The Cruel Stars of the Night

by Kjell Eriksson

  He had an impulse to throw his car keys down the drain as well, leave the car, and simply walk, go as far away as possible. He turned his head and looked back at the house he had left. He could only see parts of the roof. Not so much as the light from the windows penetrated the bushes and trees.

  But the neighbor’s house was lit up. Small lamps, placed in two orderly rows from the street up toward the entrance, spread a dim light over the garden. Stig saw the shadow of a person flicker by in one of the windows. It was the odious professor that Laura had talked about. Stig had an idea of who he was. He thought they had bumped into each other once during a lunch at the Gillet.

  Without a doubt the neighbor had noted the presence of the car in the street and perhaps even recognized him. It was not possible to be anonymous. To be a Rotary member and keep a mistress in Kåbo was a losing proposition.

  He couldn’t possibly return to Jessica in this condition. There would be trouble, he knew that, and not just that. He would in all likelihood be thrown out for good. It was Jessica’s house, paid for by her former company, perhaps even by Torbjörnsson junior himself. Rumors had circulated but Stig had never paid any attention to them, nor asked Jessica how she could afford a house in Sunnersta, but more than once he had been made to feel that he lived there on her charity. He had offered to pay for half of the house, had even been to the bank and arranged the loan, but Jessica had curtly turned down his offer.

  She wasn’t one to let something slide. He would have to pack his things and leave. Stig Franklin shivered and sat down in the car.

  The clothes that were soaked through reminded him of a canoe trip in Ströms Vattudal many years ago, when he had flipped the canoe and been convinced he was going to drown. That time he had managed to crawl up on a stony beach but his provisions and canoe were lost. Shaking with cold he heard the wind pick up and how the waves rose up out of the black water. He had the feeling that they were disappointed, furious that he had escaped them.

  An old man, who lived very close to the shore, came walking along and led Stig to his cottage. They shared a bottle of grayish liquor in front of the fire and the old man entertained Stig with fantastic stories about log-driving, death by drowning, and the devilishness of the sea.

  The man’s love-hate relationship to the water seemed grounded in an ancient conviction that man lived off water but also under its curse.

  “It is the same thing with fire,” the old man went on to philosophize and spit into the fire. “It warms us, but devours us also. Like love.”

  Stig put his key in the ignition and at that moment Laura Hinder-sten’s car rolled out onto the street. He saw it vanish around the corner before he realized completely that it was her. He backed up a few meters and saw that her car was no longer parked in the driveway.

  Where was she going? She hadn’t said anything about going anywhere. Stig followed her and saw her rear lights turn the corner at Artillerigatan. At Dag Hammarskjöld’s Way she turned right. Stig got a red light and was forced to stop but now he had an idea of where she was headed.

  He checked the traffic in the intersection. Everything was calm, there was only one car in sight and it was driving down the hill to the hospital. Stig drove on red and took up the chase.

  Stig watched Laura park about twenty meters from his home, a “funkis” house at the end of a cul-de-sac. He braked and drove down the street very slowly He was at a loss. Should he drive up, park the car, and go in, pretending he hadn’t seen her car? The risk was great that she would make her presence known, perhaps call out to him, want him to stop and talk.

  If he, on the other hand, parked on the street, chances were good that the neighbors would see his car and start to wonder what it was doing there. Even if he crouched over the Dahlströms would catch him, he was convinced of that.

  He stopped but let the motor run. Laura’s car was partly concealed behind a hedge but he could see her sitting inside.

  The lights were on in the bottom story of his house. Stig could picture Jessica, how she sat in the study and went through the Hausmann document, with concentration but upset, always glancing at the clock in the right-hand corner of the computer screen. Many times he had admired her ability to set aside all worry and soldier on, effective and focused.

  If Laura left her car and approached the house what should he do? Try to stop her? How could he do that without attracting attention on the street? She would most likely start to argue in a loud voice. Run her over? That would wake up the whole street.

  Stig visualized Laura’s pale body, crushed against the black asphalt. He sneezed once, twice. How would he explain it? That she ran out in front of his car and he hadn’t had a chance to veer away? In Laura’s current condition no one would consider that implausible.

  Harder to explain the scratches to Jessica. She would be able to accept that he ran over a confused Laura, but she would never accept infidelity from him.

  It started to rain harder. The Nilssons turned out the light downstairs. Gustav Rosén let out the cat. Poor devil, Stig thought, as he pushed the car into first gear and quickly drove up to the driveway, opened the garage door with the remote control, drove in, jumped out of the car, and pulled the door down. All done in the span of a few seconds.

  He took out a knife from the toolbox on the workbench, tested its edge on his finger, and then cut the back of his trousers with four quick slices of the knife. There was a sting of pain as the knife went through the fabric and cut his skin, and he yelped. Before he threw the knife back he jabbed his right hand, then opened the door to the driveway, closed it as quickly behind him, and walked into the house.

  “That fucking cat,” he yelled as he shut the door to the laundry room and walked into the kitchen.

