“Actually we should have had a narcotics dog with us. But we were looking for Bobo Torsson, not drugs. And he wasn’t in the apartment. We had to go back to basics. Shorty didn’t know where Bobo was, but he told us repeatedly where he thought we ought to go. I wouldn’t want to run into him alone on a dark night.”
No one else looked particularly fond of the idea either. They all agreed with the superintendent that the presence of Shorty and Bobo in the investigation was troubling.
Birgitta interjected a question, “Did he seem to be on drugs?”
“Quite possible. But that guy is notorious for his bad temper, so it’s hard to say for sure,” said Tommy.
“Could there be some connection between von Knecht and those rotten eggs? Could our respectable millionaire have been on drugs too?” It was Birgitta who posed this question, and all of them took time to think about it.
Finally Jonny replied, “Nothing we have discovered so far indicates it. Like all big businessmen he had a little shit on his fingers, but it was mostly irregularities with foreign stock deals. Not the kind of thing Bobo and Shorty are into. No, the only point of contact is Berzeliigatan. The fact that they lived close to each other, Torsson above von Knecht’s apartment and Shorty across the street.”
Fredrik took over. “We checked out Shorty. He was released from Kumla prison in August, after serving six of his eight years. He was convicted of a felony narcotics offense, felony assault, and attempted murder. ‘Good social prognosis, because Lasse Johannesson has been allowed to take over an apartment and small business from an elderly relative,’ it says in the documents. This elderly relative is an unmarried aunt of Bobo and Shorty. She had a cerebral embolism in June this year and lies paralyzed in Vasa Hospital. Apparently she’s doing better, but she can’t take care of herself in the apartment on Berzeliigatan. The old woman is supposed to get a place at a nursing home. According to Kumla it was Bobo Torsson who arranged all the practical matters involving the takeover of the apartment and the business. Everything was ready and waiting when Shorty got out.”
Irene remembered the interdepartmental envelope she had received before the morning meeting. After quickly glancing through the text, she asked to speak. “Last Saturday I asked Narcotics for any information they might have about Bobo Torsson. This morning I got a report from them. He’s been convicted three times for possession of narcotics. Each time he was caught in raids on various clubs and discos. The first time was 1983, the second time 1985, and the third time 1989. He got suspended sentences the first two times, since he only had small amounts on him. In 1989 he was sentenced to four months in prison. He was nabbed at the same club where Shorty was so dramatically apprehended! Torsson was in the crowd when the police stormed in, and he had ten grams of cocaine on him. A little too much for his personal use, the court thought. Shorty and another big drug kingpin, Tony Larsson, were in the club’s office and didn’t even manage to hide the drugs that were in a bag on the desk. They were literally caught with their fingers in the cookie jar. Both of them had snorted cocaine and were extremely loaded. Both were armed. A violent shootout followed. Tony was shot in the shoulder by one of our colleagues, which provoked great discussion in the media,” Irene concluded her hasty summation.
Andersson broke the silence that followed.
“So-o-o, Bobo was already mixed up in Shorty’s circle back then. Of course, both of them have continued to do drugs the whole time, although Shorty has been more visible. He’s more brutal and loves weapons and bang-bang! Naturally, he’s been sent up numerous times. But the slippery Bobo Torsson has maintained a lower profile. ‘Fashion photographer’-I don’t think so! He’s been moving in the right inner circles, and it was easy for him to deal undisturbed. Something tells me that it’s time to call in the Narcs.”
They all nodded in agreement. First of all, it would take a load off their own already overworked investigative group, but above all the narcotic investigators knew so much more about current conditions inside Göteborg’s drug scene.
Satisfied with this decision, the superintendent said, “Let’s take ten minutes for a coffee break while we wait for Pelle, the arson tech.”
Gratefully, they all took advantage of the chance to stretch their legs and try to spark some life into their weary brain cells with a little caffeine. Some poisons are required by the body in order to function better, Mona Söder had said. Irene had a vague notion that she was turning into a caffeine addict. But in that case it should probably be viewed as an old dependence, since she had been drinking her daily dose of at least ten cups of coffee for more than ten years now. With slightly shaky hands she downed cups number four and five for the day.
WHEN ANDERSSON emerged from the rest room, Birgitta Moberg was standing a few meters away. He could tell that she was waiting for him. She walked right up to him and said, “Could I have a few words with you? I’ll make it fast.”
His stomach knotted. Was she going to start harping again on the fact that Jonny had sexually harassed her? Reluctantly, he ushered her into his office. Without any hemming and hawing, she got right to the point.
“It was a good idea you suggested on Friday, that I should stay at Mamma’s over the weekend. I didn’t want to say anything in the meeting, but it was probably Bobo Torsson who came by and rang my doorbell several times this weekend.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, not at all! That’s why I wanted to cool it and not say anything in front of the others. As you know, I have a studio apartment in Högsbo. My closest neighbor on the same floor is a sweet little old lady. She’s eighty-three, but sharp as a tack. It was late before I got home last night. It was almost eleven-thirty. When I put my key in the lock my little neighbor opened her door. She had stayed up waiting for me and was very upset. We have an intercom at the street door. If you don’t have your key, you have to ring someone from the street and ask them to open it. Sometimes kids ring as a prank, but what happened on Saturday and Sunday went well beyond the usual. Someone stood there and pressed all the doorbells at once out of sheer rage. When my neighbors answered their intercoms they got an earful of swearing and abusive language! My neighbor heard several times that the voice wanted to get hold of ‘that fucking whore who calls herself a cop.’ She quite correctly drew the conclusion that it had something to do with me, since I’m the only cop in the building. This occurred around seven on Saturday morning and at nine on Sunday night.”
“Did anyone see the ‘voice’?”
“No, that’s just it. He drove his car right up to the front door. Above it there’s a little roof to protect you from the rain and snow. I live on the third floor. That’s why my neighbor never managed to see more than a brief glimpse of a man climbing into his car and screeching off down the street. He was tall and thin. The car was big and red, she was sure of that.”
“And now you want us to check whether Torsson has a red car?”
“Right.”
“Why couldn’t you mention this in the conference room?”
She avoided looking at him directly and shifted her gaze around the room before she replied. “Because there’s someone in our department who’s tall and thin and has a red Volvo.”
He knew at once who she meant, and he wished he could break out in a hearty yet indulgent laugh and give her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. But the laugh froze in his throat because he couldn’t rule it out as completely impossible.