The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

pointed nose and the pursed carp mouth with which the worst afflicted were ultimately burdened.
He had moved to Oslo to continue his work on immunology and water channels in the brain, as the
research centre for this was the Anatomy Department in Gaustad. Alongside his research he was
working at Marienlyst Clinic where Idar was employed and had recommended him. Mathias also
did night shifts at A&E since he couldn’t sleep anyway.
It was not difficult to find victims. Initially it was the patients’ blood samples which in many cases
ruled out paternity, and then there were the DNA tests by the Paternity Unit at the Insititute of
Forensic Medicine. Idar, who had fairly limited competence, even for a general practitioner,
covertly took advice on all cases concerning hereditary illness and syndromes. And, if the patients
were young people, Mathias’s advice was invariably the same.
‘Get both parents to appear at the first consultation, take mouth swabs from everyone, say it’s just
to check the bacterial flora and send the samples to the Paternity Unit so that we at least know we’re
working from an accurate starting point.’
And Idar, the idiot, did as he was told. Which meant that Mathias soon had a little file on women
with children who were sailing under a false flag, so to speak. And best of all was that there was no
link between him and these women as the mouth swabs were submitted under Idar’s name.
The method for luring them into the trap was the same as the one applied with such success to Laila
Aasen. A telephone call and an agreement to meet at a secret location unknown to anyone. Only
once had it happened that the appointed victim broke down on the phone and went to her husband to
tell all. And that had ended with the family splitting up, so she had received her just deserts anyway.
For a long time Mathias had pondered how he could dispose of the bodies with increased efficiency.
At any rate, it was obvious that the method he had used with Onny Hetland was not viable long
term. He had done it piecemeal with hydrochloric acid in the bath at home in his bedsit. It was a
risky, laborious process, injurious to health, and it had taken almost three weeks. Great therefore
was his pleasure when he chanced upon the solution. The body storage tanks at the Anatomy
Department. It was as brilliant as it was simple. Just like the cutting loop.
He had read about it in an anatomy journal where a French anatomist recommended this veterinary
device for use on bodies which had started to decompose, because the loop cut through soft, rotting
tissue with the same precise efficiency as through bone, and because it could be used on several
bodies at the same time without any danger of transmitting bacteria. He had realised straight away
that with a loop to cut up the victims, transportation would be radically simplified. Consequently he
contacted the manufacturer, flew to Rouen and had the tool demonstrated, in halting English, one
misty morning inside a whitewashed cowshed in northern France. The loop consisted of a plain
handle shaped like – and the approximate size of – a banana furnished with a metal shield to protect
your hand against burns. The wire itself was as thin as fishing line and ran into both ends of the
banana from which it could be tightened or slackened with a button. There was also an on-off
switch which activated the battery-driven heating element and made the garrotte-like wire glow
white in seconds. Mathias was elated; this tool would be useful for more than carving up bodies.
When he heard the price he almost burst out laughing. The loop cost Mathias less than the flight.
Batteries included.
The publication of the Swedish study concluding that somewhere between 15 and 20 per cent of all
children had a different biological father from the one they thought reflected Mathias’s own
experiences. He was not alone. And nor was he alone in having to die a cruel, premature death
because of his mother’s whoring with tainted genes. But he would be alone in this: the act of