The Golden Calf

by Helene Tursten

  Irene thanked the technician and slowly put down the receiver. Was it worth it to pursue this? But then, finding out more about the Bonetti couple would be worthwhile. Mrs. Bonetti hadn’t said much. Irene lifted the phone again.

  “Good afternoon. This is Inspector Irene Huss speaking. I would like to follow up on our conversation. Would it be possible to talk to you tomorrow afternoon?”

  Chapter 16

  SANNA KAEGLER-CEDER NO longer looked lovely. Exhaustion had carved deep lines around her mouth and smudged dark circles beneath her eyes. There was an aura of resignation, which hadn’t been there before. Irene felt sorry for her. Many of her closest friends had been murdered. Although Thomas Bonetti couldn’t be considered a friend, they still had worked together in the heyday of ph.com. She must have known him well.

  Sanna was trying to keep up appearances with the help of a black leather suit and a white blouse with a low-cut neckline and wide lapels. Her expensive cross necklace was hanging in its usual spot, and her ring was still on the same finger. She walked effortlessly in black boots with high stiletto heels. Irene had never been able to do that balancing act. She told herself that at five-foot-ten barefoot, she would never need to do it.

  “This is much too early for me,” Sanna said, not beating around the bush. “I still need strong sleeping pills. And I’m extremely tired in the morning.” As if to demonstrate the truth of her statement, she yawned widely as she sat down on a chair.

  Tommy nodded and said with a friendly smile, “I can understand that, and so I requested nine o’clock and not seven thirty, when we usually begin.”

  Sanna gave him a suspicious look, but couldn’t decide if he was telling the truth or not. Irene was not about to enlighten her.

  Tommy shuffled some papers on his desk. He flipped through them as if he were looking for something. Finally, he stopped and looked Sanna right in the eye.

  “Today we will talk about Philip Bergman,” he said curtly.

  Sanna stiffened.

  “You and Philip were old friends from school. You were close friends. Some people say you were more than that. What was your relationship?”

  Sanna took a few seconds to answer. “He was my best friend,” she said, with a slight tremor in her voice.

  Irene couldn’t help casting a glance at Tommy, but he wasn’t looking at her.

  “You never had a sexual relationship?”

  “Never. We shared everything except a bed.” She didn’t try to disguise the bitter tone in her voice.

  “Did you know that he was homosexual?”

  There was another long pause before she said, “Yes, I did, but not until two years ago. He made it clear then, when he told me that he and Joachim planned to move in together in Paris.”

  “How did you react when he told you?”

  “I believe … I was shocked.”

  “Did you ever suspect?”

  “No. Never! He was careful about his appearance, and he was often at the gym, but lots of guys do that. He was always surrounded by young women, even teenagers, which I thought was a little strange. Such an intelligent guy and all those ditzy girls. Once he told me that he never wanted to deal with any kind of nagging. I never really understood—until he told me he was gay.”

  “Were you ever in love with Philip Bergman?”

  “Me? No … well … maybe in school. For a while. Actually, I had my hands full with all the guys running after me, but he never was one of them. The girls ran after him, too. He did date one girl for a little while, but after that, he wasn’t in any kind of relationship with anyone … until Joachim. And it wasn’t something they announced to the world. I believe I was the only one Philip told. I really don’t think he even meant to tell me … he was very drunk.”

  “Did either of them tell their parents?”

  “I doubt it,” she said, shaking her head.

  Irene thought Sanna was right. There was no proof of Bergman and Joachim’s relationship before she and Kajsa had gone to their apartment in Paris.

  “Did you know what kind of business Philip and Joachim were conducting in Paris?”

  “We had little contact those two years, hardly any all after … after he told me … about all that with Joachim. Once he went to Paris, we only called each other a few times and sent a few emails. He sent me a fine wedding present when I got married and also a card when Ludwig was born.”

  “So you went from best friends to distant acquaintances in the blink of an eye, you could say,” Tommy stated.

