door in the kitchen that was locked led to Emil’s bedroom.
The rooms were almost identically furnished; each held a wide bed, a large fancy dresser with a mirror above it, and a leather recliner with a floor lamp next to it. On the floor were worn but beautiful folk art rugs. The closets were empty as well as the dressers. Everything was covered by a thick layer of dust, which indicated that no one had lived in the rooms for several weeks, maybe even months. The only thing that made the rooms different was the color scheme. One of them was decorated blue, the other green. Both the rooms had wonderful views of the Botanical Gardens.
The kitchen and the bathroom were dusty and dirty, but not as filthy as Emil’s. There was actually a certain degree of impersonal order discernable.
Jens Metz turned around and breathed old booze in Irene’s face. “We’re going to let the technicians search for hair strands and so forth in both of the rental rooms. We have lots of hairs from the Hotel Aurora since the victim there was found in an old hotel room. We’re going to search Emil’s apartment thoroughly. It’s going to take a hell of a long time but if we’re lucky we’ll find hair or something else that matches,” he said.
Irene nodded. She couldn’t speak since she was holding her breath. The question was who had the most repulsive mouth odor, Jonny or Jens.
They left the rental area and entered Emil’s apartment. The smell of decaying flesh still hung in the air even though the body had been taken to the morgue. Irene opened the window in the kitchen. The technicians were in the process of collecting evidence in Emil’s bedroom. A short, rather rotund young man looked up at the police officers through the door opening, and said, “This is going to take a while. There is more dust and shit than you can imagine. It doesn’t look like the guy ever cleaned.”
“Fingerprints?” Peter Møller asked.
“Tons.”
“Anything of interest?”
“It looks like there are a lot of semen stains on the mattress and the bedclothes, but they appear to be older. We found a fresh semen stain under the bed. It’s very small but I think it will be enough for a DNA test. It looks like someone wiped up something with a rag, here by the bed. It’ll show up clearly when we light the area.”
“Did you find the rag?”
“No. The murderer probably wasn’t stupid enough to leave it behind.”
“Where is the area that was wiped clean?”
“Here.” The technician pointed at the floor just below the head of the bed.
Peter Møller nodded and turned to Irene. “Finally, we may have a bit of luck. The murderer slipped up and left some traces. If it’s from him, that is. Emil could have left a sample before he was killed.”
“You mean that if the semen belongs to the killer, he achieved climax through performing his rituals, and cleaned up afterward but missed a spot under the bed?”
“Yes.”
The bright sunlight fell on the only picture in the room, a large framed black-and-white photo of a man in an incredibly exposed pose. He was half sitting against some large pillows. The focus was on his very erect penis. Even though his face and upper body were a bit fuzzy, Irene recognized him. She hadn’t done so during the shock and chaos of the previous night. Now she saw that the model was Marcus Tosscander. What was even worse was that she recognized the type of photograph. Tom Tanaka had two of them hanging in his bedroom.
This realization hit her like a blow to the head. She needed to speak with Tom as soon as possible. He would probably be questioned since the police knew that Emil usually hung out in Tom’s store. But they wouldn’t find out anything from Tom. Emil’s murder would just confirm his suspicions about the police in general and the Vesterbro station in particular.
The four crime inspectors backed out into the hall. They had to leave the bedroom to the technicians for the time being.
“Since there are four of us, I suggest that we each take a room to check. Jonny can take the bathroom; Peter, the kitchen; Irene can take the other room—the music room—and I’ll take the living room,” said Metz.
No one else came up with a better suggestion so each went to his or her assigned room.
Irene opened the door and stopped abruptly on the threshold to the