The Torso dih-2

by Helene Tursten

  The answer came so quickly that neither Irene nor Peter was ready with a follow-up question. To Irene’s relief, Beate smiled faintly at them.

  “You should see the looks on your faces. Mouths gaping open! I met Bill when Emil inherited the apartment. I was required to get in touch with him because he owns the building. Emil was so young when he moved in but there weren’t any big problems. The building is a very old cooperative with old-fashioned and complicated rules. Bill owns and manages the property, but the tenants own their apartments. The tenants pay a management fee. It’s that, plus the rent, that provides an income for Bill.”

  “Like a private tenant-owner’s company,” Irene said.

  “Yes. Bill manages several properties.”

  Peter cleared his throat and announced that he wanted to ask a new question.

  “You knew that Emil was. . gay. Do you know any of his partners? Has he had a steady boyfriend recently?”

  Beate shook her head. “No. He never confided in me. I’ve had the feeling that he has been very lonely. That’s what the parent of a homosexual child is most afraid of, that they will be alone. If he had had a steady …friend and a secure relationship, he probably wouldn’t have been so restless.”

  Maybe his preferences had been so particular that it hadn’t been easy to find a like-minded individual.

  “Did you know the people Emil rented rooms to?” Peter asked.

  “No. He handled that himself. I have the feeling that he only rented the rooms out now and then. Of course it provided some extra income but he had the income from Simon’s assets to live on. Thank God they are placed so that he can’t. . couldn’t spend the money. The income was paid to him each month.”

  “I’ve heard that he was studying law,” said Irene.

  “It didn’t go very well,” Beate said shortly.

  “Did you know that Emil often hung out in a gay sex shop in Vesterbro that is owned by one Tom Tanaka?” Irene continued.

  Beate looked incredibly tired. She tried in vain to wet her lips.

  “I know that he was often seen at different gay hangouts. But I don’t know if he spent a lot of time in Tanaka’s store.”

  It was clear that Beate didn’t have the energy to talk anymore. Peter could see it as well.

  “Take care of yourself, Chief. We can talk again when you are feeling a bit stronger.”

  “Thanks. I’ll call if I come up with anything. My brain almost feels paralyzed right now,” she whispered.

  Irene felt deep sympathy for Beate. The image of Isabell’s dead face floated past for one second. A strong pang of guilt hit her. In a sense, she was an accessory. The murderer was working close to her; involving her was his intention. Catching the murderer was something she owed his violated victims. Now it had become personal.

  “SHE DIDN’T seem to know anything about his sex life,” said Irene.

  “Maybe it’s just as well,” said Peter.

  They sat in the comfortable BMW and zoomed at an even speed toward downtown Copenhagen. Peter skillfully maneuvered the car into the parking spot in front of the Hotel Alex.

  “Are you going to eat now?” he asked.

  Irene saw that it was only five thirty. “In an hour. Then I’ll go across the street; the food is good there,” she said.

  “I’ll pick you up here.”

  “You shouldn’t feel like you need to. . ”

  “I don’t feel like fixing dinner tonight. I had already planned on going out to eat.”

  He stepped out of the car and quickly went around and opened the passenger-side door for her. Irene thought it was a bit embarrassing. She decided that it must be because she wasn’t used to it.

  ALONG hot shower followed by a short cold one raised her spirits. She relaxed, wrapped in a clean bath towel, a smaller towel wound around her wet hair. For a while she sat in the only recliner in the room with her fingers clasping the bottle she had just taken from the minibar. She slowly drank the cold Hof.

  Her brain felt sluggish and overwhelmed by the events of the past few days. The murderer must have shown up at some point. Where? When? She couldn’t locate him among all of her unsorted impressions. But she knew that he had been close by. He had been in Copenhagen a week ago, on her previous visit. Was he still here? Irene felt convinced that he wasn’t. It was high time for her to return to Göteborg.

  She longed intensely for Krister and the girls. She went to get her cell phone and called home.

