THE POLICE TAPE WAS already up when Fabian Risk arrived at Åstorp Construction Supply. Some curious onlookers, likely employees, were huddled together in a group, watching what was happening. Klippan was questioning Gusten Persson, who still hadn’t recovered from what he had seen in the doors and windows department.
“Apparently he’s the guy who opens every morning,” Molander said as he took Fabian aside and showed him in under the police tape.
“Where’s Tuvesson? Shouldn’t she be here?”
“She had to go to Malmö.”
“Malmö?”
“Crisis meeting about how to handle the conflict with the Danes. Apparently they’re all pissed off because we went above the bosses’ heads and sent out officers without telling them.”
“We did call them. They didn’t answer.”
“Not according to them.” Molander shrugged and walked into the building. Fabian followed him between the crammed shelves, which extended all the way up to the ceiling. They arrived at a long central aisle that ran through the entire warehouse. Molander stopped and nodded toward the far end of the aisle. “There you go.”
The forklift was about ten metres away from them, its front wheels dangling in the air. Molander’s assistants were walking around in blue coveralls, taking pictures and gathering evidence. Glenn’s body was lying face up, his feet caught underneath the prongs of the forklift. Fabian could tell there wasn’t much left of him. The rest of the body was hidden behind the medical examiner and his assistants.
“How are things going for them?”
“Just fine, I’m sure, but it will probably take some time before he can officially be identified.”
“I can identify him.” Although Fabian hadn’t seen any recent pictures of Glenn, he was sure he would have no trouble recognizing him.
“I don’t think so.” Molander placed a hand on Fabian’s shoulder. “Anyway, I’d prefer not to have any more people than necessary over there before my men and Braids are finished. The rats have already made enough of a mess.”
“The rats?”
Molander nodded. “But they also did something useful. Let me show you.” Fabian followed Molander from the murder scene to the other end of the warehouse.
“Rats are drawn to food, and if we follow their tracks we’ll find some real goodies over here.” Molander turned away from the central aisle, walked between two shelves, and stopped at a hidden corner under a small, unlocked window. “I think he spent the night here, and — most importantly — ate something.”
Fabian looked at the concrete floor, but couldn’t see any traces of food. “Did the rats eat up all the scraps or something?”
“They left one thing behind.” Molander held out an evidence bag with a McDonald’s wrapper inside. “If I’m not mistaken, this is a Chili McFeast Deluxe — really yummy, for McDonald’s. It’s only sold one day a week at select locations. With a little luck, he bought it at a McDonald’s nearby.”
“Hey, you pigheads! Full speed ahead,” they heard a crackly voice say on Molander’s two-way radio. Both men turned back toward the rearing forklift.
“What’s he like? The medical examiner...”
“Einar Greide? He looks like a hibernating hippie who spends all his time chilling out and smoking up, but he’s one of the best pathologists in the country. Even just the fact that he insisted on coming out here before we move the body speaks for...”
Molander stopped talking once he noticed Greide walking toward them. His long, silvery grey hair was styled in two braids, his beard in one. There were several different amulets hanging around his neck, and the colourful, crocheted pants beneath his protective plastic smock reminded Fabian of a Twister Popsicle.
“Well, anyway, he’s one of the best.” Molander vanished with one of his assistants.
“Hi! I’m Einar Greide. And you must be Fabian Risk.” Greide extended his hand, which had at least one ring on each finger, and shook hands with Fabian. “We have an exciting time ahead of us,” he continued, tugging at his beard braid. “This perpetrator knows exactly what he’s doing.”
“What have you come up with?”
“One thing at a time, and this is first on the list.” Greide held up some crumpled blue shoe protectors and a hairnet. Fabian pulled the shoe protectors over his Converse, put on the hairnet, and followed the medical examiner to the other side of the forklift, where the lifeless body lay supine.
Both of Glenn’s arms were bound to his thighs with straps. His shins disappeared under the prongs of the forklift, and there wasn’t much more to the feet and boots than a whole lot of blood that had pooled onto the concrete floor and coagulated. Fabian let his eyes wander along the corpse, and understood why Molander kept talking about the rats, and why he didn’t think Fabian could identify the body.
It wasn’t just the feet that were gone — the face was, too. It had been eaten. Everything was missing: the eyes, the lips and mouth. All that was left was a meaty, red mass. Besides the hair, the protruding nasal bone, cheekbones, and teeth were the only other evidence that they were dealing with a human. The mass was so far from a face that it was hardly even repulsive.
Fabian stood up, feeling no doubt whatsoever that it was Glenn. Even if it was impossible to tell for sure, all the clues added up: they were at Glenn’s workplace, he had been reported missing, and he had used his feet whenever he and Jörgen attacked Claes.
Einar Greide nodded at his men, who carefully rolled the body onto its side. He crouched down and pointed to a small head wound.
“As you can see, he received a powerful blow to the back of the skull, which almost always means an awful lot of blood.” Greide pointed at the blood that had coagulated in the hair around the wound. “But if you look here at the floor under the wound, there’s no blood at all.”
“So he was hit there earlier?”
Greide lit up. “He’s good, this new guy,” he called out to anyone in the area who was listening, and he gestured at his assistants to lift the body into a cadaver bag. “Follow me. My doctor says I don’t get anywhere near enough exercise.”
Fabian followed Greide on a walk through the deserted building, its shelves full of dreams of new, more beautiful homes.
“So there’s a chance he was dead even before he got here?”
“No, just that he received the blow to his head at an earlier juncture,” Greide said, taking a whole fistful of candy from a dish on the counter in the paint department. “But he died somewhere in the ballpark of three or four days ago.”
“We’re talking last Thursday or Friday?”
Greide nodded. “And even if it’s not written in stone yet, it looks like the cause of death is blood loss from his face.” He peeled the wrapper from a piece of candy and stuck it in his mouth. “He would probably still be alive if the rats hadn’t keep his wounds open.”
“So he should be grateful?”
“It depends on how you look at it.”
“If we assume the perpetrator wanted the victim to die, the rats were no accident?”
“I need more time, but I wouldn’t be surprised if his face had been covered in something that drew in the rats.”
“Like what?”
“Honey? Kalles Kaviar? Liver paste? They’ll eat practically anything.”
Fabian’s phone rang. It was Tuvesson.
“They found the girl.”