Krister laughed and moved over to his wife’s side of the bed.
Chapter 5
THE PICTURE THE tattoo appeared on the front page of all the newspapers. Every time the phone rang, Irene’s pulse sped up.
But at the end of the day not a single useful tip had come in. Just the usual array of idiots who always called as soon as the police asked for help through the media, had responded.
“I was the one who dismembered the man. Oh, you recognize me? Of course, I was the one who shot Olof Palme!” or “My neighbor killed that poor man. He has drinking parties late into the night so no one in the building can sleep! Sometimes they fight in there. He dismembered one of his drinking buddies. Believe me. What am I basing my accusations on? He looks deceitful!”
It became tiring to listen to this sort of report but everything had to be noted and checked out.
Some members of the group ran into other obstacles. The witness who had reported Robert Larsson’s threats backed down. Suddenly, she hadn’t heard him express any threats toward Laban. The witness’s own injuries had occurred when she “fell down the stairs.” That was the same story she had given when she arrived at the emergency room. And she had made up the stuff about Robert taking the largest portion of her income from prostitution. She just wanted to get back at him because she was angry and jealous.
Despite heavy pressure during the interrogation, she didn’t change her new story. No one doubted that she had been threatened, even though the police had tried to protect her within the limits of their resources. A messenger had gotten to her.
The entire case against Robert Larsson burst like a popped balloon. Nothing could be proved without witnesses. And no new witnesses from the evening Laban was killed had surfaced. No one had seen a thing! Larsson was already out of jail and now they had to drop the investigation of him and his business dealings.
“You’ll have to take him like they took Capone,” said Superintendent Andersson.
“Al Capone?” Fredrik asked stupidly.
“Who else? He was convicted of tax evasion. That’s the problem for the bosses in the drug and sex business. Business is too good and brings in too much profit. It’s hard to launder all the money.”
“The sex industry brings in more money than the drug trade in the USA. And the risk of jail time is a lot lower,” Birgitta put in.
“Why is there less risk?” Irene asked.
“No one wants to mess with it. Everyone has a skeleton in the closet, and we know how the Americans are as soon as it comes to sex. As soon as the smallest sex scandal involving some celebrity or politician comes out, they are horrified and go through the roof,” said Birgitta.
“Everything should be nice and neat on the surface. Everyone pretends not to know what lies beneath,” Irene agreed.
Fredrik had been sitting leaning back in his chair, blankly staring at the ceiling. Now he sat up and said with his usual energy, “I’m going to talk with Annika Nilzen in Narcotics again. We might be able to get some help from Financial Crimes if they’ll keep an eye on that slimy Robert’s finances. The money is laundered through the club.”
“Definitely,” Andersson agreed. He sat absentmindedly folding an origami paper swallow. Irene noticed that the paper was one of the copies of the tattoo.
“Should we contact Interpol now?” she asked.
Andersson nodded. He tried to straighten out the paper again but the folds were too sharp. Luckily there were more copies.
“I’ll send out a query about the tattoo. Then all we can do is wait.”
“Tomorrow is a holiday, Ascension Day. Probably no one will call us. Friday is a working day between holidays and our colleagues in Europe are probably also on holiday. Then it’s the weekend. So it looks like nothing will happen before Monday,” said Birgitta.
She turned out to be right. Nothing happened before Monday, but then everything happened at once.
NO MORE sacks were found along the coast. The decision was made to continue looking for another two days before the search was called off. Two weeks would have to do. Andersson had absolutely nothing new on the Monday morning after the Ascension Day weekend. He sent everyone off to work on their own.
Irene was happy that Tommy was back at work even though he still walked stiffly. When he arrived at the office they shared he said, “Sara apparently talked with you about Sammie’s puppies.”
Irene tried to sound innocent. “She asked if it was true that Sammie has become a father and. .”
“And you immediately invited her to come and look at them.” Irene didn’t answer. He knew her all too well.
“We actually had a family meeting about it. With four votes to one, the Persson family has decided to come over to your place and look at puppies.”
Irene could hardly believe her ears. With four votes to one, the Perssons were practically dog owners already! She tried not to show her excitement and instead said in a neutral tone, “When do you want to look at them?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“I’ll call the dog’s owner and see. There’s actually a friend of Krister’s from work who’s also interested. . ”
“I just want to point out that
Boy, did he sound sour, but not without good reason, Irene admitted to herself. She was saved by the ring of the telephone. She barely had time to lift the receiver before she heard Yvonne Stridner’s sharp voice. “This is Professor Stridner. I obtained some interesting information in London.”
It took a few seconds before Irene remembered that Stridner had mentioned a symposium in London during their last meeting.
“Good. Nothing has happened here.”
“I know. But I have a good lead. I made a presentation at the symposium about signs that reveal whether the cause of a death is murder or suicide. A very much appreciated and well-attended presentation and. . in any case, I asked if I could take a few more minutes of their time and took the opportunity to describe what our torso has been subjected to. Of course, most of the colleagues had heard about this type of murder but very few of them had seen such a complete removal of organs and desecration of the body. Everyone thought it was very interesting. Afterward, an old friend and colleague came up to me. His name is Svend Blokk, and he is a professor of forensic medicine. He works in Copenhagen at the state hospital.”
At this point, Stridner was forced to catch her breath, and Irene squeezed in a question. “Excuse me, but what is a torso exactly?”
“You don’t know?! It’s the body without arms, legs, or a head. Just the trunk. In any case, Svend said that they had had a very similar case two years ago. I say similar, but there is one difference. Their victim was a female prostitute.”
“Did he mean that the dismemberment process was the same?”
“Identical.”
Irene thought feverishly before she asked, “Did they find all of the parts of that corpse?”
“No, but Svend was a little vague. He wasn’t in charge of the forensic investigation. He also said that despite a massive search effort they never found the murderer.”
Stridner gave Irene Blokk’s address and telephone number. After hanging up, Irene started telling Tommy about her conversation, but he interrupted her. “Save it for the others. Andersson has put me on the Jack the Ripper case. He’s been at it again. The fourth victim is in central Goteborg. This woman is also young. She was going to stay at her parents’ after a party. The assault occurred in the stairwell leading to their apartment on Vasagatan.”
“I didn’t know that. When?”
