Chapter Fifteen
AT SIX O’CLOCK ON the dot, Tommy Persson rang the doorbell of the Huss residence. Sammie was the first in line to bid him welcome. Since Tommy was one of his favorite guests, it took a while before all the jumping and licking were over.
Conspiratorially, Irene whispered, “The twins are in their room. I said that you’re a grass widower today and that I invited you to dinner. They bought it without comment.”
“Good. How’s Jimmy Olsson doing?”
She gave him a detailed description of the young officer’s health status; Tommy thought it didn’t sound good. If you’re married to a nurse, you’re always learning something about diseases and their treatment.
Since they never talked shop when they were around their families, Irene wanted to know the latest news from HQ before dinner. “How did the interview with Shorty go today?”
Tommy hesitated before he replied. “Not so great. But Jonny actually managed to annoy him so much that he got mad and said something interesting. Jonny finally yelled, ‘Don’t you get it? You’re under suspicion for taking part in everything that happened, as long as you refuse to speak! We’re looking for your cousin’s murderer!’ Then Shorty leaned toward him and snarled, ‘I don’t have to look. That fuck’ll be sorry!’ And then he went back to imitating a clam. We pressured him like mad for several hours. But he’s used to it and it doesn’t bother him in the least. We didn’t get one more syllable out of him. Andersson and Jonny will have a go at him this evening.”
“Interesting. I also got a hot tip. Bobo and Charlotte von Knecht are old acquaintances. She worked as a photo model for him. She was the one who helped him rent the apartments on Berzeliigatan about three years ago.”
“You’ve got to be kidding! Although that’s a point of contact with Bobo, not Shorty. I don’t think she knows Shorty.”
“Maybe. I’m thinking of driving over unannounced to question the lady in more detail tomorrow morning. Want to come along?”
“Sounds just as good as haranguing Shorty. Jonny and Andersson can deal with him.”
An aroma of fried onions that got their stomach juices flowing came wafting into the entryway. Krister stuck his head out the open kitchen door and teasingly shook his spatula at them. “What are you two whispering about?”
“Professional secrets, just professional secrets. For instance, how hard you can hit somebody with a baton without leaving bruises,” his wife replied saucily.
“Great topic of conversation. Come and devote yourself to the hamburgers instead.”
Irene called the twins. Heavy rock rhythms were thumping upstairs. Neither of them seemed to hear her. She went up and opened the door to Jenny’s room.
They were curled up on Jenny’s bed. Jenny was tossing her head in time to the music, while Katarina looked warier. Jenny became aware of her mother’s presence and jumped up to turn off the CD player. But Irene had heard the last line of the song: “We’re gonna clean this country and throw the Jew pigs in the sea. Clean it! Clean it!” Sung with hoarse rock voices, throbbing heavy-metal guitars, and pulsating drums.
Jenny was caught off guard, but collected herself and immediately assumed a defensive position. She said quickly, “It’s not the words I like, but the music!”
Irene looked at her daughter’s shaved head and angrily clenched fists. A feeling of powerlessness descended like a paralyzing blanket over her thoughts, and she couldn’t think of a single appropriate remark. Instead she said with exaggerated good cheer, “Come on now and eat. It’s one of your favorites, Jenny, hamburgers and onions.”
“Did Pappa make his pickles?”
“Of course! And since Tommy is here, there’ll be dessert in the middle of the week.”
“What is it?”
“Apple cake with vanilla ice cream.”
Without showing any great enthusiasm, Jenny shrugged her shoulders. “Okay.”
The year before she would have been the first one down the stairs and seated at the table. Now she shambled after Irene and Katarina and sat down last. Tommy gave her a cheerful hello, his gaze lingering so long on Jenny’s scalp that she was embarrassed. But he didn’t comment on her sudden hair loss.
Pleasant conversation accompanied the dinner. No talk of murder, bombs, motorcycle gangs, dope, or fruitless interrogations with professional crooks. Irene felt safe and relaxed together with her family and her best friend.
When it was time for coffee, Tommy suggested that they go sit in the living room. He smiled at the twins and said, “I feel like telling you an absolutely true story from real life.”
They sat down on the sofa and armchairs around the coffee table. Through the glass top the warm-toned Gabbeh rug was visible, and Irene thought it went very well with the framed Miró print on the wall. At Tommy’s request they turned out all the lights and lit all the candles they could find.
The mood was cozy when Tommy began his story.
“This is both an exciting and very sad story. It begins in Berlin in nineteen thirty-two. The National Socialists, under the leadership of the great agitator Adolf Hitler, are about to take over all of Germany. The people are delighted and see Hitler as their great savior, freeing them from unemployment, poverty, and social injustice. Not to mention his skill at playing on their feelings that an unjust peace had been imposed after the First World War. There was a splendid breeding ground for Nazi ideas in Germany in the thirties. From nineteen thirty-three on the National Socialist Party was the only one permitted. Who would call for democracy, when a whole people rose up and marched in step? Books that were viewed as harmful to the national state were burned and authors were banned from writing. Only music approved by the state could be played. Movies and radio programs had to be censored before they could be broadcast. The schools put ideology on their curriculum, and the teachers who didn’t submit were purged. The Jews also had to be purged. The explanation was that they were active in a worldwide conspiracy that threatened everyone. All Jews had to wear a yellow star on their clothes. Gradually, systems were set up to transport them to huge death camps along with gypsies, Danes, homosexuals, Communists, Norwegians, Russians, Poles, Englishmen—”
“There were never any concentration camps! That’s just propaganda!” Jenny’s face was red with rage, visible even in the soft candlelight.
“Is that right? Who is spreading this propaganda, then?”
“It’s the . . . Communists!”
“Who are the Communists of today that are so stubbornly holding on to this lie?”
“It’s the . . . Soviet Union!”
“There isn’t anything called the Soviet Union anymore. No, Jenny, the people who were in these camps can tell you all about it. There aren’t many left alive today, but the ones who are still here can testify that it’s no lie. They speak for millions of people who never got out of the concentration camps alive. But even in their homelands there are groups today who deny what happened. It must be a bitter feeling for the Norwegian and Danish resistance fighters, who today are more than seventy years old, to listen to young neo-Nazis denying their horrendous experiences and the death of their friends.”
Tommy took a gulp of his coffee before he went on.
“But all this flourished at a later stage of Nazi Germany’s development. Back to Berlin in nineteen thirty-two. The National Socialists quickly gained strength. In the late twenties they had founded the Hitler Youth, a movement that aimed to make young people from the age of ten into trusted warriors for the Reich and the party. One dark January night a gang of five Hitler Jugend boys in their late teens was on the way to a meeting. They walked by a school and just as they passed by, a girl came out the gate. She was thirteen years old and her name was Rachel. The boys knew that she was Jewish and that her father was a bookseller. They forced her back into the schoolyard. There they took turns raping her. Four of them held her down while the fifth raped her. They kept on doing it until she started bleeding heavily. Then they got scared and left her lying there. Her father found her a couple of hours later. She lay as the boys had left her. Her eyes were fixed on the black night sky, and she didn’t respond when they said her name. Rachel would never respond again.”
