The Torso: A Detective Inspector Huss Investigation, Vol. 2

by Helen Tursten

  She called home to her boss on her cell phone. Superintendent Andersson sounded like he had just awakened but livened up a bit when he heard that it was Irene.

  “I have a good tip about the victim’s identity. His name is Marcus Tosscander, thirty-one years old, and he was a designer with an office on Kungsportsplatsen. He was working in Copenhagen just before he disappeared and he had exactly the same tattoo as—”

  “Wait! I don’t have pen or paper.”

  She heard him rustling around, looking for something to write on. When he returned she gave him all of the information she had on Tosscander. Andersson sounded very pleased until she declined to tell him how she had gotten the information.

  “Why can’t you tell me? Is the informant reliable?”

  Irene didn’t have any difficulty picturing her boss’s reaction if she described her informant: a former sumo wrestler who was gay, dressed in black silk pajamas, and owned Copenhagen’s largest gay sex shop.

  “The informant is very reliable. You have to trust me when I say that the whole thing is complicated. A police officer and a doctor showed up in the investigation into the murder-mutilation of the female prostitute here in Copenhagen two years ago. The peculiar thing is that, according to the informant, there were also a police officer and a doctor in Marcus Tosscander’s life prior to his disappearance. If so, it’s an amazing coincidence. The police officer seems to have a connection to Vesterbro. Which means it could be one of the colleagues I’m working with right now. I absolutely cannot tell them what I’ve found out in case it is one of them.”

  “A police officer! I don’t believe it for a second!” Andersson cleared his throat a few times before he continued. “Irene. You . . . watch out. Don’t take any risks. If it really is like you say, it may be dangerous.”

  His voice revealed sincere concern. Irene realized that she wasn’t going to be able to tell the whole truth about what she had been up to the previous night.

  “I’ll take care of myself. Today I’m just making copies of the reports from the investigation into the murder of Carmen Østergaard and then I’m coming straight home.”

  “Good. Call if anything comes up.”

  “OK. Good-bye.”

  When Irene opened the curtains, she could see, to her joy, that a pale sun was actually shining on the side of the house across the street. Encouraged by this, she went down into the hotel’s cafeteria and ate a delicious Danish breakfast. She discovered to her pleasure that their coffee actually tasted quite good.

  Satisfied, she went up to the room and packed the rest of her things in her bag.

  Peter Møller showed up just as she was in the process of checking out.

  “Good morning! Everything OK?” he asked and fired off a sunny smile.

  He reminded Irene of Fredrik Stridh. Both were types who always looked bright and fresh even if there was no way they could be. This was an enviable quality that she suffered a regrettable lack of. If she had only slept five hours, as she had the night before, that’s exactly how she looked in the morning. She carefully applied her makeup and gave Møller a wide smile in return. With any luck, he would buy it. If he thought that his colleague from Sweden looked a little worn-out early this morning, let him think she had plundered the minibar in her hotel room out of loneliness. None of the Danish colleagues would learn of her private reconnaissance work around midnight.

  “Morning to you, too. All’s well?” she said.

  Møller took her bag before she even had time to reach for it. With his other hand, he held the door open for her as usual. Polite and well mannered but difficult to get any real understanding of, thought Irene.

  Maybe he was the officer? Resolutely she forced the idea away. She might become paranoid if she started thinking along those lines.

  IT WAS time consuming to read the reports of the interrogations in Danish. Irene had to skim through the text and try to pick out the things that seemed important. There was a risk that she might miss something essential but she comforted herself with the fact that the copier was new and efficient. She was delighted when she found the witness reports on both the police officer and the doctor. Unfortunately, the interrogator hadn’t pushed very hard during these interrogations so the material was quite slim. One of the prostitutes had fallen into the hands of the policeman; the other had encountered the doctor.

