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

by Helen Tursten

  “Well, maybe. The little charmer didn’t have so bad a cold that he wasn’t able to have sex the day before he died. It’s not a hundred percent certain, but I’m actually quite convinced that he did have it. Intercourse, that is.”

  “The day before? Tell me about it!”

  “On the tip of his penis, on the glans itself, I found a shallow cut four millimeters long. I’ve seen such things before. They occur during intercourse when the man gets a hair caught in between. The interesting thing is that the wound was no more than a day old. Of course a man can get a hair inside his foreskin without having sex, but that usually doesn’t cause injury. He would notice the hair before that happened. But during high arousal he usually doesn’t, as we know.”

  Andersson nodded and said meditatively, “So on Monday or Tuesday he got laid in the marital bed. But not with his wife, since Sylvia was in Stockholm. Someone else. Who could it have been?”

  “Now we’re talking about your job again, not mine,” said Stridner.

  She smiled wanly and seemed pleased at the effect her discovery had on him. Possibly the flushed coloration of his face indicated that his blood pressure was getting a little too high.

  “Are you taking medication for your hypertension?” she asked.

  “My hyper . . . What the hell does that have to do with von Knecht and Pirjo Larsson?”

  When he realized what he had done, his blood ran cold. He had yelled at pathology professor Yvonne Stridner! That wasn’t good.

  Her voice was low and absolutely ice cold when she replied, “Nothing. Except that you could have a cerebral hemorrhage and never solve Richard’s murder or find out what happened to the Finn. Was her name Pirjo?”

  “Yes. Pirjo Larsson. Please forgive me for yelling. There’s a lot going on right now.”

  “All the more reason to check your blood pressure and tend to your medication. That’s all the time I have for you right now.”

  She turned on her computer screen and started to type, without looking at him.

  Disgraced! He always felt stupid and disgraced when he was with Stridner. Everything was on her terms. He was like one of the poor graduate students. They had his full sympathy.

  “Thanks a lot. See you later,” he said lamely.

  Without looking up from her screen she muttered, “’Bye.”

  So busy with her important work. He felt anger rising up inside him as he walked toward the exit. His temples were pounding, and he guiltily recalled that he hadn’t taken his blood pressure pill this morning. Maybe he should go to the health service and get his pressure checked. Still, it was a little late for that. Whew, who has time for this? That silly doctor. What did she know about blood pressure? Look at the state of the patients who came in contact with her. In their case there was no longer any blood pressure to talk about!

  Invigorated by telling off Stridner in his mind, he got into his car and drove back to headquarters. It was lunchtime but he wasn’t at all hungry. The smell of grilled meat was still lingering in his nostrils.

  BIRGITTA MOBERG was in her office. She was surprised when she heard that Andersson had been looking for her. That’s not why she had returned to headquarters; she was there to eat lunch before her meeting with Bobo Torsson. Should they go to the cafeteria together? No, not a good idea.

  He motioned to her to come into his office. Without interrupting even once, she listened attentively to his account of what had happened at Pathology. He left out the discussion about his blood pressure since that was no one else’s concern.

  Her brown eyes, usually so lively, now looked sad. “It sounds like it actually is Pirjo. Her poor kids, left all alone,” she said.

  “What about their stepfather, Larsson?”

  “Hannu got hold of him on the phone this morning. Göte Larsson, forty-seven years old. He’s moved down to Malmö. Evidently he lives with a Polish woman in Rosengård. He’s working on a Polish freighter right now. Claims that he hasn’t set foot in Göteborg in two years.”

  “Hmm. Welfare will have to look for her relatives in Finland. No, you go on and eat, I’ll wait for Hannu. At one o’clock I’ll be busy for a while, but we’ll meet here at two-thirty.”

  “Okay. I’ll try to figure out who von Knecht’s sex partner might have been. Valle Reuter’s little girlfriend Gunnel denied all knowledge of Richard. And I believe her. She was as open as you could want about her gentlemen. No, it has to be someone else. Maybe he got himself a call girl. Too bad he took a sauna and shower.”

