The Beige Man (21 page)

Irene got to her feet and said, “I’ll get you a coffee. I need a top-off anyway.”

Hannu nodded gratefully at her.

“Coffee: Irene’s universal panacea,” Tommy said, smiling warmly at Hannu.

He, too, had realized that something wasn’t right. They had worked with Hannu for many years now, and they knew him well by this stage. Or at least as well as Hannu allowed any of
his colleagues to get to know him. Something was definitely wrong. Did it have to do with Birgitta? Irene felt a vague anxiety begin to churn away in her stomach as she hurried off to the coffee machine. She realized how worried she was when she couldn’t remember whether or not Hannu took milk. Everyone in the department knew how everyone else liked their coffee. She took a chance and pressed the
MILK
button.

“Thanks. I don’t mind it with milk.”

Hannu gave her a wan smile. Damn! It was Birgitta who usually took milk. Irene offered to swap with him, but he refused.

“I’ll top it off with black in a minute,” he said.

He took a deep swig of his coffee, unconsciously pulling a face before putting the cup down.

“First of all I need to tell you that Birgitta … that we … lost the baby last night,” he said, his voice trembling.

Nobody knew what to say. The room went very quiet. Superintendent Andersson cleared his throat and made a few uncoordinated movements with his mouth as if he was working up to saying something, but no audible sounds emerged.

It was Hannu himself who went on. “Birgitta isn’t feeling too bad, under the circumstances, but her blood pressure is still high. She won’t be back at work until it comes down.”

Blood pressure still high? Irene couldn’t remember Birgitta mentioning high blood pressure. On the contrary, she had seemed so happy and full of confidence. The only consolation was that the pregnancy hadn’t been very far along; Irene assumed that would make it slightly easier for Birgitta to recover, both physically and mentally. And no doubt she and Hannu would soon have a new sibling for little Timo.

Hannu knocked back the remaining contents of his coffee cup in one gulp. “I picked up the autopsy report on Torleif Sandberg yesterday,” he said.

He was speaking in his usual calm tone, and his colleagues
immediately relaxed. That half-strangled voice with its underlying black despair had made them uneasy. Grief is difficult to handle if it comes too close. It’s always easier if a professional distance can be maintained.

“The skull was shattered. Death was instantaneous. Extensive injuries to the rest of the body. The aorta was severed and he bled to death very quickly. Professor Stridner sees nothing unusual in the injuries; they are exactly as she would have expected. However, she did make a number of other discoveries.”

He glanced up from the document he had placed in front of him on the table. When no one showed any sign of wanting to speak, he looked down again and continued. “She pointed out that he was wearing very insubstantial clothing, given that the temperature was minus fifteen when he went out for a run. Nothing on his head. No mittens or gloves. No thermal pants. Ordinary sneakers and short sports socks. Short-sleeved T-shirt and underpants and an ordinary track suit. Admittedly it was a lined police-issue tracksuit in cotton poplin, but people usually wear those when it’s several degrees above freezing. They’re not particularly warm.”

No gloves. It was the image from the scene of the accident that had flickered through Irene’s subconscious: the severed hand lying on the pavement, with no glove or mitten on it.

“So he was dressed for a run in a temperature of five degrees above zero or higher,” Fredrik concluded.

“Exactly. Stridner thought that was worth noting, particularly as he was showing signs of damage due to frostbite in several parts of his body: fingers, toes, cheeks, nose, ears and chin. According to Stridner, he must have been out in the cold for at least an hour in order to have sustained such extensive damage.”

“Frostbite? So why the hell wasn’t he dressed properly? Torleif has been going out running in all weather for at least forty
years!” Andersson was clearly finding it difficult to control his indignation.

“He was an outstanding member of the police orienteering team for many years. He had lots of prizes in his cabinet,” Irene said.

“How do you know that?” Andersson said suspiciously.

Since Andersson wasn’t supposed to know about the unofficial visit she and Hannu had made to Torleif’s apartment, she said glibly, “Stefan mentioned it. His adoptive son.”

