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

by Helen Tursten

  From sheer exhaustion she fell asleep, until the sobbing woke her. But she must have been dreaming. Nobody in the house was crying.

  THERE WASN’T a free parking place in the whole city. Finally Irene drove down to police headquarters and put her car in the lot. Both Jenny and Katarina were bursting with anticipation. They had a hard time maintaining their teenage dignity when the little kid inside them demanded to come out. Jenny had pulled a bright red chimney-sweep cap over her ears. Not just to hide her scalp, but also because it was very cold. Only a few degrees below freezing, but it was windy. That’s when Göteborg feels like the Antarctic. Irene and the twins ran toward the downtown shopping district to keep their circulation going.

  Garlands with lights and stars were stretched across the pedestrian-only streets. The tall trees in Brunnparken and along Östra Hamngatan glittered with hundreds of tiny lights woven into their leafless branches. But few people looked up at the crowns of the trees. Most of them burrowed their chins down into their collars and hunched their shoulders against the wind. They wanted to get into the lovely warmth, and the shopkeepers were rubbing their hands. That was exactly what they wanted too.

  The girls popped in and out of clothing stores. Irene looked at a few jackets, but a glance at the price tags made her decide to wait until spring. She would only have to wear a winter jacket for a few more months. Spring and fall jackets could wait. But she missed her poplin one.

  “Look, Mamma! Too cool, huh?”

  Katarina’s trumpeting woke Irene out of her reverie when she walked out of the dressing room like a runway model, dressed in a bright orange top that came down to her navel and a pair of moss-green bell-bottoms. First she just stared at her daughter. Finally she couldn’t hold it back any longer and burst out laughing.

  “What are you cackling at?” Katarina said. “This is totally modern! Try and keep up, okay?”

  Jenny agreed and said patronizingly to her old fossil of a mother, “This is the latest thing, after all.”

  Irene tried hard to contain herself. “I’m sorry, but it’s just that I recognized myself. I looked just like that when I was your age.”

  Both her daughters gave her a skeptical look and exchanged a glance heavenward. The hardest thing to believe was that Mamma was ever their age.

  Just like all the other shoppers looking at the decorations and searching for gifts, they wound up in NK. Irene was tired and needed a cup of coffee, but the girls voted to go look around the department store first. With a sigh, after a mild protest, Irene had to give in. Whenever the girls joined forces, she was in the minority. All the lights and glitter began to drain the energy out of her. And the elves—! Wherever you looked you saw an elf. Tiny elves, giant elves, artificial elves, and live elves. One of them almost scared her to death when it bent forward and touched her arm and asked if she didn’t want to buy a new shaver for the “little husband.”

  Worn out, Irene tried to catch her breath on the escalator up to the second floor. Above their heads hovered slowly rotating Christmas trees. Halogen lamps made them glitter and flash. One was done completely in silver rosettes, another in gold hearts, a third in silver icicles, a fourth in gold balls . . . all the gold and silver dazzled her and hurt her eyes. Gold and silver. Silver. Like shiny sardines in their can. Like shiny . . .

  “Mamma! Lift your feet!”

  Katarina was yelling at her. The girls were behind her and realized what was about to happen. But it was too late. She was on her face where the escalator ended. The bag of newly bought panties and stockings spilled out every which way, but Jenny quickly picked them up. Katarina was so embarrassed she was about to sink through the floor. How humiliating could a mother be, anyway?

  All Irene’s weariness had vanished. She swiftly gathered up her children, her packages, and her wounded dignity. Eagerly she said, “Let’s go! I need a telephone!”

  “Did you hurt yourself? Should I call an ambulance or anything?”

  “No. But something did strike me, as a matter of fact. An idea!”

  “Don’t you have your cell phone?”

  “No, I didn’t bring it.”

  They made a U-turn and took the escalator back downstairs. On the ground floor Irene found a nice café and a pay phone. She parked the girls at a table furnished with hot chocolate with whipped cream and saffron Lucia buns.

  Irene began searching her pockets for the piece of paper with the number on it; she found it and punched in the number.

  “Sylvia von Knecht.”

  “Hello, excuse me for bothering you. This is Inspector Irene Huss.”

  “What do you want?”

