The Golden Calf

by Helene Tursten

  “Perhaps. Did you find any computer discs?”

  He paused, then pulled out his cell phone and hit a button. After a short conversation, he turned it off.

  “No discs were found. Why did you think of this?”

  “Both Bergman’s and Rothstaahl’s computers were stolen after the murders, and we didn’t find any computer discs in Göteborg. We believe that either the computers or their discs could contain evidence of what these two men were up to. As it is now, we can only guess.”

  “We found no discs here in Paris, either. There might be many people interested in these two.”

  Irene had a quick internal debate. It would be better to go back and search the apartment in Verdier’s company than not to be able to return at all. Plus she didn’t want Verdier talking to Lucy, so she said in a light tone, “Maybe they hid the discs. We should go and look for them.”

  “So they might have hidden them in the apartment?”

  “I think so.”

  Verdier stood up. “Let’s go.”

  THEY METHODICALLY SEARCHED the entire apartment but didn’t find a single disc. On the other hand, they found three bags of a white powder hidden in a shoebox in the closet. Verdier rubbed a speck against his gums and declared it to be cocaine. In a video case, they found a number of cards with pink pills, which they both believed were a form of ecstasy.

  They sat down on the plush armchairs again and laid out the narcotics they’d found on the coffee table. Verdier contemplated their discovery.

  “This is a lot of cocaine. Did you know they were involved in drugs?” he asked.

  “No, but during Bergman’s glory days at his dot-com, rumor had it that they were no stranger to drug abuse,” Irene replied.

  Verdier nodded. “These two men called themselves consultants and enticed Scandinavian businesses to invest capital in Euro Fund. According to my colleague and your own account, this Rothstaahl was part of a similar scheme in London. Now we know they were also involved in drugs. I wonder why they dared take such risks.”

  He looked at Irene, and she had nothing to say to that, so she answered his question with another question. “What risks?”

  “First of all, getting caught. Rothstaahl must have known it was only a matter of time before someone connected the dots. This scheme is identical to the one he’d already pulled off. Also, he and his partner get involved selling drugs; this amount can’t just be for personal use. That was stupid of them. Selling drugs is severely punished in this country. I believe that the two of them must have been desperate.”

  “Desperate?” Irene said.

  “Yes, they must have been absolutely desperate for money.”

  Irene had to admit he was right. She glanced around the slightly depressing apartment, far below Philip Bergman’s heyday standards.

  Why were they so desperate to raise money quickly? A vain attempt to get back to the kind of life they’d had during the nineties? Or was this about something else entirely?

  Irene couldn’t come up with any answers. Most likely Rothstaahl and Bergman were simply unscrupulous criminals who did whatever they could for money. They truly had no conscience and had already demonstrated shocking greed. Now they were willing to deal drugs as well.

  There was a feeling of pathos in Bergman’s rise and fall in the business world—from a golden calf surrounded by adoring crowds to a shady dealer in drugs and pyramid schemes. The past few years, he’d been living in the shadows as a partner of another shady criminal. It hit Irene that there was something wrong with this picture. What could it be? She couldn’t put a finger on it, but the gut feeling was there. If she could spot the puzzle piece that didn’t fit, she’d get closer to solving this crime.

  “Do you have any ideas about their backgrounds? Why they got mixed up in all this?” Verdier asked, echoing her own thoughts.

  “No, I don’t. Maybe they were just greedy.”

  “Maybe.”

  A wild idea hit her. “What if the man who attacked Kajsa and me was there to plant narcotics in the apartment as a frame? As well as the two men who were here last night?”

  Verdier nodded. “There’s also that possibility.” He stood up as he looked at his watch. “It’s time to pick up your colleague Kajsa Berger … Birger.…”

  “Birgersdotter.”

  “As you said.”

  • • •

  THE SMELL OF cleaning solutions and urine was overwhelming as they walked into the care unit. Kajsa was sitting in a hallway chair waiting for them. She was pale and looked exhausted. The large bandage around her head made her look battered.

