Monika paused. “Finally, I got ahold of a phone book and started searching for modeling agencies and photographers. There’s no modeling agency called Scandinavian Models, and there’s no photographer named Jytte Pedersen. I went to all of the photographers and agencies I could find. I had a picture of Bell with me that I showed them. None of the photographers had seen her. Then it was the weekend so I went home. But I reported Bell as missing to the Danish police before I left.”
Her voice cut off again and Irene had to wait a long time. In the meantime, she jotted down notes on a pad hanging on the wall by the phone.
Monika snuffled and continued in an unsteady voice. “They were. . laughing! They didn’t think it was alarming that a seventeen-year-old had disappeared in Copenhagen. According to them, that kind of thing happens every day. Young girls run away from their parents in order to experience the big city. Apparently completely normal! They said that all the police could do was post a description and see if she popped up in connection with some other case. They practically told me to my face that they weren’t going to do anything!”
And what could they do? Send out patrols to look for Isabell from Vänersborg? Irene realized that it wouldn’t be a good idea to even suggest such a thought. Instead she asked, “Have you contacted the Swedish police?”
“Yes, on May 2, last Sunday. They have the same outlook as their Danish colleagues.”
Irene thought hard. “You said that Isabell called. Did she ever write cards or letters?”
“No. She was never much for writing.”
“Try and remember what she said. About the apartment. About the other two girls. About working as a model. . everything!”
“She said the first names of the girls she was sharing with were Linn and Petra. She mostly talked about all of the new friends she was meeting. There were people from all over the world. There was an English boy named Steven and an American named Robin. The girls usually went out together and then they met tons of people. Of course there were a lot of other models. One friend’s name was Heidi. Then she talked about how it was fun but difficult to be photographed.”
“You don’t know any of the last names of the people she mentioned?”
“No. She said that she had bought a lot of clothes. She and the other girls would go out on the town and shop. She has always been crazy about clothes, and now she is earning quite a bit. If I know her, she is spending all of it on clothes and makeup.”
“How did she describe the apartment and the building?”
“As being very nice and pleasant.”
“But it didn’t match the reality.”
“No.”
“Has she said anything else that you later found to be a lie?”
“Not that I can think of.”
Irene chose her words carefully before she said, “Unfortunately, the situation is just as both my Swedish and Danish colleagues have said. There isn’t much the police can do as long as there is no clear indication of a crime unless she shows up in connection with some police investigation. But you can always hire a private detective.”
“That would be too expensive. But maybe that’s what I’ll have to do. What do you think has happened to her?”
“It’s difficult to say. One possibility is that she is in hiding of her own free will for some reason. Another is that she isn’t in Copenhagen anymore. Isn’t there a chance that she went to England again?”
“But she should have called!”
“Yes. That’s what’s worrisome, that she hasn’t. I think you should ask the police you contacted here in Sweden to register her with Interpol.”
Monika thought this over. Irene had no more to say, so she just waited.
“Will you call if you come up with something?”
“Of course. Can I get your numbers at home and at work?” Irene wrote down the information on the notepad. She didn’t entertain much hope of needing to use it in future. There wasn’t a lot a detective inspector with a full-time job in Göteborg could do.
THE HAIRDRESSER had cut off too much. When she revealed the results to her husband, his comments confirmed her fears.
For the last seventeen years he had viewed her hairstyle intensely and critically. Now he raised his hand in greeting and said, “Howdy, Bob.”
Naturally, she felt offended but at the same time she had to admit that she should have stopped the woman sooner. Irene decided that it was the hairdresser’s fault. She had placed a picture of a young and fresh-looking model in Irene’s face and said, “Look at this. Just your style. Tough but still feminine. A bit sixties retro, if you remember the Twiggy cut. Easy to take care of. And then we’ll just add some darker red-brown highlights.”
If Irene remembered the Twiggy cut. . every girl’s ideal at the end of the 1960s. She had been nine or ten years old. Without saying anything to her mother, she had made an appointment with the ladies’ hairdresser at Guldhedstorget. The sweet-smelling plump hairdresser with bright red lipstick had wondered in a friendly way if Irene really was determined to cut off her long hair. Irene had declared that she was. And she also wanted to look like Twiggy. Perhaps the hair became Twiggylike, but not the rest of Irene. No one would ever mix them up-not then and not later.
And now she had gone and done it again.
With a sigh, Detective Inspector Irene Huss looked at her reflection in the hallway mirror critically. She saw a tall slender woman, dressed in black pants and a light blue V-neck cotton top. Her hair was very short but the color was nice. Her usual dark brown hair had a deep red luster. All of the gray streaks were covered, and in the hall light she looked younger than her forty years. If she didn’t step too close to the mirror.
With a hefty pull, the outside door was thrown open and her twin daughters tried to squeeze through the doorway at the same time. When the argument over who was going to take the last coat hanger was sorted out, the girls turned to their mother.
“We’ve been and looked at them. It’s him,” said Jenny.
“Without a doubt,” Katarina agreed.
As one, mother and daughters moved to the kitchen where the two male members of the family were gathered. Since Krister worked as a master chef and cooked both as a career and a hobby, he had started on their late dinner. Sammie was sitting next to him expectantly, completely concentrated on his master’s activities. A tasty morsel might fall on the floor.
“Katarina and Jenny have been to look at them. No doubt that Sammie’s the father,” said Irene.
“Then the ill-tempered shrew was right when she called and scolded us,” Krister remarked.
“Of course she was angry! Her purebred poodle had gone and pleased herself with a terrier! But she only has herself to blame. You don’t let a bitch in heat out in the yard in a neighborhood with row houses. Not with the low fences we have here. She even complained to me that the bitch is an international champion,” Irene informed them.
“So, Sammie, you’ve been consorting with a champion,” Krister said harshly but with a faint smile on his lips.
If this had been a cartoon, a question mark would have lit up over Sammie’s head. He had such a look of wonder on his face as he glanced from one to the other that they felt as though they could almost see it floating over him. Jenny was the one who couldn’t control herself and burst out in snorting laughter. The others joined in and soon they were all laughing so hard they were crying. But then Sammie became grumpy. If there was anything a dog with self-esteem loathed, it was being laughed at and made a fool of. With his tail between his legs he left the kitchen and went upstairs to the second floor. There he went into Jenny’s room and crawled under the bed.
“There are three of them!” Jenny said. “The cutest ever! Two girls and one boy. They sort of look like Sammie when he was a puppy. But much smaller since they are only three weeks old and also much darker and-”