The Treacherous Net by Helene Tursten Read Free Book Online

news began with confirmation from the police that Alexandra Hallwiin had been murdered. They were asking for information from anyone who had seen anything on Walpurgis Night, in the vicinity of the bus stop on Torslandavägen, in the area north of Lilleby and around Nötsund. They were particularly interested in hearing about any cars in the area that might have picked up Alexandra.
    Surely someone must have seen the girl after she closed the gate of that impressive house on the hill, but not one single witness had come forward, presumably because of the wet and windy weather over the weekend. There had been no gangs of kids gathering on the shore for a barbecue; everyone had stayed indoors.
    The police have also confirmed that the young woman whose body was found in the Gårdstensbergen area yesterday was the victim of a homicide. She went missing approximately one week before she was found. The police are not revealing her identity until all the relatives have been informed.
    The newsreader moved on to their second case involving a murdered girl.
    Irene nodded to herself. They still hadn’t managed to track down Moa Olsson’s father. Hannu was working on it, so Irene had high hopes of success. Could the missing father be the killer? From a purely statistical point of view, it was certainly possible. But there was something about the MO that made it seem unlikely. The injuries to Moa’s body indicated extreme sexual violence with a sadistic twist. There were no reports to suggest that Moa’s father had subjected her to any kind of sexual assault. According to the mother, he hadn’t even seen Moa since she was one year old. He had major problems with drug and alcohol abuse; he had drifted away to the periphery of society, and had broken off all contact with his daughter.
    . . . as the remains of the building were being demolished.
    Irene suddenly became aware that the next big story was the discovery of the mummy. The recently purchased flat-screen TV was showing pictures of the cordoned-off area around the exposed cellar, though the police cars were obscuring the view. The cameras had just managed to catch a shot of the corpse being taken away in a body bag.
    It appears that the body had been walled up in an aperture next to the base of the chimney. The police are not prepared to comment on the identity of the victim at this stage .
    The mummy was still a mystery. Tommy had spent the afternoon compiling a list of men who had disappeared without a trace over the past forty years. It had turned out to be a very long list. They had agreed to wait for the forensic pathologist’s preliminary report,which should tell them how long the body had been walled up. It would also be interesting to get an idea of his age; that would enable them to cross a lot of names off the list.
    Irene had gone through the database searching for sex offenders with sexual violence as part of their MO. Alexandra’s injuries indicated an extremely violent perpetrator, possibly with ritualistic tendencies, according to the pathologist. She had given a copy to Hannu, as there seemed to be certain similarities to the case of Moa Olsson.
    She too had ended up with a long list. She had been able to delete several names right away because the violence had been directed at the woman the man in question was living with or had lived with. A further three men had been deported after serving their sentence, which left twenty-three names on the list. Tomorrow she and Jonny would start going through them.
    Before she left for the day, Irene had called forensics to find out what had been used to strangle Alexandra. To her surprise it turned out to be a common computer cable; the various components of virtually every computer were linked by such thin cables. The killer had looped it around the girl’s neck, pulled it tight, then looped the rest around again. Which was an odd thing to do; it was as if he wanted to make sure it stayed put.
    The three recent