The Beige Man (10 page)

The screen showed a necklace with matching earrings in the form of small plastic flowers, and three rings with colored plastic stones. They probably constituted the girl’s entire assets.

“What were you going to say just now? You said you had a feeling that … what?” Birgitta wondered.

Svante remained silent for a moment before he answered. “Given where we found the stains … I think we’re looking at oral sex here. But she wasn’t suffocated; she was strangled. We should find out more on that point when they’ve done the autopsy.”

“Aren’t we supposed to hear the results this afternoon?” Jonny pointed out.

Superintendent Andersson cleared his throat to indicate that he was about to speak. “I called them yesterday afternoon. The autopsy won’t be finished today, but they have promised us a preliminary report on Monday afternoon. We’ll also have a preliminary report on Torleif then,” he informed them.

“How goddamn difficult can it be to work out what he died of?” Jonny muttered.

Andersson glared at him, but said nothing. Instead he turned back to Svante. “Do we know where the clothes were bought?”

“No. The jacket and boots are probably second hand. Possibly the T-shirt as well. The only thing we can say for sure is that the jeans were bought in Sweden, at JC. They’re actually JC’s own brand, Crocker. That’s coming from Emilia again; her children buy that particular brand.”

The superintendent pointed at Birgitta and said, “Check with every JC store in Göteborg and the surrounding area.”

Irene bit her lower lip to stop herself from objecting. She hadn’t yet had the chance to tell Birgitta that they would be sitting in on the interviews with Heinz Becker and the girls from the brothel.

“Needless to say we have also secured a large number of fibers and particles from her clothes. The only items of interest at the moment are some dark blue nylon fibers, approximately one centimeter in length, which we found on her T-shirt, mostly on
the back. She has been lying on something fluffy, perhaps a fleece blanket, or an article of clothing made of fleece.”

Those were Svante’s final words. He closed his laptop and made for the door. As he was passing Irene, he asked, “How’s the arm?”

“Fine,” she reassured him.

It was still sore, but nothing to complain about. He gave her a consoling pat on the damp spot and smiled encouragingly as he left the room. In spite of the fact that it had been a very gentle pat, it had really hurt. She had to make an effort not to snatch her arm away and grimace from the pain.

Irene informed the team about the trafficking unit’s planned raid on the apartment where Heinz Becker had established his temporary brothel. She also took the opportunity to mention Linda Holm’s offer to allow the two female officers from Violent Crimes to sit in on the interviews that afternoon.

“That might be a good idea,” Andersson said. “If nothing else, it could be an angle worth pursuing. But I want you to check out those JC stores first.”

He turned to Hannu. “Any leads on those hoodlums who ran down Torleif?”

“There’s a rumor that Daniel Lindgren was seen in Frölunda Square last Wednesday night. Our colleagues in Frölunda are keeping his mother’s apartment under surveillance. No trace of the other two. We’ve sent out another call for Niklas Ström, Daniel Lindgren and Billy Kjellgren in every district in Västra Götaland, and at the same time we’re looking into a number of other possibilities. Nothing so far,” Hannu replied.

Andersson nodded. “There are five witnesses who saw the BMW driving up Töpelsgatan after it hit Torleif Sandberg. Two of the witnesses are certain there were only two people in the car. We’ve also had two reports of another car being driven somewhat erratically earlier that evening. Both witnesses live on Töpelsgatan. One saw the car from his window; the other
was out walking his dog. They are unsure of the exact time, but both say it was around twenty thirty. The man with the dog thinks it was about twenty thirty-five. The car was traveling along Töpelsgatan at high speed. That’s all the witness at the window saw. The dog owner claims that his dog was almost run over because they were about to cross the street. He shook his fist at the car, but it simply disappeared around the bend without slowing down. The witness claims there was a man and a woman in the car. I spoke to him yesterday, and he described the woman as dark haired and dressed in some kind of dark clothing. He didn’t have time to get a closer look at her appearance, but he thought she was an adult rather than a child or a teenager. The man has cropped dark hair, possibly thinning on top, and he was wearing glasses. He was gesticulating and talking to the woman. The witness thought he looked extremely agitated. The car was a dark-colored Volvo S80, probably black or dark blue.”

