Krister leaned against Irene and whispered, “I think Sammie knows best when it comes to consoling her.”
They went back to the table. Katarina’s place was empty; she wouldn’t be home until later. At which point no doubt a similar scene would be played out.
“I don’t think we should grieve before we have to. After all, we know that dogs live for around ten years. Some live longer, some less. I think Jenny is right. We should let Sammie have a good life for whatever time he has left. He doesn’t seem to be in pain, or to be suffering in any way. That day might come, and if it does, we’ll have to deal with it. But until then we should appreciate every day we still have him,” Krister said firmly.
Irene nodded, but was incapable of answering him. She didn’t think her voice would hold.
DURING THE NIGHT the weather had changed. The temperature was around freezing, and a thick fog came sweeping in off the sea, enveloping the entire coastal area. The dampness penetrated the dry snow, and the snowdrifts had begun to collapse since the previous day. Irene was glad she had cleared away the snow as it fell.
The curtain of fog meant that visibility was down to just a meter or so. The traffic edged along slowly, each car following the taillights of the vehicle in front.
It was the kind of morning that was likely to mark a distinct peak in the suicide statistics, and Tommy looked as if he were seriously considering adding one more to the count.
Irene was taken aback when she saw the gloomy expression on his face. It wasn’t like him at all. He was usually annoyingly cheerful first thing in the morning. She had a bad feeling as she greeted him and hung her jacket on the hook behind the door.
“Has something happened?” she asked.
“Sit down,” Tommy said, waving toward her desk.
When she had done as she was told, he said, “Hannu called. Birgitta is in hospital. Apparently she almost had a miscarriage.”
“Oh my God! She told me on Friday that she was pregnant again …”
The worrying news was entirely in keeping with recent events, she thought pessimistically. Sammie’s lumps, and now this. The fog lay draped over all this tragedy like a thick, grey blanket.
“According to Hannu, the doctors are hopeful that everything will turn out okay, but Birgitta is going to be off work for quite some time. Two weeks at least.”
“Two weeks! I need a coffee,” Irene said with a sigh.
“Of course you do,” Tommy replied with just a glimmer of a smile.
Out in the corridor they bumped into Linda Holm. Her face brightened when she saw them.
“Hi. Just the people I was looking for. I’ve had a reply from our colleagues in Tenerife. From some Comandante something-or-other with the Policía Nacional. They—”
Tommy interrupted her. “Grab yourself a coffee and come along to our office,” he said.
With a certain amount of satisfaction Irene noticed that for once he actually sounded a little tired.
“THAT COMANDANTE-WHATEVER ASKED if I could put him through to the person in charge of the Trafficking Unit. When I told him it was me, he went very quiet.” Linda couldn’t hide a smile of satisfaction before she went on. “The guy spoke terrible English, but I did manage to understand that they’d picked up my query as to whether they knew of anyone named Sergei within the trafficking industry, and they reacted right away. They’ve got problems with a Sergei who has disappeared. Sergei Petrov. But then it all got messy. Someone was shot dead because this Sergei has gone missing. The Comandante wasn’t too happy when I explained that all we had was the name Sergei, and the fact that he was supposed to have traveled from Sweden to Tenerife with a young girl. I told him we’d found the girl dead, and that she’d been murdered. And that we have no idea who this Sergei is. To be honest, I don’t know if he understood what I said. He wants to speak to the person who questioned the witness who gave you the name Sergei.”
“That was Fredrik, but he’s not too happy at the moment,” Irene said. “Svanér, Anders Pettersson’s hotshot lawyer, came steaming in this morning and managed to get his client released. Fredrik has been to see the prosecutor and raised hell; he’s persuaded them to let us pick Pettersson up again.”
She went to see if Fredrik was in his office. When she opened the door and peeped in, she could see that everything looked the same as usual—as if a minor tornado had swept through the room. Fredrik insisted that he could put his hand on whatever he needed in the middle of all the mess; it was just that no one else had managed to crack his system.
“He’s already out, probably looking for Pettersson,” Irene informed the other two when she got back to her office.
“I’ll leave a note on his desk with the Comandante’s phone number so that he can give him a call when he gets back,” Linda said, getting up to leave.
In her mind’s eye Irene saw the piles of paper on Fredrik’s desk. He wouldn’t even notice Linda’s note. It could end up lying there for weeks. Or months.
“Actually it would be much better to shoot him an email,” she said.
“An email? Okay.” Linda Holm looked a little surprised, but didn’t ask why. Presumably she had heard stranger things in her life.
SUPERINTENDENT ANDERSSON RETURNED just after ten. Hot on his heels came Fredrik, carrying a big bag from the bakery store. He opened the bag and dropped it on the table; the tempting aroma of fresh cinnamon buns revealed the contents.
“To brighten up a miserable Tuesday,” Fredrik explained.
Irene had called him on his cell to tell him they would be two colleagues down for the next few days.
For once Fredrik had sounded seriously downcast. Pettersson hadn’t been at the address where he was registered. Nor anywhere else, apparently.
“Mmmm. Smells fantastic! Thank goodness there’s one bright spot on a day like this,” Tommy said, looking a little more cheerful at the thought of freshly baked buns with his coffee.
