Chapter Two
HENRIK VON KNECHT DIDN’T say a word during the five-minute car trip. He sat with his head bent forward, his forehead in his hands, and his elbows propped on his knees. Inspector Huss didn’t ask him to put on his seat belt, but let him sit there, lost in his grief, in silence.
When they turned onto Molinsgatan, Irene Huss saw that it wasn’t just Superintendent Andersson and the crime scene technicians who were gathered outside Richard von Knecht’s building. Two people she recognized quite well were squeezed into the doorway of the menswear store. She drove by them and turned left on Engelbrektsgatan. Huss lightly touched Henrik von Knecht’s arm, which made him jump as if she had wakened him.
“Where are we going?” he asked in confusion.
“I thought I’d drive around the neighborhood and park on Aschebergsgatan. There are two newspaper reporter guys waiting on the corner by the menswear store. Can we get into the building through a back courtyard and open the front door for the others from inside? That way you can ditch the hyenas,” she said.
A tense expression passed over his face, and he seemed to awaken. “Park here on the right side by Erik Dahlberg’s stairs. Take one of the two outer spots,” he directed.
They were lucky; one of the spots was vacant. Irene looked at his blood-flecked beige overcoat. She asked him to remain seated while she stepped out and opened the trunk. In it she had an old, greasy blue Helly Hansen jacket and her daughter’s black cap, embroidered with NY. She handed him the garments and said, “Take off your overcoat and put these on.”
He changed quickly inside the car, without revealing what he thought of his disguise.
They crossed the intersection at a brisk pace. This was the critical moment. She had to force herself not to look toward the corner fifty meters away. With strained composure they kept going for another twenty meters or so. Henrik von Knecht stopped at a massive wooden doorway, took a bundle of keys out of the pocket of his tailored trousers, and unlocked the door. One of the photographers poked his head around the corner, but he didn’t seem to react to the contrasts in von Knecht’s attire.
They slipped in through the doorway and wound up in a storage area. It was a combined bicycle and garbage room consisting of a passageway about twenty meters long equipped with locked doors at either end. Five green garbage cans stood close to the street entrance.
They hurried through the room, turned the lock of the inner door, and stepped into a small, square, back courtyard. It was dominated by a big tree in the center, and illuminated by an old-fashioned streetlight. Flower beds bordered the walls. On each wall there was a little entry door with a window, and each door was lighted by a bright exterior lamp. Henrik von Knecht strode directly to the one on the left, unlocked the door, and held it open for Irene Huss. He reached out his hand toward the glowing red button to turn on the stairway lights.
“Don’t turn on the lights! Or the reporters will see that something’s going on,” she snapped.
She took out her little high-intensity flashlight from the pocket of her poplin jacket. With the beam pointed downward she started up the five narrow steps, went through a low doorway, and stepped out into a large stairwell. In the beam of light the floor’s variegated marble gleamed. To her right she could see the light from an elevator window. She turned off the flashlight and they headed off toward the stairs, which led down to the front entrance. When she was opposite the elevator door she could see the upper part of the front door’s beautiful incised-glass pane. She took a few steps forward and glimpsed the heads of the superintendent and the techs outside. Cautiously she stepped to one side of the broad stairway, grabbed the carved banister, and glided down the ten steps to the front door. She padded across the soft carpet in the foyer, pulled open the door behind her colleagues, and loudly urged, “Hurry! Come inside before the ambulance chasers get here!”
“Hurry? How the hell are we going to do that when we’ve just pissed our pants?” asked Police Technician Svante Malm.
Superintendent Andersson later claimed that he had never been so close to a heart attack in all his life.
They slipped in through the door before the tabloid reporters at the corner figured out what was happening. Irene turned on the stairwell lights. The superintendent blinked his eyes angrily and snapped, “What the hell are you doing?”
