Stalker

76

Erik picks Joona up from Valhallavägen after driving the young woman to a gynaecologist he knows at the Sophia Hospital.

‘Now we know that the Zone exists,’ Joona says as he gets in the car. ‘But it seems to be a Russian set-up… where you buy membership by contributing to their illegal activities.’

‘And that way you’re bound to keep quiet,’ Erik says, drumming his fingers on the wheel. ‘That’s why no one knows anything.’

‘We’re never going to be able to track it down, and it would take several years to infiltrate.’

Joona looks at his phone and sees that Nils Åhlén has called him three times in the last hour.

‘Now we’ve only one lead to follow if we’re going to find the Zone,’ Joona says. ‘And that’s the woman Rocky called Tina.’

‘But she’s not alive any more – is she?’

‘She not in the database, no one’s been murdered that way in Sweden,’ he replies. ‘Having an arm chopped off isn’t the sort of thing that’s likely to get missed.’

‘Maybe it was just a nightmare?’

‘Do you believe that?’ Joona asks.

‘No.’

‘Right, let’s go and see Nils Åhlén.’

The Forensic Medicine Institute has a number of lecture rooms, but only one room for the display of bodies. The hall is reminiscent of an anatomy theatre. The room is circular, with banks of seating rising higher and higher around the small stage containing the post-mortem table.

From the lobby they can hear Nils Åhlén’s sharp voice through the closed doors. He’s just finishing a lecture.

They go in as quietly as they can and sit down. Åhlén is dressed in his white coat, and is standing beside the blackened body of a man who froze to death.

‘And out of everything I’ve said today, there’s one particular thing that you mustn’t forget,’ Nils Åhlén says in conclusion. ‘A human being isn’t dead until it’s both dead and warm.’

He puts a gloved hand on the chest of the corpse and gives a bow as the medical students applaud.

Joona and Erik wait until the students have left the room before going down to the central dais. The corpse is giving off a strong smell of yeast and decay.

‘I’ve checked our records as well,’ Åhlén says. ‘But there’s no mention of that sort of injury… I’ve been through the databases covering violent crime, accidents and suicide… She doesn’t exist.’

‘But you also checked for me,’ Joona says.

‘So the obvious answer is that the body hasn’t been found,’ Åhlén mutters, taking off his glasses and polishing them.

‘Of course, but-’

‘Some are never found,’ Åhlén interrupts. ‘Some are found many years later… and some are found but never identified… We try dental records and DNA, and keep the bodies for a couple of years… The people at the National Board of Forensic Medicine are good, but even they have to bury a few unidentified bodies each year.’

‘The injuries would still be recorded, though, wouldn’t they?’ Joona persists.

Nils Åhlén has a strange glint in his eye as he lowers his voice.

‘I’ve thought of another possibility,’ he says. ‘There used to be a group of forensic medical officers who collaborated with certain detectives… They were known as the “Tax Savers”, and they believed they could identify in advance the cases that were never going to lead anywhere.’

‘You’ve never told me about that,’ Joona says.

‘It was back in the eighties… the Tax Savers didn’t want Swedish taxpayers to be burdened with the cost of pointless police investigations and hopeless attempts to identify bodies. It wasn’t a major scandal, a few people got ticked off, but it made me think… When you described Tina as a heroin addict, a prostitute, possibly a victim of human trafficking…’

‘You’re wondering if the Tax Savers are still active?’ Joona asks.

‘No paperwork,’ Nils Åhlén says, clicking his fingers. ‘No investigation, no Interpol, the body gets buried as an unknown, and the resources are used elsewhere.’

‘But in that case Tina would still be in the database of the National Board of Forensic Medicine,’ Erik says.

‘Try looking for an unidentified body, natural cause of death, illness,’ Åhlén says.

‘Who do I talk to?’ Joona asks.

‘Talk to Johan in Forensic Genetics, mention my name,’ he says. ‘Or I could give him a call, seeing as we’re here…’

He scrolls through his contacts, then puts his mobile to his ear.

‘Hello, this is Professor Nils Åhlén, I… no, thank you, it was very enjoyable… Just offbeat enough, I’d say…’

Åhlén circles the body twice as he talks. When he ends the call he stands in silence for a moment. His mouth twitches slightly. The empty benches spread out around them like the growth rings of a huge tree.

‘There’s only one unknown woman from Stockholm who matches Tina’s age during the period in question,’ Åhlén says eventually. ‘Either it’s her, or her body was never found.’

‘So could it be her?’ Erik asks.

‘The death certificate says heart attack… there’s a reference to another file, but that file doesn’t exist…’

‘There’s no description of the body?’

‘Obviously they kept a DNA sample, fingerprints, dental records,’ Åhlén replies.

‘Where is she now?’ Joona asks

‘She’s in Skogskyrkogården, buried among the trees of the Forest Cemetery.’ Åhlén smiles. ‘No name, grave number 32 2 53 332.’