The Torso: A Detective Inspector Huss Investigation, Vol. 2 (23 page)

When she was done, she got up on shaky legs and stammered, “Excuse me . . . I’ll go and wash the basket . . . but this girl was a friend of my daughters’ for many years . . . lived next door . . . and stayed over and ate with us. . . .”

“We understand. It’s difficult when you know the victim,” Bentsen said soothingly.

Irene quickly grabbed the basket and slipped down the corridor. She knew where the bathroom was.

She cleaned the basket and blessed the fact that it was made of plastic. Woven rattan would have been worse. She bathed her face with ice-cold water and washed her mouth clean. Then she saw her pale face in the mirror and mumbled half inaudibly to her reflection, “It’s not just the fact that I knew you. It’s my fault that you died. I led the murderer to you. Oh, Bell!”

Her throat felt thick with suppressed sobs, but there wasn’t time for sorrow right now. For Bell’s sake she was forced to try to be professional and objective. And what would the Danes think? One Swedish police officer is lying in bed at the hotel with a hangover, and the other pukes when she sees pictures from the murder scene.

Her Danish colleagues were sitting in the same places, waiting for her arrival, each with a fresh cigarette. The smoke made her feel ill again, but she braced herself.

“I’m sorry. It’s OK now,” Irene said and sat down.

She didn’t pick up the close-up of Bell again, but turned to Jens Metz instead and asked, “What did the medical examiner say?”

“She had been dead more than twelve hours but less than twenty when she was found. He thought that fifteen to seventeen hours was a good guess. It matches the time she disappeared. She was strangled first. That’s the cause of death.”

“So she was dead when the trauma to her abdomen was inflicted?”

“Yes.”

Thank God, thought Irene.

Metz picked up the enlargement of the photo of Isabell on the bed. He said, “The medical examiner thinks that she was chained with the handcuffs first. There are marks on the wrists that indicate she struggled to get free. Then she was strangled. As soon as she was dead, the murderer started striking her pubic bone with a heavy object. The bone was completely crushed, just like with Carmen Østergaard and your guy . . . what’s his name.”

“Marcus Tosscander,” Irene added.

“Marcus. Both he and Carmen display exactly the same type of injuries. The object was also driven into her vagina and rectum. They were heavily damaged. Finally, he slit her open. According to Professor Blokk, he used the same incision that Østergaard and your guy had. Notice how careful he has been not to cut through the navel. The words are Blokk’s, not mine.” Metz made an ironic face.

“The object was not left in the room?” Irene asked.

“No. Blokk estimates that it was a sturdy, short clublike object.”

“Could it be a large baton?”

Irene could hear that her voice sounded unsteady when she asked the question.

Metz looked surprised when he answered. “That’s actually what Blokk guessed, but we really don’t know.”

A baton. The police officer, she thought. And she was sitting in a room with three officers who had known about her private search for Isabell.

Metz picked up the photo of Isabell on the bed. He studied the scene thoughtfully before he said, “The knife that was used was powerful, a hunting knife or an autopsy scalpel. According to Blokk, the murderer would have had a heck of a time with the breastbone even if he had had a proper knife. With the other two victims, the breastbone was sawed through with a circular saw, but here he must have decided not to worry about opening the chest.”

“Why not? Wouldn’t it have been easy to bring along a circular saw?” said Irene.

For the first time, Peter Møller responded. “Maybe he didn’t have access to the saw this particular night. But it’s probably because a circular saw makes a lot of noise. Even at the Hotel Aurora they would have reacted to the sound of a circular saw in the middle of the night.”

It sounded like a plausible explanation. Metz nodded in agreement before he cleared his throat and continued. “We found out from the staff at the hotel that a woman had called and asked about Isabell. First she had asked for a guest who was called Simon Steiner but when the porter said that there wasn’t a guest with that name, she got worried. That’s when she asked about Isabell.”

“Did any of the employees at the hotel see Isabell?”