  A huge nurse waddled toward Irene and began to speak to her in French. Inspector Verdier came to Irene’s rescue and took over the conversation. The nurse, still talking to Verdier, handed Irene a large brown envelope. Then she turned toward Kajsa and patted her on the cheek before she headed back down the hallway.

  “She’s been treating me like a child all morning,” complained Kajsa in Swedish.

  Verdier pointed at Kajsa and asked Irene, “Can she speak English?”

  A stream of French came from Kajsa’s lips before Irene was able to answer. Irene didn’t understand a single word, but from Verdier’s expression, he did. Once she’d finished, a corner of his mouth rose as he said drily, “Considering Madame Huss does not speak French, let’s keep to English.”

  Kajsa mumbled something in Swedish that Irene couldn’t make out.

  “The nurse said that Madame—I mean, Mademoiselle Kajsa should rest for a few more days, since her concussion was severe,” Verdier explained.

  Irene held out her hand to help Kajsa up, but she waved away any assistance and stood up on her own. Her face blanched, and she swayed for a moment before she began slowly but determinedly to walk toward the exit.

  “How are you feeling?” asked Irene.

  “What do you think?” snapped Kajsa.

  They didn’t say another word until they reached the car. Irene sat beside Kajsa in the back seat. Verdier started the ignition and they soon found themselves in the middle of lunch-hour traffic.

  “We’re heading to Rothstaahl’s apartment so we can talk in peace and quiet,” Irene said.

  Kajsa gave her a worried glance. “Why do we have to go back there?”

  “The other alternative is Verdier’s office. Trust me, you don’t want to go there.”

  Although Irene and Kajsa were speaking in Swedish, the inspector heard his name, and he gave Irene a sharp look in the rearview mirror. Irene leaned forward and said, “I’m trying to find out how Kajsa is feeling. When we get to the apartment, we’ll speak English.”

  She leaned back into her seat and gave his reflection a small smile. As she turned back to Kajsa, she saw that Kajsa had closed her eyes.

  Irene sighed and concentrated on the distant view of the Eiffel Tower.

  KAJSA REFUSED TO lie down on the sofa. She sat in one of the armchairs, and Verdier sat in the other one, so Irene had to take the sofa instead.

  Verdier began in English without prelude. “Did you recognize the man who attacked you?”

  “No,” Kajsa said firmly.

  “What did he look like?”

  “Tall. Blond. Not fat, but well-built. Or rather, strong. He was extremely strong.”

  Kajsa seemed happy with her description, and Irene agreed. It fit her impression of the man.

  “Age?”

  “Anywhere from thirty to forty-five. Things happened really fast. I wasn’t able to realize much before … he hit me in the head and I passed out. I’ve probably forgotten a lot.”

  “Probably. We want to help you remember as much as possible,” Verdier said.

  “What did he hit you with?” asked Irene.

  “No idea. He had something … like an iron bar. He had it in his hand. It was long.”

  “Could it have been a crowbar? Or a flashlight?” Irene asked.

  “More like a crowbar. Did you find one?” asked Kajsa.

  “No.
He took it away with him. He didn’t break in: he had a key, and he still has the key,” Irene told her.

  “I will request that Madame Lauenstein change the lock,” Verdier said quickly. He looked at Kajsa. “There was a shooting in this apartment last night. The technicians have dug out a .38 caliber bullet. But perhaps Madame Huss can give us some more information on that point.”

  He turned his steely gaze on Irene as he said the last sentence. Irene had to admire his stubbornness as well as his instincts. He was right, even though he was coming at it from the wrong direction. She didn’t intend to help him figure it out. The last thing she wanted was more fuss from the Parisian police. It was bad enough that they’d been involved already to such an extent.

  They were not able to jog Kajsa’s memory much. Finally, she asked them to stop. She was tired, and her head was aching. Irene offered to go get pizza from Pizza Hut, but Kajsa threw a tantrum as if she were a three-year-old. As long as she was in Paris, she was going to have French food, for goodness sake! They decided to return to La Rotonde. It was close, and they knew the food was good. After a tasty lunch of trout and potatoes boiled with dill, Kajsa cheered up remarkably.

