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

by Helen Tursten

  He seemed to know intuitively that she was the one who needed pepping up, not him. She managed to sound a little livelier as she said, “Take care of yourself. I’ll come and see you tomorrow.”

  “Fantastic! No grapes, please. Twenty kronor worth of candy will do.”

  “It sounds like you’re on the road to recovery.”

  THE NEXT interruption came when Birgitta stuck her head in and wondered if she wanted to see them open the safe. Irene gave her a wan smile.

  “As long as it doesn’t explode, sure. Hopefully, Henrik didn’t manage to get into the safe.”

  It was almost two-thirty and already it was dark. There was a light sprinkle of small, hard snowflakes coming down. The back doors of the van were opened, and the man from Rosengren’s stepped out. With a click he fastened a magnetic plate onto the safe. It was equipped with tiny lights and hooked up to a box that looked like a normal voltmeter. The expert turned some knobs, the lights blinked, and suddenly the safe door clicked. The icy vapor coming out of the mouths of all the onlookers stopped instantly. Cautiously the man opened the door. There was a collective sigh of relief.

  The space inside the safe was small, about fifty by fifty centimeters. Birgitta had brought a carton, into which they packed folders, boxes, and envelopes.

  They went straight to the conference room with the carton. The table there was the most suitable for spreading out and sorting the contents.

  Andersson’s face was reverential as he looked at the five inspectors present. Hannu Rauhala and Hans Borg were missing. With poorly concealed anticipation he rubbed his hands and said, “Finally! Now we’ll see if there’s anything useful here. We’ll divide up the stuff and then go through it with the utmost care. We’ll place everything that should be looked at more closely in the center of the table. If you’re unsure of something, put it in the middle pile anyway!”

  He swiftly divided everything into six stacks, which he passed out to those present. Irene got a hard leather case that turned out to contain a pistol. Impressed, she said, “Wow! Here’s something. A Beretta Ninety-Two-S.”

  Andersson looked surprised. “Where the hell did he get that? Is it loaded? Check if he had a license,” he said gruffly.

  “Fifteen rounds in the clip. But there’s no more ammunition that I can see.”

  They all looked through their stacks and boxes without finding any more ammunition. All they found were some medals from various sporting events. Plus an old gold pocket watch. It seemed to have belonged to Richard’s father. On the lid of the old watch were the gracefully engraved initials “O. V. K.” Otto von Knecht.

  Irene was sitting and admiring the beautiful watch when she heard the superintendent gasp. The color began to rise in his face; his eyes were fixed on the pictures he had pulled out of a brown A4 envelope. Slowly he stood up and flung the photographs in the middle of the table.

  There were ten color photos the same size as the envelope. All taken from the same angle. All with the same motif. An act of intercourse, with the man taking the woman from the rear. The woman stood leaning forward coquettishly, with her forearms supported on the back of a leather armchair. In the background there were large paintings on the walls and in one corner of the photos a crystal chandelier. The camera angle was from the side. He was dressed only in a leather helmet. It was pulled down over his face, with holes for his eyes. She wore thigh-high boots with stiletto heels and her legs were spread apart. Otherwise, naked. In some of the pictures she was staring straight at the camera, with a smile parting her moist lips. In one of them she pouted a little, as if she were sending the photographer a kiss. Her eyes were half closed with lust.

  All the detectives in the room took a photo to study. Andersson’s face was as red as a stoplight when he wheezed, “Well, my lovely chicken! We’ve got you now!”

  Irene almost didn’t believe it was true. Finally something concrete to present! Proof against Charlotte von Knecht.

  Jonny gave a stifled moan. “What a delicious body she has! My God, I can see why little father-in-law couldn’t keep his fingers off her. All eleven of them!”

  Nobody giggled, but nobody protested either. Fredrik looked closely at his picture and said after a while, “Is it really certain that it’s Richard von Knecht in the picture with her? I mean, couldn’t it be Henrik? Or somebody else?”

  Irene looked carefully at her photo. All her weariness seemed to have evaporated; she felt the thrill of the hunt pulsing inside her. The trail was hot again and smelled strongly of pheromones.