“No, but we know why. The top floor was closed due to renovation. The room that Isabell was found in was one of the last ones to be fixed. The other rooms were still empty because they had just glued the carpets down and the smell was horrible. No one will be able to stay in those rooms for quite some time. We found marks on the emergency exit door that leads to the back lot behind the hotel. Someone picked that lock as well as the lock on the door of the hotel room. Our theory is that the murderer met Isabell outside the hotel and took her up to the top floor via the back stairs. He probably fixed the locks ahead of time.”

It was quiet in the room while they contemplated the likelihood of this theory. Irene decided that it sounded very logical.

Metz took a puffing breath and continued, “We traced the phone call from the young woman to Scandinavian Models, an escort service.”

Irene waited for the follow-up that never came. Now Metz should have talked about his visit to Scandinavian Models. He could have used the line that “It was a private investigation to help Irene,” or whatever, but he didn’t offer any explanation.

“The interrogations there have provided a good deal of information. The business is new and has only been up and running for a few months. All four of the girls have been there from the beginning. They share a large apartment in the same building in which the company is located.”

“Did they move from the address that Isabell’s mother had?” Irene jumped in.

“No. They’ve lived there the whole time.”

So Bell had given Monika the wrong address in Copenhagen on purpose. Of course, it had seemed odd that the girls didn’t have a phone in their apartment.

Irene remembered Bell’s inclination to run away when she was younger, how she had wanted to disappear so that her mother would worry. Had Bell chosen to be unreachable? Maybe it made her feel grown-up, free, and independent. She had had to pay a high price for her so-called freedom.

“Who owns Scandinavian Models?” asked Irene.

“An American. Robin Hillman. A nasty guy. This is the third bordello he’s started. He’s worked 24/7 from the get-go. The girls are paid fairly well but they really have to work hard.”

Metz winked and smiled knowingly after the last comment. Irene thought that he was disgusting. Why didn’t he say anything about his visit to the bordello?

Peter Møller took over. “When he thinks he has made a big enough profit, he shuts down the business, goes bankrupt, or sells. Of course, there’s no money left in the company. A colleague I spoke with says it’s estimated that he must owe a minimum of twenty million kronor in unpaid taxes. It may be a much higher sum, but no one knows. He has the best tax lawyers in the country working for him.”

“Have you spoken with Hillman?” Irene asked.

Møller shook his head. “No, he’s in the States. Left on Friday morning, after we found Isabell. Someone probably tipped him off, and he felt things were getting too hot to handle.”

“When is he coming back?”

“His wife didn’t know.”

“His wife?”

“Yes. Jytte Hillman. Danish. They have two small children and they live—very well off—in Charlottenlund.”

“Where is that?”

“North of Copenhagen, along Strandvejen.”

Irene remembered the fashionable neighborhood she had driven through on her way home the week before.

She looked at Møller’s blond hair with its sun-bleached strands, his short-sleeved light gray shirt in thin silk, and well-pressed chinos in a slightly darker shade of gray. He looked healthy with his suntan. Suddenly, it struck her that she didn’t know where he had gone to get his tan. Thailand? Also a question that had to be asked. But not right now; she would have to wait. Instead, she smiled and said casually, “Is the house located on the right side of the road?”

Møller raised his eyebrows and said ironically, “Of course. Own beach and dock. Hillman paid nine million kröner for the place. His occupation, as listed in the phone book, is businessman. Business seems to be going well.”

Birgitta Moberg had said the sex industry brings in more money than the drug trade in the USA today. It’s called an
industry
. Industries produce products for consumption. Women, men, children, animals ...all are sucked into this industry, enslaved, converted to money, broken down, and spit out as worthless industrial refuse.

In order to stop her thoughts, Irene asked, “What have you found out by questioning the other girls at the bordello?”

“Isabell was requested via phone by a man who called himself Simon Steiner. He called around ten o’clock on Wednesday night. He asked specifically for Isabell and wanted her immediately. She was free at eleven. Petra, the one who took the phone call, said that Isabell hailed a taxi and left just before eleven. We’ve found the taxi driver and the time matches. He dropped her off at the Hotel Aurora at five minutes to eleven. The driver doesn’t remember if there was a man waiting for her outside the hotel.”

