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

by Helen Tursten

  The food was very good and Irene realized how hungry she was. Even if it wasn’t the cheapest lunch special she had ever had, it was worth the money.

  During the meal they sat and chatted about everything but the current investigation. The big news that neither Irene nor anyone else in Violent Crimes had heard—was that Birgitta and Hannu were in the process of renovating an older house in Västra Bodarna. An explanation of the location established that the house was a few kilometers southwest of Alingsås and not in Dalsland, which Irene had originally thought.

  “We’ll be moving at the beginning of August,” Birgitta chirped.

  It wasn’t possible to overlook her happiness; it haloed her.

  Had Irene felt that way when she and Krister moved into their row house twelve years earlier? Maybe something approaching it but not quite as strong. The twins had just turned four and were particularly active. Irene thought it was wonderful not to be squeezed into two rooms and a kitchen on Smörslottsgatan. Out in Fiskebäck they could let the girls run free on the lawn and in the playgrounds but, of course, under some parental supervision. The young Huss girls had been very adventurous and often ran off on their own adventures.

  “And the property is three thousand square meters,” Birgitta bubbled enthusiastically.

  Irene raised her eyebrows and turned to Hannu.

  “Riding lawn mower?” she asked.

  He smiled faintly and shrugged. That could mean anything from “probably” to “who cares?”

  During coffee Birgitta changed the subject and said, “Svante Malm and some technician from Copenhagen inform each other of all their findings and clues. It’s saving double work. And Svante is sending some samples for testing directly to Copenhagen. The noose is tightening around Basta.”

  “I wish it would. And that we could identify him at some point,” sighed Irene.

  “He’s killed too many times and left too many clues. We’ll get him,” said Hannu.

  WHEN IRENE opened the door to her home at nearly six o’clock, she couldn’t detect the slightest smell of food. Yet the whole family appeared to be at home, gathered in the kitchen. Laughter could be heard and something that sounded suspiciously like baby talk. Irene stood in the doorway but no one took any notice of her. Not even Sammie. Everyone’s attention was concentrated on the fuzzy little bundle who was chasing Sammie and trying to nip his leg hairs and dignified whiskers. The result of his romance with the poodle champion had arrived.

  Pappa Sammie was very upset. A dignified middle-aged man shouldn’t have to put up with this sort of thing. He wasn’t fond of youngsters either! Hyper-irritated over his obtrusive son’s bad habits, he growled and laid the puppy out flat on the floor. The fur ball immediately turned up his almost hairless round stomach.

  “Oooooh, he’s sooooo cuuuuute!” Katarina crooned.

  “How long has he been here?” Irene asked.

  Now the family discovered that she had arrived.

  “The old bag brought him over as soon as Jenny and I came home from school. She must have been standing outside, lying in wait,” said Katarina.

  “But she actually gave us a leash.” Jenny tried to smooth things over.

  “And he has all the vaccinations he needs,” Krister added. He energetically waved a veterinary certificate to back up his statement.

  “Uh-huh. And you think it’s going to work with Sammie. He’s used to being everyone’s darling and the center of attention. I think he’s too old to get used to living with a puppy,” Irene sighed.

  Krister brushed off her protests with the paper he was holding in his hand and said, “Oh! Now you’re being pessimistic, kiddo. He’ll get used to it. It’ll be fun for him not to have to be alone when we aren’t home.”

  “What do you think we should name him?” asked Katarina.

  Irene looked at the little creature and then said acidly, “What about Tinkler? And do you see what he’s doing under the kitchen table right now?”

  Chapter 18

  THE MORNING AFTER THE first night, it was clear to the Huss family that it was going to take a while for Tinkler to become house-trained and acclimated to his new environment. Sammie had openly shown his distaste toward the ill-mannered rascal. Tinkler adored his father even if it was doubtful that the dogs had a clear idea of the relationship. The result was that Sammie had desperately tried to crawl under the beds and hide in the recliner while Tinkler thought that it was a very funny game and stubbornly followed him. When Sammie became really annoyed and barked at Tinkler, the little one had been scared out of his wits and become sad. He had sat whining and crying in the darkness, abandoned. No one in the Huss family had slept many hours that night.