Tommy fell silent and looked at his audience. Irene understood his intentions in telling the story and resisted the impulse to ask him to finish. Katarina looked like she was going to throw up. Jenny sat with a stony expression on her face, but Irene knew her daughter and could see from her nervously plucking fingers that she was extremely moved. Tommy took another deep breath and continued.
“You might think that since Rachel bled so heavily, she wouldn’t have become pregnant. But she did. Her father was in despair. His name was Jacob Uhr. He was widowed at an early age and had come from Poland when Rachel was little, to build a future for himself and his daughter in Berlin. He worked for his unmarried uncle in the bookstore. When the uncle died several years later, he left the bookstore to Jacob. The store wasn’t prosperous, but Jacob could support himself and his daughter comfortably. Until the rape occurred. Doctors came and went. Rachel lay in a coma as a result of shock and had to be cared for like a baby. Finally Jacob could no longer afford to pay the doctor bills and had to nurse Rachel himself as best he could. By then he knew that she was pregnant. A Jewish neighbor woman promised to help with the delivery.”
Katarina was so agitated that her voice broke when she asked, “But why didn’t the father report the boys?”
Tommy’s tone of voice was unchanged. “He did, right after the rape occurred. The police just smirked and winked knowingly at each other. And nothing happened. Nobody was interested in even looking for five purebred Aryans who had raped a lowly Jewish girl. Jacob Uhr should have been grateful that his miserable lineage was infused with a little noble Aryan blood.”
Jenny was pale as a corpse now, and her eyes looked unnaturally large in her hairless skull. She didn’t take her eyes off Tommy.
“Rachel turned fourteen. Two weeks later the labor pains started. For the next three days the thin little girl lay there trying to push out the baby. Jacob had help from the neighbor woman, who was used to assisting at childbirths. She was the one who saw when Rachel died. Jacob refused at first to accept it, but she screamed, ‘Now it’s a matter of seconds!’ She stuck her hands into Rachel’s womb and with the blood streaming down her forearms pulled out the little baby in a torrent of blood. At first Jacob didn’t want to look at the miracle that had cost his only daughter her life. But the midwife was a resolute woman. She bathed the screaming little mite, wrapped her up, and placed the infant in Jacob’s arms. Then she said, ‘Jacob Uhr. This little child is without guilt. Your daughter died that night in the schoolyard, and she never came back to us. But the child is alive and healthy. You have received her as a gift from God, instead of Rachel who was taken from you. The little girl shall be called Sonya, after me!’
“Then Jacob looked down into the baby’s dark sapphire-blue eyes. The little one had stopped crying and looked steadily at her grandfather. And in his heart a light was lit for the little life and he whispered quietly, so that only she could hear: ‘You will live. You will have a better life!’”
“Damn! What a damned shitty story you’re making up!”
Jenny had jumped up from her seat, and her eyes glittered with tears and rage. Tommy looked at her calmly. Without a word he pulled out a thin, worn book with a brown leather cover from the pocket of his jacket. At first Irene thought it looked like an old diary. When Tommy held it up to the light, she could clearly see an elegant monogram in the lower right corner of the cover. The gilt had flaked off, but you could make out the letters J. U. Calmly he said, “You can read it yourself. This is Jacob Uhr’s diary.”
He held it out to Jenny. She instantly put her hands behind her back. She looked at the little book as if it were a cobra ready to strike. Tommy didn’t take his eyes off her as he again spoke. “To make a long story short, with the help of the midwife Sonya, the little Sonya survived. A year later Jacob managed to get out of Germany. He found a job in a bookstore here in Göteborg that was also owned by a Jew. When he married a Swedish woman—Britta, a stubborn fisherman’s widow from the island of Hönö—he fell into disfavor with his employer.”
“Hönö! That’s where your summerhouse is! Is that where you heard this story?” Katarina seemed relieved to begin to divine an explanation for the awful things she had heard this evening.
Tommy smiled and went on, “Part of it. Both Jacob and this woman were more than forty years old when they met. She once had a son, but he drowned in the same shipwreck as his father, during a storm in the North Sea. So little Sonya became like a daughter for Jacob and his wife. But the Jews in Göteborg threw him out of their congregation. Jacob had never been a particularly religious Jew, so he converted to Christianity. Little Sonya was confirmed in the Swedish Lutheran Church. She had blue eyes and wonderfully shiny red hair. She was teased about it, but not because she was Jewish. Nobody knew about that; she didn’t even know herself. She knew nothing about her ancestry, but thought she was Jacob and Britta’s child. Jacob had told her only that he came from Poland, but not that he was a Jew. He never mentioned the time in Germany or what happened there. Britta knew, of course, but she didn’t say anything to Sonya either. She didn’t find out anything until Jacob and Britta died a few months apart, fifteen years ago.”
Irene couldn’t help exclaiming. The pieces had fallen into place and she understood how it all fit together.
Tommy nodded to her and smiled. “You’ve figured it out. But Jenny and Katarina couldn’t know about this, since they weren’t born yet. Sonya is my mother. Jacob and Britta, whom I always called Grandma and Grandpa, turned out to be my great-grandfather and his wife!”
Only Sammie’s faint snoring under the coffee table disturbed the total silence that had descended over the room. Irene couldn’t think of anything to say. Tommy had never told her about this. But really, why should he?
As if he had heard her thoughts he continued, “It was a shock for Mamma. She, who was confirmed and married in the Swedish Lutheran Church, suddenly found out that she was half Jewish and the product of a gang rape!”
Tommy fell silent and looked down at Sammie through the glass tabletop. When he spoke again, his voice was low and utterly serious. “Jenny, if you want you can borrow Jacob’s diary. It’s important that you understand why you and I can no longer be friends.”
Jenny’s eyes were wide with horror; her mouth stood half open, but she couldn’t utter a sound. Irene’s maternal heart writhed in sympathy, but she knew that this was between Jenny and Tommy.
He went on in a neutral tone, “You and Katarina attended the baptism of my children. We have spent vacations and weekends together. But because you have declared that you’re a skinhead, play Nazi music, and advocate what they stand for, you are the enemy of me and my children. Our mortal enemy, literally! When the persecution begins, one drop of Jewish blood in our veins will be enough to have us killed. Even the suspicion that there may be one drop is enough to kill us! And I’m one-quarter Jewish, my children one-eighth. We don’t have a chance. We will be killed.”
Jenny tried to pluck up her courage and screamed, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard! We don’t want to kill anybody!”
“Yes you do, Jenny. What is it they sing in the lyrics to the music you like so much? Since you say you love that music, you also have to stand for what the lyrics say. ‘Death to niggers and Jews! Fight for a pure, Aryan Sweden!’ Sound familiar? And to show even more clearly what you stand for, you’ve also shaved off your hair,” he stated coldly.
“That was because of the band! Markus thought it would be cool if I dared to shave off my ha . . . hair!”
The last word came in a long sob. She sprang to her feet, rushed up the stairs, and slammed the door. They could hear her crying loudly. Sammie woke up when she rushed off and looked around bewildered. He sensed that the atmosphere was charged, not at all as cozy as it was when he went to sleep.
Krister leaned forward, put his head in his hands, and groaned, “Good Lord, this has been one of the worst experiences of my life! I almost stood up and yelled at you to stop. But now you’ve put the decision in Jenny’s hands.”
