The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

wide.’
The twins giggled and put down their knitting.
Harry followed Rolf Ottersen to the kitchen where a large kettle had boiled and there was a smell of
hot coffee.
‘So you were wrong,’ Rolf said. ‘About the doctor.’
‘Maybe,’ Harry said. ‘Or maybe he has something to do with the case after all. Is it OK if I take a
look at the barn again?’
Rolf Ottersen made a gesture inviting Harry to help himself.
‘But Ane has tidied up in there,’ he said. ‘There’s not a lot to see.’
It was indeed tidy. Harry recalled the chicken blood lying on the floor, thick and dark, as Holm took
samples, but now it had been scrubbed. The floorboards were pink where the blood had seeped into
the wood. Harry stood by the chopping block and looked at the door. Tried to imagine Sylvia
standing there and slaughtering chickens as the Snowman came in. Had she been surprised? She had
killed two chickens. No, three. Why did he think it was two? Two plus one. Why plus one? He
closed his eyes.
Two of the chickens had been lying on the chopping block, their blood pouring out onto the
sawdust. That was how chickens should be slaughtered. But the third had been lying some distance
away and had soiled the floorboards. Amateur. And the blood had clotted where the third chicken’s
throat had been cut. Just like on Sylvia’s throat. He recalled how Holm had explained this. And
knew the thought wasn’t new, it had been lying there with all the other half-thought, half-chewed,
half-dreamed ideas. The third chicken had been killed in the same way, with an electric cutting
loop.
He went to the place where the floorboards had absorbed the blood and crouched down.
If the Snowman had killed the last chicken why had he used the loop and not the hatchet? Simple.
Because the hatchet had disappeared in the depths of the forest somewhere. So this must have
happened after the murder. He had come all the way back here and slaughtered a chicken. But why?
A kind of voodoo ritual? A sudden inspiration? Rubbish, this killing machine stuck to the plan,
followed the pattern.
There was a reason.
Why?
‘Why?’ Katrine asked.
Harry hadn’t heard her come in. She stood in the doorway of the barn, the light from the solitary
bulb falling on her face, and she was holding up two plastic bags containing cotton buds. Harry
shuddered to see her standing like that again, in a doorway with her hands pointing in his direction.
Just like at Becker’s. But there was something else, another realisation, too.
‘As I said,’ Harry mumbled, studying the pink residue, ‘I think this is about family relationships.
About covering things up.’