The Torso dih-2

by Helene Tursten

  A young autopsy technician was in the process of sawing open the skull bone of a dead man at the other table. Irene concentrated intently on the technician. He looked up when he became aware of her presence, turned off the saw, and stared at her.

  “Who are you?” he asked in a rude tone.

  “Inspector Irene Huss. I’m looking for Sebastian Martinsson.”

  “Now I recognize you. Sebastian is on vacation all summer. He’s studying abroad. What do you want with him?”

  He sounded friendlier after having recognized her and made no attempt to conceal his curiosity. Irene pretended not to notice.

  “Thanks a lot. I’ll call him at home and see if he’s still in town.”

  She gave him a friendly smile and left the room at an even pace. Even if she was in a hurry she didn’t want it to be too noticeable.

  “I RAN into Superintendent Andersson in the corridor and we went together to the prosecutor. Inez Collin is handling this case,” Birgitta began.

  Andersson snorted but Irene was pleased. Inez Collin was sharp and always knew what she was doing.

  “That’s why Superintendent Andersson is already informed. We’ve saved a lot of time,” Birgitta continued.

  Hannu, Birgitta, Superintendent Andersson, and Irene were seated in Andersson’s office. Steaming coffee mugs were placed in front of them as well as a bag of mazarin buns.

  “Collin is working on a search warrant,” Andersson added.

  “Good. Then it’s just a matter of driving out to Björlanda and picking him up,” said Birgitta.

  “If he’s still in town. The guy in Pathology said something about Basta being off all summer to study abroad,” Irene said.

  “Abroad? He’s sure as hell not supposed to leave Sweden when we’re finally close to bringing him in!” the superintendent exclaimed, displeased.

  “Hopefully not. But the risk is there. I suggest that we take a locksmith with us to save some time.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” said Hannu.

  “I’m going with you,” Andersson muttered.

  Irene sensed that his nerves wouldn’t allow him to remain at the station to await their return, with or without Basta.

  THE GRAY three-story concrete house dated from the earliest “million houses project,” a program to provide affordable shelter for the poor. In an attempt at softening its gloomy facade, all the balconies had been painted a bright red during the eighties. Over the years, exhaust fumes from the heavily trafficked Björlandavägen had toned down the color to a brownish red. Colorful graffiti on the walls did a better job of livening up the environment, but since it was of varying artistic quality, the impression was mixed.

  The lock on the door to the building was broken so it was just a matter of stepping inside the dirty stairwell. The walls inside were also covered in graffiti, even though it was mostly edifying invectives in the form of different sexual slurs and only a few pictures.

  The name plate on the second floor read S. MARTINSSON. The four police officers positioned themselves outside the door and Irene rang the bell. She felt her heart rate increase. She was finally about to see Basta, eye to eye.

  After five rings, she realized that he wasn’t home. Or, if he was, he wasn’t planning on answering the doorbell. Irene opened the lid of the mail slot and peered in. She could see an advertisement on the floor and the corner of a yellow rag rug. The apartment seemed quiet and empty. Irene could hear Hannu’s voice behind her saying, “OK. You can come now.”

  When she turned around, she saw him turn off his cell phone and put it in the inside pocket of his jacket. In five minutes the locksmith arrived. He was a big cheerful Finn who spoke a singsong Finnish-Swedish as he opened the door. If he noticed the superintendent stomping with impatience, he didn’t comment.

  When the lock clicked, he opened the door wide and threw out his hand in an inviting gesture. “There you go!”

  Andersson stepped over the threshold first. Before they took a closer look at the apartment, they split up in order to check and make sure that Basta hadn’t hidden himself somewhere. The little studio apartment was quickly searched. The hallway was small and cramped. There were two closets. One of them contained wire storage bins and the other held cleaning implements. The bins were as good as empty aside from a pair of ski gloves, two thick shirts, and a long light blue scarf knitted with thick yarn. A pair of well-polished light brown boots in size eleven stood on the floor.

