Don't Look Back

by Karin Fossum

  "I'll have it looked into. Don't mention this to anyone. We'll be in touch."

  He hung up and in his mind he closed up his cabin. The scent of sea spray and fresh-caught cod sprats vanished abruptly. He smiled at Holthemann.

  "You know, there's something I have to take care of first."

  Karlsen was out on patrol in the only squad car they could spare that day, and it had to cover the entire city centre. So he took Skarre with him instead, a young curly-haired officer about half his age. Skarre was a cheerful little man, mild-mannered and optimistic, with traces of the rhythmic Southland dialect in his speech. They parked again by the letterbox in Granittveien and had a brief talk with Irene Album. Ragnhild clung like a burr to her mother's dress. A number of admonitions had undoubtedly been impressed on the tow-headed child. Her mother pointed and explained, saying they had to follow a signposted path from the edge of the woods facing the house, uphill to the left past Kollen. For active men like them it would probably take 20 minutes, she said.

  The tree trunks were marked with blue arrows, indicating the way. They eyed the sheep shit bale-fully, stepping out into the heather now and again, but persevered upwards. The path grew steeper and steeper. Skarre was panting a little, while Sejer walked easily. He stopped once, turning to stare down towards the housing estate. They could see only the roofs, brownish-pink and black in the distance. Then they set off again, no longer talking, partly because they needed their breath for the climb, partly because of what they were afraid of finding. The forest was so thick that they were walking in semi-darkness. Instinctively, Sejer kept his eyes on the path, not because he was afraid of tripping, but if something had indeed happened up here, it was crucial to take note of everything. They had been walking for exactly 17 minutes when the forest opened up and the sunlight shone through. Now they could see the water. A mirror-like tarn, no bigger than a large pond, lying among the spruce trees like a secret space. For a moment they scanned the terrain, following the yellow line of the reeds with their gaze, and caught sight of something that looked like a beach a little farther away. They set out towards it at a good distance from the water; the belt of rushes was fairly wide, and they had only their street shoes.

  It could hardly be called a beach, but was more like a muddy patch with four or five large stones, just enough to keep the reeds out, and probably the only place that allowed access to the water. A woman lay in the mud and dirt. She was on her side with her back to them, a dark anorak covering her upper body. Otherwise she was naked. Blue and white clothes lay in a heap next to her. Sejer stopped short and automatically reached for the mobile phone on his belt. Then he changed his mind. He approached carefully, hearing the gurgling in his shoes.

  "Don't move," he said in a low voice.

  Skarre obeyed. Sejer was at the water's edge. He balanced himself on a rock a little way out in the tarn so he could see the woman from the front. He didn't want to touch anything, not yet. Her eyes had sunk in a little. They were half-open and fixed on a point out in the lake. The eye membrane was dull and wrinkled. Her pupils were large and no longer quite round. Her mouth stood open; above it and extending up over her nose was a yellowish bit of foam, as if she had vomited. He bent down and blew on it; it didn't move. Her face was only a few centimetres from the water. He placed two fingers over her carotid artery. The skin had lost all elasticity, and felt as cold as he had expected.

  "Gone," he said.

  On her earlobes and on the side of her neck he found some faint reddish-purple marks. The skin on her legs was goosebumped but undamaged. He went back the same way. Skarre stood waiting with his hands in his pockets looking a little puzzled. He was terrified of making a mistake.

  "Totally naked under her jacket. No visible external injuries. I should say about 18 to 20 years old."

  Then he telephoned Headquarters and requested an ambulance, forensics, photographer and technicians. Explained the route that went up from the back side of Kollen and was accessible by car. He asked them to park some way off so as not to disturb any tyre tracks. When he'd finished he looked round for something to sit on, choosing the flattest stone. Skarre sank down next to him. They stared silently at her white legs and blonde hair, which was straight and shoulder-length. She lay almost in a foetal position. Her arms were folded over her breasts, her knees drawn up. The wind-breaker lay loosely over her torso and reached to mid-thigh. It was clean and dry. The rest of her clothes were piled in a heap behind her and were wet and soiled. A pair of dungarees with belt, a blue-and-white checked blouse, brassiere, dark blue high-school pullover. Reebok trainers.

  "What's that above her mouth?" muttered Skarre.

  "Foam."

  "But... foam? What would that come from?"

  "I suspect we'll find out soon enough." Sejer shook his head. "Looks like she lay down to go to sleep. With her back to the world."

  "People don't undress to commit suicide, do they?"

