The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

‘We’re checking to see –’ Harry paused. ‘What did you just say, boss?’
‘That was the original suggestion, but Gunnar Hagen refused to go along with it. So he will accept
the blame. He’s in his office now writing his letter of resignation. I just wanted to inform you so
that you know when the press conference takes place.’
‘Hagen?’ said Harry.
‘A good soldier,’ said the Chief Superintendent, patting Harry on the shoulder. ‘I’m off now. The
press conference is at eight in the Great Hall, OK?’
Harry watched the Chief Superintendent’s back fade into the distance and felt his mobile phone
vibrate in his jacket pocket. He read the display before deciding to answer.
‘Love me tender,’ Bjørn Holm said in English. ‘I’m at the institute.’
‘What have you got?’
‘It was human blood in the floorboards. The lab dame here says that unfortunately blood is pretty
overrated as a source of DNA, so she doubts we’ll find any cell material for a DNA profile. But she
checked the blood type and guess what we found.’
Bjørn Holm paused before realising that apparently Harry had no intention of playing Who Wants
to Be a Millionaire? and went on.
‘There’s one blood type that eliminates most people, let’s put it like that. Two out of every hundred
have it, and in the whole of the archives there are only a hundred and twenty-three criminals with it.
If Katrine Bratt has this blood type it’s an excellent indicator that she bled in Ottersen’s barn.’
‘Check with the Incident Room. They’ve got a list of the blood types of every officer at HQ.’
‘Have they? Jeez, then I’ll check them out right away.’
‘But don’t be disappointed if you find out she’s not B negative.’
Harry listened to his colleague’s speechless amazement and waited.
‘How in Christ’s name did you know it was B negative?’
‘How quickly can you meet me at the Anatomy Department?’
It was six o’clock and employees not on flexitime at Sandviken Hospital had gone home some time
ago. But the light in Kjersti Rødsmoen’s office was still burning. The psychiatrist saw that Knut
Müller-Nilsen and Espen Lepsvik had their notebooks at the ready then glanced at her own and
kicked off.
‘Katrine Rafto tells me she loved her father above all else.’ She peered up at the two men. ‘She was
just a girl when he was hung out to dry in the newspapers as a man of violence. Katrine was hurt,
frightened and very confused. At school she was bullied because of what was written in the press.
Shortly afterwards her parents split up. When Katrine was nineteen her father went missing at the
same time as one woman was killed in Bergen and another disappeared. The investigation was