Irene didn’t reply, but gazed up in wonder at the walls of the stairwell. The frescoes were amazing, with children romping among wood anemones and an allegorical figure of Springtime, flying in a cart drawn by huge exotic butterflies. It was all done in light, elegant, springlike pastels. On the opposite wall was a full Midsummer Eve celebration done in considerably richer and more intense tones. Grown-ups and children danced in the summer twilight, and the fiddler sawed away at his instrument for dear life. His face was shiny with sweat; his eyes glistened with the joy of making music.
“Carl Larsson did the paintings, in the early eighteen nineties.”
The police turned their faces to the top of the stairs, where the voice had come from. In his disguise, Henrik von Knecht looked undeniably bizarre. He peered down at the four officers and nodded to Irene before he continued.
“Inspector Huss was kind enough to help me get past the press. Shall we go upstairs?” He gestured toward the elevator door. The police trudged up the stairs and squeezed into the tiny elevator. A brass plate said MAX. FIVE PERSONS. Irene sincerely hoped that meant full-grown persons. She made a point of introducing Henrik von Knecht to the other three: Superintendent Andersson and the crime scene technicians Svante Malm and Per Svensson. The latter was carrying the heavy lighting equipment and various cameras.
The elevator took them up to the fifth floor without a hitch. They stepped out and walked over to a huge carved double door. A slender wrought-iron grid in the shape of entwined French lilies covered the door’s cut-glass window. The carvings on the lower half of the door represented leaping and gamboling deer. Svante Malm put his lips together to whistle, impressed by its magnificence.
Irene thought that Henrik von Knecht seemed to have recovered a little of his spirit during their game of hide-and-seek with the press. But when they stepped out of the elevator the rigid expression was back on his face. Superintendent Andersson saw it too.
“You don’t need to go into the apartment with us,” he said kindly.
“But I want to!”
His reply came like a cobra strike. The superintendent was surprised, and he hesitated. “I see, all right. But you have to stay right next to us. You can’t touch anything, sit on any chairs, or turn on any lights. Of course we’re grateful that you can guide us through the apartment. How big is it?”
“Three hundred fifty square meters. It takes up the whole floor. The other three flats in the building take up a whole floor too. Pappa bought this building in the late seventies and had it renovated very carefully. It’s on the National Register, of course,” he informed them.
“So there are only three other apartments in the whole building?”
“Right.”
While they were talking, the superintendent had put on a pair of thin rubber gloves. With a gesture he asked Henrik von Knecht for the door key. He took it and unlocked the door.
Gingerly gripping the very end of the door handle, he pressed it down and opened the door to the apartment.
“Don’t touch any light switches in the hall. Turn on your flashlights,” Svante Malm exhorted. He sighed and went on, “The laser is broken, so I’ll have to use the good old powder method.”
As soon as the technician said this, he began to search for the light switch with the beam from his flashlight. When he found it just inside the door, he asked Irene to keep her flashlight pointed at the switch while he blew metallic powder over the entire plastic switch plate. Carefully he brushed away the excess, pressed a thin plastic sheet over the surface, and then peeled it off. A look of astonishment spread across his long, narrow face.
“Completely blank. Not a single mark! Someone has wiped the switch plate clean,” he said, astounded.
“That’s probably why it smells like Ajax,” said Irene.
She sniffed the air. There was something else. A cigar. That explained the Christmas mood that had stolen over her unconscious when they stepped into the hall. A memory from her childhood Christmases. Her mother’s Ajax and her father’s Christmas cigar. She turned to von Knecht.
“Did your father smoke cigars?”
“Yes, sometimes. On festive occasions . . .”
His voice died out to a whisper. He swallowed hard, for he too had noticed the cigar smell. Barely moving his lips, he whispered to Irene, “Why are they taking fingerprints?”
She thought about what the medical examiner had said, but decided to evade his question. “Just routine. We always do this when we’re called to the scene of a sudden death,” she explained.
He made no comment but clenched his jaws so hard that the muscles bulged out like rock-hard pillows along his jawline.