  “Yes. As I said, after he told me about Joachim everything changed.”

  “Were you the one who didn’t want to keep in touch, or was it him?”

  She thought about this carefully. “Maybe it was both of us. Mostly him, though. Joachim took my place as his best friend and confidant.” The bitterness in her voice was loud and clear.

  “Was this why you married Kjell B:son Ceder?”

  “No. I was getting older, and I wanted a child. Kjell was also getting along in years and wanted an heir. We liked each other and … we decided to get married.”

  Irene held her breath. This was Tommy’s opening, and he took it.

  “Who is Ludwig’s father?”

  Sanna’s color drained so much her lips seemed to disappear into the whiteness of her face. Irene got ready in case she fainted again.

  “What … what are you talking about? Kjell, of course,” she said lamely.

  “Didn’t you know that Kjell had undergone a vasectomy about five or six years ago? He was not able to father a child.”

  “He … he did what?” Sanna gaped at Tommy. Tommy looked back at her with absolute calm. Sanna broke; she covered her face with her hands and sobbed. Irene held out a packet of paper tissues, which Sanna took gratefully. It took her quite some time to recover, but finally she blew her nose and dried the tears from her red-rimmed eyes.

  “He never told me that he couldn’t have children. I had an on again, off again relationship with him the year before we got married. We got together whenever we felt like it; we were just having fun. I had other guys, too. I was partying in New York, and one day I met this guy, Mark. We holed up in a hotel room and had sex for two days straight. I’d forgotten to take my pill, but I thought it wouldn’t matter. I probably got pregnant then. It was the best sex I ever had in my entire life. But the truth is that I don’t know anything about Mark except his first name. He was married, and we’d decided from the start that we’d have just this one weekend in New York,” she said, her voice hoarse from sobbing.

  “He never got in touch with you later?”

  “Of course not. I never gave him my address or my last name. We were just Sanna and Mark.” She straightened up defiantly, triumphantly. Tommy just nodded. His expression held no judgment.

  “And then Kjell proposed,” he said.

  “That’s right. I told him that he was the father of the child. He was extremely happy and didn’t say a word about having had a vasectomy—is it true he had one? This is not a lie just to get me to talk?” She looked up, suddenly suspicious.

  “No. The vasectomy was discovered during the autopsy.”

  “Autopsy? Oh, God help me! He said he’d had an operation for a hernia once—that must have been what he was having. It was a few years before we got married. That could be right.”

  Tommy gave a sidelong glance at Irene. Irene remembered he’d told her once that he’d had an operation for a hernia. Was that when he’d gotten his vasectomy? It was certainly possible. And Kajsa had reacted strongly when he’d mentioned his little operation a few weeks before. Perhaps she’d already been dreaming about how they would get together and make their own little family? Kajsa had no children. She was in her thirties and maybe she felt she was getting older, too. How far had her relationship with Tommy gone?

  Irene realized that she’d gotten lost in her own thoughts and hadn’t heard what Sanna was saying to Tommy.

  “… both Philip and me, many times. But he wa
sn’t doing his job. He was the one who had a degree in finance, and he was the one in charge of the company’s accounting.”

  “How did he get money out of ph.com?”

  “The audit showed fake invoices and then several transfers until the money reached his personal bank accounts. Then the money left for Luxemburg, and a few days later from Luxemburg to the Cayman Islands. Then it all disappeared. Classic embezzlement!”

  “How much money was this?”

  “Perhaps fifteen or sixteen million kroner. He had one account for the Poundfix money. He also had private capital he’d gotten from the company in loans and allowances. All in all, the police found almost five million kroner in that account, and if that is correct, he had about twenty-five million kroner when he disappeared.”

  Sanna’s voice had gone ice-cold with rage. It was clear she was quite happy to share all she knew about Bonetti’s shady dealings with the police.

  Irene was amazed how the amount of money kept growing as the investigation went on. Now that they knew Thomas hadn’t absconded with the money but was murdered, where had all the money gone?

