The Torso: A Detective Inspector Huss Investigation, Vol. 2 (29 page)

She longed intensely for Krister and the girls. She went to get her cell phone and called home.

Just before six thirty, Irene went downstairs to the lobby. They had put up the “Jell-O shot evening” sign in the bar again. She saw Jonny at a table in the bar together with two men and a woman. He lifted a small glass filled with pink Jell-O.

She didn’t bother going into the bar. She was content. There would be no discussion about who was going to drive tomorrow. She exited through the revolving door and waved at Peter, who was walking toward her.

They went back to Restaurant Vesuvius. The head waiter was a gray-haired older man who showed them to a table for two in the smaller room with the movie-star photos on the walls. Two younger women sitting at a table by the window looked at Irene with undisguised jealousy and Irene became keenly aware of the fact that she was in the company of a very attractive man. When Peter stood near her in order to pull out her chair, she caught a whiff of his good aftershave. Light, masculine, and sensual. Could be Armani.

He pushed her chair in and when he leaned forward she could feel the warmth of his breath on her neck.

“It’s been a busy day for you. Now you have to relax,” he said. He smiled encouragingly at her when he seated himself across from her. “Do you want wine?”

She hesitated for half a second and then common sense took over.

“No, thanks. I have to drive tomorrow. Jonny is already in fine form in the bar. He’s drinking Jell-O shots with a group of people. Something tells me it will be a quiet trip home.”

Peter laughed. His eyes were as blue as the short-sleeved Sand shirt he was wearing. The top two buttons were open, revealing blond hair. A thin gold chain glimmered against his golden brown skin. He had hung his light-colored linen jacket on the back of his chair.

She still had on her dark blue linen pants, which at this point were wrinkled. She had managed to press them a bit with the iron in the hotel room, but they weren’t pristine. Her linen jacket was still in good shape. She wore a new silver-gray satin top under the jacket. Her feet in blue suede sandals were bare.

“Beer then. What would you like to eat?”

“Something spicy that will make my spirits soar.”

“How does
gamberoni sole mio
sound? Giant shrimp in a lobster sauce with cayenne pepper.”

“That sounds perfect.”

“Good. I’ll have that as well. A drink before dinner?”

She hesitated. “OK, one. A dry martini, please.”

The drinks came to the table very quickly. Peter and Irene raised their wide glasses in order to toast. Their eyes met and Irene felt her cheeks become hot. Damn the man for being so handsome!

A chill suddenly ran down her spine. Her brain became crystal clear. The police officer.

Mechanically, she took a sip of her drink as she thought feverishly. She put down her glass and said in as natural a tone of voice as she could muster, “You never had a chance to tell me where you got your tan.” She smiled encouragingly but didn’t get a response.

He looked into his glass. Finally he said, “I wasn’t planning on telling you. I was in South Africa.”

“How exciting! How long were you there?”

“Three weeks. A tour and safari.”

“How wonderful, to get away in March when the weather is so bad. . . .”

“It wasn’t in March. We . . . I left on April 1.”

A month after Marcus’s supposed trip to Thailand; Marcus had been dead for almost a month already. Peter’s sunburn also seemed to match better with three weeks in April than with a few weeks the month before.

But there were tanning salons. You could maintain a tan. She had to confirm the date Peter had taken his vacation.

He seemed unwilling to talk about his trip. The conversation became strained. Irene decided to start a new topic: Copenhagen as a tourist city. Peter thawed out a bit but the intimate feeling was completely gone. Irene felt that something had come between them despite the wonderful food and drink.

What had happened on the trip to South Africa? Had he
really
been in South Africa?

They finished dinner at ten o’clock. He escorted her back to the hotel but didn’t show any interest in following her inside.

JONNY WAS ASLEEP BEFORE they left Copenhagen. He woke up when they rattled onto the ferry. Irritable, he tottered into the ferry’s candy store and pulled a wrinkled shopping list from his coat pocket. Absentmindedly, he put bags of Drungelvrål, Dumlekola, and gummy bears into the shopping basket for his four kids. Irene noted that he didn’t buy anything for his wife, unless the bottle of Black Velvet he purchased in the liquor store next to the hotel was for her.