  It wouldn’t be fair to claim that any great warmth flowed through the line. But it wasn’t necessary either. What was important now was not to get Sylvia into a bad mood. Which Irene unfortunately seemed to have a real talent for. In as friendly a tone as she could muster, Irene said, “A piece of information has come up that I need to check. It will only take five minutes.”

  “Go ahead and check then!”

  Irene was flustered until she realized what Sylvia meant. “No, I can’t do it on the phone. I have to come up and talk to you at the apartment. It’s very important if it turns out to be true,” she said urgently.

  There was a long silence.

  “When would you be coming, in that case?”

  “Would three o’clock be all right?”

  “Fine.”

  Click. Hung up on her, as usual. If her revelation on the escalator proved to be wrong, imagine with what scornful laughter it would be scattered, like fog, into empty nothingness. In that case it would be a sweaty conversation with Sylvia.

  JUST BEFORE three o’clock they went back to the car. All three had tired feet, but they were happily sated with purchases and impressions. There was no doubt about it: This year there would be a Christmas too. Irene started the car, and only then did she tell the girls that she had to run an errand at someone’s apartment. But it was on the way home, not a detour. The girls griped but promised to wait in the car. Irene parked on Kapellplatsen so that they could stroll around and do some window-shopping. It wasn’t that much fun, though, because all the stores were closed, except for the Konsum grocery store and the bakery. After NK all the other Christmas decorations were an anticlimax. IT WAS Arja who opened the door. She smiled her pleasant smile but it faded rapidly when her sister’s whiny voice was heard from inside the apartment.

  “Is it that cop person?”

  Before Arja could reply, Irene shouted back, “It’s Detective Inspector Irene Huss from the Homicide Commission.”

  She’d be damned if she’d let herself be called a “cop person”! And there wasn’t anything called the “Homicide Commission,” but Sylvia wouldn’t know that. It sounded good. Arja at least was impressed, when she stepped back to let Irene in, as evidenced by her wide eyes and slightly gaping mouth.

  Sylvia came out of the kitchen with her lips pressed together in annoyance. Presumably she had gotten lost because the kitchen was not one of the places where she usually spent any time. Irene recalled the virginal kitchen implements over the stove. And the empty hook where a meat cleaver was missing. She tried to smile and look pleasant.

  “Thanks for letting me come up and bother you for a moment. I just need to check on one thing. It’s about the keys.”

  “Yes?”

  “Can we go upstairs?”

  Sylvia jerked her neck and began striding toward the stairs to the upper level. Irene assumed that it was all right to follow.

  In the upstairs hall Sylvia stopped and turned. She coolly raised one eyebrow and said, “The keys?”

  “Would you please get the spare-key ring? The one you said you keep in your desk drawer in your office. I’ll go in and get your husband’s key case. That is, if it’s still on his nightstand?”

  Sylvia snorted lightly before she replied, “In the drawer of the nightstand. The police just traipse around at will in my home! I don’t suppose I can stop
you. You’ve already taken his car keys, without returning them!”

  She swiftly turned and glided away toward her office. Irene swallowed the words that were on the tip of her tongue. Don’t get mad, don’t get mad . . .

  The room had changed. It took a fraction of a second before Irene noticed that the paintings were gone. There were a couple of paintings on the empty walls, but they weren’t “sex pictures,” as Irene in her ignorance had called them. A “collection of erotica,” Henrik von Knecht had corrected her. Imagine how much useful information she had learned in the course of this investigation! The ones that were in the room now were completely normal paintings. Modern and eccentric, but not nudes. A sudden pang of sympathy for Sylvia went through her. She quickly went over to the enormous silk bed and opened the drawer of Richard’s nightstand. It contained paper tissues, some ice-blue cough drops in transparent wrappers, and the shiny, black leather key case. Now she would see if she was right. She was surprised to see that her hands were shaking a little when she unsnapped the case. Out fell the six keys, hanging from their hooks. All were equally shiny. All were made of exactly the same type of metal. All had no numbers or markings. No wear whatsoever. This was the newly made set of keys, the one that Richard had had made at Mister Minit less than six months ago. A sigh of relief escaped her.

  “Did you find anything of interest?”

  Irene heard Sylvia’s voice behind her back. You could have cut glass with it. Calmly Irene turned around, walked over to the rigid, thin little woman, and said, “Have you looked at Richard’s set of keys since he died?”

