The Glass Devil: A Detective Inspector Huss Investigation, Vol. 3

by Helen Tursten

  It took a while before the true meaning of the cantor’s words sank in. Eva placed the bottle on the coffee table.

  “Now we’re going to go and pick up the kitty.”

  IRENE DROVE along the wet, bumpy gravel roads as Eva directed her. Good friends of Eva’s had a cat that had been on the prowl unusually early this spring. The kittens were still maybe a bit too small to be separated from their mother, but they were pretty much weaned. Since its new family was familiar with cats, this wouldn’t be a major problem.

  “That’s where they live,” Eva said, pointing at a small farm. Irene turned into in at the driveway and sent a sympathetic thought to her shock absorbers. She parked on the gravel drive, and Eva jumped out without asking if she wanting to come inside.

  Everything looked very neat at this little farm. The main house itself was white stucco, in contrast to the well-kept Falu-red wooden outbuildings and the barn. All the flowerbeds around the house were newly dug up and ready for planting.

  After a while, Eva came running through the rain. She was carrying a box in her arms. Irene opened the door for her so that she could jump inside. When she had the shoe box in her lap, Irene saw that Ecco was written on the lid, in which air holes had been punched. Eva carefully lifted it a crack and whispered, “Isn’t she cute? Her name is Felicia. Remember to tell the new family that they absolutely can’t change her name.”

  Irene glimpsed a small, light apricot-colored ball of fur wrapped in a piece of terry cloth.

  “Felicia,” she said aloud so that she wouldn’t forget.

  FELICIA SLEPT in her box the whole way home to the row-house area. The rain stopped just as Irene turned in on Fiskebäcksvägen. The setting sun managed to peer out from under the banks of clouds and tinged their underbellies a glimmering golden red. It was a magnificent display of colors.

  When Irene had parked the car, she walked directly to the Bernhögs’ door and rang the bell. Margit Bernhög opened the door a crack after the second ring. Irene tried to sound untroubled as she recited the litany she had practiced in the car.

  “Hi, Margit. I was wondering if you would like to take care of little Felicia here. A friend of mine asked me to find her a new home with a cat lover. Otherwise they’ll have to put her to sleep, and that would be terribly sad.”

  Margit Bernhög jerked at the last sentence and looked wide-eyed at Irene. Reluctantly, she lowered her eyes to the box. Irene lifted the lid and held the box out to her. At just that moment, Felicia woke up. She stretched her little fuzzy body and yawned so that her cute light-pink tongue stretched out. Margit carefully lifted up the sleepy kitten and gently burrowed her nose into her soft fur.

  “So cute . . . little Felicia . . . thank you,” she stammered without looking at Irene.

  She was totally absorbed in the apricot-colored furball. Then Felicia turned her head and met Irene’s eyes with her round violet-blue ones.

  Chapter 11

  ”THAT’S A HELL OF a lot of drivel about Rebecka’s nerves!” Superintendent Andersson bellowed. He wasn’t at all pleased about the cancellation of Irene’s trip to London. “That Frog seems to be determined to delay her questioning,” he concluded angrily.

  He marched around his office, upset, with strides as long as his short legs would allow. Irene sat in his visitor’s chair, waiting for the storm to blow over. Andersson stopped in front of his window and pretended to contemplate the view over Ernst Fontell’s Place through the thick layer of dirt. He took a few deep breaths and turned toward Irene again.

  “I understand that she had a shock, and a serious one, when she got the news. That’s not surprising. But we need to speak with her in person. It’s a matter of her own safety! We don’t have the faintest idea about a motive. All we have are those damn Satanic stars.”

  Irene was just about to correct him and start explaining what the pentagram stood for, but she came to her senses at the last moment. She would never be able to explain what had happened at Eva Möller’s. Truth be told, she still wasn’t sure herself.

  The superintendent didn’t pay any particular attention to her silence. He continued, “Can she come to Sweden and the funeral without taking a risk, or do we need to protect her? We don’t know a damn thing! She must have some clue as to motive!”

