Page 15 of The Sleepwalker
A section of Lindgren’s head, complete with hair, has a visible blunt force injury to the temple. The majority of his face has been laid out beside a piece of his skull, still attached to ragged scraps of neck muscle.
Centimetre by centimetre, Joona works through the incomplete cuts, the superficial injuries and scrapes. There is a short, diagonal wound on one side of Josef Lindgren’s stomach and another on his shoulder.
‘I’m guessing you’d like to know how our victim died?’ he hears Åhlén say.
‘Yes,’ Lisette replies with a nod.
‘Which was the first wound, which killed him,’ Åhlén continues. ‘The sequence and number of injuries .?.?.’
Joona’s eyes linger on every little bruise, on the faint patches of livor mortis beneath the skin that was touching the floor.
‘Do you have any working theories yet?’ Lisette asks, looking up at Åhlén.
‘Of course .?.?. But I know by now to let Joona go first,’ he replies.
‘Sorry, but you know that Joona has access to fewer facts than I do.’
‘This isn’t a competition .?.?. It’s just that Joona has a very good eye,’ Åhlén explains, pushing his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose.
‘OK, be my guest.’ The prosecutor gives him a forced smile and gestures to Joona.
‘It’s clear that the victim and whoever killed him saw each other before the attack,’ he begins.
‘And you’re sure of that?’ asks Lisette.
‘They were standing face to face.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because the first blow came from directly in front of Lindgren,’ he says. ‘The axe was probably concealed before itswung upwards and hit him square on the left temple, side-on .?.?. It was powerful enough to knock him down, and he collapsed onto his side .?.?. He was likely pretty groggy when the killer chopped off his right leg on the floor.’
Lisette shakes her head.
‘There’s no way you can know that,’ she says.
‘Using the pictures you sent me from the crime scene, I can,’ Joona replies. ‘Judging by the marks on the floor and the angle of the wounds, I’m guessing it took at least five strokes to separate his leg from his body. The blood was pumping out of his artery at full pressure – that’s what caused the spatter marks right up the wall in the main bedroom.’
‘Annoying, isn’t he?’ Chaya mutters to the prosecutor.
‘That injury to his leg was probably fatal,’ Joona continues. ‘But in this particular case, it’s not what actually killed him, because it all happened so quickly.’
‘Bravo,’ whispers Åhlén.
‘The victim shuffled back, trying to get away and stem the bleeding with both hands. It was the next blow, through his skull, that killed him .?.?. Strictly speaking, the rest of the injuries were just part of the dismemberment process.’
For a few seconds, silence fills the room.
‘Who needs a professor of forensic pathology?’ Åhlén says with a smile.
‘You know it,’ Joona replies.
‘OK .?.?. With the proviso that we haven’t even started the autopsy yet, I’d say we’re looking at a total of eighty-three major wounds, plus a couple of minor cuts. Some of the injuries would have taken multiple strokes – cleaving his head, for example. As Joona says, it was the second blow to the skull that killed Josef Lindgren, but it took another four to separate the top of his head from his body.’
‘Some didn’t go all the way through .?.?. like this one, on hisleft thigh,’ Chaya points out.
‘Is there anything missing?’ asks Joona.
‘Yes .?.?. oddly enough, we’re short of two teeth,’ Åhlén replies, scratching his temple.