  Sejer didn't reply. He looked at her again, at the white body by the black water, surrounded by dark spruce trees. The scene had nothing of violence in it; in fact, it looked peaceful. They settled in to wait.

  Six men came tramping out of the woods. Their voices died out except for a few faint coughs when they caught sight of the men by the water. A second later they saw the dead woman. Sejer stood up and gestured.

  "Stay on that side!" he shouted.

  They did as he ordered. They all recognised his grey shock of hair. One of them measured the terrain with a practised eye, trod a bit on the ground, which was relatively solid where he stood, and muttered something about a lack of rain. The photographer went first. He didn't spend much time by the body, but instead looked at the sky, as if he wanted to check the light conditions.

  "Take pictures from both sides," Sejer said, "and get the vegetation in the shot. I'm afraid you'll have to go out in the water after that, because I need pictures from the front without moving her. When you've used up half the roll, we'll take off her jacket."

  "Mountain lakes like this are usually bottomless," he said sceptically.

  "You can swim, can't you?"

  There was a pause.

  "There's a rowboat over there. We can use that."

  "A dinghy? It looks rotten."

  "We'll soon know," Sejer said, brusquely.

  While the photographer was working, the others stood still and waited. One of the technicians was already working further up the shore, searching through the area, which proved to be quite free of litter. This was an idyllic spot, and in such places there was usually bottle caps, used condoms, cigarette butts, and sweet wrappers. Here they found nothing.

  "Unbelievable," he said. "Not so much as a burnt match."

  "He probably cleaned up after himself," Sejer said.

  "It looks like a suicide, don't you think?"

  "She's stark naked," he replied.

  "Yes, but she must have done that herself. Those clothes were not pulled off by force, that's one thing for certain."

  "They're dirty."

  "Maybe that's why she took them off," he smiled. "Besides, she threw up. Must have eaten something she couldn't digest."

  Sejer bit back a reply and looked at her. He could understand how the technician had come to that conclusion. It really did look as if she had lain down herself; her clothes were piled carefully next to her, not thrown about. They were muddy but seemed undamaged. Only the jacket that covered her torso was dry and clean. He stared at the mud and dirt and caught sight of something that looked like a shoe print. "Look at that," he said to the technician.

  The man squatted down in his coveralls and measured all the prints several times.

  "This is hopeless. They're filled with water."

  "Can't you use any of them?"

  "Probably not."

  They squinted into the water-filled ovals.

  "Take pictures anyway. I think they look small. Maybe a person with small feet."

  "Roughly 27 centimetres. Not a big foot. Could
be hers." The photographer took several shots of the footprints, then got into the old rowboat and sloshed around. They had found no oars, so he had to keep paddling into position with his hands. Every time he moved, the boat tilted alarmingly.

  "It's leaking!" he shouted anxiously.

  "Relax, we've got a whole rescue team here!" Sejer said.

  When the photographer was done, he had taken more than 50 photos. Sejer went down to the water, took off his shoes and socks and placed them on a rock, rolled up his trousers and waded out. He stood a metre from her head. She had a pendant around her neck. He fished it out carefully with a pen he took from his inside pocket. "A medallion," he said in a low voice. "Probably silver. There's something on it. An H and an M. Get a bag ready."

  He bent over and loosened the chain, then he removed the jacket.

  "The back of her neck is red," he said. "Unusually pale skin all over, but extremely red on the back of her neck. An ugly blotch, as big as a hand."

  Snorrason, the medical examiner, waded out in his gumboots and inspected in turn the eyeballs, the teeth, the nails. Noticed the flawless skin and the light red marks – there were several of them – scattered seemingly at random across her neck and chest. He noticed every detail: the long legs, the lack of birthmarks, which was uncommon, and found nothing more than a few small spots on her right shoulder. He cautiously touched the foam above her mouth with a wooden spatula. It seemed solid and dense, almost like a mousse.

  Sejer nodded to her mouth. "What's that?"

  "Right off I would think it's a fluid from the lungs, containing protein."

  "Which means?"

  "Drowning. But it could mean other things."

  He scraped away some of the foam, and soon new foam began oozing out.

  "The lungs are collapsed," he said.

  Sejer pressed his lips tight as he watched. The photographer took more pictures of her, now without the jacket.

  "Time to break the seal," Snorrason said, rolling her carefully on to her stomach. "A slight incipient rigor mortis, especially in the neck. A big, well-built woman in healthy condition. Broad shoulders. Good musculature in upper arms and thighs and calves. Probably played sports."

  "Do you see any sign of violence?" Sejer asked.

