The Beige Man (7 page)

“It was found by a police dog in rough terrain behind the TV mast at Brudaremossen. It was in a crevice in the rocks in a half-sitting position. Both Fredrik and I thought it seemed like the remains of a male. He looked as if he’d been there for quite some time—several months at least,” Tommy said.

“Young or old?” Andersson asked.

“Not young, judging by the clothes. Gumboots size forty-two, plus something that looked like a Helly Hansen jacket and a hat with earflaps.”

“Warm clothing,” Irene remarked.

“Yes, although the gumboots would suggest that the temperature wasn’t below freezing. More like damp weather in the fall,” Tommy speculated.

“Minus sixteen. Torleif Sandberg was wearing sneakers,” Hannu suddenly said. He didn’t appear to be addressing anyone in particular.

The others stared at him in surprise.

“And?” the superintendent said.

“Cold,” Hannu said laconically.

Andersson, who often seemed flummoxed by their Finnish colleague, didn’t reply; instead he turned to Fredrik with his next question. “Any idea how he died?”

“He definitely died where he was found. We didn’t see anything suspicious at the scene: no guns or other possible weapons. And as far as we could make out, nothing about the body suggests foul play. The autopsy will clarify that, although it’s likely to take a few days.”

“No doubt. They’re so goddamn short staffed,” Andersson snorted.

He drummed a rapid solo with his fingers on the desk while pushing out his lower lip: unmistakable signs that he was thinking. Eventually he said, “Fredrik, check through missing persons for males of the right age group in the area for the past twelve months. Otherwise we’ll keep that investigation on the back burner until we have the results of the autopsy. And I can tell you that door-to-door inquiries around Töpelsgatan haven’t produced any results so far.” He rubbed his hands together energetically and turned to Birgitta. “Any news on the girl?” he asked.

“Not really. I’ve spoken to colleagues in Norway, Denmark and Finland, but there are no reports of missing girls in their early teens that match, so I’m going to speak to Linda Holm in the Human Trafficking Unit today.”

“Oh! Little Blondie. They couldn’t use her undercover, so they had to make her the chief,” Jonny said with a laugh.

“What are you talking about?” Birgitta asked.

“When they sent Little Blondie out on the streets in Rosenlund, the whole thing was a complete mess. All the johns
wanted the blonde sitting in the car. The other hookers were furious and threatened to beat her up.”

Jonny laughed again and seemed very pleased with his anecdote. One look at Birgitta was enough to convince him that she didn’t appreciate it. She was clenching her jaw so tightly that he could see her muscles straining, and a furious flush was spreading upward from her throat to her cheeks.

“Can’t you hear yourself?! You’re saying the superintendent only got her job because she was no good out in the field!”

“Hey, I was just kidding …”

“And on top of that do you realize how misogynistic referring to her as ‘Little Blondie’ is?!” Birgitta was so angry that she was gasping and had to take a few deep breaths.

“Have you become a member of the Feminist Initiative or something?” Jonny sneered. He never missed an opportunity to make things worse.

Birgitta flew out of her chair and leaned across the table, her eyes flashing with rage. “Shut your mouth, Jonny! Superintendent Linda Holm is a law graduate and an excellent police officer. You could never achieve what she has, which is why you feel the need to put her down. The only thing you can actually accuse her of is being a woman!”

“That’s enough, both of you!” Andersson’s face was purple as he slammed his fist down on the table. He hated this kind of thing. He pointed a threatening finger at Birgitta and Jonny. “Enough!” he barked.

Birgitta sat down. She pressed her lips together and glared at an old, faded print on the wall. It showed several cranes in a harbor against an insipid grey-blue sky.

“Over-sensitive … nit-picking … no sense of humor,” Jonny muttered, just loud enough to be heard.

Irene attempted to dispel the tense atmosphere by telling the late arrivals about the key that fit the door of Torleif Sandberg’s apartment.

“So it seems like it really is Torleif lying there in the morgue,” Andersson said.

“Yes. And we’ve started to check on boys who are on the run from various institutions right now. There aren’t very many of them: three who fit the description, as far as we can tell.”

