Fatal Isles Page 8

  Brodal pulls up a new picture and everyone’s eyes are reluctantly drawn to the broken skin and strands of hair black with blood.

  ‘The injuries we see here are the result of three very powerful blows to the head, likely dealt with an iron poker, but I’ll leave it to Sören to tell you more about that. The first one came diagonally from behind in a swing that crushed the right ocular bone and nose. It probably struck as the victim was getting up from the kitchen table, or possibly she was able to get up right after that first blow, depending on the height of the perpetrator. At this point, Susanne was still on her feet.’

  Brodal clears his throat again, takes a deep breath and presses on.

  ‘The second blow followed immediately after the first. The murderer realised the first wasn’t enough and therefore dealt another, which crushed her maxilla with such force the victim was thrown backwards and hit her head on the stove.’

  Kneought Brodal pulls up yet another picture. This time a close-up of Susanne Smeed’s head.

  Like a chicken with its neck snapped, Karen thinks to herself.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Karl Björken says.

  ‘You can say that again,’ Brodal counters. ‘The immediate cause of death was a massive epidural bleed between her skull and her brain. The blood pushed the brain toward the respiratory hub where the brain meets the spinal cord, which caused the victim to stop breathing. Or, as you might put it, she died of a broken skull.’

  There’s silence around the table.

  ‘And one more thing.’ This time, there’s pent-up anger in Brodal’s voice.

  ‘The perpetrator ripped one or possibly two rings off Susanne’s left pinkie after she died. There are also clear marks around her neck, most likely caused by a necklace being torn off.’

  This time, there’s no creaking, no rustling, no yawning. Everyone is having the same silent thought: maybe Susanne Smeed was killed over something as pointless as a common-or-garden burglary gone wrong. That should be easier to solve. Futile, for sure, but in the end easier for everyone involved. At length, Karen clears her throat, breaking the silence.

  ‘Can you tell us anything about the perpetrator, Kneought?’

  She asks the question without much hope of getting a useful answer. She’s already heard both the question and the answer too many times.

  ‘Not much,’ the coroner replies. ‘Forget about the injuries revealing the exact height or weight of the person who caused them, that only ever happens on TV. What I can say is that it must have required a certain level of upper body strength. The poker itself is fairly heavy, and the blows were powerful.’

  ‘Or rage?’ Karl Björken chips in.

  ‘Well, that’s for you to find out, I guess. But sure, rage, or fear for that matter, can often allow a person to tap into unexpected strength. Besides, it takes quite a bit of strength, or rage, if you prefer, to rip the rings off a dead person. They look like they fitted relatively snugly.’

  Another few seconds of contemplative silence.

  ‘Have you been able to determine the time of death?’ Karen asks.

  ‘As I said, the kitchen was extremely warm when I got there. Apparently, the wood-burning stove had been lit and the kitchen door closed. Both the front and kitchen doors were subsequently opened by the constables who were the first at the scene, which let in the cold, causing the temperature to plummet, but then the door was closed again. The point is these changes in temperature make it impossible to pinpoint the precise time of death.’

  The coroner pauses for another sip of water.

  ‘But I’ve managed to narrow it down slightly. According to my assessment, death most likely happened sometime between half past seven and ten. Even more likely between eight and half past nine, but I can’t be 100 per cent sure.’

  Karen takes a deep breath. Might as well say it and get it out of the way.

  ‘I can personally contribute another piece of the puzzle as far as the timing goes. At about quarter past eight, I drove past Susanne’s house and saw her from the road.’

  ‘Quarter past eight? Who in their right mind is out and about at that hour the day after Oistra?’

  Evald Johannisen sounds doubtful.

  ‘I’d spent the night at a friend’s house in Dunker, but woke up early and drove back home. As I said, I saw Susanne, very much alive, walking back up to her house after a morning swim at about quarter, twenty past eight.’

  Karen quickly glances around the table, but no one looks about to question her information. Then she notices Johannisen’s raised eyebrows and ironic smile. He can’t know something, can he? How close are he and Jounas? She feels her cheeks redden but is saved by Brodal’s voice.