  “Summer vacation starts tomorrow. Then we can keep an eye on him,” said Jenny.

  “Weren’t you going to work at Domus over the summer?” Irene asked, tired.

  “I don’t start until Monday.”

  Irene turned to Katarina. “When does swim school start?”

  “The fifteenth. And it’s arranged—I’ll be able to work both sessions,” Katarina answered.

  “How long will that be?”

  “Six weeks.”

  “That means that we have supervision for Tinkler until the fifteenth of June. Pappa and I have our vacations three and half weeks later. What do we do with him between June 15 and July 8?” Irene wondered challengingly.

  “Dog sitter—,” Katarina started.

  “That won’t work at all! She can’t take care of a little puppy. We have to be grateful she has the energy to look after Sammie. And she’s on vacation after midsummer and won’t start again until August 1.”

  The little problem in question came bounding in, wanting attention. Katarina picked him up and burrowed her nose into his soft coat. Tinkler struggled wildly, wanting to taste some of her liver pâté sandwich. One of his eagerly jabbing back legs kicked over a full tea mug and spilled the contents over the entire table.

  “My graduation clothes!” Katarina cried.

  She jumped up and brusquely set the puppy on the floor. Maybe he was hurt or just very scared, but he began to cry pitifully. Katarina had tears in her eyes as she looked at her white trousers and white sleeveless top. Large tea stains decorated both pieces.

  “Stupid dog!” she screamed.

  The tumult woke Krister, who came down to the kitchen, heavy with sleep. When the situation was clarified, he oiled the insubordinate waves by offering monetary compensation for overtime, to be in effect the rest of the day. The twins were mollified.

  “HOW’S ITgoing with the puppy?” asked Irene.

  She looked at Tommy through the steam from her coffee mug.

  “Just fine. She’s actually very cute. Agneta has been home with her since we got her on Sunday. But now the kids are out of school, so they’ll have to take care of her,” he said.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Nelly.”

  Irene finished the last of the coffee in her mug.

  Strange, she hadn’t noticed the slightest stimulating effect from the coffee. Maybe it had been mixed up with decaf?

  “We searched Zorro Karlsson’s house yesterday. And now we have him! He kept trophies. Three pairs of underwear and a shoe were in a box in his closet. The items have been identified by the victims.”

  Tommy sounded very pleased and he had every reason to be. He had wagered on a faint lead, the smell of food. But it had led to the perpetrator.

  Irene got a bitter taste in her mouth when she thought about the things Basta had taken as trophies. Where did he store . . . Irene didn’t have the energy to complete that line of thought.

  Svante Malm looked in through the doorway and said, “Howdy. I’m going to provide a briefing at morning prayers. Isn’t it about time for that now?”

  His happy, smiling, freckled horse-like face and the red, gray-streaked hair standing on end made Irene think of healthy carrot juice. Get your eight hours of sleep and get into shape with carrot juice, she thou
ght in her sour morning mood. She regretted it the next moment because she knew how Svante had slaved during the investigations of the murders, putting in lots of overtime. Basta might be tied to the various crime scenes by means of the tedious work of technicians.

  “STRANGELY ENOUGH, the seminal fluid in Erik Bolin’s hair appears to have been rubbed in. One theory is that when the murderer cut off the head and carried it out to the hat rack he forgot that he had semen on his hands. He probably carried the head by the hair and under the chin because we’ve also found quite a bit there. And the semen is not Bolin’s. We ran a DNA profile and sent it to Copenhagen. It’s an exact match with the semen found at one of their crime scenes. Under the bed of the guy whose name was . . .”

  Svante looked down at his papers. To save time, Irene filled in, “Emil Bentsen.”