  “I don’t want to go back to that depressing apartment ever again,” she declared over coffee and apple tart.

  “We don’t need to,” said Verdier. He hadn’t wanted dessert but had a large cup of café au lait.

  “It’ll soon be time for us to take the bus back to the airport,” Irene said. She was struggling to crack the hard glaze on her tart without causing a piece to fly across the table. What if it landed right in Verdier’s lap? What a horrible thought!

  She looked over at the inspector and saw that he was studying Kajsa intently. Unexpectedly, he asked, “What did he say as he rushed toward you?”

  “Who?” asked Kajsa, caught unaware.

  “The man who attacked you. What did he say as he hit you?”

  Kajsa looked at him in surprise. She opened her mouth as if to answer and shut it again so hard her teeth clicked. Then she whispered in Swedish, “Oh my God.” She turned to Irene and said, “He was saying ‘Helvete, helvete, helvete.’ He was swearing. In Swedish.”

  Chapter 13

  “HELVETE, HELVETE, HELVETE,” Andersson repeated meditatively.

  He was settling back into his chair. He had just returned from a phone call in his office. Everyone in the conference room had taken advantage of the unexpected break to stretch their legs and get more coffee. Irene and Kajsa had spent most of the afternoon relating the events that had befallen them in Paris. Birgitta, Tommy, Fredrik, and Jonny had listened with great concentration. Irene thought Tommy was making too big a deal of Kajsa’s bandaged head. He hardly noticed Irene’s poor arm in its sling.

  Jonny said, “So. Bergman and Rothstaahl were building a new pyramid scheme. They were living together. Busy with drugs. Both murdered here in Göteborg while on a visit. Kajsa and Irene are attacked by a man mumbling a Swedish swear word. Probably the same guy Irene runs into later that evening. He shoots at her with a .38. Neither Kajsa nor Irene recognizes him. Possibly he planted the drugs in the apartment. One question: Why? Why was he at that apartment? Did he shoot Bergman and Rothstaahl? Why? And how the hell does Kjell B:son Ceder’s murder come into the picture?”

  Andersson gave Jonny a sorrowful look. “It gets even more confusing. Svante Malm called. They’re out on that island investigating the cairn of stones the drunk woman complained had been moved. She was right. They found remains beneath the stones.”

  A dismayed silence followed his words. Irene was more disturbed than the others, even though she’d expected this since hearing the stones had been moved.

  “Irene and Tommy, you’re going there. After three years, you’ll find Thomas Bonetti at last,” Andersson said drily.

  “Let me go, too,” Kajsa said. She looked at Andersson defiantly from below her bandage. A large bruise had formed around her eye.

  “There’s no chance I’m sending you out in public. The Paris doctor said that you were supposed to go on sick leave until Monday,” Andersson said with finality.

  Kajsa looked disappointed. She threw her boss a purple-tinged angry glare, but she said nothing. Andersson couldn’t read French and had no idea what the French doctor had actually written down, so he probably had just made up the number of sick days on the spot. However, forcing Kajsa to take a few days off was a good idea. A severe concussion needed to be taken seriously. Irene knew that from experience.

  Birgitta requested the floor next. “About this connection to money. One time or another each of the victims had a lot of money. Now we’ve found out they all lost it again. Within the past three years, Ceder, Bergman, Rothstaahl, and even Sanna Kaegler lost their fortunes. And no one knows where Thomas Bonetti’s money went.”

  “It disappeared during the dot-com crash,” said Jonny with absolute certainty.

  Birgitta shook her head. “We know there were rumors that the money disappeared from ph.com to land in the pockets of its founders. Sanna and Philip blamed Bonetti—who conveniently disappeared.”

  “That Kaegler woman! Tommy, once that body under the stones is identified, you go and grill that broad until she cracks!” Andersson commanded.

  “Getting back to Sanna,” Birgitta said, “neither Bergman nor Rothstaahl is the daddy of little Ludwig. The DNA analysis came this morning.”

  “I hardly expect either of those homos to be the father,” Jonny growled. “And it wasn’t Ceder either. So who’s the father?”

