The Torso dih-2

by Helene Tursten

  Irene had her misgivings but, on the other hand, Basta had made some mistakes. Each one of them had been small but, put together, the accumulation of evidence made a serious case against him. Now it was just a matter of determining his identity and catching him.

  Irene glanced at the clock. It was almost 9:00 a.m. Henning Oppdal should arrive any minute. She excused herself.

  HE DIDN’T look anything like the man she had pictured. The owner of the soft voice turned out to be a rather large man, in good shape, definitely not corpulent. He was of average height and about twenty-five years old. His thick black hair stood straight up on his head. A friendly blue gaze was aimed at Irene through thick glasses enclosed by round, steel frames.

  Irene had turned Manpower toward the wall. She didn’t want the picture to distract the witness.

  “It was good of you to come, Henning. I have a picture I would like you to see a little later. But first, I’d like to ask some follow-up questions. Is that OK?”

  “Of course,” said Henning.

  “Have you ever seen Basta at a meeting of Gays in the Health-Care Services?”

  “No. Never,” he answered firmly.

  “Had you seen him earlier, before you met at the Central Station in January?”

  “No.”

  “You’ve never seen him at a gay club or anywhere else?”

  “No.”

  “Do you often go to gay clubs and other gay hangouts?”

  “Yes. When I go out it’s oft. . often to those kinds of places.”

  “And you’ve never seen Basta at any of them?” she repeated.

  “No.”

  “Do you have any idea who he is or where he can be found?”

  Henning shook his head vigorously. “No. And I don’t intend to look ei. . either.”

  “You haven’t heard anyone else talk about an event similar to the one you experienced?”

  “No. But it’s unlikely that anyone would talk about something like that. I haven’t mentioned what happened to anyone except you and Pontus. And that was only because Pontus started talking about his conversation with you. About necro. . necrophilia and stuff like that. Then I wanted to speak about it.”

  Irene nodded. She walked over to the picture, turned it around, and stepped to one side.

  “Do you recognize this man?” she asked.

  Henning stared at Manpower.

  “It’s not possible to see the face but it very well co. . could be Basta,” he said finally.

  He smiled mischievously, adding, “Where can I buy this poster?” “It can’t be bought. It’s an exhibition photo.”

  “Is Basta a photo model?” Henning asked, interested.

  Irene decided not to reveal the photographer’s identity. The papers had feasted on the murder of Erik Bolin. No one outside the police station was aware of the picture of Basta. Basta couldn’t know that the police had already connected the attack on Tom to the murder of the photographer. He also didn’t know where Manpower was right now, if Erik Bolin hadn’t had time to tell him before he was killed.

  “We don’t know anything about Basta. Actually, we’re not even sure that it’s Basta in the picture. Right now it’s just a suspicion. One among all of the leads we’re looking into. I would be very grateful if you didn’t speak with your friends about this picture. It may be very important but it could be a false lead,” said Irene.

  Henning managed to tear his eyes away from Manpower and looked at Irene. She started thinking about a friendly blue-eyed owl when he blinked at her from behind his thick lenses.

  “OK. I won’t say anything. But what a pi. . picture!”

  Irene understood his reaction but her own attitude was ambivalent. The dark silhouette in the sunlight felt more and more threatening and full of malice.

  IRENE WAS on her fifth mug of coffee of the morning and she had almost finished writing the report on the questioning of Henning Oppdal when Hannu stuck his head in and asked if she was ready to tag along to the interview of Sara Bolin. She quickly hurried to finish and logged out.

  Hannu drove as Irene leaned back against the headrest, trying to relax.

  “Did the witness ask if we’d found anything in the mausoleum?” Hannu asked.

  “No. He became completely absorbed by Manpower.”

  Hannu laughed. “I can understand that. Did he recognize Basta?” “He said that it could very well be Basta. Hard to say for certain since the face is in shadow.”

  Hannu said, “Exactly. Then why is Basta so anxious to get this picture? We haven’t found any of the other pictures Bolin took of him. Basta probably found them.”

  “There is a connection between himself and Marcus through the pictures Bolin took. But I don’t think he functions like the rest of us. Could Manpower have become an obsession?”

  “Maybe. But I put more stock in your first theory. He’s cold. Ice-cold.”

  Irene felt that cold surround her.

