Outside, the water laps against the hull.
Joona lets his gaze wander from the dull floor in the salon and down the narrow stairs toward the bow. Its as dark as a deep well down there. He sees nothing until he turns on his flashlight. The light shines down the glossy, steep passageway with an icy, dim light. The red wood shines as wet as the inside of a body. Joona continues down the creaking steps and thinks about the girl. He imagines her sitting alone on the boat, then deciding to take a dive from the bow. She hits her head on a stone, gets water in her lungs, but nevertheless manages to get back on board, takes off her wet bikini, and puts on dry clothes. Perhaps she feels tired and goes to her bed, not realizing that her injury is serious, a damaged blood vessel that leaks into her brain.
But in that case, The Needle would have found traces of the brackish water somewhere on her body.
This scenario is wrong.
Joona keeps going down the stairs, passes the galley and the head, and goes toward the large berth.
Theres a lingering sense of her death in the boat even though her body has been moved to the pathology department in Solna. The impression is the same no matter where he looks. Its as if everything here stares back at him, as if it has had its fill of screaming, fighting, and sudden silence.
The boat creaks and appears to tilt toward the side. Joona waits for a second and listens before continuing into the forecabin.
June light streams through the small windows near the ceiling onto a double bed with a pointed head, formed along the bow. This is where she was sitting when she was found. A sport bag is open on the floor and a dotted nightgown has been unpacked. Just inside the door, theres a pair of jeans and a thin cardigan. The owners shoulder bag hangs from a hook. The boat rocks again and a glass bottle rolls across the deck above Joonas head.
Joona photographs the shoulder bag from various directions. The flash makes the room shrink as if the walls, ceiling, and floor were coming closer together for a moment.
Joona carefully lifts the bag from its hook and carries it with him up the stairs, which moan under his weight. He hears a metallic clink from the outside. When he reaches the salon, he sees an unexpected shadow in front of the glass doors and takes a step back into the stairwell, into the shadows and darkness.
12
Joona Linna stands stock-still, just two feet from the dark stairwell. From this angle, he can make out the lower edge of the glass doors and some of the rear deck. A shadow falls over the dusty glass; then a hand appears. Someone is moving very slowly. A split second later, Joona recognizes Erixsons face. Sweat is dripping from it as Erixson puts gelatin foil over the area beside the door.
Joona carries the shoulder bag into the salon. Carefully, he turns it upside down and empties it onto the hardwood table. He flips a red wallet open with his pen. Theres a drivers license in the scratched plastic pocket. He looks more closely and sees a beautiful yet serious face revealed in the flash of an automatic photo booth. Shes sitting slightly back as if shes looking up at the observer. Her hair is black and curly. He recognizes the girl on the autopsy table at the pathologists: the straight nose, the eyes, the South American features. Penelope Fernandez, he reads. Somehow it sounds familiar.
In his mind, he sees again the pathology lab and the naked body on the table in that tile-covered room, the girls relaxed expression, the face beyond sleep.
Outside, Erixsons moving the bulk of his huge body one decimeter at a time as he takes up fingerprints along the railing: painting with magnetic powder, lifting the prints with tape. He dries off a wet area, carefully drops SPR solution on it, and then photographs the impressions that slowly are revealed. The entire time, he sighs as if every movement is torture and hes just used up the last of his strength.
Joona peers along the deck and sees the bucket and its rope next to a gym shoe. From below, the earthy smell of potatoes reaches his nose.
He looks back down at the drivers license and the tiny photograph. He looks at the young womans mouth and her slightly parted lips. A niggling thought comes; something is not quite right.
He feels that hes seen something important and was just about to put his finger on it when it slides away.
Joona startles as the phone in his pocket vibrates. He pulls it out and sees The Needle is calling.
Joona, he answers.
This is Nils Ahlen, chief medical officer, in Stockholm.
Joona cant help smiling. Theyve known each other for twenty years and hed recognize The Needles voice whether he introduced himself or not.
Did she hit her head? Joona asks.
No, The Needle answers, surprised.
I thought that she might have hit her head on a stone.
No-nothing like that. She drowned. Thats the cause of death.
Youre absolutely sure?
Ive observed froth inside her nostrils, mucosal tears in the throat, most likely due to strong gag reflexes, and there are bronchial secretions in both the trachea and the bronchi. The lungs have the typical appearance found in a drowning. Theyre filled with water and have gained weight and, well