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

by Helen Tursten

  Irene exclaimed, “What a fantastic setup! Not a house within sight of the farm. Perfect for someone who wants to hide out. Dense forest toward the nature preserve, hills on the north side, and open fields to the south and west. And no buildings in any direction.”

  She stopped and continued with less enthusiasm, “There will be problems. How can we reach the house without being seen?”

  Jimmy and Irene bent their heads over the map. Irene finally found a possible route.

  “We’ll have to drive in via the Lindås interchange and then take the back roads toward Sandsjöbacka until we can’t go any farther. There are some small residential areas, but we’ll have to park out of view. We don’t want anyone getting worried and calling the police. Somewhere around here I think would be good. We’ll have to stay in the woods and head along the edge of the forest to the north.”

  She made an “X” with her index fingernail on the map and Jimmy nodded, Yes.

  His eyes followed the line that Irene drew with her fingernail. He was vibrating with excitement, although he was unaware of it. But it had an effect on Irene, who felt like an army commander before a battle. Yet she knew it was one thing to go over the route on the map and another thing entirely to stumble across rugged terrain in the rain and the dark.

  Birgitta asked, “Do you have a chance to put on dry clothes before you take off? If you have to stand still outdoors to keep watch you’ll be frozen stiff.”

  She gave their wet jeans and shoes a critical look. Irene remembered the box with her jogging outfit in the car and said, “I have my workout clothes in the car.”

  “You can’t go roaming around the woods in judo pajamas!”

  “No, not the judo clothes. A jogging suit. Tommy and I were going jogging Tuesday evening. But Tuesday was a washout, as you know. Jimmy, do you have any dry clothes?”

  “Oh, I’ll be all right. But I have to go get a cool gadget we might need.”

  He vanished out the door. Irene went down to her car. It was very windy, and the ice-cold rain whipped at her face. It was dark as night. Maybe it wasn’t necessary to drive out to Billdal in this sort of weather. Now, now—that was just thinking of her own comfort, because the cottage did seem like a credible option. And credible options had to be examined. If for no other reason than to be dropped so the investigation could proceed.

  Up in Birgitta’s office Jimmy was showing off his gadget. It looked like the result of a fusion between a diver’s face mask, a little tube telescope, and a gas mask. His whole face radiated enchantment as he demonstrated all the features.

  “You can see them as clear as day! When people look in your direction you can’t believe they can’t see you!”

  “What in the world is that?” Birgitta wondered.

  “A night-vision telescope, actually an electronic light amplifier. It can amplify the existing light up to ten thousand times.”

  It was high time they got going, so Irene interrupted, “I’m putting on dry socks and my jogging pants under my jeans. Do you want to borrow my sweater?”

  At first he looked dubious, but after glancing out the window at the rain being flung against the panes by the fierce wind, he nodded.

  Birgitta turned energetic and practical. It was actually her plan they were following. “It’s quarter past three now. We have to allow at least half an hour for you to drive out to Billdal in weather like this. How far do you have to walk through the woods?” she asked.

  Irene measured on the map before she answered. “About five or six hundred meters. It’s dark, the terrain is unfamiliar, and the weather is bad. Add on another fifteen minutes.”

  “You won’t be in place until four at the earliest. When and how do we contact each other?”

  Irene thought for a moment. “I’ll take my cell phone but turn it off. I wouldn’t want it to start ringing at an unlucky moment. Let’s say this: I’ll call you at five o’clock on the dot. If you don’t hear anything within half an hour after that, send backup.”

  Jimmy gave her an astonished look and said, “Don’t you think the two of us can take care of one guy?”

  “Sure, Bobo we can take care of, but his cousin and his playmates might be on the way. Keep in mind that we’re just doing recon. If Bobo is alone we’ll take him. But if there are other people there, we’ll withdraw discreetly and wait for the cavalry. Shorty’s friends are always heavily armed. These guys feel naked without something heavier than an Uzi.”

  For anyone who’s ever been in Narcotics, this wasn’t news. Jimmy looked thoughtful. Finally he nodded at Irene and said, “Should we take Sigge along?”

