The Beige Man (20 page)

The Copenhagen police had a rather different version. A notorious narcotics dealer had been found murdered in Nyhavn. His body was almost frozen solid in the slushy ice just below the quayside. The cause of death was repeated blows to the head, delivered with extreme force. The autopsy had shown that he was likely dead before he was thrown into the water, since there was no water in his lungs. Daniel Lindgren’s friends from Christiania were the only people who had been seen with the dealer during the last few hours of his life. They
had been in a pub in Nyhavn, and the dealer had been with them. According to a witness, the victim had argued loudly with some of the group, although there was no physical violence. Everything seemed to have calmed down by the time they left the pub at around midnight, but the following day the dealer’s body had been found by a man walking his dog along the quay early in the morning.

The whole group of friends from Christiania had been picked up, including Daniel Lindgren and Fredrik Svensson. They had all flatly denied any knowledge of the dealer’s death, and insisted that he had been very much alive when they parted company outside the pub. There were no witnesses, and no trace of forensic evidence that could link any of them to what had happened. After two days they were all released.

So at the time when Torleif Sandberg was run down by two young car thieves in Göteborg, Daniel and Fredrik were spending their second night in the cells in Copenhagen.

Daniel had gotten cold feet and come running home to Göteborg, but he didn’t have an apartment of his own in the city, so he had had to go and stay with his mom. Which was where he had been picked up.

“Well, at least that means we can definitely cross those two off our list. So that just leaves Björn Kjellgren, alias Billy, and Niklas Ström,” Irene said in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere.

The baleful look she got from Jonny said it all. He was obviously frustrated at the thought of having to start all over again.

“Irene is right. Even though it didn’t look as if those two guys knew each other, there is one thing that suggests it might be them. They both absconded from Gräskärr,” Tommy pointed out.

“Billy Kjellgren is a loner and Niklas Ström is a crazy homosexual rapist. According to the staff, they both kept to themselves, and none of the other guys would hang out with
them. Hardly surprising in Niklas Ström’s case. Obviously you want to know that your ass is safe when you go for a shower.” Jonny snickered at his own joke.

Jesper joined in, but stopped abruptly when he realized that no one else was laughing.

“Of course it could be that only one of them was involved,” Tommy said, ignoring Jonny’s last comment. “Or neither. The nightmare scenario as far as we’re concerned is that we might be dealing with two guys who are completely unknown to us. But for the time being we have to go with the two names we have left: Niklas Ström and Billy Kjellgren.”

“Am I disturbing you?” came a woman’s voice from the doorway.

Everyone in the room recognized the voice and turned their heads. Marianne Wärme, the Acting Chief of Police, was standing there. She was a small, plump, middle-aged woman with short greying hair and glasses. Her bright, nut-brown eyes twinkled behind the thick lenses, and she often smiled warmly at the person she was talking to. When she wasn’t in uniform she usually wore a skirt suit and pumps and carried a matching purse. Anyone who didn’t know better could easily have taken her for a harmless old biddy, but she wasn’t nicknamed “The Iron Lady” for nothing. While climbing the career ladder, she had developed a reputation for incorruptible honesty, uncompromising toughness, and a will of steel. Whatever task she set for herself, she carried to its conclusion. Nobody could question her ability or her leadership skills—at least not within earshot of Marianne Wärme. Most people liked her because she gave clear, straight answers, and at the same time they had the greatest respect for her. Women with power and authority tend to intimidate people far more than men with the same qualities, particularly if those women deserve the position they have achieved. Acting Chief of Police Marianne Wärme was one of those women.

She walked into the room in her sensible low-heeled shoes and refused the offer of a cup of coffee.

“I’m in a rush. I’ll be brief. The commissioner of the Policía Nacional in Spain has contacted me. He’s received a request from the Chief of Police in Tenerife that a colleague from the Violent Crimes Unit in Göteborg go over there to help with an investigation into a series of homicides. There are four victims in total. Apparently these homicides are directly linked to the murder of the Russian girl who was found out at Delsjön.”

