The Blood Spilt by Åsa Larsson Read Free Book Online

a stubborn expression. “We can’t tip the balance by abandoning other investigations and preliminary examinations. We’ll end up with the ombudsman after us.”
    He paused briefly and looked at Gustav, who was removing the contents of the wastepaper basket and arranging his treasures neatly on the floor. An empty snuff tin. A banana skin. An empty box of cough sweets—Läkerol Special. Some screwed up paper. When the basket was empty Gustav pulled off his shoes and threw them down. The prosecutor smiled and went on.
    He’d managed to persuade Anna-Maria to come back half-time until she went back up to working full time after Christmas. So the idea was that Sven-Erik should carry on as team leader and Anna-Maria devote her attention to the murder until it was time for her to go full time again.
    He pushed his glasses firmly up to the bridge of his nose and scanned the table. He finally found Mildred Nilsson’s file and pushed it over to Anna-Maria and Sven-Erik.
    Anna-Maria flicked through the file. Sven-Erik looked over her shoulder. He had a heavy feeling inside. It was as if sorrow filled him when he looked at the pages.
    The prosecutor asked him to summarize the investigation.
    Sven-Erik worked his fingers through his bushy moustache for a few seconds while he thought things through, then he explained without digressions that the priest Mildred Nilsson had been killed on the night before midsummer’s eve, June 21. She had held a midnight service in Jukkasjärvi church which had finished at quarter to twelve. Eleven people had attended the service. Six of them were tourists staying in the local hotel. They had been dragged out of their beds at around four in the morning and had been interviewed by the police. The other people at the service had all belonged to Mildred Nilsson’s old biddies’ group, Magdalena.
    “Old biddies’ group?” asked Anna-Maria, looking up from the file.
    “Yes, she had a Bible study group that consisted only of women. They called themselves Magdalena. One of those network things people go in for these days. They’d go to the church where Mildred Nilsson was holding a service. It’s caused bad blood in certain circles. The expression was used both by their critics and by themselves.”
    Anna-Maria nodded and looked down at the file again. Her eyes narrowed when she came to the autopsy report and the remarks of the medical examiner, Pohjanen.
    “She was certainly smashed up,” she said. “ ‘Impact marks from a blow to the skull… fractured skull… crush damage to the brain at the points of impact… bleeding between the soft tissue of the brain and the hard outer layer…’ ”
    She noticed fleeting expressions of distaste on the faces of both the prosecutor and Sven-Erik and carried on looking through the text in silence.
    Pointless, uncharacteristic violence, then. Most injuries about three centimeters long, with connective tissue between the edges of the wound. The connective tissue had been shattered. But there was a long wound here: “Left temple straight reddish blue contusion and swelling… the furthest edge of the impression wound is three centimeters below and two centimeters in front of the auditory canal on the left-hand side…”
    Impression wound? What did it say about that in the notes? She flicked through the file.
    “… the impression wound and the extended wound above the left temple with clear demarcation along its sides would suggest a crowbar-like weapon.”
    Sven-Erik continued his narrative:
    “After the service the priest got changed in the sacristy, locked the church and walked past the folk museum down to the river where she kept her boat. That’s where she was attacked. The murderer carried the priest back to the church. Unlocked the door and carried her up to the organ loft, put an iron chain around her neck, attached the chain to the organ and hung her from the organ loft.
    “She was found not long afterward by one of the churchwardens who