Helene Tursten - The Torso

Straight ahead there was a window situated relatively high up on the wall. Old junk was piled up beneath it. By the door Irene saw two trestles stacked up. A large piece of fiberboard leaned against the wall across from them.

Hannu was as motionless as Irene. He peered in without entering the garage. Then he pointed at the window.

“Look.”

The June sky was still bathed in daylight, but through the dirty glass Irene could see the blinking lights of a plane, which was descending for a landing.

MONIKA LIND CALLED ONCE over the weekend and asked why the puppy didn’t want to lie in its brand-new basket in the evenings. He had wandered around and cried. Not until they had pulled him up onto the bed had he fallen asleep, completely exhausted. Irene recognized all of it. She calmed Monika by saying that Sammie had never used his basket either; they had sold it after a year. Monika thanked her for her reassurance and told Irene that they had named the puppy Frasse.

ON SUNDAY afternoon, Irene devoted some time to looking through the yellow pages. Under the heading Funeral Homes, she found Cyhrén’s Funeral Home. Had Sebastian really been a member of the staff of the funeral home? Or had he just been an hourly employee, working sporadically? She decided to contact the funeral home the first thing Monday morning.

Later that same night Jonny Blom called. It had never happened before, despite the fact that they had been working together in Violent Crimes for twelve years. Katarina took the call and when she yelled: “Mamma! It’s Jonny!” At first Irene hadn’t known who was calling.

“This is Irene Huss,” she said, waiting.

“Howdy. It’s Jonny. I’ve found the films. The damn psycho is slicing and dicing his corpses to his heart’s content. And he’s dressed like a doctor. One who is op. . rating.”

He slurred the last word, but Irene had already sensed that he was drunk. Very drunk. She could understand that it might be an advantage to have a certain degree of blood alcohol concentration to make it through the films. But it also meant that his judgment was affected. There was a risk that he might damage one of the films. Cautiously, Irene asked, “Where are you watching the films?”

He immediately exploded. “What the hell! Do you think I’m sitting at home showing them to my wife and kids? Obviously, I’m at the station!”

“Good. Do you want me to come down?” asked Irene.

“For lack of anyone better. Hannu isn’t home. I just called.”

“OK. Are you in interrogation room number four?” The best video equipment was in that room.

“Yes.”

“Have a cup of coffee while you wait. I’ll be down in twenty minutes.”

“Coffee and coffee. You and your coffee!” he snarled.

“I’ll be there soon. Good-bye.”

Irene rushed out to the car. She blessed the fact that they had eaten dinner several hours ago. She had a strong feeling that she wasn’t going to be hungry after the scenes she was about to see.

INTERROGATION ROOM number four was empty. Two unmarked videos lay on the table next to a half-eaten cinnamon roll. In the light from the ceiling fixture Irene could make out several wet rings on the table, from bottles and glasses. She looked in the wastepaper basket, but it was empty. Jonny had cleaned up before she had arrived.

She heard steps in the corridor and the door was yanked open. Jonny had wet-combed his hair and he reeked of aftershave. The effect was a bit comical, since he plainly hadn’t shaved in two days.

“I’m going to the john. You can watch the films yourself. I’ve seen enough.”

Before Irene had time to reply, he shut the door. She could hear his steps disappearing down the corridor.

Irene felt ill at ease as she looked at the black plastic tapes. They felt threatening. She knew what they contained. A thought struck her: were these the original cassettes or had Jonny made copies? After a quick search of the room she assumed that these were the originals. Because the equipment was at hand she decided to make copies of the tapes herself. It was important not to cover them with even more fingerprints, so she put on a pair of cotton gloves. When the copying was finished she put the originals in plastic bags to send to Forensics.

The films were just as horrid as she had expected. Worse, they were painfully long, each of them more than an hour. On the film showing the gutting of Carmen Østergaard, Sebastian wasn’t wearing a mask or anything on his head, though he had worn a thick green mask and an operating cap during the dismemberment of Marcus. Otherwise he was dressed the same in both of the films-in a white buttoned-up doctor’s coat, a green smock, and green operating pants.

Irene thought about Sebastian’s clothing. On the doctor’s outfit that they had found in his closet there wasn’t the slightest trace of blood. In fact, it was just the opposite: the clothes had appeared to be newly washed. Based on that fact one could conclude that after his dissections Sebastian had deposited the soiled clothes with dirty laundry at work. The fact that there was a fresh set hanging in his closet could mean just one thing: he was preparing to cut up a new victim. A shortage of time combined with distance from a good dismemberment location had kept Sebastian from cleaning out Isabell Lind, Emil Bentsen, and Erik Bolin in the same way he had mutilated Marcus Tosscander and Carmen Østergaard.

With great care Sebastian had sliced open these two bodies and cut out the organs and the intestines. It was nauseating to see how carefully he examined every part he cut loose. But the worst were the close-ups when Emil zoomed in on his face.

His eyes, wide open, glittered feverishly. He rarely blinked when he was standing bent over a body. His lips were tightly pressed together while he concentrated on his work. A few times his tense face broke into one of the most charming smiles Irene had ever seen. He was immensely attractive when he smiled.

Irene took note of the fact that he threw the internal organs into a large plastic bucket, which stood on the floor to the side of the table they were using. It wasn’t the same bucket each time; one of them was yellow and the other, red.

He placed the genitals and the muscles in clear plastic bags. With a shiver, Irene determined they were freezer storage bags. The thought of what he had done with the body parts was so horrible that she resolutely pushed it away.

WHEN THE last film was over, Irene gathered up the originals and the copies and went into her office. Without any great hopes she called down to Forensics, but to her surprise and happiness a voice answered, “Forensics, Åhlén.”

“Hi. Irene Huss. Can I come down to you with two videos to go over for fingerprints?”

“Sure.”

“It has to do with the mutilation-murders.”

“OK. It’ll be given priority.”

“Thanks.”

She rushed down to Forensics with the videos. Apologetically, she said that there were probably lots of fingerprints from Jonny Blom. “We weren’t really sure what it was that we had found,” she said vaguely.

“OK,” Åhlén answered uninterestedly.

When she returned to her office she sat for a long time and looked out at the summer twilight. Her window faced east so she couldn’t see the sunset itself but she could watch the sun paint the clouds a violet-red against the dark sapphire blue sky. As time passed, the light on the clouds weakened and they took on a softer violet tinge.

Irene caught very little of the magnificent display of colors. She was sunk deep in thought.

SUPERINTENDENT ANDERSSON started morning prayers by saying that the videos had been found. Andersson praised Jonny, who had diligently devoted the entire weekend to going through Sebastian’s film collection. Jonny himself looked unusually pale and reserved. Irene knew that it wasn’t because he was overworked.