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Back Bad Apples
Chapters (65)
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  65. Acknowledgements

‘His teeth had four fillings and a crown, completed within the past seventy-two hours. All post-mortem.’

22

‘Shit,’ says Noora. ‘I shouldn’t have told you that yet. Keep it to yourself, Tuva. That’s off the record. Promise me.’

‘Don’t worry.’

‘I’m serious,’ she says.

‘And I said, don’t worry.’

‘I have to get back to work. I’ll try to see you later.’

I’m left to try to process this new information. Why would someone kill Arne Perrson. Cut off his head. And then do dental work on his teeth? Is that some kind of sexual kick? It wasn’t to disguise the identity of the victim, because we already know the identity of the victim.

The office is subdued. It usually is on weekends but today even more so. Lars in his loose-knit cardigan, typing out his memoir with two manicured index fingers. Lena’s behind her closed door. People are passing by the window wrapped up in coats they’ve taken from their winter storage. Possibly from their private unit at the Hive.

I can’t drink more coffee, I already feel sick.

Sebastian walks in.

‘Hej, hej,’ Lars says to him.

Sebastian slips off his winter boots and puts on his indoor espadrilles. Somehow he looks good in slip-on shoes. We’re all in Crocs or sandals or, in Lars’s case, Velcro ICA Maxi sneakers, and here comes new boy with his cheekbones and his sailcloth beach shoes.

‘I’ve been out in Utgard forest,’ he says.

Lars says, ‘Why would you do that, Seb?’

‘Couple from Norrland bought the Carlsson place at the centre of the forest. They’re knocking it down and building the biggest new house in the Kommun. Serious planning dispute, so I was there interviewing the new owners and their architect.’

‘Paulsson?’ says Lars, one of his eyelids twitching.

‘The other one,’ says Cheekbones.

‘Alfredsson?’ says Lars.

‘That’s him.’

Lars nods to himself. The man is an encyclopaedia of local information. He has org charts in his head. He has family trees and lists of architects and an archive of old Posten articles, the ones he wrote at least, and most likely an underground-sewer map imprinted on his memory.

I pick up my phone and place the octagonal foam attachment on the earpiece close to my hearing aid.

‘Gavrik police, Thord Pettersson speaking.’

‘It’s me again.’

‘Call you back.’

I unplug my aids and put them on my desk to show Lars and Cheekbones I’m working. I search for post-mortem dental work but I get nothing. In the whole world. Nada. Zip. Rightly so, in my opinion. There is no record of people working on the teeth of dead people. Jesus, I hope my Google history never gets made public. Then I look into dental students studying on human cadavers. Happens in some dental schools but not all. Usually the larger ones attached to teaching hospitals.