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

by Helen Tursten

  “But, hello! Don’t you recognize Mackie in Black Thunder?” Katarina exclaimed and rolled her eyes.

  A quick look at the gathered group of older relatives revealed their ignorance.

  “They’re huge! How many records have you made? Four?” she asked Martin, alias Mackie.

  “Five,” Martin answered and looked almost embarrassed.

  “And it’s going really well in Germany. They have a hit there now. Top of the charts with ‘The Eagle Said,’” Katarina continued.

  “Even if one is a rock star, might he want to have a glass of bubbly before dinner?” Krister asked, filling an empty glass that was standing on the tray. He didn’t pour anything for Jenny, because she was absolutely drug-free and didn’t even drink light beer.

  “No, thank you. I don’t drink alcohol,” Martin declined.

  Yet something else that united them, in addition to music, thought Irene.

  “Okay. But you need food in your stomach. Especially if you’re going to give a concert tonight. I suggest that we start eating,” Krister said, gesturing toward the house.

  Irene noted during the dinner that Katarina ate relatively little. Hadn’t she also become much thinner in the face? The wide neck of her black cotton top showed considerably sharper collarbones than Irene could remember. It still seemed as though she was dieting, despite the new boyfriend and her decision not to participate in the beauty contest. She had to talk with Katarina about this. What was wrong?

  EASTER WEEKEND was busy. The two biggest motorcycle gangs’ feud about the division of prime drug and sex districts exploded into violence. On Easter morning, one of the gang leaders, and his girlfriend, were shot when they left a night club at about four o’clock. The gang had celebrated quite a bit on Easter Eve and, in their drunken state, their security precautions had slipped. A man from a passing car had loosed a rain of bullets from an automatic weapon at their leader. The driver pulled away before any of the drunken bodyguards had time to get their weapons out. Both the gang leader and the girlfriend had suffered life-threatening injuries.

  Two hours later, a call came in about a car burning in a wooded area outside Gunnared. The car turned out to be stolen, and the police were pretty sure that it was the car the shooter and his driver had used. They had disappeared without a trace, having most likely had another car parked in the area.

  At eleven o’clock in the evening of Easter Sunday, a heavy truck plowed through the tall wooden fence around the other motorcycle gang’s headquarters outside Alingsås. The tarp was pulled off of the rear, and a grenade launcher began to toss its containers of death through the windows of the building. The man handling the weapon was right on target. The explosions laid waste to the old farmhouse. The whole thing was over in about a minute. The heavy vehicle backed out through the hole it had made in the fence and disappeared without having been fired upon.

  Left in the ruins of the house were one dead man and three who were critically injured.

  IRENE SPENT a difficult Easter as a result of the first attack. The investigation was one big mess; several units within the police department were involved. The toll increased from one to two as the gang leader died of his wounds around midnight, shortly after the grenade attack.

  On Monday morning, Fredrik Stridh was to begin his weekend shift. He and Irene had been detailed to go to the scene of the grenade attack outside Alingsås. Irene wanted to fill him in before they drove out there.

  She found him in his office, sitting in his visitor’s chair with the back of his head resting against the wall. It looked like he was sleeping, and in fact he was. Irene had to punch him hard on his upper arm in order to get him to wake up. With an inarticulate groan, he straightened in the chair. He immediately grabbed his head and sank back against the wall for support. He closed his eyes again but to Irene’s surprise, a smile tugged at his lips. It shouldn’t have, if he was as hung over as he seemed.

  “Hello! Time to start work! We’re up to here in shit! The motorcycle war has broken out!” Irene yelled.

  “Okay, okay,” Fredrik mumbled and nodded. The satisfied smile still played on his lips, but his eyes started opening. Suspiciously, Irene leaned over in front of him and sniffed. No smell of alcohol. He was dead sober. She detected a contented gleam in what she could see of his eyes. Irene said with feigned harshness, “Young man, what kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into that has so completely sucked the life out of you?”

  “How do you know it’s something bad?” he asked, looking up at her teasingly.