  SARA BOLIN must have been standing just inside the door waiting for them. Irene barely had time to take her finger off the doorbell when the door flew open. The woman in the photograph that Erik Bolin had proudly shown Irene less than a week ago opened the door. She was completely dressed in black and was even more beautiful in person. Her thick brownish black hair billowed like a shiny waterfall down her back and framed a finely chiseled face. Her eyes were large and slightly almond shaped; the nose, small and straight. Her mouth was generous with full, sensual lips. Her petite body didn’t bear the slightest evidence of two pregnancies. Irene noticed that the woman in the door opening barely reached her chest.

  Irene and Hannu introduced themselves and Sara Bolin let them into the pink-painted shoeboxlike row house. She held her arms tightly wrapped around herself, as if she were freezing. She looked very thin and frail in a black long-sleeved cotton shirt and black pants.

  “Kristian is sleeping and Johannes is with the neighbor’s kids, playing. He’s only three and doesn’t understand what’s happened. Sometimes he asks about Pappa but he’s used to his father working a lot and often being away.”

  Sara’s voice broke and tears glimmered in her dark eyes. She turned her face away and said, “Please, come in.”

  She gestured toward a pair of open glass doors. The police officers entered the small living room and sat on a comfortable leather couch. The couch was light brown and the rug under the glass coffee table was light beige. Everything was free of stains and dust. Irene had a feeling that the little boys weren’t allowed in this room.

  “Maybe I should put on some coffee?” said Sara Bolin.

  Before Irene had time to say yes, Hannu replied, “No, thank you. We won’t be here very long.”

  Sara didn’t insist but sank down onto a couch across from Irene and Hannu. She clasped her hands tightly in her lap. Irene could see her knuckles turning white.

  “Have you caught him?” she whispered, almost inaudibly.

  Calmly, Hannu asked, “Who?”

  She gave a start and gave Hannu a look of disapproval.

  “The one that did. . that. . to Erik.”

  “No. We’re following several leads. Personally, do you have any suspicions of someone?” Irene asked.

  Sara aimed her beautiful eyes at Irene and shook her head sadly.

  “No. I don’t understand who would want to. . Why?”

  “Erik was never threatened, never said that he felt threatened?”

  “No. Never! He was the nicest person in the world. Liked by everyone,” Sara said firmly.

  Irene looked at her and nodded thoughtfully. “Right. Erik said that you were aware of his bisexuality when you got married. Is that true?”

  The slender body collapsed. After a while, Sara sat up and said defiantly, “Yes. I knew about it. But I was the one he loved. No woman could want a better man than Erik. Why are you asking me this?”

  “There are signs that point to sexual activity before the murder,” said Irene.

  It was repulsive having to inf
orm the widow about this particularly sensitive point, but the fact was that Professor Stridner had identified semen on Erik Bolin’s body. The strange thing was that it was in his hair. She hadn’t found any in the rectum or anywhere else. The analysis wasn’t complete so she couldn’t say who the seminal fluid had come from.

  If it turned out to have been from someone other than Erik Bolin, the technicians would send the DNA analysis to Copenhagen to match against the semen stain found under Emil’s bed.

  Sara’s voice was tense as she replied. “We loved each other tremendously from the first time we met. There was a lot of passion in the beginning; we felt we were right for each other. He told me about his bisexuality before we moved in together. I can’t say that he deceived me. He was completely open. But I didn’t have a choice since I loved him so much. Either I had to accept his orientation or I would have had to leave him. The latter never felt like an option.”

  “Then you were prepared to share him with a man?” Irene wondered.

  Sara started twisting a strand of her hair. It took a while before she answered, “No. Not to share him with anyone else. But I thought that his love for me was so strong that he had gotten over. . that.”

  She fell silent and started absentmindedly making a knot in the strand of hair. To get her to continue, Irene said, “From what I understand he hadn’t gotten over it.”

  Sara gave a start as if Irene had stuck her with a needle. With resignation she said, “No. When I was pregnant with Johannes I understood that he had been seeing someone else. It turned out to be Marcus Tosscander. We had a terrible fight. Then Erik said that he felt like half a person sometimes. He was missing something when he was together with me. It was. . terrible.”

  “How did you react?”

  “I left him. I moved out. But I couldn’t function without Erik. Before Johannes was born I moved back. Erik made a solemn vow to try and resist his. . other desire. I know that it didn’t always work. But his relationships never hurt us. He was an amazingly good father and husband.”

  “Did you notice anything recently that could point to Erik’s having had a new man?”

