The Golden Calf

by Helene Tursten

  “You’re going to be looking for fingerprints.”

  “That’s right.”

  Chapter 15

  BY SUNDAY MORNING the foul weather had begun to dissipate, and the weather service forecasted beautiful sunshine for the last days of September. Irene did her jiujitsu training during the morning, although she didn’t stretch herself too far. She wanted to protect her elbow, which was still sore.

  After a quick lunch, she piled Sammie, her coffee thermos, her rubber boots, and a mushroom basket into her car and headed off to Härskogen. She and Agneta had a place where they’d picked mushrooms for quite a few years now. It was on the outskirts of a nature reserve, but not on private property, so the mushrooms were up for grabs.

  However, there would be no mushroom picking that afternoon.

  “There’s something I have to tell you,” Agneta said right away.

  Irene nodded encouragingly. What are friends for, after all, if you couldn’t confide in them?

  “Tommy and I are getting a divorce.”

  Irene felt dizzy and had to look for a place to sit down. A wave of nausea hit her. How can she stand there and just say something like that without even looking distraught?

  “I’ll be moving out on October first.”

  “So … soon.…” Irene managed to stammer.

  Why, oh why? Her best friend! And she hadn’t even seen this coming! Or had she? The thoughts swirled in her head.

  “Is it that serious … with Kajsa?” she managed to ask.

  “Kajsa? Who’s that?” Agneta said, wrinkling her brow.

  Before Irene had a chance to reply, Agneta continued, “Well, if someone at work is interested in him, I certainly hope something will come of it. He needs someone. He is the father of my three children, and I still like him very much … platonically.”

  “But … if you still.…” Irene was grasping at straws.

  “I can’t help the fact that I don’t love him any longer. I’ve met the love of my life. I know it sounds stupid, but I’ve been carried away by passion. It’s a true … force of nature. You’re just swept along with it and can’t even fight it.”

  Her brown eyes began to fill with tears.

  “What’s his name?” Irene asked.

  “Olof. He’s a doctor at our hospital. We’ve known each other for years, and we’ve always had a strong attraction to each other, which we’ve resisted for a long time. We had our families to think about. His two children are grown. But now we can’t wait any longer, so we’re both getting divorced.”

  Irene felt as if she’d heard more than enough; she felt her temper rising. How can Agneta do this to Tommy and the children? Irene tried to keep her feelings under control. “How long has this been serious?”

  “Since the spring.”

  “How long has Tommy known about it?”

  In truth, Irene didn’t really want to know any more. She felt like driving straight home and throwing herself on her bed for a good cry, but the investigator in her took over. She had to know what was truly going on.

  Agneta blew her nose and dried her tears with a paper tissue. “Tommy … began to realize what was going on during the summer. And we talked—my God, how we talked and talked! But it is what it is. I can’t deny my feelings any longer. Olof and I will be moving in together. We’ve found an apartment in Alingsås. It’s large enough for the children. Tommy will be keeping the townhouse for now.”

  Irene was disheartened. Tommy and Agneta had never brought up the marriage crisis they were in. They were her two best friends, and they hadn’t said a word.

  “Why didn’t either of you say something to me before?” she felt forced to ask.

  “You were so busy this summer with your father-in-law’s illness, and then of course he died, and there was the funeral. Then you were gone for two weeks to Crete. And we wanted to figure things out for ourselves and not burden other people.” Agneta looked Irene straight in the eye. “Please don’t let this hurt our friendship. Let’s keep on meeting each other. Picking mushrooms like always.” She smiled slightly at the last sentence.

  “Sure,” Irene mumbled. But she knew in her heart that nothing could be the way it was before.

  ON THE WAY home, Irene felt a sense of shame when she remembered the conversation with Kajsa in Paris. She’d treated Kajsa badly. They hadn’t even spoken to each other properly since the attack in the Rothstaahl apartment. Kajsa had slept the entire way back on the plane. Once they’d arrived home, they hadn’t had a moment’s peace, and then Andersson sent Kajsa home on sick leave. Tomorrow she’d be back at work. Irene knew that she owed Kajsa an apology, but first, she’d have to talk with Tommy.

