The Beige Man (12 page)

“Hi, there! We got it!” she heard from the doorway as Birgitta came in, waving the picture of Heinz Becker. “He’s the guy who was at the JC store on Saturday. With our girl.”

She took a folded piece of paper out of the pocket of her jeans and opened it out. She dropped it on the desk next to the picture of the pimp, grinning broadly. Irene looked at the photograph of Becker’s fleshy face, which contrasted sharply with the sketch of the girl’s thin features.

Birgitta’s smile faded when she saw the expression on the faces of her colleagues. “What? We’ve got proof that the girl was part of Becker’s operation, so all we have to do now is confront him with the evidence during questioning and … Has something happened?”

“You could say that,” Linda sighed. She quickly explained what had happened during the raid out in Biskopsgården.

Birgitta remained silent for a while, then said, “Well, when we do bring them in, we’ve got proof that he and his associate had the girl in their power. We’ll say they’re wanted for homicide! I mean, until we’ve questioned them we don’t know whether they were the ones who killed her, or whether it was a client.”

“Already done,” the superintendent said quietly.

Irene got to her feet. “We’ll go back to our own department,” she said. “But we’ll be in touch if something comes up.”

Linda Holm nodded and twisted her mouth into something resembling a smile. She obviously regarded Becker and his sidekick’s escape as a personal failure. Perhaps she was particularly embarrassed because her colleagues from Violent Crimes had been there to see her humiliation.

When Irene and Birgitta reached the corridor leading to their offices, they saw Fredrik coming toward them, looking very pleased with himself.

“Were you right?” Irene asked.

“Yes!”

“How many of them are there altogether?”

“Four.”

“Who?”

He raised his eyebrows and looked meaningfully at his female colleagues before replying. “All of them. Or so it seems.”

Irene nodded.

“Could you stop speaking in code and tell me what this is all about?” Birgitta snapped.

“Okay. Let’s go into my office,” Fredrik said, chivalrously holding open the door.

The women took the two chairs while Fredrik remained standing.

“Both Irene and I saw the two guys come out of the apartment block carrying a black sack between them. One of them got out a key and unlocked the back door of the truck so that they could stow a sack inside, then he unlocked the driver’s cab. Then they started the engine and took off with a screech of tires. Which is why we all assumed they were builders. When we realized they’d gotten away by using the truck, the question was how they’d gotten a hold of the key, of course.”

“Right. So how did they?” Birgitta asked.

Fredrik couldn’t hide his satisfaction as he explained, “I went up to the top floor where the builders were working. It was freezing cold and snowing hard. It’s not easy to fix up tarpaulins in a snowstorm, let me tell you! They were uneasy when I turned up and introduced myself. None of them were particularly keen on talking to me, but I insisted. Told them I’d be happy to give them a lift down to HQ if they’d prefer. They were even less keen on that idea!”

He grinned happily at the memory.

“Then I spoke to them one by one, starting with the foreman. It turns out they’ve been working up there for four days. The fire was on Sunday night/Monday morning. At first he denied all knowledge of the brothel on the fourth floor, but at the same time he couldn’t explain where the key to the truck had gone. He tried to tell me he must have dropped it, or someone had stolen it out of his pocket. That didn’t get him very far, because there’s no changing room up there. They go and sit on the stairs when they need to warm up a bit. They’re warmly dressed in plenty of clothes while they’re working, but they keep their work clothes on all day. Eventually he’d tied himself in so many knots with his lies that there was no way out. I threatened him with formal questioning down here, and he folded. He’d visited the brothel during the morning, and he reckoned that either Heinz or the other guy must have taken the key out of his pocket while he was having sex with the girl.”

There was silence in the room while all three of them thought through the scenario.

“But you don’t believe him,” Irene said eventually.

