Europa Blues Read Online Free PDF

stern wandering.
    Chavez scratched his head.
    ‘Porn police probably took it,’ he said. ‘They’ll be letting the wolverines in soon.’
    Paul Hjelm climbed up onto the shaky wooden fence, balancing for a moment before taking a reckless leap into nothingness. He floated like a butterfly over the deep, water-filled moat and landed safely on dry ground next to his colleague. It was highly surprising.
    ‘Nice,’ Chavez said appreciatively.
    ‘Thanks,’ Hjelm replied, still not quite believing that he wasn’t covered in wolverine shit, having stumbled backwards into the moat and cracked a couple of vertebrae.
    He glanced around. The wolverine enclosure was fairly extensive, a piece of hilly terrain which stretched up to a relatively high peak. There were holes dotted here and there, presumably dens, and large areas of the grass-covered ground seemed to be littered with tiny shreds of material, almost like feathers, all different colours and different materials. The forensic technicians were doing all they could to stop the light morning breeze from blowing them away.
    Paul pointed at the fibres. Jorge nodded, grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him in the direction of the enclosure’s bottom corner, where the moat was nothing more than a three-metre vertical concrete drop down to the earthy floor.
    ‘Let’s start from the beginning,’ Jorge said.
    The two men stopped. Over in that corner, the fibres had slightly more coherent shapes, most notably the leg of a pair of light pink-coloured trousers.
    A few inches of chewed-off bone were sticking up out of it.
    Probably a tibia and a fibula.
    ‘That’s the biggest bit left,’ Chavez said calmly, squatting down. Hjelm did the same and waited for him to continue. He did.
    ‘
Gulo gulo
, they’re called. Latin for wolverine. Cute little things. Look like fluffy little bear cubs. Their closest relatives are the badger, pine marten, polecat, weasel, otter and mink. They’re endangered, there are just a hundred or so left in Sweden. High up in the mountains. They can grow up to a metre in length and as a rule they live on voles and lemmings. Though sometimes they change their prey—’
    Hjelm stood up and stretched his back.
    ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Someone got drunk, climbed into Skansen and ended up among the predators. Can’t be the first time.’
    ‘Would I have called you here if that were the case?’ Chavez asked, meeting his eye. ‘These are specially evolved killing machines. Don’t you know your Ellroy? They’ll tear a man to pieces at the slightest provocation, especially if there’s a pack of them. They’ve got jaws like bolt cutters. They can break bones and grind them up like they’re nothing. It’s pure luck we’ve got so much left here.’
    Using a pencil, Chavez carefully lifted the trouser leg up. There was still some flesh clinging to the bone a bit further up, holding it together. There was also a knot. On a piece of rope.
    ‘Ah,’ Hjelm said, squatting down once more.
    ‘Exactly,’ Chavez replied, adding: ‘M.’
    ‘U,’ said Hjelm.
    ‘R,’ said Chavez.
    ‘D,’ said Hjelm.
    ‘E,’ said Chavez.
    ‘R,’ said Hjelm.
    ‘No doubt,’ said Chavez. ‘And it would be nice if we could find a head. At least it’s a variation on a theme,’ he continued, stopping Qvarfordt as he was passing by. ‘Any news, my good man?’ he asked gallantly.
    ‘Negative,’ the eternally-working Sigvard Qvarfordt replied, pushing his loose dentures into place with a well-practised movement. ‘No head, no fingers. It’ll be hard to get an ID. We’ll be able to get some DNA, but as you know the system isn’t especially well developed. It is a man though. An adult male. The coagulation level of the blood suggests the time of death was yesterday evening or last night. I’d be surprised if he’d been here longer than that. There would definitely have been some complaints from the parents if our friend here had been eaten in broad daylight. That’s