  TOMMY HAD REMAINED calm when Irene told him Monday morning that she knew he was getting a divorce, but when she asked him why they didn’t try harder to save the marriage, he went into a rage.

  “You have no idea what I’m feeling! This is between Agneta and me. Just letting you know that we’re getting divorced is enough. The rest is none of your business!”

  “But I just wanted to talk—” Irene tried to say, but Tommy interrupted her.

  “As I said, it’s none of your business! And stop giving people advice when they haven’t asked for it!”

  Tommy jumped up angrily and left the room. As the door slammed shut behind him, Irene was crestfallen. Tommy’s last comment about giving unwanted advice made her think that Kajsa had already told Tommy about their conversation in Paris. Perhaps that’s what let him dump his anger on her. Deep inside, however, she knew that she probably deserved it.

  Could this Monday morning be any more of a Monday?

  As if hearing her unspoken thought, there was a knock on the door. Jonny Blom stuck in his head before Irene even had a chance to speak.

  “You seen Sven?” he asked.

  “He’s in a meeting.”

  “I see. What’s wrong with you? Looks like you didn’t get your daily dose of coffee.”

  If there was one person on the planet with whom she did not want to share her private concerns, that person was Jonny. Irene tried to look more energetic and forced herself to smile.

  “I got my coffee all right. I was just thinking. Saturday, I went to talk to Annika Hermansson one more time. I couldn’t question her because she was lying drunk and unconscious on the floor when I got there. She’d hit her head on the table when she fell, and she’d broken her arm. I made sure she got to the hospital. While I was there, her son came by. I’ve checked out his background, and his birth certificate says “father unknown.” However, I suspect I know who his biological father is.” Although Irene hadn’t planned on telling Jonny all this, she spoke the truth.

  Jonny came in and shut the door behind him. He plumped down on the sofa with a thud. “So who is he?” Jonny wanted to know.

  “I didn’t want to say anything until I’d researched … a few details.”

  She picked up a white envelope and waved it in the air. “This came with the morning mail. There’s another envelope inside that, hopefully, has the mystery father’s fingerprints. In a plastic folder in my desk drawer, I have the business card of man whom I think is the father. I suspect that his fingerprints are on it, because he wasn’t wearing gloves when he handed it to me. The question is, should I pursue this or not? It might not have a bearing on the case, but you never know.”

  Jonny sat, thinking it over. “But you guess there’s something fishy here.”

  “I have no idea. It’s perhaps nothing more than my usual bad habit of sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong.” She wasn’t able to hide the bitterness in her voice.

  Jonny lifted an eyebrow. He’d caught her tone. He leaned across the desk and said with emphasis, “All good investigators are curious to a fault. You’re famous because you stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  Jonny got up and gave her an encouraging smile before he went out the door.

  Irene stared at the closed door. A miracle had occurred. Jonny had saved h
er day.

  “STRIDNER SAYS THAT the cuts of the wounds show that Thomas Bonetti’s fingers were severed from his hands by a pair of wire cutters. She even wrote wire cutters, though how she could determine the differences between the slice of wire cutters versus pliers is sure as hell a mystery to me,” Andersson said with sarcasm.

  “Well, if she wrote wire cutters, that’s what I’d put my money on,” said Birgitta.

  “Me, too,” Irene agreed.

  The superintendent pretended not to hear their comments. Instead, he continued to skim through the autopsy report.

  “Let’s see … height, teeth, blood type … all match Bonetti. Clothes, too. Cause of death: pistol wound in the right temple. She wrote os temporale but put temple in parenthesis. We can be grateful for her thoughtfulness. Two shots. Twenty-eight. No big surprise there. More evidence linking this to the asshole who killed the other three a few weeks ago. Stridner’s report confirms the body has been there for three years, like we suspected. I called the tech guys a few minutes ago and asked if they’d found Thomas Bonetti’s glasses, but they haven’t. Any questions? The floor is open.”