  There was an old vacuum cleaner, a green plastic carpet beater, and an ironing board in the cleaning closet.

  The door on the opposite wall led into a small bathroom. It was so small that the toilet was placed as close as possible to the bathtub. The washbasin was squeezed under the window on the short wall. The walls were painted a shade of pale green like linden tree blossoms. The floor was covered in gray tiles, several of which were cracked. Irene opened the medicine chest and determined that it was empty except for a hairbrush and a squeezed-out tube of toothpaste. The entire space was meticulously clean and fresh.

  On the hall floor there was a small sun-yellow rag rug. The hall lamp was broken but light flooded in from the open door as well as through a high picture window. Irene normally wasn’t very sensitive to how people cleaned their homes, but even she had to admit that she had rarely seen such well-polished windows. White curtains woven in a pattern of flying seagulls hung on either side of the window. When Irene looked closer, she discovered that the curtains had been carefully starched.

  Just to the left of the main door was a kitchen alcove a few square meters in size. A minimal stove, a fridge and freezer, and a few beige-colored kitchen cabinets shared the limited space. The small sink shone like a commercial for some miraculous cleanser.

  The bedroom appeared to be sizable because it held almost no furniture. The walls were sponge-painted in a pale apricot color. In the middle of the floor was an old but faultlessly clean hooked rug in green and yellow. A bed with a simple green-and-white striped cotton bedspread stood along one of the shorter walls. By the window, there was a small pine kitchen table and two odd kitchen chairs. A cheap shelf unit from IKEA covered the entirety of the opposite wall. A small TV with a VCR stood on the middle shelf. There were no books but there were lots of videos and sketch pads in different sizes, organized in neat rows. On the bottom shelf were some stretchers for canvases.

  “Wow, this guy really cleans and keeps things tidy!” Birgitta said, impressed.

  Two pictures hung over the bed, the only wall decorations in the room. When Irene saw them she was speechless. She could only grab Birgitta’s arm and point.

  “You’re pinching!” Birgitta cried.

  When she looked in the direction indicated by Irene’s index finger, she grew quiet.

  The paintings were two portraits, one of a man, the other of a woman. Their heads seemed to be floating freely in the air, since the necks were not attached to any upper body.

  “Carmen Østergaard and Marcus Tosscander,” Irene said with an unsteady voice.

  Andersson stepped up to the paintings and examined them attentively.

  “Are you sure? I mean about the woman. I recognize Tosscander, of course,” he said.

  “I’m absolutely sure. It’s Carmen.”

  Carmen’s portrait background was violet-purple. Her wavy brown hair framed a pale gray face. Her wide-open eyes were weary and blank.

  The background of Marcus’s portrait was golden ochre, beautiful against his dark hair. The warm color contrasted with the greenish gray pallor of his skin. His eyes were also wide open and dull.

  “Oh my God! He’s painted their decapitated heads,” Irene exclaimed.

  Andersson took a step back in order to get another angle on the pictures.

  “You think so?” he said.

  “I’m sure. Don’t you see?”

  “It actually looks that way,” the superintendent agreed.

  Hannu stood by the bookshelf and flipped through the sketch pads. “Co
me here and look,” he said.

  The other three went over to him. Without a word, he held out a large pad and showed them the sketches on the first page. They were of Carmen’s head. Basta had drawn it from different angles. On some of them you could see the cut on the underside of the throat. There was no doubt about the fact that the head had been chopped off.

  “Turn,” Hannu ordered.

  Irene turned the page and they saw the sketch for the painting that was hanging on the wall.

  The following five pages held sketches of internal organs. Irene could make out a heart and intestines in varying thicknesses. She had probably understood subconsciously what was coming, but when it suddenly popped up she still was very upset. First there was a detailed sketch of a severed female breast, then an interior study of a female vagina.

  Irene started to feel ill. Her hands shook as she turned the pages.