  Snorrason inspected her back and the backs of her legs. "Apart from the reddening of the neck, no. Someone may have grabbed her hard by the back of the neck and pushed her to the ground. Obviously while she was still clothed. Then she was pulled up again, carefully undressed, laid in place, and covered with the jacket."

  "Any sign of sexual assault?"

  "Don't know yet."

  He proceeded to take her temperature, quite unperturbed, in the presence of everyone, and then squinted at the result.

  "It's 30 degrees Celsius. Together with the blood spots under the skin and only a slight rigor mortis in the neck, I would estimate the time of death as being within the past ten to twelve hours."

  "No," Sejer said. "Not if this isn't where she died."

  "Are you doing my job for me?"

  He shook his head. "There was a search made here this morning. A group of boys with dogs searched along this tarn for a little girl who was reported missing. They must have been here sometime between midday and 2 p.m. The body wasn't here then – they would have seen it. The little girl turned up by the way, in good shape," he said.

  He looked about him, staring down at the mud with his eyes narrowed. Something tiny and pale-coloured caught his attention. He picked it up carefully between two fingers. "What's this?"

  Snorrason peered into his hand. "A pill, or a tablet of some kind."

  "Do you think you might find more in her stomach?"

  "Quite possibly. But I don't see a pill bottle here."

  "She could have carried them loose in her pocket."

  "In that case we'll find powder in her dungarees. Bag it up."

  "Do you recognise it?"

  "It could be almost anything. But the smallest tablets are often the strongest. The lab will figure it out."

  Sejer nodded to the men with the stretcher and stood watching them with his arms crossed. For the first time in a long while he raised his eyes and looked up. The sky was pale, and the pointed firs stood around the tarn like raised spears. Of course they would figure it out. He made himself a promise. They'd figure everything out.

  Jacob Skarre, born and raised in Søgne in the mild Southland, had just turned 25. He had seen naked women plenty of times, but never as naked as the one by the tarn. It struck him just now, as he sat with Sejer in the car, that this one had made more of an impression than all the other corpses he had seen before. Maybe it was because she lay as if trying to conceal her nakedness, with her back to the path, head tucked down and knees drawn up. But they had found her anyway, and they had seen her nakedness. Turned her and rolled her over, pulled back her lips to look at her teeth, raised her eyelids. Took her temperature, as she lay on her stomach with her legs spread. As if she were a mare at auction.

  "She was quite pretty, wasn't she?" he said, shaken.

  Sejer didn't answer. But he was glad of the comment. He had found other young women, had heard other comments. They drove for a while in silence, staring at the road in front of them, but further in the distance they kept on seeing her naked body – the ripple of her backbone, the soles of her feet with a slightly redder skin, the calves with blonde hair on them – hovering above the asphalt like a mirage. Sejer had an odd feeling. This resembled nothing he had ever seen.

  "You're on the night shift?"

  Skarre cleared his throat. "Just till midnight. I'm doing a few hours for Ringstad. By the way, I heard you were thinking of taking a week's holiday – is that off now?"

  "Looks that way."

  He had forgotten all about it.

  The missing persons list lay before him on the table.

  Four names, two men, and two women, both born before 1960 and therefore not the woman they had found by Serpent Tarn. One was missing from the Central Hospital psychiatric ward, the other from a retirement home in the next town. "Height 155 centimetres, weight 45 kilos. Snow-white hair."

  It was 6 p.m., and it might be hours before some anxious soul reported her missing. They would have to wait for the photos and the autopsy report, so there wasn't much that could be done until they had the woman's identity. He grabbed his leather jacket from the back of the chair and took the lift down to the first floor. Bowed gallantly to Mrs Brenningen at the front desk, recalling at the same moment that she was a widow and perhaps lived much the same life as he did. She was pretty too, blonde like his wife Elise, but plumper.

  He headed for his own car in the car park, an elderly ice-blue Peugeot 604. In his mind he could see the face of the corpse, healthy and round, without make-up. Her clothes were neat and sensible. The straight, blonde hair was well cut, the trainers expensive. On her wrist she wore an expensive Seiko sports watch. This was a woman with a decent background, from a home with order and structure. He had found other women for whom a quite different lifestyle spoke its unequivocal language. Still, he had been surprised before. They didn't know yet whether she was drunk or drugged or full of some other misery. Anything was possible, and things were not always what they seemed.

  He drove slowly through the town, past the market square and the fire station. Skarre had promised to call as soon as the woman was reported missing. On the medallion were the letters H.M. Helene, he thought, or maybe Hilde. He didn't think it would be long before someone contacted them. This was an orderly girl who kept appointments.