Chapter Sixteen
IT SMELLED LIKE COFFEE and gingersnaps at “morning prayers.” Everyone had come, except for Hans Borg and Superintendent Andersson. The secretary had set up an Advent wreath, and the first candle was lit. In the windows stood the electric ones, spreading a soft, cozy glow. Irene was already into her fourth cup of coffee of the morning when the boss’s steps were heard approaching down the corridor. They sounded determined. There was a sense of foreboding when the door was flung open and Andersson’s bright red face appeared in the doorway.
Angrily he shouted, “Damn, it’s dark in here. Turn on the lights!”
He stepped inside and poured himself some coffee, looked down into the steaming cup, and took a deep whiff.
“You’ll have to excuse me. Happy Advent, or whatever it’s called. But everything is going to hell! Shorty is going to be released this morning. And that God damned standalone has fallen into the cellar!”
Borg appeared in the doorway just in time to hear the boss’s words. He nodded and said, “That’s right. They called me when the standalone broke through. It’s going to be salvaged later today. We decided to start digging for those pipes instead. Now there’s a hole anyway. They have to redo the support work over the weekend. We won’t have another chance to lift out the safe until Monday morning at the earliest.”
Jonny Blom looked annoyed and urged, “Why don’t we just knock down the walls with one of those big balls on the end of a crane? Quick and easy!”
Borg dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. “Too rough. The whole building could come crashing down and then it would be hard to locate the safe.”
“How are we going to open it?”
“We’ve checked it out with binoculars. It’s a Swedish safe with a combination lock. A guy from Rosengren’s is coming to help us. There’s probably no bomb inside, but we’re going to take safety precautions when we open it.”
Andersson gave the group a grim look and said, “We’re not getting anywhere. This is going too slow! Damn!”
The last had to be interpreted as a general comment on the state of things. No one ventured an opposing point of view.
Irene reported on her interview with Charlotte von Knecht and the conversation with her young lover. Tommy took over and told about Robert Skytter’s revelations. By the time Irene presented Chong’s story from the ’89 raid, they had quite a different image of the charming Charlotte von Knecht, née Croona.
Andersson’s face was beginning to return to normal, but his voice was strident. “That filly doesn’t have clean oats in her feed bag. Or to put it more precisely, clean snow! Ha ha! Ahem. What did that guy from Narcotics call the stuff he found in her pendant?”
Birgitta hurried to his rescue and said pedantically, “Freebase. Cocaine mixed with bicarbonate of soda. That’s what’s sold on the street. Pure cocaine is too strong and too dangerous. And who can check how much baking soda they put in?”
Now that she had started, she told them about her visit to Vänersborg to see Bobo’s mother. It had produced nothing of value. Mother and son seemed not to have had any contact in recent years. It had been almost two years since they last saw each other. But she had brought up the question again about the insurance payment in the event of death. Birgitta had referred her to the claims office of the current insurance company. The mother hadn’t seen Bobo’s father in more than twenty years, but she knew that he was a total outcast. She herself had remarried, lived in a house outside of Vänersborg, and worked in a candy store. Birgitta’s final tidbit was the discovery that Bobo Torsson and Glenn “Hoffa” Strömberg had done time in the same prison, but she had been unable to find any connection between Shorty and the two Hell’s Angels, except for Shorty and Paul Svensson’s abortive participation in the bank robbery in Kungsbacka in the early eighties.
Andersson sighed heavily. “And today we have to release that son-of-a-bitch! Jonny and I have both grilled him, but it didn’t produce a thing. Except that we suspect he knows who killed Bobo. That’s why I want surveillance on him. Jonny? Hans? Fredrik? Birgitta?”
They all nodded. Only Fredrik looked enthusiastic. Andersson went on, “And how’s it going with Bobo’s drunken father? Did you get hold of him, Hannu?”
“Yes. At Lillhagen.”
“He’s been admitted to Lillhagen Hospital?”
“Right. He can’t walk or talk. He’s dying of liver cancer.”
“But Lillhagen is a mental hospital. He shouldn’t be there if he has liver cancer.”
“Nobody would take him. He was admitted this summer. They found him passed out in a stairwell on the north side of town.”
There was a brief pause as they poured more coffee and reached their hands into the plastic container to grab some gingersnaps. Andersson stacked up three cookies and bit into all of them at once. The result was a shower of crumbs. With his mouth full of gingersnaps he said, “Fredrik, did you find out anything new yesterday?”