“I know who he is,” the superintendent snapped. He still found it difficult to deal with the thought that Torleif had lied to his face about being the boy’s father. Perhaps Torleif had been too embarrassed to tell his colleagues he was marrying a woman who was carrying another man’s child. But then it was never easy to understand what motivated other people. That was something Irene had learned during her years as a police officer.

“Why would someone who obviously knew better go out in such cold weather dressed like that? And why did he run so far? He must have gone a long way if he was out for at least an hour. And why did he go out so late at night? I mean, it was pitch dark,” Tommy said, rattling out a barrage of both questions and answers.

“Could he have been a bit gaga?” Jonny suggested.

“Possibly, but there’s nothing to indicate that,” Hannu replied.

Irene thought about the clean, tidy apartment. The décor might have been dull and old-fashioned, but everything had been in perfect order. Spotless. It hadn’t looked as if a person with dementia had been living there. Torleif Sandberg had been sixty-four years old when he died, and she knew that it was relatively rare for dementia to strike at such an early age. Although she had wondered about herself occasionally. Only last week she had put the milk away in the microwave; she had found it there the following morning. She had simply
poured it down the sink without telling anyone else in the family. But it had given her pause.

“Could it be connected to the stolen car?” Fredrik said.

“In what way?” Andersson said.

Fredrik thought for a moment before outlining his theory. “If he happened to look out the window and saw someone stealing his car, perhaps he rushed outside in what he happened to be wearing. He probably wouldn’t have given a thought to how cold it was. By the time he got outside, the thief had already started the car and was driving off. Torleif ran after him—Irene says he was fast. And then … what happened next? Maybe he got lost?” Fredrik looked around, hoping to find support among his colleagues.

“Lost? I hardly think so,” Andersson said. “He’d lived in the area for at least twenty-five years, and went running around there virtually every day.”

“And he couldn’t have seen the car being stolen. His apartment doesn’t have a window overlooking the street where it was parked,” Hannu pointed out.

Irene was thinking the same thing. The entrance to Torleif’s apartment was at the far side of the building, while his car had been parked at the opposite end. There was no chance that he could have seen the car from his windows.

“So then why was he outside dressed like that when it was so cold?” Tommy repeated.

It was difficult to come up with a reasonable explanation as to why Torleif had been out in the cold for at least an hour. No experienced runner exposes himself to the dangers of temperatures well below freezing. The risk of damage to muscles and tendons increases significantly in the cold, particularly for older people, which is why runners usually prefer to wear too much rather than too little. It’s easier to remove an item of clothing if you get too hot than to try to run faster when you start to stiffen up.

“What about the toxicology?” Irene asked.

“No trace of narcotics or pharmaceutical drugs,” Hannu confirmed.

“That would have been all we needed,” Andersson muttered to himself. He was drumming his fingers on the table, looking pensive. “Tommy, can you give us a summary of where we are in the investigation? We might come up with something while we’re listening to you,” he said eventually.

“Okay. So to begin with we have Torleif, who—according to the witnesses waiting at the tram stop—comes running along at high speed past the entrance of the TV studios. Without showing any sign of slowing down or looking around, he runs straight out into Delsjövägen. At that point a BMW comes racing up the road, driven by a car thief with his pal sitting next to him in the passenger seat. The stolen car is being followed by a patrol car at a distance of approximately 150 meters. The cops see the stolen car hit someone; the body is thrown up in the air. They stop and call an ambulance. The witnesses see the BMW, with a shattered windshield, turn onto Töpelsgatan and disappear up the hill. When—”

Andersson waved his hands and interrupted Tommy. “Stop! We know exactly what happened after Torleif was run down. The problem is that we have no idea what happened before! Why the hell was he out running in the dark and the cold? The more I think about it, the less sense it makes.”

Everyone in the room agreed with him. No one had a decent theory—not after Fredrik’s had gone down in flames.

“The question is whether we need to look into why he was out running. Maybe he’d just misjudged how far he was going to go. Or maybe he just took out the trash, then spotted something and set off,” Tommy said.

“He was on his way home,” Irene pointed out quietly.

“What? How the hell do you know that?” Andersson demanded.