  Meditatively Birgitta asked, “Where were the pictures taken? Does anybody recognize the room?”

  They all took another look at the photos, then shook their heads. No one recognized the interior. Irene’s attention was captured by the background. The paintings. One of the paintings.

  Irritated, the superintendent slammed his palm down on the picture on the table and exclaimed, “It’s damned weird behavior, putting a leather hood over his head! It’ll be hard to prove that it’s Richard von Knecht in the pictures. Not to mention proving where they were taken.”

  Irene’s brain suddenly felt amazingly crystal clear, and abruptly she knew. She started laughing out loud.

  Jonny said to Andersson in a stage whisper, “Now that one’s having a breakdown too!”

  Ignoring him, she said triumphantly, “I know where, by whom, and how the photos were taken. And I know that this is definitely Richard von Knecht in the pictures. His whole face is there!”

  Jonny tapped his index finger on his temple and shook his head. Irene ignored Jonny’s gesture and turned to Andersson.

  “Keep Charlotte under surveillance today, just as we planned. At seven in the morning we’ll bring her in and accuse her of knowing about and participating in Henrik’s bombing of his father’s office. Hammer away at her and let her try to explain herself, precisely as Inez Collin suggested. After an hour or two I’ll come in. And then I’ll nail her for the murder of Richard von Knecht!”

  Andersson groaned out loud, “Would you please explain to us, your somewhat less gifted colleagues, how the hell you plan to airbrush out the leather hood on the guy and show his face?”

  She did. Her colleagues gave her looks filled with respect. Even Jonny’s eyes reflected grudging admiration.

  THE REST of the afternoon was hectic, but when she drove home at around six everything was ready. It had gone well. The people she wanted to get hold of had been available and those she needed assistance from were helpful. She was pleased. And exhausted.

  She had to recount the events out at Marstrand one more time for her family. The edited version. In the middle of the evening news she felt her eyes close. She took a long hot shower and crawled right into bed. Her sleep was deep and dreamless, undisturbed until the alarm clock rang.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  PAUL SVENSSON LAY CURLED up in a fetal position on the bed, with his face to the wall. Through the hole in the locked cell door Superintendent Andersson could see powerful tremors rippling through his skinny body. Low whimpering and sobs were heard even out in the corridor. There was nothing left of the tough Hell’s Angel. What remained was merely the remnants of a dope addict with severe withdrawal symptoms.

  The guard opened the door and Andersson stepped inside. There was a rank, sweaty smell of fear coming from the man in the detention cell, who could actually use a shower. Paul Svensson didn’t seem to notice that he had a visitor. Or maybe he did, because his whines of complaint increased in volume.

  Andersson assumed a brisk tone. “Hello, Paul. Time for another chat.”

  Svensson turned his face dripping with sweat toward the superintendent. He had a hard time focusing. His eyeballs were rolling around in their sockets like panicked eels. His tongue kept licking his dry, shredded lips. Weakly he managed to croak, “A doctor! Get me a doctor. I’m dying! I’m dying! Don’t you get it?”

  Over the years Andersson had interrogated far too many dope addicts to let it affect him. O
n the contrary, he viewed the situation as very favorable. Now the thin man should be ripe and ready to pluck.

  “If you help me with a few new things that have come up over the past few days, maybe out of the goodness of my heart I’ll see that we get you a doctor. But I want some real help in return!” said the superintendent in his friendliest tone.

  “Go to hell!”

  “If that’s the way you want it. But then it’s going to be a long wait before we call the doctor. An unnnn-believably long wait . . . for you.”

  Paul John Svensson’s lanky body convulsed in a fit of cramping. All he could do was moan. Fear and pain were pulsating in the cell. When the spasms passed, he whispered, “What . . . what’s it about?”