“It’s not Jenny’s fault; it’s the fault of our forgetfulness. We forget what we want to forget, and the consequence is that we lose our history, and then we can’t learn from it. It’s an eternal cycle and everything is repeated,” said Tommy in resignation.
Irene’s mouth was dry when she asked, “Is this story really true?”
“Every single word. Do you want to borrow Jacob’s diary?”
Hesitantly, she reached out and took the little book with the dry leather cover. But she didn’t open it. Uncertainly she said, “My school German isn’t that good anymore. I probably can’t understand what he wrote.”
Tommy gave her a big smile and a shrewd glance. “No, you probably can’t. Because Jacob wrote his diary in his mother tongue. Polish.”
JIMMY OLSSON had emergency neurosurgery at two o’clock in the morning. The examination earlier in the day had shown a small hemorrhage between the meninges that had not been visible on the emergency X ray taken the night he was admitted to the hospital. Jimmy’s condition had deteriorated rapidly after he awoke at night with a splitting headache and began to show signs of failing consciousness. His speech had become slurred and his body was going numb.
SVEN ANDERSSON looked serious when he told Tommy, Irene, Birgitta, and Jonny about Jimmy. The superintendent said sympathetically, “The poor guy, it’s evident a blood vessel was leaking blood.”
Irene shuddered. Tommy looked angry when he said, “This is what really happens from hard blows to the head. In the movies the hero just shakes his head after a skyscraper falls on him, gets up, and quickly grabs his machine gun to mow down twenty gangsters!”
Jonny snorted, “Why don’t you tell it like it is: This is what happens when you go out on a job with a chick. It’s always the guy who has to take the worst lumps when things get rough!”
Irene was totally speechless, but she didn’t need to get into an argument. Unexpectedly the superintendent came to her defense. “If Irene hadn’t been there, Jimmy Olsson would be dead today.”
“Thanks to her, in that case. She got them into the situation! Nobody asked them to drive out to Billdal. The dames lured poor Jimmy away.”
The dames meant Birgitta and her. Irene knew that the accusation was groundless, but it still stung. She was the oldest, the one with the most experience and practice. All Jimmy had to do was follow orders and keep up with her. Was she to blame for what happened to Jimmy?
Andersson was bright red when he stood up, slammed his palm on the table, and yelled, “Shut up! Irene was doing her job, checking up on a possible lead to Bobo Torsson’s hideout! Damn it, nobody in this department has to run in to see me every time something comes up that needs to be investigated more closely. That would be totally inappropriate! You’re pros, after all!”
Wham! He slapped his palm on the table again, to emphasize what he was saying. Jonny was obviously unprepared for his boss’s outburst, because he said nothing. Andersson took a few deep breaths to try to control his blood pressure. More calmly he said, “No one could have known that those punks would hide an alarm in a stack of lumber! And there was nothing to indicate that there would be Hell’s Angels in Bobo’s and Shorty’s cottage. Jimmy and Irene ran into a damned unpleasant surprise at the site.”
Andersson sat back down, but the grim expression did not leave his face. He scrutinized Jonny for a long time; Irene could see that Jonny was embarrassed. She felt that there was something else behind the superintendent’s vehement reaction, but didn’t have the slightest idea what it could be.
Andersson went on, “I don’t want to hear this kind of shit again from you, Jonny. We can’t attack each other. We have to concentrate on the job. Dump your anger on Shorty instead, and see if you can make him talk! Today is our last chance. Tomorrow we have to let him go. So far there isn’t a single scrap of evidence that he did anything illegal. Even though that devil has never done anything else!”
“Now he’s an honorable tobacco merchant.” Irene gave Andersson a teasing look in an attempt to lighten the mood.
“Honorable tobacco! . . He sells drugs and nothing else!”
“But we don’t have any proof,” Irene countered.
“No. Everything points to Bobo Torsson alone. We don’t have anything on Shorty.”
“Tommy and I are thinking of paying an early-morning visit to young Fru von Knecht. Sylvia revealed yesterday that Bobo and Charlotte are old pals. We thought we’d check and see if she might be familiar with Shorty too.”
A gleam came into the superintendent’s eye. “That’s interesting news. You wouldn’t think she’d still keep up with Torsson. Funny girl, that Charlotte. Will it take two of you to interview her?”
“Two pairs of eyes see more than one. While one is talking, the other one looks around a little,” said Irene.
“Are you suspicious of her?”
Irene hesitated a moment. Finally she said, “It’s mostly a feeling I got when I talked to Sylvia yesterday. She has an idea who got the spare-key ring from Richard von Knecht. But she doesn’t want to talk about it. And I’m convinced that it has to be someone in the family. Charlotte or Henrik. Sylvia also told me that Henrik had the mumps before meningitis. When I asked her whether he had become sterile as a result of the mumps, she broke down. So Henrik could be sterile. If so, who’s the father of Charlotte’s child? I want to feel out both of them on this.”
IRENE AND Tommy drove slowly up Långåsliden. Big stucco functional-style houses predominated, but houses of both older and newer architecture were seen here too. Despite the fact that Örgryte and Skår were now considered the central and most exclusive sections of Göteborg, the large, showy gardens in which the houses stood were often marked by some neglect, probably because of the owners’ lack of time for gardening. They probably had to work hard to be able to afford to live in these fashionable districts, Irene thought.
Henrik and Charlotte’s house wasn’t one of the larger ones in the area. But the garden was definitely one of the most overgrown. The house was a two-story yellow stucco with a vaulted oriel next to the balcony. It would have been beautiful if large chunks of plaster hadn’t flaked off it. At ten o’clock in the morning, the venetian blinds facing the street on the upper floor were closed. The curtains on the ground floor were drawn in front of the big picture windows facing the porch. A new red Golf was parked in front of the garage.
Tommy slipped on the damp leaves that covered the slick slate flagstones. He had to watch where he set his feet, since many spring frosts had pushed the stones apart. The path up to the house reminded him of a miniature of the collapsed freeway in Oakland after the last earthquake.
Tommy nodded toward the house. “It looks totally dead. I don’t think she’s home.”
Irene gave him a slightly mocking look. She pointed at the gleaming little red car. “And what makes you think the little lady is even awake at this ungodly hour of the day? She hasn’t driven off in her new car, at any rate.”
They slipped and slid their way to the once lovely teak front door. Many years without oil or maintenance had left the wood gray and cracked. They rang the bell repeatedly. After a good two minutes, they heard footsteps coming downstairs. A tired voice yelled from inside, “Yeah, yeah! What’s this about? Who is it?”
Irene recognized Charlotte von Knecht’s voice, but it wasn’t as well modulated as it had been the last time they met. She waited to answer until she heard that Charlotte had made it to the door. Then she said in a loud voice, “It’s Detective Inspector Huss.”
For a moment there was utter silence before the lock began to rattle. The door was opened a crack and Charlotte whispered, “Do you have to stand there yelling like that? Think of the neighbors!”
Something had happened to her eyes. The radiant turquoise had become two ordinary bits of granite. She hastened to back up and let them into the surprisingly small entryway. She almost lurched when she turned quickly and swept the thick soft-pink dressing gown tighter around herself. Half choking, she said, “I didn’t know it was you two. Wait here, I have to go upstairs!”
