The Treacherous Net

by Helene Tursten

  On the desk some loose cables and a lonely printer bore witness to the fact that forensics had taken the girl’s computer.

  “Will we . . . will we get her things back?” Marina snuffled.

  Irene could see that she was trying to pull herself together. Once again she placed her hand on Marina’s shoulder.

  “Yes. Everything will be returned once we’ve gone through it. We’re most interested in her computer since we haven’t found her cell phone. Did Alexandra have her own computer?”

  Irene asked the question even though she already knew the answer. Marina Hallwiin nodded and swallowed hard, pointing to her daughter’s desk with a trembling hand.

  “There. That’s where . . . the computer was.”

  Irene looked around as if she had just noticed all the pictures.

  “Alexandra seems to have been pretty keen on horses,” she said.

  “Yes . . . She has her own horse—Prince. The two of them . . .”

  Marina’s voice broke and she let out another sob. She pointed to the wall above the white bookcase, where rosettes of every color were displayed behind a bank of cups of varying sizes.

  “Talented . . . so talented,” Marina murmured, her voice thick with tears.

  “Absolutely. How long had she been riding?”

  “Since she was seven.”

  “But she hasn’t had Prince for that long?”

  “No, he . . . she’s had him for three years.”

  All Irene knew about horses was that one end could bite you and the other end could kick you. Keeping a conversation about horses going felt like tiptoeing across very thin ice. As far as she was concerned, she had already exhausted the topic, so instead she decided to broach a question she had been pondering ever since the morning briefing.

  “Where does Alexandra keep her underwear?” she asked.

  Marina gave a start; she looked directly at Irene for the first time. Slowly she got to her feet and nodded, as if she understood why Irene had asked. She pushed a mirrored sliding door to one side, revealing a stack of wire baskets.

  “That’s something I’d . . . wondered about . . .” she whispered.

  Irene pulled out the baskets one by one until she found one containing bras and thin socks. There were five bras, all size 70A: one red, one black, one pale blue and two white. They were all very similar: the material was smooth and shiny, the cups padded and firm.

  “Did Alexandra have any other type of bra?” Irene asked.

  “No . . . she always thought her bust was too small. She bought these at Lindex . . . I’ve been thinking about it since yesterday . . . that bra she was wearing when she . . . It wasn’t hers!”

  The last few words were almost a scream, and they confirmed what Irene had been thinking. The bra Alexandra had been wearing when she was found was unusually sexy for a fourteen-year-old girl obsessed with horses. It was made of see-through black lace with tiny embroidered roses between the cups; it was very low cut, leaving the nipples partly exposed.

  “So you’ve never seen Alexandra with a bra like that?”

  “Never!”

  The response was unequivocal, and Marina Hallwiin unconsciously stood up a little straighter.

  “Do you know which bra she was wearing when she disappeared?”

  “It must have been a black one. I bought her two of those, and there’s only one here.”

  When Irene had shown the parents a photograph of the lace bra the previous day, neither of them had reacted. The shock of being told their daughter was dead was too great. Both of them had simply shaken their heads and said they didn’t recognize it, but now Marina had had time to digest the information, and she had reached the same conclusion as Irene: when Alexandra was found, she was wearing a bra that didn’t belong to her. The killer must have forced the girl to put on the sexy scrap of lace, or else he had done it himself after the murder. Or she could have put it on of her own free will. That seemed unlikely, but it couldn’t be ruled out at this stage of the investigation.

  According to her details, Marina Hallwiin was forty-three, but right now she looked significantly older. Her husband was fifty-six.

  “Do you have any other children?” Irene asked.

  “Janne has two, but they’re grown up. Thirty-one and twenty-nine.”

  “Do they live here in Göteborg?”

  “No, they stayed with their mother in Gävle, and now both boys live in Stockholm. Janne moved here . . . when we got together.”

  The tears spilled over once more.

  “Perhaps we should go downstairs?” Irene suggested, turning toward the door.

  “Perhaps . . .” Marina said. She slipped into the bathroom opposite Alexandra’s room. Irene heard her blowing her nose, followed by the sound of running water.

  As always in cases involving young homicide victims, Irene felt powerless. There were no words to lessen the grief, no words to bring solace.

  “Miserable bastard,” Jonny said, sounding his horn crossly as a cab pulled out in front of their car.

  Irene knew he was referring to Jan Hallwiin rather than the cab driver.

  “Because he was drunk?”

  “Because he was so aggressive and stupid. Although that was probably because he was drunk. It’s still no excuse.”

  Irene noted his point of view with a certain amount of satisfaction. A few years earlier Jonny himself had had major problems with alcohol. Rumor had it his wife had given him an ultimatum: stop drinking, or I’m leaving and taking the four kids with me. Irene had to give him credit for the fact that he seemed to have managed it so far. Over the past three years she had never seen him under the influence or hungover.

  “He didn’t have anything interesting to say?” she asked.

