A pair of well-polished light brown boots in size eleven stood on the floor.
There was an old vacuum cleaner, a green plastic carpet beater, and an ironing board in the cleaning closet.
The door on the opposite wall led into a small bathroom. It was so small that the toilet was placed as close as possible to the bathtub. The washbasin was squeezed under the window on the short wall. The walls were painted a shade of pale green like linden tree blossoms. The floor was covered in gray tiles, several of which were cracked. Irene opened the medicine chest and determined that it was empty except for a hairbrush and a squeezed-out tube of toothpaste. The entire space was meticulously clean and fresh.
On the hall floor there was a small sun-yellow rag rug. The hall lamp was broken but light flooded in from the open door as well as through a high picture window. Irene normally wasn’t very sensitive to how people cleaned their homes, but even she had to admit that she had rarely seen such well-polished windows. White curtains woven in a pattern of flying seagulls hung on either side of the window. When Irene looked closer, she discovered that the curtains had been carefully starched.
Just to the left of the main door was a kitchen alcove a few square meters in size. A minimal stove, a fridge and freezer, and a few beige-colored kitchen cabinets shared the limited space. The small sink shone like a commercial for some miraculous cleanser.
The bedroom appeared to be sizable because it held almost no furniture. The walls were sponge-painted in a pale apricot color. In the middle of the floor was an old but faultlessly clean hooked rug in green and yellow. A bed with a simple green-and-white striped cotton bedspread stood along one of the shorter walls. By the window, there was a small pine kitchen table and two odd kitchen chairs. A cheap shelf unit from IKEA covered the entirety of the opposite wall. A small TV with a VCR stood on the middle shelf. There were no books but there were lots of videos and sketch pads in different sizes, organized in neat rows. On the bottom shelf were some stretchers for canvases.
“Wow, this guy really cleans and keeps things tidy!” Birgitta said, impressed.
Two pictures hung over the bed, the only wall decorations in the room. When Irene saw them she was speechless. She could only grab Birgitta’s arm and point.
“You’re pinching!” Birgitta cried.
When she looked in the direction indicated by Irene’s index finger, she grew quiet.
The paintings were two portraits, one of a man, the other of a woman. Their heads seemed to be floating freely in the air, since the necks were not attached to any upper body.
“Carmen Østergaard and Marcus Tosscander,” Irene said with an unsteady voice.
Andersson stepped up to the paintings and examined them attentively.
“Are you sure? I mean about the woman. I recognize Tosscander, of course,” he said.
“I’m absolutely sure. It’s Carmen.”
Carmen’s portrait background was violet-purple. Her wavy brown hair framed a pale gray face. Her wide-open eyes were weary and blank.
The background of Marcus’s portrait was golden ochre, beautiful against his dark hair. The warm color contrasted with the greenish gray pallor of his skin. His eyes were also wide open and dull.
“Oh my God! He’s painted their decapitated heads,” Irene exclaimed.
Andersson took a step back in order to get another angle on the pictures.
“You think so?” he said.
“I’m sure. Don’t you see?”
“It actually looks that way,” the superintendent agreed.
Hannu stood by the bookshelf and flipped through the sketch pads. “Come here and look,” he said.
The other three went over to him. Without a word, he held out a large pad and showed them the sketches on the first page. They were of Carmen’s head. Basta had drawn it from different angles. On some of them you could see the cut on the underside of the throat. There was no doubt about the fact that the head had been chopped off.
“Turn,” Hannu ordered.
Irene turned the page and they saw the sketch for the painting that was hanging on the wall.
The following five pages held sketches of internal organs. Irene could make out a heart and intestines in varying thicknesses. She had probably understood subconsciously what was coming, but when it suddenly popped up she still was very upset. First there was a detailed sketch of a severed female breast, then an interior study of a female vagina.