ON SATURDAY afternoon the Huss family ate a late breakfast. The mood around the breakfast table was uneasy. Katarina complained about pain in her shoulder and neck muscles, but otherwise she felt pretty good.
“How did the accident happen?” Irene asked.
“We were going through an intersection and we had a green light. Then that idiot came and drove right into the side of Micke’s car. Or rather his father’s car. It’s almost new. His father is going to go insane!”
“Was Micke drinking at the party?”
Katarina tried to shake her head fiercely but stopped herself and with a small whimper rubbed the side of her neck.
“No, he had Coca-Cola because he’s scared to death about his new driver’s license. And the car-”
“What about the driver of the other car? Was he sober?”
“Don’t know. I was looking out the window on my side of the car and didn’t see him when he drove into us. There was just a wham on Micke’s side of the car. Afterward I was probably in shock and. . like gone, kinda. I don’t even remember what the other driver looked like. He was bleeding from his forehead like a pig. Apparently, he hit the windshield with his head. I don’t think he was wearing a seat belt.”
“Who called the ambulance?”
“I did. Micke had his cell phone with him, so I called.”
“What time was it when the accident happened?”
“Just before one o’clock.”
“The nurse at the emergency room thought that we should make an appointment at the clinic and have a doctor look at Katarina’s neck and shoulder. There’s a risk of whiplash in these types of accidents,” Krister said.
“What about my training for the National Championship?!” Katarina burst out.
Irene understood how Katarina felt but also realized the injuries could worsen if she started training again too soon.
“You can’t start training before the pains in your throat and neck are gone,” she said sternly.
“Good-bye, National Championship,” her daughter retorted drearily.
Chapter 4
“ WE WON’T GET ANYTHING from Stridner until tomorrow, and we still don’t know who the victim is,” Superintendent Andersson said on Monday morning.
All the officers were there with the exception of Birgitta Moberg and Fredrik Stridh, who were busy interrogating Robert Larsson about the murder of Lennart Kvist. Before they entered the interrogation room, Birgitta had told Irene, “Narcotics says that he’s a real bad guy but he hasn’t been arrested in the last seven years. Before that, they had him up for possession and bootlegging. He was interrogated in an assault case but they were never able to prove anything. The witness was frightened into silence. He owns a strip club down by Masthuggskajen called Wonder Bar. The last few years he has expanded into prostitution and right now he is the object of an ongoing investigation into pimping. He doesn’t know about it; one of his girls probably squealed. It isn’t a good idea to rough up your source of income. It might be that girl Laban was with, but that’s just speculation on my part. I don’t know anything for certain.”
“Did Robert abuse her?”
“Yes, apparently quite severely. But it’s the drugs that have really hurt her.”
Irene peered into the interrogation room and a glimpse of the suspect being questioned gave her a strong feeling that breaking Robert Larsson wasn’t going to be easy. He was around thirty, quite tall, and very muscular. His well-trimmed hair was light; long blond hairs covered his powerful arms all the way down to his fingers. His elegant shirt was nonchalantly unbuttoned at the neck and showed a tight carpet of thick golden hair on his chest and climbing up his neck. A heavy gold chain glimmered in the opening. It would have been easy to call him a blond gorilla, but no one who saw his face would have done so. That face could have been used in a shaving commercial. His eyes were a cold, intense blue, and his heavy eyebrows had a slight arch that harmonized well with his straight nose. He had a dimple on the point of his chin, which was covered with heavy reddish blond stubble. His smile was relaxed and charming.
Birgitta and Fredrik took turns asking Robert questions. He reclined in the creaking chair, smiled faintly, and said in a low tone of voice, “Why are you asking me this? I want to speak with my lawyer.”
He cast a preoccupied glance at his heavy gold Tag-Heuer, demonstrating that he was starting to tire of the bullshit that was taking up his precious time.
Irene closed the door and went to work on her own investigation. It was at a complete standstill. They hadn’t found any new sacks, no new information had come in that would lead them to the victim’s identity, and there were no new witness accounts from the people around Killevik about events that could be connected to the black sacks.
Nothing happened during the whole morning. Irene went through a lot of paperwork that had been lying around. She became stiff from sitting for so long at the computer, so she took breaks and went in to chat with colleagues. The truth was that she felt lonely in the office she shared with Tommy Persson. She called him at home to find out how he was doing.
“I’m OK, thanks. It feels good as long as I don’t do any high jumps,” he replied.
“Then maybe you can come to work?” Irene said, hoping.
“Well, I don’t think I can quite keep up with you yet. The hernia was pretty big. They’ve done quite a job.”
“They didn’t take out your appendix since they were already inside?” Irene asked teasingly.
“No. The surgeon was sober.”
After an uninspiring Sausage Stroganoff for lunch in the employee dining room of the nearby building, Irene became restless. She considered heading up to Pathology. Professor Stridner probably wouldn’t be happy but she might let a bit more information slip about the victim. That was what was so frustrating about this investigation-the lack of information.
YVONNE STRIDNERwas in the process of inspecting Friday’s findings. The smell was just as nauseating as it had been during Irene’s first visit, but she braced herself. She walked up to the examination table with determined steps. When she saw what was lying on it she regretted this but it was too late. Professor Stridner had already lifted her head and seen her.
“It’s you again?” she said.
Irene tried to steady her voice when she replied. “Yes. I’m one of the officers working on the investigation.”
Stridner nodded. She cut off a piece of the gray flesh and placed it in a labeled test tube. “Just in case,” she muttered to herself.
Irene looked at the lower part of the abdomen, which was lying on the shiny steel surface. The genitalia had been completely removed. No intestines could be seen within the open abdomen. It was just as empty as the upper half of the torso had been. The thighs had been cut off at an angle just below the groin. Stridner looked up from her work.
“I’m almost done. You can go into my office.”
Relieved, Irene obeyed.
“THIS IS unusually nasty. We’re dealing with a very gruesome type of murderer, who is probably a sadistic necrophile,” Stridner opined.
They were sitting in her workroom, one flight up. The professor was enthroned on an expensive leather armchair, and Irene was sitting on a lumpy and uncomfortable plastic-covered visitor’s chair. It didn’t matter to her. The main thing was that the pathologist seemed ready to speak to her.
“As you have seen for yourself, all of the internal organs are missing. The chest and buttock muscles on both sides have been cut away and, moreover, the genitals and the rectal opening have been removed. The pubic bone shows signs of substantial trauma. The arms and legs were probably sawed off with a circular saw or similar tool. There is a plenitude of bone splinters in the surfaces of the cuts that point to this. The head was removed between the third and fourth vertebrae. Again a circular saw was used. The separation was not carried out with any great anatomical knowledge: rather, the parts have just been sawed off. But then we have the removal of the body’s internal organs.”