  “No. He just kept sounding off about how incompetent the cops are, about this pathetic society of ours that lets killers out of jail after twelve months. They don’t face any real punishment nowadays. You know how it goes—same old same old.”

  Irene nodded. She had heard it all before, many times.

  Was it possible that Alexandra’s murderer had a record? He might not have killed before, but could he be a rapist who had been released? She decided that her priority for the rest of the day would be to check Alexandra’s homicide against previous cases where the victim had sustained similar injuries, but not necessarily been killed.

  Irene couldn’t get used to the silence that met her when she opened the front door.

  She had to accept that her twin daughters had flown the nest once and for all. Jenny was on a cookery course in Malmö; she would be there for at least another year, then she was intending to apply to a cookery school in Amsterdam, which provided specialist training. Her goal was to become a high-class vegan chef.

  Katarina and Felipe would be home in a few weeks after spending five months in Brazil. They were in Natal, working on the same capoeira project they had been involved with twice before. If the street children attended school, they were allowed to participate in a program of capoeira training, and they also received a meal at the center each day. For many of the children it was their only hot meal. If any of them missed school, they were immediately kicked off the project. It was tough, but it was the approach that worked. The basic philosophy was that education is the only way out of poverty. There are no shortcuts.

  Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art that was originally brought to the country by African slaves. They used dance moves to disguise their training, so that the slave owners wouldn’t suspect they were practicing a form of self-defense. In recent years the popularity of the sport has grown all over the world. Both Katarina and Felipe were skilled practitioners. They were working as trainers and leaders at the center in Natal, but it would be good to have them home again before too long.

  And Sammie was gone. One cloudy day in March he had fallen asleep f
orever, with one front paw resting in Irene’s hand. At the ripe old age of fourteen years, nine months and four days, his heart had stopped beating. Now he was running around the Elysian Fields in doggy heaven, with grilled chicken for dinner and liver paste sandwiches every single day.

  Irene’s throat closed up as she thought of Sammie. She missed him terribly, but she and Krister had agreed that they wouldn’t get another dog. They worked such long, unsociable hours.

  Almost two years ago, Irene’s mother, Gerd, had slipped on a patch of ice and broken her hip. She had also hit the back of her head and sustained a severe injury to her skull, which was the reason for the constant dizziness that plagued her these days. The hip hadn’t healed properly, and the operation had to be done all over again. The result was better, but far from perfect. At about the same time, her partner, Sture, had died of a heart attack. It had all been too much for Gerd; she had lost her spark. She still lived in her apartment in Guldheden, but she no longer went out on her own. She was afraid of falling again because she was dizzy and unsteady on her feet. Irene and Krister did the shopping for her, and every other week someone from the home care service came to clean the apartment. In between times she was terribly lonely. “I’ve been around for too long. I’m nearly eighty. All my friends are dead or gaga or too feeble to come and see me,” she would say. Irene tried to jolly her out of it, but she realized there was a lot of truth to what Gerd said. Admittedly the various clubs and societies her mother had been a member of sometimes got in touch, but that was usually around Christmastime. The person who called in most often was a lively lady of about the same age who lived in a neighboring apartment. They had known each other for forty-five years, ever since Irene’s parents had moved to Doktor Bex Gata. Irene had grown up there; she hadn’t left home until she moved to Stockholm to study at the police academy in Ulriksdal.

  Irene walked into her silent house. Krister was working the evening shift, and was unlikely to be home before midnight.

  The only positive thing about the fact that her daughters had moved out was that Irene no longer had to eat Jenny’s vegan food. She hadn’t escaped completely, however; Krister had started to take an interest in vegetarian cuisine. As a professional master chef, he could turn the dullest root vegetables into a delicious delicacy. It was a talent she definitely lacked. Since she was married to a chef, she had never bothered to learn how to cook, and it wasn’t something that interested her.

  She would make a sandwich and a pot of tea. While the water was heating up she defrosted two rolls in the microwave. A few slices of cheese and two dutiful slices of cucumber on each; that would have to do. She put everything on a tray and carried it upstairs to the TV room.

  The local news began with confirmation from the police that Alexandra Hallwiin had been murdered. They were asking for information from anyone who had seen anything on Walpurgis Night, in the vicinity of the bus stop on Torslandavägen, in the area north of Lilleby and around Nötsund. They were particularly interested in hearing about any cars in the area that might have picked up Alexandra.

  Surely someone must have seen the girl after she closed the gate of that impressive house on the hill, but not one single witness had come forward, presumably because of the wet and windy weather over the weekend. There had been no gangs of kids gathering on the shore for a barbecue; everyone had stayed indoors.

  The police have also confirmed that the young woman whose body was found in the Gårdstensbergen area yesterday was the victim of a homicide. She went missing approximately one week before she was found. The police are not revealing her identity until all the relatives have been informed.

  The newsreader moved on to their second case involving a murdered girl.