She paused, her sharp gaze scanning her audience. They all looked completely at a loss for words. Eventually Andersson managed to pull himself together, and protested feebly. “I don’t think we can send anyone over. We’ve already got a couple of colleagues off sick, and this is a complex case, and—”

“Yes, it certainly does seem very complex. Which is why I think it’s a good idea if one of you goes to Tenerife. You can be there in the sunshine in five or six hours, which is no longer than it takes to drive to Stockholm. And the Spanish authorities will pay, as they’ve already said. We’re talking about two days, one overnight stay. That should give both sides plenty of time to exchange information. It could well benefit our investigation here in Göteborg, if the Spaniards are privy to information we don’t have.”

She definitely had a point. There were still major question marks within the investigation.

“It also fosters goodwill if we facilitate this kind of information exchange between countries within the EU,” the Acting Chief of Police said with a smile.

That smile fooled no one. If Marianne Wärme said that one of them was going to Tenerife, then one of them would soon be sitting on a plane.

“I
HAVEN
’
T GOT
time to go,” Irene said firmly.

The main reason was they were snowed under with work. The
other reason was the Huss family had planned a ski trip at the cottage in Värmland. Irene had booked two days of leave, Friday and Monday, and wanted to clear her desk before the weekend. Krister was free for the long weekend, and the twins were coming too. On the way up to Sunne, they were going to stop off in Säffle and have lunch with Krister’s sister; they hadn’t gotten together since the funeral of Irene’s mother-in-law in August.

“You’re the only one who can go,” Andersson said.

“What do you mean? Am I the only person who’s dispensable in this department? We’re up to our ears in work! And you’re saying you can spare me?” Irene didn’t often flare up, but right now she was deeply hurt.

“You’re going to Tenerife to work. Not to sunbathe and see the sights. You have experience working with colleagues in different countries,” the superintendent said.

Irene detected more than a hint of flattery, but there was some truth in what he said. She had traveled to Copenhagen, London and Paris in the line of duty, and in each city she had worked with the local police. Not always with great success, admittedly, but at least it had given her a skill set her colleagues in the department lacked. And for the most part she had found it both productive and interesting.

“Hannu can’t go because of the situation with Birgitta. And we need Tommy to carry on looking for Torleif’s killers. That knocks out Jonny, too, and that new guy … Jonathan.”

“Jesper,” Irene corrected him.

“That new guy Jesper. And Fredrik is trying to track down Anders Pettersson. I don’t know how we lost him! We need to find the bastard.”

Andersson paused for breath, then went on. “Which leaves you. You’re looking into the girl’s death on your own now that Birgitta isn’t here, so I think it would be a wise move to go down to Tenerife. Plenty of people will be green with envy when they hear you’ve headed south to the sunshine.”

“Right. Two days’ traveling, one after the other. I’ll get to spend around twelve hours on the island,” Irene protested.

As she spoke she looked over at the window. The sleet was lashing against the glass, leaving wet snail trails as it slid down toward the sill. The temperature was just above freezing, and the wind was howling. Perhaps a day or two somewhere warm wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all. Although she had no intention of letting Andersson know what she was thinking. And then there was the problem of the ski trip to Sunne.

“Okay then. Although I really don’t have time,” she said with a theatrical sigh.

Andersson’s face lit up. “Terrific! You can go tomorrow, or the day after at the latest. I’ll let you contact the Spaniards yourself to tell them the good news,” he said with a smile, handing her a crumpled scrap of paper. He was reaching for the phone before she got to the door. He wanted to be the one to inform the Acting Chief of Police that a Detective Inspector was already on the way to support the Policía Nacional in their complex investigation.

L
INDA
H
OLM WAS
right: Miguel de Viera did indeed speak English poorly. He didn’t seem particularly thrilled at the prospect of meeting a female colleague from Sweden. Irene thought she had heard him sigh: “Only women
policía
?”

After a few minutes they had reached a state of complete mutual confusion, and Irene was beginning to feel quite exhausted. She gave a start when de Viera suddenly yelled into the phone. It took a few bewildering seconds before she realized that he wasn’t shouting at her, but at someone in his office. He dropped the receiver with a thud, and she could hear him gibbering agitatedly. After a while the receiver was picked up again, and a calm male voice said, “Detective Inspector Juan Rejón speaking.”

