Blue Blue Eyes: Crime Novel by Helena Anderson

slope. Stones and clods of earth in different sizes and colours were rapidly rolling into the water.
    Two meters before the dam the stopped. A naked body was floating face up in the green murky water. The grey hair had made a wreath around the victim’s head, almost like a wreath of death. The scene looked ritual, as though a Water sprite was lying there, but without his violin. The smell wasn’t that intrusive somehow, of course there was a musty smell of algae, but not like when they had found Sten Arvidsson. The flies were there on the other hand, flying around the corpse in big swarms, feasting on the left-overs in the different wounds.
    Daphne gave Carlos a pair of rubber gloves with a pointed look.
    ”Put these on and take out the cigarette from your mouth.”
    ”Excuse me, is it you or me being in charge here?”
    Daphne pretended not to hear and gave her boss a hard stare before gliding down to the shore.
    ”We’ll try getting him up on land, I’ll take the feet and you the shoulders.”
    ”Do you want Maria to strangle you, or what? You know very well we have to wait for Forensics. But we can enter and have a look, but just a look.” Daphne felt how the black boots were getting filled with cold water while she waded out to the dead man. Carlos swore and hesitated until the last. He folded his blue uniform trousers legs up but soon realized there was no point. He hesitantly paced to and fro leaving a number of big shoe prints.
    ”Come on now. Look how you are messing up for the technicians with your enormous feet. How hard can it be? Nobody has died of a little water”, she said and looked at the corpse and realized it was a bad choice of words. She smiled ironically and found that she actually had been a little funny for once.
    Carlos picked up some courage and carefully went out into the murky water.
    ”Hell, its cold.”
    ”Are you never satisfied? Enjoy getting cooled down instead of complaining.”
    ”Do you see the same thing as me? Just like the previous victim. Do you think there is any connection?”
    ”Damn it, what kind of lunatic is poking out the eyes of people?” Carlos pulled out yet another cigarette from his breast pocket.
    ”Maria will kill you if you throw the butt in the water.” Daphne looked at her boss sternly and made a ”chop your neck off” sign with one hand over her own neck.
    ”Damn it you’re nagging, sweetie. Take a few pictures and I’ll go to the car and get the tape so that I can seal off the area. It would be good if you could interview the kid after that.”
    ”Nope, I’ll get the tape and you’ll take care of the interview.” Daphne slowly waded back to the shore. She wrung her trousers from the knees down before climbing up the slope with her dripping shoes. It didn’t take her long to get to the police car while Carlos was making his way up to the kid standing by the gate chain-smoking.
    ”How are you actually doing?” Carlos asked out of breath when he saw the pale, green face of the witness.
    ”So so. It’s not every day you find a dead person at work.”
    ”Tell me, what happened?” He took out the handkerchief and dried his face. Putting it back in the front pocket of his drenched, dark blue uniform trousers.
    ”I got to work as usual around seven thirty in the morning. Parked the car where it is now and went into the control room inside the house. When I went out to the slope to pee I saw something floating in the water.”
    Carlos hummed a bit before starting to speak again:”And you didn’t touch anything, did you? You know that it’s forbidden, don’t you?” He grabbed the boy’s shoulders and gave him a stern look with his eyes black like oil. ”It’s very serious if you have touched the corpse, have you done that?” The kid shook his head, scared, and backed off vehemently.
    ”Fine, then I don’t need to report you. How many people have passed here since morning?”
    ”Nobody.”
    Carlos jotted down what the witness had told