Fredrik’s face lit up, and he began energetically leafing through his notebook full of scribblings. “You bet! Two interesting new observations on Molinsgatan. I did another round with the tenants yesterday and asked if anyone had seen or heard anything at midnight on Friday, a week ago. Especially if anyone had seen or heard the Porsche. It’s not a car you can sneak around in. A guy whose baby had a stomachache was up with the kid at that time. His living room window faces Molinsgatan, two floors above von Knecht’s garage. He remembers that he heard a car braking hard outside the garage, then someone fussing with the garage doors. They’re old and stiff and creak like crazy. Next he heard a car start up and drive out of the garage. After a while another car started and was driven into the garage. By then the guy was curious and went over to the window to take a look. There stood the Porsche parked on the street. He stood there almost fifteen minutes, rocking the kid by the window. The baby fell asleep and he put him to bed. Then he went to the john, and when he got back he heard the Porsche starting up. When he got to the window and looked out, it was gone.”
“This is great! Did he see anybody?”
“No.”
“Does he know exactly what time it was?”
“No. But he thinks the Porsche drove off sometime between twelve-thirty and a quarter to one.”
Andersson rubbed his nose excitedly, so it shone Christmas-red. Irene spontaneously thought of a certain Rudolph with the red nose, but she kept her associations to herself. Pondering, the superintendent said, “Someone parks a car outside. Someone opens the garage door. Someone drives out the Porsche. Someone drives his car into the garage. Someone drives off in the Porsche.”
Everyone nodded to show that they were following along.
“Someone also came back in the morning and drove out his own car and put back the Porsche. It wasn’t on Berzeliigatan on Saturday morning, because then the man with the bedroom window facing the parking places would have seen it. It’s those damned keys to the car and the garage that are haunting us again!”
Hannu nodded and said, “Which Pirjo had.”
They all remembered the sooty key rings in plastic bags that the arson tech had shown them. Andersson began to rub his nose again.
“Why did Pirjo have these two key rings? She couldn’t drive. She didn’t have her own car. She had never been given her own key to von Knecht’s apartment.”
Fredrik interrupted him excitedly. “I think Birgitta was right the other day, when she said that somebody lured Pirjo to Berzeliigatan. The techs say that Pirjo never crossed the threshold to the apartment on Molinsgatan on Wednesday morning. First she had a hard time understanding when they tried to explain to her that Richard von Knecht was dead. She spoke very poor Swedish. When she finally grasped what they were telling her, she was utterly distraught. But she was never allowed in, because they had just started on the lower floor when she arrived. On the other hand, I got to hear something interesting from the guy who has that nice-looking clothing store on the corner. His name is . . . let me see . . .”
He feverishly leafed through his papers.
Jonny rolled his eyes and flapped his hands affectedly as he chirped in falsetto, “His name is Carl-Johan Quist. Q-u-i-s-t. I had the pleasure of questioning him on Wednesday, after von Knecht’s aerial escapade. He said he didn’t know a thing. He just heard someone screaming outside his store and then ‘. . . ugh . . . oooh, so horrible . . . the poor wretch lay in a big nasty heap! I couldn’t look, but I called the police at once!’ I can see why he’d want to make himself interesting to you. But I guess you’re probably his type.”
Fredrik froze. A fiery blush instantly appeared on his cheeks, and the look he gave Jonny was annihilating. Then he slowly collected his wits and said with restrained rage, “Unlike you, I can talk to people without having to step on them. That’s how I get results. You just strut off and think you’ve been damned witty when you’ve squashed someone! But all you’ve really done is boost your own rotten ego!”
That’s when Birgitta did it. Right in front of her astonished colleagues she went over and planted a big kiss on Fredrik’s mouth.
His blush deepened and his ears turned almost fluorescent. But his expression had brightened considerably. The same could not be said for Jonny.
Andersson felt he was about to lose all control of the situation. To take the initiative, he burst out, “What the hell are you doing? Stop taunting each other and . . . kissing! This isn’t some playground, it’s a homicide investigation! Colleagues and ladies . . . let’s keep our work separate!”
After this, the group made a real effort to get serious. Fredrik smoothed out his paper again. He had wadded it up during the emotional confrontation. As if nothing had happened, he continued, “I have his name here. Carl-Johan Quist. He recognized Pirjo and knew that she cleaned for the von Knechts. She used to arrive at the same time he opened the store. That’s why he reacted when he saw her on Wednesday morning. He thought no one would have missed the news that Richard von Knecht was dead! So he kept an eye out for Pirjo that morning. She came out about fifteen minutes later. Just then two reporters walked into the store. Not to buy clothes, but to interview one of the eyewitnesses to von Knecht’s fall. Quist said that he hadn’t seen much more than von Knecht hitting the ground almost on his doorstep. When he had to show the vultures exactly where von Knecht had landed, he happened to cast a glance toward the streetcar stop. He saw Pirjo leaning toward a rolled-down side window of a large light-colored car. She was talking to someone inside the car. He says that the image is etched on his retina, because in his wildest imagination he could never believe that someone would want to pick up that fat little woman! The memory reappeared as soon as Quist read in the paper that Pirjo had died in the fire on Berzeliigatan.”
Excitedly Andersson leaned toward Fredrik and said, “What make of car was it?”