Svante Malm turned on the light in the hall, which was airy and of an imposing size. The ceiling had to be four meters high. The floor was made of light gray marble. To the right of the door paraded five built-in wardrobes with doors carved of some dark wood. The one in the middle was adorned with an oval mirror that took up almost the entire door panel. Despite this, one of the biggest and most ornamental mirrors Irene had ever seen loomed up on the opposite wall. Below it stood an equally ornate gilt console table. Superintendent Andersson turned to von Knecht.
“Can you give us a rough idea of the apartment’s layout?”
“Of course. The door next to the mirror leads to a toilet. The door after that goes to the kitchen.”
“And the door opposite the kitchen, next to the wardrobes?”
“It leads to the guest suite on this level. There’s also a separate bathroom with a toilet in there. Straight ahead we have the door to the living room. All the way in, to the left, is the stairway to the upper floor. Up there are the library, a small den, sauna, bedroom, TV room, and billiard room. And a bathroom with a toilet and Jacuzzi.”
Svante Malm had stopped in front of a shiny polished bureau with gilt fittings, rounded lines, and checkerboard veneer in alternating light and dark wood. With reverence in his voice he said, “I just have to ask: Is this a Haupt bureau?”
Henrik von Knecht snorted involuntarily. “No, the Haupt is in the library. Pappa bought this one in London. The insured value is five hundred fifty thousand kronor. Also a fine piece,” he said.
None of the policemen could think of anything to say. The superintendent turned to Irene. “You might as well stay here with Henrik while we take a look around,” he said.
“I’d like to come with you. There could be something that’s out of the ordinary,” von Knecht quickly countered.
He jutted out his chin and his mouth took on a stubborn look. Andersson gave him an appraising glance and nodded his assent. He turned to the crime scene technicians.
“Let’s check the balcony first,” he decided.
As a group they headed for the wide entrance to the living room. They stepped cautiously onto the vast, soft rug in the middle of the hall floor. Irene couldn’t help stopping to admire its shimmering gold pattern, which depicted a beautiful tree with birds and stylized animals, surrounded by a climbing plant like a grapevine against a dark blue background. She could feel von Knecht looking at her.
“That’s a semi-antique Motashemi-Keshan,” he said knowledgeably.
She had a fleeting vision of her latest investment on the rug front, a rusty red rug with small primitive stick figures in the corners. The salesperson at IKEA had assured her that it was a genuine, hand-tied Gabbeh, for the reasonable price of only two thousand kronor. She loved her rug and thought that it lit up the whole living room from its place beneath the coffee table.
Suddenly she had the equally fierce and foolish impulse to defend her rug. With more vehemence than she intended, she snapped, “Are you some kind of museum guy, or what?”
“No, but I deal in antiques,” he replied curtly.
They stood in the doorway until Henrik left the living room. In the flashlight beam Svante Malm was performing his fingerprint procedure on the big light switch panel, with the same negative results. Irene could sense that they were in a very large dining room. Light from the street filtered in through the sheer, drawn curtains. Windows seemed to run from floor to ceiling along the entire outer wall. Why did it feel like they were in a church? Since there weren’t any prints to be found, Malm flicked on the lights. Shiny, heavy brass chandeliers illuminated a huge dining room. They were all surprised and oddly awestruck, but the superintendent collected himself and said, “All right, then. Has everyone put on their plastic booties?”
The stairway began right next to the light switch panel and led up along the wall where they stood. With Andersson in the lead the techs quickly climbed the broad marble staircase.
Henrik pressed the last button on the panel, and with a soft hum the thin champagne-colored side drapes slid open.
She had envisioned it all wrong. The tall windows were not windows, but French doors to the balcony. And they didn’t stretch from floor to ceiling. The height of the ceiling at the outer wall was indeed eight meters. But above their heads the ceiling was only four meters high, stopping abruptly a few meters farther toward the windows. Irene walked into the room and looked around. What was the ceiling in this room was of course the floor of the upstairs level. Where the upper-level floor stopped, there was a lovely wrought-iron railing. It extended on two sides of the dining room. High above her head vaulted the stuccoed ceiling. No wonder she had the feeling of being in a church. From the ceiling hung three colossal chandeliers. The entire room was oblong, but it looked narrower than it was because marble pillars stood in rows supporting the upper floor.
