Helene Tursten - The Torso

Irene had tried calling Emil Bentsen several times during the afternoon without success. Jonny had had time to sleep for two hours at the hotel before Irene phoned his room and woke him up. Now he was sitting jovially exchanging toasts with Jens and looked as though he was really enjoying himself.

“When are you leaving tomorrow?” asked Jens.

“After lunch. We’re just going to take copies of some of the interrogations and of the technical examinations. It’s definitely your case, but it will be best for us to have information, too, since the murderer is still at large. No one knows what he’ll do next,” Irene replied.

A gloomy silence swept over the table but was quickly brushed aside by Jonny’s comment. “He can do whatever he wants, as long as he stays in Copenhagen. Then we can come here every now and then.”

Jonny and Jens drank to that. Their laughter resounded from the glass walls.

Irene noticed that Beate Bentsen seemed withdrawn. She was slowly rotating her wine glass between her fingers, staring down at the swirling liquid. Her thoughts seemed to be very far away. She looked tired, there were deep furrows in the corners of her mouth.

“Did you reach Emil?” Irene asked.

The superintendent gave a start and looked at Irene, confused. “What? Emil? No.”

With the last word she bent over her glass again.

Irene felt strongly that something was wrong. But she couldn’t stop now. “Do you think we can reach him tonight or tomorrow morning?” she asked.

Beate looked irritated. “I don’t know. He lives his own life.”

“I understand that. But for the sake of the investigation, it’s important to clarify who knew that I was looking for Isabell. We need to know whom he told.” Irene tried to sound calm and reasonable.

Beate looked at her sharply, then she nodded and looked away. “I can’t get ahold of him.” she admitted. “I was at his apartment today but he wasn’t home.” she sounded worried.

Irene thought quickly, then asked if he had left a note or a message for her at his apartment.

“I don’t have a key,” Beate Bentsen said.

Irene almost gave it away. The sentence was already rolling off her tongue- but doesn’t he have a tenant who can open it for you -when she realized what she was about to reveal. She quickly swallowed the sentence and became mute out of sheer terror. She had come close to exposing Tom Tanaka! She could feel that she was starting to sweat.

Beate didn’t seem to have noticed anything. Almost whispering, she continued, “He says that he doesn’t want me to come and go in his life just as I please. That’s why I don’t have a key.”

Irene could come up with several reasons why Emil wouldn’t want a mother who was a police superintendent to suddenly show up at his home. She nodded, without saying anything.

Beate suddenly burst out, “It’s so strange! He seems to have disappeared!”

The three men turned their heads simultaneously and looked at her. Jens peered good-naturedly from the depths of his fatty jowls and asked, “Who has disappeared?”

Bentsen took a deep breath and looked morosely. “Emil. I haven’t heard from him in a week.”

Clearly Beate was worried, and Irene had a feeling that she had good reason to be. Impulsively, she put her hand on the coarse linen-clad arm of her colleague and said, “When we’re finished here, we’ll take a taxi and go to Emil’s apartment. I’ll come along. If he’s home, I can ask him my question directly. Then it’ll be taken care of.”

Beate shrugged at first. Then she nodded.

THE DINNER HAD BEEN superb. Jens Metz had entertained them with stories about the work of the Copenhagen Police Department, and Jonny had countered with glimpses from the everyday lives of his Göteborg colleagues. They had laughed and passed a very enjoyable couple of hours.

Just before eleven o’clock, Beate Bentsen touched Irene’s arm and said in a low voice, “Shall we go?”

Irene nodded. They got up and excused themselves. Peter Møller asked if he should escort them but they assured him that it wasn’t necessary.

After the increasing warmth and cigarette smoke of the restaurant, the night air of Rådhuspladsen felt refreshing. They hailed a free cab and Irene remembered to let the superintendent give the directions. At Gothersgade they paid for the trip and asked the cabdriver to wait five minutes. If they hadn’t come back before then, he could leave.

Emil lived in a beautiful old stone house dating from the beginning of the twentieth century. The house itself was of red-brown brick, richly embellished. Sculptured faces on the building’s friezes gazed down at the two women through the half darkness.

They were lucky. A man was coming down the stairs and opened the door, giving Beate a friendly smile. He probably recognized her as Emil’s mother, thought Irene.

Broad marble steps led to an airy stairwell. At the far end of the hall, light streamed in from a rectangular elevator window. The elevator was considerably younger than the remainder of the house. They were quickly carried up to the fourth floor; the car stopped with a gentle bounce.

The hallway had been recently renovated, revealing Art Nouveau designs along the walls and around the lead-framed stairway windows. It must be unbelievably beautiful when the sun shines through the multicolored glass windows, thought Irene. They were dark now since street light didn’t reach to the top floor. The walls were newly glazed in pale yellow, and a talented painter had covered the heavy outer doors in an old-fashioned style using a dark chestnut brown color for a hand-drawn pattern.

Beate Bentsen walked with determined steps up to one of the two doors on the landing. It said EMIL BENTSEN on the blue ceramic plate, which contrasted with the elegance of the rest of the entrance. If one looked closer, it could be seen that the little pink border under Emil’s name was made up of pigs. The first stood on all fours and the others stood behind, each with its forelegs resting on the back of the one in front. There were ten pigs in a row, copulating.

Beate didn’t give the pigs a glance. She rang the doorbell forcefully. It echoed behind the massive door, which remained closed. Irene put her ear to the door. All was quiet; no movement could be heard. She got down on her knees and peered through the mail slot. On the floor she could glimpse newspapers, advertisements, and some envelopes.

“He hasn’t been home for several days,” she said.

Just when she was about to get up, Irene became aware of the smell coming through the open slot. It was so faint that she hadn’t noticed it at first. But this smell, even if ever so faint, was well known to a murder investigator.

At first she didn’t know what she was going to say to Beate. In order to buy some time, she asked, “Did you look through the mail slot when you were here earlier today?”

“Yes, I saw the pile of mail. That’s what got me so worried.”

Irene swallowed before she asked the next question. “You didn’t notice anything unusual?”

“No. Why?”

Irene looked quickly at Beate. It was quite possible that the superintendent hadn’t noticed the smell as she was a heavy smoker. Her sense of smell might be diminished, but not Irene’s. A faint but unmistakable odor of corruption was coming through the mail slot.

Beate Bentsen managed to get the building’s owner using Irene’s cell phone. Judging by the tone of the conversation, they were old acquaintances. He hadn’t gone to bed, and since the women didn’t have a car, he promised to come and give them the keys personally.

The superintendent’s face was pale green when she ended the conversation. With a gesture of exhaustion she handed the phone to Irene. “He lives very close by. It will only take him a few minutes by car.”