“He was running straight across Delsjövägen, toward Anders Zornsgatan where he lived. Which means it’s likely that he ran across the street in the opposite direction earlier in the evening. Where had he been in the period in between? Did he spend an hour running along marked tracks? Or was he indoors somewhere? If so, where?”

“Perhaps he was in a car,” Fredrik suggested.

“Possibly. There’s a big parking lot outside the TV studios,” Irene said.

“The frostbite damage,” Hannu reminded her.

“That proves he was outdoors,” Tommy said. “Not in a car. And even if he was only going to the parking lot at the TV studios, surely he would have put on a jacket at least. It’s still a few hundred meters from his apartment, and it really was freezing.”

“Perhaps he ran there,” Fredrik tried again.

“Or maybe he was running around looking for his missing car,” Jonny said.

“This is getting us nowhere. And the important thing isn’t whatever the hell Torleif was doing before he was run down. The important thing is to catch the bastards who killed him!” Andersson said.

Irene and Hannu exchanged a glance. They both knew the superintendent was right. There was no point in channeling their limited resources into something that wasn’t relevant to the investigation. But at the same time they were both experienced officers, and they were intrigued by all the odd, unexpected details that had begun to emerge as they looked into Torleif Sandberg’s life and death.

Everyone jumped as the intercom suddenly crackled into life. “Hello! Are you there?” came Svante Malm’s voice.

Tommy, who was sitting nearest, leaned over and pressed the button. “Yes, we’re here,” he answered cheerfully.

“Good. I’ve just run a check on the fingerprints we found in Torleif Sandberg’s car. They were in our records, and they
belong to two guys named Niklas Ström and Björn Kjellgren. Their ID numbers are—”

“Thanks, Svante. We’ve already got their details,” Tommy managed to say with some difficulty.

“Okay, I’ll be in touch if I find anything else.”

When the connection was broken you could have heard a pin drop in the room. They sat there motionless, hardly even blinking. Some of their heads were full of thoughts, buzzing around like a swarm of bees, while others’ brains had stopped working completely.

“What the hell does this mean?” Jonny said eventually.

“I have no idea. This can’t be right,” Tommy said in confusion.

“Jesper and I have been working our asses off trying to find the bastards who had absconded from various institutions,” Jonny said. “There were a few to choose from at the beginning; we’ve gradually been able to eliminate them from our inquiries, one by one. Which only leaves Billy and Niklas. But we’ve been looking for them as the suspects who stole the BMW that ran down and killed Muesli. And now it turns out that they stole
his
car! How the hell is that possible?” His frustration was obvious, and it was shared by everyone in the room.

“It does seem pretty unlikely,” Tommy agreed.

“Unlikely! It’s fucking impossible!” the superintendent exploded. His face was a worrying shade of bright red.

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance it could be a mistake?” Irene said.

“More like a bad joke,” Tommy said wearily.

“So Billy’s hooked up with the gay rapist! Maybe little Billy is similarly inclined. I bet he likes it rough.” Jonny grinned. He was obviously recovering from the initial shock, and was well on the way to being his usual self again.

“It’s slightly surprising, but then again, perhaps not. They were both in Gräskärr. According to the staff they didn’t have
much close contact, but they must have had some. They took off within twenty-four hours of each other, Niklas first and then Billy. Everybody assumed that Billy had been inspired by Niklas’s escape; nobody thought they’d planned it together,” Irene said. She was the one who had collated the information about the absconders at an early stage of the investigation. It felt like a long time ago.

“There’s no point in sitting here speculating! Get out there and find the little bastards!” Andersson snapped.

He got to his feet, indicating that the meeting was over. Irene noticed that he hadn’t taken a cookie out of the open packet lying on the table. She was starting to get seriously worried about him.

Hannu came over to Irene and stood beside her. He waited until they were alone in the room.

“Could you help me with something?” he said quietly.

His facial expression was now completely under control. It must have taken an enormous toll on him to reveal his grief over the tragedy that had befallen his family, and in front of all his colleagues, too. Irene knew he wouldn’t say any more unless she asked. If then.