Read Online The Beige Man by Helene Tursten - Free Book Online

woman!”
    “That’s enough, both of you!” Andersson’s face was purple as he slammed his fist down on the table. He hated this kind of thing. He pointed a threatening finger at Birgitta and Jonny. “Enough!” he barked.
    Birgitta sat down. She pressed her lips together and glared at an old, faded print on the wall. It showed several cranes in a harbor against an insipid grey-blue sky.
    “Over-sensitive … nit-picking … no sense of humor,” Jonny muttered, just loud enough to be heard.
    Irene attempted to dispel the tense atmosphere by telling the late arrivals about the key that fit the door of Torleif Sandberg’s apartment.
    “So it seems like it really is Torleif lying there in the morgue,” Andersson said.
    “Yes. And we’ve started to check on boys who are on the run from various institutions right now. There aren’t very many of them: three who fit the description, as far as we can tell.”
    “Try to pick them up so we can eliminate them from the investigation if nothing else,” Andersson said to Irene.
    She nodded and caught Tommy’s eye. Time to get to grips with Daniel Lindgren, Niklas Ström and Billy Kjellgren.
    Andersson turned to Birgitta. “So why are you going to speak to Superintendent Linda Holm in Human Trafficking?” he said with heavy irony.
    “Such a young girl should have been reported missing if she’s Swedish or from another Scandinavian country, but there’s no record anywhere of such a report. There are clear signs on her body that she has been subjected to extreme sexual violence over a long period. Stridner also said that the girl was suffering from some kind of infection, and there are the needle marks on the body, indicating narcotics abuse. Putting all of this together, I think our murder victim is a sex slave who has been smuggled into the country.”
    Andersson nodded slowly and gazed pensively at the dark windows, the wet snow pattering against the glass. With a little imagination it was possible to sense a hint of light that just might be dawn in the miserable greyness. He started drumming his fingers again. In spite of the fact that they were prepared for it, everyone jumped when he suddenly slapped his palm down on the table.
    “Irene, Fredrik and Birgitta, you work on the murdered girl. Jonny, I want you to take Irene’s place in the investigation into Torleif’s death, along with Tommy and Hannu. As for the guy in Brudaremossen, we’ll wait for the results of the autopsy. If he’s been dead for months, then he can wait a few more days,” he decided.
    Irene was just as surprised as everyone else, but she realized why Andersson had changed things around. There was far too much tension between Jonny and Birgitta, and it could affect the investigation. The reasons behind the toxic atmosphere went back at least seven years, to the time when Birgitta started in the unit. Almost immediately Jonny had started coming onto the blonde cutie with the sparkling brown eyes. He had gone in with his usual blunt style. At the annual Christmas party his attentions had turned physical, and Birgitta had had enough. In the middle of the dance floor she had expressed her opinions on Jonny and his groping. To the delight of her colleagues, she certainly hadn’t minced her words.
    The following year, when Birgitta received pornographic photos in an envelope through the internal mail with no sender’s name on the envelope, Jonny immediately had become the prime suspect. Even though it later transpired that another former colleague had sent the pictures, the working relationship between Jonny and Birgitta was totally ruined. It had improved somewhat in recent years, but it was never going to recover completely.
    On one occasion, suffering from an unusual desire to confide in someone, Andersson had asked Irene if she thought it would be better for Birgitta to move to another department. Irene had been furious and had snapped, “It’s not Birgitta who was in the wrong! She’s