Sex. All three of them were particularly sexually active. Carmen Østergaard had been in the business quite a while and Isabell was new to prostitution. But both of them had worked with sex professionally.
Anders Gunnarsson had said that Marcus was always ready for sex and that he was drawn to dangerous types. Did he do it for money? Hardly, especially as he made a very good living from his work. Money wasn’t his problem. Did he buy sex? Not very likely either. With his looks he wouldn’t have needed to pay.
No matter how she twisted and turned, she couldn’t find a logical connection between the three victims. She gazed out through the mullioned windows. The lights of the big city were hard and artificial. The shadows between the sources of light were deep and black. Perfect for a killer.
IRENE FELT well rested after eight hours of deep sleep. She called Jonny’s room at a quarter past seven, and after ten rings she heard the receiver picked up. Then, with a crash, it fell to the floor and she could hear Jonny’s muffled “Damn it!” He finally managed to get the receiver to his ear.
“Jonny. . Jonny Blom,” a cracked voice bleated.
“Time for breakfast,” Irene chirped.
“Breakfas. . God damn-”
The receiver on the other end of the line was slammed down, and Irene felt both anger and dejection. Having to drag Jonny around Copenhagen was like having a ball and chain around her ankle. A hungover Jonny was a catastrophe. There were some good moments when he was sober, and he could even be useful. But if he felt half as bad as he had sounded on the phone, he was going to be worthless.
Irene went down and ate a delicious breakfast. She took her time. The sun outside was already shining brightly, and it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day.
Jonny never showed up in the breakfast room.
Back upstairs she changed into a short-sleeved light blue linen shirt. She kept the dark blue pants on but put on her black loafers. She took off her socks as a gesture to the summery feeling she had. She decided that the dark blue linen blazer would have to do as a coat. With her big canvas bag nonchalantly hanging over her shoulder, she looked more like a tourist on a shopping spree than a cop on the trail of a killer.
She called Jonny before she left the room, and after several rings he managed to answer the phone. Irene could only hear a guttural mumble, and then the receiver hit the cradle again.
With a sigh, Irene decided to let him sleep.
SHE WALKED down to the Vesterbro police station. It hadn’t even been a week since she was here last, but it felt like an entire year had passed. Maybe it was the change in the weather that gave her this feeling. Last week she had been cold and had shivered, and now she was enjoying the warm wind’s promise of summer.
Beate Bentsen, Peter Møller, and Jens Metz were already sitting in Bentsen’s office. The air was thick with smoke. Irene hesitated on the threshold before she stepped into the room. Møller seemed to sense why. He opened the window. Whether the air outside was any cleaner was debatable but at least it diluted the nicotine concentration in the room.
Everyone greeted her warmly and welcomed her back, even if the reason for her return might have been more pleasant.
“Weren’t there supposed to be two of you?” Beate Bentsen asked.
Irene had hoped to avoid that particular question but realized that was wishful thinking. “Yes. . but my colleague wasn’t feeling well this morning. I thought it would be best if he could sleep.”
“Does he need a doctor?”
“No. It will pass on its own. Eventually.”
“A hangover,” Jens Metz whispered theatrically.
He winked meaningfully at Irene. She was ashamed of Jonny’s behavior. Personally, he wouldn’t have the good sense to be ashamed, she thought, and her irritation grew.
“We’ll start without your colleague and you’ll have to try and bring him up to speed when he gets here. Both Jens and Peter were present at the Hotel Aurora when Isabell Lind was found.”
Beate Bentsen looked at the two inspectors over the rims of her French designer glasses.
Jens Metz leaned back in his chair and linked his sausage-like fingers over his belly. The backrest protested nervously but Metz didn’t seem to hear it. Or maybe he was used to chairs whining under his weight.
“We got the call on Thursday afternoon, May 20, that a dead woman had been found at the Hotel Aurora by some painters. Peter and I got there shortly after four thirty. The medical examiner had already arrived and was inspecting the corpse. Here you can see the pictures of what we were faced with.”
Metz bent forward, breathing heavily, and shook some photos out of a thick envelope.
Irene started with a picture of the room. It was taken from a high angle. The photographer must have been standing on a tall stool or a ladder.
Under the bare window, an overturned nightstand lay on the floor next to a lamp with a broken plastic shade. A bed could be seen in the rear next to the wall. Another bed had been placed in the center of the room. Isabell was lying on top of it.
Irene took out another photo. It was an enlargement of the bed with Isabell’s body spread out on top.
Her hands were chained with handcuffs to the high wooden bed-posts. She was lying on her back, completely naked, with her legs spread apart. There was a deep incision from the top of her collarbone all the way down to her pelvic bone. Mechanically, Irene noticed that the incision hadn’t bled very much. There was, however, a good deal of blood under her, from her waist down to her separated legs.
Irene switched to the next photo, which was a close-up of the head and neck area. Strangulation marks from a noose were evident on her throat. Isabell’s eyes were wide open, and her tongue hung out of her mouth, dark and swollen.
Irene was completely unprepared for her reaction. She was barely able to make it to her knees by the wastepaper basket before she threw up. The entirety of the delicious Danish breakfast came up.
When she was done, she got up on shaky legs and stammered, “Excuse me. . I’ll go and wash the basket. . but this girl was a friend of my daughters’ for many years. . lived next door. . and stayed over and ate with us. . ”
“We understand. It’s difficult when you know the victim,” Bentsen said soothingly.
Irene quickly grabbed the basket and slipped down the corridor. She knew where the bathroom was.
She cleaned the basket and blessed the fact that it was made of plastic. Woven rattan would have been worse. She bathed her face with ice-cold water and washed her mouth clean. Then she saw her pale face in the mirror and mumbled half inaudibly to her reflection, “It’s not just the fact that I knew you. It’s my fault that you died. I led the murderer to you. Oh, Bell!”
Her throat felt thick with suppressed sobs, but there wasn’t time for sorrow right now. For Bell’s sake she was forced to try to be professional and objective. And what would the Danes think? One Swedish police officer is lying in bed at the hotel with a hangover, and the other pukes when she sees pictures from the murder scene.
Her Danish colleagues were sitting in the same places, waiting for her arrival, each with a fresh cigarette. The smoke made her feel ill again, but she braced herself.
“I’m sorry. It’s OK now,” Irene said and sat down.
She didn’t pick up the close-up of Bell again, but turned to Jens Metz instead and asked, “What did the medical examiner say?”
“She had been dead more than twelve hours but less than twenty when she was found. He thought that fifteen to seventeen hours was a good guess. It matches the time she disappeared. She was strangled first. That’s the cause of death.”