  Christine Ehlers, twenty-four years of age, a junkie and street prostitute since she was a teenager, stated that she had been threatened by a man about a week before Carmen Østergaard was murdered. He had picked her up in a car and driven her to the back lot of a house that was going to be demolished. She didn’t remember the make of the car, but described the car as being big and new. When he had stopped the car he had taken off his dark overcoat. Under it he was wearing a police uniform. He started to hit her in the face and called her a whore, a slut, and the like. He got a powerful stranglehold on her and she wasn’t getting any air. In a panic, she managed to knee him in the crotch. Apparently, it hit hard where it was supposed to, because he released his grip and Christine managed to run away.

  Because she was under the influence of heroin at the time and in shock after the event, she couldn’t give a description of the assailant. The only things she remembered were that he seemed to be young and relatively tall and skinny. He had spoken Danish without an accent. Stubbornly, she maintained that he had been dressed in a police uniform, hat included. She didn’t remember if he had had the hat on from the very beginning when he picked her up, or if he had put it on later. It was the dark blue dress hat, not the white summer hat.

  Anne Sørensen was twenty-five years old and had been a street prostitute for a few months. Earlier, she had worked at a club but was thrown out when her drug addiction became too obvious. Just before Walpurgis Night 1997, she had been picked up by a customer traveling in a car. She also didn’t know the make of the car, but she remembered that it was red and very stylish. He had also driven to an abandoned back lot behind a house about to be demolished and he had spoken Swedish. He had told her that he was a doctor when they were in the car. When she had asked what kind of doctor he was, he hadn’t answered.

  After parking the car in the dark lot, the man had taken out a black bag that had been lying in the backseat. He took out a filled hypodermic needle from the bag.

  “I want you to take this first so that you will be in good shape,” he said.

  Anne had become suspicious. She tried to worm her way out of it by saying that she had already taken some earlier in the evening and it was too soon for another hit. Then the man had become furious. He had screamed and threatened her: “If you don’t take the shot, I’ll beat you to death anyway!”

  The last bit had scared Anne enough that she had come to her senses. She understood the man had decided to kill her and fear gave her enough extra strength so that she managed to knock the needle out of his hand. Somehow she got the car door open and managed to leap out. She escaped by running from the scene.

  Both women knew who Carmen Østergaard was but neither of them were closely acquainted with her.

  Irene leaned back in the borrowed desk chair. The girls’ stories were fairly similar. The back lots could be the same; however, one assailant presented himself as a police officer and the other as a doctor. And the doctor had spoken Swedish while the officer appeared to be Danish.

  Marcus Tosscander had lived with a Danish police officer and he knew a doctor. “He’s worse than my doctor in Göteborg,” he had said to Tom Tanaka when he’d spoken about the police officer. A Swedish doctor who lived in Göteborg.

  The telephone on the desk started ringing. She answered since no one else was in the room. “Detective Inspector Irene Huss,” she said slowly.

  She tried hard to speak extra clearly, in case the person calling had a hard time understanding Swedish.

  “Wonderful that I got hold of you!” It was Yvonne Stridner.

  It was unnecessary to add the last part. No one else tru
mpeted on the phone like the professor.

  “Have just spoken with Svend Blokk. There were certain details about the dismemberment process of our body that I wanted to compare with their murder-mutilation from two years ago. He mentioned that you were going to meet him today to pick up detailed autopsy reports. You don’t need to. I’ll take care of it directly with Svend. But I can say right now, it’s the same mutilator.”

  Irene could only say, “Thanks.”

  Maybe it wasn’t the right answer, or Stridner misunderstood, or maybe she just wasn’t listening.

  “No problem. It’s no extra trouble. You take care of the police work, and I’ll handle the pathology. But isn’t it remarkable that this type of murderer is operating in both Göteborg and Copenhagen? There is some distance between the cities, at least 180 miles. And Öresund is in between.”