  Irene nodded and jumped in. “I agree with you. I’ll call Glen Thompson again and see what he has to say.”

  “SHE SAYS she isn’t up to talking. I tried to speak with her, but she burst into tears.”

  Inspector Glen Thompson had a deep voice. Irene tried to imagine what he looked like.

  “I understand that you’re starting to feel pressured. As you said, you need a motive. . . . Is this tale of Satanic symbols true? There was something in our papers about it. . . . Your murders are spectacular, even by English standards.”

  “Yes. Symbols were painted on two computer screens with the victims’ blood.”

  “So what the newspapers wrote was true. The last time I met with Rebecka, I asked her if there had been any threats against the family from Satanists, but she just shook her head. Then she began crying. She’s very difficult to interview.”

  “Naturally, the shock was tremendous—” Irene started, but he interrupted her.

  “True, but she wasn’t well before, either. Psychologically speaking.”

  “She wasn’t?”

  “No. Dr. Fischer says that he has been treating her for depression since last September.”

  Then Rebecka had had psychological problems before the murders. Her brother had been on sick leave during the fall for psychological problems after his divorce. That is to say, everyone assumed it was after the divorce. Was there a completely different reason? Her thoughts were interrupted by Thompson’s voice. “Maybe as a fellow Swede, you’ll have an easier time speaking with her.”

  “I’ll have to make an attempt soon. We’re at a complete standstill in our investigation, since we have no motive. We still don’t know if Rebecka’s life is also in danger.”

  “She denies that there were any threats, but that may not be true. I have a very strong feeling that she’s hiding something. It’s only a hunch, but it’s there.”

  “Rebecka is like her father”; “Sten’s hidden depths”; Eva Möller’s words popped into Irene’s memory.

  “I need a few days to prepare Rebecka and Dr. Fischer,” Thompson continued. “She needs to understand that she’ll be forced to speak with you. If worse comes to worst, we’ll question her in the hospital.”

  “I’m very grateful for your cooperation,” Irene said, and meant it.

  “No problem. Let’s see . . . today is Tuesday. If you come on Thursday and stay one night, then we have two days to work in. That should be enough.”

  She was stung by a feeling of disappointment. She would have loved to stay longer, but then this wasn’t a vacation.

  “My sister runs a pleasant little hotel in Bayswater. I’ll make a reservation for you there for Thursday night. Call me when you’ve booked your flight, and I’ll pick you up. Don’t forget to look up which airport you’re flying into.”

  “Thanks,” Irene said.

  IRENE BOOKED a seat on the Thursday morning flight to London at seven ten, which, according to the friendly voice on the phone, would land at Heathrow. She decided to make her return flight as late as possible on Friday, a seven twenty departure. She might have a chance to see something of London if the meeting with Rebecka didn’t take too long.

  With a sigh, her gaze fell on the pile of paper before her. It had a strange ability to grow from day to day even though she tried to work on it at every available moment. Could paper reproduce itself? Her depressing thoughts faded when Svante Malm’s freckled face appeared at her door.

  “Howdy. I thought I’d give you the book we found at Jacob Schyttelius’s.”

  He stepped into the room and lay Anton LaVey’s book on her desk. Church of Satan. She felt a strong desire to throw it out the window. “Avoid that which comes from
evil,” as Eva Möller would probably say.

  “Lots of Jacob’s fingerprints were inside the book, and only his. There were some unidentified ones on the outside, probably from the employees at the bookstore. Jacob had done some underlining and written a few notes here and there in the margins.”

  “Have you read it?”

  “I’ve skimmed through it. Haven’t had time to read it properly, but I’ll certainly borrow it again. It’s interesting.”

  “Why do you think it’s interesting?”

