edge. It felt as if her legs wouldn’t hold her.
“Is she . . . is she dismembered?” she finally managed to get out.
“No. None of the parts are missing. But the murder method bears our murderer’s signature. She was strangled and abused, the same as Carmen Østergaard and the boy you found. The stomach was cut open but none of the contents were removed, according to Svend Blokk, who performed the autopsy.”
“Oh my God!” was all Irene could say.
“We want you to come back to Copenhagen. You know more than we do about Isabell and the investigation in Göteborg. I would also like to ask a big favor.”
“What?”
“That you notify the parents. It would be better than if we tried to convey this kind of message over the phone, and in Danish.”
Irene knew that he was right but her stomach clenched. She didn’t want to face Monika Lind’s despair. But she had to.
“OK, I’ll do it. But I have to talk to my boss about returning to Copenhagen.”
Andersson’s expression told her that he also had a good deal he wanted to talk about. The color of his face was ominous, and his expression was grim.
He exploded when she hung up the phone. “What the hell! Who’s been dismembered?”
Irene had to go through the whole Isabell Lind story from the very beginning, starting with Monika’s phone call. She went to get the tourist guide she had taken from the hotel room with the picture of the girls from Scandinavian Models.
Sven Andersson looked sternly at Irene. “And the only ones you showed the picture to were the three police officers you worked with on the murder-mutilation?”
For a hundredth of a second, Tom Tanaka’s heavy image floated in front of her eyes but she decided to keep him out of this. Her instinct was to protect his identity.
“Yes,” she said, looking Andersson in the eye.
The superintendent gazed at her for a long time. Maybe he sensed that she was hiding information.
“OK. You are going back to Copenhagen tomorrow. But you are taking Hannu with you.”
“That’s not possible,” said Hannu.
“Geez. You don’t have to stay the whole Whitsuntide,” said Andersson.
“I’m getting married.”
The others stared at him as though he had just revealed that he was the murderer. No one had anything to say.
Irene tried to get her act together. “Oh. I mean . . . congratulations.” “Thanks.”
“Who the hell are you marrying?” said Andersson.
“Birgitta.”
Of course. Irene’s brain finally started working again. She had spied on Hannu and seen him get into Birgitta’s car, had thought they might be dating, but in her wildest imagination she hadn’t dreamed that it would go as far as marriage.
Andersson gasped for breath. After he managed to get some oxygen, he exclaimed, “Birgitta Moberg, here in the unit? Are you insane? A married couple can’t work together in the same unit!”
Hannu met his boss’s tirade calmly. “It will only be for about half a year. Then she will be on maternity leave a while and we’ll have to think things over.”
The silence was heavy. Irene sensed it was a good thing she was sitting. Andersson’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets. She worried about his blood pressure, since she knew he didn’t always take his medicine.
“Well. This is a pretty kettle of fish! My inspectors, going behind my back and keeping secrets from me. Irene is conducting her own investigations in Copenhagen, and Hannu and Birgitta are getting married—”
He paused before he continued, “Of course, that doesn’t have anything to do with the job. But it still has to affect work when two inspectors are in a relationship. Not good at all!”
“Have you noticed any effect on my work or Birgitta’s?” asked Hannu.
A certain sharpness could be sensed in his voice. Andersson took note of it and didn’t answer. He just stared sourly in front of him. After a while he turned his chair around to face Jonny and said, “Well. And what kind of secret business do you have going on?”
Jonny looked very puzzled. “None. Not that I know of. None,” he answered, stammering.
No, you don’t have enough imagination Irene thought.
“Good. Then you can go with Irene to Copenhagen tomorrow morning. We can’t let her loose on her own because then people start dying like flies!”
It was an immature and unfair comment, thought Irene. But she understood that he was really stressed.
“Actually, I can’t go anywhere tomorrow either. As you may recall, I asked for the day off. We are going to