The Torso dih-2

by Helene Tursten

  “It’s possible that I may go to Trollhättan tomorrow. If the Linds want him, I’ll take Tinkler with me and drive by Vänersborg,” Irene said decisively.

  Her family nodded gloomily. Jenny had tears in her eyes when she pulled the tousled charmer into her lap. Tinkler was ecstatic that she wanted to cuddle with him, and his little pink tongue went in and out during his energetic attempt to lick her face.

  Sammie lay under Irene’s chair and sighed deeply.

  MONIKA LIND called just before Irene was about to drive to the station.

  “We would love to take Little Guy!” she said, sounding really happy.

  It took a few seconds before Irene’s tired brain remembered that it was the way she herself had described the puppy the day before. She pulled herself together quickly and mentioned her possible trip to Trollhättan during the day. If it didn’t happen, the Lind family would drive down and pick up the puppy the next day.

  “SEBASTIAN MARTINSSON’S mother has been found. Her name is Sabine Martinsson and she was born in 1950. She’s being released from the hospital today where she has been treated for acute delirium. Apparently she’s a serious alcoholic,” Birgitta started.

  Andersson nodded and interrupted her. “I’ve spoken with our colleagues in Trollhättan. We’d better drive up there and talk with her ourselves. Hannu and Irene can leave now. Here’s the address.”

  He handed the note to Hannu. Irene felt satisfied. Now Tinkler would ride in a car for the first time in his life and he would meet his new family.

  The superintendent continued, “Svante Malm didn’t have time to come himself this morning but he called me just a little while ago. Apparently, they can do some DNA test on the hair strands that were found in the hairbrush in the bathroom cabinet at Martinsson’s apartment. He said that there were hair follicles left on some of them. They’re going to compare them with the DNA profile from the semen stains that have been found at the crime scenes. He also asked me to tell you, Irene, that after a quick look at the handwriting on the postcard you received, he thinks there is a lot in common with Martinsson’s handwriting. He’s written quite a bit in his sketchbooks.”

  “Did he say anything about having found Marcus’s laptop computer?” Birgitta asked.

  “No. There’re just clothes and sun lotion and stuff that people take with them when they’re going on vacation. Strangely enough, they haven’t found a suitcase,” said Andersson.

  Birgitta looked disappointed. Marcus’s laptop would have filled in several blanks.

  “Irene, before you leave, I want you to call Copenhagen and inform our colleagues there. You’re the only one who understands Danish. Tell them everything we know about Martinsson and that we think he’s going to some art school in Copenhagen,” said Andersson.

  The last was a possibility that Irene had introduced during the previous evening’s pizza dinner. Her hypothesis was that Sebastian worked in Göteborg and studied painting in Copenhagen. When Andersson doubtfully asked why Sebastian hadn’t moved to Copenhagen and gotten an extra job there, instead of doing all this commuting, Hannu had dryly replied, “He has his dream job here in Göteborg.”

  JENS MET answered the telephone at the police station in Vesterbro. Irene gave an account of the information they had on Sebastian Martinsson. When she was finished, Metz was impressed.

  “That’s not bad. So he’s connected to all the murders. Have you been able to check his videos? It wouldn’t surprise me if you happened to find scenes where he has the lead role.” Jens chuckled.

  Irene felt nausea rising from her stomach when she thought about those scenes.

  In conclusion, she asked about Beate Bentsen. Jens replied, “She has received extended sick leave. She took Emil’s murder hard. And the fact that he was one of the mutilation murderers has cracked her completely. She’ll probably be on leave all summer.”

  Irene felt a deep sympathy for the Danish superintendent. The thought that she was the mother of a necrophilic murderer was incomprehensible. How could Emil have turned out like that? Irene thought about the posters, videos, and CDs they’d found in Emil’s apartment. She had a feeling that the films, which Emil consumed in large quantities, were very significant. The pictures that he built his fantasies around had taken up more and more of his life.

  Jens and Irene agreed to be in touch if even the slightest lead showed up during the day.

  “I already have your cell phone number,” Jens said. He laughed nastily.