  “Exactly. Thanks. And incidentally, Irene, the shoe print in your flower bed matches the print in the blood at the hotel room where Isabell Lind was found. It’s identical. In addition, in all likelihood the prints match the ones we found in the mausoleum at Stampen. That’s a little less certain because the prints were in dust. No fingerprint matches were found. We can conclude that Basta hasn’t been in trouble with the law.”

  Svante stopped and looked at Irene.

  “Have you identified the guy?” he asked.

  “No. We know what he looks like and that he’s called Basta. He’s been located in both Göteborg and Copenhagen. And he could be a doctor or an artist according to our witness statements,” said Irene.

  “Why don’t you put out a warrant for his arrest?” wondered Malm.

  “It’s hard to decide. On the one hand we want to identify him as quickly as possible. And on the other hand we don’t want him to know how close we are to him. We hope he thinks he’s smarter than we are and that his overconfidence will be his downfall. But I don’t know . . . maybe we need to put out an APB on him in both Denmark and Sweden at the same time and very soon. The difficulty is knowing when the right time is. If we do it too soon, he may go into hiding and if we do it too late, he may have time to commit a new murder,” said Irene.

  Svante nodded to show that he understood the dilemma. He looked down at his papers and continued, “We’ve enlarged the index fingertip that can be seen in the video of the dismemberment of Marcus Tosscander. It’s the index finger of a left hand and the nail is severely deformed. Here you go. There are five enlargements.”

  He pulled out the photographs from a brown envelope and passed them around the table. The superintendent, Irene, Hannu, and Jonny each took one. The tip of the finger wasn’t round; it was flat and looked as if it had been chopped off. The nail covered just the nail bed, and its surface seemed to be dented. While the officers were examining the enlargements, Svante continued, “On the floor of the burial crypt we’ve found some stains that could very well be seminal fluid. But unfortunately they’ve started decaying and are too dried out to be useful. But we found more stains on the shroud inside the coffin where Tosscander’s head was lying, which are in better condition. We’re working on them right now.”

  What if the semen turned out to have come from the same man who had left semen behind on the floor at Emil’s and in Bolin’s hair?

  “What the hell is the sick bastard actually up to?” Superintendent Andersson exclaimed.

  You don’t want to know, Irene nearly said, but she managed to stop herself in time.

  IRENE SAT staring listlessly at Manpower. She felt intensifying anger and hate directed at the black silhouette in the picture. At the same time she considered what might turn a person into a necrophile.

  With a bang, the door hit the wall. Professor Stridner rushed in on clicking heels, dressed in a thin, light green dress of some shiny material, enveloped in the strong scent of Joy. Despite the fact that she was neither slender nor tall, she wore the dress with a superb confidence. Irene became uncomfortably aware of her own worn jeans and short-sleeved denim shirt. At least my sandals are new, she comforted herself.

  Stridner came to a dead stop in front of Irene’s desk.

  “Where is everyone? Are you the only one who’s on duty?” she asked.

  “The superintendent went to a meeting and the others—,” Irene began.

  “I came here myself since I was in the neighborhood. I’m flying to New York but before that I want to hand over the preliminary autopsy report on Erik Bolin. The medical odontologists have also confirmed that the head in the burial chamber belonged to Marcus Tosscander.”

  While she was talking, she pulled out some papers from her elegant leather briefcase.

  “Erik Bolin’s,” she said curtly, and threw them on the desk in front of Irene.

  Without looking at them, Irene asked, “Is the mutilation the same type as with the previous victims?”

  “Yes. The chest muscles, one buttock, and the penis. None of Bolin’s internal organs were removed; however, the head was. It was cut off with an extremely sturdy, sharp knife. I would guess a knife similar to our autopsy knives.”

  “Why do necrophiles do this sort of thing?” Irene asked.

  Stridner’s forehead wrinkled. “The question is not phrased correctly. Necrophiles don’t do this sort of thing. Necrophiles literally love dead people, but they don’t kill them. Necrophiles who devote themselves to necrosadism are, thankfully, an exceedingly small fraction. As I’ve already told you, the type of murderer we’re chasing right now is very rare. But sometimes they pop up and we become overwhelmed in the presence of what we regard as an inhumane atrocity. But actually a necrosadist isn’t any more gruesome than any other kind of murderer. The result is the same: a murdered person, a life that has been snuffed out forever. What terrifies us is the abuse of the dead body after the murder. We see it as something sick.”