  “You look too damn satisfied.”

  Fredrick chuckled before he replied, “You’re a good judge of character. But bad was the last thing it was. I’ve celebrated a late Ostara. They don’t celebrate Easter.”

  “Ostara? What’s that?”

  “The vernal equinox.”

  He closed his eyes again. Celebrated the vernal equinox? Who does that instead of Easter? Suddenly the light bulb came on. “Well, I’ll be damned! Have you been celebrating the Witch’s Sabbath with Eva Möller?”

  A delighted smile spread across Fredrik’s face. It wasn’t necessary for him to respond.

  “THIS FEELS surreal. This is what it looks like in Bosnia or Chechnya, not in Sweden,” said Fredrik.

  Both he and Irene were unpleasantly affected when they walked around the remains of the farmhouse that had been one gang’s headquarters. The technicians had worked the whole night and were far from being done.

  “Where the hell did those bastards get a Carl-Gustaf?” Andersson’s voice could be heard asking behind their backs.

  He came zigzagging through the debris from the fire, his overcoat flapping. He couldn’t stay away from the job when big things were happening.

  “I have a feeling that it’s only a matter of placing an order. These boys have big money. Everybody and everything can be bought. Even the military,” Irene said in response to Andersson’s question.

  “You’ve met Hell’s Angels before. Do you recognize any of the boys? They haven’t been identified yet, neither the corpse nor those injured,” Andersson continued, breathlessly.

  Irene had met certain members of the Hell’s Angels before, but she preferred to forget their confrontation.

  IRENE DIDN’T get home until the wee hours of the morning. Krister had arrived before her and was asleep, snoring, on his half of the bed. Pictures from the scene of the fire flickered inside her eyelids as soon as she closed her eyes. It was impossible to fall asleep with them on her mind. She eventually got back up with a sigh, wrapped herself in her terry-cloth bathrobe, and pattered down to the kitchen. Sammie immediately took the opportunity to jump up and snuggle into the still-warm bed.

  She lit a candle and set it on the table before pouring a glass of milk and spreading some Brie on a piece of hard bread. It felt really cozy to sit down in the flickering candlelight and chew on such a fancy late-night sandwich. In fact, it was so late at night that it was nearly a breakfast sandwich. As she looked into the flame, she reflected. Something she had pushed to the back of her consciousness during the drama of the last few days started working its way forward. It was something Glen Thompson had said during their latest conversation. Then she remembered what he had said and realized how important it could be.

  She got up right away and went back to bed without brushing her teeth. Now that she had actually recalled what Glen had said, she didn’t have any trouble falling asleep.

  Chapter 16

  “WE’RE UP TOOUR necks in this damn motorcycle war and then Jonny goes to the hospital and Tommy is skiing and Irene is going to go to London! The London trip has to be cancelled! Someone actually has to work!” Superintendent Andersson looked like he might have a stroke at any moment. He walked around the room, upset, and waved his index finger in the air in order to underline the seriousness of his words.

  “Other units are already involved,” Hannu reminded him.

  The superintendent ended his fit of rage after a few second
s and glared angrily at the Finn, who calmly met his blood-shot eyes. As always, Hannu was right. What had happened during the weekend would have been too big for their unit to handle, even if they had been fully staffed. But Andersson felt frustrated. First a triple homicide, and now the motorcycle murders, all within a few weeks.

  “It’s important that Irene manage to interview Rebecka Schyttelius. Otherwise we’ll never make progress in that investigation,” Hannu continued, unaffected by the glare.

  “You think so?” Andersson said, derisively.

  “Absolutely.”

  Sarcasm didn’t affect Hannu. The superintendent looked grim but thoughtful. His gaze wandered between Irene and Hannu. Finally, he shrugged and muttered something unintelligible like “. . . if you wonder who’s boss . . . ,” but he didn’t say anything else out loud.