“No. I spoke to the other three as well. When I asked them if they’d been down to the fourth floor, they became incredibly nervous. It was obvious that they all knew what was going on there. They came up with a range of answers: “I was just kind of curious,” “All the others were going,” and “I’ve never done
anything like that before”—a whole load of crap! Two of them are married and one lives with his partner. The fourth is engaged, but doesn’t live with his fiancée. He’s the youngest. They’re all shit-scared the fact they’ve been to a brothel will come out.”

“I can’t believe they didn’t just deny it!” Birgitta exclaimed.

Fredrik smiled mischievously. “I have to admit that I went for the man-to-man option. Just guys talking. Lulled them into a false sense of security. They told me in confidence, so to speak.”

“We definitely need to bring in the foreman, the one who admitted he’d had sex with the girl this morning,” Irene said firmly.

“I promised he wouldn’t have to come here …” Fredrik began, but Irene interrupted him.

“We have to question him, and the other three! They can give us a description of the girl. One of them might know which country she’s from. They’re witnesses to the fact that Becker and his associate were in the apartment at the same time.”

“Okay. I’ll make sure they’re all brought in,” Fredrik said.

“Thanks. We have to make them realize the pimps could be killers. We’re investigating a homicide here; we’re not interested in any crimes involving prostitution that they might have committed.”

“So the foreman is married,” Birgitta said.

“Yes,” Fredrik replied. He moved toward the door. “I’ll go back out to Biskopsgården with a patrol,” he said. “That’ll be the quickest way.”

“Just make sure you don’t get stuck in the snow,” Irene said before she could stop herself.
As if Fredrik needs a mother
, she thought crossly, although he didn’t seem to mind.

“There’s always that risk, but I think it’s letting up a little.”

A quick glance out of the window showed he was right. The
storm had abated, and was now a pretty normal snowfall. Perhaps they might even stand a chance of getting home later in the evening.
If the snow plows would just get going
 … Irene’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Fredrik’s phone ringing. He was already in the doorway but turned back to his desk to answer.

“Fredrik Stridh … Yes, that’s right … A Toyota, you say?” He stood in silence for quite some time, listening to the voice on the other end of the line. He stiffened and eventually exclaimed, “Both of them! But she made it … okay …”

He started to relay the information before he had even put down the receiver. “Things are starting to happen! That was the Varberg police. A white Toyota, which turns out to have been stolen in Heden here in Göteborg less than two hours ago, came off the road just north of Varberg an hour ago. There were three people in the car who matched the descriptions we sent out. The vehicle overturned and went down a slope. Both men were pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. The young woman is very badly injured and in a coma. Serious concussion. She’s being operated on right now for a damaged spleen. She also has a fractured pelvis and spine and God knows what else. Her condition is described as extremely critical.”

Both Birgitta and Irene were lost for words at first, but eventually Irene managed to pull herself together. “That’s just … suddenly everything’s happening at once!” she burst out.

“To say the least,” Birgitta murmured.

Fredrik sank down to his chair, considering the next step. “What do we do now? Do you still want me to go out to Biskopsgården to question the builders again?” he asked.

“Absolutely!” Irene answered immediately. “It’s essential that we establish the connection between Heinz Becker and the girl who’s lying in a coma. And you might even be able to get one of them to admit that he’s seen the girl from the root cellar in the apartment. That would confirm that link, too.”

“Particularly as Heinz Becker is dead, so we’re not going to get a confession from him,” Birgitta commented dryly.

“I’ll let Sven know what’s going on. There’s no point in driving over to Varberg in this weather. The girl will probably be unconscious for quite some time, and then she’ll need to get her strength back before we can question her. And we need to know what language she speaks so that we can arrange an interpreter,” Irene said.

“Sounds good to me,” Birgitta agreed. “I’ll go and write up my report on the positive ID from the assistant in the JC store. It’s a strong link between Becker and the dead girl.”

“And if there’s DNA on the denim skirt we found in the apartment, that will also provide solid evidence that she was there,” Fredrik pointed out.

