The Disciple Read Free Page B

and feet bound with nylon stockings, raped and with their throats cut. They had found the first one in 1995. Then there had been three more before they managed to catch the murderer in the late spring of ’96.
    Hinde was sentenced to life imprisonment in Lövhaga.
    He didn’t even appeal.
    And he was still in there.
    But these new victims were identical copies of Hinde’s. Hands and feet bound in the same way. Excessive violence used to cut the throat. Even the blue tinge in the white nightdresses was the same. This meant that the person they were looking for wasn’t just a serial killer, but also a copycat. Someone who was copying murders from fifteen years ago, for some reason. Torkel looked down at his notebook and turned to Ursula again. She had been involved in the original case in the nineties. Ursula, Sebastian and Trolle Hermansson, who had reluctantly retired since then.
    ‘The husband said he got a reply to a text message at around nine o’clock this morning, but no reply to a message at one o’clock.’
    ‘She’s been dead for more than five hours, less than fifteen.’
    Torkel knew that Ursula was right. If he had asked she would have pointed out that rigor mortis had not yet reached the legs, that there was no indication of autolysis, that the initial signs of tache noire had begun to appear, and other technical terms relating to forensics which he still hadn’t bothered to learn in spite of all the years he had spent in the police service. If you asked, someone would always explain in plain language.
    Ursula wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. It was several degrees warmer up here than downstairs. The July sun had been shining in all day. Flies were buzzing around the room, attracted by the blood and the process of decay, as yet invisible to the human eye.
    ‘The nightdress?’ Torkel wondered after surveying the bed one last time.
    ‘What about it?’ Ursula lowered the camera and gazed at the old-fashioned item of clothing.
    ‘It’s been pulled down.’
    ‘Could have been the husband. Wanting to cover her up.’
    ‘I’ll ask him whether he touched her.’
    Torkel left his place by the door and returned to the inconsolable husband in the kitchen. He really didn’t like this case at all.

The tall man had slept for a few hours. He had come home and gone straight to bed. That was what he always did. Rituals. The adrenaline had been surging through his body. He didn’t really know what happened, but afterwards it always felt as if he had used up a week’s reserves of energy during the short period of activity. But now he was awake. The alarm clock had gone off. It was time to get to work. Again. He got out of bed. So much still to do. And it was vital that everything was done in the right way. At the right time. In the right order.
    Rituals.
    Without them there would be nothing but chaos and fear. Rituals created control. Rituals made the bad stuffless bad. The pain less painful. Rituals kept the darkness at bay.
    The man linked his Nikon camera to the computer and quickly uploaded the thirty-six pictures.
    The first one showed the woman weeping, her arms crossed protectively over her breasts as she stood waiting for him to give her the nightdress to put on. Blood was trickling from one nostril, down to her lower lip. Two drops had splashed her right breast on their way to the floor, leaving red marks like rain on a window pane. She had refused to get undressed at first. Thought her clothes might somehow protect her. Save her.
    In the thirty-sixth and final picture she was staring blankly straight into the camera. He had squatted down by the bed and leaned in close, so close that he had felt the warmth of the blood seeping from the gaping wound in her throat. By that time most of the blood had left her body, and had been largely absorbed by the bedclothes and the mattress.
    He quickly checked the pictures in between. Nightdress on. The nylon stockings. The knots.