  Birgitta was only listening with half an ear, but reacted to the name. She asked, “There’s nobody in the group named Sigge. Do you mean Tommy?”

  “No. SIG Sauer, nicknamed Sigge. Our service weapons!”

  They laughed, which relieved the tension a bit. Was their hunting instinct coming to life? Jimmy’s visible enthusiasm at going out on a manhunt was infectious. Imagine if it turned out to be an anticlimax. He would be incredibly disappointed. Irene nodded. “Sure, we’ll take our Sigges.”

  They stopped by the weapons case, got out their pistols, and loaded them with nine-millimeter ammunition. The SIG Sauer is a powerful weapon, far superior to the old peashooter—the Walther 7.65—that Irene had once used in training. But Jimmy had never had to retrain. The Sigge was his weapon, the one he was trained to use. A bit nonchalant, he loaded the pistol and stuffed it in his holster. Irene wasn’t used to the holster since she seldom went armed. But she and everyone else had to use one when they went out with a Sigge. The weapon is heavy and can’t be stuck in a jacket pocket, no more than a Walther can. From a purely practical standpoint, it’s impossible to keep a gun in your pocket. There’s no room in a pants pocket, and it’s too heavy for a jacket pocket. An investigator who goes around in a jacket with one pocket hanging down to his knees might as well put a rotating blue light on top of his head. The holster is essential. The advantages of the SIG Sauer compared to the Walther are a larger caliber and a more powerful effect. The drawbacks are its weight and the sluggishness of the spring when cocking the weapon. It requires a good deal of strength to handle this pistol, a heavy weapon for the heavy boys. Simply put, the Sigge is macho. Irene preferred the Walther. Even though, according to Tommy, you had to aim the barrel down when you fired it so that the bullet would roll out.

  THEY BUMPED along the country roads toward Sandsjöbacka. The wind took hold of the car and shook it angrily. The rain poured down. It was impossible to see where they were. They had to orient themselves by the road signs they passed. Irene drove and Jimmy read the map in the flickering light of his flashlight. He folded up the map and said, “We should park somewhere around here.”

  She almost missed the small forest road, had to brake sharply and back up. She parked the car precariously close to a big ditch in which water was gushing wildly. But there was probably no danger, because they wouldn’t be staying long; they’d be back before the ditch overflowed. Irene took the map and checked their route one last time.

  “We have to follow this gravel road to the end. Then we’ll pass some small houses, I think summer cabins. Then we go into the trees and follow the edge of the woods about four hundred meters.”

  Jimmy nodded, and again she sensed his exuberance.

  They started walking, the beams of their flashlights pointing down. There were no streetlights here. In order to see where the road went and to avoid stepping into hollows and pits, they had to use their flash-lights. They could only hope that the howling storm and dense forest would hide them.

  At the end of the road were two small summer cabins. There was a light on in one of them, but they couldn’t see anyone inside or hear anything. To the left Irene discovered a big pile of lumber. She cautiously shone her flashlight around it and for a fraction of a second had a hard time comprehending what she saw. The beam fell on a big black motorcycle, half concealed behind the stack of boards. A Harle
y-Davidson chopper. On the back was a big Tour-Pak, on which a sign said in English: THIS BIKE BELONGS TO A HELL’S ANGEL—IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE IT, JUST TRY TO MESS WITH MY BIKE! This hog could be left unlocked even in the most notorious slums. It would be completely safe. Most people have some instinct for self-preservation.

  Like lightning Irene turned off her flashlight, and Jimmy did the same a fraction of a second later. They stood motionless and listened to the darkness. There was no sound from the houses. Carefully they crept past and moved as quietly as they could into the woods. For the first time they were thankful for the furious storm roaring in the treetops. It became an ally when they stepped awkwardly on fallen twigs or tripped over treacherous roots and slippery rocks. Finally they could no longer see the light from the cabin and dared to stop and turn on their flashlights.

