They hadn’t found a letter, yet no one had been in any doubt as to what had happened. The question was more why Ove Klipra had shot her and then himself. Had he known the game was up? In which case, why not just let her go? Perhaps it hadn’t been planned, perhaps he had shot her while she was trying to escape or because she had said something that had sent him over the edge? And then he had shot himself? Harry scratched his scalp.
He studied the chalk outline of her body and the blood that hadn’t been washed clean. Klipra had shot her in the neck with the gun they had found, a Dan Wesson. The bullet had passed straight through her, tearing the main artery, which had managed to pump out so much blood it ran over to the kitchen sink before the heart stopped beating. The doctor said she had lost consciousness at once because her brain didn’t get enough oxygen and she died after three or four pumps of the heart. A hole in the window showed where Klipra had been standing when he shot her. Harry stood inside the chalk silhouette of Klipra’s body. The angle was right.
He looked at the floor.
The blood formed a coagulated black halo where his head had been. That was all. He had shot himself through the mouth. Harry saw that the crime scene people had chalked the spot where the bullet had entered the double bamboo wall. He imagined how Klipra would have lain down, twisted his head and looked at her, perhaps wondering where she was before pulling the trigger.
He went outside and found where the bullet exited. He peered through the aperture and looked straight at the painting on the opposite wall. Still life. Strange, he had thought he would be looking down at the silhouette of Klipra. He continued toward the place where they had been lying in the grass the day before, stamping hard so as not to bump into reptiles, and stopped by the house of spirits. A small, smiling Buddha figure with a globular stomach took up most of the space, along with some withered flowers in a vase, four filter cigarettes and a couple of used candles. A little white cavity at the back of the ceramic figure showed where the bullet had struck. Harry took out his Swiss army knife and prized out a deformed lump of lead. He looked back at the house. The bullet had traveled in a straight horizontal line. Klipra had of course been standing when he shot himself. Why had he thought he had been lying down?
He walked back to the house. Something wasn’t right. Everything seemed so nice and tidy. He opened the fridge. Empty, nothing to keep two people alive. A vacuum cleaner fell out and hit his big toe when he opened the kitchen cupboard. He swore and heaved it back in, but it rolled out again before he could close the door. Looking closer, he saw a hook for storing the vacuum.
A system, he thought. There is a system here. But someone has been meddling with it.
He removed the beer bottles from the top of the freezer and opened it. Pale, red meat shone up toward him. It wasn’t wrapped, just stowed in large pieces, and in some places the blood had frozen into a black membrane. He lifted a piece out, examined it before cursing his own morbid imagination and putting it back. It looked like standard, straightforward pork.
Harry heard a sound and whirled around. A figure froze in the doorway. It was Løken.
“Jesus, you startled me, Harry. I was sure the place was empty. What are you doing here?”
“Nothing. Sniffing around. And you?”
“Just wanted to see if there were any papers we could use on the pedophile case here.”
“Why’s that? That case must be done and dusted now he’s dead, isn’t it?”
Løken shrugged. “We need solid evidence that we did the right thing as there’s no doubt our surveillance will come under the spotlight now.”
Harry looked at Løken. Did he seem a touch tense?
“For Christ’s sake, you’ve got the photos. What better evidence could you find?”
Løken smiled, but not enough for Harry to see his gold tooth. “You may be right, Harry. I’m probably just a nervous old man who wants to be absolutely sure. Have you found anything?”
“This,” Harry said, holding up the lead bullet.
“Hm.” Løken, inspected it. “Where did you find it?”
“In the spirit house over there. And I can’t work out why.”
“Why not?”
“It means Klipra must have been standing when he shot himself.”
“So?”
“Then blood would have been spurting all over the kitchen floor. But there’s no blood coming from him except for where he was lying. And even there there’s not a lot.”
Løken held the bullet between his fingertips. “Haven’t you heard of the vacuum effect in suicide cases?”
“Explain.”