  Keeping in mind that Svensson could only reveal those things he actually had knowledge of, the superintendent speculated about confusing the issue and letting Svensson try to talk his way out of the erroneous suspicions the police might have. Nothing in Andersson’s voice revealed how precisely planned his first sentence was. Nonchalantly he said, “New information indicates that you and Hoffa were mixed up in the explosive fire on Berzeliigatan and naturally also in the bomb that killed Bobo Torsson. So the grenade and the attempted murder of those two inspectors out at Billdal isn’t the only thing we can send you up for. Damn it, Svensson, you’re looking at the bunker in Kumla prison!”

  Dread spilled out of Svensson’s wide eyes as he cried, “It was that upper-class shit Henrik von Knecht! He’s the one who blew that Bobo Torsson to hell!”

  “Why?”

  Svensson jumped at that single word, tried to stop himself from snitching, but his fear of the rock-hard narcotics-free Kumla bunker—Hell on earth for a drug addict—won out. He replied curtly and nervously, “Torsson was supposed to get some dough from von Knecht. But there was a bomb in the briefcase instead!”

  “Why was Torsson supposed to get dough from Henrik von Knecht?”

  “Hoffa . . . I don’t know.”

  His fear of the vice president of the Hell’s Angels was clearly stronger than his terror of the Kumla bunker. But Andersson had no intention of loosening his grip yet. So he snapped harshly, “You’re not going to see any doctor until tomorrow morning at the earliest.”

  “Noooo, wait! I know that Torsson was supposed to extort money from old man von Knecht. But it turned to shit. Hoffa was mad as hell, but the guys from Amsterdam were still coming up here with the stuff. There were other people interested.”

  “ ‘Old man von Knecht’? You mean Henrik’s father, Richard von Knecht?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said, for fuck’s sake! But that asshole didn’t pay. After a few days Bobo called us back and said it would be okay with the bread. Henrik von Knecht would cough it up instead. Sounded screwy as hell, but Hoffa said we didn’t give a shit who paid. As long as we got the bread.”

  “How much money were they talking about?”

  “Half a mil.”

  “Five hundred thousand?”

  “Are you dense or what? That’s what I said!”

  “What was Bobo Torsson going to do with another half a million? And why would he give it to Hoffa?”

  Now Svensson’s gaze began wandering again, but he knew that he had already spilled too much. He might as well go whole hog and get a doctor. Right now he didn’t give a shit about anything to do with the Hell’s Angels. He was dying and he needed a fix . . . of anything at all. Right now.

  Resigned, he said, “Junk. Half a mil worth. Torsson wanted to be a big-time operator.”

  “Together with Shorty?”

  Svensson shrugged his shoulders and muttered, “Dunno.”

  Annoying, but what he had said was interesting enough.

  AT SEVEN-THIRTY Irene walked into Andersson’s office. Hoarsely, he was yelling into the intercom, “Tell them that the press conference will be at one! Not a word before that!”

  He was pale and tired, and for the first time Irene thought he looked ancient. A few days in bed wouldn’t be a bad idea. But the von Knecht case was nearing a resolution and he had no intention of missing it.

  He looked at her with bloodshot eyes before he wheezed, “’Morning. Charlotte von Knecht is expected anytime now. Hope the plan holds. I put Jonny and Tommy on her. They’re picking her up.”

  “Then I’ll stay out of sight. Any news from the interrogations of Shorty and Paul Svensson?”

  He coughed and stuck a cough drop in his mouth. “Good news, actually! Svensson started to talk.”

  Irene laughed and said, “You got him to talk. Threatened him with the Kumla bunker.”

  “Cruel, but effective.”

  “How much money are we talking about?”

  “According to Svensson, five hundred thousand kronor.”

  “Five hundred thousand! Henrik’s fortune wasn’t that big.”

  “Precisely. We know that because we’ve already checked it out. But Bobo didn’t know that. And we know how Henrik pulled it off. Paul didn’t have much more to offer. He got sick last night, and the doctor’s been looking in on him regularly. He got an injection and went to sleep. He hadn’t slept since we nabbed him on Saturday. Why don’t we get a cup of coffee before we continue?”

  “Continue? Is there more?”

  “You bet! There’s plenty more.”