Jonny cheered up after consuming a strong beer in the cafeteria. Irene had two cups of coffee. He fell asleep again as soon as they got into the car and didn’t even wake up when they drove down the ramp.

The trip home along the coast of Halland went by quickly and uneventfully on the new highway. Jonny slept all the way to Kungsbacka. Jonny had to make a quick pit stop at Statoil. Irene filled up the car while she waited.

She dropped Jonny off outside his row house in Mölndal and continued home to Fiskebäck. It was almost two o’clock and she was hungry. She planned to unpack the car and get a bite to eat. Then she was going to drive to the station and speak with Andersson.

At three thirty she stepped into the superintendent’s office. He looked up from a stack of papers lying on the table in front of him.

“Hi. Good that you came. Where’s Jonny?” he asked.

Irene tried to look surprised. “He hasn’t come in yet?”

She was reluctant to reveal her suspicions to her boss. Jonny had probably gone straight to bed and was fast asleep now.

“No. When did you get home?”

“At two thirty. I dropped him off at his home so that he wouldn’t have to carry his things around with him and so that he could pick up his car. He hasn’t arrived?”

“No.”

“Maybe the car wouldn’t start. . . .”

“Possibly. While we’re on the subject of cars, that ‘Mats’ from Copenhagen called. He’s so damned difficult to understand but I got that they’ve found Marcus Tosscander’s car.”

“Marcus’s car! Where?”

“In a garage. He said that I should tell you it was in Emil’s garage.” Emil’s garage? Emil had a garage? Where?

“ ‘Mats’ wants you to call him. He gave me some blasted number in Danish but I didn’t understand it. Fours and threes . . . completely incomprehensible!”

Irene smiled.

“I’m thinking about asking for extra money for language assistance for these joint investigations.”

Since she had the numbers for both Peter Møller’s and Jens Metz’s direct lines she said, “I’ll call from my office. Then I’ll report to you. Prepare yourself because it’s going to take quite a while. Load up the coffeemaker.”

She nodded in the direction of the old coffee pot, which was standing on top of Andersson’s bookshelf. In recent years a coffee machine had been installed in the corridor but Andersson had kept his percolator. Irene knew that he always hid a package of coffee in the bottom drawer of his desk.

 

“YES. THIS is Inspector Metz.”

“Hi. Irene Huss. Thanks again for your assistance.”

“Thanks to you, too. It got real quiet here in Copenhagen after you left. Nothing is happening.”

Metz laughed and Irene politely laughed, too, before she interrupted him. “You spoke with my boss and said that Marcus’s car was found in Emil’s garage.”

“That’s right. There’s a garage under the building. Some of the tenants have parking spaces in the back lot but Emil had a spot in the garage. We did a routine check and found a Swedish-registered red Pontiac convertible. It turns out that it belongs to Marcus Tosscander.”

“The photo above Emil’s bed . . . the model is Marcus Tosscander,” Irene said. “I wasn’t sure when I saw it the first time, his face is so fuzzy. But I’ve seen other similar pictures of Marcus. The picture in the bedroom and the calling card on Emil’s bulletin board clearly point to their having known each other. The car in Emil’s parking spot confirms it. I also think we can go ahead and assume that Emil was the one Marcus was staying with during his time in Copenhagen.”

“Quite possibly.”

“Both of them fell victim to the same killer. That must mean that they knew him.”

“That’s what we think as well. But the question is, why didn’t Emil report Marcus missing? And why did he let that nice car stand there in the garage?”

“Maybe he didn’t have a driver’s license?”

“Maybe. I’ll check into that. But then why did he have a parking space? And where is
his
car?”

“Have you heard anything from the medical examiner yet?”

“Yes. Emil had been dead a week, just as we thought. The exact time of death is difficult to pinpoint but Blokk says that it was either late Wednesday night or Thursday during the early morning. He was strangled with a noose. Probably a very thick rope, judging by the marks on his neck. Isabell Lind had an identical strangulation mark.

“Have you found the rope?”