Her colleagues walked with purposeful steps along the railing, over to the corner of the balcony in the big open library. She returned to Henrik, and they walked silently up the wide staircase together.
On the upper floor the odor of cigars was very strong. They followed the railing up to the airy library. To the left Irene saw a corridor with several doors. This must be where the other rooms and the sauna were, she realized. The sauna . . . She slowed her steps and stopped. Underlying the cigar smell was a familiar fragrance.
She took a deep breath and turned to Henrik. “Do you know what this smell is?”
He sniffed the air and nodded. “Eucalyptus. Pappa took a sauna. That’s why he had on his dressing gown,” he replied with a slight quaver in his voice.
She had a fleeting vision of the scene: the crushed body of Richard von Knecht dressed in a thick dressing gown of wine-red velvet terry cloth, his naked legs contorted and white in the floodlights, and the brown leather slippers lying a few meters from the body. She shuddered and concentrated on her colleagues standing by the door to the balcony.
The three men silently faced the locked door. Slowly Superintendent Andersson turned around and said solemnly to Henrik von Knecht, “Unfortunately, I must prepare you for the fact that there are strong indications that your father was murdered. The balcony door is locked from the inside, the key is in the lock, the handle is pulled down. And there’s no handle on the outside.”
This was too much for von Knecht. He dropped to his knees inside the balcony door with his hands to his face and broke into quiet, dry sobs.
Irene called for help, for someone from a squad car to drive him home in his white Mercedes.
BEFORE THE cruiser arrived, Inspector Huss asked him whether he could try to answer a few questions. He nodded affirmatively.
She began neutrally, “Where do you live?”
“The Örgryte neighborhood. On Långåsliden.”
“Do you have anyone who could stay with you tonight, or would you like us to contact someone?”
“My wife is home.”
“Oh.”
Irene could hear how stupid her remark sounded, but she was very surprised that von Knecht had a wife. She quickly tried to cover up her reaction.
“Does your wife know about what happened this evening?”
He shook his head without taking his hands from his face.
She went on, “If I understand correctly, you and your mother were in the street at the time your father fell. You were getting out of a car, is that right?”
For a long time he remained sitting silently in the same position. Irene began to wonder whether he even realized she had asked a question. She considered reformulating it when he removed his hands and looked straight at her. Again she saw the rigid mask. Even though his eyes were shining with tears, there was a layer of ice beneath the tears. He rubbed his face in a weary gesture.
“Pardon me . . . What did you ask me?”
Irene posed the question again. He took a deep breath before he answered.
“We parked around the corner, on Aschebergsgatan. I didn’t notice that anything had happened as I hurried around to open the door for Mamma. Then I heard a scream. I could see that . . . something was lying on the ground, and people were running over to it. Mamma ran there. She started screaming. I called the police from my cell phone. Well, you know the rest.”
“Where had you and your mother been?”
“We had decided to meet at Landvetter Airport. She came in on a plane from Stockholm that landed fifteen minutes after my own flight from London. It was a pure coincidence that our flights were arriving at the same time. We discovered it last Saturday when we had a party here. Mamma and Pappa were celebrating their thirtieth anniversary . . .”
He swallowed hard and fell silent. Huss realized that he wouldn’t be able to say much more.
“We can postpone the rest of our talk until tomorrow. Would you like me to come to your house or will you come down to the station?”
“I’ll come down to the station.”
“How does eleven sound? Bring your wife too.”
“We’ll try to be there at eleven.”
“It’s about time for us to go downstairs. The officers in the squad car can’t come through the front entrance, as you know,” she said gently.
She escorted him down in the elevator. He muttered his thanks and disappeared out into the darkness between the two waiting uniformed officers.
IRENE HAD to stop and admire the skillfully laid marble floor. The pattern was a black swan surrounded by pink and white lilies. It was the most beautiful floor she had ever seen. Carl Larsson on the stairwell walls, as an extra bonus, didn’t hurt the overall impression either.