  The sketches of Marcus also started with a study of the head from different angles. On the next page the sketch for the painting appeared. But when Irene turned another page, she got a severe shock. There weren’t any still lifes of internal organs here. That would have been better. On the following pages there were portraits of Marcus in the exact same position and from the exact same angle. Yet each picture was different, since they represented the advancing decay of Marcus’s head.

  “Damn, what a sick bastard!” Andersson exclaimed.

  “That’s why he saved the head in the crypt,” said Birgitta.

  Hannu came out from the kitchen alcove and said, “The fridge and the freezer are empty. Cleaned out. He’s not planning on coming home over the summer.”

  He jingled a small key ring and added, “I found these. I’m going up to the attic.”

  The next moment the front door closed behind him and they could hear him mounting the stairs.

  “If Basta is abroad then it seems natural to guess he’s in Copenhagen,” said Irene.

  “That’s not really abroad,” Birgitta objected.

  “No, but he has some base there.”

  “Why didn’t he tell his friend at work that he was going to Copenhagen?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t want anyone to know that he spends time there,” said Irene.

  “Do you think that over a period of several years he’s gone to Copenhagen periodically without his friends at work knowing about it?”

  “It’s not impossible if he doesn’t spend time with them outside work. He’s only an hourly employee at Pathology.”

  “How long has he been working there?”

  “Off and on for the last five years, according to Stridner.”

  They were interrupted by Andersson’s voice. “Come and see this!”

  He was looking into one of the two closets opposite the foot of the bed. Irene and Birgitta joined him. A sturdy leather jacket with a fur collar, a black suit, and a white shirt with a black tie hung in one closet. On the floor was a pair of smart black-laced shoes. In the other closet, a white doctor’s coat hung, along with a short-sleeved green smock and a pair of green cotton pants with loose cuffs at the bottom. On the floor there was a pair of green wooden clogs with “Op 1” written in black India ink on the side of the wooden sole. There was a package of operating masks and a package of examination gloves next to the shoes.

  “I don’t believe it! ‘My personal physician’!” Irene exclaimed.

  “What nonsense are you babbling about?” Andersson hissed, irritated.

  “Marcus mentioned something about a man to his friends almost a year ago. He called him ‘my personal physician.’ And here we have a doctor’s outfit! Just like Emil was called ‘my policeman’ by Marcus, even though he was also only dressing up.”

  The front door opened and Hannu returned. He was carrying a Domus bag in each hand. He had hung a black shoulder bag in shiny leather diagonally across his chest. Without a word, he walked over to them and set down the bags.

  Irene saw that they were filled with clothes. She could see a pair of white jeans and a pair of red swim trunks.

  “Why did he bring his clothes up to the attic?” Andersson asked.

  Hannu put the shoulder bag down on the floor and stuck his hand inside.

  “These aren’t his. They’re Marcus’s clothes. There’s more up there,” he said.

  He took out a new EU passport with red covers and opened it. Marcus Tosscander’s beautiful smile beamed out at the three officers.

  “There’s money here as well,” Hannu continued.

  He hauled out a long, thin, blue plastic pouch. A thick stack of bills lay inside.

  “Thai bats,” Hannu announced.

  Irene got a lump in her throat. Up to the last minute, Marcus thought that he was going to Thailand.

  Suddenly, Andersson clapped his hands together and said with determination, “Now we’re going to catch him! We must try and locate relatives. Some relative should damn well know where he is! Check if he has forwarded his mail. . and all of that, which you are really good at, Hannu.”

  Hannu nodded. If there was a relative, that person would be traced. And if Sebastian had left an address, Hannu would find that as well. But what would they do if he had managed to sweep away every clue as to his whereabouts? It would be a good idea to contact the police in Copenhagen, but that would have to wait until tomorrow. It was after five o’clock.

  IT WAS almost eight o’clock when they met that night in the conference room to eat their ordered-in pizzas. Superintendent Andersson, Tommy, Irene, Birgitta, and Jonny sat around the table. Irene wondered how Andersson had reached Jonny. The last one to enter the room was Hannu.