  Andersson leaned back into his chair and imperiously surveyed his detectives. He even glanced at Kajsa briefly, but looked away quickly, since she wasn’t a pretty sight. He had to admire her bravery, though. Most women would refuse to show themselves in public looking like that.

  “The first thing that comes to my mind,” Tommy said, “is how did the killer manage to drag the body to the top of the island? It’s hard just to walk there. Why not simply dump him in the water? That would have been much easier.”

  “Especially considering that Bonetti was not exactly a lightweight,” Irene added.

  “He was short, but he weighed more than a hundred kilos. There must have been two people involved,” Birgitta said.

  “Are there any injuries on the body or marks on the clothes to indicate that he’d been dragged up the side of the cliff? By using a rope or something like that?” asked Fredrik.

  Andersson shook his head.

  Irene thought about how difficult it had been for her to climb up the slope of the island, especially the first bit. The cliffs went straight down to the water. They’d have had to get a foothold via a crack in the side of the cliff and would have had to use their fingers to grab uneven sides of the rock.

  “I’ve just been there,” Irene said. “I believe there’s only one way Bonetti made it. He went up under his own power.”

  “Why would he do that?” asked Jonny.

  “Perhaps someone was pointing a gun at him. Or perhaps someone had tortured him or threatened to do so. Perhaps because he was scared to death if he didn’t.”

  “Right about that,” Birgitta muttered.

  There was a moment of silence in the room as everyone pictured the scenario Irene had described: chubby Thomas, shaking with terror, scrambling to the top of the cliffs on the island, only to be executed in cold blood in the September darkness.

  It was an unpleasant scene.

  “How could they see in the dark to climb?” asked Fredrik.

  “A flashlight?”

  “Probably, or a head lamp. You can climb with just one hand, though it isn’t easy. I had to do that, but it was during the daytime,” Irene said.

  “Still, it was difficult, wasn’t it?” Tommy said. “So I’d guess his fingers were cut off after he was shot.” No one said anything, and Tommy continued. “So why cut off his fingers? Or at least four of them?”

  “Trophies,” Jonny said with conviction.

  Irene and Jonny’s eyes met over the conference table. They remembered a case they’d worked on before, and the trophies a serial killer had kept. These were memories they’d both tried to repress.

  “Possibly,” Tommy said. “You’re thinking of that serial killer.”

  Jonny nodded. “Yes, this looks like another one to me.”

  “That killer certainly was, but the question now is whether or not this suspect is one. He has killed a number of people, but all the victims have connections to each other. None of the last three had amputations or desecration, just Thomas Bonetti. Why?”

  “I still believe it was trophies. A souvenir of the killing. Power over the victim,” Jonny insisted.

  Well, he’s read up on his serial killers, Irene thought. Nothing like personally running into one to spur on the research. Although that’s most likely the only one he’ll ever meet in his entire career as a police officer, statistically speaking.

  “Well, if he were into trophies, wouldn’t he have taken the fingers off his other victims as well?” Tommy asked.

  “If we’re talking about one killer. Bonetti could have fallen victim to one murderer while the others were killed by someone else,” the superintendent pointed out.

  “Hardly. Think about the unusual caliber of the bullets,” Birgitta said.

  Andersson looked at Birgitta with irritation, but didn’t defend his theory. Just moments before, he himself had pointed out that there was only one killer. Instead, he cleared his throat and said, “So the question is why did someone go to all the trouble to shoot him at the top of that remote island?”

  “The murderer did not want the body found. It was important. But then why not just dump him in the water?”

  The word “dump” echoed in Irene’s mind.

  “He didn’t dump him in the water because he had nothing to weigh him down!” she said excitedly.

  “Oh no, here she goes again,” sighed Jonny and rolled his eyes.