  Just before six thirty, Irene went downstairs to the lobby. They had put up the “Jell-O shot evening” sign in the bar again. She saw Jonny at a table in the bar together with two men and a woman. He lifted a small glass filled with pink Jell-O.

  She didn’t bother going into the bar. She was content. There would be no discussion about who was going to drive tomorrow. She exited through the revolving door and waved at Peter, who was walking toward her.

  They went back to Restaurant Vesuvius. The head waiter was a gray-haired older man who showed them to a table for two in the smaller room with the movie-star photos on the walls. Two younger women sitting at a table by the window looked at Irene with undisguised jealousy and Irene became keenly aware of the fact that she was in the company of a very attractive man. When Peter stood near her in order to pull out her chair, she caught a whiff of his good aftershave. Light, masculine, and sensual. Could be Armani.

  He pushed her chair in and when he leaned forward she could feel the warmth of his breath on her neck.

  “It’s been a busy day for you. Now you have to relax,” he said. He smiled encouragingly at her when he seated himself across from her. “Do you want wine?”

  She hesitated for half a second and then common sense took over.

  “No, thanks. I have to drive tomorrow. Jonny is already in fine form in the bar. He’s drinking Jell-O shots with a group of people. Something tells me it will be a quiet trip home.”

  Peter laughed. His eyes were as blue as the short-sleeved Sand shirt he was wearing. The top two buttons were open, revealing blond hair. A thin gold chain glimmered against his golden brown skin. He had hung his light-colored linen jacket on the back of his chair.

  She still had on her dark blue linen pants, which at this point were wrinkled. She had managed to press them a bit with the iron in the hotel room, but they weren’t pristine. Her linen jacket was still in good shape. She wore a new silver-gray satin top under the jacket. Her feet in blue suede sandals were bare.

  “Beer then. What would you like to eat?”

  “Something spicy that will make my spirits soar.”

  “How does gamberoni sole mio sound? Giant shrimp in a lobster sauce with cayenne pepper.”

  “That sounds perfect.”

  “Good. I’ll have that as well. A drink before dinner?”

  She hesitated. “OK, one. A dry martini, please.”

  The drinks came to the table very quickly. Peter and Irene raised their wide glasses in order to toast. Their eyes met and Irene felt her cheeks become hot. Damn the man for being so handsome!

  A chill suddenly ran down her spine. Her brain became crystal clear. The police officer.

  Mechanically, she took a sip of her drink as she thought feverishly. She put down her glass and said in as natural a tone of voice as she could muster, “You never had a chance to tell me where you got your tan.” She smiled encouragingly but didn’t get a response.

  He looked into his glass. Finally he said, “I wasn’t planning on telling you. I was in South Africa.”

  “How exciting! How long were you there?”

  “Three weeks. A tour and safari.”

  “How wonderful, to get away in March when the weather is so bad. . ”

  “It wasn’t in March. We. . I left on April 1.”

  A month after Marcus’s supposed trip to Thailand; Marcus had been dead for almost a month already. Peter’s sunburn also seemed to match better with three weeks in April than with a few weeks the month before.

  But th
ere were tanning salons. You could maintain a tan. She had to confirm the date Peter had taken his vacation.

  He seemed unwilling to talk about his trip. The conversation became strained. Irene decided to start a new topic: Copenhagen as a tourist city. Peter thawed out a bit but the intimate feeling was completely gone. Irene felt that something had come between them despite the wonderful food and drink.

  What had happened on the trip to South Africa? Had he really been in South Africa?

  They finished dinner at ten o’clock. He escorted her back to the hotel but didn’t show any interest in following her inside.

  Chapter 12

  JONNY WAS ASLEEP BEFORE they left Copenhagen. He woke up when they rattled onto the ferry. Irritable, he tottered into the ferry’s candy store and pulled a wrinkled shopping list from his coat pocket. Absentmindedly, he put bags of Drungelvrål, Dumlekola, and gummy bears into the shopping basket for his four kids. Irene noted that he didn’t buy anything for his wife, unless the bottle of Black Velvet he purchased in the liquor store next to the hotel was for her.