Before they managed to say a word, she slunk upstairs. But Irene recognized the smell of liquor. And sex. Charlotte smelled of sex. Pheromones are potent scent factors. Less than a fraction of a nanogram is enough to make the hormones run amok. Irene took a quick look at the clothes hanging in the entryway. She found what she was looking for. A light brown jacket of soft suede with fringes on the shoulders. A pair of boots with pointed toes, high cowboy heels, and shiny buckles at the ankles, size forty-two. Henrik von Knecht was thin, but he was also tall. In this jacket he would look like he was going to a costume party. His taste in clothes was more in the line of cashmere overcoats, not fringed jackets. Three pairs of men’s shoes of excellent quality and design, size forty-four, stood in a neat row in the shoe area. Irene showed Tommy her find and he nodded in agreement. Naturally he had also registered the scent.
The sound of a shower was heard from upstairs. Irene quickly took a few steps into the hall. She chose the left-hand door. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tommy sneaking through the one on the right. The left door led to a small kitchen. The kitchen implements were new and sparkling. The door of the dishwasher was down and revealed a full machine. On the drainboard there were plates and wineglasses. Two salad plates. Two dinner plates. Two wineglasses. Two cut-glass tumblers. Two. The man was still in the house and it wasn’t Henrik von Knecht.
She hurried back to the hallway. The door they had passed on the way in led to a small toilet. The shower on the top floor had stopped, and she could hear someone moving around up there.
Tommy returned and whispered, “Living room, dining room, and a den.”
The Charlotte who came down the stairs was a completely different person from the one who had opened the door for them ten minutes earlier. This one had shiny brushed hair, smelled of Cartier, and gave them a radiant turquoise-shimmering look. Finally Irene understood. No one has eyes of that fairy-tale color. We live in the age of tinted contact lenses. Charlotte was dressed in black velvet pants and a short-sleeved, scoop-necked angora sweater the same color as her fantastic eyes.
With a courteous gesture that displayed a certain lack of enthusiasm, Charlotte invited them into the living room. It was clearly marked by Henrik’s life and passions. Paintings and antiques were everywhere in the normal-sized room. They walked between urns and curved chairs over to a cream-colored silk sofa, which proved to be astonishingly comfortable. Charlotte draped herself gracefully in an overstuffed velvet easy chair with dark mahogany armrests. She crossed her legs demurely and gave the two detectives an unexpectedly calm look. Sparse daylight seeped in through the heavy drawn curtains and fell on her face. She had been in a hurry, because the foundation under her right eye had not been properly applied; there was a little brown smear on her cheek.
Irene decided on the tough approach and began, in a friendly tone of voice, “Charlotte, we’ve discovered a number of new details during the course of the investigation. We would be grateful if you could help us go over them.”
Without the least quaver in her voice, Charlotte replied, “I’ll try.”
“First, a question that I’m asking now so I won’t forget it at the end. When does your husband come home?”
“On Saturday night.”
“Late?”
“Yes, around ten. Presumably, he’s going straight to Marstrand. I’ll be at a birthday party for a friend who’s turning thirty.”
“Henrik’s not going?”
She hesitated before answering. “No, he’s not so wild about big parties. Lots of people and all that,” she said evasively.
“But you enjoy that sort of thing.”
She looked surprised at Irene’s statement. “Yes, of course I do.”
“Do you often go out alone?”
Now her gaze wavered. “Usually. Henrik never wants to go. What does this have to do with the investigation of Richard’s death?”
“Well, we know that you were often seen with Bobo Torsson. That you were good friends and that you worked together. We also know that you were the one who talked to your father-in-law and arranged for Bobo to rent the apartments on Berzeliigatan.”
“That’s correct. But Bobo has an aunt who owned the tobacco shop across the street. She gave Bobo a tip that Richard was renovating the apartments in his building. Then he asked me to ask Richard whether there was any chance he could rent one of them.”
“Do you know that Bobo is dead?”
Now Charlotte’s eyes glistened and she swallowed hard before replying. “I heard it on the news. How horrible!”
“Do you know if Bobo was involved in anything that might have made someone want to kill him?”
Something flared up behind the turquoise blue. Unease and wariness.
“No. Absolutely not!”
She crossed her legs harder and started to massage her bare forearms as if she were cold.
“Did Bobo sell drugs to you?”
Just like Lot’s wife, Charlotte was turned into a pillar of salt. It took a long while before she replied apologetically, yet still aggressively, “Everybody uses a little smack nowadays. Everybody does it. There’s nothing unusual about that. It’s like using alcohol!”
“I see. But it falls under different legislation. Did he sell a lot?”
Now she was prepared and made a brave attempt to sound haughty. “Not at all! He was a prominent photographer. The little he sold was only to friends and at private parties.”
She was almost successful, but not quite. Since Irene had a lot of other sensitive questions to ask, she changed the subject. “Do you know a man named Lasse ‘Shorty’ Johannesson?”
Charlotte was startled, but not scared. She pursed her lips and said, “That’s Bobo’s cousin. But I’ve never met him.”
“So you don’t know him at all?”
“No.”
Clearly Irene wasn’t going to get any farther with Shorty. Time to switch tacks. She continued calmly, “We also have information that you received a spare-key ring from Richard von Knecht this summer. Why did he give it to you?”
Her astonishment was not feigned. Or else she was a better actress than Irene thought.
“Spare keys? I never got any spare keys from Richard.”
“Your father-in-law never gave you any keys?”
“No.”
“Was it Henrik who got them?”
Now her gaze flickered before she answered, “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t know if Henrik was given the spare keys by his father?”
“No.”
“But you did know that there was a key ring with spare keys on it, didn’t you?”
“No, I tell you! No!”
A new scent broke through the heavy Cartier perfume. Terror.
“Then we’ll have to ask Henrik when he comes home,” said Irene.
She pretended to look at something in her blank notebook. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Charlotte relax and sink a bit in her chair. She obviously thought the danger was past.
Thoughtfully Irene said, “Well, you know, Sylvia told me yesterday that Henrik contracted the mumps when he was in the service. Apparently he became sterile, since it also affected his testicles. I think that seems a bit strange, considering that you’re pregnant, don’t you?”
The question remained hanging in the air over their heads, like the blade of a guillotine. Charlotte turned pale as a corpse underneath her makeup. “What are you talking about? I feel sick!”
She got up and rushed toward the hall. On her way she knocked over a large Chinese vase. It shattered on the marble hearth in front of the open fireplace. They could hear her tear open the door to the toilet in the hall and slam it shut. Tommy pointed toward the upper floor. Irene nodded, because she had heard it too. A light thump, like a bouncing ball. Someone upstairs had dropped something on the floor.
After nearly five minutes Charlotte returned. She was composed, but they could see she had been crying. Her voice was ice cold when she said, “This is Henrik’s child. I’m having a test, whatever it’s called. The kind they do to determine paternity.”
“DNA tests.”
“That’s it. But you’ll have to wait until May! And I would like you to leave now. I’m not feeling well because of the pregnancy and your horrible questions. As if in some way I’m under suspicion!”
When they stood, Tommy smiled at her. Automatically she smiled back, but it was extinguished when he said in a friendly voice, “You are.”
