Marked For Life. Emelie Schepp

The seven-year-old girl sat in the corner. She pulled at her mama’s skirt and put it over her mouth. She imagined that she was at home in her bed, or rocking in a cradle when the ship rolled in the waves.

      The girl breathed in and out with shallow breaths. Every time she exhaled, the cloth would lift above her mouth. Every time she inhaled, it would cover her lips. She tried to breathe harder and harder to keep the cloth off her face. Then one time she blew so hard it flew off and vanished.

      She felt for it with her hand. In the dim light she instead caught sight of her toy mirror on the floor. It was pink, with a butterfly on it and a big crack in the glass. She had found it in a bag of rubbish that somebody had thrown onto the street. Now she picked it up and held it in front of her face, pushed away a strand of hair from her forehead and inspected her dark tangled hair, her big eyes and long eyelashes.

      Somebody coughed violently in the space, and the girl gave a start. She tried to see who it was, but it was difficult to distinguish people’s faces in the dark.

      She wondered when they would arrive, but she didn’t dare ask again. Papa had hushed her when she had asked the last time how long they would have to sit in this stupid iron box. Now Mama coughed too. It was hard to breathe, it really was. A lot of people had to share the little oxygen inside. The girl let her hand wander along the steel wall. Then she felt for the soft cloth from her mama’s skirt and pulled it over her nose.

      The floor was hard, and she straightened her back and changed position before continuing to run her hand along the steel wall. She stretched out her index and middle fingers and let them gallop back and forth along the wall and down to the floor. Mama always used to laugh when she did that at home and say that she must have given birth to a horse girl.

      At home, in the shed in La Pintana, the girl had built a toy stable under the kitchen table and pretended her doll was a horse. The last three birthdays, she had wished for a real pony of her own. She knew that she wouldn’t get one. She rarely got any presents, even for her birthday. They could hardly afford food even, Papa had told her. Anyway, the girl dreamed of a pony of her own that she could ride to school. It would be fast, just as fast as her fingers that now galloped back up the wall.

      Mama didn’t laugh this time. She was probably too tired, the girl thought, and looked up at her mother’s face.

      Oh, how much longer would it actually take? Stupid, stupid journey! It wasn’t supposed to be such a long trip. Papa had said when they filled the plastic bags with clothes that they were going on an adventure, a big adventure. They would travel by boat for a while to a new home. And she would make lots of new friends. It would be fun.

      Some of her friends were traveling with them. Danilo and Ester. She liked Danilo; he was nice, but not Ester. She could be a little nasty. She would tease, and that sort of thing. There were a couple of other children on the same journey too, but she didn’t know them; she had never even seen them before. They didn’t like all being in a boat. Not the youngest one at any rate, the baby, she was crying all the time. But now she’d gone quiet.

      The girl galloped her fingers back and forth again. Then she stretched to one side to reach up even higher, then down even lower. When her fingers reached all the way into the corner, she felt something sticking out. She became curious and screwed her eyes up in the dark to see what it was. A metal plate. She strained forward to try and study the little silver plate that was screwed into the wall. She saw some letters on it and she tried to make out what they said. V... P... Then there was a letter she didn’t recognize.

      “Mama?” she whispered. “What letter is this?” She crossed her two fingers to show her.

      “X,” her mother whispered back. “An X.”

      X, the girl thought, V, P, X, O. And then some numbers. She counted six of them. There were six numbers.

CHAPTER FOUR

      THE AUTOPSY ROOM was lit up by strong fluorescent ceiling lights. A shiny steel table stood in the middle of the room and on it, under a white sheet, you could see the contours of a body.

      A long row of plastic bottles marked with ID numbers were lined up on another stainless-steel table along with a skull saw. The metallic smell of meat had permeated the room.

      Jana Berzelius went in first and stood across the table from the medical examiner, whose name was Björn Ahlmann. She said hello, then pulled out her notepad.

      Henrik went over and stood next to Jana, while Mia Bolander stayed back near the exit door. Henrik too would have liked to have stayed at a distance. He had always found it difficult to be in the autopsy room, and he by no means shared Ahlmann’s fascination with dead bodies. He wondered how the pathologist could work with corpses every day and not be affected. Even though it was also part of Henrik’s job, he still found death hard to witness up close. Even after seven years on this job, he had to force himself to keep a composed face when a body was exposed.

      Jana, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be bothered at all. Her facial expression revealed nothing, and Henrik found himself wondering if anything at all could get her to react. He knew that knocked-out teeth, poked-out eyes, chopped-off fingers and hands didn’t do it. Nor tongues that had been bitten to bits, or third-degree burns. He knew that because he had witnessed the same things in her presence, and he inevitably had to empty the contents of his stomach afterward, whereas she never seemed disturbed.

      Jana’s facial expressions were indeed extremely restrained. She was never harrowed or resolute; she hardly showed any emotions at all. She rarely smiled and should a smile happen to cross her lips, it was more like a line. A strained line.

      Henrik didn’t think that her austere personality matched her appearance. Her long dark hair and big brown eyes gave off a warmer vibe. Perhaps she was only projecting her professional side to maintain others’ respect. Certainly her navy blazer, three-quarter-length skirt and ever-present high heels played into her image as a strict, no-nonsense prosecutor. Perhaps she let out her personal feelings outside work... Perhaps not.

      Björn Ahlmann carefully folded back the sheet and exposed Hans Juhlén’s naked body.

      “Right, let’s see. We have an entry hole here and we have an entry hole here,” said Björn and pointed at two open wounds on the chest. “Both seem to be perfectly placed, but this is the one that killed him.”

      Björn moved his hand and indicated the upper hole.

      “So there were definitely two shots then?” Henrik commented.

      “Exactly.”

      Björn picked up an image from a CAT scan and clipped it up on the light box.

      “Chronologically, it seems that he first received a bullet in the lower part of his rib cage, and fell down. He fell backward, which resulted in a subdural hemorrhage at the back of his head. You can see it here.”

      Björn pointed at a black area on the image. “But he didn’t die, not from the first shot or from the heavy fall. No, my guess is that when Hans Juhlén collapsed, the perpetrator went up close and shot him again. Here.”

      He pointed at the second entry hole in Juhlén’s body.

      “This shot went right through the cartilage of the rib cage and through the pericardium, the heart. And he died immediately.”

      “So he died from bullet number two.” Henrik again repeated the pathologist’s words.

      “Yes.”

      “Weapon?”

      “The cartridges that were found show that he was shot with a Glock.”

      “Then it won’t be so easy to trace,” said Henrik.

      “Why?” said Jana, at the very same moment that her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. She ignored it and asked again, “Why?”

      “Because, as I’m sure you are aware, a Glock is a very common weapon. So common it’s