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