  At that moment, Irene realized that the professor was wrong. It wasn’t at all remarkable since they were probably dealing with two murderers. A Danish police officer and a Swedish doctor. It could, of course, also be someone who commuted between the two cities, but the few descriptions that existed indicated there were two murderers.

  Stridner was saying something else into the receiver. In order to cover her lapse, Irene mumbled something inarticulate in a tone of agreement.

  “Wonderful! Then we’re agreed,” Stridner said.

  A click indicated that the professor had hung up. Irene did the same and wondered what she and Stridner had agreed on.

  Irene was busy with the copying until almost twelve o’clock. Then Jens Metz opened the door to the office and stuck in his round face.

  “Are you coming to lunch?”

  “Yes, thanks. I’m finished now.”

  “You’re efficient,” Metz commented, smiling jovially.

  He hadn’t said a word about his visit to Scandinavian Models. Maybe he would do so during lunch? She would wait and see. She gathered up her papers and put them in her bag. It became considerably heavier but she wanted to take them along. She hoped to drive home directly after lunch.

  Peter Møller kept them company. They ate lunch at a very smoky pub behind Tivoli. All three ate beef patties fried with onions, served with potatoes. Møller and Metz each had a large beer. Irene declined with the excuse that she would be driving.

  “The alcohol will be gone before you get to Helsingborg,” said Metz.

  “Stupid to take the risk.” Irene smiled. In order to change the subject, she said, “You’ll have to give my best to Beate Bentsen and thank her for being so accommodating. Not to mention a big thanks to the two of you for all your help.”

  “Don’t mention it,” said Metz and raised his beer glass.

  Mostly to have something to say, Irene said, “Not to be nosy, but what does Mr. Bentsen do?”

  Metz laughed. “There’s never been a Mr. Bentsen.”

  “But she talked about a son,” Irene said sheepishly.

  “Yes, you’ve already met him,” Jens Metz grinned.

  Irene caught the warning look Peter Møller sent his colleague, but Metz didn’t. He was fully concentrated on his beer glass. When he finally managed to tear it from his lips, Irene continued, “I’ve met Beate Bentsen’s son?”

  “Of course! Emil, who hangs out at Tom Tanaka’s. Emil Bentsen. Peter said that you met him in the store yesterday.”

  You could have knocked Irene over with a feather. Jens Metz wrinkled his forehead and looked uncertainly in Peter Møller’s direction.

  “Didn’t you tell her about it yesterday?” he asked Møller in an irritated tone.

  Møller sighed before he answered, “It didn’t have anything to do with her investigation.”

  He was right about that. But it wasn’t unimportant if one happened to have the remaining information that Irene was in possession of but which her two Danish colleagues weren’t aware of. She had to speak with Tom Tanaka again before she left.

  Just then notes of “The Marseillaise” fluted out of her coat pocket. “Irene Huss,” she said into the cell phone.

  It was quiet on the phone, but she could hear someone breathing.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “It’s . . . it’s Petra. At Scandinavian Models. Bell . . . Isabell is gone.”

  Irene felt her heart skip a beat. “Wait a moment,” she said.

  She took the Nokia from her ear and smiled at Metz and Møller.

  “Excuse me. It’s my daughter. Personal problems.”

  She got up from the chair and headed for the women’s bathroom. Once there, she put the phone back to her ear. “Hi, Petra. Are you still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You said something about Isabell being gone?”

  “Yes. She hasn’t come back from . . . a job. . . .”

  “How long has she been gone?”

  “She left here around eleven last night.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “To the Hotel Aurora.”

  “You know this for certain?”

  “Yes. We write down all of the orders in a logbook. Bell was supposed to be at the Hotel Aurora before eleven thirty.”

  “Do you know who asked for her?”

  “I didn’t take the call, but it says here that the customer was Simon Steiner.”

  “The request was made by telephone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know where the Hotel Aurora is located?”

  “The address is listed here. Colbjørnsensgade. It’s in—”

  “Vesterbro. I know.”

