Knecht’s coffin. We have to lift the lid and see what’s happened.”
Birgitta made a face without saying anything. She had seen worse things than a corpse that had been dead for two and a half years.
They went into the mausoleum together. Irene set the lit flashlight on top of the next coffin lid.
“Look at the grooves. They’re recent,” she pointed out.
Birgitta took a closer look and nodded. They positioned themselves on the long side of the coffin. Each took a firm hold of one edge of the lid.
“One, two, threeee,” Irene counted.
They pulled with all their strength and managed to shift the lid.
The shrouded corpse of Henrik von Knecht lay inside. But that wasn’t what made Irene and Birgitta recoil. There was also a head in a state of advanced decay next to the corpse.
“SO WE’VE found Marcus Tosscander’s head. But there weren’t any arms or legs in the crypt or whatever it’s called,” said Superintendent Andersson.
“Mausoleum,” corrected Irene.
Andersson pretended not to hear her. He continued, “Under no circumstances is this allowed to get out to the press. If it does, Basta will know we’re hot on his trail.”
“Are we going to watch the graveyard?” Fredrik Stridh wondered.
“I’ve already posted a guard,” Andersson replied.
The technicians had been working all evening to secure the scene. Svante Malm had shown up at morning prayers. Now it was his turn to speak. “Professor Stridner has promised to be in touch as soon as the identification of the head has been made with the help of dental records and X-rays. A medical odontologist will be present during the morning. But based on what remained, Irene and Birgitta have established that it is Marcus Tosscander’s head.”
The image of the decaying head quickly fluttered through Irene’s mind. Marcus’s beautiful features had vanished forever. A vague thought about the mortality of all beauty was forming in her head, but she had to let it go in order to concentrate on what Svante was saying.
“There’s no evidence to support the theory that a murder was committed inside the burial chamber. However, we’ve found footprints. When we sorted out the ones Irene and Birgitta made when they went in, two sets remained. A pair of heavy boots, size eleven, and a pair of athletic shoes, also size eleven. Right now we’re in the process of matching the prints to the one we secured over the weekend from the flower bed outside Irene’s house. We’ve also sent copies to Copenhagen in case they have footprints from any of their crime scenes.”
Where had there been a footprint? Irene strained to recall: there had been a print on the outer edge of the big pool of blood at the hotel room where Isabell was found. At the time, Irene had thought that it had been made by one of the police officers who had clumsily stepped in the blood. But what if she’d been wrong, what if it turned out to have been made by an athletic shoe, size eleven! That would be the first evidence incriminating Basta for the murder of Isabell.
“We’ve also found some long blond strands of hair, but they’re very light and don’t really match with the description of Basta,” said Svante.
A thought struck Irene. “That could be hair from the older Mrs. von Knecht. She’s very blonde.”
“Very possible. They were found in the coffin, where the head lay.”
Svante knelt and rummaged in his dark blue bag. Then he waved a paper in front of them.
“A fax from Copenhagen. They think that they’ve found the location where the first dismemberment took place. Apparently, the interior matches that on the video. It’s a small shipyard north of Copenhagen that has been abandoned a few years, and will be torn down this summer. Our colleagues in Denmark have requested the fingerprints. It’ll be interesting to see if the ones we believe belong to Basta are found at the Danish crime scenes,” he said.
Irene had her misgivings but, on the other hand, Basta had made some mistakes. Each one of them had been small but, put together, the accumulation of evidence made a serious case against him. Now it was just a matter of determining his identity and catching him.
Irene glanced at the clock. It was almost 9:00 a.m. Henning Oppdal should arrive any minute. She excused herself.
HE DIDN’T look anything like the man she had pictured. The owner of the soft voice turned out to be a rather large man, in good shape, definitely not corpulent. He was of average