Rage glowed behind the contact lenses. Irene was almost afraid they were going to crack. She lied like a trouper, this young lady, but for the moment they would get no further with her.
Charlotte escorted them to the entryway. Demonstratively she opened the door wide to show them out. Tommy stopped and looked at the gaudy cowboy boots without saying a word. He caught her eye and smiled knowingly. It was more than she could handle. Her hands were shaking when she grabbed hold of Tommy’s jacket and pushed him out.
Tauntingly he said, “Watch out, that could be assault on a police officer.”
“Fuck that! I’m going to report you! The von Knecht family isn’t just anybody! You’re going to lose your job!”
With all her might she slammed the door shut.
They said nothing to each other until they were sitting in the car. Tommy looked at Irene. “We were tough on her. What if she has a miscarriage?”
“It would be more the fault of all the alcohol and God knows what else she’s put in her body. And she won’t be reporting it to any lawyer. By the way—the cowboy boots. And the jacket. We have to find out who’s upstairs,” said Irene.
She started the car, made a “Göteborg U-turn,” and rolled down the street. When they were out of sight of the house, she stopped the car and asked, “Do you want the first shift, or shall I take it?”
“I’ll take it. If anything happens I’ll call you. Otherwise you can come back after you meet with the Narcs.”
“Aren’t you going to be there?”
“It’s better if you go. You were the one out in Billdal.”
“Yep, God knows I was . . . Okay, we’ll do it like this. I’ll be at headquarters in about half an hour. It depends a little on the streetcars and buses.”
She climbed out of the car and headed off toward St. Sigfrid’s Circle.
BIRGITTA WAS the first person she ran into at the division. She beamed and waved Irene into her office. There was restrained excitement in her voice.
“I’ve been looking for you. You said you were going to question Charlotte in more detail. That stirred up something in the back of my mind. I began rummaging through the little I have on Bobo Torsson. And I found this!”
Triumphantly she pointed at a list of names. Her index finger stopped on the name Charlotte Croona. Eagerly she went on, “I was startled when I saw this name the first time. But I had forgotten all your society gossip and never fixed the name in my mind. When you started saying that Bobo and Charlotte had some closer contact, it clicked. This is the list of the people busted in the raid in nineteen eighty-nine, when Shorty went to jail!”
“You’ve got to be kidding! Did Jonny ask Shorty if he knew Charlotte?”
“Yes. He says he doesn’t have any idea who she is. But the interesting thing is that Charlotte was arrested for possession of half a gram of cocaine. She got off with a suspended sentence, since she didn’t have a prior record. I searched, but couldn’t find a thing on her after ’eighty-nine.”
Irene sat and tried to think. She told Birgitta that Tommy was staking out the place, trying to find out who Charlotte’s gentleman caller was.
Birgitta suggested, “Could it be the father of her child? If you’re right about Henrik really becoming sterile after having the mumps. Can we check that out?”
“No. We have no chance of getting hold of those records. I’m basing my suspicions on Sylvia’s reaction when I mentioned the possibility. And on ‘Paul Fig-Ball.’”
“‘Paul Fig-Ball’?”
Irene explained. Birgitta agreed that it was a long shot. But she had an idea. “What if Bobo Torsson is the father of Charlotte’s child? Maybe they had a relationship the whole time.”
“Possible. We’ll have to check that out somehow. Do we have time to eat before the meeting?”
“Sure, if we wolf it down.”
ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT Annika Nilsén and two inspectors from Narcotics were in place. Irene was taken aback when she saw them, and for a bewildering moment wondered if Nilsén had dragged along a couple of suspected dealers. But at the same time she knew that was how the undercover Narcs had to look in order to blend in. How great was the risk that they might actually blend in too well and start taking part in the activity they were assigned to monitor? To judge by the appearance of these two undercover agents, they were already a well-established part of Göteborg’s narcotics scene. Which of course was the intention. From Violent Crimes, there were Superintendent Andersson, Irene Huss, Birgitta Moberg, and Hans Borg.
The latter looked as if he would rather lie down and sleep off his lunch. He had put his chair in the farthest corner and now sat with his head tipped back and his eyes closed.
Andersson briefly introduced everyone. The two Narcs were Stig Bertilsson and Daniel Svensson. Irene would have guessed Cheech and Chong.
Andersson began by reporting on what had led Violent Crimes to Billdal. He spoke for a long time about their suspicions and the evidence of Bobo Torsson’s involvement in selling narcotics. Then he switched to talking about Bobo’s death in the parking lot at the Delsjön golf course.
“The techs determined that the bomb on Berzeliigatan and the bomb that killed Bobo were constructed on the same principle. In cach case the bomb was made from heavy iron pipe. The interesting thing is that it seems to be the same type of pipe, old-fashioned, heavy drainpipes, but of different dimensions. We had a good tip from a lady who lived in the building, but who wasn’t home when it went off. She arrived right afterward, broke down, and had to be taken to the hospital. But she’s okay now. Yesterday Fredrik met her by pure chance down on Berzeliigatan. They stood and watched as the men dug through the rubble. She started to ask how the bomb was constructed, Fredrik told me, and then she said something damned interesting. She had complained several times that there was a pile of old pipes left in the cellar from the renovation several years earlier. At that time all the drainpipes and water lines were replaced. But nothing happened. The pipes just stayed there. She had seen them as recently as two weeks ago.”
Irene waved her hand and was recognized. “It must be possible to dig down into the cellar and find those pipes. And the lady who saw the pipes might know approximately where to dig.”
Andersson nodded and rubbed his hands. “Precisely. That’s already been decided. But first we have to pull out von Knecht’s safe. How’s that going, Borg?”
Hans Borg jumped. He was unlucky enough to have his chair slip out from under him as he sat leaning against the wall. With a crash it hit the floor, and he banged his head. Cheech and Chong exchanged glances.
Borg rubbed his sore head and tried to collect his tattered dignity. Apart from these two things, he didn’t seem any the worse for wear. He picked up the chair and sat down again. Embarrassed, he said, “Excuse me. The boys are planning to pry the safe loose this afternoon, if all goes well. After that they’ll start digging for the pipes in the cellar. It’s going to take some time.”
Andersson interjected, “How long? How soon can they start digging down there?”
“Tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. If they know exactly where to dig.”
“Okay. See that the old lady is there to show them, so we don’t waste a lot of time searching in the wrong spot. Have you got anything else?”
“Yes. This morning that teacher at Ascheberg High School called. The one who loaned me a felt pen and paper in the parking garage when I needed to put up a note that we wanted tips if anyone saw anything. He called and said that he had come upon something. He’s a part-time teacher at the school and doesn’t have a parking place right outside the building. That’s why he’s allowed to use a spot in the parking garage, which is about a hundred meters down the street. Last Tuesday night he worked late, until five-fifteen. When he set off for home, he rushed toward the parking garage. That’s when he saw a light-colored car in the teachers’ parking area that he had never seen before. Since it was after school hours he decided not to worry about it. But he remembered it now, because the newspapers said that no one had seen anything unusual around that time. And that was unusual! Only the teachers can use these parking places until six at night. And he says that none of the teachers who usually park there has a light-colored car. He’s not sure of the exact color.”
“What make?”
“He doesn’t know. He was in a hurry in the pouring rain.”
