Detective Inspector Huss: A Huss Investigation set in Sweden, Vol. 1

by Helen Tursten

  Irene got a feeling that there had recently been salary negotiations between Sylvia and Pirjo. An illegally employed cleaning woman hardly has much clout, even when she can plead her case in Finnish. With a sigh Irene had to abandon her little idea. There couldn’t have been any hanky-panky between Richard and Pirjo. She had gleaned enough about his preferences to realize that he would hardly view a fat, worn-out cleaning woman as a sex object.

  “My next question is for you, Henrik. Where can I get hold of Charlotte today?”

  “At home. Why?”

  “I need to ask her where she was last Tuesday evening, between five and six P.M. to be specific.”

  Henrik nodded and gave a curt, joyless laugh as he said, “If anybody has an alibi, it’s her.”

  “And the two of you.”

  “And the two of us. She was out picking up her new car. At the Volkswagen Center on Mölndalsvägen.”

  Sylvia gave a start. “What? Has she bought another new car?”

  “Calm down, Mamma. Her old Golf was in the shop most of the time. The electrical system was always shorting out.”

  “But it wasn’t even two years old!”

  “We traded it in and got a good deal. Now she has a brand-new Golf. They’re selling off this year’s model at a five percent discount.”

  Sylvia looked sullen. “She could have bought my BMW. I can manage with Richard’s Porsche,” she said.

  “Your BMW is three years old and has only thirty thousand kilometers on it. You’ll get a good price when you sell it.”

  “But that’s so much trouble. You have to place an ad, people have to come and look at it. It’s so complicated when you’re alone.”

  Henrik sighed. “Let a car dealer do it for you,” he said patiently.

  “No, they don’t pay much if you’re not buying a new car. By the way, maybe I’ll sell the Porsche and keep the BMW. You can get more for a new Porsche.”

  Sylvia seemed to have slipped quickly into the role of a single woman. But all her problems were clearly of a financial or practical nature.

  Irene cleared her throat to remind her that she was there. “I’ll let you know when we’ve established more facts about the fire on Berzeliigatan. I should probably tell you that there are very strong indications that the fire was caused by a bomb. Since the newspapers will get that information this afternoon, I wanted to give it to you now.”

  At first Sylvia looked utterly baffled. But Irene was completely unprepared for the reaction that followed.

  “A bomb! And you didn’t tell me until now? There’s a totally insane murderer on the loose. He might be out to get all of us!”

  Henrik turned so pale that his skin took on a waxy yellow tinge. He looked as if he might pass out at any moment. Maybe, in addition to the complications from his old meningitis attack, he was ill.

  “We need police protection! No, we demand it!”

  Aimless and restless, Sylvia flitted around the room. Irene tried to be as reassuring as she could.

  “Of course we’ll have to investigate whether there is any overriding threat. But nothing that has come out so far points to this. Has anyone else in the family been threatened?”

  Henrik just shook his head weakly, while Sylvia gesticulated wildly.

  “No! Not yet! But we probably won’t get any protection from the police before the whole family is murdered and blown to bits!”

  That’s what you call a tautology, Irene recalled from her philosophy lessons in high school. Was it the proximity to Hvitfeldt High School that was making things like that crawl out of the dust in the attic of her memory? Evidently Sylvia had forgotten her complaint about the boorish rampage of the police through her upper-crust neighborhood. Now she wanted them back. Irene felt that it was time to wind up the conversation and said in a friendly tone, “We’ll stay in touch. Call me if anything turns up.”

  Irene again gave them each her card with her direct line noted. But experience had taught her that people always tended to lose such cards. She didn’t need to look any farther than herself.

  Henrik escorted her downstairs in mutual silence. Not until they reached the front door did he ask, “Is it all right if we drive up to Marstrand this weekend?”

  Irene was caught off guard. She tried to think before she replied. “As far as we know, there is no threat to the rest of your family. It was your father who was murdered, and the bomb was at his office. Did anyone else in the family ever visit him there?”

  Henrik gave a start, but then realized what Irene meant. “You mean, perhaps the bomb was intended for someone besides Pappa? No, it was probably meant for him. It is . . . was extremely rare for any of the family to visit his office.”