  Hesitantly, Svante said, “It’s probably because of the criminal investigations with Satanic connections that I’ve worked on. At first you think it’s absolutely incomprehensible, how people can devote themselves to Satan-worship and strange rituals. Then, in some way, you become interested against your will. You wonder what makes these people tick.”

  “What is it that makes them tick, then?”

  “Power. They want power over other people and power to accept themselves. According to LaVey, nothing limits you more than yourself and your own conscience, until you realize that no one else is allowed to make decisions about you. No one else is allowed to judge your acts. You are free to look after yourself and your needs. As long as you personally feel good, then everything is okay.”

  “Everything?”

  “Everything. It’s no coincidence that in the USA in particular, there have been major investigations where they’ve found that young children have been drugged and used sexually during rituals. Satanism gives people permission to live out forbidden desires. Most of the meetings within the Satanic church end in group sex. Sex with animals is also common. And, as we know, they also sacrifice animals during their black masses. The ultimate sacrifice, of course, is a human sacrifice. It has happened, but it isn’t as common.”

  Irene thought about what Svante had just said.

  “Could you say that Satan is the same as God for them?”

  Again Svante looked uncertain. “Not really. From what I understand, they have their black masses in order to gain some of the devil’s power. That’s the power that allows people to free themselves from their upbringing and religious conventions. You dare to let Satan loose inside you. The figure of God in different religions often has a law-giving role. The god says what you are and aren’t allowed to do. That’s not the case in Satanism. There, you’re supposed to accept yourself, and Satan gives you the power to do so.”

  Irene looked at the book on her desk with distaste.

  “ ‘ I’ is the secret word,” she said.

  Svante nodded. “And complete satisfaction of one’s own desires. I can trace Satanism in most of the crimes we investigate.”

  Irene was taken aback by his statement. When she had pulled herself together a bit, she said, confused, “What . . . ? Satan in most crimes. . . . What do you mean?”

  “Most crimes are about satisfaction of one’s own needs. Money, sex, power, or as a way of finding an outlet for one’s anger. The guy waiting in line to get into the pub, who wasn’t let in and then out of anger stabbed the bouncer, may have been inspired by the devil who is in us all.”

  “Cut it out. Drugs are always involved in those cases. Everyone doesn’t knife someone just because they don’t get into a club! And to start blaming the devil . . . !”

  Irene stopped her angry flood of words when she saw that Svante was mischievously smiling at her.

  “Well. Maybe some of us have more of Satan inside than others.” He turned around and waved to her before he disappeared.

  Irene sat for a long time looking at Church of Satan.

  Why had Jacob Schyttelius read this book? Was it to learn more about how followers of Satanism think, or did he have entirely different motives? Was that why he had hidden the book? But maybe it was so that Pappa Pastor wouldn’t accidentally see it.

  The question was whether Satanism really had anything to do with the triple murders.

  The only person who might have the answer had been admitted to a psychiatric ward on the other side of the North Sea.

  SUPERINTENDENT ANDERSSON’S mood hit rock bottom when he neared Pathology Professor Yvonne Stridner’s door. To his relief, he saw that the yellow “Wait” light was on; but as he was just about to leave, it went off. With heavy steps, he walked forward and pushed the visitor’s button. An unconscious sigh escaped him when the green light immediately came on.

  The head of Pathology was enthroned behind her cluttered desk. Her Dior eyeglasses had slid down her nose, and she looked unusually stressed. A blush was evident on her cheeks.

  “Andersson? For once maybe you can be useful. What do you do when the computer has frozen? I can’t work on my presentation!”

  Irritated, she hit the plastic cover of her IBM.

  “I . . . I’m not so good with computers,” Andersson stammered.

  “But don’t you use a computer for work?” Stridner stared the superintendent in the eye with her sharp gaze, and he felt himself shrinking. He always became a nervous, sweaty schoolboy when he was around her, a blithering idiot.

  “Yes . . . yes, of course,” he said, but he could hear how unconvincing he sounded.

  Stridner pursed her lips and mumbled something about “technology-hating bosses in middle management.”

