No, she didn’t find anything. I’ll take a walk with Roy, but I don’t think the boy is here.”

“What do you mean?” Mella said.

Eriksson shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’ll take a walk with Roy, and we’ll see.”

Patting Tintin, he told her what a good job she had done. Opening the boot of Martinsson’s car, he allowed the dogs to change places. Roy could not believe his luck. He danced the dance of the happy tracker dog, in the end not knowing what to do with all the joy in his body. So he sat down and gave a huge yawn.

Tintin was not happy with the changeover. She barked away in desperation. Was that little nothing going to go out with the boss and have fun while she, the alpha bitch, was shut up in the car? Unacceptable. Totally unacceptable.

Her barking penetrated the bodywork of the car as she spun round and round in her cage.

“Not good,” Eriksson said, as he watched her through the rear window. “She’s not supposed to get stressed in her condition. I’m sorry, Anna-Maria, but this is no good.”

“Should I put her on her lead and take her for a walk?” Mella said. “Maybe if she’s outside…”

“That would only make things worse.”

“I could take her back to town with me,” Martinsson said. “Do you think that would calm her down?”

Eriksson looked at her. Now that the sun was out, she had taken off her woolly hat. Her hair was slightly tousled. Those sand-coloured eyes. That mouth. He wanted to kiss that mouth. She had a scar running from her upper lip to her nose, from the time Lars-Gunnar Vinsa had thrown her down the cellar steps. A lot of people thought it was ugly, felt sorry for her, went on about how pretty she had been before. But he liked the scar. It made her look vulnerable.

Desire coursed through his body like a jet of hot water. Her beneath him on all fours. One hand sifting through her hair. The other gripping her hip. Or she’s sitting astride him. His hands cupping her breasts. He whispers her name. A strand of her hair is sticking to her face, wet with perspiration. Or she’s on her back beneath him. Her knees drawn up. He thrusts into her. Slowly now.

“Don’t you think?” she said again. “She can wait in my office. Nobody will mind. You can fetch her when you’ve finished.”

“Yes, why not,” he said, averting his eyes in case she saw through him. “That would be fine.”

Mella and Stålnacke were standing by the car that had been discovered near the river, a Peugeot 305.

“I found the key,” Stålnacke said. “It occurred to me that they’d probably done the same as people who go berry-picking. They don’t want to take the car key with them, because if you drop it and lose it in the forest you have a hell of a job getting home. Way out here in the wild. I usually hide mine inside the back bumper. They’d hidden theirs on top of one of the tyres, under the wheel arch.”

“Really?” Mella said patiently.

“Anyway, I thought I’d try and drive it out onto the road before the snow melts too much in the heat – there are a hell of a lot of stones and rocks, and…”

Mella glanced involuntarily at the clock on her mobile. Stålnacke hurried to get to the point.

“When I turned the key, the car started right away, no problem.”

“Really?”

“But…”

He raised a finger to emphasize that they had reached the point he wanted to talk to her about.

“… but it ran out of petrol after only a few seconds. So there was only a drop in the tank. I thought you’d want to know that.”