“The man died first?”
“Exactly. I based that purely on the body temperature,” he says, pointing at the screen. “Erixon says both locations, the locker room and the house, were roughly the same temperature, so my estimate was that the man died just over an hour before the other two.”
“And have you changed your mind now?”
The Needle shakes his head and gets up with a groan. “Slipped disc,” he mutters, as he sets off down the hall.
Joona follows him as he limps slowly toward the postmortem unit. They pass a room containing a freestanding dissection table made of stainless steel; it looks like a draining board but with rectangular sections and a raised edge all round it. They enter a cool room where bodies being examined by the forensic unit are preserved in drawers at a temperature of forty degrees Fahrenheit. The Needle stops and checks the number, pulls out a large drawer, and sees that it’s empty.
“Gone,” he says, and they return to the corridor. As they walk, Joona notices that the floor is marked with thousands of scuffs from the wheels of trolleys. They reach another room and The Needle holds the door open for Joona.
They are in a well-lit white-tiled room with a large hand basin on the wall. Water is trickling into a drain in the floor from a bright yellow hose. On the long dissection table, which is covered in plastic, lies a naked, colourless body marked with hundreds of black wounds.
“Katja Ek,” states Joona.
The dead woman’s face is remarkably calm; her mouth is half open and her eyes have a serene look about them. She looks as if she is listening to beautiful music, but her peaceful expression is at odds with the long, vicious slashes across her forehead and cheeks. Joona allows his gaze to roam over Katja Ek’s body, where a marbled veining has already begun to appear around her neck.
“We’re hoping to get the internal examination done this afternoon.”
Joona sighs. “God, what a mess.”
The other door opens and a young man with an uncertain smile comes in. He has several rings in his eyebrows, and his dyed black hair hangs down the back of his white coat in a ponytail. With a little smile, The Needle raises one fist in a hard rock greeting, pinkie and index finger aloft like devil’s horns, which the young man immediately reciprocates.
“This is Joona Linna from National CID,” The Needle explains. “He comes to visit us now and again.”
“Frippe,” says the young man, shaking hands with Joona.
“He’s specialising in forensic medicine,” says The Needle.
Frippe pulls on a pair of latex gloves, and Joona goes over to the table with him; the air surrounding the woman is cold and smells unpleasant.
“She’s the one who was subjected to the least amount of violence,” The Needle points out. “Despite multiple cuts and stab wounds.”
They contemplate the dead woman. Her body is covered in large and small punctures.
“In addition, unlike the other two, she has not been mutilated or hacked to pieces,” he goes on. “The actual cause of death is not the wound in her neck but this one, which goes straight into the heart, according to the computer tomography.” He indicates a relatively unimpressive-looking wound on her sternum.
“But it is a little difficult to see the bleeds on the images,” says Frippe.
“Naturally, we’ll check it out when we open her up,” The Needle says to Joona.
“She fought back,” says Joona.
“In my opinion she actively defended herself at first,” replies The Needle, “based on the wounds on the palms of her hands, but then she tried to escape and simply tried to protect herself.”
The young doctor studies The Needle intently.
“Look at the injuries on the outer arms,” says The Needle.
“Defensive wounds,” mutters Joona.
“Exactly.”
Joona leans over and looks at the brownish-yellow patches that are visible in the woman’s open eyes.
“Are you looking at the suns?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t see them until a few hours after death; sometimes it can take several days,” The Needle says to the young doctor. “They’ll turn completely black in the end. It’s because the pressure in the eye is dropping.”
He picks up a reflex hammer and asks Frippe to see if any idiomuscular contractions remain. The young doctor taps the middle of the woman’s biceps and feels the muscle with his fingers, checking for contractions.
“Minimal,” he says to The Needle.
“They usually stop after thirteen hours,” The Needle explains.
“The dead are not completely dead,” says Joona, shuddering as he detects a ghostly movement in Katja Ek’s limp arm.
“Mortui vivis docent—the dead teach the living,” replies The Needle, smiling to himself as he and Frippe ease her onto her stomach.
He points out the blotchy reddish-brown patches on her buttocks and the small of her back and across her shoulder blades and arms.
“The hypostasis is faint when the victim has lost a lot of blood.”
“Obviously,” says Joona.
“Blood is heavy, and when you die there is no longer any internal pressure system,” The Needle explains to Frippe. “It might be obvious, but the blood runs downward and simply collects at the lowest points; it’s most often seen on surfaces that have been in contact with whatever the body was lying on.”
He presses a patch on her right calf with his thumb until it almost disappears.
“There, you see … you can press them and make them disappear up to twenty-four hours after death.”
“But I thought I saw patches on her hips and chest,” says Joona hesitantly.
“Bravo,” says The Needle, regarding him with a faintly surprised smile. “I didn’t think you’d notice those.”
“So she was lying on her stomach when she was dead, before she was turned over,” says Joona.
“For two hours, I’d guess.”
“So the perpetrator stayed for two hours. Or he came back to the scene. Or somebody else turned her over.”
The Needle shrugs his shoulders. “I’m a long way from finishing my assessment at this stage.”
“Can I ask something? I noticed that one of the wounds on the stomach looks like a C-section.”
“A C-section,” says The Needle, smiling. “Why not? Shall we have a look at it?” The two doctors turn the body once again. “This one, you mean?” The Needle is pointing to a large cut extending about six inches downward from the navel.
“Yes,” replies Joona.
“I haven’t had time to examine every injury yet.”
“Vulnera incisa,” says Frippe.
“Yes, it does look like an incision,” says The Needle.
“Not a stab wound,” says Joona.
Frippe leans over so that he can see.
“In view of the fact that it’s a straight line and the surface of the surrounding skin is intact.” The Needle pokes inside the wound with his fingers. “The walls,” he goes on. “They’re not particularly blood-soaked, but—”