saw?”
“Marcus lived such an active life. There wasn’t room for a girlfriend. He used to say that he didn’t need one because he had me.”
What kind of man had this effect? Tom Tanaka and Gretta Svensson both seemed to feel specially chosen by Marcus.
“Did he have a lot of buddies?”
“Not all that many. Sometimes he would have small parties in his apartment. But never any rowdiness! All of the boys were polite and well behaved.”
“Do you know any of their names?”
“No.”
Irene couldn’t come up with any more questions for the moment. She got up and said, “I’d like to thank you for your help. Is it all right for me to return if I come up with any more questions?”
“It’s perfectly fine.”
The little woman followed her out into the hall. When she had closed the door, Irene heard the lock rattling as the key was turned.
Jonny had found a box that he carried down from the attic.
“Magazines and films. Gay porn,” he announced.
There was only an old bike in the basement. Hannu had returned to the apartment and was looking through the albums they were planning to take back to the station.
“Names,” he said and pointed.
A wedding invitation was glued to the top of one of the pages. It was a double card with two gold rings on the outside. On the inside it read:
“Pahliss. A name that should be easy to look up,” said Irene.
“A wedding. But, damn, it’s two guys,” Jonny said. The distaste was evident in his voice.
There were several photos next to the invitation, which had evidently been taken during the partnership ceremony and at the lunch.
The two men appeared to be in their thirties. One of them was tall and blond and the other was shorter and had dark hair. It was possible that he was a few years older than his blond partner. Both wore dark suits with bright red bow ties. The roses in their buttonholes were also red. They looked serious in the first picture, in which they were listening carefully to the officiator. Marcus’s handsome face could be seen behind the blond man. The next picture was taken from the side, and Marcus could be seen from behind. His light linen suit fit perfectly. The last picture from the City Hall ceremony showed the couple standing outside on the steps and being showered with rice by lots of people. Irene quickly counted forty-three, plus the photographer. She could see Marcus’s light-colored suit in the crowd.
The pictures that followed were from the lunch: happy people, toasting and laughing. The newly wedded couple beamed at each other and their guests. Irene noticed that there seemed to be an equal number of men and women in the pictures. There were no photos from the party that evening.
“We’ll take a closer look at the albums at the station. And maybe you can start looking for Gunnarsson and Pahliss,” she said.
The latter was directed at Hannu, who nodded.
“ITHINK it’s about time for me to meet Pappa Tosscander,” said Irene.
She was standing leaning against the edge of Superintendent Andersson’s desk. Jonny was sitting on the visitor’s chair, sulking.
“I’ve talked with the old man. And I don’t want to go through that gay porn myself.” He made a face at the box that was standing by the inside of the door.
“You don’t need to pore over the magazines. Just look through the videos,” said Irene. She didn’t want to admit even to herself that she felt uncomfortable about watching them. That’s why she quickly said, “The possibility that Marcus returned to the city in the first week of March needs to be confirmed. Maybe he contacted his father. We have to ask him. Maybe he has forgotten or he doesn’t want to remember.”
“Has Hannu found those two guys from the album?” asked Superintendent Andersson.
“No, but he’s still looking. And he will locate them,” Irene said confidently.
“It’s after five. It’s almost time to leave,” said Jonny.
The phone on Andersson’s desk rang. He answered and then looked in Irene’s direction.
“Just a second. She’s here,” he said. He handed over the receiver and hissed, “A Dane, asking for you.”
Irene took the receiver. “This is Irene Huss.”
“Jens Metz here. We’ve found Isabell Lind. Dead.”
Irene couldn’t utter a sound. Her colleagues watched in astonishment as she grew pale and tried to steady herself by grasping the edge of the desk.
“Hello! Are you still there?” Jens Metz’s voice could he heard asking.
With great effort, Irene croaked, “I’m here.”
“Good. She was found murdered at the Hotel Aurora. The top floor is closed to guests due to renovations. The painters found her in one of the rooms. There are signs that point to our mutual murder-mutilator.”
To her own astonishment, Irene felt her knees begin to shake. She leaned heavily against the superintendent’s desk and managed to rest her weight on the edge. It felt as if her legs wouldn’t hold her.
“Is she. . is she dismembered?” she finally managed to get out.
“No. None of the parts are missing. But the murder method bears our murderer’s signature. She was strangled and abused, the same as Carmen Ostergaard and the boy you found. The stomach was cut open but none of the contents were removed, according to Svend Blokk, who performed the autopsy.”
“Oh my God!” was all Irene could say.
“We want you to come back to Copenhagen. You know more than we do about Isabell and the investigation in Goteborg. I would also like to ask a big favor.”
“What?”
“That you notify the parents. It would be better than if we tried to convey this kind of message over the phone, and in Danish.”
Irene knew that he was right but her stomach clenched. She didn’t want to face Monika Lind’s despair. But she had to.
“OK, I’ll do it. But I have to talk to my boss about returning to Copenhagen.”
Andersson’s expression told her that he also had a good deal he wanted to talk about. The color of his face was ominous, and his expression was grim.
He exploded when she hung up the phone. “What the hell! Who’s been dismembered?”
Irene had to go through the whole Isabell Lind story from the very beginning, starting with Monika’s phone call. She went to get the tourist guide she had taken from the hotel room with the picture of the girls from Scandinavian Models.
Sven Andersson looked sternly at Irene. “And the only ones you showed the picture to were the three police officers you worked with on the murder-mutilation?”
For a hundredth of a second, Tom Tanaka’s heavy image floated in front of her eyes but she decided to keep him out of this. Her instinct was to protect his identity.
“Yes,” she said, looking Andersson in the eye.
The superintendent gazed at her for a long time. Maybe he sensed that she was hiding information.
“OK. You are going back to Copenhagen tomorrow. But you are taking Hannu with you.”
“That’s not possible,” said Hannu.
“Geez. You don’t have to stay the whole Whitsuntide,” said Andersson.
“I’m getting married.”
The others stared at him as though he had just revealed that he was the murderer. No one had anything to say.