Andersson paused, frowning as he decided on the next step. “We’ll inform the media that we’re looking for the car,” he said eventually. “It was in the area at around the time the girl was murdered. If nothing else, the people in the car might have seen something.”

An hour before the boys in the stolen BMW had raced up the hill with a broken windshield, the dark Volvo had followed the same route at high speed. Neither the man nor the woman had contacted the police, in spite of the fact that everyone who had been in the area had been asked to do so. The relevant times had been publicized in the press. The couple in the Volvo probably had nothing to do with the murder, but it was still strange they hadn’t come forward. Or perhaps they didn’t want to? Were they involved in the murder after all? Irene considered various possibilities but had to give up in the end.

Fredrik Stridh spoke up. “I’ve had a tip about who our body
up at Brudarmossen might be,” he said with an unmistakable hint of triumph in his voice.

“Who?” Andersson asked abruptly.

“I’ve been going through all males over the age of sixty who have gone missing in the Göteborg area during the past twelve months. Most of them have been found, but three are still unaccounted for. We can eliminate one right away because he has only one finger and the thumb on his left hand. Our body has all its digits intact. We can eliminate another because he disappeared in Majorca, and there’s nothing to indicate he returned to Sweden. So that leaves just one possibility.”

He looked down at his notepad and began to read aloud: “Ingvar Olsson, aged seventy-one. Reported missing in December by the property company he rented his apartment from. His last rental payment was made at the end of August, which means he disappeared during September. Olsson was a retired seaman. He lived in a one-room apartment in Kortedala, having been allowed to take over the lease after the death of his brother. There were no other living relatives, so Olsson inherited the whole thing. His brother didn’t own only this apartment; he had also taken over a holiday cottage that used to belong to their parents. And guess where that cottage was?”

“Elementary. Delsjö holiday village,” Birgitta answered at once.

“Exactly! As children the brothers used to run around in Delsjö during their summer vacation. Ingvar must have known the area like the back of his hand.”

“Did he still own the cottage?” Birgitta asked.

“No. He sold it a few years ago. I presume old seamen don’t have a financial cushion worth millions when they come ashore, and he drank pretty heavily. He was picked up several times for public intoxication over the years. And …” Fredrik paused dramatically, keeping his colleagues on tenterhooks for
a little while. “When we moved the body, we found a rucksack that he’d been using to support his back. There was a plastic bag inside with the remains of some rotten fruit and a box of moldy sandwiches. On the ground beside him we found an almost empty bottle of Special Schnapps, and an empty bottle that had contained some kind of sleeping pills. Let me see, what were they called?” He broke off to check through his notes. “Mogadon. We don’t know how many he took.”

“Suicide,” Andersson stated.

“It looks that way. Everything points to suicide, but we’ll have to wait for the results of the autopsy before we close down the investigation.”

“Good, let’s do that. In the meantime you can help Irene and Birgitta to check out the JC stores. If you don’t get anywhere today, contact JC headquarters in Göteborg and ask them to send out a message to all their staff. The person who sold those jeans to the girl could be off work today. Jonny and Hannu, carry on looking for the guys who killed Torleif. Tommy and I will take the witnesses from Töpelsgatan on the night of the murder. Some bastard must have seen something that can be linked to the murder. And I’d like to speak to the couple in the Volvo.”

T
HEY GOT LUCKY
with the JC store on Backaplan. The assistant clearly recalled an odd pair who had bought a pair of black Crocker jeans the previous weekend.

“I remember them because she was wearing like a short denim skirt and this really ugly pink padded jacket. Her boots must have been like a hundred years old, and she didn’t have anything on her legs. I thought that was weird because it was like minus ten outside! And then her dad wanted us to take in the pant legs so she could tuck them into her boots. But this was like Saturday, so I said we couldn’t do it right away, and he got real mad,” the youthful voice said on the phone.

“Did he speak Swedish?” Birgitta asked.

