Read Online Exposed by Liza Marklund - Free Book Online

up on the seat, her knees pulled up to her chin, and her teeth were chattering.
    This isn’t happening, she thought. It’s just a whole series of nasty coincidences, nothing more than that. Positive thoughts, positive thoughts …
    The air was so heavy that she was having trouble getting it down to her lungs. It got stuck somewhere in her throat, swelling and solidifying, suffocating her.
    ‘I can’t do this,’ she said. ‘What if it isn’t her?’
    ‘Well, we’ll soon find out,’ the man said. ‘I realize this must be very difficult for you. Come on, let me help you out. Do you want anything to drink?’
    She shook her head and took the hand he was holding out to her. She stumbled onto the tarmac on unsteady legs. The bitch had started walking down a narrow path, her heavy shoes crunching on the gravel.
    ‘I feel sick,’ Patricia said.
    ‘Here, have some chewing-gum,’ the man said.
    Without saying anything she held out her hand and took a piece from the packet.
    ‘It’s just down here,’ the man said.
    They passed a sign with a red arrow saying,
95:7 Forensic laboratory: mortuary
.
    She chewed hard on the gum. They were walking through trees, limes and maples. A gentle breeze was rustling the leaves, maybe the heat was about to lift at last.
    The first thing she caught sight of was the long canopyroof. It stuck out from the bunker-like building like a vast peaked cap. It was yet another red-brick building, its door dark grey iron, heavy and forbidding.
    STOCKHOLM MORTUARY, she read in gilded lettering under the canopy, then, in slightly smaller letters:
Entrance for next of kin. Identification deposition
.
    The plastic entry phone had seen better days. The man pressed a chrome button and a low voice responded. The man said something.
    Patricia turned away from the door and looked back towards the car park. She had a vague feeling that the ground was moving, like slow waves on a huge ocean. The sun had disappeared behind Tomteboda School, and beneath the canopy the daylight had almost vanished. Straight ahead of her lay the Medical School, a dull, red-brick building from the sixties. The air seemed to be getting thicker, and the chewing-gum was getting bigger and bigger in her mouth. A bird was singing somewhere in the bushes, its sound reaching her through some sort of filter. She could feel her jaw muscles clenching.
    ‘We can go in.’
    The man put his hand on her arm and she had to turn round. The door was open. Another man was standing in the doorway, smiling cautiously at her.
    ‘This way; please come through,’ he said.
    The lump in her throat rose, settling at the back of her tongue, and she swallowed hard.
    ‘I just have to get rid of my chewing-gum,’ she said.
    ‘There’s a bathroom in here,’ he said.
    The bitch and the man in the shirt let her go in first. The room was small. It reminded her of a dentist’s waiting room: the little grey sofa to the left, a birch-wood coffee table, four chrome chairs with blue-striped covers, an abstract picture on the wall, just three colours, grey, brown, blue. A mirror on the right. Cloakroom straightin front, toilet. She headed in that direction with an unpleasant feeling of not quite touching the floor.
    Are you here, Josefin?
    Can you feel that I’m here?
    Inside the toilet she locked the door and threw her chewing-gum in the bin. The woven basket was empty and the gum stuck to the plastic lining just below the rim. She tried to push it further down, but it stuck to her finger. There were no plastic cups so she drank directly from the tap. This is a mortuary, after all, she thought. They must be pretty hot on hygiene.
    She took several deep breaths through her nose, then went out. They were waiting for her. They were standing next to another door, between the mirror and the exit.
    ‘I want you to know that this will probably feel pretty tough,’ the man said. ‘The girl in here hasn’t been washed since she was found. She’s also lying in