In her many years on the police force, she had passed through hundreds of stairwells, most of them depressingly dilapidated, with the smell of piss and cooked food slamming visitors in the face like a kind of urban tear gas. The walls were scratched up and the graffiti shrieked COCK, NIGGER GO HOME, KILROY WAS HERE, and other cheery messages. Filthy stairs and front doors that had been kicked in were part of the usual picture. The police are seldom called to stairwells with marble inlay on the floor and Carl Larsson paintings on the walls.
THE BALCONY door was open and the techs were busy securing evidence. One obvious item was a meat cleaver. Not the size used by a butcher, but rather a smaller kitchen variety.
“This was lying on the floor of the balcony, right next to the wall. It was sheltered by part of the roof, so we’ll probably find something of interest on it,” said Andersson.
The superintendent was more excited than he wanted to show. His cheeks were flushed a bright red.
Irene said softly, “Are you okay? I mean . . . your blood pressure?”
“Why the hell are you bringing that up now?”
The superintendent was thrown quite off balance and looked annoyed. No one wants to be reminded of the incipient infirmities of old age. Hypertension was one of his. The techs looked up from their tasks in surprise. With great effort Andersson controlled himself and lowered his voice.
“The sauna was turned on. I got overheated when I looked inside,” he said without convincing even himself.
Irene decided to drop the sensitive question of her boss’s blood pressure. “Was the heating unit still on?” she wondered.
“No, it was off. And here’s the explanation for the cigar smell.”
Andersson pointed at the gray cylinder of ash left by a cigar that lay in a blue crystal ashtray, placed on a smoking table inset with a round copper disc. Beside the ashtray stood a short whisky glass with a trace of amber-colored liquid in the bottom. The smoking table stood between two sofas, which stood perpendicular to each other. They looked invitingly comfortable and were covered in soft wine-red leather. The sofa nearest the balcony was placed with its back to the wrought-iron railing, one end facing the balcony door. A wing chair was ensconced in front of the big mullioned window, upholstered in leather that matched the sofas. The halogen reading lamp next to it resembled a flesh-eating plant made of brass. The other sofa faced the balcony door, with its back to the stairway and the bedroom corridor. The placement of the ashtray and the whisky glass indicated that Richard von Knecht had been sitting on the latter sofa. The superintendent pondered the scene.
“Why was he sitting on the sofa and not in the wing chair?” he wondered.
“Check the speakers. One is in the corner and the other is on the other side of the balcony door. I’m guessing the sound is best right here on this sofa,” Irene replied.
She walked over to the CD player, which was hidden behind smoky glass doors in one of the bookshelves. With a pen she carefully pushed a button, and the disc slid out. Without touching it she read aloud: “The Best of Glenn Miller. So Richard von Knecht sits here, fresh out of the sauna, smoking a good cigar, drinking a shot of Scotch whisky, and listening to Glenn Miller. Suddenly he’s supposed to jump up, cut his hand with the cleaver, and throw himself off the balcony! It doesn’t sound very believable. Stridner was right, it wasn’t suicide.”
“Don’t forget that the balcony door was locked from the inside and the key was in the lock.”
“I wonder what happened.”
“That’s what we’re paid to find out,” said the superintendent dryly.
He turned toward the balcony and asked in a loud voice, “Svante, is there much blood on the balcony?”
Svante Malm stuck his freckled, horsy face through the door. “No, so far we haven’t seen any. Could be some spray, but nothing you’d notice right off.”
“Apparently, he wasn’t killed with the cleaver on the balcony but was actually shoved over the railing. Funny he didn’t scream. Did any of the witnesses say whether he yelled before he fell to the ground?” asked Andersson.
Irene thought of the little old lady with the dog.
“I spoke with the closest witness, an elderly lady with a dachshund. She was quite upset that von Knecht almost landed on her dog. But she didn’t mention any scream. Surely she would have said something if he’d screamed as he fell. But she was obviously in shock. I’m interviewing her tomorrow.”
“Okay. We’ll keep looking around.”