  Irene breathed a sigh of relief and blessed Hannu in her thoughts. She, too, was convinced of the importance of meeting Rebecka again. If her new ideas turned out to be true, the investigation could take a dramatic turn. Then it would be even more important to get Rebecka’s version of what had happened.

  There was a knock at the door as it was opening. Lanky Svante Malm entered the room.

  “Good morning. Was passing by and thought I’d provide some interesting facts about the fire and—” he started, before he was interrupted by Andersson.

  “But it can’t be finished yet!”

  “Why not?” the technician asked, running his fingers through his tousled hair as he always did when he felt confused or unsure.

  “Åhlén said that it would take several days! Those bastards blew the whole house to bits! As well as some of the lowlifes who got a taste of their own medicine.”

  The superintendent had an unmistakable tone of satisfaction in his voice as he uttered the last sentence.

  To everyone’s surprise, Svante started laughing. “I’m not talking about the grenade attacks. I meant the fire at Norssjön,” he said.

  “Oh.” The superintendent sounded uninterested. Svante didn’t let himself be belittled, instead pulling out one of his obligatory plastic bags from the pocket of his lab coat.

  “We thought these small black clumps came from the videocassettes, but now we’ve analyzed them more carefully. They are six plastic buttons. And we’ve also found the remains of elastic bands.”

  To the rest of the group, the contents of the new plastic bag looked similar to all of the other bags of ashes he had shown them. The technician looked around triumphantly as if he had produced diamonds from the ashes. Since no one showed the slightest sign of understanding the importance of this discovery, he felt compelled to explain. “So we think the murderer also burned a rainsuit made of nylon.”

  It took a few seconds before the import of Svante’s words sank in. Hannu was the one who understood the significance first.

  “He was wearing it when he shot them, as protection against blood and gunpowder residue. Then he burned it.”

  “You have to admire his foresight,” Irene exclaimed. “He brought with him a full-length nylon rainsuit which doesn’t take up any room at all when it’s folded up. It just needed to be pulled on over his own clothes, and it’s easy to burn afterward. Not to mention the charcoal and the lighter fluid. Did he bring them with him too?”

  “Right,” Malm said. “I almost forgot about the charcoal. It probably came from Jacob Schyttelius’s cottage. We found an outdoor barbecue and half a bag of charcoal under the glassed-in veranda. There was also an almost-empty bottle of lighter fluid. There aren’t any fingerprints on the bottle; it was wiped thoroughly.”

  Svante’s meaning was clear to all of them. Fredrik was the one who formulated it into one logical conclusion.

  “He put the bottle back again, but he took the charcoal with him in a bag which he could burn. What a smart devil.”

  “Yes, he has been very cunning. But like all criminals, he’s left evidence.”

  Svante’s voice held more optimism than the detectives felt.

  IRENE WENT to Hannu’s office after morning prayers. He was on his way out, but took off his jacket and waited to hear what she had to say.

  “Thanks for defending my London trip. Like you, I think it could be very important. Not least because of what occurred to me yesterday, or rather this morning.”

  She looked Hannu steadily in the eyes and said, “It’s possible to fly to London and back in one day. You can take a plane at seven in the morning from Landvetter and return at seven thirty in the evening from Heathrow.

  “But you can also do it the other way around and fly from London to Göteborg and back overnight.”

  Hannu raised his eyebrows and nodded in response. Irene clarified her statement. “You take the flight in the evening from London and return with the morning flight at seven o’clock. There are express trains and buses into London from Heathrow. It only takes fifteen minutes and then you’re in the middle of the city. The flight itself takes less than two hours.”

  “And the car ride between Landvetter and Norssjön takes fif-teen minutes at the most,” Hannu thought out loud.

  “Exactly.”

  “So someone could have flown here from London one evening, killed the Schytteliuses, and been back in London the next morning.”

  “Exactly.”

  Hannu looked at Irene thoughtfully and asked, “Do you suspect Rebecka?”

  “Not really. She was sick even before the murders. But we can’t rule anyone out at this stage.”

  “The Frenchman?”