  “How could he get so much money in just one year? Almost five million—that’s pretty good remuneration.”

  “Like I told you, there were allowances and subsidies in that amount. All three of us were paid to travel all around the world like crazy. It was damn hard work! And ph.com paid for his apartment in London, too.”

  “What about yours?”

  Sanna gave him a quick look, shrugged, and mumbled something.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear what you said,” Tommy said, still friendly, but firm.

  “I said we deserved it! We worked like crazy! Twenty-four-seven! You wouldn’t understand.…”

  Tommy gave her a long, studied look before he replied, “No, we wouldn’t. Managing to scrape together a billion kroner in capital and then burning through it in a year’s time is an incredible achievement.”

  “It wasn’t our fault!”

  “Whose fault was it?”

  “I’m not an economist or a stock market analyst! My degree is in design and marketing!”

  She gave Tommy a cool look. All of her willingness to talk had gone.

  “What kind of education did Philip have?”

  “Law.” She lied again without hesitation. Both Irene and Tommy already knew that neither of them had any degree after high school. Why did she lie about something so easy to check up on? She underestimated them and their investigative competence. She was trying to impress them with fictitious college degrees.

  Tommy just nodded and flipped through his papers again. Irene knew he was about to switch the line of questioning.

  “How well did you know Joachim Rothstaahl?” he asked.

  “Joachim? Not at all.” Sanna’s surprise was genuine.

  “How did you meet him?”

  “At a party in London. Thomas introduced him to Philip and me. It was the first time we’d met him. We knew his relatives. They’d bought a fashion chain that Philip and I had created.”

  “But you hadn’t met Joachim before that day?”

  “No.”

  “And you didn’t meet him at any later event?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  “But Philip and Joachim must have started to see each other after that first meeting in London, right?”

  “Obviously.”

  “You didn’t know about it?”

  “No. Philip and I each had friends we didn’t share.” She held her hand to her forehead theatrically. “That’s enough for now. I’m drained. And I’m actually on sick leave. This has been a horrible time for me. I can’t talk to you any more.”

  “One last question. Where were you between seven and eight P.M. on the Monday Philip and Joachim were killed?”

  Sanna stared at him. All the exhaustion disappeared. There was naked fear was in her eyes.

  “At home. I was at home with Ludwig.”

  “At home in Askim?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  Irene tried to picture Sanna jumping out of the closet to fire four well-aimed shots, murdering both Philip and Joachim. If they were able to break her alibi for the murder of Kjell B:son Ceder, it was conceivable that she’d held the gun. Still, it was hard to imagine her killing Thomas Bonetti. It would be too physically demanding for her.

  Or was it? Sanna had just demonstrated her ability to lie during this interrogation. Of course she seemed small and fragile, but she was in good shape.

  Irene broke the silence to ask, “Have you ever fired a gun?”

  Sanna shook her head. “No! Never!”

  For the first time during the questioning session, Irene was convinced Sanna was telling the truth.

  “WHAT A LIAR!” Irene burst out with indignation once Sanna left the room.

  “Right, but she’s not as smart as she thinks. She’s not good at lying because it was so easy to see when she did,” Tommy said. He was drumming his pen on the desk as he looked thoughtfully at Irene. “Do you believe the story about Ludwig’s conception?” he asked.

  “Not one bit. A woman of the world who has unprotected sex with an American guy she just met? Not in a world with AIDS.”

  “So you don’t buy it?”

  “No, it would be too dangerous. But somewhere there is a grain of truth in her story.”

  “How so?”

  “Ludwig was probably conceived in New York. Do you remember what he was wearing the day Kjell B:son Ceder was shot? We’d changed Ludwig and given him some food. He was wearing a light blue sweater had MADE IN NEW YORK printed on it.”

  “Now that you mention it … I remember that sweater,” Tommy said with a nod.

  “I wonder what she’s trying to hide with her lies?” Irene said.

  “Or who she’s trying to protect.”