  Jonny cheered up after consuming a strong beer in the cafeteria. Irene had two cups of coffee. He fell asleep again as soon as they got into the car and didn’t even wake up when they drove down the ramp.

  The trip home along the coast of Halland went by quickly and uneventfully on the new highway. Jonny slept all the way to Kungsbacka. Jonny had to make a quick pit stop at Statoil. Irene filled up the car while she waited.

  She dropped Jonny off outside his row house in Mölndal and continued home to Fiskebäck. It was almost two o’clock and she was hungry. She planned to unpack the car and get a bite to eat. Then she was going to drive to the station and speak with Andersson.

  At three thirty she stepped into the superintendent’s office. He looked up from a stack of papers lying on the table in front of him.

  “Hi. Good that you came. Where’s Jonny?” he asked.

  Irene tried to look surprised. “He hasn’t come in yet?”

  She was reluctant to reveal her suspicions to her boss. Jonny had probably gone straight to bed and was fast asleep now.

  “No. When did you get home?”

  “At two thirty. I dropped him off at his home so that he wouldn’t have to carry his things around with him and so that he could pick up his car. He hasn’t arrived?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe the car wouldn’t start. . ”

  “Possibly. While we’re on the subject of cars, that ‘Mats’ from Copenhagen called. He’s so damned difficult to understand but I got that they’ve found Marcus Tosscander’s car.”

  “Marcus’s car! Where?”

  “In a garage. He said that I should tell you it was in Emil’s garage.” Emil’s garage? Emil had a garage? Where?

  “ ‘Mats’ wants you to call him. He gave me some blasted number in Danish but I didn’t understand it. Fours and threes. . completely incomprehensible!”

  Irene smiled.

  “I’m thinking about asking for extra money for language assistance for these joint investigations.”

  Since she had the numbers for both Peter Møller’s and Jens Metz’s direct lines she said, “I’ll call from my office. Then I’ll report to you. Prepare yourself because it’s going to take quite a while. Load up the coffeemaker.”

  She nodded in the direction of the old coffee pot, which was standing on top of Andersson’s bookshelf. In recent years a coffee machine had been installed in the corridor but Andersson had kept his percolator. Irene knew that he always hid a package of coffee in the bottom drawer of his desk.

  “YES. THIS is Inspector Metz.”

  “Hi. Irene Huss. Thanks again for your assistance.”

  “Thanks to you, too. It got real quiet here in Copenhagen after you left. Nothing is happening.”

  Metz laughed and Irene politely laughed, too, before she interrupted him. “You spoke with my boss and said that Marcus’s car was found in Emil’s garage.”

  “That’s right. There’s a garage under the building. Some of the tenants have parking spaces in the back lot but Emil had a spot in the garage. We did a routine check and found a Swedish-registered red Pontiac convertible. It turns out that it belongs to Marcus Tosscander.”

  “The photo above Emil’s bed. . the model is Marcus Tosscander,” Irene said. “I wasn’t sure when I saw it the first time, his face is so fuzzy. But I’ve seen other similar pictures of Marcus. The picture in the bedroom and the calling card on Emil’s bulletin board clearly point to their having known each other. The car in Emil’s parking spot confirms it. I also think we can go ahead and assume that Emil was the one Marcus was staying with during his time in Copenhagen.”

  “Quite possibly.”

  “Both of them fell victim to the same killer. That must mean that they knew him.”

  “That’s what we think as well. But the question is, why didn’t Emil report Marcus missing? And why did he let that nice car stand there in the garage?”

  “Maybe he didn’t have a driver’s license?”

  “Maybe. I’ll check into that. But then why did he have a parking space? And where is his car?”

  “Have you heard anything from the medical examiner yet?”

  “Yes. Emil had been dead a week, just as we thought. The exact time of death is difficult to pinpoint but Blokk says that it was either late Wednesday night or Thursday during the early morning. He was strangled with a noose. Probably a very thick rope, judging by the marks on his neck. Isabell Lind had an identical strangulation mark.

  “Have you found the rope?”

