Helene Tursten - The Torso

The superintendent was half sitting in a raised hospital bed. Her hair lay, uncombed, over the pillow like a mass of copper red steel wool. Her eyes were closed when they came in, but when she heard them she turned her head and looked at them.

Beate Bentsen had aged several years in the past day. Her skin was gray, and her face, free of makeup, had a sunken look to it. If you didn’t know better, you would have thought she was suffering from a fatal disease. But in reality her soul and her mind had received a deadly blow, thought Irene. No parent should have to see his or her child in the condition Emil had been in when they’d found him.

Beate’s gaze cleared when she saw who it was. She raised herself up on one elbow with difficulty and nodded to them. “Good of you to come. I thought about calling you.”

Her lips were cracked and dry and her hand shook when she reached for the water glass on the nightstand. She took a greedy gulp. She put the glass back, coughing.

“We should have brought flowers,” Irene said apologetically.

The superintendent waved off the idea with her hand as she finished coughing.

“Not necessary. I’m going home tomorrow.”

Was that really possible? She didn’t look like she was in any condition to be released. As if she had read their thoughts, Beate continued, “I had an acute psychological crisis. But my doctor was here after lunch and he says that it’s over. I’ll have to continue with the medicine but I’m not sick anymore so I don’t need to be in the hospital. But I’ll be on sick leave for a while.”

The long speech seemed to wear her out. She sank back onto the pillow.

Peter inhaled as if he was about to say something but Beate was ahead of him. “I thought about calling you because there is something important I haven’t told you.”

She looked Peter straight in the eye. “You will remember that I told you about the real estate agent Simon Steiner. He was my father’s best friend and died of lung cancer four years ago. All of that is true but there is something else. He was Emil’s father.”

Last week someone who claimed to be Emil’s dead father called and requested that Isabell go to the Hotel Aurora. The killer must have known who Emil’s father was, thought Irene.

“Who knew that Simon Steiner was Emil’s father?” she asked.

“No one. It says ‘father unknown’ on his birth certificate. I never even told my parents that it was Simon.”

“Did Emil know who his father was?”

“Yes. He inherited the apartment and a good deal of money when Simon died.”

Beate sighed before she continued. “I might as well start from the beginning. I had known Simon all of my life. He was a few years younger than my father but they had been friends since they were kids. My father met my mother and married her. Simon married my mother’s sister Susanne a few years later. Susanne was diagnosed with MS the same year they were married. They didn’t have any children. My aunt was very sick off and on.”

Beate stopped in order to take a drink of water.

“There was a twenty-one-year age difference between Simon and me. I was twenty when our relationship started and twenty-two when Emil was born. I knew then that Simon would never leave Susanne. The poor thing was paralyzed and wheelchair bound-”

She stopped abruptly. Maybe she could hear the bitterness in her voice as she uttered the last sentence. In a more controlled tone, she continued, “He took good care of me and Emil. He was the one who bought me the apartment where I still live. It’s worth a great deal today. He paid child support the whole time up until his death.”

“How could he be ordered to pay child support if he never admitted to being the father?” Irene asked.

“He wasn’t ordered to pay. It was done in a voluntary and generous spirit. But I wish he hadn’t left his apartment and money to Emil.”

“Did you know about it in advance?”

“No.”

“His wife didn’t inherit?”

“Susanne died three years before he did. She was tougher than anyone could have predicted.”

“But you wish that Emil hadn’t inherited?”

“Because that’s when he found out who his father was. He was furious. He thought that I had deprived him of contact with his father. Using the argument that his father had never attempted to reveal his paternity even though they saw each other several times a year didn’t affect Emil’s opinion one bit. He believed that I was the one who had stood in the way. I couldn’t keep him from moving into his own apartment. He was eighteen years old.”

“So the relationship between the two of you wasn’t the best?”

“No. Not for the first two years after his move. But recently we started spending more time together, even though he only let me into the apartment once. I didn’t say anything but he knew what I thought. . we mostly met at my place or in a pub. We were getting along better and better. I’m very grateful for that now. . that it’s over.”

Beate’s voice broke, and heavy tears rolled down her cheeks.

Would she have the strength to answer the questions that had to be asked? To Irene’s relief, it was Peter who paved the way. “Were you aware of Emil’s odd taste in music?”

Beate reached for a package of Kleenex. She fished one out and dried her eyes. “Of course I saw his so-called music room. . It was horrible. But we never discussed it. He would only have become angry.”

“We found two police uniforms in his closet. Did you know about them?”

Now Beate hesitated. When she started speaking, her voice sounded very tired. “I didn’t know that he had two. One is my old uniform. He asked to borrow it for a masquerade ball and I never got it back.”

“How long ago was that?”

“About two years ago when he got in touch with me again after the move. That’s probably why I never asked for it back. I didn’t want to anger him and have him cut off contact again.”

Irene decided to take the risk and ask the question burning inside her. “I got the impression that you and Bill Faraday know each other well. He came right away, on short notice. . ”

“He’s my lover.”

The answer came so quickly that neither Irene nor Peter was ready with a follow-up question. To Irene’s relief, Beate smiled faintly at them.

“You should see the looks on your faces. Mouths gaping open! I met Bill when Emil inherited the apartment. I was required to get in touch with him because he owns the building. Emil was so young when he moved in but there weren’t any big problems. The building is a very old cooperative with old-fashioned and complicated rules. Bill owns and manages the property, but the tenants own their apartments. The tenants pay a management fee. It’s that, plus the rent, that provides an income for Bill.”

“Like a private tenant-owner’s company,” Irene said.

“Yes. Bill manages several properties.”

Peter cleared his throat and announced that he wanted to ask a new question.

“You knew that Emil was. . gay. Do you know any of his partners? Has he had a steady boyfriend recently?”

Beate shook her head. “No. He never confided in me. I’ve had the feeling that he has been very lonely. That’s what the parent of a homosexual child is most afraid of, that they will be alone. If he had had a steady …friend and a secure relationship, he probably wouldn’t have been so restless.”

Maybe his preferences had been so particular that it hadn’t been easy to find a like-minded individual.

“Did you know the people Emil rented rooms to?” Peter asked.

“No. He handled that himself. I have the feeling that he only rented the rooms out now and then. Of course it provided some extra income but he had the income from Simon’s assets to live on. Thank God they are placed so that he can’t. . couldn’t spend the money. The income was paid to him each month.”