Fredrik shook his head regretfully. “Unfortunately Quist is useless when it comes to makes of cars. He doesn’t know a thing. He has no driver’s license and has never owned a car himself. But he thinks it was a BMW or Mercedes. I subscribe to Birgitta’s theory from the other day: Somebody gave Pirjo the keys so she could go and trigger the bomb. And it was the person in the car.”
The keys. The keys were flashing . . . what was it about those keys? Irene tried to capture the vague mental image, but it slipped away like soap between her fingers.
As if hearing her thoughts, Andersson echoed, “The keys. Always these keys! I understand that the killer gave her the keys so she could go and trip the bomb. But why the garage and car keys?”
Hannu squinted under his eyelids and said softly, “To get rid of them.”
“The car keys? To get rid of them?”
Andersson paused and looked with increasing respect at his borrowed resource. “Of course! To get rid of the evidence he gives the keys to Pirjo! Maybe also to screw with our heads. And he certainly succeeded there. But not anymore! Now we know how it all happened! At least we have a good theory.”
Birgitta looked angry and snapped, “What a horrifying person! Sending off a mother of three to a certain death! I can almost hear this monster saying, ‘Dear Pirjo, will you be an angel and clean up Richard von Knecht’s office apartment? He doesn’t need it any longer, but it has to look nice when people come to look at it. And by the way, while you’re there, could you please put back these keys? Thank you, I’ll pay you double time if you do this for me.’ And the murderer drives off with the secure knowledge that he will never have to pay that double time.”
There was a silence as everyone played out the imagined scene in their minds. It was quite conceivable that it had happened exactly that way.
Irene spoke. “If this was what the murderer did, we know three things. First, the murderer had access to both key rings that were found with Pirjo after the fire. Second, Pirjo knew the murderer and trusted him. Or her. Third, the murderer had access to a light-colored car. Quite large, according to Quist. The teacher at Ascheberg High School also saw a light-colored car on the evening of the murder. Sylvia’s BMW is red. As is the Porsche. The light-colored cars we know about in this case are Henrik von Knecht’s Mercedes and Charlotte’s light yellow Golf. Although a Golf isn’t very big. And wouldn’t a teacher have noticed that it was yellow?”
“Not necessarily. It’s pale yellow. He was running toward the parking garage. Imagine that it was dark, pouring rain, and he saw it at a distance,” said Birgitta.
Andersson gave Fredrik an urgent look. “You have to bring in Quist at once for an interview. He works with clothes and might be able to say something about the color, for God’s sake! And try to get him to decide what make of car it was!”
“Will do. Although one thing occurs to me. Shorty has a white Ford Mondeo. Brand new, with dark tinted windows. Totally luscious,” said Fredrik.
“All right, you might as well check out his car too. Although Quist probably can’t tell the difference between a Golf and a Mondeo. Did he happen to see who was sitting in the car?”
“No. But he did say that the car windows were dark.”
Irene remembered something. “The windows on Henrik’s Benz are, too.”
Andersson frowned and thought for a moment. “Okay. Fredrik, you work on that little ho . . . shopowner today. Jonny, Hans, and Birgitta will follow Shorty when he gets out after lunch. Like leeches! If we’re lucky he might lead us to the killer. To Bobo’s killer, in any case. You four will also take the weekend shift. The others who were on duty last weekend will have this one off. But today we’ll keep checking and double-checking everything we’ve developed so far. Irene and Tommy, you can run up to Molinsgatan and find out if anyone else saw Pirjo talking to the driver of that light-colored Golf or Mercedes, or whatever kind of car it was. Speaking of cars: Ask if anybody saw the cars outside the garage on Molinsgatan on Friday night. It would be especially interesting to find out what kind of car was driven into the garage instead of the Porsche! Hannu, I want you to lean on Pirjo’s daughter a little more. I have a feeling she might be hiding quite a bit. To protect her mamma’s reputation or something. It sounds damned funny that she didn’t say what place she was going off to clean.”
Hannu nodded, but Irene saw him shrug at the same time. Apparently he didn’t think he would get much farther with Marjatta.
The superintendent adjourned the meeting. “I’ll be here all day and maybe part of the weekend. Otherwise you can reach me at home.”
They all stood up. Birgitta and Fredrik slipped out to the corridor first, and the superintendent could hear their laughter sweep into the room like a warm and promising breeze. He felt a sudden pang. Was she going to start going out with Fredrik? How would that affect her trip to Australia? All her talk about independence and freedom from men’s demands! Although they said the beer was good in Australia. But that’s not somewhere he would ever go.
THE TEMPERATURE was just below freezing, and there was black ice on the roads. People were taking careful little baby steps on the sidewalks. The ambulances were making shuttle trips to the emergency rooms with broken arms and legs.