Fredrik put the warm cinnamon buns on a plate and passed them around. Everyone took one. Everyone except Andersson.
It was a while before Irene realized that the plate had passed the superintendent by. This was extremely surprising. Usually he was more than happy to help himself to something delicious at coffee time, but now he was looking sideways at the plate without indulging. Jonny had noticed, too.
“On a diet?” he said with a smirk.
“That’s none of your fucking business!” Andersson snapped.
Jonny’s smirk faded and was replaced by a surprised expression. The language used between the two of them was often pretty caustic, and they would often enjoy a joke that might have seemed to others to go a little too far. But this time Jonny had obviously ventured into forbidden territory. Even he realized that. During the silence that followed, Andersson got to his feet, picked up his coffee and left the room.
“He’s kind of oversensitive today,” Jonny said when the door had closed behind the superintendent.
“He went for a check-up this morning. I expect the doctor has told him he needs to lose some weight,” Irene said.
“Probably. That won’t be easy for him,” Tommy agreed.
They all ate their buns in silence. When Irene got up to top off her coffee, she turned to Fredrik and asked, “Are you going to call that guy in Tenerife?”
“Sí, sí!” he said with a grin.
“And then you’re going to go back to looking for Pettersson,” she went on.
“Sí, again.”
“And Tommy …” She left the question hanging in the air, unsure of his plans.
“I’m going to contact pathology. They promised the report on the little Russian, but nothing has come through yet. I’ll give them a kick in the ass, get them moving,” Tommy replied.
“Good. Ask if they’ve had time to take a look at Torleif as well,” Irene said.
“Jesper and I will carry on trying to find those guys who ran him down,” Jonny hurried to announce. Clearly he had no intention of letting some woman tell h
im what to do.
A few seconds passed before Irene remembered that Jesper Tobiasson was the new guy who would be working with Jonny while Hannu and Birgitta were sick.
“And Andersson is going to pursue inquiries in the area around Töpelsgatan. Have we had any luck finding the couple who went racing up the hill around the time of the murder?” Irene asked.
Both Jonny and Tommy shook their heads.
“That’s strange. We went to the media, asking them to contact us. They can hardly have missed it,” Irene mused aloud.
“And how are you going to pass the day?” Jonny asked.
“I’m going to concentrate on Heinz Becker and his associate. I need to follow up on the passports; I called Varberg yesterday and asked them to make sure they were sent over. I’ll try to check whether Andres and Leili Tamm were their real names. I also need to see if there’s any possibility of finding out the little Russian’s real name. And I’ll see if we’ve gotten anywhere with the search for Torleif’s car. And—”
She was interrupted by a call from reception over the intercom.
“Messenger from Varberg for Irene Huss.”
“I’ll be right down.”
IRENE ALREADY KNEW that Heinz Becker’s passport was genuine, but she needed to check on the other two. She sent off an inquiry to the Estonian police authority regarding Andres and Leili Tamm. With a bit of luck she might get an answer at some point during the day.
The three passports lay open on the desk in front of her. She was already familiar with Heinz Becker’s fleshy face, so she concentrated on the other two.
According to the details on his passport, Andres Tamm was forty-two years old, 177 centimeters tall and had very pale blue eyes and blond hair. In the photograph he was wearing modern rimless glasses. His fair hair was quite long and carefully styled. At the bottom of the picture she could just see a white shirt collar, held together by a shiny tie that looked like silk. He was also wearing a dark jacket. Even in the passport photograph it was obvious that he had a tan. If he hadn’t been in the company of Becker and the girl when he died, Irene would have guessed that he was a successful businessman.
Leili Tamm could probably have passed as his daughter. According to her details she was eighteen years old, 163 centimeters tall, blonde, and her eyes were classed as “mixed color.” In spite of heavy makeup, she didn’t look a day over fourteen, possibly because of the childish roundness in her cheeks or the sullen, pouting lips. Irene was taken aback when she looked more closely at the girl’s eyes. That dead expression didn’t belong to a young teenager. A very old woman, more like. Or was she heavily drugged? It was by no means unlikely. Part of a low-cut T-shirt was visible in the photograph; around her neck she wore a thin chain with a trinket on it. Irene recognized the little plastic flower. It was very similar to the cheap jewelry the little Russian had been wearing.
Irene called the Varberg police and managed to reach the officer who had investigated the car accident. After a few introductory remarks, she asked, “Do you know if any trace of drugs was found in the men’s bodies?”
“No, but I do know that samples were taken. We won’t hear anything before the end of the week at the earliest.”
“Do you know if the girl was tested for drugs?”
“No. You’ll have to check with the hospital. Do you suspect this is also to do with narcotics?”
“Possibly. We found a lot in the apartment,” Irene replied evasively.
Of course the Varberg police knew about the abortive raid, at least in broad terms, and they also knew that the case involved trafficking.
“Well, I guess that’s pretty common. If they’re up to their necks in one kind of crap, they’re probably up to something else as well. And the whole thing turns into a nightmare!”
You’re certainly not wrong there, Irene thought, but she didn’t say it out loud. Instead she thanked her colleague and hung up.
