Summary

The brief Prologue describes an unidentified woman who is running through the forest, disoriented, scared, and lost. She suddenly falls down a large distance off of a small cliff near a lake.

Chapter 1 introduces the middle-aged detective Louise Rick. Louise is newly in charge of a new police department tasked with finding missing persons. On a Monday, she goes to observe the autopsy of an unidentified woman who had been found the previous Thursday.

Chapter 2 describes the autopsy, performed by Flemming Larsen. The unidentified woman had a facial scar or burn, and many details about her person indicated a life of hard living, such as inadequate dentistry. The presence of semen indicated that the woman had had sex recently before her death, but likely died as a result of her fall.

In Chapter 3, Louise angrily calls her superior, Ranger Rønholt, disappointed...