Fear Of Broken Glass

Almquist Investigates

'Has anyone touched the body?'

Six-inch carpenters nails penetrated bare feet congealed with blood. The Forensics Officer had her back to him. She wore a loose rain poncho and rain hat. Looking at those feet, he felt a sense of relief when she shook her head.

'I have a boot-print.'

'Hiker?'

She shrugged, pointing to a patch of moist ground not far from the body. 'One, maybe two good ones. Too many pine needles for more.'

'Make a cast.' As if she needed telling. 'Keep looking.'

They were five. Five was good for a case like this; close knit, yet enough minds to cover the information and angles. Elin Vikland walked over. She held a clear plastic bag studded with rain drops.

'Thomas Denisen. Danish. Thirty-eight; here, we found this.' She passed him a wallet inside the forensics bag. 'Died from loss of blood or a broken neck, take your pick; dead less than twenty-four hours.'

Always effective, Elin was. Almquist nodded his appreciation as he placed it inside his top pocket, reaching behind him to remove a pair of white rubber surgical gloves from his back pocket, shaking them to life. 'Anything worth asking about?'

She was slightly taller than average. Fit, dressed in the same police cap as his own, thick blue jacket and trousers of winter police issue. She replaced the bag inside her jacket pocket. 'Apart from ID? Handwritten instructions, in Danish, some place called Gotfridsgaarden.'

Gotfridsgaarden? 'Anything else?'

'Only the wallet.' She tried to smile. 'We left the rest for you.'

With a false look of gratitude, Almquist pulled the surgical rubber gloves over well-padded freckled fingers, back and forth, one after the other, letting go with a short, sharp snap. Kneeling down, he ran his rubber-coated hands over the cold wet clothing, like a security check at the airport. He placed a hand carefully inside the first pocket of the victim's windbreaker, then the other. He examined his trouser pockets, then turned to look at Vikland as Second Officer Lindgren shook his head in the background, talking animatedly with the Forensics Officer.

Elin Vikland was standing as patiently as she always stood, listening as only she could listen, neither agreeing or disagreeing. That was her way and that was why he liked working with her.

He turned his back to the body, walking to join the other members of his team stopping, listening briefly, then turning once again to look at it from the other side. Squatting down, breathing in deeply, he rested his forearms across bent thighs, his peaked cap keeping the worst of the rain off his glasses.

Sagging bags under weary eyes made him look like a bloodhound. It was with a sense of tracking the unseen, that he took in the formless remains. It made him feel so shamefully nauseous, fighting the urge to retch as he moved his focus upwards, to the drying congealed mess of hollow eye sockets. Then finally, he took the courage to study the details that had made it his case.

What kind of person could do this to another? he wondered, feeling now the familiar nauseous pull deep in the pit of his stomach. The eyes had been crudely removed, yet carefully. The remains discarded and formless, left on the ground at the side of his head, worthless. He raised a hand to his mouth, tasting bile. He hid his weakness in a gesture of concentration and made as if to study in detail the blood and other liquids, leaving a trail over the good side of a ruined face. In that moment he gathered himself and breathed in deeply. He took a moment, then another, his hand clamped to his chin. The timing of such a deed could never be a coincidence, he knew that. He knew it, and it sickened him.

Only when he felt able did he stand up.

He knew then, any thread of normality had been taken from him. And in some small way, he felt affinity with the victim. Anything he himself had left, anything he could cling to, cut in two, as if with a snip from surgical scissors. The before from the after, both clinically removed from each other, just as the eyes had been severed from their host. Here was the new dead brother to four older sisters – all residing within the archives of old cardboard boxes left to gather dust in dark places. Except.

He didn't belong here.

Almquist looked past the body back towards the rising steps. He looked back again at the corpse and scratched his chin.

It didn't belong now.

***

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