Lene Kaaberbol - Doctor Death

ALSO BY LENE KAABERBL, WITH AGNETE FRIIS

The Boy in the Suitcase

Invisible Murder

Death of a Nightingale

Thank you for downloading this Atria Books eBook.

Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Atria Books and Simon & Schuster.

C LICK H ERE T O S IGN U P

or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com

We hope you enjoyed reading this Atria Books eBook.

Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Atria Books and Simon & Schuster.

C LICK H ERE T O S IGN U P

or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com

A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the authors imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2015 Doctor Death by Lene Kaaberbl

Originally published as Kadaverdoktoren in Danish in 2010 by Modtryk.

Copyright 2015 of English translation by Elisabeth Dyssegaard

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Atria Books hardcover edition February 2015

and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

Interior design by Kyoko Watanabe

Jacket photograph Liz Dalziel/Trevillion Images

Author photograph by Lisbeth Holten

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kaaberbl, Lene.

[ Kadaverdoktoren . English]

Doctor Death : a novel / Lene Kaaberbl. First Atria Books hardcover edition.

pages cm

Originally published in Danish with the title Kadaverdoktoren (Kbenhavn : Modtryk, 2010).

1. Forensic pathologistsFiction. 2. Fathers and daughtersFiction. 3. HomicideFiction. 4. FranceFiction. I. Title.

PT8177.21.A24K3313 2015

839.813'8dc23 2014044129

ISBN 978-1-4767-3138-4

ISBN 978-1-4767-3141-4 (ebook)

To my sister Evawith love and with admiration for the work she does and the strength it takes to do it

I t is snowing. The snow falls on the young girls face, on her cheeks, mouth, and nose, and on her eyes. She does not blink it away. She lies very still in her nest of snow, slightly curled up, with a fur coat covering her like a quilt.

Around her the city is living its nightlife, the hansom cabs clatter by in the cobblestone slush on the boulevard, just a few steps away. But here in the passageway where she lies, there is no life.

Her brother is the one who finds her. He has been to the theater with some friends, and then to a dance hall, and he is happy and lighthearted when he returns home, happy and a little bit tipsy. That is why he does not understand what he is seeing, not at first.

Hello? he says when he notices that someone or something is lying at the entrance to his familys home. Then he recognizes the coat, which is unusual: astrakhan with a collar of ocelot. Cici? he asks, because that is the girls pet name. Cici, why are you lying there?

Only then does he discover why she does not blink and makes no move to get up.

It is unusual, said the Commissioner to my father. It is difficult to believe that it is a natural death, considering the circumstances, but there are no external signs of violence.

The young girl lay on a stretcher in the hospitals chapel. They had removed the fur coat, which was now hanging across the lid of the waiting coffin. Papa had turned the gas lamps all the way up in order to see as clearly as possible. The hospital had recently had its first electric lights installed, but the chapel had not yet seen such progress. Light for the living was more important than light for the dead, it was thought, and that was probably true. But it made my fathers work even more difficult.

Beneath the cloak, Cecile Montaine was wearing only a light white chemise and white pantalets. Both were filthy and had been worn for a while. Her narrow feet were naked and bloodless, but there was no sign of frostbite. Someone had closed her half-open eyes, but you could still see why she was considered a beauty, with long black eyelashes, sweetly curved lips, a narrow nose, symmetrical features. Her hair was pitch-black like her eyelashes and wet with melted snow.

Dear Lord, said the third person present in the chapel. Oh, dear Lord. The hand holding the prayer book shook a bit, and it was clear that Father Abigore, the Montaine family priest, was in shock.

Could the cold have killed her? asked the Commissioner.

Its possible. But right outside her own door?

No, that is not logical. Unless she died somewhere else and was later placed where her brother found her?

I think she died where she was found, said my father. The clinical signs suggest as much.

They both stole a glance at the priest and refrained from discussing lividity while he was listening.

Sickness? Poison? asked the Commissioner.

It is difficult to say when the family will not agree to an autopsy. My father bent over the girl and carefully examined the halfway open mouth and the nostrils. Then he straightened up. Did she suffer from consumption?

The Commissioner looked over at the priest, passing on the question. Father Abigore stood staring at the dead girl and did not realize at first that he was being addressed.

Father?

What? With a start, the priest focused on them. Consumption? No, certainly not. When she left her school a few weeks ago, she was as sound and healthy as one could possibly expect of a young lady of seventeen.

And why did she leave school? asked the Commissioner.

I must confess that we thought it was because of an unfortunate attachment she had made to a young man who disappeared at the same time. But now... Perhaps we have done her an injustice. His gaze was once again drawn to the young dead girl, as if he were unable to look anywhere else. Consumptive? Why would you think that?

There is dried blood in the nasal and oral cavities, said my father. Suddenly, he leaned forward with a wordless exclamation.

What is it? asked the priest nervously.

But my father had no time to answer. He grabbed a pipette from his bag and quickly bent over the young girls face again.

What are you doing? asked the priest indignantly and took a step closer. You promised, nothing unseemly. Nothing undignified for the dead!

It is not undignified, my father cut him off. But absolutely necessary. Move, you are blocking the light!

My father later said that it was perhaps just as well that the family had insisted on having a priest present for the examination, because it was a miracle of God that he saw them in the poor light, and even more incredible that he managed to capture two in the glass tube of the pipette.