“No, English. Like, really badly.”

“And did the girl speak English, too?”

“No, she didn’t say anything. She just like nodded when the old man said something to her.”

“Did you recognize what language he spoke to her?”

“Not really … it kind of sounded like Finnish.”

Estonian sounds very similar to Finnish to someone who doesn’t speak either language. Birgitta was pretty sure she had found the right JC store. She asked the assistant to hang on.

“Irene. I think I’ve got the right store, but I need to go over to the Trafficking Unit to ask Linda Holm if she’s got a photo of Heinz Becker. I also need a picture of the girl, then I’ll go over to Backaplan to question the assistant and see if she recognizes either of them.”

“Fantastic,” Irene said, crossing out the last number she had called, although it would be premature to scrap the list of JC stores, just in case the assistant in Backaplan didn’t recognize Becker or the girl.

“I’ll go and see Linda and you work on a picture of the girl. The sketch we’re releasing to the press should be ready by now,” Irene said.

“If not I’ll have to take the photo from the morgue. She looks peaceful. No injuries to her face,” Birgitta mused.

Not to her face
, Irene thought with a shudder.

W
HEN
I
RENE REACHED
Linda Holm’s office, the superintendent was once again wrestling with her cardigan. This time she was trying to put it on while talking on the phone.

“Okay. I’m leaving right away.”

She hung up and said hi to Irene, who quickly asked if there was a photo of Heinz Becker they could have. Linda Holm opened the top drawer and passed her an enlarged printout.
“There you go. A nice fresh passport photo. Taken three months ago.”

Heinz Becker’s eyes were narrow slits in his fleshy face. His hairline had crept up toward the top of his head, and he had slicked back the thin, greying hair and fastened it in a ponytail. At some point during his life he had broken his nose and failed to get it reset, judging by the fact that his potato nose bent to the right. He looked at least ten years older than he actually was.

“Jesus! Talk about looking like a criminal!”

“Absolutely. Listen, do you want to come with us on the raid? I’m leaving now; we’re going in in just under an hour.”

Irene thought fast. Birgitta could handle the interview with the store assistant; it hardly required two of them. If they could find proof that the girl lying in the morgue had been in the apartment before she died, it would save them a huge amount of time.

“Yes please. Can I bring Fredrik Stridh?”

“Sure, no problem.”

Irene hurried back and gave Birgitta the picture of Heinz Becker, then asked Fredrik if he wanted to accompany her on the raid.

“Definitely,” he said.

His face lit up at the prospect of getting out into the field for a while. Like Irene he loathed paperwork. He radiated a boyish happiness and energy that could easily be misinterpreted as childishness. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Irene had learned to appreciate his good humor and easy manner, and she valued his enthusiasm for his work even more. Fredrik still thought he had the best job in the world. For her part, Irene wasn’t always quite so sure about that.

B
ISKOPSGÅRDEN HAS NEVER
won any prizes for its beautiful architecture or stimulating environment. Some of the older tower blocks from the late 1950s have had a minor facelift, but for the most part the buildings are just standing there slowly disintegrating. The rent money still comes in because Swedish workers and immigrants need somewhere to live now that formerly working-class blocks like Majorna, Landala and Haga have been renovated.

The eight-story, concrete-block building looked just like its neighbors. The only difference was that parts of the roof were covered with tarpaulins because there had been a fire in the attic. The building company’s truck was parked outside one of the main doors. It was dark blue, with MT BYGG in white letters on the side. Both the building and the yard looked deserted. The silence was broken only by the sound of the builders working away on the roof. There were a few swings and a snow-covered sandpit in the yard, but no children playing out in the snow. Presumably it was too cold. Snow had begun falling again, and was getting heavier by the minute.

Linda Holm parked the unmarked police car in a lot that gave them a good view of the front of the building, although the increasing snowfall made it difficult to see clearly. After only a short while it was almost impossible to make out the letters on the side of the truck.

“The entrance where the truck is parked. Number thirty-three.
Fourth floor,” Linda said to her colleagues in the back seat without turning her head.