“Try to pick them up so we can eliminate them from the investigation if nothing else,” Andersson said to Irene.

She nodded and caught Tommy’s eye. Time to get to grips with Daniel Lindgren, Niklas Ström and Billy Kjellgren.

Andersson turned to Birgitta. “So why are you going to speak to Superintendent Linda Holm in Human Trafficking?” he said with heavy irony.

“Such a young girl should have been reported missing if she’s Swedish or from another Scandinavian country, but there’s no record anywhere of such a report. There are clear signs on her body that she has been subjected to extreme sexual violence over a long period. Stridner also said that the girl was suffering from some kind of infection, and there are the needle marks on the body, indicating narcotics abuse. Putting all of this together, I think our murder victim is a sex slave who has been smuggled into the country.”

Andersson nodded slowly and gazed pensively at the dark windows, the wet snow pattering against the glass. With a little imagination it was possible to sense a hint of light that just might be dawn in the miserable greyness. He started drumming his fingers again. In spite of the fact that they were prepared for it, everyone jumped when he suddenly slapped his palm down on the table.

“Irene, Fredrik and Birgitta, you work on the murdered girl. Jonny, I want you to take Irene’s place in the investigation into Torleif’s death, along with Tommy and Hannu. As for the guy in Brudaremossen, we’ll wait for the results of the autopsy. If he’s been dead for months, then he can wait a few more days,” he decided.

Irene was just as surprised as everyone else, but she realized why Andersson had changed things around. There was far too much tension between Jonny and Birgitta, and it could affect the investigation. The reasons behind the toxic atmosphere went back at least seven years, to the time when Birgitta started in the unit. Almost immediately Jonny had started coming onto the blonde cutie with the sparkling brown eyes. He had gone in with his usual blunt style. At the annual Christmas party his attentions had turned physical, and Birgitta had had enough. In the middle of the dance floor she had expressed her opinions on Jonny and his groping. To the delight of her colleagues, she certainly hadn’t minced her words.

The following year, when Birgitta received pornographic photos in an envelope through the internal mail with no sender’s name on the envelope, Jonny immediately had become the prime suspect. Even though it later transpired that another former colleague had sent the pictures, the working relationship between Jonny and Birgitta was totally ruined. It had improved somewhat in recent years, but it was never going to recover completely.

On one occasion, suffering from an unusual desire to confide in someone, Andersson had asked Irene if she thought it would be better for Birgitta to move to another department. Irene had been furious and had snapped, “It’s not Birgitta who was in the wrong! She’s never groped Jonny between the legs or made inappropriate suggestions!” The superintendent had looked at her in astonishment and had left the room without a word. The matter had never been mentioned again.

“Five minutes until the press conference,” Andersson informed them grimly.

He got to his feet, signaling the meeting was over.

W
HEN THE
H
UMAN
Trafficking Unit in Göteborg had been formed six years earlier, it had been an experimental project. Linda Holm had been a detective inspector in the unit, working in a team of three. Over the years the unit had become a permanent fixture and had expanded; there was now a team of eight, and a year ago Linda Holm had been promoted to superintendent. The former chief was now a project leader, traveling all over the country giving talks to police officers and other groups that might come into contact with the problems associated with the increase in trafficking. Irene had found this out during the information day she and her colleagues from the Violent Crimes Unit had attended last year.

Superintendent Linda Holm was on the phone when they got to her office. As the door was open, they couldn’t help overhearing parts of the conversation.

“…  that’s okay. How long have the girls been here? I see. In that case, there’s no time to lose.”

She fell silent, listening attentively. At the same time she glanced up from her notepad and caught sight of Irene and Birgitta standing just outside the door. With a fleeting smile and an exuberant gesture, she waved them in.

“Have we got enough for a search warrant? Preferably tonight … Okay. In that case we’ll aim for tomorrow. I’ll get in touch with the prosecutor. Keep me informed. Bye now.”

Linda Holm ended the call and turned her attention to her visitors. She was a few years younger than Irene. A quick appraisal of the superintendent led Irene to reflect that there might be a grain of truth in Jonny’s anecdote. Nor was it particularly surprising that the superintendent, with her naturally curly hair, was referred to as Blondie.