“Have you found anyone with the name Simon Steiner?”

“No.”

Beate Bentsen suddenly cleared her throat and said, “The fact is, I knew someone named Simon Steiner. He lived here in Copenhagen but died four years ago. Lung cancer.” She put out her half-smoked cigarette.

Metz suddenly looked interested and asked, “Who was he? Could he have a relative with the same name who’s still alive?”

Bentsen shook her head. “No relatives with the same name, as far as I know. He was a retired real estate agent. Widowed.”

“No children?”

“No.”

Irene thought she heard a slight hesitation in Bentsen’s voice but she wasn’t completely certain. The superintendent’s face didn’t reveal anything. Since none of the other inspectors seemed willing to ask the question, Irene decided to do it. “How did you know Simon Steiner?”

“He was a good friend of my father’s. They were childhood friends.”

It was a simple explanation but Irene still felt uneasy. It seemed to be quite a coincidence that the superintendent had known a man with exactly the same name. Still, the explanation was credible. A dead man couldn’t possibly be the murderer they were looking for, but someone could have easily used his name. But why
that
name?

Irene had to interrupt her train of thought when Metz said, “Now I want to hear everything you know about Isabell Lind.”

Irene summed up everything she could remember about how Isabell had ended up in Copenhagen. She also told them about her own investigation at Scandinavian Models at about the same time Isabell’s murder must have taken place. Jens Metz gave a start and gave her a sharp look. She calmly looked back into his small light blue eyes whose almost white lashes gave the impression that he didn’t have any.

Surely now he will mention his visit she thought, but he didn’t. Instead, he looked away quickly.

She did not talk about her visit to Tom Tanaka. She wouldn’t breathe a word about his role in the investigation.

She finished by telling them about the postcard with its short message.

“The Little Mermaid is dead,” Metz repeated thoughtfully.

“But in English,” Irene clarified.

The three Danish colleagues looked grave. Møller was the one who said it. “To your home address. The murder of a girl you knew, here in Copenhagen. Murdered according to the rituals we recognize from two other murders. A warning can’t get much clearer.”

“But why me? Several police officers, both in Göteborg and in Copenhagen, are working on this investigation,” said Irene.

She could hear the fear in her own voice. Metz looked at her expressionlessly before saying, “You must know things that make the killer feel threatened. Maybe you can’t see how important these details are and that’s why you haven’t told us about them. But he thinks you’re a threat.”

A block of ice lodged itself in Irene’s stomach. What Metz had just said could be interpreted as a threat. It sounded like a well-intended warning, but it could just as easily be—Irene warned herself not to over-analyze. There was a risk of becoming paranoid. Yet she had to tread cautiously and think about every word she uttered when she was with these three people.

Hurried steps were heard in the corridor, and the door to the office was thrown open with a bang. Jonny Blom stood on the threshold, swaying. With bloodshot eyes he looked at his colleagues, each in turn, before saying, “Excuse me. I overslept. They said this was where you were meeting.”

Irene fervently wished that he would close his mouth. The stench of garlic and stale alcohol mixed with the cigarette smoke in the room.

“This is my colleague, Jonny Blom,” she said stiffly.

Jonny politely shook hands when he was introduced to the Danish colleagues. Metz pounded him on the back and said, “Dear friend, you look like you need a big cup of coffee. What do you say about going to Adler’s?”

Everyone got up. Metz kept a firm grip on Jonny’s shoulders and led him through the corridor.

CAFÉ ADLER was located just around the corner from the police station. It had a strong turn-of-the-nineteenth-century feel to it, with dark heavy wood paneling and decorative Art Nouveau mirrors. The glass counter inside the entry door was loaded with delicious pastries. Irene decided to get a Danish with chocolate and her own pot of coffee. She felt a strong need for caffeine. One look at Jonny Blom almost made her ask the friendly woman behind the counter if it was possible to get the coffee intravenously. He looked like he needed it.