Irene could see that Andersson thought this was interesting. But the three from Narcotics looked so obviously bored that it was probably best to switch over to their domain. Andersson noticed this too and wrapped up.
“Keep checking, Hans. You’re good at stuff with cars. Now we’ll move on to Billdal.”
Annika Nilsén nodded and immediately gave the floor to Stig Bertilsson. He started by telling them about the many years of work Narcotics had devoted to trying to chart the role of the motorcycle gangs in narcotics trafficking. It turned out that they had a surprisingly large share of the market. The small gangs didn’t deal drugs. On the other hand, the gangs associated with the Bandidos or Hell’s Angels did. And the membership of Hell’s Angels Death Squadron No. 1 were being watched most closely at the moment. All kinds of narcotics poured in through them from Denmark and Holland.
Irene began to formulate a vague idea about a connection to Bobo Torsson and Shorty. She broke in with a question. “How do these gangs distribute dope to buyers?”
“Most often through dealers. It’s not easy for a fat guy in leather on a big Harley to ride around selling dope to teenagers. He’s too visible, and the risk of getting caught is too great. No, they take large quantities and sell to middlemen, who then distribute it to the market.”
Irene nodded and said, “That sounds like Bobo Torsson. We know that he was dealing. And Shorty too, but we don’t have anything on him since he got out of prison. Do you know if he’s had any contact with this gang?”
Bertilsson shook his head. Andersson groaned out loud and everyone could hear him muttering, “We’re going to have to release that scumbag!”
Birgitta patted him lightly on the arm and said consolingly, “I think I’ll keep digging in the files. I’ll work on it this afternoon. If there’s any connection, that’s where it’ll be.”
“All right. Keep digging,” her boss sighed.
Irene leaned forward and patted Andersson on the other arm. She gave him an encouraging smile and said, “And you can ask Shorty if Bobo and Charlotte had a relationship. No doubt he won’t answer, but maybe you can read something from his reaction.”
“You mean a sexual relationship?”
“Yes.”
Andersson raised his eyebrows and nodded. He turned to his colleagues from Narcotics and explained, “This is the only point of contact between Bobo and the von Knecht family we’ve found. Do you have the slightest indication that Richard von Knecht or anyone else in the von Knecht family might be mixed up with drugs?”
Annika Nilsén cleared her throat and said in her toneless voice, “No. That name has never come up in our department, as far as I know. Have you ever seen it?” She turned to the two agents, who both shook their heads.
Birgitta said eagerly, “But we’ve found Charlotte’s name on a list from a raid in ninteen eighty-nine! She was single at the time and her last name was Croona.”
Stig Bertilsson looked crestfallen. “But I was in on that bust! Charlotte Croona! She was doing a striptease on the table, so there wasn’t much to search. For lack of anything better I had a good look at her necklace, a little carved cylinder. And when I unscrewed it there was snow inside. Freebase, not pure. That’s why she got off with a suspended sentence. When we got to the station she was almost psychotic. Hallucinating.”
He paused and grimaced at the memory. Then he went on, “I found out that she was a pretty well-known photo model, although there was never anything in the papers about her. But believe me, nobody who was there could forget Charlotte Croona!”
Andersson exclaimed, “And Bobo and Shorty were there too! It has to be Bobo and Charlotte who are the point of contact.”
The others agreed.
Irene sighed dejectedly. “We have to find proof! We’ve got nothing but assumptions and guesses.”
Andersson gave her an indulgent look and said, “That’s fairly normal for an investigation. We just have to find some evidence that will hold up.” He turned to Bertilsson. “What did you come up with in Billdal?”
Bertilsson shrugged. “Not much. Judging from the statements given by the neighbors along the road, the motorcycle guys were on the scene for three days. But no one ever saw more than two at a time. And no one suspected that they had broken into those two summer cabins. The gang had picked the locks. The only trace of drugs was a number of small plastic bags containing amphetamine. No hypodermics, but some paper towels with blood spots. Both places were a mess, and we found tons of fingerprints. Two pairs have been identified, belonging to Glenn ‘Hoffa’ Strömberg and Paul Svensson. Three pairs aren’t in the records. One of them is so small that we assume it’s from the girl. We haven’t managed to identify her. We sent the other two sets to Interpol. We suspect the police in Holland may have those prints in their archives. Death Squadron had a visit from an Amsterdam club all last weekend and the beginning of this week. They came up via Malmö last Thursday. Twelve of them thundering up the coast of Halland. We followed them. Or at least we tried. They split up and stayed with various gang members. Yesterday they went back to Holland.”
Andersson was frowning anxiously when he asked, “But how did Bobo, and possibly also Shorty, come in contact with the Hell’s Angels? Shorty vehemently denies knowing Hoffa.”
The investigators from Narcotics merely shrugged.
After a bit more discussion they decided to adjourn.
IRENE GOT a lift with one of the patrol officers and was dropped off at St. Sigfridsgatan. She brought along a sandwich and a light beer from the cafeteria for Tommy. He had moved the car, but she saw it, quickly walked over, opened the door, and climbed in.
“Hi. I brought you some chow. Anything happening?” she asked.
“Not a thing. I went off to take a leak an hour ago. I was gone ten minutes max. But nothing happened during that time. The Golf is still there, the blinds are closed. Man, stakeouts are sure boring!”
He unwrapped the sandwich from the plastic and opened the beer. It was already dark, and it was starting to get cold in the car.
Irene looked around. “Hey, maybe we should move. The old lady in the house across the street has peeked at us several times from behind her curtains. She probably thinks we’re up to no good. Let’s switch places, then you can keep eating.”
She got out of the car and Tommy slid over to the passenger’s side.
Suddenly a light showed behind the closed blinds on the top floor of Charlotte’s house. After a few minutes a lamp was turned on downstairs. It was probably the hall lamp, because behind the curtains in the bay window of the living room it was still dark. They waited tensely, but nothing else happened. It was time to move the car; the neighbor lady was getting suspicious.
They drove off and parked on Förtroligheten. Irene stuck her arm under Tommy’s and they slowly strolled back up Långåsliden. They talked softly as they walked.
Tommy asked, “Is Jenny going to the Karl the Twelfth demonstrations tonight? Or rather riots, in the worst case.”
“No, she’s never been that interested in going. That was a real eye-opener you gave her last night. She never really understood before that joining up with a group like that also meant that she might have to do things she didn’t like or want to do.”
“But what if her boyfriend demands that she come along?”
Irene hesitated. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t. But Krister says that we need to trust her judgment. She’s a smart girl, but a little lost; she’s had a hard time finding a real best friend. She has Katarina, of course, but they fight all the time, except when Krister or I say something to one of them. Then they gang up on us and stick together.”
They were nearing the yellow villa, completely unprepared, when the front door suddenly opened and a figure rushed out, stumbling down the uneven garden path. The door closed quickly. Evidently Charlotte wasn’t going out with him, which was lucky, considering she might have recognized them at once.
