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

by Helen Tursten

  “Then Jacob looked down into the baby’s dark sapphire-blue eyes. The little one had stopped crying and looked steadily at her grandfather. And in his heart a light was lit for the little life and he whispered quietly, so that only she could hear: ‘You will live. You will have a better life!’”

  “Damn! What a damned shitty story you’re making up!”

  Jenny had jumped up from her seat, and her eyes glittered with tears and rage. Tommy looked at her calmly. Without a word he pulled out a thin, worn book with a brown leather cover from the pocket of his jacket. At first Irene thought it looked like an old diary. When Tommy held it up to the light, she could clearly see an elegant monogram in the lower right corner of the cover. The gilt had flaked off, but you could make out the letters J. U. Calmly he said, “You can read it yourself. This is Jacob Uhr’s diary.”

  He held it out to Jenny. She instantly put her hands behind her back. She looked at the little book as if it were a cobra ready to strike. Tommy didn’t take his eyes off her as he again spoke. “To make a long story short, with the help of the midwife Sonya, the little Sonya survived. A year later Jacob managed to get out of Germany. He found a job in a bookstore here in Göteborg that was also owned by a Jew. When he married a Swedish woman—Britta, a stubborn fisherman’s widow from the island of Hönö—he fell into disfavor with his employer.”

  “Hönö! That’s where your summerhouse is! Is that where you heard this story?” Katarina seemed relieved to begin to divine an explanation for the awful things she had heard this evening.

  Tommy smiled and went on, “Part of it. Both Jacob and this woman were more than forty years old when they met. She once had a son, but he drowned in the same shipwreck as his father, during a storm in the North Sea. So little Sonya became like a daughter for Jacob and his wife. But the Jews in Göteborg threw him out of their congregation. Jacob had never been a particularly religious Jew, so he converted to Christianity. Little Sonya was confirmed in the Swedish Lutheran Church. She had blue eyes and wonderfully shiny red hair. She was teased about it, but not because she was Jewish. Nobody knew about that; she didn’t even know herself. She knew nothing about her ancestry, but thought she was Jacob and Britta’s child. Jacob had told her only that he came from Poland, but not that he was a Jew. He never mentioned the time in Germany or what happened there. Britta knew, of course, but she didn’t say anything to Sonya either. She didn’t find out anything until Jacob and Britta died a few months apart, fifteen years ago.”

  Irene couldn’t help exclaiming. The pieces had fallen into place and she understood how it all fit together.

  Tommy nodded to her and smiled. “You’ve figured it out. But Jenny and Katarina couldn’t know about this, since they weren’t born yet. Sonya is my mother. Jacob and Britta, whom I always called Grandma and Grandpa, turned out to be my great-grandfather and his wife!”

  Only Sammie’s faint snoring under the coffee table disturbed the total silence that had descended over the room. Irene couldn’t think of anything to say. Tommy had never told her about this. But really, why should he?

  As if he had heard her thoughts he continued, “It was a shock for Mamma. She, who was confirmed and married in the Swedish Lutheran Church, suddenly found out that she was half Jewish and the product of a gang rape!”

  Tommy fell silent and looked down at Sammie through the glass tabletop. When he spoke again, his voice was low and utterly serious. “Jenny, if you want you can borrow Jacob’s diary. It’s important that you understand why you and I can no longer be friends.”

  Jenny’s eyes were wide with horror; her mouth stood half open, but she couldn’t utter a sound. Irene’s maternal heart writhed in sympathy, but she knew that this was between Jenny and Tommy.

  He went on in a neutral tone, “You and Katarina attended the baptism of my children. We have spent vacations and weekends together. But because you have declared that you’re a skinhead, play Nazi music, and advocate what they stand for, you are the enemy of me and my children. Our mortal enemy, literally! When the persecution begins, one drop of Jewish blood in our veins will be enough to have us killed. Even the suspicion that there may be one drop is enough to kill us! And I’m one-quarter Jewish, my children one-eighth. We don’t have a chance. We will be killed.”