  With a wave she vanished down the hall toward the lunchroom. Andersson sat there a long time staring thoughtfully into space. Not one usable idea occurred to him. He kept on seeing the image of Pirjo’s charred body. In his ear Stridner’s voice rang, You should be asking what she was doing there!

  HE PUT a note on Hannu’s desk. The last line read, “Urgent & important info re Pirjo L.,” to underscore the importance of talking to each other.

  He returned to his office after a tiresome and sweaty fitting for the uniform pants. Hannu was sitting with a notebook on his lap, looking out his dirt-streaked window. Were the pale, sparse sun breaks also tempting him to go out into the city? His ice-blue eyes revealed nothing of his longing or any other feelings when they turned toward Andersson. They were calm and alert.

  Hannu also listened without interrupting. He just nodded a few times. Clearly the pieces fit together for him. The superintendent envied him. He himself thought that everything seemed like one big mess. If only he could get hold of the right string and start to unravel the tangle. But in the present situation they had to sniff around for a while longer and dig where they smelled the most shit. Routine police work, in other words.

  The superintendent asked, “What have you found out about Pirjo besides what we already know? Birgitta told me that Pirjo’s old man is in Malmö now, so we can skip him for the time being. What we need is something that can explain where she fits into the picture when it comes to the bomb on Berzeliigatan.”

  “I found her in our records. She’s been up twice for shoplifting. Suspended sentence each time. The first time she took some ski overalls at Obs department store, the second time Falun sausage and a box of macaroni at ICA on Angered Square,” Hannu reported.

  “Nothing else?”

  “No.”

  “She doesn’t sound like a terrorist bomber. Interesting that she has a rap sheet; it means she had some criminal inclination, at least. Have you asked our colleagues in Helsinki whether they have anything on her in their records?”

  “I have. They’ll get back to me this afternoon.”

  “One of your pals in the Helsinki police force?”

  Andersson could have bitten off his tongue. But at the same time he was so damned curious about this reticent man. Why? Because he was an old snoop, he chastised himself. Still, the question had been asked. And would get the answer it deserved.

  “Yep.”

  Calmly Hannu turned to a page in his notebook. Without looking up he began to summarize, “On Monday Pirjo and Marjatta cleaned von Knecht’s apartment. During the night Juha and Timo took sick; they got the flu. Pirjo cleaned the Press Bureau office on Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday morning Pirjo took the bus to the von Knechts’ but had to return home. She told the kids that von Knecht was dead. In the afternoon she cooked dinner. Just after five she told her daughter that she ‘had to go out and do some extra cleaning.’ Then she disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Literally.”

  Andersson felt a slight shiver at the back of his neck. He nodded to conceal it and said, “What was she doing at Berzeliigatan?”

  The icy blue eyes regarded him for an instant before the answer came. “Cleaning.”

  Their eyes met. Both shook their heads simultaneously. His voice heavy and emphatic, as if he were afraid that the meager little idea he had come up with would slip his mind if he dressed it in precise words, Andersson said, “No. She knew that von Knecht was dead. She had two sick kids at home. It was almost six-thirty w
hen the building blew up. No, she didn’t go there to clean, but to steal.”

  “Right.”

  It was silent again. Both saw the problem. It was Hannu who voiced it. “The key.”

  “According to Irene, Sylvia von Knecht said that all the keys she knew of were in place at the apartment on Molinsgatan.”

  “That she knew of,” echoed Rauhala.

  When he heard his own words repeated, Andersson also understood the solution. Excitedly he said, “There must have been a set of keys that Sylvia didn’t know about! But how did Pirjo get hold of them?”

  “Stole them. Or was given them.”

  “Stole them?”

  “When she cleaned von Knecht’s place on Monday. He might have left them out.”

  “Maybe. But was given them?”

  “Because she was supposed to clean the office.”

  The superintendent understood. Sylvia had told Irene that whenever Richard wanted to have his office cleaned, he would ask Pirjo to come over. He nodded.