Her next call was to the Intensive Care Unit at Varberg hospital. She spoke to a very busy doctor who asked if he could call her back. Of course the safety of the patient was paramount, but it was still annoying to have to wait almost ten minutes for the doctor to call. He did apologize, and said that he had conferred with a senior colleague with regard to what they could tell the police.
“As you know, we haven’t yet been able to confirm her identity,” Irene told him. “The same applies to the man who was allegedly her father, according to his passport. The other deceased male is a notorious human trafficker. He bought and sold young women and forced them into prostitution.”
“I see,” the doctor said warily.
“We suspect that Leili is not the girl’s real name and that she is a victim of trafficking.”
“I understand.”
“We found a large quantity of narcotics in the apartment where the men were keeping Leili imprisoned. I’d like to know whether you’ve tested the girl for drugs.”
There was a long silence at the other end of the line before he answered. “We have. She had several fresh needle marks on her body, and she tested positive for morphine and amphetamine. She’d probably been injected with both heroin and amphetamine, but she’d also been taking amphetamines orally. We found a number of tablets in the pocket of her jeans.”
“How is she at the moment?”
“Her condition is unchanged. She has a large number of serious fractures, but it’s the injuries to her skull that are causing the most concern. She’s in a coma. She doesn’t react when we turn her, but we are giving her analgesics anyway. We don’t know if the dose is sufficient for her to be pain-free. It’s difficult to assess the correct dosage for a person who is a habitual user.”
“How long do you think she’s been on drugs?”
“A few months at most. She still has a sound basic physique, and she isn’t particularly emaciated.”
“How old would you say she is?”
“Well … yesterday we were told that she’s eighteen, according to her passport. But I think all of us felt she was younger. And now you’re telling me the passport could be false, so … No more than fifteen, in my view.”
The doctor’s assessment fit perfectly with Irene’s own. If Leili Tamm wasn’t the girl’s name, and she might not even be Estonian, then who was she? And who was the man who claimed to be her father?
“Could you possibly take a DNA sample from Leili?” Irene asked.
“For what reason?”
“We need to check whether the dead man—Andres Tamm, according to his passport—is actually her father.”
“I understand. No problem. This falls under patient confidentiality, but you ought to know that the girl is pregnant. The pregnancy is at a relatively early stage: week thirteen or fourteen.”
“What are you going to do?”
“We will probably have to carry out a termination. The girl can’t cope with a pregnancy in her current condition. And we don’t even know if she’s going to come round. As she’s been injected with narcotics, we’ve sent off samples to be tested for blood infections. She doesn’t have hepatitis A or B, but we don’t know about HIV yet.”
Irene felt something like sorrow growing inside her. Perhaps there was also a real sense of powerlessness. These young girls are condemned to such a terrible existence by their unscrupulous pimps, she thought. They’re sold like consumable goods, always following the same pattern: sold, exploited, used up. Eventually they are dumped like the sex industry’s waste product. But who cares about industrial waste? They’re only human beings, after all.
When she had finished her conversation with the doctor, Irene called Svante Malm and asked him to keep an eye open for Andres and Leili’s DNA profiles. As always he was happy to oblige, and promised to call her as soon as he had the results.
Irene decided to sneak out for some food. It looked as if this was going to be a long day.
WHEN SHE GOT back to her office after a quick lunch, she had received an email from the Estonian police. They had no mis
sing persons matching the information Irene had provided in her query. Nor had they received any reports of missing persons that matched the photographs. She wasn’t particularly surprised as she concluded that both passports were false. But the question remained: What were the real identities of Andres and Leili?
Chapter 13
“THE AUTOPSY REPORT on the little Russian confirms that the primary cause of death is strangulation. She was strangled from the front. The killer put both hands around her throat and squeezed with his thumbs. It seems likely that a limited amount of strength was required, but she did put up something of a struggle. There were fragments of skin under her nails, which means we have the killer’s DNA profile. And it matches the semen we found in her hair.”
Tommy Persson sounded optimistic as he finished speaking. DNA always provides better evidence when it comes to catching a perpetrator. All they had to do now was find the man who had left his DNA on the victim.
Irene, Fredrik Stridh, Jonny Blom and Superintendent Andersson were listening to Tommy’s report. Jesper Tobiasson, Jonny’s new colleague, was in the office they shared, working indefatigably on the search for the two absconders involved in the hit-and-run outside the TV studios.
“The little Russian had several injuries to her vagina and rectum. She also had a very serious infection, caused by antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea. The infection was so advanced that the girl was showing signs of blood poisoning. Or ‘sepsis,’ as it says in the report. The gonorrhea bacteria got into her bloodstream through the wounds in her vagina and were present in her lungs and kidneys. She must have been very sick at the time of the murder. Not that it’s any consolation, but if she hadn’t been killed she probably would have died as a result of the infection.”
“So Heinz Becker or Andres Tamm might have decided to get rid of a girl who was no longer of any use to them,” Irene stated flatly.
“That’s certainly a possibility. We’ll compare their DNA with the profile we already have from the skin fragments and the semen.”
The Beige Man Page 13