  They had to settle for coffee from the vending machine. Since both of them were caffeine addicts, taste played a minor role. It was possible to get used to almost anything. Andersson stopped by the toilet. From out in the corridor she could hear him blowing his nose.

  Back in the office he pulled out the top desk drawer and took out a little tape recorder. With a satisfied smile he said, “Yesterday’s interrogation of Shorty. I went to see him right after my talk with Paul Svensson. The strategy was the same. Play them off against each other and get them confused. And I took along an envelope with one of the photographs from the safe.”

  He began fiddling with the buttons on the tape recorder. His contented smile turned into an angry grimace. Half-stifled oaths and groans filled the air before he finally succeeded in pushing the right button. The superintendent’s voice was heard saying, “. . . a good deal now. Paul Svensson has talked. We know that you and Bobo were planning to extort five hundred thousand from Henrik von Knecht so you could buy smack from the Hell’s Angels. We know that there was a bomb in the briefcase instead of money. We know that’s why you pounded the life out of Henrik on Sunday, as revenge for killing Bobo.”

  Silence. After a while there was a dull muttering, “Fucking idiot.”

  “Svensson denies that he or anyone in the Hell’s Angels would have had anything to do with a contract on Henrik von Knecht. Or the bomb on Berzeliigatan. He thinks it’s you and Bobo who did the job for them.”

  Silence again. Then a stream of invective poured out of the minuscule machine. If even half of the abusive words were correct, Paul Svensson ought to be picking out a nice, pleasant grave site.

  Shorty’s outpouring was interrupted by Andersson’s voice. “Why isn’t what Paul Svensson told us right?”

  “We didn’t have shit to do with any bombs or the murder of Pappa von Knecht! We needed the bread to do business. That’s all.”

  “It was these pictures that were going to get you the five hundred thousand, right?”

  Light rustling was heard from the tape recorder. Shorty took a very deep breath before he wheezed, “Where the fuck did you get hold of those? That shithead said he burned them!”

  “As you see, he didn’t. Why didn’t Richard von Knecht pay?”

  Sullen silence. Then came a petulant, “Because his God damned pig-face didn’t show. We couldn’t prove it was him.”

  “So that’s why you tried to extort the money from Henrik von Knecht instead?”

  “Fucking dumb idea. We didn’t have much time. We should have knocked over a bank instead!”

  Then Andersson pushed the off button. Chuckling, Irene said, “I can imagine that discussion, between the two
cousins.”

  “Me too. I asked when they had contacted Henrik von Knecht. Shorty wasn’t sure, because it was Bobo who was taking care of that part. It was probably on Thursday. It must have been two days before the party that Sylvia and Richard had, celebrating the Thirty Years’ War. And on Friday Henrik primed the bomb, if it all went the way we think.”

  “Actually a brilliant plan. If he’d been lucky, both his father and Bobo Torsson would have been blown up in the same explosion! It didn’t happen, but you can understand what Henrik was thinking. He knew that he couldn’t pay the amount the extortionists were demanding. When he saw the pictures he also knew about the relationship between Richard and Charlotte. If the bomb had been triggered by Richard, Henrik would have solved at least one of his problems. In the best-case scenario, both of them.”

  “Why did Henrik bother to pretend to pay? His revenge could have been to let the world see the pictures of his unfaithful wife and his lecherous father.”

  “He was probably concerned about the family’s reputation. And Sylvia would have had a breakdown!”

  “There’s still the murder of Richard von Knecht.”

  “That’s where everything started and that’s where everything will end. And we’re going to crack the last part too.”

  “One more thing. Jonny traced Charlotte’s phone calls on Sunday. After Shorty came by she made a call. To reserve a table at Brasserie Lipp.”

  Andersson leaned over and pulled out the bottom desk drawer. In a subdued voice he said, “Here are the pictures you asked for from Pathology. Disgusting. He’s a murderer and deadly arsonist, but the question is whether anyone deserves this. The poor devil is completely mashed. He could pass for the chop suey special at a Chinese restaurant. God damn!”