  “She has no alibi for the Monday night that Philip and Joachim were murdered. Still, I don’t think she was the one who killed them. I believe she is still in love with Philip Bergman.”

  “Maybe that’s why. Classic jealous love triangle,” Tommy suggested.

  “No. Maybe jealous of Joachim, but not of Philip. She took his death the hardest. I don’t believe the other three meant that much to her.”

  “That’s the truth. I don’t believe she cared for Kjell one bit. Why did she marry him? Why did he agree to marry her?”

  “Maybe he did want an heir after all, like she said?”

  “Hardly. He definitely did not want any children. A man who undergoes a vasectomy has it drummed into him what it means. He knows that restoring fertility is extraordinarily difficult. Kjell knew that he wasn’t going to be able to have children after this operation. I know from my own experience.”

  Irene decided this might be a good time to ask about a delicate subject.

  “I’m really very sorry that I butted in about your relationship with Kajsa. My only defense is that I was trying to protect your marriage. And our friendship. That is, the friendship between Krister and me and you and Agneta. Not in my wildest dreams could I imagine what was really going on. Not until Agneta told me on Sunday. All I can say is that I am truly sorry about what I said to Kajsa in Paris.”

  Tommy sighed and gave Irene a weak smile. “You’ll have to talk to her about that. And it was partially my fault as well. I should have brought it up sooner, but I didn’t feel like talking about it then. I still don’t feel like talking about it now.”

  “So … does it help to have Kajsa at this difficult time for you?” Irene asked gently.

  “Well, there’s nothing going on. She’s a sweet girl who seems to have fallen for me a little bit. It’s flattering, and I appreciate it. We’ve had lunch together. I gave her a peck and a hug afterward. That’s all. Satisfied?”

  Irene heard the sarcasm in his voice. She felt her ears starting to burn. “I really wasn’t meaning to pry.…”

  “You weren’t? That would be so un
like you,” he said caustically.

  Irene was truly hurt. It was incredible how she had gotten the reputation of always putting her nose in other people’s business. Jonny’s words came to mind: A good investigator always sticks his nose in where it doesn’t belong. Again the words brought her comfort and reassurance. She was a good investigator. Her instincts had told her that something wasn’t right between Tommy and Agneta, but Irene had drawn the wrong conclusion due to lack of facts—just like the beginning of any investigation.

  THE AFTERNOON RUSH hour had just started as Irene drove toward Långedrag. Irene let her thoughts wander as she matched the speed of her car to the rhythm of the traffic. Marianne Bonetti had requested that Irene come out to her home again. Apparently, she was not able to leave her house easily. Irene was hoping that the husband would not be at home. She could not have said that when she set up the meeting, but if he knew, the lawyer would make sure he was sitting by his wife’s side the minute Irene entered. As sure as saying Amen in church, Irene thought.

  A pang of guilt hit her. She’d not talked to her own mother, Gerd, in a while. There’d been so much to do in this investigation. The trip to Paris had taken an extra day. And her mother had been gone the previous week, too; she and her companion, Sture, had taken a trip to Lübeck. When you’re happily retired, you’re always busy, Irene reflected. Sture had convinced her mother to get a “green card” for frequent golfers last summer. There was even a little article about it in the Göteborg newspaper: GERD TAKES GREEN CARD AT 75! It had been a slow news week. They’d even published a picture of her mother leaning on a borrowed golf bag and showing a jaunty smile. Irene had clipped the article from the paper and stuck it on the fridge. A few days later, they’d had to go to Säffle for her father-in-law’s funeral.

  Ah yes, Säffle. Krister had gone to get the Volvo on his Monday off. It looked surprisingly good and was now at the mechanic’s to be checked. One of Krister’s friends owned the mechanic shop. After some routine service and a brake check, the car should be running like new, according to Krister’s buddy. Irene’s heart hurt as she thought about selling the old Saab. It had been a faithful servant. But even faithful servants can’t go on forever—