Fredrik rode with Irene and Tommy. In a bag on the floor he had an assortment of pictures of various car models. Carl-Johan Quist had categorically refused to come down to HQ to look at them. He was alone in the store and the Christmas shopping season was starting. He couldn’t get away until Saturday afternoon after three at the earliest. Then he had unlimited time, if the inspector could make it then? So Fredrik decided that the mountain would have to come to Mohammed. He persuaded himself that the primary reason was the time factor. They had to clear up quickly what make of car they were looking for. Somewhere in the back of his mind Jonny’s scornful comments during morning prayers were still reverberating. But then he remembered Birgitta’s reaction to the verbal battle with Jonny and instantly felt quite satisfied with the way things had developed.
Irene managed to find a parking place on the other side of Aschebergsgatan. They agreed to meet back at the car at one o’clock on the dot. Anyone who didn’t show up within fifteen minutes would have to take the streetcar back to HQ. Gingerly, Fredrik walked off toward the clothing store with his pictures in the dark blue bag. Irene and Tommy saw him slip and almost fall in the middle of the crosswalk.
Irene chuckled. “He doesn’t really have his feet on the ground. He’s still floating after Birgitta’s kiss.”
“No wonder! Who wouldn’t be?”
“Would you?”
“Well . . . a little hop, maybe . . .”
They laughed, and it warmed them up. They decided to split up. Tommy would do a round and ask about the cars outside the garage on Friday night. Irene would take Pirjo and the light-colored car.
The streetcar stop where Pirjo had stood was about forty meters from Quist’s store. There were always people waiting at the stop, since two streetcar lines and three bus lines passed by. It was probably no use to ask the people standing there now. Better to concentrate on the shops and businesses at street level.
Closest to her was a big art gallery. GALLERI UNO was written in curlicue letters on the show window and doors. When she tried to push open the door, it was locked. A note the size of a postage stamp was fastened with tape at eye level. “Monday-Tuesday closed. Wednesday- Saturday 12-17. Sunday 12-16.” Okay, Uno would have to wait till last.
Uno’s neighbor was a small foot-care shop. The woman behind the counter was wearing a nylon dress that had probably been white once upon a time. The only thing that gleamed white now was her hair. Irene was unsure. Was this a real business? In Sweden people usually retire at the age of sixty-five, but this lady had to be twenty years older. Yet her voice was strong and clear.
“Hello, how can I help you?”
“Hello. My name is Irene Huss, detective inspector. I’m investigating the murder of Richard von Knecht.”
The old woman leaned over the counter and whispered so excitedly that her dental work clacked. “Imagine, how exciting, right at my doorstep! I’ve been following it on TV and in the papers.”
“I suppose you’ve read in the papers that there is a possible link to the arson bombing on Berzeliigatan?”
“Well, it’s obvious there’s a connection! And that little cleaning woman who died in the fire! Since she cleaned here at the von Knechts’ place, it’s clear that she had something to do with the fire on Berzeliigatan!”
She crossed her arms and gave Irene a challenging look.
“That little cleaning woman is the key,” said Irene. “We’re trying to track whom she met on that last day of her life. Wednesday of last week. According to several witnesses, she was seen outside here at the streetcar stop at around ten—”
“That’s right. I saw her. Three times a week for a couple of years I’ve seen her arrive on the streetcar. She usually rode home around three in the afternoon. But last Wednesday she went home at ten in the morning.”
“Did you see whether she walked over to a car that had stopped?”
“Yes, she did. But they only talked for a minute. The car drove off almost at once.”
“What kind of car was it?”
For the first time in their conversation the elderly saleswoman looked uncertain. “What kind?”
“Yes, what make of car.”
“I’m not so good at makes of cars.”
Irene sighed, but she tried to hide it. “Was it a large or small car?”
“I don’t know. Pretty big, I think,” she said and sucked pensively on her ill-fitting false teeth.
“Do you remember what color it was?”
“I don’t remember. Maybe brown. Or lighter . . . But the little cleaning woman—actually she wasn’t little—short, but not little. She was fat. She was wearing a white head scarf and a dark green jacket. And she had a big red shopping bag in her hand.”
That jibed with Marjatta’s description of what Pirjo was wearing. Irene decided to leave the car until later.
“Can you tell me what happened when Pirjo went over to the car?”
“She walked up to it. Bent down and began talking to someone inside the car.”
“What side of the car was she standing on?”
“She was on the curb. The driver of the car rolled down the window on the passenger’s side. But I didn’t see much, since the car was hiding the cleaning woman from my view.”
“So the driver had his back to you?”
“Yes. Although the windows of the car were so dark that I couldn’t see very well. But I think the driver had on a light jacket or coat.”
“Was it a man or a woman?”
“Couldn’t tell. But I think it was a man.”
“Why’s that?”
“I thought the driver was fairly tall. And when the car drove off, the cleaning woman waved a little after it. Like this.”
The old woman demonstrated a furtive wave. This reinforced Irene’s feeling that Pirjo must have known the person who gave her the keys. Hopefully she said, “Anything else you can recall?”