  “Right now, we are more concerned with solving a murder, not a paternity suit,” Andersson said.

  Irene felt that the two were connected, but wasn’t sure why.

  THE POLICE BOAT picked them up at Fiskebäck’s small boat harbor. Both Tommy and Irene knew the captain, Torbjörn Melander, well. They’d worked with him in the third district for years, sharing patrol cars in central Göteborg, enforcing law and order. Torbjörn was a few years older than they were. He’d been born and raised on Brännö, near the water, so when the opportunity arose for a sea police position a few years ago, he’d jumped at the chance. For him it was like coming home.

  They sat next to him in the wheelhouse. The water was rougher as they left the coast of Styrsö Island, and they could feel the entire boat smack when it hit the waves. It was quiet as misty rain wrapped the area in a gray shroud. Although Irene was not an expert on boating, she wasn’t worried by the decreased visibility. She trusted Torbjörn, who knew every nook and cranny of these islands from Nordkoster to Anholt. He didn’t need a compass or a sea chart to find Branteskär.

  “My compass is here,” he chortled, pointing to his stomach.

  The contours of Branteskär began to jut up before them out of the thick fog. It had steep cliffs, just as its name indicated.

  “You can’t land on this side. There’s a small inlet on the other side, which is the only place anyone can land at all,” said Torbjörn.

  It took some time for the boat to tie up, since the increasing wind kept blowing it away from the dock.

  “I’m going to stay on the boat,” said Torbjörn. “I have to tie up and make sure that we don’t slam into anything.”

  Just as she was about to jump onto land, Irene almost lost her foothold on the slippery deck. That’s all I need, to fall into the water in front of my colleagues! They’d tease me until I retired! It wasn’t easy to climb up the slope with only one good hand. It was so steep in some parts that they had to move sideways like giant crabs. It was much easier when they made their way down the other side where the stone pile was. There were large round rocks that had been deposited by receding glaciers.

  Svante Malm was sitting with other police officers drinking coffee from a thermos. The wind was cold on this side of the island, and the chilling rainwater crept through unexpected crevices in their raincoats. They’d pegged a tarp over the grave for protection.

  “Have some coffee,” Svante said. “That guy’s waited u
nder those stones so long already. Five more minutes won’t make much difference.”

  Irene gratefully took the mug in her fingers, which were stiffening from the chill. What kind of person would remember to bring gloves at the end of September? Not her. The coffee warmed her hands through the thin plastic cup. Her right hand was, of course, already warm and dry, protected in its sling beneath her jacket. She didn’t think she’d need the sling much longer. Her elbow was starting to feel more normal.

  “So, do you think it’s Thomas Bonetti?” Tommy asked Malm directly.

  “Judging by the length of time the corpse has been here, it could very well be. There’s some tissue, but not much. The insects have done their job. The clothing is still here, though, as well as the hair. Male clothes. The hair is thin and blond with a reddish tint.”

  “Sounds like Bonetti,” Tommy nodded.

  Svante Malm poured more coffee, lifted his cup to his lips, and peered at the detectives through the steam. “And there’s one more thing. All the fingers on the left hand except the thumb are missing.”

  “IT DIDN’T TAKE long to locate Bonetti’s dental charts, since his parents had the same dentist,” Tommy said. “The medical examiner studied the corpse’s teeth yesterday evening and compared them to the X-rays. They matched. So it is Thomas Bonetti we’ve found.”

  It was Friday morning, and they were all sitting around the conference table trying to analyze the latest developments in the case. Heavy fog hemmed them in through the windows, so they’d turned on the lights. Autumn has come, Irene thought morosely. There’s no turning back. She comforted herself with the thought that she and Tommy’s wife Agneta would be going mushroom hunting over the weekend. They knew of a secret mushroom patch in Härskogen Forest.

  “Svante was also right about the four fingers missing from the left hand. The technicians searched the whole area around the heap of stones and couldn’t find them in or around the grave,” Tommy continued.

  The superintendent was breathing roughly, and he coughed up some mucus. His asthma had gotten worse from the damp weather. “Torture. I suspect he’d been tortured,” he said roughly.