  When they had hung up, Irene thought about his final words. He had taken her number from the address book in Tom’s gold-covered Nokia. She actually hadn’t dared ask Jens what Tom’s condition was. It was still far too sensitive a topic.

  The next phone call was to home, to Katarina. Irene asked her drowsy daughter to pack Tinkler’s few earthly possessions in a sack: the bag with puppy chow, the two stainless-steel food bowls, the leash, and the chewy bone. He was scared to death of the duck that peeped so they could forget about that toy. However, it would be good if Katarina could find a book about raising a dog. Since the Linds weren’t used to puppies it might be of use. And since Tinkler was Sammie’s son, Irene knew that they would need it.

  When the phone calls were taken care of she called for Hannu. Together they went out to an unmarked police car, a discreet dark blue Saab 900.

  TINKLER WAS rested and energetic. It was clear he thought it was very exciting to ride in the car. Even before they started, he was standing in Irene’s lap with his paws against the window, trying to see out. When he caught sight of Katarina, who was standing with Sammie on a leash and waving to them from the row of garages, he barked teasingly at the old man who hadn’t gotten to come along. He was his father’s son in every way, except for the fact that his coat was darker.

  After barely half an hour, all of the new impressions became too much for the puppy and he curled up, exhausted, in Irene’s lap and fell asleep instantly.

  The handing over of Tinkler to the ecstatic Elin was accomplished without any major problems. And Irene managed to keep her from putting the puppy to bed in her doll carriage.

  “Call if there are any problems” were Irene’s farewell words.

  When they were out of sight of the family, she took a deep breath and sighed. “That’s that,” she said.

  “Puppies are hard work,” Hannu commented.

  “Just like small children,” Irene quickly replied.

  A faint smile could be seen in the corners of Hannu’s lips.

  THE AREa where Sabine Martinsson lived was a little way outside the city center of Trollhättan. They had a hard time finding the address, but after circling for a while they ended up in the right place.

  The house had been built in the fifties but hardly anything had been done to it since. The whole area appeared to be in a state of decline. The windows in the main entrance were shattered and had been replaced by Masonite nailed up in a sloppy manner. Someone had painted a black swastika on the board. Irene pushed open the heavy front door and stepped into the graffiti-covered and urine-smelling stairwell. Both she and Hannu came to a stop as the door shut behind them.

  A party was going on. It could be heard from the entrance. Irene looked at her watch, which showed a quarter to twelve. Some people were drinking their lunch. Directed by the laughter and loud voices, Irene and Hannu ended up on the second floor. A cracked ceramic sign hanging on the door read WELCOME TO SABINE AND SEBASTIAN’S. Under the sign someone had etched the word “cunt” with a sharp object.

  The doorbell was broken. Hannu knocked loudly. The noise level on the other side of the door was too high for anyone to hear the knocks. When no one came, Hannu resolutely pushed down on the handle and stepped inside.

  A man was lying across the dirty floor in the hall. Since he was snoring loudly, they knew he was alive and stepped over him without ceremony.

  The party was in the kitchen. The air was thick with cigarette smoke. But the smell of smoke couldn’t conceal the stink o
f garbage and unwashed human bodies. A woman and two men sat around a crowded kitchen table. A boom box in the window, turned up to the highest volume, belted out Elvis’s seductive question “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” There was a big mess of unwashed glasses, a broken loaf of bread, an empty sausage skin, and a large carton containing cookie crumbs as well as empty chip bags on the table. A five-liter plastic jug was the centerpiece of the table. If it had been full from the beginning, then four people had consumed almost two liters of home-brewed liquor. Nothing in their behavior contradicted this assumption.

  “Do you think we can get a sensible word out of her?” Irene asked.

  “If we’ve driven all this way, at least we have to try.”

  That same instant, one of the men discovered the unwanted visitors. He was thickset and heavy. Course, light hair stuck out wildly in all directions around his head. His light blue irises swam around slowly in his bloodshot eyes. He clumsily tried to rise but fell back heavily into a kitchen chair. He started shouting, “Who the hell! What the hell. .!”