  The superintendent started with a recapitulation of the afternoon’s events. In conclusion, he turned toward Jonny and said, “Since you’re already initiated into the video film world, your assignment is to go through Sebastian Martinsson’s film collection.”

  Despite Jonny’s loud protests, he was assigned to this job. Then Andersson turned to Hannu and asked, “Have you found anything?”

  Hannu nodded and looked down at his papers.

  “Sebastian Martinsson was born in Trollhättan twenty-nine years ago. His father was a teacher. The parents divorced shortly after the son was born. His father died of cancer when Sebastian was thirteen. The mother still lives in Trollhättan. She’s apparently an artist.”

  “Have you gotten in touch with her?” Andersson asked.

  “No. No one answers at that telephone number.”

  Andersson looked displeased but cheered up after a little while. “We’ll have to contact our colleagues in Trollhättan so that they can go and get her. Or at least find out where she is.”

  Trollhättan was located barely twenty kilometers from Vänersborg. Irene felt a pang when she thought about Vänersborg, and Monika Lind. She decided to call and see how Monika was doing. Maybe Irene could hint that they were hot on the murderer’s trail. It would, perhaps, be some comfort.

  MONIKA LIND sounded a bit surprised at first when she heard Irene’s voice on the telephone. She was pleased when she understood that Irene was worried about how the family was doing.

  “It feels like I’m living in a black hole. Thank God, the semester is over now, but maybe it isn’t good to have time to think. I blame myself for what happened to Bell. Why did I let her go to Copenhagen? But I could hardly stop her. I never understood that she. . How could I be so naive!” she said.

  “How’s it going with the rest of the family?” Irene asked.

  “Janne has taken it with composure. I think too much composure, at times. But he has been an amazing support for me and Elin. She’s young enough that she doesn’t mourn her big sister very deeply. But she has started asking for a dog. Janne would also really like to have one. Maybe it would distract us from the thoughts. . what do you think? You’ve always had a dog. Is Elin too little?”

  “Not if you and Janne realize that all the responsibility for the dog is yours. But a dog would certainly distract them, and the family would have a common
interest. A little puppy demands a lot of care and it needs to be looked after and go to obedience school and. .”

  Irene stopped herself and thought. Then she said, “The fact is that Sammie has become a father. We have one of his puppies at our home. He’s almost ten weeks old and terribly cute. But we’ve realized that having a puppy right now isn’t going to work. Sammie is too old and doesn’t accept having a competitor. The dog sitter is almost seventy and we don’t know how much longer she’ll have the energy to keep going. As a whole, our family is hardly at home. We’re working and going to school and have a lot of extracurricular activities, you know how it is. He’s a mixed breed of black poodle and an Irish soft-coated wheaten terrier. If you want, you can have him. He’s very cute and sweet.”

  Monika considered before she said, “Yes, it would work out well with respect to the fact that I’m off work all summer. How much would he cost?”

  “Elin can have him as a gift. You’ll be doing us a big favor, just knowing that he’ll be getting a good home.”

  “But it’s far too much! What’s his name?”

  Irene was close to telling the truth, but she managed to stop herself. “Tinkler” didn’t inspire much confidence. That’s why she just said, “We haven’t been able to decide yet. For the most part, we just say Little Guy.”

  “I’ll talk it over with Janne. We’ll be in touch tomorrow.”

  Irene thought that Monika Lind’s voice sounded happier when she hung up. She hoped that the Lind family would take Tinkler.

  Now the worst part remained-convincing her own family of the truth behind her actions.

  Chapter 19

  IT WAS A HARD to convince the family as Irene had expected. After long discussions back and forth, the other three had to admit that it was difficult to merge their time schedules with young Tinkler’s needs. The deciding factor was Sammie’s obvious dislike of the whole situation. He was used to peace and quiet, long walks, and eating his food in peace. His son had sabotaged this comfortable existence. Sammie roamed around with his tail hanging, looking unhappy.