The Torso: A Detective Inspector Huss Investigation, Vol. 2 (10 page)

She bought an ice cream and a map. While she was eating the ice cream she tried to memorize the best route. Finally she had it: Østerbrogade down to Sortedams Sø, then a right turn and drive along the water on Øster Søgade, which turned into Nørre Søgade. Where it ended was where she was supposed to turn left and come out onto H. C. Andersen Boulevard.

It didn’t look that complicated on the map, but the reality was something completely different. Her blouse was sticky with sweat when she finally stopped outside the Hotel Alex, where you were only allowed to park for five minutes. Irene went in and asked the receptionist where the car could be left. The friendly, smiling young woman explained that, for the most part, it was fine to park anywhere there was a free spot. She recommended that Irene try the side street next to the hotel, Studiestræde.

Irene drove around the large block and came onto the side street. There was only one free space, almost right in front of the entrance to the bar Wild Strip. In English it was advertised as a “Nude show” and in Danish as “Dance that’s the very barest.” She didn’t care so long as she had a parking spot.

She took her bag and went to check in. The friendly receptionist handed her a message from Beate Bentsen, which she decided to wait to read.

The room was clean and newly renovated. As luck would have it, the window faced Studiestræde. She could even see her car if she leaned out. She didn’t have to worry about having her night’s sleep interrupted by the traffic. The noise level through the well-insulated windows was surprisingly low. She succumbed to the temptation to lie on the inviting bed. It was wonderful to be able to stretch out. Her muscles were tired and stiff from sitting still in the car. She decided to walk down to Station One at Vesterbro. She pulled out her map of Copenhagen and judged that it would be a brisk fifteen-minute walk from the hotel to Halmtorvet.

The message from Beate Bentsen took a while to decipher since it was handwritten and in Danish. In the end, Irene understood that Superintendent Bentsen did not have time this afternoon as she had promised. She apologized profusely and hoped to be able to take Irene to dinner at seven at Restaurant Vesuvius of Copenhagen. The directions were simple: straight across the street from the hotel entrance and then at an angle to the right. But Bentsen would send Inspector Peter Møller to pick up Irene at exactly three o’clock. According to the superintendent, he was familiar with the investigation and with the area around Vesterbro.

Irene looked at the clock. Peter Møller would be there in less than twenty minutes. She told herself to get up and change.

She was awakened by the ringing of the telephone and found herself standing at the side of the bed before she was fully awake. A soft female voice told her in Danish that Inspector Peter Møller was asking for her.

“Goodness! Tell him I’ll be there in five minutes.”

She was out of her clothes before the receiver had come to rest in the cradle. The shower was short and hot. The jeans she had had on during the day would have to remain on the floor. She pulled out her new dark blue linen pants, clean underwear, and an ice blue colored tennis shirt. She exchanged the worn-out tennis shoes for black loafers. Maybe it would have been more elegant if the shoe had had a bit of a heel to go with the nice pants, but if you were one hundred and eighty centimeters tall without shoes, you don’t wear heels. Irene had never even learned to walk in heels. A short pass with lipstick would have to do as a means of freshening up her makeup. On the way down the stairs she twisted her arms into a new trench coat-style jacket. It was blue, the color of her eyes.

A slender young man stood leaning against the reception desk. He had short blond hair. He must have heard her steps on the stairs because he turned in her direction. His light blue eyes passed over her appraisingly. She saw that he was older than she had first thought, at least thirty-five. He smiled pleasantly and walked toward her with his hand extended.

“Irene Huss, I presume?”

“Yeah. I mean . . . yes.”

“Inspector Peter Møller.”

They shook hands and he motioned in the direction of the street.

“The car is outside.”

He walked in front of her and held the door for her. When they passed each other, Irene noticed that he smelled of good aftershave and that she was just a hair taller. He was also dressed in civilian clothes, a short light brown suede jacket and light tan chinos. Peter Møller walked up to a dark wine red colored BMW, the newest and largest model, and opened the door for Irene. When they were sitting in the car, Irene said, “The police certainly have nice cars here.”

