The Blood Spilt by Åsa Larsson Read Free Book Online Page B

point?”
    “Not quite. It’s in the notes.”
    Anna-Maria skimmed through the notes. There was a small bleed in the skin where the neck injuries were. According to Pohjanen, the medical examiner, this indicated a dying person. Which meant that she was almost dead when she was hung up. Presumably not conscious.
    “These socks in her mouth…” Anna-Maria began.
    “Her own,” said Sven-Erik. “Her shoes were still down by the river, and she was barefoot when she was hung up.”
    “I’ve seen that before,” said the prosecutor. “Often when somebody is killed in that particular way. The victim jerks and makes rattling noises. It’s most unpleasant. And to stop the rattling…”
    He broke off. He was thinking of a domestic abuse case that had ended with the wife being murdered. Half the bedroom curtains down her throat.
    Anna-Maria looked at some of the photographs. The battered face. The mouth gaping open, black, no front teeth.
    What about the hands, though? she thought. The side of the hand where the little finger is? The arms?
    “No sign of self-defense,” she said.
    The prosecutor and Sven-Erik shook their heads.
    “And no complete fingerprints?” asked Anna-Maria.
    “No. We’ve got a partial print on one sock.”
    Gustav had now moved on to pulling every leaf he could reach off a large rubber plant that was in a pot on the floor topped with gravel. When Anna-Maria pulled him away he let out a howl of rage.
    “No, and I mean no,” said Anna-Maria when he tried to fight his way out of her arms to get back to the rubber plant.
    The prosecutor attempted to say something, but Gustav was wailing like a siren. Anna-Maria tried to bribe him with her car keys and cell phone, but everything was sent crashing to the floor. He’d started stripping the rubber plant and he wanted to finish the job. Anna-Maria tucked him under her arm and stood up. The meeting was definitely over.
    “I’m putting in an advert,” she said through clenched teeth. “Free to good home. Or ‘wanted: lawnmower in exchange for thriving boy aged eighteen months, anything considered.’ ”
    *                  *                  *                  
    Sven-Erik walked out to the car with Anna-Maria. Still the same old scruffy Ford Escort, he noticed. Gustav forgot his woes when she put him down so that he could walk by himself. First of all he wobbled recklessly toward a pigeon that was pecking at some scraps by a waste bin. The pigeon flew tiredly away, and Gustav turned his attention to the bin. Something pink had run over the edge; it looked like dried vomit from the previous Saturday. Anna-Maria grabbed Gustav just before he got there. He started to sob as if his life was over. She shoved him into his car seat and slammed the door. His muted sobs could be heard from inside.
    She turned to Sven-Erik with a wry smile.
    “I think I’ll leave him there and walk home,” she said.
    “No wonder he’s making a fuss when you’ve done him out of a snack,” said Sven-Erik, nodding toward the disgusting bin.
    Anna-Maria pretended to shrug her shoulders. There was a silence between them for a few seconds.
    “So,” said Sven-Erik with a grin, “I suppose I’ll have to put up with you again.”
    “Poor you,” she said. “That’s the end of your peace and quiet.”
    Then she became serious.
    “It said in the papers that she was a bluestocking, arranged courses in self-defense, that sort of thing. And yet there were no marks to indicate that she’d struggled!”
    “I know,” said Sven-Erik.
    He twitched his moustache with a thoughtful expression.
    “Maybe she wasn’t expecting to be hit,” he said. “Maybe she knew him.”
    He grinned.
    “Or her!” he added.
    Anna-Maria nodded pensively. Behind her Sven-Erik could see the wind farm on Peuravaara. It was one of their favorite things to squabble about. He thought it was beautiful. She thought it was ugly as sin.
    “Maybe,”