The woman really tried, but drew a blank. Irene asked for her name, address, telephone number, and Social Security number. Her name was Ester Pettersson and she was eighty-two years old. Irene felt her curiosity reawakened.
“It’s unusual for people to still be working at your age. Is it temporary?”
“Oh no, I’ve been in my shop for sixty-one years! My father used to own it, but he got T.B. and died. Mother was delicate. So I had to take care of the shop.”
“Didn’t you ever consider retiring?”
“Never! What in the world would I do?”
Irene declined her offer of coffee and promised to drop by again. A little bell tinkled when the door closed and shut off the olfactory symphony of foot powder, wart medicine, and liniment for tired feet.
BY ONE o’clock all three of them had returned to the car. Tommy had no new facts about the nighttime car exchange. Irene hadn’t had any nibbles other than the old lady in the foot-care shop. Fredrik had made enough progress with Quist that he was convinced the car Pirjo had approached was a larger sedan. Light-colored paint. Probably white or beige. Dark tinted windows. And then Fredrik had been invited to lunch, but as politely and firmly as possible he declined. He gave the excuse that he was having lunch with his girlfriend. Not because he was going steady with any girl just now, but there might be a chance of changing that. He decided not to tell Irene and Tommy about the lunch invitation. They were decent colleagues, not at all like Jonny, but he’d still never hear the end of a juicy detail like that! All in good fun, of course.
Tommy was looking thoughtfully at the stately art nouveau facade on the other side of Aschebergsgatan. He glanced up at the marble balustrade of the top floor and the now famous little turreted balcony. He mused, “I wonder if Sylvia von Knecht is home? I’d like to look in the garage again.”
Irene unlocked the car, took the card with Sylvia’s phone number out of her jacket pocket, and punched the number on her cell phone.
“Sylvia von Knecht’s residence,” a female voice answered in a lilting Finnish accent.
“Hello, my name is Detective Inspector Irene Huss. I’m looking for Sylvia von Knecht.”
“She’s gone up to Marstrand. One of the horses is sick.”
“When do you expect her back?”
“This evening.”
“What time?”
“No idea.” It was a cool but not at all unfriendly voice.
Irene decided to take a chance. “Are you Sylvia von Knecht’s sister? Arja Montgomery?”
“Yes, I am.”
“May we come up for a moment? We’re right outside your building, on Aschebergsgatan.”
After a brief pause she said hesitantly, “I don’t know . . . Sylvia doesn’t like having the police snooping around.”
“No, I know that. She’s a little fragile after all that’s happened. But she has always helped us in our investigation. Our problem at the moment is something that can be easily solved with your help. We just need to get into the garage on Molinsgatan. The key is on Richard’s car-key ring. It’s on his nightstand, next to the case with the apartment keys.”
Again a hesitant silence. Finally Arja said, resigned, “I’ll go see if I can find them.”
There was a clatter when she put down the receiver. After a couple of minutes she returned.
“I found them. But I’ll have to bring the keys down to you. It’s a little silly, but I don’t know the code to the front door.”
“That’s okay. We’ll be waiting outside.”
ARJA WAS considerably younger than Sylvia. To Irene’s surprise, she realized that she and Arja were about the same age. It was difficult to see the resemblance to her older sister. Almost ten centimeters taller, with a powerful and slightly stocky figure, Arja was good looking in a typical Finnish way. She had thick light blond shoulder-length hair, high cheekbones, big clear blue eyes, and a wide mouth with beautiful, even teeth, revealed in an apologetic smile. She motioned at the dirty men’s shirt and worn jeans she was wearing and said, “Excuse me, but I’m helping Sylvia clean up. The funeral is on Thursday, so she wants the place to look nice.”
What was it Sylvia had once said? “Only Finns know how to clean properly.” It seemed as though she was sticking to that thesis. Arja pulled the keys out of her jeans pocket and asked, “Are these the right keys?”
“Yes, they are. And here are our IDs. It’s important that you know who you gave the keys to.”
Irene took out her police ID. Tommy and Fredrik followed her example, surprised. Arja glanced briefly at the card with the embossed metal seal and nodded.
Irene smiled and said, “After working on this investigation I know how Sylvia is. She’ll scold you if you don’t ask who you’re lending the keys to. But now you’ve seen our IDs and know for sure that we’re police officers.”
At first Arja looked surprised, but then her sapphire-blue eyes began to glitter mischievously, and a warm smile spread across her face.
“I can see that you do know my dear sister. Or more correctly, my half sister,” she said.
That explained the difference between them. Irene felt her curiosity urging her on. “Do you have the same father or the same mother?”
“The same mother. Sylvia’s father was killed during the Finnish-German offensive against the Soviet Union in June of ’forty-one. Sylvia was born seven months later. Mother remarried a cousin of her late husband. My father, that is.”
“Was it so that some ancestral estate would stay in the family?”
“No. The family’s property was located in Viborg province, which was ceded to Russia. We were wiped out after the war.”