  Irene ignored him, forming her words carefully. “You can’t just dump a body in the water. You have to weigh it down, and what happens if you don’t? The body pops back to the surface. Our murderer did not want the body to be found. Certainly not right away. And I think that’s behind the trip to the stones up there on Branteskär.”

  “Sounds plausible,” said Andersson.

  “What about the fingers?” Tommy said.

  “Trophies,” Jonny insisted stubbornly.

  “If they were cut off before he was killed, then it was torture,” said Birgitta.

  Jonny sighed. “Why on earth would anyone want to torture that fat, rich puppy dog?”

  “Because he was a fat, rich puppy dog,” Kajsa said. Everyone turned to her in surprise at her first words of the meeting.

  “What do you mean by that?” asked Andersson. With everyone in the room staring at her, Kajsa’s garishly bruised face flushed red, an interesting color combination with the blue and purple around her eyes.

  “That’s exactly what he was. A rich puppy dog. He was involved in illegal business ventures in London and was suspected of financial finagling in the ph.com crash. Perhaps he was tortured so that he would give up his bank account numbers,” she said with conviction.

  Irene found herself nodding. “Kajsa’s right. This is the one thing all our victims have in common. They were young and made themselves wealthy illegally. Perhaps Kjell B:sson Ceder was the exception there. But all four knew each other.”

  “Did Ceder really know Rothstaahl and Bergman? Did he know Bonetti?” asked Andersson.

  “No. But Sanna did,” Irene said.

  Suddenly Andersson straightened in his chair and glared at Tommy. “So, have you questioned her again?”

  Tommy shook his head. “Nope. She was too broken up after the murders of Ceder and Bergman. Especially Bergman, I believe.”

  “You go and lean on her, and lean hard!” bellowed Andersson. “Irene and Tommy! The two of you will go question our lady Ceder again. Continue probing for any trace of connection between her and the four victims. Birgitta and Kajsa, keep researching their finances in case there’s something out of the ordinary we missed. In particular, track down the complaints that Bonetti made off with the ph.com money. And the Ceders’ finances, too. Have a little chat with Bosse in the financial crimes division, although I’m not sure how much he can do since they’re short-handed over there because of the cutbacks. Jonny and Fred
rik, find out why Bergman and Rothstaahl came back to Sweden. What were they up to? Why did they meet at Rothstaahl’s house? There might be something there. Talk to their parents again. I have a feeling that they’re trying to hide something that would put their sons in a bad light.”

  “Keep your eyes open for any computer discs or laptops,” Birgitta added. “Those guys don’t leave paper trails. Everything would be on their computers.”

  Something Andersson had said bugged Irene. Why had Bergman and Rothstaahl come to Göteborg when they were already living together in Paris? There was only one logical explanation.

  “They didn’t come to Göteborg to talk to each other,” she said “They came to talk to someone else. Someone who couldn’t or wouldn’t come to Paris.”

  ELSY INFORMED THEM over the phone that Sanna couldn’t see them today. Her doctor had given her tranquilizers, and she was fast asleep. Elsy also added, rather sharply, that Sanna was not to be upset again.

  “Inform Sanna that she must appear at the police station at nine o’clock sharp tomorrow morning. She is to ask for me,” Tommy said, sounding very stiff and official in response. He hung up the phone and looked at the clock. “It’s almost four thirty. I’m going to take off early. I’ve got some stuff to do at home. Also, I feel like I’m getting a cold. I have a sore throat. See you tomorrow.”

  Before Irene had a chance to say anything, he hurried out of the room.

  “Bye,” she said to the door.

  Tommy had avoided being alone with her the whole day until late in the afternoon. Kajsa had been working with Birgitta in another room further down the hall.

  Remembering what had happened made Irene want to go home too, and climb in bed and pull the covers over her head. But she stayed put.

  The telephone rang.

  “Hi, there. It’s Svante. I tested your envelopes and the card for you as soon as I could. It took no time at all to see the fingerprints matched. There are so many samples on both of them that I’m one hundred percent sure of it.”