“No. There wasn’t one at the Hotel Aurora or in Emil’s apartment. We haven’t found the instrument the murderer used on their pelvises either. Blokk thinks it’s some sort of a hard baton. In the preliminary report he actually says ‘a baton of ordinary or large police issue.’ ”

The police officer, again. Irene’s skin crawled. It made her ask, “Before I forget, when was Peter Møller in South Africa?”

“In April for three weeks. Why?” Jens Metz sounded very surprised.

“I apologize; it is not relevant. I asked about his vacation yesterday and he seemed so unwilling to talk about South Africa, I felt embarrassed. It’s not that strange to be interested in an unusual vacation destination and want to ask about it, is it?”

Irene hoped that Jens would accept her half lie and leave it at that.

“It’s not strange that he didn’t want to talk about it,” Metz said dryly. He went on, “We’ve sent both of Emil’s uniforms to the technicians. Several dark stains could be seen on one of them that looked very suspicious.”

“Blood?”

“Could be.”

Irene came up with something. “It’s odd that all of Marcus’s belongings seem to have disappeared. As if someone wanted to remove all traces of him. Where are his clothes? After all, he went home to Göteborg at the beginning of March to pack his summer clothes for the trip to Thailand. Why aren’t his winter clothes still in Emil’s closets? And where are his work things? We know that he had brought them with him to Copenhagen because he did several jobs while he was there.”

“We’re in the process of searching the rest of Emil’s building, the attic, and the basement. Maybe his things are hidden somewhere.”

“Please call as soon as something interesting shows up.”

“I’ll do that. Take care.”

Irene went into Andersson’s office. The newly made coffee smelled wonderful. Hannu Rauhala was also there. Irene congratulated him on his change of status.

“So there was no honeymoon right after the wedding?”

“No.”

Had it been anyone else, Irene probably would have asked when they were going to take one, but she knew that it wouldn’t do any good with Hannu. If he didn’t want to tell, he wouldn’t. She would have to ask Birgitta when she got a chance.

“I’ve just spoken with Hans Pahliss. He’s coming here tomorrow at around four o’clock,” said Hannu.

Irene made a mental memo to be there for the questioning. It would be very interesting to hear what the virologist had to add.

They poured the freshly brewed coffee and Irene started on her long report.

Neither the superintendent nor Hannu interrupted her. Her presentation still took almost two hours. Andersson pressed the tips of his fingers together and hummed. Hannu fixed his gaze on a spot just past her left ear. Both showed signs of deep concentration.

Finally the superintendent said, “Since Emil and Marcus knew each other, we have to assume that they knew the murderer. The question is whether he’s in Göteborg or Copenhagen.”

“Both places,” said Hannu.

“He has clearly murdered in both cities, but I’m asking where he lives,” Andersson clarified.

“Both places,” Hannu repeated.

Was he teasing the superintendent? Irene looked at Hannu in surprise, before the lightbulb went on.

“You mean that the murderer is actually a resident of both cities?” she said.

“At the least, he has strong connections to both of them.”

“Marcus talked about his doctor in Göteborg. He indicated that he could be dangerous. At another point, he said that the police officer in Copenhagen could be almost as dangerous.”

The superintendent interrupted her, irritated. “That’s what your protected informant told you. What is this nonsense? Why can’t we know his identity? The police uniform was found at Emil’s, and you said yourself that a lot of evidence points to Emil masquerading as a police offi cer.”

“But we don’t know for sure. That’s why I need to keep my informant’s identity a secret. Especially after what happened to Isabell and Emil,” Irene said obstinately.

Andersson snorted. “And what would happen if you told us here in Göteborg? Do you think one of your colleagues here—”

He was interrupted by a noise at the door. Jonny opened it and entered. He looked sober and smelled of soap but he couldn’t do much about his bloodshot eyes.

“Hi. I’ve sorted through the photocopies I brought from Copenhagen from the investigation of Isabell Lind’s murder. Jens Metz will send the final autopsy report when it’s done.”

Without difficulty he went up to Andersson’s desk and put the pile of paper onto the stained desktop.

Andersson looked at Jonny bitterly. Then he sighed loudly and turned to Irene. “OK. I can understand your misgivings.”