“Exactly. Even if Linda Holm wasn’t too happy about the way things turned out from the Trafficking Unit’s point of view, I have to say that we’ve made quite a lot of progress in the investigation into the girl’s death. We’re significantly closer to identifying her than we were this morning, and possibly her killer as well. We can take DNA samples from Becker and his associate and compare them with the semen we found in her hair,” Irene said.

“Do you think it was one of them?” Birgitta asked skeptically.

“Not really. We can’t ignore the possibility, although to be honest I don’t think either of them killed her.”

“Why not?”

“The place where she was found. How would Heinz Becker and his sidekick know about an old, hidden root cellar? It would have been much easier for them to dump her in a ditch by the side of some road. Or in the forest somewhere. The root cellar required local knowledge, which I don’t believe Becker or his companion had.”

“So we’re still looking for the perpetrator,” Birgitta concluded.

I
RENE HAD A
free weekend, so she devoted Saturday morning to two intensive training sessions in the dojo. During the first one she had been the trainer for a group of female police officers. Several of them had started working toward their blue belt. They were keen and had worked hard. Irene was very proud of them. The second group was mixed, but was mostly made up of male participants. A spar against Irene was always popular, as she was a former European champion. It might have been more than twenty years ago, but she still had the moves.

I
RENE SPENT THE
rest of Saturday shoveling piles of snow outside the house and trying to reduce the piles of laundry inside. The washing machine was working overtime. It was a mystery: how could four people produce so much dirty laundry? Strangely enough, Irene thought the mountain of washing was growing as the girls got older.
We don’t wear our clothes out any more
;
we wash them to death
, she thought. But she didn’t say anything because both girls were busy cleaning the house. It was time for the monthly “Huss attack.” Irene had introduced the idea several years ago, and it worked very well. Once a month the whole family pitched in and helped clean the house. Krister had been excused this time because he had done more or less all of the pre-Christmas housework himself; he had even put up Christmas curtains in the kitchen. If he hadn’t, it wouldn’t have
happened. Curtains just weren’t Irene’s thing, as the twins would have put it. In any case, Krister was working this weekend, and wouldn’t be home until midnight.

It was high time that Sammie had a haircut, but it was far too cold outside. It was best to let him keep his long coat for a while. By March he would look like a mountain sheep if she didn’t get him to the dog groomer before then. Not that he cared. He loathed everything to do with grooming, and had throughout his entire twelve years of life. It’s not for nothing that the breed is called an Irish soft-coated wheaten terrier. It was a perfect description of Sammie. He had glorious curly hair and didn’t molt, but he did need to be carefully brushed and regularly clipped. And this coat that demanded so much attention was on a terrier! Irene had often wondered how anyone came up with the idea of breeding such a creature.

She just had to groom him, otherwise his coat would get too knotted to deal with. She lifted him onto the table in the utility room. He realized what was about to happen and immediately started acting up, turning around and around in circles on the table with his tail down.
It was like trying to shoe a galloping horse
, as Irene’s mother used to say. Irene had had plenty of practice and knew exactly how to get hold of him. She took a gentle but firm grip on his neck and started to brush his soft fur. She kept the palm of her hand on his neck behind one ear while she brushed him with the other hand.

She could feel it very clearly under her fingers: a hard lump the size of a walnut.
It’s just a cyst, nothing to worry about
, Irene immediately tried to convince herself. At the same time, she knew perfectly well what soft, fatty cysts felt like. They lay just beneath the skin and could easily be moved against the underlying musculature. This lump didn’t move. She ran her fingers over Sammie’s body. There was a lump almost as big in his right groin. And she found a third right in the middle of his throat, about the size of a hazelnut.

Irene went cold all over. She realized right away what this could mean. Sammie would be thirteen in April, which was a respectable age for a dog. If there’s only one tumor, then it might be possible to remove it. But if the cancer has spread, the prognosis is not good. And she had found three lumps in different parts of his body.

Krister will have to take him to the vet on Monday
, she thought. Her eyes filled with tears, and she could hardly see.
Let’s not worry before we know what we’re dealing with
, she told herself, trying hard to swallow. It was pointless; she had a huge lump in her throat.