‘So Chip and Dale are here?’ She grinned. ‘Who found him?’
?hlund laughed. ‘A junkie who lives in the building; he claimed he came up here to get a box of old records he was going to sell. But since several of the storage areas further down the corridor have been broken open, that’s probably what he was up to when he discovered the boy hanging from the ceiling. Must have been one hell of a shock, if you ask me.’ Then he added that the man who had found the boy was on his way to Kungsholmen for questioning. There was no indication that he had anything to do with it, but it couldn’t be ruled out.
Over the next few hours the crime scene was secured, and a mass of different objects sealed in plastic bags and numbered. The noose was an ordinary clothes line, tied with a granny knot. The boy had the typical noose marks in his neck, like an upside-down V, with the apex marked by the knot, which had cut about a centimetre into the skin. The mark left by the cord was reddish brown, dry and leathery. At the edge of the wound Jeanette noted some discreet signs of bleeding.
On the floor below where the body had been hanging were signs of urine and excrement.
‘Well, there can’t be anyone who thinks he committed suicide.’ Rydén pointed towards what had once been the boy’s face.
‘Unless he fixed the cord to the roof, tied a knot around his neck and then tipped a bucket of hydrochloric acid over himself, which, frankly, seems pretty fucking unlikely to me. There’s also the fact that if a young and mentally unstable young man decides to take his own life, however sick it might seem, there’s usually no reason to suspect a crime unless, as in this instance, it seems to have been physically impossible.’
‘What do you mean?’ Jeanette asked.
‘The rope the boy was hanging from is at least ten centimetres too short.’
‘Too short?’
‘Exactly. The rope isn’t long enough for him to have been able to fasten it to the ceiling even if he was standing on a bench. Elementary, my dear Watson.’ Rydén pointed to the ceiling.
‘Besides, he was strung up alive. His bowels emptied, and we’re probably going to discover that he ejaculated as well.’
‘You mean he shot his load while he was being strangled?’ Schwarz turned towards Rydén, and Jeanette thought he looked like he was going to laugh.
‘Yes, that usually happens. Well, as I was saying. Someone strung him up from the ceiling, probably using that ladder over there.’ Rydén indicated a ladder leaning against the wall a short distance away. ‘Then they arranged the bench to make it look like he’d been standing on it, and then they threw acid in his face. And why would anyone do that?’
‘Good question …’
‘My initial thought is that it was to conceal his identity.’ Ivo Andri? turned to Jeanette. ‘But of course that’s not our job. Then you’ve got the fact that the rope was too short. Something to get your teeth into.’
‘The funny thing is that this is the second time I’ve come across this in a fairly short period.’ Rydén looked inexplicably pleased with himself.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, not the acid, but the bit about the rope being too short.’
‘Really?’ Jeanette was curious.
‘Yes, it was the same thing there. A middle-aged man who’d been deceiving his partner, and had two families. The only thing that made us suspicious was the fact that the rope was too short. Everything else suggested suicide.’
‘You were never in any doubt?’
‘No, his partner claimed she’d got back from a trip and found him. She was the person who called the police. There was a pile of phone directories beside the chair.’
‘So you thought he’d put the phone books on the chair and stood on top to tie the rope?’
‘Yes, that was the conclusion we came to. His partner said she’d been in shock when she moved the directories to get him down, and there was no reason to question that. There was no sign that anyone else had been there, and, if I remember rightly, she had an alibi. Her story was confirmed by a car park attendant and a train conductor.’
‘Did you analyse his blood?’
Jeanette had a nagging feeling that there was something right in front of her that she wasn’t seeing. A connection she couldn’t put her finger on.
‘No, not as far as I know. It never came up. It was written off as suicide.’
‘So you don’t think there’s any connection to this, then?’
‘You’re clutching at straws, Jan,’ Rydén said. ‘These cases are completely different.’
‘OK, maybe. But get the boy to Solna and let forensics check if there are any signs of anaesthetic.’
Rydén looked affronted. Ivo Andri?, who realised what Jeanette was thinking, explained.
‘We’ve got three bodies in the pathology lab. Young men who we think fell victim to the same killer. Admittedly, there are plenty of differences between them and this boy. They’d all been badly abused and castrated. But they’d also been anaesthetised and had traces of drugs in their blood, so if we check out this boy, well …’ With a gesture he invited Jeanette to continue.
‘Well, I don’t know. It’s just a feeling.’ She smiled gratefully at Ivo.
Kronoberg – Police Headquarters
IN THE BOY’S pockets they had found a letter from social services in H?sselby, calling him to a meeting. So now they had a name. Schwarz and ?hlund picked up his parents and drove them to Solna to identify the body.
The necklace found on the boy turned out to be a family heirloom that had been passed down the generations.
Admittedly, it wasn’t possible to confirm his identity beyond all doubt, because of the damage to the boy’s face, but when the parents saw his tattoo they were convinced it was their son. RUF, carved into his chest with a shard of glass, wasn’t exactly a common motif in Stockholm, and at 11.22 the papers giving the boy his identity back had been signed.
As far as the acid was concerned, Rydén was proved right. Ninety-five per cent hydrochloric acid.
Jeanette Kihlberg called Ivo Andri?, and the forensic medical officer gave her a brief summary of his findings.
‘There are some similarities with the other boys,’ he began. ‘But I haven’t had the results back to say if he’d been given Xylocain adrenalin. So far we’ve only found traces of amphetamines, but in this case they weren’t injected.’
‘They weren’t?’
‘No, there were no needle holes, so he must have absorbed them some other way. But I did find two small marks on his chest.’
‘What sort of marks?’
‘Looks like he was hit by a taser, but I can’t be sure.’
‘And you’re absolutely certain there were no similar marks on the other boys?’
‘Not absolutely certain, because of the state the bodies were in. But I’ll take them out again and have another look. I’ll be in touch.’
They ended the call.