The Savage Altar by Åsa Larsson Read Free Book Online Page A

person,” wondered Anna-Maria out loud. “Anything else?”
    “Not at the moment. No drugs. No alcohol. And he hadn’t eaten for several days.”
    “What? Several days?”
    Anna-Maria herself found it necessary to eat every two hours.
    “He wasn’t dehydrated, so it wasn’t some kind of stomach bug or anorexia or anything like that. But he seems to have ingested only liquids. The lab will be able to tell you what else was in his stomach. You can switch off the tape recorder.”
    He passed over a copy of the preliminary autopsy report. Anna-Maria clicked off the tape recorder.
    “I don’t like guessing,” said Pohjanen, clearing his throat. “At least not when there’s a record.”
    He nodded in the direction of the tape recorder, which disappeared into Anna-Maria’s pocket.
    “But the cuts on the wrists were very neat,” he went on. “You’re looking for a hunter, Mella.”
    “So this is where you are,” came a voice from the doorway.
    It was Sven-Erik Stålnacke.
    “Yes,” replied Anna-Maria, and realized she was embarrassed in case her colleague thought she’d gone behind his back. “Pohjanen rang and he was just about to leave and…”
    She stopped, angry that she’d tried to explain herself and to make excuses.
    “That’s fine,” said Sven-Erik cheerfully. “You can tell me all about it in the car. We’ve got problems with our pastors. Hell, I’ve been looking everywhere for you. In the end I asked Sonja on the switchboard who’d phoned you. We need to go now.”
    Anna-Maria glanced questioningly at Pohjanen; he shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows at the same time, as if to say that their business was finished.
    “I see Luleå got hammered by Färjestad.” Sven-Erik smirked as a parting shot to the doctor, at the same time hustling Anna-Maria along with him.
    “Go on, rub it in,” sighed Lars Pohjanen, fumbling in his pocket for a cigarette.

T he plane to Kiruna was almost full. Hordes of foreign tourists off to drive a dog team and spend the night on reindeer skins in the ice hotel at Jukkasjärvi jostled for space with rumpled businessmen returning home clutching their free fruit and newspapers.
    Rebecka sank down and fastened her seat belt. The murmur of voices, the synthetic ping as the signs lit up and went off overhead and the humming of the engines lulled her into a restless sleep. She slept for the whole journey.
    In her dream she is running across a cloudberry bog. It is a hot August day. The heat of the sun is making the moisture rise from the bog. Sweat and midge repellent are pouring down her forehead and into her eyes. It stings. There are tears in her eyes. A black cloud of midges creeps into her nostrils and ears. She can’t see. Someone is chasing her. They’re right behind her. And as always in her dreams, her legs won’t carry her weight. They have no strength and the bog is waterlogged. Her feet sink deeper and deeper into the peat moss and someone, or something, is chasing her. Now she can’t lift her foot. She’s sinking into the bog. She tries to shout for her mummy, but only a faint sound comes from her throat. Then she feels a hand, heavy on her shoulder.
    “I’m sorry, did I frighten you?”
    Rebecka opened her eyes and saw a flight attendant bending over her. The woman smiled a little uncertainly and took her hand from Rebecka’s shoulder.
    “We’re preparing to land in Kiruna; I’ll have to ask you to put the back of your seat into the upright position.”
    Rebecka’s hand flew up to her mouth. Had she been dribbling? Or worse, screaming? She didn’t dare look at her neighbor, but turned to look out into the darkness. It was down there. The town. It shone like a jewel glittering at the bottom of a well, its lights surrounded by the darkness of the mountains. It felt like a blow to the stomach and the heart.
    My town, she thought, the melancholy of seeing it again blending with happiness, rage and fear in a strange mixture.
    T wenty