  ‘All right, then we know,’ he says, a note of impatient tiredness in his voice. ‘That tallies with my conclusions. And I don’t have much else to add, except that her stomach contents match what was on the table: sugared coffee, yoghurt, muesli consisting of oat, rye, raisins and almonds. The kind of fucking horse pellets my wife insists on buying because it’s healthy,’ he adds.

  ‘I was thinking you’re looking unusually fit,’ Karl Björken quips with a wry smile.

  Scattered chuckles around the table. The crude jargon the members of an investigative team usually employ to protect themselves against gruesome pictures had been out of their reach this time. Karl Björken’s lame attempt at a joke is therefore gratefully received; the mood is lightened further when Brodal finally closes his PowerPoint.

  ‘Any further questions for Kneought tonight? No? Then I think it’s time for us to send you home to your wife and that muesli,’ Karen says.

  ‘Right,’ she says when the door shuts behind the large coroner’s back. ‘Over to you, Sören. And please keep it brief, if you don’t mind,’ she adds. ‘We’re all tired and want to go home.’

  Me especially, she thinks. Her morning nap and pure adrenaline has kept her relatively alert until now, but suddenly, she can feel exhaustion in every part of her body. She opens the document Sören Larsen emailed her half an hour earlier and pushes the keyboard and mouse over to him.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he says, declining the computer with a wave of his hand. ‘We don’t really need to look at the pictures right now; you can do that tomorrow. What we’ve been able to ascertain so far can be summed up quickly. As Brodal mentioned, the killer used an old cast-iron poker. It follows that the poker ought to be considered the murder weapon, even though the perpetrator was given a helping hand by the wood-burning stove at the actual moment of death. The poker’s hand-made, just under thirty inches long, likely dating from the end of the nineteenth century. No fingerprints have been found on it.’

  ‘Not even Susanne’s?’ Astrid Nielsen asks.

  Why doesn’t she look tired? Karen wonders, studying the blonde woman sitting diagonally across from her. Astrid Nielsen looks like she’s come straight from an invigorating walk; her cheeks are rosy and her eyes alert. But then again, maybe little Miss Goody-Goody didn’t drink copious amounts of wine last night. Karen suppresses a pang of guilt. Astrid’s good, really good even, and easy to work with, too. But definitely a goody-goody. Three children and a husband who works for the police’s IT unit and always has a neat haircut and a pious smile on his face. Karen strongly suspects he’s evangelical; his Noorö dialect certainly supports that theory.

  ‘No, none at all.’ Larsen’s voice makes Karen snap back to attention. ‘The killer probably wiped the poker clean or he could have worn gloves. But if that were the case, there should, as you say, have been other prints. But there was, in fact, a second poker in the house, a considerably lighter, more modern implement, and we did find Susanne’s prints on that.’

  ‘Right, so we don’t know whether the stove was lit by her or the killer,’ Evald Johannisen puts in, disappointedly. ‘But why she would be lighting fires at this time of year is beyond me. It must have been at least ten degrees out, and she had a boiler. Right?’

  ‘Yes, that’s correct,’ Sören Larsen
confirms. ‘We haven’t found anything out of the ordinary in the ashes either, just the remnants of firewood and newspaper. In other words, why someone lit the stove and whether or not it’s even connected to the murder is for you to puzzle out.’

  Karen remembers Susanne Smeed shivering; wanting to warm up your house quickly after a dip in the Langevik River at the end of September is nothing to wonder at. But that can wait until tomorrow. She motions to Larsen to continue.

  ‘Either way, it’s highly likely the perpetrator was the one who tried to set the basket of firewood next to the stove on fire,’ he says. ‘But the wood was damp, and the basket was actually an old copper tub, so the fire died before it reached the curtains. If it hadn’t, we’d be looking at a very different situation.’

  Sören Larsen pauses briefly to flip through his notes, then continues.

  ‘Certain signs support the burglary theory,’ he says. ‘The dresser in the hallway looks like someone rifled through it, her wallet – which we have to assume contained both her bank cards and driving licence – was removed from her handbag. There was no laptop or mobile phone in the house, though we haven’t confirmed Susanne Smeed owned either. That being said, the lack of a landline points to her owning a mobile phone. We will, of course, be checking with the big service providers to see if she had a contract.