  “Did he really need an office? From what I understand, he had a brokerage firm that looked after his affairs,” Irene asked tactfully.

  Henrik bowed his head as if totally absorbed by the intricate pattern of the soft carpet. She was beginning to think he didn’t intend to answer, when he muttered, “He needed somewhere he could have peace and quiet. That was Mamma and Pappa’s old apartment. The one they lived in when they were newlyweds. I must have been two years old when they moved to this building. They kept the apartment, because Pappa needed an office even then. Later, he bought both this building and the one on Berzeliigatan. Along with a bunch of other property with Peder Wahl. But all the other property has been liquidated.”

  “How big was the office apartment?”

  “Four rooms and a kitchen. Bathroom and toilet. About a hundred and thirty square meters.”

  “Getting back to your plans to go to Marstrand. Will both Charlotte and your mother be going?”

  “No. Charlotte is going to her sister’s in Kungsbacka. But Mamma needs to see to her horses. She has a stable up there. And I need to get away. Very early on Monday morning, at four A.M., I’m driving up to Stockholm. Lilla Bukowski’s November auction is starting that day. I have a number of commissions there.”

  “May I ask how that works? Do you buy up specific rare items and then sell them to interested buyers?”

  “No, I work as an agent, you might say. The buyers read through the auction catalogs and then they contact me. They tell me which items are of interest and the maximum price they’re willing to pay. I charge an hourly rate and the client pays for travel and expenses. Often there are several buyers who go in together to cover my services, especially for jobs abroad. The cost of the trip and my expenses are the same, but they’re shared by several people.”

  “It sounds like an expensive way to collect antiques,” Irene observed.

  Henrik shrugged. “My clients have a lot of money but not much time. And they know what they want and what it should cost.”

  “So you never buy with your own money?”

  “Not when I’m buying on behalf of my clients. Sometimes I buy things for myself, of course. Like the Tang horse.”

  His face had almost returned to its normal color as he talked about his unusual profession. But Irene realized that he didn’t view it as a job. A faint flush had appeared on his cheeks. She remembered his ardent lecture about the Haupt furniture and the carpet and all the rest. This was really a matter of passion and zeal. It would not be easy competition for the beautiful Charlotte. Her value resided in the moment. In fifty years her collector’s value would be zero. The ideal man would be an archaeologist. In his eyes a woman would grow more interesting the older she got. And what about a collector of antiques, who only looks at the patina and future investment value? Irene felt grateful that she and Krister had purchased their household furnishings mostly from the local furniture warehouse, IKEA, in Kållered.

  Real curiosity made her finally ask the question, “What in the world is a Tang horse?”

  Amazement was reflected in his eyes, and she realized that this was something everyone was expected to know.

  “A ceramic horse from the Tang period, of course! The Tang dynasty in China lasted from the beginning of the seventh century A.
D. through the early years of the tenth century. The horse followed its owner in death, so we’re talking about grave goods. When he was buried, the deceased was provided with everything he might need in his existence on the other side. Household implements, jewelry, whole staffs of servants, and entire armies have been found. During the Tang period everything was made of ceramics but earlier, humans were sacrificed. There is a clear similarity with—”

  “Hold it! Wait!”

  Both Irene and Henrik jumped at the unexpected sound of Sylvia’s voice. She came running down the stairs from the upper floor. A little out of breath, she said, “Here are the addresses and phone numbers of the guests last Saturday. I have my whole contact list in the computer. All I had to do was print out the ones you wanted. Very efficient.”

  IRENE WENT via Berzeliigatan on her way back to headquarters. It was high time she had lunch. The hot dog stand on Heden was calling to her, with the best mashed potatoes in town. But first she wanted to see the remains of the building that had burned down. She caught sight of Tommy Persson talking to one of the arson technicians. There was a parking place right outside the barricades, and she pulled into it. A handicapped parking place, but it would be a while before anyone who lived here would be able to use it again. Most of the building was no longer habitable.

  Apart from the acrid smell of smoke, an air of unreality hovered over the charred skeleton of the building. It didn’t belong here in the prosperous downtown section of Göteborg. Maybe in Chechnya or Sarajevo.