  Jenny tried to pluck up her courage and screamed, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard! We don’t want to kill anybody!”

  “Yes you do, Jenny. What is it they sing in the lyrics to the music you like so much? Since you say you love that music, you also have to stand for what the lyrics say. ‘Death to niggers and Jews! Fight for a pure, Aryan Sweden!’ Sound familiar? And to show even more clearly what you stand for, you’ve also shaved off your hair,” he stated coldly.

  “That was because of the band! Markus thought it would be cool if I dared to shave off my ha . . . hair!”

  The last word came in a long sob. She sprang to her feet, rushed up the stairs, and slammed the door. They could hear her crying loudly. Sammie woke up when she rushed off and looked around bewildered. He sensed that the atmosphere was charged, not at all as cozy as it was when he went to sleep.

  Krister leaned forward, put his head in his hands, and groaned, “Good Lord, this has been one of the worst experiences of my life! I almost stood up and yelled at you to stop. But now you’ve put the decision in Jenny’s hands.”

  “It’s not Jenny’s fault; it’s the fault of our forgetfulness. We forget what we want to forget, and the consequence is that we lose our history, and then we can’t learn from it. It’s an eternal cycle and everything is repeated,” said Tommy in resignation.

  Irene’s mouth was dry when she asked, “Is this story really true?”

  “Every single word. Do you want to borrow Jacob’s diary?”

  Hesitantly, she reached out and took the little book with the dry leather cover. But she didn’t open it. Uncertainly she said, “My school German isn’t that good anymore. I probably can’t understand what he wrote.”

  Tommy gave her a big smile and a shrewd glance. “No, you probably can’t. Because Jacob wrote his diary in his mother tongue. Polish.”

  JIMMY OLSSON had emergency neurosurgery at two o’clock in the morning. The examination earlier in the day had shown a small hemorrhage between the meninges that had not been visible on the emergency X ray taken the night he was admitted to the hospital. Jimmy’s condition had deteriorated rapidly after he awoke at night with a splitting headache and began to show signs of failing consciousness. His speech had become slurred and his body was going numb.

  SVEN ANDERSSON looked serious when he told Tommy, Irene, Birgitta, and Jonny about Jimmy. The superintendent said sympathetically, “The poor guy, it’s evident a blood vessel was leaking blood.”

  Irene shuddered. Tommy looked angry when he said, “This is what really happens from hard blows to the head. In the movies the hero just shakes his head after a skyscraper falls on him, gets up, and quickly grabs his machine gun to mow down twenty gangsters!”

  Jonny snorted, “Why don’t you tell it like it is: This is what happens when you go out on a job with a chick. It’s always the guy who has to take the worst lumps when things get rough!”

  Irene was totally speechless, but she didn’t need to get into an argument. Unexpectedly the superintendent came to her defense. “If Irene hadn’t been there, Jimmy Olsson would be dead today.”

  “Thanks to her, in that case. She got them into the situation! Nobody asked them to drive out to Billdal. The dames lured poor Jimmy away.”

  The dames meant Birgitta and her. Irene knew that the accusation was groundless, but it still stung. She was the oldest, the one with the most experience and practice. All Jimmy had to do was follow orders and keep up with her. Was she to blame for what happened to Jimmy?

  Andersson was bright red when he stood up, slammed his palm on the table, and yelled, “Shut up! Irene was doing her job, checking up on a possible lead to Bobo Torsson’s hideout! Damn it, nobody i
n this department has to run in to see me every time something comes up that needs to be investigated more closely. That would be totally inappropriate! You’re pros, after all!”

  Wham! He slapped his palm on the table again, to emphasize what he was saying. Jonny was obviously unprepared for his boss’s outburst, because he said nothing. Andersson took a few deep breaths to try to control his blood pressure. More calmly he said, “No one could have known that those punks would hide an alarm in a stack of lumber! And there was nothing to indicate that there would be Hell’s Angels in Bobo’s and Shorty’s cottage. Jimmy and Irene ran into a damned unpleasant surprise at the site.”