Tall built-in bookshelves dominated the library. They extended from floor to ceiling and had glass doors. The sofa group stood in the middle of the area. A smaller reading group in one corner consisted of a glass table and two wing chairs, in the same leather and design as the sofa group. There were no bookshelves around the big window or by the balcony door. Modern art hung on the walls instead. Below a brilliantly colored oil painting, depicting a green monster head with yellow eyes, stood the piece by Haupt. You could hardly call it a bureau; rather, it was a secretary on tall, ornate legs. Below the writing surface were three drawers in a row, and above it an elegant rolltop. It was a disappointment. The bureau in the hall was grander. But evidently that wasn’t what determined its value, as Irene gathered from Svante Malm’s reaction. On the other side of the window hung two paintings that even the superintendent’s untrained eye could tell were Picassos. There were clear signatures on each.
“Cubist style. I recognize it from the descriptions of paintings that were stolen from the Modern Museum in Stockholm. Nothing is where it should be. How do they expect you to see two eyes when the nose is in profile?” said Andersson.
He eyed both paintings critically. They were considerably smaller than the monster painting, but surely much more valuable.
“We’ll take a look around. And we won’t touch anything, and only use flashlights.”
This last he directed at Svante, whose face was again visible in the balcony doorway.
THEY WALKED toward the corridor on the upper floor where the other rooms were located. The first room proved to be the den, slightly smaller than an ordinary living room. In the beam of light they could see more bookshelves with books and binders, a small sofa group, a large desk, and a separate computer table.
Everything looked very clean and neat. Andersson’s flashlight stopped at a framed poster over the desk. It depicted a ballerina in a calf-length tulle dress. She had assumed a pose with one leg raised at an angle in front of her, and her arms and torso stretched forward. In large type the poster announced: THE NUTCRACKER. MUSIC BY TCHAIKOVSKY AND WITH ORIGINAL CHOREOGRAPHY BY L. IVANOV.
Surprised, Andersson said, “Did von Knecht like ballet?”
Curious, Irene stepped forward and read in the beam of her penlight: “JOIN US IN CELEBRATING THE NUTCRACKER’S 75TH ANNIVERSARY, 1892-1967, AT THE GRAND THEATER IN GÖTEBORG. Yes indeed, obviously he was interested in ballet,” she declared.
“We’ll do a quick search through the apartment now. The techs will have all night to secure evidence. I’ll meet with them early tomorrow morning if they’ve found anything of value . . . well, that’s a damned stupid thing to say in these surroundings!”
He snorted lightly and Irene felt her heart warm. He too was affected by the objects around them.
They left the den and went into the next room. It turned out to be the famous sauna, completely tiled from floor to ceiling. At the back of the room was a solid Plexiglas wall with a door, also of Plexiglas. Inside were benches at different levels, with a large sauna heating unit against one wall. Outside was a shower with glass walls and sliding doors. Two teak deck chairs with thick cushions and a small table made up the furnishings. There was a strong scent of eucalyptus. Irene shone her light in the shower and saw that the walls and floor were still wet.
“Nothing more of interest. Let’s move on to the next door,” said Andersson.
Behind it was a separate toilet with a large marble washbasin. The last door on the right side of the corridor led to the billiard room. A large billiard table occupied the middle of the room. On the walls the racks of cues were a nice counterpoint to the art.
They crossed the hallway and entered the largest bedroom either of them had ever set foot in. An extra-wide king-size bed with a yellow silk bedspread and heaps of pillows was the focus of the room. It was surrounded by shining wooden cabinets and chests of drawers; the walls were covered with paintings. Here you could actually see what the art was supposed to represent. Naked bodies, mostly female. There were also a few men pictured. Some of the paintings by the bed were downright pornographic, or perhaps erotic, since the copulating couples were partially clothed. What clothing they still had on was old-fashioned; the women wore corsets, crinolines, and bonnets. Irene inspected with interest some advanced lovemaking positions portrayed in a number of small Japanese prints. A door on the wall facing the wardrobes proved to conceal a large bathroom. The bathtub was a corner model, apparently the Jacuzzi that had been mentioned.