  Irene went over to Tommy. He gave her a cheerful greeting and introduced the arson investigator, Pelle, who nodded and raised his hands—encased in thick gloves—in greeting. He excused himself at once and tromped off in his heavy protective gear.

  Tommy said somberly, “They found a completely charred body inside. It’s behind the door to von Knecht’s office. Apparently there was steel on the inside of the door, which protected the body from being totally cremated. The door was blown open by the explosion, and the poor guy crawled in behind it when he couldn’t make it down the stairs. The heat must have been horrible.”

  Both of them shivered, and not just because of the cold. A pale sun was trying to break through the gray clouds. It would eventually succeed, because it was starting to clear up and turn colder. The temperature would probably fall below freezing later that night. Then the water on the ravaged building would freeze and form an armor of ice around it. There is nothing sorrier or more depressing than the sight of a damaged and mangled building, ruined by fire and water. If you know that a person died in the flames, the sight becomes a brooding threat. Irene felt slightly nauseated, but blamed it on her hunger and the suffocating smell of smoke.

  Tommy turned around, nodded toward the corner at the brick building across the street, and said, “Do you see the tobacconist over there?”

  Irene saw the little shop with a worn-out sign that stuck straight out from the very corner of the building. She nodded and murmured affir-matively.

  “Guess who Fredrik and I found in there when we were going around knocking on doors?”

  “No clue.”

  “Shorty Johannesson! And he’s the one who runs the store!”

  “You’re kidding! I thought he’d been sent up forever and they’d thrown away the key.”

  “That would have been too good to be true. We checked. He was released this summer. He served six of his nine years.”

  If you live in Göteborg, you know that anyone with the nickname Shorty or Half-Pint is at least the height of an average basketball player. And if you live in Göteborg, you know who Lasse “Shorty” Johannesson is. On the list of the ten most dangerous criminals in recent years, he was right up there between Lars-Inge Svartenbrandt and Clark Olofsson.

  Chapter Eight

  TIME WAS TIGHT, BUT Irene managed to write down the most important points from her meeting with the von Knecht mother and son. She also called Charlotte von Knecht but got no answer. The Volkswagen Center on Mölndalsvägen was next in line on her phone list. After some paper shuffling the woman at the service desk managed to find the right file. Yes indeed, Charlotte von Knecht had picked up her new Golf last Tuesday, but she didn’t know at what time. The salesman in charge was off on Thursdays and was impossible to reach before ten o’clock Friday morning. The woman grew more cooperative after Irene began to mutter about “interfering with a police investigation of a felony.” With a lot of grumbling she finally gave Irene the salesman’s home phone number. When Irene called she had to deal with a dashing answering machine that trumpeted, “Hello! You’ve reached Rob’s home! I’m either out or doing something else right now, so I can’t take your call. Leave your name and number after the beep and I’ll give you a jingle a little later.” Irene curtly left her name and her direct line to the department. She made a point of emphasizing her title.

  THE USUAL procedure for ordering pizza was automatically initiated before the run-through could begin. Then the superintendent took the floor.

  “It’s been a hectic day. At the press conference today I announced that a bombing caused the fire on Berzeliigatan. The arson techs found the remnants of an explosive device in the hall of von Knecht’s office apartment. It was practically like I’d set off a bomb under the reporters. They went crazy! Naturally they’re making a connection between von Knecht’s murder and the explosion last night. They’ve been hounding me all afternoon. Newspapers, radio, and all the TV channels in existence! The techs will be stopping by at any moment to report developments on their end. Svante Malm and the new guy, Ljunggren, promised to show up.”

  He looked around at his seven inspectors and quietly cleared his throat.

  “Let’s go around the table, one by one.”

  He gave Irene, to his right, an expectant look. The report on her survey of the gossip clippings from Swedish Ladies’ Journal took time but was necessary. It gave a picture of Richard von Knecht’s public life. The account of her conversation with Sylvia and Henrik also gave most of the inspectors a clearer picture of the family members. Irene summed up her own thoughts and conclusions.

  “It’s a regular soap opera. Both Sylvia and Henrik seem to be emotionally cool toward Richard. Not to mention that he felt the same about them. It wasn’t a happy family. The motives are the classic ones: money, unfaithfulness. What contradicts the theory of murder within the family, of course, is the bomb. There’s a chance that the murder and the bomb had nothing to do with each other. But actually I think that chance is microscopic,” she said.