“It’s my own,” said Møller.

A short silence followed and Irene decided to leave the topic of cars and move on. “I’m sorry that you had to wait. The ferry took some time. . . .”

She left the sentence unfinished on purpose. Møller turned his face toward hers and smiled charmingly.

“I expect that sort of thing when I’m picking up a lady,” he said.

Knowing that Denmark had had weather as bad as Sweden’s during the spring, Irene concluded that his dark tan resulted from a trip abroad. It could just as easily have been acquired on a tanning bed at home but something about Møller’s manner told her that his tan was genuine. It would have to do as a conversation opener.

“Have you had good weather here in Denmark? You’re so dark.”

He laughed softly. “No. I’ve been to a place with guaranteed sunshine.”

“Wonderful!”

“Yes. But a bit too warm. Have you been to Copenhagen before?”

“Twenty years ago.”

“Then it was about time for you to come back.” Møller smiled.

He quickly became serious and asked, “Do you want to drive out to Hellerup now or later?”

“Hellerup?”

“That’s where the sacks with the body parts of Carmen Østergaard were found.”

“When was that?”

“June 1997. Almost two years ago.”

It was a good thing he added that it had been almost two years ago; the number ninety-seven, uttered in Danish, was completely incomprehensible to Irene’s ears.

“I think we can drive out there later if it’s necessary. It feels more important to see the sign with the dragon.”

“You’ll get to see that in just a second.”

They drove down a wide street that, according to the signs, was Bernstorffsgade. Peter Møller turned into a parking lot behind a boxlike building of gloomy brown brick. He didn’t have to tell Irene that they had parked behind the Police Department. All police department buildings built during the sixties and seventies appeared to have been designed by the same deeply depressed architect.

“Come. We’ll go and look at the sign right away,” said Peter.

They left the parking lot and started walking along a small, quiet street lined with dreary-looking houses. The dirty building fronts, rotten doors, and windowsills with chipped paint gave the whole street an atmosphere of gloomy decay. The dirty gray weather added to the unpleasant impression.

The houses farther down the street were covered with scaffolding and plastic fabric. Under the fabric, the harsh buzzing of a highpressure sprayer could be heard.

“Nice that they are renovating the old buildings,” said Irene.

“They are trying to sanitize the shacks. Get the houses in order and raise the rents so that the rabble can’t afford to stay there. These old houses are in an attractive central location.”

“Something similar has been done at home in Göteborg. Has it been successful here?”

“The poor are driven away, farther out into the suburbs. They are the drug addicts and the street prostitutes. We don’t get rid of the others as easily. They have far too much money.”

“Sex is a profitable business,” Irene concluded.

“Exactly. Do you know anything about Vesterbro?”

“No.”

“It’s known as Sin Central in Copenhagen. It used to be Nyhavn but now only millionaires and people of culture can afford to live there. Upscale bars and restaurants have opened, pushing out all but the most discreet sex operations. But if you want sex, you come to Vesterbro and, above all, to the area around Istedgade. Everything can be found here. Absolutely everything!” As confirmation, a porn movie store popped up advertising “Here you can get the video you didn’t think existed!” Peter continued walking as though he hadn’t noticed.

“Are we on the way to Istedgade?” Irene asked.

“Yes, to one of the cross streets. We’re almost there.”

A sex shop on the corner in front of them had thin gauze underwear with strategically placed holes hanging in the display window. As a counterbalance, there were more substantial items in leather but these also seemed to be made of thin straps and holes. It was probably a good thing they were well equipped with rivets so that they sort of held together. In order to embellish the display further, whips and handcuffs hung from the ceiling. Dildos in various colors and sizes lay on the floor of the display window. A large one in black rubber was almost as long and as thick as Irene’s forearm.

Bewildering pictures came to mind: A man was whipping a woman in see-through red underwear after first having chained her with handcuffs to the bedpost and then taken the black rubber dildo . . . What kind of people would have to subordinate other people in order to get some enjoyment? Was it power over another person that gave them a boost? Pictures, and mechanical procedures with sex toys, provide a quick release. Warm and sensual relationships are more difficult and take longer to build. Most of all, they required emotional engagement. Masturbation is easy; relationships, difficult and time consuming.