  Sylvia’s eyes widened in astonishment but soon resumed their inimical attitude.

  “Why would I do that? I have my own!”

  “You haven’t looked at his keys?”

  “No, I told you! I just put them in the drawer.”

  “Look at this. Hold out your set of keys and compare them to the keys in Richard’s case. That’s it, hold them in your hand,” Irene said in a friendly, persuasive voice.

  Hesitantly Sylvia did as she was told. When the two sets of keys were held next to each other, she saw it too. Richard’s new, shiny ones were as gaudy as Christmas tree decorations, while the keys in the spare set were different colors from age, wear, and oxidation. They also had various numbers and letters on them.

  With tight lips Sylvia whispered, “Heavens!”

  She was transfixed by the keys; she couldn’t take her eyes off them.

  Softly Irene said, “Somebody borrowed, or stole, Richard’s keys last summer. He didn’t get them back, but had another set made using the spare set as a pattern. Why did he do that? Why didn’t he report the keys missing? Change all the locks? Why didn’t he tell you?”

  Sylvia just stared at the keys in Irene’s hand. Her eyes looked unnaturally large in the narrow, transparent face. A wailing sound rose from her throat, and she started tossing her head from side to side. At first it was barely noticeable, then the motion grew more and more violent. The wail rose to a shriek and Sylvia started shaking all over. Damn, she had done it again! Why, why couldn’t she ever handle Sylvia?

  Irene rushed over to the bedroom door and called for Arja. Then, with hard-won composure, she approached Sylvia and tried to calm her down. It was useless. Sylvia had worked herself up to a state of hysteria and was screeching like a siren. When Irene tried to put her hand on her arm, she screamed. Then she fainted. The woman could really collapse beautifully! Like falling swan’s down she sank to the floor in a graceful rippling motion. One arm lay in an arc above her head and the other rested lightly across her stomach. This was the scene that greeted Arja when she came through the door.

  “So, she’s fainted again,” she said calmly.

  Without hurrying she crossed the floor to her sister. With a practiced motion she raised Sylvia’s legs in the air and began to massage her calves. All the while she looked at Irene, who thought that her guilt feelings must be blatantly visible. Calmly Arja asked, “What made her so upset?”

  “Upset? It was the keys,” Irene said vaguely.

  “Sylvia has always fainted when she gets upset. Her whole life! Sensitive artistic soul, you know.”

  Arja gave her a broad, pleasant smile of camaraderie, and Irene began to feel a little better. She decided to tell Arja exactly what was going on.

  “It was when I showed her that Richard’s set of keys was newly made. So the one we found in the door on Berzeliigatan was Richard’s old key ring. He had lost it last summer and never said anything to Sylvia.”

  Arja gave her a long look. Emphatically she said, “There was a lot that Richard didn’t tell Sylvia.”

  Now or never! Irene looked down at Sylvia, who was beginning to show signs of life. She said softly to Arja out of the corner of her mouth, “Tell me about the party!”

  Arja started and cast a quick glance at Sylvia’s pale face. She put one finger over her mouth and made a gesture toward her sister.

  “Could we lift her up onto the bed?”

  They helped each other lift the feather-light body. Sylvia began to mumble weakly and her eyelids fluttered.

  “I’ll call Mother,” said Arja.

  The words were barely out of her mouth before a thin little shadowy figure slipped in through the doorway. Irene was dumbstruck. That’s exactly how Sylvia would look in twenty-five years. The little woman ignored the other two and tiptoed over to the bed. With her slender hands, in which the blue veins seemed to lie outside her white skin, she grasped her daughter’s equally pale and bloodless ones. Gently caressing Sylvia, she murmured long strings of consoling words. To Irene’s ears they sounded like magic incantations, but after a few moments she realized it was Finnish she was hearing.

  Arja poked her furtively in the side and motioned with her head toward the door. Silently they slunk out and down the broad staircase. They continued into the entryway, and Arja took a key lying on the marble top of the ornate hall table. She opened the front door and gestured to Irene to follow. They hurried down the stairs to the floor below. With growing astonishment Irene realized they were on their way into the apartment below the von Knechts’. Arja unlocked the door. She motioned for Irene to enter and then silently closed the door and touched the switch on the wall. A naked lightbulb hung from the ceiling and cast a harsh light. The place smelled of paint and wallpaper glue.

