The Nightmare by Lars Kepler Read Free Book Online Page B

can just let go of this one … it’s nothing more dramatic than a suicide.”
    The Needle’s smile disappears and he drops his gaze. Joona’s eyes are still sharp and focused.
    “You’re probably right.”
    “Of course I’m right,” The Needle replies. “And I can speculate a little more if you want … Palmcrona was probably depressed. His fingernails were ragged and dirty. He hadn’t brushed his teeth for several days and he hadn’t shaved.”
    “I see.”
    “You can take a look at him if you’d like,” The Needle prompts.
    “No, that’s not necessary,” Joona answers and slowly stands up.
    The Needle leans forward, a note of expectancy in his voice as if he’d been waiting for this moment.
    “Something more exciting came in this morning. Do you have a few minutes?”
    The Needle stands up as well, and gestures Joona to follow him along the hall. A light blue butterfly has managed to get into the building and it flutters in front of them.
    “Has the other guy quit?”
    “Who?”
    “The other guy who worked here, the one with the ponytail…”
    “Frippe? No way in hell we’d let him quit. He has a few days off. Megadeth was playing the Globe yesterday. Entombed was the lead-in act.”
    They walk through a dark room between autopsy tables of stainless steel, hardly noticing the strong smell of disinfectant. They continue walking to a much cooler room where bodies are being stored in chilled lockers, waiting to be examined by the department of forensic medicine.
    The Needle opens the door and turns on the ceiling lamp. The fluorescent light flickers once or twice before it’s fully on and can illuminate the white-tiled room and the long autopsy table covered in plastic. The table has double sinks and gutters for drainage.
    The Needle uncovers the body lying on the table.
    It is a beautiful young woman.
    Her skin is tanned and her long hair winds in a thick, shimmering mass across her forehead and shoulders. She seems to look into the room with an expression of both doubt and amazement. There’s an almost mischievous tilt to the corners of her mouth, as if she had been a person who easily smiles and laughs. However, any light in those large, dark eyes has long gone. Small brownish yellow specks are starting to appear.
    Joona moves closer for a better perspective. She can’t be more than nineteen or twenty years old. Not that long ago, she’d been a child still sleeping in bed with her parents. Then she was an adolescent schoolgirl and now she’s dead.
    A line, like a smile painted in gray, curves for about thirty centimeters across the woman’s collarbone.
    “What’s this?” Joona points at it.
    “No idea. Maybe from a necklace or the top of a blouse. I’ll take a closer look later.”
    Joona peers more closely at the quiet body. He sighs at the familiar wave of melancholy he feels when he faces death, the colorless vacuum.
    Her fingers and toes had been painted with a light, almost beige, rose.
    “So what’s the story?” Joona finally asks after a minute of silence.
    The Needle gives him a serious look and light reflects from his glasses as he turns back to the body.
    “The Coast Guard brought her in,” he relates. “They found her sitting on the bunk down in the forward cabin of a large motorboat. It was abandoned and drifting in the archipelago.”
    “She was already dead?”
    The Needle looks at him and his voice becomes almost melodic.
    “She drowned, Joona.”
    “Drowned?”
    The Needle nods, and his smile almost vibrates.
    “She drowned on a boat that was still afloat,” he says.
    “I assume someone found her in the water and brought her on board.”
    “If that was the case, I wouldn’t waste your time.”
    “So what’s going on?”
    “There are no marks of water on the body itself—I’ve sent her clothes to be analyzed, but I know the National Forensic Laboratory won’t find a thing.”
    The Needle falls silent and flips through his preliminary report. He sneaks