  “You’ve got a point there. Then he must have given Pirjo the ‘secret’ set of keys. That explains why she had a key and also why Sylvia didn’t miss it. You don’t miss something you don’t know about. I think we’ve come up with something!”

  He was almost going to slap Hannu on the back, but at the last moment he thought better of it. He managed to mask the sweeping gesture of his right arm by stroking his bald pate and running his fin-gers through the sparse fringe of hair.

  “Ahem, yes. We’ll have to ask Tommy and Fredrik what turned up today in the arson investigation. We have to establish that it’s really Pirjo lying there in Pathology. Can you talk to her daughter and find out what dentist Pirjo went to? If she went to one, that is.”

  He remembered what Stridner had said about the victim’s poor teeth. Hannu gave the superintendent a somber look.

  “I’m not saying anything to the kids until we know for sure it’s Pirjo.”

  “No, it’s probably a good idea to wait until we’re sure,” Andersson agreed. But inside he was convinced that Pirjo had been found.

  “So it wasn’t her on Tuesday.”

  “What on Tuesday?”

  Hannu gave him a patient look. “It wasn’t Pirjo who cleaned von Knecht’s place on Tuesday while he was having lunch. It must have been the killer. Pirjo was cleaning the Press Bureau.”

  Andersson suddenly realized that he was staring at the man across from him. His respect for the weather-beaten man with the icy eyes and the pale blond hair rose another notch. With a slight feeling of shame he recalled how close he had come to accusing him of being the leak to the evening paper. He quickly pushed these thoughts aside and said, “Have you checked that she wasn’t anywhere else, that the Press Bureau was the only place she cleaned on Tuesday afternoon?”

  “I have.”

  The superintendent fell into thought for a while. The situation had changed in an instant when they found Pirjo’s body at the fire site.

  “You have to keep looking around for facts about Pirjo. Above all we need somebody who can question the children. Will you have a chance to do it tomorrow? We have to follow this lead while it’s hot,” Andersson concluded.

  His choice of words was unfortunate. The smell of burned meat was still in his nose. He knew that it was his imagination, but also knew that lunch would have to wait for a while longer.

  Hannu closed his notebook with a brief nod. “Right.”

  AROUND THREE Andersson began to get hungry and went down to the lunchroom. He bought coffee, two dried-up open-faced cheese sandwiches in plastic, and a marzipan tart. It was an uninspired choice, but it filled his stomach. With the steaming cup of coffee in front of him on the table, he leaned back and tried to relax for a while. Plainclothes and uniformed colleagues filed past his table. Some just greeted him; others stopped and exchanged a few words. Most simply walked on by. Suddenly he became aware that someone had stopped behind him. When he turned his head he saw Birgitta Moberg.

  “Hi, have a seat,” he said.

  “No thanks. I’m too damned mad to sit down!”

  Now he noticed that she was standing with her arms akimbo and her legs rigid and planted wide apart. Her voice was like a viper’s hiss. Even though according to his ex-wife he was about as sensitive as a sawhorse when it came to women’s feelings, he could see that she was furious. Some colleagues at nearby tables stared at them in astonishment. Andersson thought it very unpleasant. Imagine if they thought she was mad at him. She wasn’t, was she? Uncertainly he asked, “Do you think we should go up to the department and talk?”

  “Yes.”

  She spun around on her heel and strode out the door. With a disappointed sigh the superintendent had to abandon his coffee. It’s important to listen to the personnel when they bring you their problems was something that had been clearly emphasized in that idiotic course he had been forced to take a few years earlier.

  “THAT ARROGANT bastard! What a . . . prick!”

  “Who, me?”

  “No! Bobo Torsson!”

  The superintendent’s first reaction was relief, the second surprise. Cautiously he asked, “Did he annoy you in some way?”

  She exploded completely. With tears gushing from her eyes, she screamed, “Annoy! He shoved me up against the wall, grabbed my crotch, and bit me on the breast! I think I’m going to report him!”

  Andersson was totally speechless. It didn’t help matters when Jonny’s irritating voice was heard from the doorway. “So, little Birgitta has been discovered by the big-time fashion photographer! You probably showed him what you had to offer, eh?”

