The second and much awaited crime novel with lawyer Rebecca Martinsson!
Extract from Åsa Larsson: "The Blood Spilt" (pages 6 - 8)
The aisle of the church is covered with a red woven carpet. Exactly where the organ loft finishes and the ceiling opens upwards, something is lying on the carpet. She bends down.
A stone, she thinks at first. A little white splinter from a stone.
She picks it up between her thumb and her index finger and goes towards the sacristy.
But the door to the sacristy is locked, and she turns to go back down the aisle.
As she stands at the front by the altar she can see the lower part of the organ. It is almost completely covered by a wooden partition that goes across the church from the ceiling and hangs down one third of the height of the ceiling. But she can see the lower part of the organ. And she can see a pair of feet hanging down in front of the organ loft.
Her first lightning thought is that somebody has come into the church and hanged themselves. And in that very first split second she is angry about it. Feels it’s inconsiderate. Then she thinks precisely nothing. Runs down the aisle and past the partition, then she sees the body hanging in front of the organ pipes and the Sami sun symbol.
The body is hanging from a rope, no, not a rope, a chain. A long iron chain.
Now she sees dark stains on the carpet, just where she found the splinter of stone.
Blood. Can it be blood? She crouches down.
Then she understands. The stone she is holding between her thumb and her index finger. It isn’t a stone at all. It’s a splinter from a tooth.
Up on to her feet. Her fingers lose their grip on the white shard, she almost flings it away from her.
Her hand fishes the phone out of her pocket, punches in 112.
The lad on the other end sounds incredibly young. While she is answering his questions, she tugs at the door to the organ loft. It’s locked.
‘It’s locked,’ she says. ‘I can’t get up there.’
She races back to the sacristy. No key to the organ loft. Can she break down the door? What with?
The lad on the other end of the phone makes her listen to him. He tells her to wait outside. Help is on the way, he promises.
‘It’s Mildred,’ she shouts. ‘It’s Mildred Nilsson hanging up there! She’s our priest. God, she looks appalling!’
‘Are you outside now?’ he asks. ‘Is there anyone nearby?’
The boy on the phone talks her out on to the steps of the church. She tells him there isn’t a soul in sight.
‘Don’t ring off,’ he says. ‘Stay with me. Help is on the way. Don’t go back into the church.’
‘Is it okay if I light a cigarette?’
That’s all right. It’s all right to put the phone down.
Pia sits down on the steps of the church, the phone beside her. Smokes and notices how calm and collected she feels. But the cigarette isn’t burning properly. She finally notices that she’s lit the filter. After seven minutes she hears the sirens from a long way off.
They got her, she thinks.
Now her hands begin to shake. The cigarette jerks out of her grip.
The bastards. They got her.
(Translated into English by Marlaine Delargy)