  He pauses briefly to consult his notes again.

  ‘A further clue that could point to burglary would be what Brodal just told us about Susanne’s jewellery. But then, there were a few obvious items a burglar should have taken: silver cutlery worth approximately twenty thousand marks and a few other old silver objects, dating back to the eighteenth century, as a matter of fact, so we’re likely talking substantial value, though we haven’t been able to establish their exact worth yet.’

  ‘Maybe the burglars weren’t sophisticated enough,’ Evald Johannisen says dourly. ‘Young junkies might not watch Antiques Roadshow. Any shoeprints?’

  ‘Nothing useful so far, but we’ve secured the ones that were there. Our colleagues dragged quite a bit of mud and gravel into the hallway and kitchen when they first arrived at the scene, so don’t hold your breath. We’ve found both DNA and fingerprints from people other than Susanne Smeed, but we won’t have the results of our database search until tomorrow night at the earliest, or more likely Tuesday morning. What we do have is an early match for recent prints found in the living room, the downstairs bathroom and the kitchen.’

  He pauses dramatically, waiting until he has everyone’s full attention.

  ‘Those prints belong to Jounas Smeed.’

  14

  After a ten-minute break, they’re back in the conference room. This time, it’s a smaller group; left around the table are only the members of the CID, Eiken, Johannisen, Björken, Loots and Nielsen.

  Cornelis Loots reaches out and picks up one of the dry sandwiches from the platter before pushing it toward Astrid Nielsen who silently shakes her head. Karen watches as the platter is passed around the table. When it’s her turn, she studies the wilted lettuce peeking out from under perfectly square, sweaty slices of cheese with disgust. The ache in her stomach and a nascent headache persuade her to give in. With a sigh, she takes a sandwich from the platter before passing it on.

  While they chew, they listen to Karl’s account of his and Karen’s meeting with Harald Steen and his phone conversation with Steen’s carer, Angela Novak. The latter part is new to Karen as well.

  ‘So what he said was right then? I thought that was too much to hope for,’ she says.

  ‘It would seem so. Angela Novak confirms she arrived at Steen’s much later than usual. But it wasn’t because of the oyster festival, as she was very careful to point out. Apparently, she’d been to see some other patient in the village,’ Karl says.

  ‘Not patient,’ Johannisen breaks in. ‘We’re supposed to call them clients now, you know. Bloody hell, it won’t be long before someone asks us to call the slags clients, mark my fucking words,’ he adds around the last piece of his sandwich, while already reaching for another one.

  Karl Björken shoots him an exasperated look and continues.

  ‘Well, the thing is that this other . . . client, was a woman of eighty-five who was on the floor of her bedroom when Angela got there. Since the woman was confused and barely conscious, Angela called an ambulance and she obviously had to wait for it to arrive before going over to Harald Steen’s.’

  He glances down at his notes.

  ‘I’ve checked with the hospital and Angela Novak’s information seems to check out. A Vera Drammstad was picked up at her home at 9.40 a.m. and taken to the A&E at Thystedt Hospital. It was probably just a TIA, but she’s still under observation , in case you’re interested.’

  ‘So did she see anything? Angela Novak, I mean,’ Karen says, stifling a yawn, without really expecting an interesting answer.

  She doesn’t get one.

  ‘No, nothing, as far as she could recall. But she was on edge from dealing with the old lady and stressed about turning up late at Harald Steen’s. Probably knew he’d be on her about it.’

  ‘What a delightful line of work,’ Cornelis Loots mutters.

  ‘But both she and the old man did hear a car starting and driving away. According to Angela Novak, it was just before the ten o’clock news started,’ Karl continues. ‘And she did say something about it sounding like her father’s car back in Poland. But the coffee was just about ready and she was helping Steen out of bed, so neither one of them saw the car drive away.’

  ‘So at least in theory, it could be a completely unrelated car. Maybe someone driving by on the road,’ Johannisen says, spreading his hands.

  ‘Yes, in theory,’ Karl says, clearly forcing himself to remain calm. ‘But Harald Steen swears he recognised the sounds it made.’