  Irene had been in Tom Tanaka’s apartment behind the gay sex shop on the same street, at about the time Isabell should have arrived at the hotel. More accurately, it was probably just before Irene’s encounter with the skinheads. Her brain was working in overdrive but she couldn’t get her thoughts in order. Finally she asked, “Could Isabell have stayed with the customer overnight and overslept?”

  “No, we never stay the night with a customer.”

  “Have you called the police here in Copenhagen?”

  There was a long silence before Petra answered. “No. A man came yesterday asking after Bell. He said that he was a police officer and showed his police ID . . . but Bell had already left, and then you came. But you gave me the card with your name and cell phone number, so I thought . . .”

  “Petra. I’m really grateful that you called and told me about this. But I don’t have the ability to do anything here. A Swedish police officer has no authority in Denmark. I would suggest that you call the police in Vesterbro and report that Isabell never came back after an appointment at the Hotel Aurora. Only a Danish police officer can search the hotel.”

  Petra said, “Do you think I could leave it as an anonymous tip?”

  “Yes, but there’s a risk that they will dismiss it as a prank call. Another option is for you to call the hotel. Have you done that?”

  “No, but maybe I should. . . .”

  “You can start with that. By the way, did the man looking for Bell yesterday really say that he was a police officer?”

  “Yeah . . . they do that sometimes . . . say that they want to inspect . . . you know . . .”

  In order to get a free pass, thought Irene. Loudly she said, “Hey, I have to run now. I’ll call you in two hours and see if you have come up with anything. And please call my number if Isabell happens to show up.”

  “OK. Bye.”

  When Irene had hung up, she felt her stomach flutter with worry. What had happened? Was it really a pure coincidence that she and Isabell had been on the same street at the same time in this huge city?

  An ice-cold chill ran down her spine. It felt as though an invisible hand was maneuvering her as if she were a marionette. Someone was playing a cleverly calculated game. Right then, she would have given almost anything for a glimpse at the script.

  Could Tom Tanaka be responsible for Isabell’s disappearance? But she hadn’t mentioned Isabell to him. The only ones she had spoken with and shown the picture to w
ere Beate Bentsen, Jens Metz, and Peter Møller. Three police officers.

  Tanaka had said that he trusted her, and in turn, it now seemed as though he was the only one she dared to trust.

  She got out Tom Tanaka’s calling card with his cell phone number. There was one ring before he answered. “Tom.”

  “Hi. This is Irene Huss.”

  “What’s new?”

  It took a confused second before Irene understood what “What’s new?” meant. Stammering, she started to explain. “No. I don’t have any . . . news. But I need to ask a few questions. Is that OK?”

  “Depends on what kind of questions.”

  “Are you alone now?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s about Emil. How long has he worked for you?”

  To Irene’s surprise, he let out a short laugh. “Emil doesn’t work for me. He’s more like a volunteer.”

  “Volunteer? What do you mean?”

  “He has been hanging out in the store ever since I took it over. Sometimes he buys a few things. But mostly he just hangs out. We have gotten to know each other over time. Little by little, as it turned out, he started helping here.”

  “Does he have any other jobs?”

  “He studies law.”

  “Do you know anything about Emil’s parents?”

  “Not a thing. Doesn’t interest me. Why are you asking about Emil?”

  “His mother is Beate Bentsen. She is the superintendent of police in the Criminal Division. A police officer with connections to Vesterbro . . . she works there.”

  It became quiet. Irene heard Tanaka’s heavy breathing. When he finally took a deep breath and then exhaled, there was an explosion in the receiver. “Damn! Shit!” Then he said in a normal voice, “When are you going home to Sweden?”

  “Now. I’ve just had lunch with my colleagues. Some other things have come up that I’d like to ask you about.”

  “Can you stop by on the way?”

  “I’ll try. We’re behind Tivoli now so it isn’t far to walk to you. I’ll call on the cell when I get there. You want me to take the back way, don’t you?”