  Irene nodded to herself. They still hadn’t managed to track down Moa Olsson’s father. Hannu was working on it, so Irene had high hopes of success. Could the missing father be the killer? From a purely statistical point of view, it was certainly possible. But there was something about the MO that made it seem unlikely. The injuries to Moa’s body indicated extreme sexual violence with a sadistic twist. There were no reports to suggest that Moa’s father had subjected her to any kind of sexual assault. According to the mother, he hadn’t even seen Moa since she was one year old. He had major problems with drug and alcohol abuse; he had drifted away to the periphery of society, and had broken off all contact with his daughter.

  . . . as the remains of the building were being demolished.

  Irene suddenly became aware that the next big story was the discovery of the mummy. The recently purchased flat-screen TV was showing pictures of the cordoned-off area around the exposed cellar, though the police cars were obscuring the view. The cameras had just managed to catch a shot of the corpse being taken away in a body bag.

  It appears that the body had been walled up in an aperture next to the base of the chimney. The police are not prepared to comment on the identity of the victim at this stage.

  The mummy was still a mystery. Tommy had spent the afternoon compiling a list of men who had disappeared without a trace over the past forty years. It had turned out to be a very long list. They had agreed to wait for the forensic pathologist’s preliminary report, which should tell them how long the body had been walled up. It would also be interesting to get an idea of his age; that would enable them to cross a lot of names off the list.

  Irene had gone through the database searching for sex offenders with sexual violence as part of their MO. Alexandra’s injuries indicated an extremely violent perpetrator, possibly with ritualistic tendencies, according to the pathologist. She had given a copy to Hannu, as there seemed to be certain similarities to the case of Moa Olsson.

  She too had ended up with a long list. She had been able to delete several names right away because the violence had been directed at the woman the man in question was living with or had lived with. A further three men had been deported after serving their sentence, which left twenty-three names on the list. Tomorrow she and Jonny would start going through them.

  Before she left for the day, Irene had called forensics to find out what had been used to strangle Alexandra. To her surprise it turned out to be a common computer cable; the various components of virtually every computer were linked by such thin cables. The killer had looped it around the girl’s neck, pulled it tight, then looped the rest around again. Which was an odd thing to do; it was as if he wanted to make sure it stayed put.

  The three recent homicides would stretch the department’s resources even more, Irene thought. Fredrik Stridh was supposed to be working with a special team that was concentrating on the biker gangs, but in reality all his time was taken up by the two ongoing murder investigations linked to the gang war. They knew from experience that there was a significant risk of escalating violence over the summer; the gangs wanted to mark their territory before the fall. This was about power and big money. Neither of the gangs would back down.

  Efva Thylqvist was in a difficult position, caught between the pressure to save money and the increased workload. It would be interesting to see if she had the skill to sort things out. Irene smiled to herself. She knew it was unkind, but she wanted to see her self-assured chief sweat a little, look slightly less competent in the eyes of her subordinates. Particularly as some of them didn’t appear to realize how manipulative she could be. Was Irene really the only one who could see what she was like?

  “The forensic pathologist is going to look at the mummy today; we’ll have a preliminary report sometime after three o’clock at the earliest. The body was lying on a rug, which forensics is analyzing now. At the moment I don’t know if it has anything to do with his death,” Efva Thylqvist announced as she opened morning prayer. Everyone nodded as they tried to fortify themselves with the contents of their coffee cups. It was going to be a hard day.

  The teams reported back on the events of the previous day and how they were intending to proceed with their res
pective investigations. Just when they all thought the meeting was over and began to get to their feet, Hannu raised his hand.

  “I took another look at the underclothes the girls were wearing. They belong together. The bra and the panties.”

  As soon as Hannu spoke, Irene knew he was right. That lacy bra had bothered her right from the start; the suspicion that it probably hadn’t belonged to Alexandra had seemed important, even though she couldn’t quite work out why. It had remained there at the back of her mind, chafing away.

  “Are you sure?” the superintendent asked.

  “The fabric and the pattern on the lace are exactly the same. And the same brand.” He looked down at his notebook: “Sexy Thing.”

  “Have you tried to trace the manufacturer?”

  The look Hannu gave his boss was answer enough, but he replied politely, “Yes. It’s a common brand sold through mail order and in sex shops. Europe’s largest wholesaler is based in Hamburg. The clothes are made in Southeast Asia.”

  The room fell silent as everyone thought about this new information.

  “So you think we could be looking at the same killer,” Efva Thylqvist said eventually.

  “Perhaps.”

  The superintendent pressed the palms of her hands against the surface of the table and gazed down at her bare fingers. She played a brief drum solo with her nails, then looked up.

  “This puts things in a completely different light. We could be dealing with a serial killer targeting young teenage girls. In spite of the fact that the killings took place in different parts of the city, we can perhaps assume they were carried out by the same person. The crux of the matter is that we can’t be sure we have a serial killer on our hands, which means we must continue to pursue the two investigations separately, without bias. However, from now on we will coordinate the two teams and ensure that there is an ongoing exchange of information. We also need to inform forensics of our suspicions and ask them to look out for details that could link the two murders.”