  Despite the monosyllabic words, they could discern a thick Finnish accent. Hannu quickly said something in Finnish. With a bang, the Finn shut his jaws, and by the stiff expression on his face Irene understood that he wasn’t going to open them again for a long time. She took pains to use a soothing tone of voice when she said, “We’re from the Göteborg police. We’re looking for Sabine Martinsson.”

  The woman turned her narrow head and looked at Irene for the first time. Her thin henna-colored hair was pulled together into a slovenly ponytail on the top of her head. Her face seemed to have been marked by a life of extreme abuse, with deep lines around her eyes and mouth. But from her cheekbones and her large green eyes one could see traces of earlier beauty. Sebastian had inherited those cheekbones. Irene had been able to make them out in the backlit photo and had recognized them without being able to remember who they belonged to.

  Sabine Martinsson slowly got up, using the tabletop as support. Sebastian had also inherited his height from his mother; she was almost as tall as Irene. She wasn’t slender anymore; rather, she seemed hollowed out and undernourished. Only her stomach appeared to be round and full. Sabine Martinsson looked very sick. Her yellow T-shirt hung loosely over her bony shoulders. Under the thin fabric, the large nipples of her flat, hanging breasts were outlined. The torn black tights she wore should have been taut, but they hung limply around her skinny legs.

  “Göteborg’s. . pig,” she slurred.

  She was missing a top front tooth as well as several on the bottom. “We would like to speak with you. It’s about Sebastian.”

  When Irene mentioned her son’s name, it was as if a light flickered behind Sabine’s deadened eyes. She straightened and said surprisingly clearly, “Has something happened to Sebbe?”

  Irene took a step closer to the swaying figure and gently put her hand on Sabine’s skinny arm. No muscles, just bone could be felt under the skin.

  “We don’t know. He’s disappeared from his job. Do you know where he is?”

  Now the older man came to life. He had been sitting and staring at the officers with narrowed eyes while his toothless jaws ground together. He started yelling, “Don’t tell the damn pigs anything! Those damn p-”

  Clumsily, he tried to get up but was quickly pulled down into his chair again by the Finn.

  “It’s cool. We’re just trying to find her missing son,” Irene said with a smile.

  The man became confused. Maybe he was trying to figure out whether the police officers were there as friends or enemies.

  “Sebbe? Sebbe. . missing?” Sabine asked.

  She spoke in a strained voice now as if it took an immense amount of energy to utter each word.

  “Yes. He hasn’t been at work for a while and he isn’t in his apartment. Do you know where he might be?”

  Sabine shook off Irene’s hand and started walking unsteadily toward the kitchen door. She steadied herself against the door frame and took a few deep wheezing breaths before she started coughing. After a while, she set her course for the bathroom on the other side of the hall. She stumbled over the snoring man and fell headfirst, but luckily landed somewhat softly on his body. He coughed and continued snoring in another key.

  “Did you hurt yourself?” Irene asked. She had rushed to Sabine’s rescue as the woman toppled over. Now Irene helped her to her feet, noting how light the tall woman was. Sabine mumbled something and released herself from Irene’s grip. Staggering, she took the last few steps into the bathroom and pulled the door shut with a bang. A short while later, the sound of gagging came through the thin door.

  “Is she forcing herself to throw up?” Irene whispered to Hannu.

  “Think so. She wants to clear her head.”

  When Sabine opened the door again they could smell the sour odor of vomit. She jerked her head without looking at the officers, and said, “Come. The living room.”

  She walked unsteadily ahead of them. The only furniture in the room was a dirty couch that, at the beginning of time, had been light blue and a broken rattan recliner. An empty easel stood in one corner. A small but brand-new color TV was enthroned in the middle of the floor. But the furniture was not what one paid attention to when entering the room.

  Not one square centimeter of the wallpaper was visible. Sabine’s paintings lined the walls. They were large and painted in roughly the same color scheme. The dominating tones were light purple, pink, and white. Here and there a light blue tone remained in a few of the pictures. Not a single warm tone was visible.

