The Beige Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

replying. “It’s not out of the question, but taking the BMW seems to have been an opportunistic crime.”
    “Or they were actually looking around Stampen for a car to steal so they could get to the other car. But that seems a bit … far-fetched,” Tommy admitted.
    “If they really wanted to get to this hypothetical getaway car, they could have gone by tram,” Birgitta Moberg-Rauhala pointed out.
    Which was perfectly true. And Tommy was right: his suggestion was far-fetched. According to his theory, the thieves would have stolen the car on Stampgatan, then run down and killed a pedestrian outside the TV studios on Delsjövägen, shattering the windshield in the collision and making the car virtually unusable. By pure chance they must have had another car in the area where the accident happened; it had to have been parked close by so they could reach it on foot. After that they had managed to continue their flight and disappear without a trace. The theory didn’t hold water, but at the same time it could explain why they had chosen Delsjövägen as their escape route. At the moment they couldn’t afford to rule out any hypothesis completely, Irene realized.
    “According to CSI, conditions around the side road and the root cellar are extremely challenging. They’ve found a whole bunch of tire tracks on the road, but it’s difficult to identify them. The ground is frozen solid, and there’s no snow. And a large number of police officers and dogs trampled around the place where the girl’s body was found. It’s fair to say that CSI isn’t happy,” Lind stated dryly.
    “No trace of the killer?” Superintendent Andersson asked.
    “Not that I’ve heard.”
    Hannu Rauhala slipped in through the door and sat down on the empty chair next to Irene. He reached into his pocket and fished out a key ring from the depths of his padded jacket.
    “They fit,” he whispered so that only she could hear.
    Irene felt her heart give an extra beat. Their suspicionswere now confirmed: the victim of the hit-and-run was Torleif Sandberg. A colleague whom many people in the room had met and gotten to know. The hunt for these two car thieves would be intense. You don’t get away with killing a cop. They would soon realize that.
    “I’ll let you know if I have any news,” Erik Lind said, marching toward the door.
    It very nearly smacked him in the face. Professor Yvonne Stridner rushed into the room as Erik Lind was leaving at the same high velocity. The collision was as violent as it was inevitable. Neither of the parties involved was the type to go for lengthy apologies, so the atmosphere by the door was a little tense until Lind managed to extricate himself. Professor Stridner’s face was bright red by the time she reached Superintendent Andersson. No one dared smile. You just didn’t smile at the Professor of Forensic Medicine.
    “So rude! Crashing into people …!” Stridner broke off her indignant tirade and took a deep breath. “As I have to catch a train to Stockholm from Central Station in an hour, I thought I might as well swing by to give you my preliminary report on the murder victim. My colleague, Dr. Amirez, will be conducting the autopsy on the girl tomorrow afternoon. So far we have carried out only a visual examination, but I felt it was important to let you know what I have seen.
    “First of all, she looks much younger than she probably is. Her exact height is one hundred and thirty-six centimeters, and her weight is twenty-eight kilos, or just over sixty-one pounds. A skinny little girl with small breasts and sparse pubic hair. Cracks at the corners of the mouth and lesions in and around the mouth indicate malnutrition and a lack of vitamins and minerals. Poor dental hygiene and several examples of untreated cavities. However, the development of the teeth suggests she is around thirteen years old. The forensic dentist was in the department on another matter, and I asked him to takea look. He noticed