With great self-control Irene forced herself to continue walking at Tommy’s side as if nothing had happened. They kept on talking as they discreetly observed the young man walk around the Golf. He was blond, of medium height, about twenty years old, and he was wearing the soft suede jacket and cowboy boots. The glow of the streetlight fell on him for a moment before he turned his back to them to unlock the car. He had a surprisingly young face with regular features, but he looked very grim. Was he angry? Had they had an argument? With an impatient gesture he pushed the hair out of his face. Irene caught herself thinking that he looked really sweet. Charlotte had gotten herself a boytoy. Although judging by his costume, he would probably prefer being called a cowboy. He got into the car and started fumbling in his jacket pockets. Apparently he was thinking of lighting a cigarette. Tommy and Irene passed the Golf and tried to increase their pace without being noticed. As fast as they dared, they hurried toward the Saab. When they opened the car doors, Irene looked back and saw the Golf swinging out onto the street. She let him drive by, hopped in the Saab, and then made one of her usual illegal U-turns.
He drove down toward Skårs Allé and then turned south on St. Sigfridsgatan. Before long he turned up Kungsbackaleden. Tommy groaned, half in jest, but said with a serious undertone, “Oh no! Don’t tell me we’re going out to Billdal again!”
But they weren’t. At Mölndal the red Golf turned off and headed down Bifrostgatan. He drove a short distance and then parked outside a low apartment house. Irene quickly turned down a side street. They jumped out of the car and saw the young man calmly walk up to the street door and go inside. They jogged up to the door and opened it as cautiously as they could in time to hear a door closing on the floor above. The list of occupants was posted in the foyer.
She saw the name right away and started giggling. She said in a low voice, “R. Skytter. Robert Skytter. She’s screwing her car dealer. And he’s the one who gave her the alibi for the evening of the murder!”
THEY WAITED five minutes before they went upstairs. Tommy rang the doorbell with the nameplate “R. SKYTTER.” They heard footsteps and the door opened. But it wasn’t the cowboy. The man who opened the door had red hair and was taller, but about the same age.
“Hello, we’re from the police. Inspector Irene Huss and Inspector Tommy Persson. We’re looking for Robert Skytter.”
The redhaired youth’s eyes narrowed and he said with feigned nonchalance, “Do you have any ID?”
Both Irene and Tommy pulled out their laminated ID cards and held them up in front of him. He couldn’t hide his disappointment when he said, “These can’t be right. It’s supposed to be a big gold badge.”
Irene sighed loudly. “That’s in the States. You’ve seen too many cop movies. Are you Robert, or is it the guy who came in five minutes ago?”
The redhaired guy looked like he was thinking about answering, but he never got a chance. Behind him the blond young man appeared. He smoothly greeted them, “Hello! What’s this about?”
This was Robert. She recognized his trumpeting voice.
“Hi, Robert. Detective Inspector Irene Huss. We spoke on the telephone last week. May we come in?”
The redhaired guy moved aside reluctantly. Tommy turned to him and said, “And who are you?”
“Daniel Skytter,” he replied sullenly.
Now Irene could see the likeness. They were brothers. In a friendly voice she asked, “Do you live here too?”
“Yes. Temporarily.”
“Temporarily?”
Daniel Skytter showed signs of uneasiness, rocking back and forth on his feet. “I had to move here last week, when my girlfriend threw me out. It was her apartment,” he said morosely.
“So now you live here. What kind of work do you do?”
“Collect unemployment. Out-of-work painter.”
“Well, Daniel, we need to speak to Robert in private. Do you have any objection to taking a little walk?”
Daniel gave a start and then straightened up. His eyes narrowed as he snarled, “I sure do! No witnesses, huh? So you can work him over and make him confess to anything!”
Irene and Tommy sighed at the same time. In an exaggerated pedagogical tone Tommy said, “My dear Daniel, you really ought to stop watching those American movies. We just want to talk to your brother. He’s an important witness in a very serious case that we’re investigating.”
A gleam of curiosity appeared in Daniel’s suspicious gray eyes. Obviously he had no idea what it was all about.
Tommy continued, “Another option is that we take him downtown and question him there.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Yes, we can.”
Uncertainly the brothers looked at each other. Robert nodded and motioned with his head toward the door. Daniel gave up. He took his jacket from the coat hook, put on a cap, stuffed his feet in a pair of heavy jogging shoes, and went out. The look he sent over his shoulders was brimming with distrust.
Irene turned to Robert Skytter.
“How old is your brother?”
“Eighteen.”
“Eighteen years old, and already living with a girl?”
“It didn’t even last two months.”
“Why doesn’t he move back home to Mamma, then?”
“He doesn’t get along with Mamma’s new man. So that’s why he moved in with me last week. But I’m trying to find him a small apartment somewhere. Although he probably can’t afford it.”
“So it was because of him that you and Charlotte chose to meet at her house?”
Robert’s gaze wandered, and then he turned abruptly to lead the way down the narrow corridor and into a small living room, furnished with “Balder” the sofa, “Runar” the coffee table, and “Diplomat” the bookshelf. Irene recognized them from her studies in home decorating: the ’96 IKEA catalog.
Robert motioned them to the sofa. He chose “Tobbe,” the armchair, for himself. But he got up just as quickly and asked nervously, “Would you like something to drink? Ramlösa? Light beer? Strong beer?”
“Ramlösa, thanks.”
“A light beer, thanks.”
He vanished down the hallway and into the kitchen. They could hear him clinking bottles and glasses. Through a half-open door Irene glimpsed an unmade bed. Two rooms and a kitchen. And his little brother. That was Robert Skytter’s living situation for the present. Not great for inviting over his married lover from Örgryte. Again the familiar “why” popped up in her mind. Why did Charlotte need this sweet little boytoy? The object in question appeared with bottles and glasses in a precarious grip. Robert set his burden down on the table before he began to speak uncertainly and tentatively.
“So you were the ones at Charlotte’s house this morning?”
Irene nodded. “It was after ten o’clock. Yes, it was us.”
“It’s like you said. There’s not enough room here, and with Daniel ... you know.”
“Was it Charlotte who wanted you to come to her house?”
He looked down at the table and then nodded.
“How long have you and Charlotte been together?”
He looked up and seemed genuinely surprised. “We’re not together! Well, okay. Last night.”
“You’ve never slept with each other before?”
Now his hands were shaking and he picked sulkily at the label on his beer. Tommy repeated the question. Finally he said, extremely reluctantly, “I’ve already told you what happened last week when she picked up the car. What is she accused of, anyway?”
“She’s not accused of anything. Possibly suspected of giving incorrect information regarding the murder of Richard von Knecht. We don’t know for sure yet. That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Tommy said in his best police tone of voice.
Irene decided to bring up what had been nagging at her subconscious. Jonny’s flat tire had brought it to the surface. Sternly she said, “Robert, nobody ever cares about checking the spare tire. Nobody! Least of all Charlotte. What actually happened?”
Tommy looked very serious and stared right into Robert’s eyes before he added, “Robert, if you lied about what happened that Tuesday afternoon, then you can be indicted for abetting a criminal. That can result in several years in prison. Is she worth it?”
Robert kept picking at the beer label and seemed completely absorbed by its artistic design. He swallowed several times before he replied. “She’s so luscious. But she takes pills that she mixes with wine. She asked several times if I wanted some . . . but I don’t use that shit. I’ve tried smoking grass a few times, of course. But this was big-time stuff. Finally, I didn’t dare drink anything! In case she put some fucking shit in my wine.”
