carrot juice, she thought in her sour morning mood. She regretted it the next moment because she knew how Svante had slaved during the investigations of the murders, putting in lots of overtime. Basta might be tied to the various crime scenes by means of the tedious work of technicians.
“STRANGELY ENOUGH, the seminal fluid in Erik Bolin’s hair appears to have been rubbed in. One theory is that when the murderer cut off the head and carried it out to the hat rack he forgot that he had semen on his hands. He probably carried the head by the hair and under the chin because we’ve also found quite a bit there. And the semen is not Bolin’s. We ran a DNA profile and sent it to Copenhagen. It’s an exact match with the semen found at one of their crime scenes. Under the bed of the guy whose name was . . .”
Svante looked down at his papers. To save time, Irene filled in, “Emil Bentsen.”
“Exactly. Thanks. And incidentally, Irene, the shoe print in your flower bed matches the print in the blood at the hotel room where Isabell Lind was found. It’s identical. In addition, in all likelihood the prints match the ones we found in the mausoleum at Stampen. That’s a little less certain because the prints were in dust. No fingerprint matches were found. We can conclude that Basta hasn’t been in trouble with the law.”
Svante stopped and looked at Irene.
“Have you identified the guy?” he asked.
“No. We know what he looks like and that he’s called Basta. He’s been located in both Göteborg and Copenhagen. And he could be a doctor or an artist according to our witness statements,” said Irene.
“Why don’t you put out a warrant for his arrest?” wondered Malm.
“It’s hard to decide. On the one hand we want to identify him as quickly as possible. And on the other hand we don’t want him to know how close we are to him. We hope he thinks he’s smarter than we are and that his overconfidence will be his downfall. But I don’t know . . . maybe we need to put out an APB on him in both Denmark and Sweden at the same time and very soon. The difficulty is knowing when the right time is. If we do it too soon, he may go into hiding and if we do it too late, he may have time to commit a new murder,” said Irene.
Svante nodded to show that he understood the dilemma. He looked down at his papers and continued, “We’ve enlarged the index fingertip that can be seen in the video of the dismemberment of Marcus Tosscander. It’s the index finger of a left hand and the nail is severely deformed. Here you go. There are five enlargements.”
He pulled out the photographs from a brown envelope and passed them around the table. The superintendent, Irene, Hannu, and Jonny each took one. The tip of the finger wasn’t round; it was flat and looked as if it had been chopped off. The nail covered just the nail bed, and its surface seemed to be dented. While the officers were examining the enlargements, Svante continued, “On the floor of the burial crypt we’ve found some stains that could very well be seminal fluid. But unfortunately they’ve started decaying and are too dried out to be useful. But we found more stains on the shroud inside the coffin where Tosscander’s head was lying, which are in better condition. We’re working on them right now.”
What if the semen turned out to have come from the same man who had left semen behind on the floor at Emil’s and in Bolin’s hair?
“What the hell is the sick bastard actually up to?” Superintendent Andersson exclaimed.
You don’t want to know, Irene nearly said, but she managed to stop herself in time.
IRENE SAT staring listlessly at Manpower. She felt intensifying anger and hate directed at the black silhouette in the picture. At the same time she considered what might turn a person into a necrophile.
With a bang, the door hit the wall. Professor Stridner rushed in on clicking heels, dressed in a thin, light green dress of some shiny material, enveloped in the strong scent of Joy. Despite the fact that she was neither slender nor tall, she wore the dress with a superb confidence. Irene became uncomfortably aware of her own worn jeans and short-sleeved denim shirt. At least my sandals are new, she comforted herself.