  Arja waved her hand and said, “Ivan Viktors is moving in tomorrow. The moving van is coming early.”

  “Do you know that Sylvia and Ivan Viktors have a relationship?”

  Arja stiffened and gave her a sharp look. “So you know about it too? Yes, of course I know that. You certainly can’t blame Sylvia. It wasn’t always much fun being Richard’s wife. He was a big shit!”

  The way she said it with her Finnish accent made it sound quite pleasant. Irene decided to get right to the point to save time and skip the chitchat. With a hint of a smile in her voice, she asked, “Did he try to seduce you too?”

  Arja pouted slightly and then gave Irene a big, soft smile. “Almost twenty years ago. But his charm didn’t work on me. I told him like it is, that I’m a lesbian.”

  Irene gave a start. She hadn’t expected this.

  Arja said dryly, “I’ve been in a relationship for many years. But neither Mamma nor Sylvia will accept Siirka. She’s not allowed to attend any of the family events, such as weddings and funerals. She couldn’t anyway. She’s a teacher, and it’s hard to get time off.”

  Irene’s thoughts flew to Mona and Jonas Söder in Stockholm. How was he doing?

  Irene collected herself and tried to ask the right questions.

  “And you’re a journalist?”

  “Yes. Freelance. I’m my own boss.”

  “Can you tell me about the party? The one Sylvia doesn’t want you to talk about.”

  Arja took a deep breath and for a shaky moment Irene thought she had changed her mind. But she began to speak. “It was at Richard’s sixtieth birthday party last summer. There were
tons of people there. It was warm and lovely far into the night. But around two o’clock I was getting tired and thought I’d sneak off to bed. Mother and I each had a room in the guest cabin. Mother was feeling spry and still dancing. She had taken a nap in the afternoon. She loves parties! But I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Too much wine and champagne. The guests had to be driven to various hotels in Göteborg. Limousines had been rented, but they weren’t coming until three. No one would miss me if I slipped away. On the path down to the guest cabin I ran into Sylvia. She was tipsy like all the others, but she was also uneasy. People had been asking for Richard, but she couldn’t find him. I suggested that she follow me to the cabin, then we could have a glass of the Arctic raspberry liqueur I had bought on the ferry. Sylvia loves it. And that’s where we found Richard.”

  She fell silent and rubbed her eyes wearily, as if to erase an image from her memory. Or maybe to make it clearer. A bitter tone slipped into her voice as she continued, “We didn’t just find Richard. Charlotte was there too. We saw them, but they didn’t see us. On the floor of the great room they were engaged in filthy acts.”

  Irene was surprised at the choice of words. Did a lesbian consider heterosexual intercourse to be “filthy acts”?

  Arja took her hands from her eyes and looked straight at Irene. Curtly she said, “They were sucking each other and . . . ” She looked away and red flames shot down her neck.

  “It was disgusting! We went back outside. They didn’t notice we had been there. Sylvia fainted, of course, but recovered quite rapidly. She made me promise never to tell anyone what we had seen. Not anyone.”

  She paused and fingered the key to the apartment. In a low voice she said, “But I’m breaking that promise now. I think this has something to do with Richard’s death.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “The keys. I know that Charlotte took them.”

  “Tell me.”

  “The next day the mood was naturally flat. Richard had fallen asleep on a sofa in the living room. He lay there snoring when I came into the big house. Mother had misplaced her little travel pillbox with her heart tablets. We found it later in the guest cabin, but not that morning. Mother swore that she had left it in Sylvia’s bedroom when she went there for a little nap the day before. I tiptoed in as quietly as I could so I wouldn’t wake anyone. Sylvia and Richard had separate bedrooms up at Marstrand. I sneaked into Sylvia’s room and woke her, of course. She sleeps so lightly. She hadn’t seen Mother’s pillbox, and I couldn’t find it either. When I left Sylvia’s bedroom, I ran into Charlotte coming out of Richard’s! We both stopped short and then she said, “Hi, I forgot my keys. But I found them.” And then she stuffed the key case she was holding in her hand into the pocket of her dressing gown. I was tired and a little hung over, so I didn’t give it much thought then. But I’ve thought about it many times since. Why would Charlotte leave her keys in Richard’s bedroom?”