“Please sit down and I’ll put on some coffee. We’re all alone in the office. Everyone else goes home around two o’clock on Fridays,” said Gunnarsson.
Irene and Hannu sat in the creaking leather chairs. They still smelled new.
Gunnarsson was in the process of measuring the coffee when he stopped and looked at Hannu. “Why did you want to speak with me?” he asked.
“Marcus Tosscander,” Hannu said shortly.
“Has something happened to him?”
Concern was evident in the dentist’s voice. His blue eyes glided between Irene and Hannu. It was Irene who answered. “We have reason to suspect so.”
A deep sigh escaped Gunnarsson. “Hans and I were speaking about him last week. We thought it was odd that he hadn’t been in touch. We actually joked that he had decided to stay there in Thailand.”
“Thailand? He was in Copenhagen. . ”
“Of course. But he called me and said that he was just home for a quick visit in order to pack some summer clothes in a suitcase. He had suddenly been invited to go on a trip to Thailand. Apparently, one of his cameras was broken so he wondered if we could lend him one. But when he found out that it was at home in Alingsås he lost interest. He said that he wouldn’t have time to come all the way to our place that evening. I advised him to buy a cheap one in the duty-free shop.”
Irene felt her heart skip a beat. Finally, a bit of a scent out of all the false leads!
“When did he call you?”
Gunnarsson wrinkled his brow and thought about it. Finally he said decidedly, “It had to have been at the beginning of March. Right at the beginning. We spoke about the renovation here. It was almost complete.”
“Did Marcus design the office?” Irene asked even though she already knew the answer.
“Yes. You have no idea how much it needed freshening up.”
He stopped abruptly and looked sharply at Irene. “What has happened to Marcus?”
Evasively, Irene said, “We aren’t entirely sure. After this talk with you we hope that additional pieces will fall into place.”
Hannu broke into the conversation. “How did you know Marcus?” “We have been friends for several years.”
“How long?”
Gunnarsson thought for a moment before he answered. “Six years.” “Good friends?”
Gunnarsson smiled. “It started with a short relationship between the two of us. An intense week, but I realized that it wasn’t possible to have a relationship with Marcus. He is very. . flighty. I wanted something more stable and understood that Marcus wasn’t the man for me. Shortly thereafter I met Hans and we are still together.”
“But you kept in touch with Marcus,” Hannu prompted.
“Of course! We get together often and we have many of the same friends. He is an amazingly kind and pleasant person. The best friend you could have-” Gunnarsson interrupted himself and seemed to be searching for words to explain what he meant. Uncertainly, he said, “Marcus is a warm-hearted person. He is charming and thoughtful. But when it comes to relationships, he is. . artificial. He can’t be faithful and quickly gets turned on by new guys. The longest relationship he’s had was with Hassan, an Egyptian who was a guest researcher at the university here in Göteborg. I think it lasted for three months and that’s an absolute record for Marcus.”
“Was that a long time ago?”
“Four years. I remember because they were at our engagement party.”
“Hans isn’t bothered by the fact that you and Marcus were together?” Anders Gunnarsson gave Hannu an appreciative look and smiled. “When you have entered into a partnership, as Hans and I have, naturally you have to discuss how you both feel about infidelity. Fidelity is important to Hans and to me. Hans has never been jealous of Marcus since our relationship ended before Hans and I got together.”
Irene asked, “Who was Marcus’s partner before he moved to Copenhagen?”
She got a shrug of the shoulders in response.
“No idea. We last met at the Glögg party that he held on the Eve of St. Lucia, before he moved. That was the last time we saw each other. I don’t know if he was ‘with’ anyone.”
“You didn’t think any of the people present might have been his partner?”
“No. It could have been anyone or no one. When it comes to Marcus, nothing is obvious. And he has actually gotten into trouble before.”
“What do you mean? How so?”
Gunnarson searched for the right words. “He is drawn to the. . dangerous ones. And puts himself in danger. That Hassan was an example. A pretty nasty type who definitely leaned in the direction of sadism. Marcus came over to my place one time wearing a turtleneck sweater when it was twenty degrees* outside! He is always so fashion savvy that I asked why he was walking around in a turtleneck. In response, he pulled down the collar and showed deep marks from a rope on his throat. Somehow he. . managed to joke about it.”
“Is Hassan still in Sweden?”
“No. He’s dead. He was killed by a lunatic at a gay club in San Francisco two years ago. Nine people died and Hassan happened to be one of them.”
“I remember that. The killer was a prostitute. He had been subjected to things at the club that made him crazy for revenge,” said Irene.
Gunnarsson arched his eyebrows and nodded. “That’s right. That’s the kind of club Hassan hung out at and that says everything about him.”
“And about Marcus,” Hannu added.
“He didn’t frequent those types of clubs but he was drawn to that type of man. I think that describes it as exactly as possible.”
In her mind, Irene saw the contours of a colossal sumo wrestler. Odd, maybe dangerous.
The dentist took a deep breath and stared at Irene. “Now you have to tell me what has happened to Marcus!”
Irene nodded. “Yes. But first I need to ask one last question. Do you have Marcus’s address in Copenhagen?”
“No. He said that he would call when he had decided on where he was going to live.”
“But he never called and gave you his new address?”
“No.”
“It seems strange that you didn’t wonder why he hadn’t been in touch. And why didn’t you miss Marcus before now if he’d left for Thailand at the beginning of March? That’s two and a half months ago.”
“As I said, we started wondering a few weeks ago. But that’s the way it is with Marcus. Long periods of time can go by without hearing anything from him. Especially when he is working intensely or has a new relationship going on. It’s happened several times. He’s disappeared with some new love and then appeared later as though nothing has happened.”
“How long have these episodes lasted?”
“Anywhere from two days to two weeks.”
“But never as long as over two months.”
“No. But when he called at the beginning of March he said that he didn’t know how long they would be gone.”
“They? Who did he go with?”
“He didn’t want to say. He just laughed when I asked and said I would never be able to guess.”
“Never be able to guess. . That would mean that you know this per son.”
“Maybe. But I have no idea.”
“Exactly what did Marcus say when he called at the beginning of March?”
“We started by talking about the renovation and about how it had progressed. I invited him for dinner the next night but he declined. He was going to go to Thailand with a friend, but he didn’t say who the friend was. Then he asked about borrowing a camera. Then he said that he had to end the phone call and pack the things he needed for the trip.”
“Did he say where they were traveling from?”
“No. But I assumed that it had to be Landvetter since he was here in Göteborg. But maybe he was only here because he had to pack his summer clothes.”