  “No. There wasn’t one at the Hotel Aurora or in Emil’s apartment. We haven’t found the instrument the murderer used on their pelvises either. Blokk thinks it’s some sort of a hard baton. In the preliminary report he actually says ‘a baton of ordinary or large police issue.’ ”

  The police officer, again. Irene’s skin crawled. It made her ask, “Before I forget, when was Peter Møller in South Africa?”

  “In April for three weeks. Why?” Jens Metz sounded very surprised.

  “I apologize; it is not relevant. I asked about his vacation yesterday and he seemed so unwilling to talk about South Africa, I felt embarrassed. It’s not that strange to be interested in an unusual vacation destination and want to ask about it, is it?”

  Irene hoped that Jens would accept her half lie and leave it at that.

  “It’s not strange that he didn’t want to talk about it,” Metz said dryly. He went on, “We’ve sent both of Emil’s uniforms to the technicians. Several dark stains could be seen on one of them that looked very suspicious.”

  “Blood?”

  “Could be.”

  Irene came up with something. “It’s odd that all of Marcus’s belongings seem to have disappeared. As if someone wanted to remove all traces of him. Where are his clothes? After all, he went home to Göteborg at the beginning of March to pack his summer clothes for the trip to Thailand. Why aren’t his winter clothes still in Emil’s closets? And where are his work things? We know that he had brought them with him to Copenhagen because he did several jobs while he was there.”

  “We’re in the process of searching the rest of Emil’s building, the attic, and the basement. Maybe his things are hidden somewhere.”

  “Please call as soon as something interesting shows up.”

  “I’ll do that. Take care.”

  Irene went into Andersson’s office. The newly made coffee smelled wonderful. Hannu Rauhala was also there. Irene congratulated him on his change of status.

  “So there was no honeymoon right after the wedding?”

  “No.”

  Had it been anyone else, Irene probably would have asked when they were going to take one, but she knew that it wouldn’t do any good with Hannu. If he didn’t want to tell, he wouldn’t. She would have to ask Birgitta when she got a chance.

  “I’ve just spoken with Hans Pahliss. He’s coming here tomorrow at around four o’clock,” said H
annu.

  Irene made a mental memo to be there for the questioning. It would be very interesting to hear what the virologist had to add.

  They poured the freshly brewed coffee and Irene started on her long report.

  Neither the superintendent nor Hannu interrupted her. Her presentation still took almost two hours. Andersson pressed the tips of his fingers together and hummed. Hannu fixed his gaze on a spot just past her left ear. Both showed signs of deep concentration.

  Finally the superintendent said, “Since Emil and Marcus knew each other, we have to assume that they knew the murderer. The question is whether he’s in Göteborg or Copenhagen.”

  “Both places,” said Hannu.

  “He has clearly murdered in both cities, but I’m asking where he lives,” Andersson clarified.

  “Both places,” Hannu repeated.

  Was he teasing the superintendent? Irene looked at Hannu in surprise, before the lightbulb went on.

  “You mean that the murderer is actually a resident of both cities?” she said.

  “At the least, he has strong connections to both of them.”

  “Marcus talked about his doctor in Göteborg. He indicated that he could be dangerous. At another point, he said that the police officer in Copenhagen could be almost as dangerous.”

  The superintendent interrupted her, irritated. “That’s what your protected informant told you. What is this nonsense? Why can’t we know his identity? The police uniform was found at Emil’s, and you said yourself that a lot of evidence points to Emil masquerading as a police offi cer.”

  “But we don’t know for sure. That’s why I need to keep my informant’s identity a secret. Especially after what happened to Isabell and Emil,” Irene said obstinately.

  Andersson snorted. “And what would happen if you told us here in Göteborg? Do you think one of your colleagues here-”

  He was interrupted by a noise at the door. Jonny opened it and entered. He looked sober and smelled of soap but he couldn’t do much about his bloodshot eyes.

  “Hi. I’ve sorted through the photocopies I brought from Copenhagen from the investigation of Isabell Lind’s murder. Jens Metz will send the final autopsy report when it’s done.”