  The paintings were portraits, but they were grotesque faces from terrible nightmares. Twisted, malignant demons stared down from the walls. For a while, Irene thought that a fat, Buddha-like man with a wide smile was the only figure who looked sympathetic. But then she saw that the Buddha’s eyes were completely black and empty. Sabine had captured a cold, scornful person with her brushes. The icy colors strengthened the uncomfortable feelings the pictures inspired. Irene would never want to have any of them on her walls, even though they were skillfully painted.

  Sabine sank down onto the sofa with a thud. Her chest heaved and she wheezed and coughed so that Irene became concerned. Did Sabine have pneumonia? But she had just been released from the hospital. As if she had read Irene’s thoughts, Sabine puffed out, “Smo. . smoker’s cough. Shouldn’t smoke.”

  Irene sat on the creaking, protesting wicker chair. She sent up a silent prayer that it wouldn’t collapse. Hannu preferred to stand.

  “What do you want with Sebbe?” Sabine wheezed.

  Irene leaned forward intimately and said, “Sebastian’s fellow workers are wondering where he’s gone. He hasn’t been at work for several days. Do you know where he is?”

  Sabine shook her head. “No. . he has nice friends. . at work at the office.”

  “Office?” Irene repeated, surprised.

  “Nice office. The best one in Göt. . heborg. Cyhrén’s.” She grew quiet and stared listlessly at a purple-colored spirit from the abyss with a gaping mouth frozen in an eternal anguished scream.

  “What do you mean when you say that he works at an office?” Irene asked again.

  Sabine gave her an irritated look. “It’s a funeral home. A good job. Needs money. . expensive studies in Copenhagen.”

  Irene quickly jumped at the opportunity. “How long has he studied in Copenhagen?” she asked.

  Sabine wrinkled her thin forehead. After a while her look brightened and she informed them triumphantly, “Several years!”

  “What’s he studying in Copenhagen?” Irene took pains to maintain a soft tone of voice.

  Sabine straightened up on the filthy sofa and jerked her thin neck. “Painting. Art. I’m an art. . hist, of course.”

  With the last word she threw herself forward and vomited a spot of yellow bile on the floor. Hannu pulled out a package of Kleenex from his pocket. He placed several on top of each other and wiped up the stain, then disappeared into the hall.
Irene heard the toilet flush.

  The thin woman on the sofa sat with her hands pressed tightly over her stomach. Beads of sweat glistened on her forehead.

  Irene became really worried. “Do you need to go back to the hospital? We can drive you.”

  Sabine said, terrified, “No! There’s no point! They’ll just send me home. My liver and pancreas are gone. My fault. . they say.”

  Irene could see how much it cost Sabine to answer their questions. Desperately, the woman struggled against the haze of alcohol and pain. She must care about her son.

  “When was the last time you saw Basta?” Irene asked.

  At first she couldn’t understand what had gone wrong but when she saw Sabine’s eyes glowing with hate she realized that she had blundered. “Don’t say Basta!” Sabine hissed with rage. “How can you know …? Not Basta! Sebbe! Sebbe!”

  Hannu slid through the doorway. He gave Irene a wondering look but she could only shake her head in response. Carefully, she asked, “Do you not like it when people call him Basta?”

  “No! No!” she said firmly.

  “I’m sorry but that’s the nickname he has given to other people. And his friends at work call him Basta. Sebastian himself can’t have anything against it,” Irene continued.

  Sabine looked at Irene mistrustfully.

  “Does he call himself. . that?”

  “Yes. Basta.”

  “His. . shit heap of a father always called him. . that,” Sabine whispered.

  So Sebastian Martinsson had used the nickname his father had given him when he was alive. But he had died when Sebastian was thirteen. The psychologists could probably figure out what this meant when they examined him. Too bad that he hadn’t called himself Sebbe; then it would have been much easier to guess his full name.

  Irene tried again. “When was the last time you spoke with Sebastian?”

  Sabine leaned back, her hands still pressed hard against her stomach.