  Andersson sat back down, but the grim expression did not leave his face. He scrutinized Jonny for a long time; Irene could see that Jonny was embarrassed. She felt that there was something else behind the superintendent’s vehement reaction, but didn’t have the slightest idea what it could be.

  Andersson went on, “I don’t want to hear this kind of shit again from you, Jonny. We can’t attack each other. We have to concentrate on the job. Dump your anger on Shorty instead, and see if you can make him talk! Today is our last chance. Tomorrow we have to let him go. So far there isn’t a single scrap of evidence that he did anything illegal. Even though that devil has never done anything else!”

  “Now he’s an honorable tobacco merchant.” Irene gave Andersson a teasing look in an attempt to lighten the mood.

  “Honorable tobacco! . . He sells drugs and nothing else!”

  “But we don’t have any proof,” Irene countered.

  “No. Everything points to Bobo Torsson alone. We don’t have anything on Shorty.”

  “Tommy and I are thinking of paying an early-morning visit to young Fru von Knecht. Sylvia revealed yesterday that Bobo and Charlotte are old pals. We thought we’d check and see if she might be familiar with Shorty too.”

  A gleam came into the superintendent’s eye. “That’s interesting news. You wouldn’t think she’d still keep up with Torsson. Funny girl, that Charlotte. Will it take two of you to interview her?”

  “Two pairs of eyes see more than one. While one is talking, the other one looks around a little,” said Irene.

  “Are you suspicious of her?”

  Irene hesitated a moment. Finally she said, “It’s mostly a feeling I got when I talked to Sylvia yesterday. She has an idea who got the spare-key ring from Richard von Knecht. But she doesn’t want to talk about it. And I’m convinced that it has to be someone in the family. Charlotte or Henrik. Sylvia also told me that Henrik had the mumps before meningitis. When I asked her whether he had become sterile as a result of the mumps, she broke down. So Henrik could be sterile. If so, who’s the father of Charlotte’s child? I want to feel out both of them on this.”

  IRENE AND Tommy drove slowly up Långåsliden. Big stucco functional-style houses predominated, but houses of both older and newer architecture were seen here too. Despite the fact that Örgryte and Skår were now considered the central and most exclusive sections of Göteborg, the large, showy gardens in which the houses stood were often marked by some neglect, probably because of the owners’ lack of time for gardening. They probably had to work hard to be able to afford to live in these fashionable districts, Irene thought.

  Henrik and Charlotte’s house wasn’t one of the larger ones in the area. But the garden was definitely one of the most overgrown. The house was a two-story yellow stucco with a vaulted oriel next to the balcony. It would have been beautiful if large chunks of plaster hadn’t flaked off it. At ten o’clock in the morning, the venetian blinds facing the street on the upper floor were closed. The curtains on the ground floor were drawn in front of the big picture windows facing the porch. A new red Golf was parked in front of the garage.

  Tommy slipped on the damp leaves that covered the slick slate flagstones. He had to watch where he set his feet, since many spring frosts had pushed the stones apart. The path up to the house reminded him of a miniature of the collapsed freeway in Oakland after the last earthquake.

  Tommy nodded toward the house. “It looks totally dead. I don’t think she’s home.”

  Irene gave him a slightly mocking look. She pointed at the gleaming little red car. “And what makes you think the little lady is even awake at this ungodly hour of the day? She hasn’t driven off in her new car, at any rate.”

  They slipped and slid their way to the once lovely teak front door. Many years without oil or maintenance had left the wood gray and cracked. They rang the bell repeatedly. After a good two minutes, they heard footsteps coming downstairs. A tired voice yelled from inside, “Yeah, yeah! What’s this about? Who is it?”

  Irene recognized Charlotte von Knecht’s voice, but it wasn’t as well modulated as it had been the last time they met. She waited to answer until she heard that Charlotte had made it to the door. Then she said in a loud voice, “It’s Detective Inspector Huss.”