  Evald Johannisen’s lips curls into a querulous smirk.

  ‘So the old man’s sure about that, yet neither one of them noticed the house next door was on fire while they were sipping their coffee? Isn’t that bloody strange?’

  ‘Not really,’ Karl snaps. ‘According to Brodal, the fire went out on its own fairly quickly and the kitchen window faces away from Steen’s house. What made Harald react an hour later wasn’t the smoke from that fire, but rather the smoke coming out of the chimney. He thought it was strange for Susanne to have a fire going when she clearly wasn’t home. Which is why he went over there in the first place. Are you not paying attention?’

  Karl Björken looks up at the ceiling and spreads his arms as though seeking strength from a higher power. Johannisen gears up to retort.

  ‘All right,’ Karen cuts in. ‘Cornelis and Astrid, have you found anything useful? Also, pass me those dry sandwiches and yeah, the coffee as well.’

  ‘Sadly, no,’ Astrid Nielsen replies. ‘We talked to every neighbour within five hundred yards of Susanne’s house.’

  ‘There can’t be many,’ Karen mutters while she pumps a thin trickle of coffee out of the urn and into her plastic cup.

  ‘No, outside Langevik proper, the houses are few and far between, but we did find a few other properties, in addition to Harald Steen’s, that are close enough the people living in them might have seen something.’

  Only if they’d been leaning on their garden fences, staring over at Susanne’s house, Karen thinks to herself, knowing full well which properties Astrid’s referring to.

  ‘And,’ she says, feeling bitterness tug at her taste buds as she washes a bite of sandwich down with lukewarm, sour coffee. ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Unfortunately, we only found people at home in one of the houses. Lage and Mari Svenning, a young couple, who according to their own information slept until noon. So they hadn’t seen or heard anything.’

  ‘What about the Gudjonssons?’ Karen prods.

  Cornelis Loots gives her a surprised look.

  ‘Do you know everyone in Langevik?’

  ‘Not everyone. Not anymore.’

  ‘They’r
e on vacation,’ Astrid says glumly. ‘Apparently, they’ve gone to Spain for a couple of weeks and will be back next Sunday, according to Johannes Gudjonsson’s parents, who we reached by phone. A shame, because I’m told it’s a large family. With four children, chances are at least one of the parents would have been up and about on a Sunday morning.’

  ‘How the fuck do people afford it?’ Evald Johannisen exclaims grouchily. ‘Two adults and four children in a hotel on Costa del Sol, how much do you reckon that sets you back? Besides, shouldn’t the kids be in school?’ he adds in a tetchy voice.

  ‘Johannes Gudjonsson is head engineer at NoorOyl,’ Karen replies, ‘and his wife runs an accountancy company, so I think they’re good for it. And their children are young. I don’t think the oldest one’s in school yet and the youngest are twins and only about a year old.’

  ‘So you know them?’ Astrid asks.

  ‘Only as far as that,’ Karen replies and changes the subject.

  There’s no reason to tell them that for a few years, her old schoolmate Johannes Gudjonsson used to stop by hers when he was on shore leave from the oilrigs. Their emotionally uninvested but sexually satisfying relationship had ended the day the twins were born. He probably can’t find the time anymore, Karen thinks to herself. Or the energy.

  Out loud, she says:

  ‘Any news on Susanne’s car, Evald?’

  Johannisen gives her a bored look.

  ‘You don’t think I would have told you if I had something? How about you, have you talked to the boss?’

  Karen gives them a brief account of her visit to Jounas Smeed’s house. And she tells the truth and nothing but the truth. Just not the whole truth.

  Not a word about their night at the Hotel Strand, nothing about Jounas’s drinking and unwillingness to cooperate when she spoke to him, or about the fact that he practically threw her out into the rain. Instead, she briefly informs them that Jounas Smeed, having celebrated Oistra the night before, had left his car in the town centre, walked home and fallen asleep on the sofa. And she recounts, just as truthfully, Jounas’s story about being woken up by Viggo Haugen calling the next day and that he’d gone to pick up his car to drive over to his daughter’s to give her the news of her mother’s death.