Killing Moon

So far, it had been a relatively cool and dry September, and the discoloration on the corpse’s skin — blue, purple, yellow, brown — might be consistent with it lying outdoors for close to three weeks. The same went for the smell, owing to the body’s production of gas, which gradually seeped out from all orifices. Katrine had also noted the white area of thin hair-like filaments below the nostrils: fungus. In the large wound on the throat, yellowish-white, blind maggots crawled. Katrine had seen it so often she no longer had any particular reaction. After all, blowflies were — in Harry’s words — as loyal as Liverpool fans. Turning up at a moment’s notice no matter the time or place, rain or shine, attracted by the smell of dimethyl trisulfide which the body begins to excrete from the moment of expiration. The females lay their eggs, and a few days later the larvae hatch and begin gorging on the rotting flesh. They pupate, turning into flies, which look for bodies to lay their own eggs in, and after a month they have lived their life to the end and die. That’s their life cycle. Not so different to ours, Katrine thought. Or rather, not so different to mine.

Katrine looked around. White-clad members of Krimteknisk, the Forensics Unit, moved like soundless ghosts among the trees, casting eerie shadows every time the flashes on their cameras lit up. The forest was large. Østmarka continued on, for mile after mile, virtually all the way to Sweden. A jogger had found the body. Or rather, the jogger’s dog, which had been allowed off the lead and had disappeared from the narrow gravel road and into the woods. It was already getting dark. The jogger — running with a headlamp — had followed after while calling out to the dog and had eventually found it, next to the body, wagging its tail. Well, no wagging had been mentioned, it was something Katrine had pictured.

‘Susanne Andersen,’ she whispered, not knowing quite to whom. Perhaps to the deceased, as comfort and assurance that she had finally been found and identified.

The cause of death appeared obvious. The cut that had been made across her throat, running like a smile over Susanne Andersen’s narrow neck. The fly larvae, various forms of insects and perhaps other animals had probably helped themselves to most of the blood; however, Katrine still saw traces of blood spatter in the heather and on the trunk of one tree.

‘Killed here in situ,’ she said.

‘Looks that way,’ Sung-min replied. ‘Do you think she was raped? Or just sexually assaulted after he killed her?’

‘After,’ Katrine said, shining the torch on Susanne’s hands. ‘No broken nails, no signs of a struggle. But I’ll try and have them undertake a forensic post-mortem over the weekend and we’ll see what they think.’

‘And a clinical autopsy?’

‘We won’t get that until Monday at the earliest.’

Sung-min sighed. ‘Well, I guess it’s only a question of time before we find Bertine Bertilsen raped and with her throat slit somewhere in Grefsenkollen.’

Katrine nodded. She and Sung-min had become better acquainted over the past year, and he had confirmed his reputation as one of Kripos’s best detectives. There were many who believed he would take over as Senior Inspector the day Ole Winter stepped down, and that from then on the department would have a far better boss. Possibly. But there were also those who voiced reservations about the country’s foremost investigative body being led by an adopted South Korean and homosexual who dressed like a member of the British aristocracy. His classic tweed hunting jacket and suede-and-leather country boots stood in stark contrast to Katrine’s thin Patagonia down jacket and Gore-Tex trainers. When Bjørn was alive, he had called her style ‘gorpcore’, which, she had been given to understand, was an international term for people who went to the pub dressed as though they were headed up the mountains. She had called it adapting to life as the mother of a small child. But she had to admit that this more subdued, practical style of dress was also owing to the fact that she was no longer a young, rebellious investigative talent but the head of Crime Squad.

‘What do you think this is?’ Sung-min said.

She knew he was thinking the same as her. And that neither of them intended to say those words out loud. Not yet. Katrine cleared her throat.

‘The first thing we do is stick to what we’ve got here and find out what happened.’

‘Agreed.’