  He stood nonchalantly leaning against the doorjamb with a smug grin on his face. Andersson had time to think: That guy has a God damn big mouth.

  Then the second explosion came. Half choking with rage, Birgitta snarled, “This is what I had to offer!”

  Birgitta shot across the room like an arrow. Jonny reacted too slowly and never saw her knee as she drove it into his crotch. With a muffled moan he collapsed with both hands pressed between his legs. Birgitta said triumphantly, “Personal best! Two guys with blue balls in less than half an hour!”

  With her back straight and head held high she climbed over Jonny’s collapsed form and marched out to the corridor. Then Andersson woke up.

  “Birgitta! You’re not going anywhere! What the fuck are you playing at? Fighting like little kids! Two police officers!”

  Slowly she turned, her face blotched with tears. It was hard to hear what she said, since her voice was quavering so much with emotion. “You don’t understand. I have never in my life been assaulted that way! Maybe as a woman, but never as a professional!”

  Andersson’s head started pounding. Jonny was still moaning on the floor but had begun to pull himself up to a sitting position, using the doorjamb as a brace. Some colleagues from General Investigations stopped outside in the corridor, curious. Andersson took a couple of steps across the room and slammed the door with a bang.

  “Now sit down! Both of you! This can go to Internal Affairs if you’re not careful!”

  Jonny hissed, “That’s fine, I’m going to report her. God damn whore!”

  Andersson saw Birgitta turn pale as wax. For a moment he thought she was going to faint. When she spoke again her lips barely moved. “I’ve had enough. That was the last straw!”

  She directed her gaze toward Andersson. Usually her brown eyes gleamed and laughed, but now they were like molten lead.

  “Ever since I started here I’ve been forced to take it from that idiot. First he tried to grope me, but when I quite clearly explained what I thought of such behavior, the taunting started. That I’ve got ‘round heels.’ An easy lay. You heard it yourself just now: ‘God damn whore.’ I have to put up with ‘playful’ slaps on my butt. I got an interdepartmental envelope that’s full of pictures of huge balls and lesbian couples cut out of porno magazines. I’ve always known that Jonny was behind it, but couldn’t prove it,” she said
tonelessly.

  “Why didn’t you say anything to me?” Andersson asked in astonishment.

  She gave him a weary, crooked smile. “And what would you have done?”

  “Well, I . . .”

  He fell silent, confused. What would he have done? Irritation rose again inside him. There were always problems when women were involved! It was better at the beginning of his career—in the days when female officers only did paperwork and office jobs, and there hadn’t been very many of them. Back then there were only guys out in the field, which was practical. You didn’t have to take into account female over-sensitivity when it came to dirty jokes and taunts. No, having women on the force was hard. The worst thing was that there were more and more of them. If they chose a male profession, then they had to accept the conditions and the lingo! Although clippings from porno magazines was probably an extreme case . . .

  She was still standing with a lifeless expression on her face, waiting for his answer. Andersson had an unpleasant feeling of complicity, but in what? Birgitta gave him the answer.

  “Sexual harassment. That’s what it is. Finally you just get fed up with it. It’s a given that you have to take it from your colleagues. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to take it from trash like Torsson!”

  Suddenly the superintendent felt old and tired. This was beyond his capacity to handle. Jonny was on his feet over by the door, and the look he gave Birgitta blazed with fury.

  With a pounding headache Andersson got up and put out another chair by the desk. For safety’s sake he set the two visitors’ chairs at either end of his desk. With a weary gesture he signaled for the two combatants to sit down. Reluctantly they sat down across from each other. Neither looked at the other.

  Andersson said severely, “We can’t have stuff like this going on in the department. Okay?”

  Neither of them replied. He continued resolutely, “Jonny, you have to stop at once with all the stupid jokes and clippings. And you, Birgitta, have to be careful about attacking people. Even if it’s only men. Imagine if Bobo Torsson reports you for police brutality! One more incident like this and I’ll see to it that you’re transferred to the stockroom. And that goes for you too, Jonny!”