“Is your father still alive?”
“No. He died of lung cancer ten years ago. Chain smoker.”
“And how is your mother doing?” Irene nodded up at the apartment.
Arja laughed. “She’s quite spry. Seventy-eight years old. She hears what she wants to, but otherwise there’s nothing wrong with her. She’s up there baking cookies for the funeral reception.”
“Funeral reception? Isn’t it going to be a large funeral, with pomp and splendor and a big dinner?”
It wasn’t a cop’s question, but a spontaneous expression of surprise straight from Irene’s heart.
Arja pursed her lips significantly. “If you know my sister so well, you also know that she is very frugal. It’s probably a remnant of our meager childhood. Keep up appearances, but it can’t cost anything! Sylvia thinks that a funeral reception for the closest mourners is sufficient. Guess who has to fix the sandwiches!”
She gave another warm smile, said good-bye to the detectives, and closed the beautiful front door.
IT WAS a big two-car garage. The red BMW was gone, but the Porsche was in place.
They closed the garage door behind them and turned on the overhead light. The witness two floors up was right. The door creaked and screeched terribly when it was opened or closed. The garage was deep and wide. The cars had plenty of room in the forward part. The back was obviously used for storage. Shelves all along the back wall held cartons, ladders, snow tires, a hose, slalom skis, two racing bikes painted metallic green with curved handlebars, and a lot of rope, cans, and boxes.
Irene looked around thoughtfully and asked, “Have the techs examined the garage thoroughly?”
Tommy shook his head. “No, just the car. The only strange thing about it is that they found traces of dirt or sand and oil in the trunk and inside on the floor of the car. Both at the base of the backseat and on the floor in front of the passenger’s seat.”
They went over to the car and opened the small trunk. On the bottom they could clearly see some dark oil spots, as big as one-krona coins. A little gravel and sand had adhered to them. Inside the car there were similar spots on the floor mats. It was a very nice car to look into. And surely even nicer to drive. The black leather upholstery lent the car a masculine aura. The little leather-covered steering wheel and the high-tech instrument panel gave the sense of sitting in a cockpit, which was of course the intention. Irene felt a slight flutter in her diaphragm as she settled into the driver’s seat.
“Excuse me, Irene, but have you entered nirvana or what?” It was Tommy’s voice that abruptly brought her back to earth.
Dreamily she said, “You get a certain feeling sitting in a car like this.”
“Go ahead and enjoy it. It’s not often you wind up in a Porsche. But I found something over here. Come on.”
With a sigh she hoisted herself out of the wonderful leather seat and followed him to the back of the garage. In one corner, wedged in between the end of the shelves and the wall, stood a large gasoline can of green metal. Tommy tried to wriggle it out, which he finally managed to do. He shook it and confirmed, “Empty. Only a little splash left.”
“How much does a can like this hold?”
“Twenty-five or thirty liters. It’s illegal to store gasoline in garages or similar spaces.”
“But it’s empty.”
“Yep. But it used to have gasoline in it.” Tommy unscrewed the lid and sniffed the opening.
“But maybe it was empty when it was put in here.”
“Maybe.”
He didn’t sound convinced, and Irene agreed with him. She looked at the can and said, “Could it have been this gasoline that was used for the devil bomb on Berzeliigatan?”
“Exactly what I’m thinking. But there had to be more gasoline involved than this.”
They went around looking at the junk on the shelves. All of a sudden Irene saw it. A yellow-and-black-edged snake that was trying to creep away under the bottom shelf plank. A cutoff piece of water hose. She pulled it out. It proved to be about a meter and a half long.
Triumphantly she said, “Check it out! A piece of the water hose, you say. Wrong, wrong! I say.”
Both Fredrik and Tommy looked astonished. They stared dumbly at the hose and suddenly Tommy lit up.
“Yep! You’re right. That’s it.”
Fredrik sighed, “I still think it’s a piece of hose.”
Both Irene and Tommy shook their heads and said at the same time, “It’s a siphon!”
Irene stepped over to the coiled-up water hose. The piece had come from it. The fresh cuts fit perfectly when she put them together. Her heart was pounding with excitement, a familiar reaction to a riddle that was nearing its solution.
“That’s it all right! This is what took time inside the garage. Our bomber cut off a piece of the hose and used it as a siphon, to transfer the gasoline from the metal can to the plastic can. Or the plastic cans, I mean,” she added.
Tommy nodded his agreement and said, “Yep! But it would take more gasoline. Do you think he took it out of the car gas tanks?”
They looked at the Porsche. The BMW had also been in here. That was quite a lot of gasoline. Irene looked at the Porsche a long time. Finally she said, “I think I know why he took the Porsche and not his own car.”
She took the car key, climbed into the soft driver’s seat, and turned the ignition. The engine turned over. Her heart was pounding again as she pointed at the instrument panel.