“You didn’t know that she uses narcotics?”
He shook his head vigorously. Suddenly he exclaimed, “I hardly know her! It was like a God damned sex fantasy! She was naked underneath! And I . . . it was impossible to resist her.”
Heavily he rested his head in his hands. Since he didn’t seem to want to go on, Irene decided to try to get him to relax and keep talking. In a mischievous tone of voice she said, “But Robbie, aren’t you old enough to know that all women are naked under their clothes?”
He laughed and gave her a desperate look. “But not right under their coats!”
Irene motioned to Tommy. This looked like it was going to be man-to-man talk. He understood and turned with an expression of the greatest sympathy toward the young man. Tactfully he asked, “Robert, are you talking about the Tuesday evening last week, when Charlotte came to pick up her new car?”
“Yes.”
“When did you and Charlotte first meet?”
“Three or four weeks before. There’s a little waiting time for cars with special paint jobs.”
“Does Charlotte’s car have special paint?”
“Yes. Light yellow. A pale lemon yellow. A luscious color.”
“What happened when you were supposed to deliver the car to her?”
“I called all day Friday and Saturday, because we got word that it wouldn’t arrive until after the weekend, on Monday morning. She finally answered just before we closed. So then we agreed that she would come over on Monday afternoon. But she never showed up. On Tuesday I called her house in the morning, but she wasn’t in. Then she called at three in the afternoon and said that she could come down in an hour to pick up the car. She said that she specifically wanted me to help her, nobody else. And I . . . was happy to oblige.”
He stopped and looked down at his fingers picking at the label. He had scraped almost the whole thing off the bottle. Tommy leaned forward and said, “When did she arrive?”
“Right after four. She had one of those cloth raincoats on, with a belt drawn tight around her waist and high-heeled shoes. When we went over to her old car, which she was trading in, her coat slipped open and she was wearing some of those nylon stockings that stay up by themselves. And nothing else. When she leaned over the seat . . . then I saw . . . Naked. She was naked. Except for the stockings.”
He stopped and his cheeks were red. He stole a glance at Irene. She responded with feigned indifference. But inside she was seething with emotion! This was a premeditated seduction.
Tommy ignored her presence and continued as though there were just two men in the room. “She made you hot?”
“What do you think? I’m a guy, after all!”
“So the two of you decided to screw?”
Robert was bright red in the face, but his expression became almost satyrlike when he replied. “You bet! We got into her new car and drove around to the back of the building where an old Ford Transit is parked; we have to fix it up a little before spring. They sell like hotcakes. People buy them as vacation cars. We hopped in the Transit. She brought a blanket and a bag from her old car. So we lay down on the blanket.”
“You were hot, I know that. So it didn’t take long before you were finished?”
To Irene’s satisfaction, some of Robert’s satyr smile was wiped away. “Well, yeah. But we couldn’t take too long because they’d start to miss me in the showroom, you know. But then she said that we’d meet again soon. If I wanted to.”
“And you did, I suppose.”
“Did I ever! It’s what every guy dreams about happening sometime in his life!”
“When did you hear from her again?”
“On Wednesday night. The next day. She said that we’d have to wait a while to meet. Her father-in-law had been murdered, you know. She also said that the police would probably want to get in touch with me. And that she had told them the truth. That she picked up the car. But not the rest. We agreed to say that we’d gone over the new car extra carefully. There are actually quite a few new details on this model. Take for example the new—”
“But that wasn’t what you were doing. Going over new details. How does this fit in with the timetable you gave us? You said that you heard the news on the radio and that she said something like, ‘Oh, it’s the five o’clock news already! I have to hurry!’ And she got her papers for the new car and drove off.”
His whole young face radiated honesty.
“But the last part is true! When we were . . . finished . . . she put on the clothes she had in her bag. Then when she got into the car she turned on the radio. That’s when we heard the news program. And then she said that part about the five o’clock news.”
Both the detectives could hear that he was telling the truth. They got up, thanked him for the refreshments, and Tommy patted Robert lightly on the shoulder and said, “You probably know that she was using you. Tell me seriously—wasn’t it really too good to be true?”
Robert hung his head, but nodded in agreement.
“If it hadn’t been for the drugs . . . but she had to keep taking that shit all the time. Before I left this afternoon, I told her. That it’s dangerous, I mean. I don’t like stuff like that. She was mad and told me I could go to hell. I felt mostly relieved. Really!”
Thank God he was someone who hesitated about contact with narcotics. Charlotte had misjudged him, while Irene had been right. She had liked him after their first conversation on the phone. He had lifted her spirits on that rotten Friday. The Friday she had spent in Stockholm. Impulsively she decided to call Mona Söder as soon as possible.
THEY DROVE by Örgryte, but the house was empty. The garage door was unlocked and when they looked inside, the garage was empty. There was no yellow Golf. In a corner inside the door they found two empty plastic jugs marked “DISTILLED WATER.”
At the department there was still feverish activity even though it was past six. Andersson wasn’t in his office. Birgitta Moberg was deeply engrossed in her computer. On the desk lay stacks of papers and folders. They decided to go down to the pizzeria a few blocks away.
Before they left, Irene called home. Her mother answered. Yes, both the twins were home. They had rented a video, which they were watching. The girls had eaten dinner, and she was going to watch the rest of the movie with them. Before she hung up she said, “Be careful if you go out. It said on the TV news that there are young people rioting downtown. Good thing you’re not involved with such dangerous things. When are you coming home?”
THE UPROAR in the center of town could be heard clearly. They went in the opposite direction and slipped into the pizzeria, whose owner was getting rich from the Göteborg police force. Besides pizza it served excellent dinners. They each ordered goulash and a large regular beer and had bread and salad while they waited for the main course.
As they sat stabbing at the salad with their forks, Birgitta said, “I found something really interesting this afternoon. Bobo Torsson and Hoffa Strömberg were in the same prison. At the same time, that is. There’s the contact between Bobo and the Hell’s Angels.”
“What does Shorty say about that?”
“Naturally he doesn’t know a thing about it, according to him. He did seven years inside, after all. But at a different prison.”
“What was Hoffa in for?”
“Aggravated assault. The victim will never be a human being again. It was a fight between rival motorcycle gangs. We don’t have any evidence against Shorty. He’ll probably be released tomorrow. Andersson is frantic.”
Irene and Tommy told her about their discoveries that afternoon. Birgitta didn’t interrupt the story. She stared at them steadily, not wanting to miss a word. There was an intense gleam in her eyes when she leaned over her piping hot goulash and said in a low voice, “The beautiful people and their glamorous life. It’s so enticing and enviable when you see it from a distance. But if you start to scratch the surface, the gold soon turns to dust.”
AT NINE o’clock Irene called Mona Söder at home and left a message on her answering machine.
“Hi, Mona. This is Irene Huss in Göteborg. I want to thank you for telling me everything and letting me meet Jonas. It was a big help in the investigation that we didn’t have to keep checking on you two. You’ve been completely eliminated from the suspect list. I’ve . . . been thinking about Jonas. Please give him my fondest regards. Tell him that the butterfly painting is the most wonderful I’ve ever seen. Talk to you later, Mona. I . . . we’ll talk.” Quickly she hung up. Then she drove home.