Alex Gray - The Swedish Girl

Then, ‘Did she suffer?’ he asked quietly.

‘The post-mortem results suggest a quick death,’ Rosie replied briskly. Her answer had been ready and came perhaps a little too easily to her lips. ‘She would have lost consciousness in seconds,’ she added a little more gently.

He nodded at that, still staring as though unable to take it all in, needing perhaps to see in order to believe.

Then, as though some unspoken decision had been made, Magnusson turned away from the window and began walking back towards Rosie’s office.

‘When can I have her back?’ he asked gruffly and Rosie glanced at him again, noticing him swallowing hard, trying no doubt to refrain from showing any unmanly emotion. It took some men like that, she knew, the ones who didn’t want a stranger to see their grief, while other men simply broke down and wept, sometimes on her shoulder.

‘We’ll let you know, sir, but until the Procurator Fiscal decides that it may be released your daughter’s body will stay here with us,’ she said. ‘There may be a need for further examinations and so we have to keep Eva here in the mortuary.’

‘And now, Dr Fergusson, you will do me the courtesy of telling me exactly what you know about my daughter’s death.’

Henrik Magnusson had stopped right outside Rosie’s office, his blue eyes bearing down upon her and a look on his face that brooked no refusal.

He was a strong man, Rosie thought suddenly, probably ruthless in his business dealings and maybe he considered himself strong enough to hear the plain unvarnished truth that the pathologist was writing in her full report.

‘Come in,’ she said, pulling the door back and indicating a seat on one side of her desk. She eased herself past him and sat behind the desk, a weak light filtering through from the glazed window behind her. Eva Magnusson’s notes were in a file right in front of her, but the pathologist preferred to look this man in the eye as she told him what she had found, not hide behind the safety of an already prepared document.

‘We know a fair bit about what happened,’ Rosie began, ‘but as yet the police have not identified the perpetrator. Nor,’ she added, ‘do we know why anyone might have done this to your daughter.’

For a moment the Swede’s expression was so bleak that Rosie almost put out her hands to clasp his across the desk. But the long habit of professionalism stopped her.

‘Eva suffered manual strangulation from a person unknown,’ she continued. ‘Someone who was wearing gloves.’ She looked at his eyebrows, noticing that they were raised as she spoke.

‘It was a very cold night, so the wearing of gloves might or might not suggest a premeditated attack,’ she added. ‘There was nothing on Eva’s body to suggest that she had managed to resist the attack and, as I told you earlier, she would have lost consciousness very quickly.’

Magnusson nodded, his face still a mask of despair, his fingers twisting and turning the solid gold cufflink at his wrist.

‘There is something else, however,’ Rosie went on, drawing a deep breath before she continued. ‘There is evidence in the post-mortem that shows your daughter had sex some time before her death.’

Magnusson’s eyes widened but although his lips parted slightly, he did not utter a word.

‘We are hopeful of obtaining a DNA match from this trace evidence, naturally,’ she said. ‘But that will not necessarily give us the identity of her assailant.’

The man sat there staring at Rosie, then began to shake his head as though this extra piece of information must somehow be incorrect.

‘Are you trying to tell me my daughter was raped before she was murdered?’ he said thickly.

‘There was no bruising around the vaginal area or anything like her clothes being removed that would have indicated it had not been consensual sex,’ Rosie murmured. ‘Plus the toxicology tests have not given any signs of a drug that might have been administered to render Eva comatose.’

Henrik Magnusson continued to stare at her, his brows drawing together as if he were trying to figure something out.

‘A date-rape drug, you mean?’

Rosie nodded. ‘There was nothing like that in your daughter’s blood tests and only a minimal amount of alcohol,’ she said.

There was silence for a long moment.

‘She did enjoy an occasional glass of champagne,’ Magnusson said at last, his eyes wandering past Rosie as if he could see his daughter once again. And, as his expression softened and the tears filled them, Rosie felt a pain in her chest that came from a desire to let herself weep for this big man’s loss.

‘I think we’ve got him,’ Jo Grant told the detective superintendent, her hands leaning upon Lorimer’s desk, her shining face a picture of anticipation.

‘Thank God for that,’ Lorimer replied, his breath exhaling in a long sigh as he sat back. For each and every one of the few days since Eva Magnusson’s death his DI’s case had been preying on his mind and now he experienced a certain sense of relief. ‘Anyone we know?’ he continued, motioning her to take a seat.

Jo nodded and sat down. ‘DNA results came back this morning,’ she told him. ‘They match the sample we took from one of the students.’ She paused then went on, still regarding him carefully. ‘It’s Colin Young.’

‘Really?’ Lorimer’s eyebrows shot up in surprise as a sudden memory of the student’s troubled face came back. ‘He hadn’t impressed me as the violent type,’ he went on hastily as Jo’s brow wrinkled in a frown of annoyance.

‘There’s absolutely no getting away from these sorts of facts,’ she said. ‘He was definitely the one who had sex with the deceased and…’ She hesitated. ‘I had him weeping in the interview room after only a few questions. Total remorse, if you ask me,’ she added with that firm manner that Lorimer had come to respect.

‘Well, you know the procedure,’ Lorimer said. ‘A Section Fourteen. Bring him in and hope that he’ll confess. Makes it much easier all round than having to go through the entire trial-by-jury scenario.’

He steepled his fingers under his chin, watching Detective Inspector Grant nod in agreement as he considered how so many cases ended up dragging out for months in the courts. They’d both seen it plenty of times, though a lot of hardened criminals were savvy enough to cough up and plead guilty if there was evidence stacked up against them. A guilty plea carried a lesser sentence and they all knew it. But what of a student like Colin Young who had no previous police record? If he had strangled Eva in a moment of rage would he be remorseful enough to get it all off his chest to the police? Or would fear make him try to spin a web of lies concerning the girl’s death? And there was the aspect of the gloves. Lorimer sighed. Did that suggest a premeditated act or had the lad simply worn his gloves on that freezing night?

‘Did you find any gloves among Young’s possessions?’

‘No.’ Jo shrugged. ‘But I bet he was forensically aware enough to ditch them somewhere. All these kids know the score nowadays. CSI syndrome,’ she added, rolling her eyes to heaven. The much-watched American cop show, Crime Scene Investigation , had made a huge impact on viewers and the interest in forensic medical science had rocketed.

‘Right, you better get a warrant for his arrest,’ Lorimer said, watching his detective inspector rising from her seat. ‘Good luck.’

‘Thanks, sir. But don’t think I’ll need it,’ Jo replied with a grim smile on her face.

All the way back down the corridor Jo felt a spring in her step. To get a result so quickly was ace! And having a quick collar for a case that had threatened to become high profile was exactly what she had wanted. No having to waste time with the ladies and gentlemen of the press, no fannying about with a whole lot of student interviews and best of all, closure for the poor father. Still, she had to bring the lad in first as a detainee for twelve hours, during which time she’d aim to wring a confession out of him. Pausing by the office door for a moment to gather her thoughts, Jo hoped against hope that Colin Young hadn’t gone and done a runner.