  Jimmy looked pale and grim. The rain had plastered his short hair flat to his head. Irene was grateful that she had put on Katarina’s baseball cap before they left the car. He sounded excited when he whispered, “Holy shit, what does this mean? A Hell’s Angels’ nest! Out here in the woods!”

  He was obviously shaken. She was too, but tried not to show it.

  “I guess they rent one of the cabins during the winter,” she said, feigning nonchalance.

  She turned around and continued stumbling onward. But she had a hard time concentrating on what lay before them. What they had just left behind felt like an unpleasant threat. Even if it could hardly have anything to do with Shorty and Bobo’s cottage, Hell’s Angels could never be ignored. Finally she forced herself to focus her attention on what lay ahead. A faint light winked among the trees. Jimmy took her arm and silently mapped out a route at an angle along the edge of the woods. They were completely agreed. A high cairn of stones rose at the side of the clearing and would give them perfect cover, while also allowing them to get up a bit higher and have a better view.

  Their fingers were numb from the cold. When they tried to climb up the cairn, Irene lost her grip and slid down. Her knee was banged up and her palms were torn, but her body was so stiff from the cold that she hardly noticed. When she climbed back, Jimmy was already crouched down, gazing through his night-vision telescope. Irene was grateful he had brought it along. Without it they would have had to crawl all the way up to the house. Now they could stay about fifty meters away. She peered into the distance toward the point of light and saw that it was an outside lamp attached to a little building that looked like a barn. Faint light was coming from some small windows.

  Jimmy lay motionless so long that she started to grow impatient. She also wanted to look through the funny gadget. But his tense whisper when he handed the telescope to her filled her with foreboding. “You won’t believe it. Look at the outer edge of the circle of light coming from the outside lamp.”

  The bill of her cap was in the way, so she turned it resolutely backward. It prevented the ice-cold rain from running down her neck.

  Fumbling, she put the telescope up to her eye, strapped it on, and saw instantly what he meant. A large motorcycle stood parked by the wall of the barn. When she pointed the telescope toward one of the small illuminated windows, she could see a big fat man with long curly hair. He stood talking and gesticulating to someone hidden from view. Even though no one could hear them, she whispered, “I can only see one guy, fat with long hair. But it isn’t Bobo Torsson. Did you see anybody else?”

  “No. Just Fatso. And the bike! Did you see it? Hell’s Angels again!”

  “It’s not the same one we saw at the summer cabin?”

  “No, this one doesn’t have a Tour-Pak on the back.”

  He was right. This one had two smaller boxes on each side of the rear wheel. The fat, longhaired man walked around talking to his invisible audience. For a split second Irene thought she saw the head of a much shorter person, but it happened so fast that she wasn’t sure. She whispered to Jimmy without taking the telescope from her eye, “I think there are at least two of them. But what are they up to?”

  “No idea.”

  A movement on the far right edge of her vision made her point the telescope in that direction. Excitedly she whispered, “Somebody is coming out of the house next door! That must be the house they actually live in. It’s not Bobo Torsson. This one’s a longhaired guy dressed in leather too, but tall and thin.”

  “Funny that he doesn’t turn on the outside light. I can’t see anybody.”

  “You can’t?”

  Irene put down the telescope and looked toward the house. It was dark. Only the lights in the barn were visible. The man was walking in the dark. He was invisible to anyone without night-vision equipment. She put the telescope up to her eyes, only to see the thin man disappear behind the barn. She quickly aimed it at the barn window. The big man stopped short and turned with his back to the window. She understood that the other one was talking now, because suddenly the massive man was quite motionless and seemed to be listening intently. She almost dropped the telescope out of sheer fright when he suddenly turned on his heel and gazed out the window. Reason told her that he couldn’t see them, but the expression on his face said it all. Fear drove its stiff fingers into her body and she couldn’t even hide it from Jimmy. Her voice almost cracked when she whispered with frozen lips, “Jimmy, they know we’re here!”

  “That’s impossible. How could they . . . ?”

  The thought struck them both simultaneously. The summer cabins. The motorcycle behind the pile of lumber. They had been seen.

  Irene asked, “What time is it?”