“Look. The tank is almost empty.”
“Shut it off so we don’t die of carbon monoxide poisoning!”
Coughing, Tommy opened the garage door. It was doubtful whether the air outside was much better, but at least it wasn’t as concentrated.
Feeling a pang of loss, Irene shut off the engine. It had purred as softly as a leopard. She sketched out her imagined scenario. “The bomb maker comes here after midnight. He knows that there’s gasoline in the can and in the cars. He has just filled up his own tank. Once he’s here, he discovers that the Porsche has almost no gas in the tank. It’s only enough for less than fifty kilometers. He drives the Porsche out onto the street and puts his own car in the garage, so he can siphon the gas into the plastic containers undisturbed. But he leaves enough in his car that he won’t risk running out on the way home. The oil spots in the Porsche probably come from the plastic containers he had set down on the floor in here. They got oily on bottom.”
Fredrik interrupted her. “Why didn’t he use his own car to drive down to Berzeliigatan?”
“Because he didn’t want his own car to be seen in the neighborhood at the time. It would be hard to explain what he was doing there in the middle of the night. Von Knecht’s own car would arouse some curiosity but not the same amount,” Irene said.
That sounded reasonable. Tommy nodded and took the piece of hose. “Let’s take this down to the lab, to confirm that gasoline actually ran through it. But take a whiff. It has definitely been used for gasoline. We’ll have to ask the techs to come out here and take a few samples of the oil spots on the floor—if they haven’t already—and compare them with the ones in the car,” he said firmly.
They went out and closed the squeaky door behind them. Tommy looked thoughtfully at the solid, gray-painted door.
“Imagine if we could get hold of a witness who saw them loading the gasoline cans into the Porsche! But no one has come forward. It must have happened while the witness on the third floor was putting his baby to bed and going to the john,” he sighed.
Irene patted him lightly on the arm. “Tommy, we’ve already seen plastic cans somewhere. Quite recently. In Henrik and Charlotte’s garage. Let’s swing by there and take a closer look. We’ll keep these keys and give them to the techs. I think it’s about time for another meeting with Sylvia von Knecht. Although I’m probably the last person on earth she wants to see. Things between us always seem to go a little off kilter somehow.”
Tommy smiled. “Maybe it’s time to call in some male expertise? Mine, that is.”
“What a good idea.”
THEY DROVE back out to Örgryte and went into Henrik von Knecht’s still-unlocked garage. The two plastic cans, marked DISTILLED WATER, were still in the corner. Irene unscrewed the lid and sniffed, but smelled only stagnant water. Tommy looked at them and said, “Ten-liter cans. Perfect for the purpose. Easy to carry. Five or six of them would be enough for the devil bomb. We’ll have to question young Herr von Knecht more closely about this. His wife is still away, isn’t she?”
All signs seem to indicate that that was the case. No one answered when they rang the doorbell. They started to go around the house, looking in windows. When Irene stood at the edge of an overgrown flower bed in the backyard, she could look right into the kitchen. The dirty dishes were gone. Everything was clean and orderly. Henrik would never dream that his wife had had a visit from a cowboy. On the other hand, he was going straight up to Marstrand, according to Charlotte. While she herself was going to a party at a friend’s house . . .
Irene’s train of thought was interrupted by a gruff voice that shouted, “Don’t move, or I’ll shoot! The police have been called and will be here any minute!”
Startled, she turned toward the voice and stared straight into the barrel of a rifle. It trembled ominously in the hands of a fat, bald, elderly man.
THE THREE detective inspectors had almost managed to convince the armed man that they were actually police by the time the squad car arrived. The two officers came around the house with their weapons drawn. Fortunately one of them was Hans Stefansson. Or perhaps unfortunately, Irene wasn’t sure. She was sure of one thing, though. The story of how a suspicious neighbor stood holding the three detectives in check with a moose gun while he waited for the patrol car would be all over PO1 before evening.
The poor elderly gentleman was terribly embarrassed when he realized his mistake. He defended himself in a shrill voice. “You can’t be too careful these days. The wife saw some strange figures creeping around here and peeking into cars. A gang of burglars, that’s what I thought!”
Irene suspected that “the wife” was the woman behind the curtain who had spied on her and Tommy the day before. It’s better to have them with us than against us, she thought. Some average citizen who thinks he has the confidence of the police might start telling us something that would prove useful. As long as it was about someone else, that is. So in a confidential tone Irene said to the corpulent neighbor, “We’ve been trying to get hold of Henrik von Knecht, but with no luck. Do you happen to know where he is?”
There was no risk, since she knew he was in Stockholm. But the neighbor probably didn’t know that. He shook his spherical head and said indifferently, “Henrik von Knecht? He’s almost never home. For a while I thought he and his wife had gotten a divorce. But last week we saw him again.”
“We met with Charlotte von Knecht yesterday, but would like to get hold of her again. You understand . . . everything has to be checked and double-checked in a homicide investigation.”