Birgitta got straight to the point and explained why they were there. She gave a brief outline of the case and said she suspected the murdered girl was a victim of trafficking. When she had finished, Linda Holm nodded.

“I agree. It sounds as if there are grounds to suspect that trafficking is involved. Let’s see if we can find her on the Internet,” she said.

Superintendent Linda Holm’s fingers flew over the keys, and she quickly scrolled through the pages she brought up, her brow furrowed in concentration.

“Here,” she said after a while, turning the laptop around so her colleagues could see.

There was a whole page of ads. It was obvious they were advertising sex because several of them were accompanied by photographs. Naked and half-naked girls in an assortment of sexy poses, with their first name and a brief introduction.

“This week’s available girls in Göteborg,” Linda Holm said dryly. She pointed to the flags at the side of each text. “The flags show what languages the girls speak. Impressive, don’t you think?”

Irene could see that most of them had three or four flags, and that the most common were Russian, Latvian, Estonian, German and English.

“As far as German and English are concerned, it’s usually just odd words the girls picked up while being shuttled around Europe,” Linda said.

Like most police officers, both Irene and Birgitta had come across various forms of trafficking during the course of
their work, but Irene wanted to know more about the current situation. “How long do they stay in one country?” she asked.

“One to four weeks. And they spend only a few days in each town. A lot of the girls have been kidnapped; the family might be looking for the girl, and they might have reported her as a missing person, so the pimps don’t want to stay in one place for too long. They have often bought the girl from the kidnapper, and they don’t want to get rid of her until she’s earned them as much money as possible. But most of the girls are bought and sold as slaves, usually by their parents or other relatives. Or by kidnappers, as I said. Organized human traffickers dazzle the girls and their families with the promise of a good job overseas because what’s behind this misery is always poverty, when it comes down to it.”

“Don’t the girls get to keep any of the money themselves?”

“No. The pimps take their passports off them as soon as they’ve entered a new country. Then they threaten the girls, telling them they have to pay off the cost of getting them out of their home country. They often say that the girl’s family will have to pay the price if she doesn’t do as she’s told. And doing as she’s told means going along with any sexual demand that the pimp or the clients might make.”

Linda Holm paused for a moment and took a booklet out of her desk drawer. She held it up to show them. “This is an up-to-date report from the UN. It indicates that never before in the history of the world have there been as many slaves as we have today. At least twelve million people are living in slavery; the actual number is probably significantly higher. In the past people used to be enslaved to work, but these days sex slavery is at least as common. It’s more lucrative. The trade includes children and adults of both sexes, but the majority are girls and young women. The fact is that human trafficking today turns over more money than the narcotics trade.”

“Why has this happened?” Birgitta asked.

“Drug-related offenses attract severe punishments all over the world. Those who are caught can risk the death penalty. Human trafficking has generally led to more lenient sentences, plus the financial gains are huge. The law isn’t keeping up with the development of trafficking at all; it’s like an avalanche. Even if laws do exist, the authorities aren’t always interested in making use of them. And remember that the men who hold the power often have dirty pants, if you know what I mean.” The expression on Linda Holm’s face was grim as she uttered the last words.

“Sounds like your job is an uphill battle,” Birgitta commented.

“It sometimes feels that way. Things have changed somewhat in Sweden, but overseas prostitution is viewed very differently. The law often doesn’t distinguish between voluntary prostitution and trafficking. The girls are all lumped together and are regarded as whores.”

“You mean none of these girls are doing this of their own free will?”

Linda gave Birgitta a long look before answering. “Six months ago we raided an apartment we’d had under surveillance. We knew there were at least two girls in there, with two pimps. Men came and went at all hours of the day and night. I was there when we went in. As usual the apartment was a complete dump, but there was something about the smell … it stank more than usual. I went into one room and saw a teenage girl standing there changing a diaper on a grown man. The diaper was full of shit. I still wonder where a guy weighing a hundred kilos can get a hold of a onesie like the one he was wearing. And he had a pacifier, too.”