  “Lefévre isn’t a good candidate either, since he doesn’t have any personal connection to Rebecka’s family. I actually don’t know who or what I’m looking for. But it’s mostly a feeling I have . . . a cop’s instinct.”

  Hannu didn’t smile at her last words, since he knew exactly what she meant.

  “You want me to go through the passenger lists,” he concluded.

  “Yes, please. And maybe also the car-rental companies out at Landvetter. We know that our murderer had to have a car and that it was probably the one that was parked out in the woods during the night of the murder. Too bad the man with the dog didn’t go any closer.”

  “This may take some time. I’ll try to get to it before you leave,” said Hannu.

  Irene felt a huge sense of relief. If there was anything to be found in the lists, Hannu would find it. If not, she could let go of the thought and move on.

  IT WAS with a great deal of discomfort that Irene took part in the interrogations surrounding the motorcycle-gang murders. The physical scars from her confrontation with a Hell’s Angels gang a few years ago, which the superintendent had referred to, were less significant than her mental ones. She still woke in the middle of the night bathed in sweat.

  The officers were usually alone when they questioned people at the police stations during regular interrogations, but these were far from ordinary; therefore, they put together teams with two officers on each team.

  Irene and Fredrik were a team. They had three of the Alingsås gang’s members allotted to them. The gang, Hells Rockets, had been members in good standing of Hell’s Angels for four years. Because one of the ten club members was dead and three were in the hospital, there were only six left. The six of them were in various stages of intoxication and on the verge of thundering hangovers. None of them had been at club headquarters when it was attacked; they had been at a strip club in Göteborg. A plainclothes policeman at the strip club had recognized some of the club’s members in the haze around two in the morning and contacted the station, which had been able to collect them for interrogation, but they hadn’t come without a fight. The drunken bikers thought that they were going to be harassed for firing shots at “the Asshole.”

  “The Asshole” was the Hells Rockets’ name for the gang leader of the Bandido-affiliates, The Devils. His real name was Ronny Johnsson.

  The interrogation room at the jail was occupied. Irene and Fredrik decided to question the three at the station, af
ter handcuffing them during the transport to and from the jail. There would be a guard present during the interrogation.

  First up was Roger “Killer Man” Karlsson. Irene shivered involuntarily when, led by Fredrik and a prison guard, he appeared in the doorway. He was of average height but very stocky. Powerful arms with swollen biceps stood out from his body; he couldn’t have pressed them against his sides even if he’d wanted to. Although it wasn’t warm outside, he wore only a vest lined with leather and beneath it only a black T-shirt with the text “Hells Rockets” across the chest. His arms were bare to emphasize his muscles and multiple tattoos, some of which were real pieces of art, others just graffiti. There was a reason for his accumulation; Killer Man was thirty-eight years old and had spent sixteen of them in prisons.

  His black hair was thin and tied in a small greasy ponytail at the back of his neck. Puffy cheeks were covered with reddish stubble, and his eyes were tinged with red as he stared angrily at the police and the guard. Irene could see his hangover hammering behind his eyeballs.

  “I’m not saying a damn thing! Bring me my lawyer! You don’t have the right to hold us, you bastards!” he yelled.

  His breath stank of aged Danish cheese, tinged with rich amounts of garlic and alcohol. It spread throughout the room when he opened his mouth. His dirty shearling vest, with its sour smell of ingrained sweat, added to the aroma.

  “Please, have a seat,” Irene said. She forced herself to smile and made an inviting gesture toward the chair on the other side of the table. He sat down, not so much to obey her order as because his legs couldn’t hold him.

  “None of you have been formally remanded into custody yet. We brought you here this morning for practical reasons, so you could sleep off the worst of your drunkenness before we started talking about the events of the past few days.”

  In reply, Killer Man lifted one of his butt cheeks and let a big one go. He thought this was hilarious and started laughing. Maybe he thought that a female cop would give up before the interrogation had even started. But Irene was experienced and had seen a lot over the years, even if the air in the room had become stultifying.