Suddenly she became aware that Peter Møller was talking to her. With a great deal of effort she abandoned her train of thought.

“Pardon me. What did you say?”

“Are you going to buy anything?” Peter teased.

Irene felt her throat tighten with rage but she managed to sound relatively calm when she answered, “No. There’s nothing here that I want. I get depressed when I see this sort of thing.”

“It’s just for fun. Casual sex toys—”

“No! It cannot be fun to have that huge rubber dick shoved in! It must hurt terribly!”

She stopped herself and tried to calm down. Møller looked at her in confusion. With great control she said, “You may not understand this, but there is no
casual
sex in this display window.”

Peter Møller didn’t answer. He looked completely unsympathetic and shook his head slightly. Maybe he thought his colleague from Sweden had taken a dose of prudishness? He could think what he wanted.

They crossed Istedgade and walked one block up the street of sin.

“Here it is,” said Peter Møller. He stopped at the corner and pointed at a cross street. The street sign said Colbjørnsensgade. Irene took a few steps before she stopped short.

A large enameled sign hung on the wall over a store. It was almost three square meters in size. The Japanese character for “man” was encircled by a terrifying dragon. The background was light blue, which effectively contrasted with the colorful dragon. Every scale on the monster’s body glittered in varying colors. The horrifying mouth with its razor-sharp teeth was wide open, and the whole monster pulsated with restrained power.

But the sign was not hanging over a store for Asian food. On the display window it said, “The Best Gay Place In Town.”

“A gay sex store,” Irene said. She couldn’t help letting out a deep sigh. Møller glanced at her but didn’t say anything. They walked up to the shop’s window.

Things were also hanging from the ceiling in this display window. They looked to Irene like Barbie’s fiancé, Ken, but when Peter and Irene came closer, Irene realized her mistake. These boy dolls were not intended for little girls; they were supposed to be used by boys and grown men. The dolls were dressed in different outfits but their pants were pulled down to their knees, in order to show that they were well endowed. A human-size display doll stood on one side of the window. The uniform he was wearing looked surprisingly like a real police uniform and he was holding a bunch of handcuffs in both his hands. Across from the police doll hung a porcelain urinal. Along the edge there was a whitish liquid that was apparently supposed to represent semen. Dildos, videos, and magazines lay on the floor. One of the covers caught Irene’s eye. The magazine was called
Fist
, which would have been
Knytnäve
in Swedish. The picture showed two male hands spreading apart the buttocks of another man.

“This is sick,” Irene said loudly.

Møller shrugged but didn’t comment. Irene turned toward him and caught his gaze.

“Have you or anyone else from the police been here and spoken with the owner about the sign and the connection to our murder-mutilation case?”

“No.”

“Then we have to go in and find out if he knows anything.”

Møller sighed. “We probably should. Then you’ll get to meet Tom Tanaka.”

“Who’s that?”

“The owner.”

Again he went first and held the door for Irene. His courtesy pleased her. He was polite and well mannered but unaccustomed to being so, in Irene’s opinion. She stepped into the gay shop with an uneasy feeling in her stomach.

Everything she had anticipated was on display. Leather clothes, leather corsets, leather scrotums, whips, and rubber clothes were hanging everywhere. There were neat shelves lined with videos and magazines and sex toys of whose purpose she had no idea. Two men were standing close together over a leather corset, talking, but they stopped when Irene made her entrance. They weren’t relieved when Peter Møller appeared right behind her. Suspiciously, they observed the police officers’ progress to the store counter. Tom Tanaka was enthroned behind it.

Whatever Irene had expected, this man surprised her. He was almost two meters tall and probably weighed over two hundred kilos. He looked like a sumo wrestler, and wore his hair in the characteristic style with small hard knots of hair at his crown. To Irene’s relief, he was not wearing the diaperlike pants in which sumo wrestlers compete; instead his huge body was covered in black silk pajamas.