  The others nodded in agreement. Irene concluded by telling them about Charlotte’s still-unconfirmed car-buying alibi and the guest list from Saturday’s party that Sylvia had given her.

  Andersson looked pleased. “I myself had the great pleasure of eavesdropping on Birgitta’s interview with Waldemar, alias Valle, Reuter. Tell us about it, Birgitta.” His whole face lit up with a broad smile, but the smile was quickly extinguished when Birgitta began to speak.

  “Valle Reuter is a very pathetic man. He has been a serious alcoholic for many years. I’ve been in contact with the president of his brokerage house, Mats Tengman. When I explained to him what it was all about he was quite candid. Valle is still part of the firm in name only. He owns it, but has no influence on the business end, and no one is more aware of this than Valle himself. He still has his office. He sometimes goes inside and locks the door, saying that he’s extremely busy and is not to be disturbed. This usually means that he’s hung over. But they have to keep him on. The president calls it ‘social therapy.’ Reuter doesn’t have anywhere else to go. Except on Tuesdays, when Richard von Knecht was in the habit of having lunch with him. This was the high point of the week for Valle, Mats Tengman told me. But now we know that there were also other high points on Tuesdays . . . Valle was thoroughly loaded when he came here and he gave us a good deal of information. I checked with Johanneshus, where von Knecht and Reuter ate lunch last Tuesday. The restaurant owner confirms the time. They arrived
between one and one-thirty, left around three-thirty. The reason Valle Reuter wasn’t home on the night of the murder was that he spent the night with his girlfriend of the past three years, Gunilla Forsell. He managed to remember the address, and I contacted her this morning. She wasn’t particularly happy about the attention, to put it mildly. At first she refused to meet me. But I threatened to have her picked up by a squad car if she didn’t show up voluntarily. Then she was more cooperative, because the neighbors in the fancy boardinghouse on Stampgatan have no idea what little Fru Forsell does on the side. An extra job that pays more than her regular job. Guess what her day job is.”

  Birgitta looked around among her colleagues, who were following her report with interest. “Stripper,” “day-care worker,” “nurse” were some of the suggestions. Birgitta laughed and shook her head.

  “Wrong, wrong! Librarian!”

  Everyone around the table looked disappointed. None of them had imagined such a genuinely musty occupation. Jonny Blom whispered to Fredrik Stridh, “Ha, the driest bushes burn the best!”

  Birgitta pretended not to hear him and continued. “I went over there at eleven. She turned out to be thirty-five years old and good looking—but no supermodel, if you know what I mean.”

  Jonny interrupted again. “No, I just don’t get it. I’d better head over there and check her out!” He pretended to get up, grinning broadly at Birgitta.

  She gave him an icy stare and said in a neutral tone, “It’s no news that you don’t get it. But the rest of us, of normal intelligence, will proceed. As I said, Gunnel was not happy to see me. But after a while she started to talk. She’s been divorced for five years, no children. For ten years she’s had a part-time job at the city library. She didn’t think it would be so hard to find a full-time job after her divorce. But it turned out to be impossible. In these times of cutbacks, all the municipalities are reducing their library staffs. She couldn’t make ends meet on a half-time salary, so the solution for her was four gentlemen on the side. All of them are older men. Valle is the only one who isn’t married. She has Tuesdays, Thursdays, and weekends off from her library job, and that’s when she devotes herself to the gentlemen. She didn’t want to explain the arrangements, but apparently they have fixed days and times. On Tuesdays she has two visitors. Gentleman number one usually comes at twelve and leaves at two. ‘Extended lunch,’ he calls it. Valle is gentleman number two and has a special agreement. He comes at five-thirty, they have something to eat, talk, and watch TV. He’s always fairly loaded when he arrives, since by then he’s already had lunch with von Knecht. They usually go to bed around eleven. For the most part he falls asleep right away, but sometimes he wants to have a ‘little massage,’ as she called it. Then they sleep in her big queen-sized bed. In the morning they have breakfast together, then she goes to work and he toddles home.”