  For a moment there was utter silence before the lock began to rattle. The door was opened a crack and Charlotte whispered, “Do you have to stand there yelling like that? Think of the neighbors!”

  Something had happened to her eyes. The radiant turquoise had become two ordinary bits of granite. She hastened to back up and let them into the surprisingly small entryway. She almost lurched when she turned quickly and swept the thick soft-pink dressing gown tighter around herself. Half choking, she said, “I didn’t know it was you two. Wait here, I have to go upstairs!”

  Before they managed to say a word, she slunk upstairs. But Irene recognized the smell of liquor. And sex. Charlotte smelled of sex. Pheromones are potent scent factors. Less than a fraction of a nanogram is enough to make the hormones run amok. Irene took a quick look at the clothes hanging in the entryway. She found what she was looking for. A light brown jacket of soft suede with fringes on the shoulders. A pair of boots with pointed toes, high cowboy heels, and shiny buckles at the ankles, size forty-two. Henrik von Knecht was thin, but he was also tall. In this jacket he would look like he was going to a costume party. His taste in clothes was more in the line of cashmere overcoats, not fringed jackets. Three pairs of men’s shoes of excellent quality and design, size forty-four, stood in a neat row in the shoe area. Irene showed Tommy her find and he nodded in agreement. Naturally he had also registered the scent.

  The sound of a shower was heard from upstairs. Irene quickly took a few steps into the hall. She chose the left-hand door. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tommy sneaking through the one on the right. The left door led to a small kitchen. The kitchen implements were new and sparkling. The door of the dishwasher was down and revealed a full machine. On the drainboard there were plates and wineglasses. Two salad plates. Two dinner plates. Two wineglasses. Two cut-glass tumblers. Two. The man was still in the house and it wasn’t Henrik von Knecht.

  She hurried back to the hallway. The door they had passed on the way in led to a small toilet. The shower on the top floor had stopped, and she could hear someone moving around up there.

  Tommy returned and whispered, “Living room, dining room, and a den.”

  The Charlotte who came down the stairs was a completely different person from the one who had opened the door for them ten minutes earlier. This one had shiny brushed hair, smelled of Cartier, and gave them a radiant turquoise-shimmering look. Finally Irene understood. No one has eyes of that fairy-tale color. We live in the age of tinted contact lenses. Charlotte was dressed in black velvet pants and a short-sleeved, scoop-necked angora sweater the same color as her fantastic eyes.

  With a courteous gesture that displayed a certain lack of enthusiasm, Charlotte invited them into the living room. It was clearly marked by Henrik’s life and passions. Paintings and antiques were everywhere in the normal-sized room. They walked between urns and curved chairs over to a cream-colored silk sofa, which proved to be astonishingly comfortable. Charlotte draped herself gracefully in an overstuffed velvet easy chair with dark mahogany armrests. She crossed her legs demurely and gave the
two detectives an unexpectedly calm look. Sparse daylight seeped in through the heavy drawn curtains and fell on her face. She had been in a hurry, because the foundation under her right eye had not been properly applied; there was a little brown smear on her cheek.

  Irene decided on the tough approach and began, in a friendly tone of voice, “Charlotte, we’ve discovered a number of new details during the course of the investigation. We would be grateful if you could help us go over them.”

  Without the least quaver in her voice, Charlotte replied, “I’ll try.”

  “First, a question that I’m asking now so I won’t forget it at the end. When does your husband come home?”

  “On Saturday night.”

  “Late?”

  “Yes, around ten. Presumably, he’s going straight to Marstrand. I’ll be at a birthday party for a friend who’s turning thirty.”

  “Henrik’s not going?”

  She hesitated before answering. “No, he’s not so wild about big parties. Lots of people and all that,” she said evasively.

  “But you enjoy that sort of thing.”

  She looked surprised at Irene’s statement. “Yes, of course I do.”

  “Do you often go out alone?”

  Now her gaze wavered. “Usually. Henrik never wants to go. What does this have to do with the investigation of Richard’s death?”