  He pulled up the sleeve of his jacket and looked at the glowing watch face. “Ten past five. It’s time to get out of here.”

  They crawled down from the cairn. Irene started to pull her cell phone from her pocket. She turned it on but slipped it back into her pocket. Her subconscious had heard a sound, but her conscious mind registered it too late. The forest around her exploded like a shooting star in a thousandth of a second, then closed around her in impenetrable darkness.

  HER HEAD was swinging from side to side and she couldn’t do anything about it. Powerless, she tried to raise herself to throw up, but realized groggily that it was impossible. Her head was hanging down. A strong smell of leather and sweat stung her nostrils and increased her nausea. Instinctively she kept her body limp, as she desperately tried to fight against the dizziness and reenter consciousness. After a while she realized that a hefty man in leather, a Hell’s Angel, was carrying her slung over his shoulder, like a butcher carries a dead carcass. His long wet hair slapped against the side of her face. Cautiously she tried opening her eyelids. She heard panting and labored breathing to her left. There were at least two other people, and it dawned on her that they were carrying something between them. Jimmy. Was he alive? Good God, make him be alive! Never before in her life had she experienced such a pure and unadulterated fear of death. She didn’t have to pretend that she was incapable of movement. She was totally paralyzed.

  A crystal-clear voice suddenly spoke through the panic inside her. To her surprise she recognized the voice of her old judo trainer, dead almost ten years now. Despite his forty years in Sweden, he had retained a very pronounced American accent. In his dry, calm voice he said, “Don’t let them know that you’re awake. Play possum. Sonomama. Remember ukemi-waza. Keep your head in so you don’t hit it. Mokuso.”

  Mokuso? Why should she meditate now, of all times? Then she understood. She needed to go outside her body to release herself from the paralyzing fear. And her body would have to take care of itself for a while; it would still be unconscious. She looked into her whirling brain, found the Point, and was sucked softly up into Yawara and the Light.

  HALF OF her face lay in mud and ice-cold water. One of her nostrils bubbled when she breathed, but she didn’t move her head. Her body had remembered ukemi-waza and fallen into a semiprone position. She sensed that there were several people around her. It took an incredible effort of will to concentrate on what they were saying and still
pretend that she was unconscious.

  “What the hell are we going to do with them? Who are these fucks?”

  “SIG Sauer. And the telescope and phone. Great equipment. I think they’re cops. Why the hell did you have to hit them so hard? We could have gotten something out of the girl at least.”

  “Don’t tell the guys that it was a chick! She’s tall as hell and she had a cap on.”

  “Fuck them, God damn it!”

  The last voice came as a shock to Irene. A young girl. In a confused moment Irene imagined that it was one of her own daughters. The illusion passed and she managed to lie still.

  “Shut up, you whore! If we’re going to fuck anybody, it’s you!”

  Irene could hear at least three different laughs. Maybe four.

  “Should we take them inside? It’s pissing wet out here.”

  “Take them to the barn.”

  It took all the will in the world for her to hang limply between two Hell’s Angels. They dragged her rather than carried her, and she banged her hip on the high threshold. She let her head hang down and tried not to allow even a quiver of her eyelids. She could hear the thud when they dropped Jimmy next to her. Presumably he was alive, since they took the trouble to bring him inside. Here it was dry but the floor was ice cold. To her horror she couldn’t conceal the cold shivers that ran through her body. Stopping the occasional tremor was beyond her control, but she still pretended to be unconscious.

  “Wake them up.”

  A swift kick in the side. She couldn’t hold back a whimper, so she masked it with a low mumble. Dull thuds were heard as they kicked Jimmy, but not a sound came from him. After another kick she felt it was time to change the scenario. Whimpering, she moved her head and mumbled something incoherent.

  “The broad is coming to!”

  Twitch the eyelids, look confused and groggy. Be careful to survey the surroundings. Four leather-clad guys and a little blond girl, also in leathers. Jimmy lay next to her, less than a meter away. He was unrecognizable, covered with mud, his face swollen. At least he was alive. His chest heaved up and down.