  This made Andersson angry, and he said stiffly, “I haven’t come to repair computers, but to find out if the tests have been able to pinpoint the exact time of each death.”

  Stridner’s eyes were frosty, and her voice tinkled like icicles when she replied, “I could have looked it up if my computer hadn’t been out of order.”

  Back to square one. Andersson glared at the pathologist with the flame-red hair. Resigned, he was turning to go when he heard her say, “But I can use the other computer.”

  Without waiting for a reply, she clattered past him on her stiletto heels and disappeared down the corridor.

  Andersson sank onto the uncomfortable visitor’s chair. It was both lumpy and covered in vinyl. Andersson suspected that most people who sat in this chair soon found themselves in varying states of nervousness and general dissolution. From his own experience, he knew how quickly one began to perspire on a vinyl chair. Medical students or police officers, it didn’t matter: Everyone broke into a sweat during a meeting with Professor Stridner, the superintendent continued his gloomy train of thought.

  He was interrupted when the clattering of the professor’s heels in the corridor grew closer. She rushed in and stepped up to her ergonomically designed office chair, which was covered in Bordeaux-colored soft leather. It looked more like a small comfortable recliner than a work chair, Andersson noted jealously as he squirmed in his uncomfortable chair.

  Stridner straightened her glasses and looked down at the paper she held in her hand. She read directly from the page: “‘Jacob Schyttelius’s stomach contents showed the half-digested remains of a hot dog and mashed potatoes. He drank orange soda along with it. His last meal was consumed at around six o’clock.’ Does that match your information?”

  Stridner peered at Andersson over the edge of her glasses.

  “Yes. The assistant at the hot-dog stand on Södra vägen got in touch with us. She remembers him. Apparently he was a regular and usually came around six o’clock, several evenings a week. She remembers that it was Monday, because the next day she had a backache and was out sick. And the owner of a men’s clothing store on Södra vägen also phoned us. Jacob was there just before closing on Monday evening.”

  The superintendent became annoyed at himself when he heard how he blurted out his information, strutting to show that, by golly, he was in the know. A simple “yes” would have been sufficient.

  Stridner nodded and looked down at her paper again. “Then I would like to place the time of the murder at between eleven o’clock and eleven thirty. I can’t be more precise, since we don’t know exactly when Jacob ate his hot dog with mashed potatoes.

  “Regarding the parents’ stomach contents, it’s even more uncertain,
since we don’t know when they ate their last meal, which was salmon mousse and green peas. Based on the level of digestion, they probably ate six hours before the time of death. And drinks. . . .”

  Again Stridner gave Andersson a sharp look. Unaware, he sucked in his stomach, which was hanging over his belt.

  “Elsa Schyttelius had coffee and water in her digestive tract. Sten Schyttelius had beer and whiskey. His blood alcohol level was one point one. High, but he was only slightly drunk. The condition of his liver bears witness to a rather significant alcohol intake over the years.”

  “Was he an alcoholic?”

  Stridner hesitated. “Alcoholic? . . . More like a regular heavy drinker. His blood sugar was also a bit high, and he was overweight.”

  She gave Andersson a meaningful look. He was terribly close to asking her what the pastor’s blood pressure had been, but managed to stop himself. A sulky Professor Stridner was the worst thing you could confront. Instead, he said, “We’ve traced a phone call from the rectory to Jacob’s cell phone. The call came at six thirty-two. That’s the last telephone call registered to or from the rectory’s telephone on the night of the murder. I wonder if one of the parents called Jacob to see if he wanted to join them for dinner. If I’ve guessed right, it means that Mr. and Mrs. Schyttelius ate around six forty-five or a little later. That would mean that they were killed as late as quarter to one. Fifteen minutes in each direction, but probably closer to one o’clock.”

  Stridner nodded. “That’s possible,” she said. She took off her glasses and tapped one of the rims lightly against her front teeth. “It was an execution,” she said.