The neighbor nodded eagerly in agreement. But when he thought about it, he turned grumpy. This was an excellent opportunity to complain. “We don’t see much of the wife either. I mean . . . she’s never out in the garden. Which really needs it! We always have to clean up the hedge between our properties. They never take care of their side. And I’m the one who has to clip it. Every year!”
“Don’t they have a gardener to take care of their side?”
“No, and you’d think they could afford it! But they expect me to take care of their part too!”
Irene clucked her tongue sympathetically and decided to approach the actual target. Evasively she said, “If her husband is away so much, does she have a lot of friends and relatives visiting?”
The reply was curt and quick. “No.”
There was something. Best to keep dangling the bait. She took a new tack. “But does she have parties occasionally? Otherwise she’d be pretty lonely in this big house, wouldn’t she?”
The neighbor looked uncertain, and Irene thought she sensed some reserve when he replied. “No, there haven’t been any parties all year. The house is empty most of the time. But sometimes she has had . . . visitors.”
“Gentleman visitors?”
A light blush spread over the round cheeks and up toward his forehead. Probably about the person who had been standing behind the curtains and indignantly taking notice of these visits. Those lucky dogs who were allowed to visit the beautiful Fru von Knecht. For his own part it was out of the question, for several reasons. But he could always dream. And enviously keep an eye on those granted access to the beauty.
Irene clarified her question. “Have there been different gentlemen, or perhaps one special gentleman?”
The well-meaning neighbor began to have a vague sense that he was being subjected to a regular questioning, but it was too late to retreat. Once you’ve said A, you have to say B. Self-consciously he stood digging the toe of his worn-out loafer into the soft lawn and muttering indistinctly.
Quickly Irene said, “Excuse me, I didn’t hear you.”
He gave up and puffed, “There used to be various cars that picked her up. Sometimes they stayed overnight. But not very often.”
“How often?”
“Well, maybe ten times.”
If he said ten times, then it was ten. He probably kept track.
“There used to be, you said. Have things been different recently?”
Embarrassed, he twisted his voluminous body before he answered. “Well, yes. Early last fall a red Porsche would come to pick her up. The first few times we didn’t think so much of it, because it was her father-in-law coming to pick her up. We recognized him from the newspapers. But one night he . . . spent the night.”
“When was that?”
“At the end of August, maybe early September. It doesn’t have to mean anything . . . inappropriate. We knew that it was him, Richard von Knecht, and he was her father-in-law, after all. But you start to wonder . . . He always came when his son, Henrik, wasn’t home. And he’s basically never home. But we’ve never seen the mother-in-law there.”
Thunk! Thunk! Irene’s heart was pounding wildly with excitement. She thought the others must be able to hear it. But the noise of their own hearts must have drowned out the sound, since all five officers were totally focused on the older man. Did he understand what he was saying? Probably. They could tell that he had been thinking about what this might mean and finally was forced to draw the only reasonable conclusion. It was something “inappropriate.”
They thanked him for his valuable information and said that they would be in touch to go over things in more detail. As he was about to return to his own house, he suddenly put his chubby hand on Irene’s arm. Embarrassed, he said, “Well . . . excuse me for pointing my rifle at you . . . but it’s not loaded. I couldn’t find the ammunition. But that wasn’t . . . Do you have to tell Fru von Knecht that I was the one who told you this?”
Despite the freezing weather, his forehead was covered by a thin layer of sweat. Irene gave him a few calming pats on the hand, which she hoped would instill trust in him and said in her best official police voice, “Not unless it turns out to be of crucial importance for the investigation. At this point it’s just one of many leads. If necessary, you may be called to testify in court. However, at present there is nothing to suggest it will be necessary. If it is, we’ll let you know in plenty of time.”
Statements that sound official always calm the public. They instill a feeling that the authorities have the situation under control. Which was hardly the case for the three inspectors at the moment. The whole investigation had been turned upside down!
After the neighbor had toddled back to his house, with the barrel of his rifle dragging through the wet lawn, Irene turned to the patrol officers and said, “Stefansson, you and I know each other well, don’t we?”
Hans Stefansson nodded, at the same time giving her a puzzled look.
“Under no circumstances, and I repeat, under no circumstances will you and your colleague mention to anyone what this neighbor just told us! You will report precisely what happened out here, but not a word about the conversation. Word of honor!”
She held out her hand and they shook on it. Stefansson’s colleague was a young assistant and he didn’t seem to have understood a thing. But his expression was solemn and serious as he shook Irene’s hand.
The two officers took off in their car, and the three inspectors were left standing in the overgrown yard. They looked at each other but were unable to make real eye contact in the gathering dusk.
It was Tommy who broke the silence. “We have to talk. And eat! It’s almost three-thirty.”
“China House on Södra Vägen?”
“Perfect.”
As if by mutual agreement they didn’t say a word during the ten-minute ride.