Page 14 of The Sleepwalker

‘We’ve spoken to Jasmin, the victim’s wife. She says she has no idea what Josef was doing at the campsite .?.?. but his computer wasfullof cookies from a forum used by people buying sex – before someone told him to download Tor and switch to the Darknet.’

‘And that’s where the trail goes cold,’ says Joona.

‘Aside from the fact that Hugo Sand also uses Tor, so it’s possible we’ll find some sort of correspondence between them.’

Lisette reaches into her briefcase, pulls out a thick ream of paper and puts it down on the table in front of her.

‘Printouts of Hugo’s text messages, social media posts, call logs, et cetera,’ she says.

‘Have you read through everything?’

‘Of course.’

‘So what are you thinking? Who is Hugo?’ asks Joona.

‘I see a young man .?.?. Articulate, self-absorbed and pretty irresponsible,’ Lisette begins. ‘He lives at home with his father Bernard and Bernard’s partner, Agneta Nkomo .?.?. He’s had anumber of brief, casual relationships with various women .?.?. but his current girlfriend is called Olga, and they’ve been planning a trip together, trying to save up money. Hugo’s name doesn’t crop up on any of our databases. Some drug use, but no serious criminal activity. No history of violence, no extremism .?.?. We found traces of benzodiazepine in his blood, but nowhere near enough to have made him fall asleep at the crime scene.’

‘What possible motive could he have?’

‘That’s not exactly clear, but I’m going to pursue the theory that it was a homophobic hate crime,’ she replies. ‘Hugo arranged to meet the victim, possibly with the view to sell sex or rob him .?.?. They met at the caravan, and either it happened right away or the man’s approach acted as a kind of trigger, unleashing some sort of uncontrollable rage in Hugo.’

‘Is there anything to indicate homophobia here?’ Joona asks, pointing to the printouts.

‘No, but we’ll keep looking.’

Nils Åhlén’s assistant, Chaya Aboulela, comes through to reception, says a quick hello and shakes their hands.

Chaya has a narrow, somewhat stern face, with arched black brows, pale brown irises and full lips. Her hair is covered by a pale-yellow hijab, and she is wearing an open doctor’s coat over an embroidered blouse and a pair of low-cut jeans.

‘The maestro will see you now,’ she says with a wry smile.

Joona and Lisette follow her down the corridor.

‘I’m assuming you’ve seen a dead body before,’ Chaya says to the prosecutor. ‘But I should probably warn you that this one is particularly grizzly.’

‘I see corpses more often than my own kids,’ Lisette mutters.

Chaya opens the heavy doors to the autopsy room. The lighting is harsh, gleaming on the stainless-steel table, sink, taps and strainers.

Nils Åhlén is waiting in the middle of the room in his white coat. He has a narrow, crooked nose and thin lips. The lights on the ceiling look like a bright pearl necklace in the lenses of his aviator glasses.

Åhlén is a professor at the Karolinska Institute and considered one of the world’s leading experts in forensic autopsy.

On the bench in front of him, Josef Lindgren’s remains have been laid out and numbered.

Joona and Lisette slowly make their way forward and study the dead man.

It is a classic – if chaotic – case of dismemberment, with the arms, legs and head severed from the torso. Unfortunately for Josef Lindgren, the process was also carried out in an extremely aggressive manner, starting while he was still alive and thus forming part of the murder itself.

Half of his head is still connected to his neck, his right arm has been severed just beneath the shoulder, his left arm at the elbow, and both legs have been cut off.

‘Just to explain what you’re looking at: we’ve laid out the bigger pieces separately, as you can see, and we’ve tried to arrange the smaller body parts in a kind of anatomical order,’ Chaya explains to Lisette. ‘We’ve got his right hand and the tip of his index finger here, some loose teeth and fragments of jawbone here .?.?.’

Joona hears her voice fade as he sinks into a relaxed state of hyperfocus in an attempt to take in every detail, studying the wounds on the man’s torso.

He takes in the stump of Lindgren’s arm and the gash on his ribs, the man’s throat and the ragged edges where his thigh has been severed.

One of his legs is intact, his foot still wearing a sock, but the other has been hacked into five pieces.