Free The Preacher by Camilla Läckberg Page B

silence how cruel people could be. Then Martin pulled himself together and continued, ‘Did you find any evidence on the body that might help us?’
    ‘Yes, we found semen. If you find a suspect, he could be tied to the murder with DNA. Naturally we’re searching our database as well, but it’s rare that we get any hits that way. So far, the register is just too small. We can only dream of the day when we’ll have the DNA of every citizen in a searchable database. Then we’ll be in a totally different position.’
    ‘Dream is probably the right word. Complaints about infringing on the freedom of the individual and all that will probably stop that plan cold.’
    ‘If what this woman went through can’t be called restricting an individual’s freedom, then I don’t know what can …’
    This was uncharacteristically philosophical for the normally prosaic Tord Pedersen. Martin realized that for once he had actually been moved by the victim’s fate. This was usually not something a pathologist could allow if he wanted to sleep well at night.
    ‘Can you give me an estimated time of death?’
    ‘Yes, I got the results from the samples that the techs took on-site, and then I supplemented them with my own observations, so I can give you quite a reliable time interval.’
    ‘Let’s hear it.’
    ‘In my estimation she died sometime between six and eleven o’clock, the evening before she was discovered in the King’s Cleft.’
    ‘You can’t give me a more exact time than that?’ Martin sounded disappointed.
    ‘It’s standard practice here in Sweden never to give a narrower interval than five hours in such cases, so that’s the best I can do. But the interval’s probability is 95 per cent, so at least it’s very reliable. However, I can confirm what you must have suspected: that the King’s Cleft is the secondary crime scene. She was murdered somewhere else and lay there for a couple of hours after death, which is evident from the livor mortis.’
    ‘Well, that’s something, anyway.’ Martin sighed. ‘What about the skeletons? Did they give you anything? You got the message from Patrik, I suppose, about who we think they might be.’
    ‘Yes, I did. And on that we aren’t really clear yet. It isn’t quite as simple as you might think to obtain dental records from the Seventies, but we’re working on it as fast as we can. As soon as we know more we’ll let you know. But I can say that they are two female skeletons, and the age seems to be about right. The pelvis of one women also indicates that she had borne a child, and that agrees with the information we have. The most interesting thing of all is that both skeletons have fractures similar to the recent victim’s. Between us I would even venture to say that the fractures are almost identical on the three bodies.’
    Martin dropped a pen on the floor from pure shock. What had actually landed in their laps? A sadistic murderer who let twenty-four years pass between his evil deeds? Martin didn’t even want to think about the alternative: that the murderer might not have waited twenty-four years, and they simply hadn’t found the other victims yet.
    ‘Were they also stabbed with a knife?’
    ‘Since there is no soft-tissue material left, that’s more difficult to say, but there are some scrape marks on the bones that might indicate they were subjected to the same treatment, yes.’
    ‘And the cause of death for them?’
    ‘The same as for the German woman. Bones that were compressed at the throat correspond to injuries resulting from strangulation.’
    Martin was rapidly taking notes during the conversation. ‘Anything else of interest you can give me?’
    ‘Just that the skeletons were probably buried. There are traces of dirt on them, and we might be able to get something out of them in the analysis. But it isn’t clear yet, so you’ll have to be patient. There was dirt on Tanja Schmidt and the blanket she was lying on also, so we’ll be