Killing Moon

3 Saturday

Alexandra Sturdza studied her face in the mirror above the sink while routinely and thoroughly washing her hands, as though it were a living person and not a corpse she would soon touch. Her face was hard, pockmarked. Her hair — pulled back and tied in a tight bun — was jet black, but she knew the first grey hairs were in store — her Romanian mother had already got them in her early thirties. Norwegian men said her brown eyes ‘flashed’, especially when any of them tried to imitate her almost imperceptible accent. Or when they joked about her homeland, a place some of them clearly thought was a big joke, and she told them she came from Timişoara, the first city in Europe to install electric street lighting, in 1884, two generations before Oslo. When she came to Norway as a twenty-year-old, she had learned Norwegian in six months while working three jobs, which she had reduced to two while studying chemistry at NTNU, and now just one, at the Forensic Medical Institute while also concentrating on what would be her doctoral thesis on DNA analysis. She had at times — although not that often — wondered what it was that made her so obviously attractive to men. It couldn’t be her face and direct — at times harsh — manner. Nor her intellect and CV, which men seemed to perceive as more threatening than stimulating. She sighed. A man had once told her that her body was a cross between a tiger and a Lamborghini. Odd how so cheesy a comment could sound totally wrong or completely acceptable, yes, wonderful even, depending on who said it. She turned off the tap and went into the autopsy room.

Helge was already there. The technician, two years her junior, was quick-minded and laughed easily, both qualities Alexandra viewed as assets when one worked with the dead and was tasked with extracting secrets from a corpse about how death occurred. Helge was a bioengineer and Alexandra a chemical engineer, and both were qualified to carry out forensic post-mortems, if not full clinical autopsies. Nevertheless, certain pathologists attempted to pull rank by calling post-mortem technicians Diener — servants — a hangover from German pathologists of the old school. Helge didn’t care but Alexandra had to admit it got to her now and again. And especially on days like today, when she came in and did everything a pathologist would do in a preliminary post-mortem — and equally well. Helge was her favourite at the institute, he always showed up when she asked, not something every Norwegian would on a Saturday. Or after four o’clock on a weekday. Sometimes she wondered where on the index of living standards this work-shy country would have been placed if the Americans hadn’t discovered oil on their continental shelf.

She turned up the light on the lamp hanging above the naked body of the young woman on the table. The smell of a corpse was dependent on many factors: age, cause of death, if medication was being taken, what food had been eaten and — of course — how far along the process of decay had come. Alexandra had no problems with the stench of rotting flesh, of excrement, or urine. She could even tackle the gases created by the process of decomposition that the body expelled in long hisses. It was the stomach fluids that got her. The smell of vomit, bile and the various acids. In that sense, Susanne Andersen was not too bad, even after three weeks outdoors.

‘No larvae?’ Alexandra asked.

‘I removed them,’ Helge said, holding up the vinegar bottle they used.

‘But kept them?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, pointing to a glass box containing a dozen white maggots. They were saved because their length could be indicative of how long they had fed on the corpse, in other words, how long it had been since they hatched, and therefore, something about the time of death. Not in hours, but in days and weeks.

‘This won’t take long,’ Alexandra said. ‘Crime Squad just want the probable cause of death and an external examination. Blood test, urine, bodily fluid. The pathologist will perform a complete post-mortem on Monday. Any plans for tonight? Here...’

Helge took a photograph of where she was pointing.

‘Thought I might watch a movie,’ he said.

‘What about joining me at a gay club for a dance?’ She made notes on the form and pointed again. ‘Here.’

‘I can’t dance.’

‘Rubbish. All gays can dance. See this cut on the throat? Starts on the left side, gets deeper further along, then shallower towards the right. It indicates a right-handed killer who was standing behind and holding her head back. One of the pathologists was telling me about a similar wound that they thought was murder, and it turned out the man had cut his own throat. Pretty determined, in other words. What do you say, want to go dance with some gays tonight?’

‘What if I’m not gay?’

‘In that case...’ Alexandra said, taking notes, ‘...I wouldn’t actually want to go out anywhere with you again, Helge.’

He laughed out loud and snapped a picture. ‘Because?’

‘Because then you’ll block other men. A good wingman needs to be gay.’

‘I can pretend to be gay.’

‘Doesn’t work. Men notice the smell of testosterone and back off. What do you think this is?’

She held a magnifying glass just below one of Susanne Andersen’s nipples.

Helge leaned closer. ‘Dried saliva, maybe. Or snot. Not semen, in any case.’

‘Take a photo, then I’ll take a scrape sample and check it at the lab on Monday. If we’re lucky, it’s DNA material.’

Helge took a picture while Alexandra examined the mouth, ears, nostrils and eyes.

‘What do you think has happened here?’ She raised a penlight and shone it in the empty eye socket.

‘Animals?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’ Alexandra shone the light around the edges of the eye socket. ‘There’s nothing remaining of the eyeball inside and no wounds around the eye from the claws of birds or rodents. And if it was an animal, why not take the other eye as well? Take a photo here...’ She illuminated the eye socket. ‘See how the nerve fibres look like they’ve been cut at one place, as though with a knife?’

‘Jesus,’ Helge said. ‘Who does something like that?’

