The Running Girl by Sara Blaedel

Author:Sara Blaedel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2018-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

The glass doors at the Department of Forensic Medicine opened, and she looked at her watch. It was ten minutes before they were to start. Louise went up to the floor with the autopsy bays. She stood and looked out the window while she shook her hair out of the hairband and gathered her long, dark curls into a tight bun that was easy to tuck away under the hat she had to wear, along with the overalls and the blue plastic booties.

Flemming Larsen was on his way down with two cups of coffee, but the lab technicians hadn’t arrived yet.

She said hello to two forensic techs as they came out of the elevator from the basement with the burn victims. From the contours of the body bags it was obvious that the bodies still lay in their desperate fencing positions, with arms and legs stiffly bent.

Preparations had been made in two autopsy bays: the homicide room, which was the farthest back and largest and designed so that both lab technicians and investigators could be there while the medical examiner worked; but at the same time, the other body would be autopsied in a smaller bay next door, where space was a little tighter.

“We’ve just had both bodies scanned to see if there might be bullets inside them, which we hadn’t been able to spot because of the state of the corpses. But there was nothing to see. So now it will be interesting to confirm whether they were alive when the fire broke out,” said Flemming Larsen.

He passed a plastic cup to Louise.

“Based on the soot particles I found in the nasal cavities, I feel quite confident, but naturally I can’t say with certainty before we’ve had a proper look at them. On the other hand, I’m quite sure we’re looking at two young men, and that agrees very well with what you’ve come up with.”

She gestured with her hand to correct him.

“We haven’t come up with anything yet, but we have a suspicion of who they might be.”

She held out the two dental records.

Just then, four lab technicians came walking toward them. Their voices were loud, and their steps echoed. It was Klein’s voice that rose above the others.

“You should just be happy grill season is over for the year,” bellowed the experienced, teddy bear–shaped lab tech as he looked at his two male colleagues, who Louise didn’t know by name. “It’s awfully unappetizing to go home and fire up the Weber after a day with two charred and crispy-fried corpses.”

“Now stop it!” Åse said, irritated, and put her hand on the arm of Klein’s blue Windbreaker. “We don’t need to listen to that stuff.”

Even though Åse was petite and slender as a teenage girl, her light voice sliced straight through and put an effective stop to Klein’s noisy penchant for morbid similes.

The first time Louise had met Åse, she’d mistaken her for an intern. That happened four years ago, and at that point she’d already been in the same position with colleagues up in Ålborg, so she was far from inexperienced.

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