A lot of smells are very similar, and therefore can’t be told apart. The stench of a corpse is not one of those. Corpses smell like nothing else. Lucy had never smelled a dead body before. So she was unable to identify it. But I could.
The moment I stepped into the garage I knew my guess had been correct. The stench filled the confined space. Ten parking spaces, that was all the garage contained.
‘Christ,’ Lucy said. ‘It’s even worse than before.’
She was walking behind me as I slowly approached the car. Now I knew for certain that I never wanted to drive it again. It was as if it had a life of its own. With people who wished me anything but well.
I stopped in front of it. Jocke at the garage had given the car a polish before handing it back. Since then I hadn’t touched any part of the exterior except the driver’s door. If whoever dumped the body hadn’t been careful enough, his or her fingerprints might still be on the bodywork. It would be stupid to give them any competition from mine. I didn’t think the fact that Lucy had touched the car would matter. She wasn’t suspected of committing a crime. I went up to the flat and fetched a pair of gloves before getting to grips with the luggage compartment. You had to open it from the driver’s seat.
‘Lucy, help me get it open.’
Without a word she walked past me and opened the driver’s door. The lid of the trunk rose when she pressed the button. And then the stench hit us.
‘Fuck,’ I said, backing away quickly.
Lucy rushed out of the car and went and stood some distance away.
‘Martin, we have to call the police.’
‘We’re going to; we just need to see who it is first.’
How had my life come to this? How had I gone from living a very comfortable life as a lawyer with the odd bit of childcare thrown in, to standing in my garage and finding a dead body in my own car?
I walked over to the Porsche again and aggressively pushed open the lid of the luggage compartment. And there lay Elias with his throat cut. In spite of the stench I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He looked so damn pathetic. Lonely and frightened.
Then I shut the lid again.
‘Now we can call the police,’ I said.
They arrived ten minutes later. First a patrol car, then Didrik and one of his colleagues, Staffan, whom Elias had spoken to when he called the police to ask for help. Didrik’s face showed no emotion when he saw Elias lying dead in my car.
I told them the story as we stood in the stinking garage. I told them, again, about the incident with the orange and how the car ended up having to be cleaned up. I told them how I had picked it up and driven straight home.
‘Feel free to take the satnav away with you,’ I said.
‘We’ll be taking the whole car,’ Didrik said grimly.
‘You’re welcome to it,’ I said, trying not to sound generous. ‘I don’t want the bloody thing.’
‘Really?’ Staffan said.
Sticking with the cynicism.
‘You’ll have to come with us to headquarters,’ he said.
‘What for?’ I said.
‘We need to take a witness statement,’ Didrik said. ‘Isn’t that obvious?’
‘Maybe,’ I said, sounding like a teenager.
‘Maybe,’ Didrik repeated. ‘Alright, we’ll talk more about this once we’re there. Until then you can figure out how you’re going to convince us that you weren’t the one who put the body in the boot.’
‘Easy,’ I said. ‘I’ve got an alibi.’
‘For when?’
‘The body must have been put in the car when it was parked here in the garage. I haven’t been back since I left the Porsche here after I collected it.’
‘Even if you could prove that, what does that tell us?’ Staffan said. ‘You could have left the body here in the garage and just waited until the Porsche was back.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘You don’t think anyone would have raised the alarm about the smell if I’d done that? People come and go here all the time.’
‘Like I said, we can talk about that back at headquarters,’ Didrik said.
He began to walk towards the exit, gesturing to me to follow him.
‘Lucy and I will go in our own car,’ I said. ‘We’ve got a rental.’
‘You’re welcome to come with us,’ Didrik said, his tone of voice indicating that it was more an order than a suggestion.
But I called him out on it.
‘Then you’ll have to arrest me,’ I said. ‘Because I want to drive myself.’
‘Okay,’ Staffan said. ‘Let’s do . . .’
Didrik interrupted him.
‘See you at headquarters,’ he said.
His colleague glared at Didrik in surprise as he walked away. Then he seemed to realise that he too should be moving his feet. I heard him raise his voice as they left the garage.
‘Why the hell aren’t we taking him in?’
Perhaps because I hadn’t done anything but cooperate fully with the police. Perhaps because I had called them to the garage myself. I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. All I did know was that I didn’t trust Staffan, and very possibly not Didrik either. For that reason I didn’t want to rely on them to obtain the security-camera footage. The video would clear me, and I had to make sure that it really was secured. That no one would discover that the camera was, oh-so-unfortunately, broken. The police’s forensics team would find it in a matter of seconds, so I had to be quick. I practically ran out of the garage with Lucy beside me.
‘Where are we going?’ she said as I pressed the button for the lift. ‘It’s important that we go to Police Headquarters like we promised.’
‘We will,’ I said. ‘We’re just going to pay a quick home visit to someone first.’
There’s one in every housing cooperative. Often the chair of the residents’ committee. An angry older man who has lived in the same flat for far too long and regards the building as his own private property and the residents as his tenants. In my building that man’s name is Wolfgang. He’s lived at the same address for more than twenty-five years, and has been a widower for the same length of time.
Lucy looked baffled as we got out of the lift on Wolfgang’s floor.
‘There’s a security camera in the garage,’ I said. ‘Didn’t you notice?’
She shook her head.
I put my finger to the bell outside Wolfgang’s door. The shrill noise echoed out into the stairwell. I didn’t remove my finger until I heard the lock turn.
‘What the hell are you doing? Is there a fire?’
Wolfgang’s grey hair was sticking out in all directions and the look in his eyes was angrier than ever. Angry but also tired. Then somewhat gentler. Wolfgang has had a soft spot for me ever since I backed him up in a committee vote and helped stop the sale of our attic space to developers.
‘I really am extremely sorry to disturb you like this, without any warning,’ I said. ‘But I’m afraid I need your help.’
Wolfgang scratched his chin. His stubble was several days old.
‘Regarding what?’
‘Can we come in?’
He backed away dutifully and let us over the threshold. I closed the door behind me. Neither I nor Lucy had been in Wolfgang’s flat before. I had expected a proper nest, full of old newspapers and cooking smells. But it wasn’t like that at all. From what I could see from the hall, the flat was tidy and light and well maintained.
‘I found a security camera in the garage,’ I said.
‘That’s right,’ Wolfgang said. ‘I installed it after that business with your car. And don’t imagine I haven’t checked into the legality of it. The camera is perfectly legal.’
I tried to look as if I had the greatest respect for his legal competence.
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I wonder, could I possibly have a copy of today’s footage?’
Wolfgang peered at me.
‘What for?’
I took a deep breath. The police would find him within the next hour. And it was only a matter of time before journalists got wind of what had happened. He was going to find out anyway.
‘Someone placed a body in the boot of my car, and I’d dearly like to know who it was.’
Wolfgang opened his mouth to speak, but couldn’t get a word out.
Then he opened the door to the hall-cupboard. There was a computer on one of the shelves.
‘There,’ he said flatly. ‘There’s your footage.’