‘Angry men,’ Alexandra said, shaking her head. ‘Very angry and very damaged men. And they’re on the loose out there. Maybe I should stay in and watch a movie tonight as well.’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘OK. Let’s see if he’s assaulted her sexually too.’

They took a cigarette break on the roof after determining there were no obvious signs of injury to the exterior or interior of the genitalia nor any traces of semen on the outside of the vagina. If semen had been present within the vagina, it would have been drawn into the rest of the body long ago. The pathologist would go over the same ground as them on Monday but she was pretty certain they would not arrive at a different conclusion.

Alexandra was not a regular smoker, but had a vague belief in cigarettes smoking out any potential demons from the dead that had taken up residence within. She inhaled and looked out over Oslo. Over the fjord, glittering like silver beneath a pale, cloudless sky. Over the low hills, where the colours of autumn burned in red and yellow.

‘Fuck, it’s nice here,’ she said with a sigh.

‘You make it sound like you wish it wasn’t,’ Helge said, taking over the cigarette from her.

‘I hate getting attached to things.’

‘Things?’

‘Places. People.’

‘Men?’

‘Especially men. They take away your freedom. Or rather, they don’t take it, you bloody well give it away like a wuss, as if you’re programmed to. And freedom is worth more than men.’

‘You sure?’

She snatched the cigarette back and took a long, angry drag. Blew the smoke out just as hard and gave a harsh, rasping laugh.

‘Worth more than the men I fall for anyway.’

‘What about that cop you mentioned?’

‘Oh, him.’ She chuckled. ‘Yeah, I liked him. But he was a mess. His wife had kicked him out and he drank all the time.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘His wife died and he skipped the country. Tragic business.’ Alexandra stood up abruptly. ‘Right, we better finish up and get the body back in the refrigerator. I want to party!’

They returned to the autopsy room, collected the last samples, filled out the rest of the fields on the form and tidied up.

‘Speaking of parties,’ Alexandra said. ‘You know the party this girl and the other one were at? That was the same party I was invited to, the one I then invited you to.’

‘You’re kidding?’

‘Don’t you remember? A friend of one of Røed’s neighbours asked me. She said the party was taking place on the best rooftop terrace in Oslobukta. Told me it would be crawling with the well-heeled, with celebrities and party people. Said they’d prefer women came in skirts. Short skirts.’

‘Ugh,’ Helge said. ‘Don’t blame you for not going.’

‘Fuck that, course I would’ve gone! If I hadn’t had so much work on here that day. And you would have come with.’

‘Would I?’ Helge smiled.

‘Of course.’ Alexandra laughed. ‘I’m your fag hag. Can’t you picture it, you, me and the beautiful people?’

‘Yes.’

‘You see, you are gay.’

‘What? Because?’

‘Tell me truthfully, Helge. Have you ever slept with a man?’

‘Let me see...’ Helge wheeled the table with the corpse towards one of the cold lockers. ‘Yes.’

‘More than once?’

‘Doesn’t mean I’m gay,’ he said, opening the large metal drawer.

‘No, that’s only circumstantial evidence. The proof, Watson, is that you tie your sweater over one shoulder and under the other arm.’

Helge chuckled, grabbed one of the white cloths on the instrument table and flicked it at her. Alexandra smiled as she ducked down behind the top end of the table. She remained like that, stooped over, her eyes fixed on the body.

‘Helge,’ she said in a low voice.

‘Yeah.’

‘I think we’ve missed something.’

‘What?’

Alexandra reached out towards Susanne Andersen’s head, lifted the hair and pulled it to the side.

‘What is it?’ Helge asked.

‘Stitches,’ Alexandra replied. ‘Fresh stitches.’

He came round the other side of the trolley. ‘Hm. Guess she must have hurt herself then?’

Alexandra lifted away more hair, followed the stitches. ‘These weren’t carried out by a trained doctor, Helge, no one uses thread this thick or stitches this loosely. This was just done in a hurry. And look, the stitches continue all the way round the head.’

‘As though she’s...’

‘As though she’s been scalped,’ Alexandra said, feeling a cold shudder go through her. ‘And then the scalp has been sewn back on.’

She looked up at Helge, saw his Adam’s apple rise and fall. ‘Will we...’ he began. ‘Will we check what’s... underneath?’

‘No,’ Alexandra said firmly, straightening up. She had taken home enough nightmares from this job, and the pathologists earned two hundred thousand kroner a year more than her, they could earn it.

‘This is outside our field of competence,’ she said. ‘So it’s the kind of thing Dieners like you and me leave to the grown-ups.’

‘OK. And OK to partying tonight too, by the way.’

‘Good,’ Alexandra said. ‘But we need to finish the report and send it along with the photos to Bratt at Crime Squad. Oh fuck!’

‘What is it?’

‘I just realised that Bratt is bound to ask me to run an express DNA analysis when she reads about that saliva or whatever it is. In which case I won’t make it out on the town tonight.’

‘Come on, you can say no, everyone needs time off, even you.’

Alexandra put her hands on her hips, tilted her head to one side and looked sternly at Helge.

‘Right.’ He sighed. ‘Where would we be if everyone just took time off?’