Another Time, Another Life by Leif G. W. Persson

dangerous lunatic on the homicide squad.
    “Then that’s what you’ll get,” said Birgit. “I’ll do it in ordinary Swedish so there aren’t any misunderstandings.”
    “Thanks,” said Wiijnbladh, smiling wanly. “Thanks.”
    Eriksson had died of a knife wound or rather a knife thrust that had been administered at an angle from above.
    It had struck him from behind, high up on his back, between the left shoulder blade and spine and passed between two ribs into the chest cavity, wounding the heart, left lung, and the aorta. The stabbing resulted in rapid, extensive loss of blood, dramatic drop in blood pressure; the victim lost consciousness and stopped breathing, which led to death within a few minutes at most. The knife blade had been held at an inclined horizontal angle when the knife struck the body, which thus argued for a thrust rather than a cut; a cut would have produced an incision that was vertical or inclined to vertical as a rule.
    The weapon was a large, very sharp, single-edged knife with a straight blade at least ten inches in length and two inches wide where the end of the blade met the handle. These observations in connection with the autopsy matched the knife in the photo that Wiijnbladh hadfaxed over to her before he came. And as for that, by the way, there was something she wanted to say.
    “I understand that the intention was good,” said Birgit, fastening her eyes on Wiijnbladh, “but in future I want you to wait with this type of information until I ask for it. First, I want to form my own opinion. I’m a forensic physician, not a fortune-teller.”
    “Of course, of course,” said Wiijnbladh.
    “Was there anything else?” asked Birgit, inspecting him up and down.
    “The time,” said Wiijnbladh. “Can you say anything about the time?”
    “When you got the alarm. Around eight o’clock. Nothing I’ve seen contradicts that time. I thought it was you who wrote the fax I received? At least your name was on it.” Birgit shrugged her shoulders.
    “I’ve been thinking about something,” Wiijnbladh said carefully. “Eriksson was five foot ten inches tall, and in my mind I see a perpetrator who must be considerably taller than Eriksson, and have considerable body strength besides. Considering the angle of incision and the depth of the cut, that is,” Wiijnbladh clarified. Surely she must be able to take all that in. She has an academic degree, after all, he thought.
    Now she looked pleased in a manner that Wiijnbladh experienced as deeply disturbing.
    “So that’s what you see in your mind,” said Birgit.
    “Yes,” said Wiijnbladh. “A big, powerful perpetrator, very tall, about six foot three, considerable body strength, violent stab … or else a thrust then … so to speak.”
    “I see,” said Birgit tranquilly, inspecting her neat, short trimmed nails. “Personally I might imagine that Eriksson was sitting on that couch I saw in one of your pictures. As far as the stab wound is concerned, no particular strength would be required for that. A sharp knife slipped in between two ribs. The perpetrator sneaks up behind and just makes a thrust. If it had been me who’d done it I would have been very surprised at the result.”
    “Could it have been a professional of some type?” said Wiijnbladh. “Considering where the stab went in, I mean. In my opinion this suggests considerable anatomical knowledge.”
    “Where do you get all this from?” asked Birgit, sighing. “Is this the sort of nonsense that you and your colleagues sit and blabber about withMilan? It was pure luck, or bad luck depending on how you look at it. Call it what you want. How could the perpetrator see where the victim’s ribs were? The poor man had his shirt on. Unless you think that the perpetrator came up and squeezed his chest cavity before he stabbed him?”
    “No, that’s clear,” said Wiijnbladh. What a horrid person, Wiijnbladh thought, and to top it off he had started to sweat too.
    “Was