The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

Skarre and Bratt?’
He put down the phone. Thought about what Hagen had said about hawks wanting their own war.
And pulled out the drawer in a vain hunt for a Dispril.
‘Apart from the footprints, we haven’t found a single trace of the perp at what we assume is the
crime scene,’ Magnus Skarre said. ‘What’s harder to understand is how we haven’t found a trace of
the body, either. After all, he cut off the woman’s head, there ought to have been masses of
evidence left behind. But there was nothing. The dogs didn’t even react! It’s a mystery.’
‘He killed and decapitated the woman in the stream,’ Katrine said. ‘Her footprints came to an end
further up the stream, didn’t they. She ran in the water so as not to leave prints, but he caught up
with her.’
‘What did he use?’ Harry asked.
‘Hatchet or a saw, what else?’
‘What about the burn marks around the skin where he cut?’
Katrine looked at Skarre and they both shrugged.
‘OK, Holm, check that out,’ Harry said. ‘And then?’
‘Then maybe he carried her through the stream down to the road,’ Skarre said. He had slept for two
hours and his sweater was on back to front, but no one had had the heart to tell him. ‘I say maybe
because we’ve found nothing there, either. And we should’ve done. A streak of blood on a tree
trunk, a lump of flesh on a branch or a shred of clothing. But we found his footprints where the
stream flows under the road. And beside the road there were imprints in the snow of what might
have been a body. But, for Christ’s sake, the dogs didn’t pick it up. Not even the bloody cadaver
dog! It’s a –’
‘Mystery,’ Harry repeated, rubbing his chin. ‘Isn’t it pretty impractical to cut off her head while
standing in a stream? It’s just a narrow ditch. You wouldn’t have enough elbow room. Why?’
‘Obvious,’ Skarre said. ‘The evidence is carried away with the water.’
‘Not obvious,’ retorted Harry. ‘He left her head, so he’s not worried about leaving any traces. Why
there’s no trace of her on the way down to the road –’
‘Body bag!’ said Katrine. ‘I’ve just been wondering how he managed to carry her so far in that
terrain. In Iraq they used body bags with straps like a rucksack.’
‘Mm,’ Harry said. ‘That would explain why the cadaver dog didn’t pick up a scent by the road.’
‘And why he could risk letting her lie there,’ Katrine said.
‘Lie there?’ Skarre queried.
‘The imprint of a body in the snow. He put her there while he went to fetch his car. Which was
probably parked somewhere near the Ottersen farm. That would’ve taken half an hour, don’t you
agree?’