The superintendent stifled a yawn with the back of his hand and said, “It’s ten-thirty. We’ll have to settle for a quick once-over of the rest. By the way, did you notice one thing? Where are all the curious neighbors who should be running in and asking what happened? There are three other apartments in this building, after all.”
“I’ll do a quick round of knocking on doors.”
Huss left the von Knecht bedchamber.
She came back sooner than she expected. Andersson was surprised when he ran into her in the downstairs hall again.
“Not a single neighbor is home. It’s dark and quiet in all three apartments. And I rang the bells and knocked on the doors,” she assured him.
Andersson looked pensive.
“That explains the lack of curious neighbors. And it made things easier for the killer. Headquarters couldn’t get any of the neighbors on the phone either. By the way, I looked into the last room upstairs. A TV room. Nothing of interest. Just a bunch of pictures and a giant TV.”
He nodded toward the kitchen door.
“Let’s look it over.”
The kitchen was ultramodern, probably at least fifty square meters. In the middle of the room there was a huge cooking island with an enormous copper ventilation hood. The upper and lower cupboards had carved doors of red-toned cherry wood. On the floor a silk rug lay upon dark red-glazed parquet that gleamed. In front of the stove and around the kitchen island reddish brown tile had been laid. The walls were light colored, almost white. Beams ran across the ceiling, glazed the same color as the floor. Everything was clean and in immaculate order. The door of the dishwasher was ajar. Cautiously the superintendent poked the end of his flashlight inside and looked around.
“Dishes done. No dishes on the drainboard,” he declared.
“Sven, look above the counter,” said Irene. “There are kitchen implements hanging underneath the ventilator hood.”
Five centimeters above the edge of the hood ran a rod that was soldered fast. It had small hooks on it, and various kitchen implements hung on them. They didn’t see any meat cleaver. Andersson looked a little perplexed and asked, “What do you use a meat cleaver for?”
Irene was amazed that he didn’t know, but restrained herself.
“One side has a sharp edge for chopping off tendons and gristle. The wide, flat part you use to pound the meat to make it thinner and more tender. I wouldn’t think it would be used much these days. Usually meat is already cut up and tenderized when you buy it.”
“We’ll have to compare the wooden handle of the cleaver with the handles of the implements hanging here. It seems to be the same style. And here’s an empty hook,” said the superintendent.
“I get the feeling these are only for decoration. The tools don’t seem to have been used. I’ve certainly never seen a more virginal whisk! And look how the wooden handles match the cupboard doors exactly,” Irene snorted.
She pointed to a door on the far wall. “I wonder where that leads?”
“Looks like an ordinary door to the kitchen stairs. The techs will check it out tomorrow,” Andersson decided.
He stifled another yawn before he went on, “I think we’ve been pretty thorough even though it’s just the preliminary survey. Anything we’ve forgotten?”
Irene understood that the superintendent’s question was rhetorical, but that door was bothering her. An image from her memory had been insistently pricking at the back of her mind, and now it popped up. She remembered the four doors downstairs off the little square courtyard in back. The five stairways of all the main entry halls opened onto it, if she remembered it correctly. She hadn’t seen anything that looked like back kitchen stairs. There was every reason to look behind the door before they left, she thought.
Andersson sighed but lumbered over to the door with her. With a cautious shove she managed to open it. Behind it was no kitchen stairway, but a large scullery. The beams of the flashlights played over broom closets, a clothes dryer, drying cupboard, and a washing machine. On the latter a red light was blinking, indicating that the wash was done. Again Irene used her pen, so that she wouldn’t leave any fingerprints or wipe off any that were already there, as she opened the lid of the washing machine.
“A sheet. He put a sheet and towels in the washing machine before he met his killer,” she said dramatically to the superintendent.
They went back out through the kitchen, stepped over the rug in the hall, and inspected the guest suite. Inside the door was an airy bedroom with a queen-size bed. They glanced quickly in the guest bathroom, without finding anything of interest.