autopsy room she recalled his well-trained arm muscles playing under his gleaming brown skin.
Basta had been helpful. He’d made a very skillful copy of Marcus’s tattoo. Had he thought they would never be able to trace the origin of the tattoo? Or had he seen no way to say no when Stridner gave him the assignment? These were just some of the questions Irene wanted to ask when they caught him.
Stridner described Basta to the two employees in the lounge. Before she was finished, the dark man nodded. “I know his name . . . hmmm . . . could be Sebastian. But he’s also called Basta, hmmm . . . called Basta. Not his last name.”
He threw up his light-colored palms with an apologetic smile.
Britt Nilsson looked uncertain. “An attendant works here sometimes who matches the description. But I don’t know his name,” she said.
Stridner turned on her heel and said, “I have the employee records in my office. We have his first name to work with.”
Irene could feel a draft when the professor swished past.
YVONNE STRIDNER pounced on her yellow-spined cloth binders. She studied “Employees 1998-1999.” Her index finger wandered down the list. She stopped at a name and cried out, “Here! Sebastian Martinsson. Born March 7, 1970. Lives on Gamla Björlandavägen. His telephone number is also here.”
Yvonne Stridner handed the binder to Irene so that she would also be able to read the entry. Irene wrote down the information on her notepad and thanked Stridner for her help.
She waved it off. “Don’t mention it. Just make sure you catch him as quickly as possible. He isn’t going to stop killing. Sooner or later he’ll do it again. He’s simply biding his time,” she said.
She looked at her elegant watch. Something told Irene that the Rolex hadn’t been purchased on some shady backstreet in Bangkok. Because it was sitting on Yvonne’s wrist, it was one hundred percent certain that the glittering diamonds around the face were real.
“Now I have to get going! The plane to New York won’t wait, even for me!”
IRENE CONTACTED Hannu and Birgitta on their cell phones. Jonny didn’t answer his. A mechanical voice asked her to leave a message since the subscriber wasn’t available, which meant that he had turned off his phone. Typical, but maybe it was just as well. Hannu, Birgitta, and she would be able to undertake the search and any possible arrest. She and Hannu had been in agreement that the prosecutor should be brought in immediately. Since Hannu was in Säve, looking for the location of the dismemberment, it would be fastest if Birgitta, who was in the station, spoke with the prosecutor.
They agreed to meet in Superintendent Andersson’s office at three o’clock. He needed to have all the information before they proceeded.
Irene decided to check whether Basta happened to be in the Department of Pathology right that moment. His time sheet hadn’t been filled out after June 4. Was he going to be off work for the rest of the summer? Irene checked the list. Basta had worked from March 4 to 12. He had been in Göteborg right after they believed Marcus had been dismembered. He had also been at work on May 31 through June 4. He had been in Göteborg when Erik Bolin was killed, as well. There were relatively large gaps in Basta’s work schedule, anywhere from two to three weeks. Had he been in Copenhagen? She checked the dates of the murders of Isabell Lind and Emil Bentsen. An empty hole gaped then, as well as during the time Tom Tanaka was attacked.
Irene went into the empty corridor. She didn’t see a living soul to ask about Basta. She walked down the stairs with heavy steps. Hesitantly, she stopped outside the door to the autopsy room. Sharp howling from a bone saw could be heard from within. She straightened up and opened the door.
Two autopsies were in progress. Britt Nilsson was at one of the tables, in the middle of picking out the organs from the chest. A belching sound from gases being pressed out of the windpipe could be heard as she picked up the heart and lung package.
Autopsies could seem disgusting, but no one was more aware than Irene of how important they could be. Only a dead body could tell the truth about what had really happened. The mute testimony of the corpse had to be taken down by keen and skilled medical examiners. They had to interpret what the