Irene explained who she was, and that she was intending to come to Tenerife at his colleague’s request either the next day or on Friday.

“Excellent. In that case we will book your tickets and accommodation.”

He spoke good English with a noticeable Spanish accent. Since Irene’s own English was only serviceable, she was very relieved when he went on.

“I will contact you again, Inspector Huss, when I have found out the flight times. And I will pick you up at the airport.”

“Thank you very much,” Irene said with heartfelt gratitude. She was very happy to avoid dealing with all the practical aspects of her journey since she had a lot of other things to sort out before she left.

“We are the ones who should be thanking you, Inspector. We are very grateful that you have agreed to come to Tenerife. Our situation is … desperate.”

He uttered the final word with a certain amount of hesitation, but Irene had no doubt that he was speaking the truth. If they hadn’t been desperate, they would hardly have requested the assistance of a colleague from the distant frozen North. And they were paying for everything without so much as a murmur.

I
NSPECTOR
J
UAN
R
EJÓN
called back just as Irene was about to go home for the day. He explained that there were no seats available on flights to Tenerife the following day, and that every flight to Göteborg from Tenerife on the Saturday was also full. He therefore hoped that Inspector Huss would not object to staying for two nights. She would be leaving from Landvetter at 7:15 on Friday morning, returning at 1:00
P.M
. on Sunday. As her ski trip was ruined anyway, Irene was quite happy at the thought of an extra day in the sun. A room
had been booked at the Golden Sun Club Hotel. Rejón had commented somewhat cryptically that this was a strategic choice of hotel, but Irene didn’t want to ask him what he meant.

T
HE FAMILY
’
S REACTION
to the news of Irene’s weekend trip to the Canaries could best be described as a resigned acceptance. They were used to the fact that she often had to work overtime, including weekends when she should have been free. Krister had struggled to hide his disappointment. He had a long weekend off work every five weeks, and he had been looking forward to a trip to the cottage in Värmland to go skiing and snowboarding. However, his mood lightened when Katarina said firmly that they ought to go anyway. Felipe could take Irene’s place. Before Felipe met Katarina he had never been anywhere near a ski slope, but they had been up to Ski Sunne several times the previous winter. Thanks to his training as a dancer his balance was good, and he had quickly learned to master the snowboard. These days he was an enthusiastic practitioner.

Irene couldn’t help the fleeting thought that passed through her mind: she was dispensable within her family. Resolutely she pushed the foolish thought aside. She was being replaced by Felipe purely because of her work.

“T
WO DAYS!
I don’t begrudge you a single hour!”

Tommy smiled as he spoke, but the little sigh that escaped him gave away the truth. He would have loved to doze off on a plane flying south to the sun on Friday morning. The discussions with their Spanish colleagues could be dealt with that
afternoon, leaving Saturday free to spend by the pool. Irene was thinking along much the same lines.

Jonny merely glared at her, then said, “
You’re
going? Haven’t those poor Spaniards got enough problems already?” He wasn’t smiling as he spoke.

They were all in the conference room waiting for Hannu. He had called on his cell from a traffic jam outside Lerum. One section of the freeway was flooded, and the traffic had been diverted along a series of smaller roads. He was going to be at least thirty minutes late.

Irene had finished her reports and scanned all the relevant pictures into her laptop. To be on the safe side she had also made hard copies of everything, just in case the technology let her down. That had happened all too often in the past.

When Hannu arrived he seemed perfectly normal at first glance. He sat down opposite Irene, which gave her the opportunity to take a closer look at him. His ash-blond hair had been cut fairly recently, and he was wearing jeans and a sweater as always. But when Irene happened to meet his gaze, she felt very uneasy. The blue eyes were bloodshot and did not reflect his usual serenity. Had he been crying? He certainly didn’t look as if he’d slept much. Irene had never noticed any lines on his face before, but now they were clearly visible in the harsh fluorescent light. Admittedly that particular light didn’t flatter anyone, but Hannu looked unusually worn out and whey-faced.