  “No. Sometimes-”

  She stopped herself and bit her lip. With a defiant gesture she threw her hair back, lifted her chin, and looked Irene straight in the eye.

  “Sometimes he would work late. And he often worked far from home. I couldn’t check what he was doing every second. I had to trust him.”

  Irene thought about the old saying You see what you want to see. She decided to change tacks and put her hand in her jacket pocket. Her fingertips touched the envelope holding the photos of Tom Tanaka’s two pictures. She placed the pictures on top of the coffee table. Sara Bolin leaned forward and inspected both photographs. When she examined the picture of Marcus more closely, she recoiled. She realized that they had noticed her reaction and she said in a shaky voice, “The picture of Marcus didn’t look like that. The one that Erik had at the exhibition.”

  “What do you mean? Is it the wrong picture?” Hannu asked innocently.

  “No, not the wrong picture. . but it didn’t look like. . this!”

  With a shaking index finger, Sara pointed at Marcus’s magnificent erection. In the exhibition picture, Marcus’s hanging hand had nonchalantly concealed his sex. But Irene understood Sara’s distress. The picture on the table radiated lust and desire: Marcus seen through his lover’s eye.

  Sara stared as though entranced at the picture, and finally she whispered, “He swore that it was over. He swore!”

  Irene saw how close she was to bursting into tears. In order to distract her, Irene threw the picture of Manpower on top of the photo of Marcus.

  “Do you recognize this man?” she asked.

  For a second, Sara Bolin looked confused. Hesitantly, she picked up the picture of Basta and examined it. Then she lowered it and looked at Irene again.

  “Of course I recognize the picture itself. It was part of the exhibition and it looked like this. But I have no idea who the man is.”

  “Erik never said anything about this man or mentioned his name?”

  “No.”

  Irene saw that several nice pictures were hanging on the walls. A thought struck her. She pointed at the photos on the table and said, “I see you are displaying many of Erik’s photographs on the walls. Is it possible that the enlargement of one of these two photos is hanging somewhere in the house?”

  Sara’s voice was harsh when she replied, “No. I decide what is going to hang on the walls!”

  She was interrupted by a child’s cry. She rose and said apologetically, “Kristian is awake. He’s crying for me to come and change his diaper. It’s always so wet when he’s been sleeping and. .”

  The last part of the sentence faded away as she entered the hall. Irene turned to Hannu and said teasingly, “The parents of small children have such interesting conversational topics.”

  Hannu raised his eyebrows a fraction of a millimeter and said, “Really.”

  She was close to saying, “Just wait and see when it’s your turn,” but she stopped herself. Hannu would never sit and discuss his child’s diaper status with anyone.

  They got up at the same time and started toward the glass doors. Sara Bolin came out of a door a little farther down the corridor. In her arms she was carrying a baby, still warm with sleep, who had thrown his chubby arms around her neck and burrowed his dark head under her chin.

  “Thanks for letting us stop by,” said Irene.

  Sara Bolin tried to smile bravely. “Naturally, I’m interested in seeing my husband’s murder solved. Of course, I’ll help any way I can.”

  The little one in her arms became conscious of the strangers in the house. He turned and looked at Irene. Her throat tightened when she looked into Erik Bolin’s amber eyes.

  HANNU CALLED Birgitta on the cell phone and they decided on a time to meet outside the station house. Fifteen minutes later, he and Irene picked her up in an unmarked police car. During the ride, Irene and Hannu had decided to eat lunch at the Göteborg City Museum. Birgitta had enthusiastically talked about the restaurant on the ground floor several times, but Irene had never been there despite repeated urgings. Now it would actually happen.

  After circling for several minutes they managed to find a parking spot on Packhuskajen. It was a ways to walk but that was a bonus in the gorgeous weather.

  Hannu held the door open for the ladies and invited them to step into the eighteenth century. Irene’s eyes had a hard time adjusting to the half darkness under the restaurant’s stone arches. The staff’s clothes-rough homespun skirts and stiff white aprons-were reminiscent of bygone centuries.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me if today’s lunch is cold herring with dill and chives and mashed rutabaga,” Irene whispered to Birgitta.

  They managed to get an empty table and ordered from the menu, which offered three lunch alternatives. Irene took a Creole brochette with potato wedges, and a light beer. Both Hannu and Birgitta chose the haddock in a white wine sauce with scalloped potatoes. Typical of newlyweds to choose the same thing, thought Irene.

  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.