  While she was delivering her little lecture, Stridner clip-clopped around the room on her high-heeled pumps. She stopped in front of Manpower. Even after she had finished speaking, she remained, examining the picture.

  “For a split second I had the feeling that I recognized this man. But I don’t know. No one I know poses for porn pictures,” she said finally.

  Irene walked over to Stridner. “Interesting. Both Hannu Rauhala and I also think we recognize the man. None of the others are sure.”

  The professor leaned forward so that she could study the photo more closely. Suddenly, she straightened up and exclaimed, “Now I know! He works with us.”

  Irene realized that she had been holding her breath. She exhaled and asked, “Does he work in Pathology?”

  “Yes. But he doesn’t have a permanent position because he’s a student.”

  A medical student? It was quite common for medical students to find extra work as autopsy technicians.

  Her voice shook when Irene asked, “What’s his name and what does he study?”

  Stridner continued her examination of Manpower.

  “I don’t remember his name. But he’s an art student. He was the one who made the copy of Marcus Tosscander’s tattoo.”

  Basta had spent several hours sitting next to the mutilated upper body of his victim, making an exact copy of the dragon tattoo. The thought was nauseating.

  “Erik Bolin took the picture. The man in the picture is called Basta, and he’s probably Bolin and Marcus Tosscander’s murderer. In addition, he’s been linked to three murders in Copenhagen,” said Irene.

  Stridner did not move. “I have a hard time believing that anyone at Pathology would be capable of this. But we’ll go up right away and try and find out his name. If for no other reason than so he can be exonerated and dismissed from the investigation,” she said finally.

  YVONNESTRIDNER rushed into the employee lounge with Irene in tow, like a skiff in her wake. There were only two people sitting there. The man had very dark skin and hair. Irene guessed that he was Indian. She recognized the woman as Britt Nilsson, a young, newly hired pathologist. It wasn’t her name that had struck a cord when Svante Malm spoke about he
r, but the fact that he had referred to her as Stridner’s assistant. The link to Stridner and Pathology had made Irene react.

  Another person worked with Stridner, but not as her assistant; rather, just as an attendant. He was called Basta, and Irene had seen him in Pathology. Now she remembered the last time she had seen Basta. It was when she had asked for Stridner and he had pointed at the autopsy room, where the professor was in the process of performing a postmortem examination on pieces of Marcus. When he stretched out his arm and pointed at the autopsy room she recalled his well-trained arm muscles playing under his gleaming brown skin.

  Basta had been helpful. He’d made a very skillful copy of Marcus’s tattoo. Had he thought they would never be able to trace the origin of the tattoo? Or had he seen no way to say no when Stridner gave him the assignment? These were just some of the questions Irene wanted to ask when they caught him.

  Stridner described Basta to the two employees in the lounge. Before she was finished, the dark man nodded. “I know his name . . . hmmm . . . could be Sebastian. But he’s also called Basta, hmmm . . . called Basta. Not his last name.”

  He threw up his light-colored palms with an apologetic smile.

  Britt Nilsson looked uncertain. “An attendant works here sometimes who matches the description. But I don’t know his name,” she said.

  Stridner turned on her heel and said, “I have the employee records in my office. We have his first name to work with.”

  Irene could feel a draft when the professor swished past.

  YVONNE STRIDNER pounced on her yellow-spined cloth binders. She studied “Employees 1998-1999.” Her index finger wandered down the list. She stopped at a name and cried out, “Here! Sebastian Martinsson. Born March 7, 1970. Lives on Gamla Björlandavägen. His telephone number is also here.”

  Yvonne Stridner handed the binder to Irene so that she would also be able to read the entry. Irene wrote down the information on her notepad and thanked Stridner for her help.