  “What is it?” Jessica shouted from the study.

  “Rosén’s damn cat attacked me.”

  He poured water on his hand. Jessica came out into the kitchen and stared at him.

  “The cat?” she said unusually stupidly.

  “Yes, Rosén’s damn tiger. He was sitting in the garage and when I got out of the car he attacked me.”

  “What was he doing in the garage?”

  “How the hell would I know? It must have snuck in.”

  “Is it still there?”

  “No, I kicked it out.”

  “You pants are ruined.”

  “I’ll make that damn tree-hugger pay for it. And the cat should be shot!”

  “Calm down. You must have scared it.”

  “Are you working?” Stig asked.

  “Yes. Where have you been?”

  “At Laura’s. She called. She’s dissatisfied with Hausmann. I think she’s going a little nuts.”

  “She’s been that for a long time. But why didn’t you call?”

  “It just didn’t happen. I’m sorry, but she threatened to call Weber and tell him, well, you know, everything . . .”

  “Call Weber!”

  Stig was rejoicing inside. He had succeeded in diverting Jessica’s attention and now he stoked the fire. The relief made him improve even further on his story, how he had stood in the rain at Laura’s, anxious to get away, but how she had more or less attached herself to him, even pulling him by the tie, and kept arguing with him.

  “She said something about there being sixty thousand euros reserved for extraordinary costs for phase B. Is that correct? It seems ridiculous.”

  “No, no, it’s only half that,” Jessica said.

  “Can you check it?”

  “I know it’s thirty thousand.”

  “But could you check it, please? It’s thrown me for a loop. She may even have gone in and changed it.”

  Jessica walked back to the study and Stig followed, pausing in front of the hall mirror to check if the marks around his neck were visible. He was red there but that sometimes happened when his shirts were too tight.

  “It’s thirty thousand!” Jessica shouted.

  “Wonderful,” Stig said with emphasis. “I’l
l jump in the shower and then we have to talk about what we’re going to do about Miss Hindersten.”

  Laura saw Jessica get up from the computer when Stig went into the kitchen. She couldn’t understand why he had arrived so much later than she had. Had he driven by the office?

  Laura imagined them talking, how Stig told her everything, that he loved Laura and that his and Jessica’s relationship had no future.

  After several minutes Jessica returned to the computer. She looked calm. Her hair shone in the light of the desk lamp. Stig was nowhere to be seen.

  Laura stepped out of the car.

  She realized there had been no confrontation. He was too cowardly, afraid of that witch. Laura had been too, before, but all fear had disappeared when she realized how life should be lived. It was as if a voice had spoken to her: It’s time to settle accounts with your old life, Laura!

  She remembered how strong this voice had been and reminded herself that it was necessary because of how many difficulties she had had to overcome. Shattered, she sat at the kitchen table asking herself how she was going to carry on while the radio reported the results of the referendum on the European Monetary Union. Then, somewhere beyond the fear that twisted her innards, there came the sound of victorious music and a voice that rattled off confident proclamations: No room for doubt! Strike back!

  Sometimes this voice was interrupted by a collage of Italian voices but it always returned even stronger, filtering out the static in her head. She laughed with relief, pushed away the knife, whose edge she had tested on some fruit, and walked out into the library, finally clear on how the whole thing was going to be done.

  Laura walked closer to the house, bent some branches down, and stared at her rival. She had an impulse to step into the square of light thrown onto the dark lawn by the light through the window, which would illuminate her like a spotlight on an otherwise dark stage.

  She stared at the hateful woman who seemed so self-sufficient in her blond beauty and her purposeful, measured movements in front of the computer.

  Only one thing held Laura back. It was not yet time to strike back. It was something Ulrik had taught her, strangely enough: patience.

  Nineteen

  There was a gentle knock at the door. Mr. Sund, Ann thought immediately, but remembered that he was at a lecture at the Gottsunda Library. He had mentioned that the day before.

  She walked over to the door and listened. Who knocked at half past eight in the evening? Perhaps the lecture was over and Sund wanted to tell her something exciting.

  “Who is it?”

  “The police,” said a voice on the other side.

  Ann put on the security chain and gingerly cracked the door.

  “Hi, hope I’m not disturbing you. I didn’t want to ring the doorbell in case your boy was sleeping.”

  Charles Morgansson took up the entire landing, or so it seemed to Ann. How big he is, she thought, and unhooked the chain.

  “Come in. No, you’re not disturbing anything. Erik has been asleep a long time. I’m just looking over some papers. You shouldn’t take your work home but sometimes I think better at home. It was nice of you to knock. I thought it was my neighbor, he usually knocks. Do you want anything?”

  Morgansson smiled.

  “That was a lot of info at once,” he said. “And one question. No, thank you.”

  Ann felt herself blushing.

  “Please feel free to hang up your coat,” she said, staring into her apartment.

  A pair of pants and a blouse were thrown over a chair and Erik had put together his wooden train tracks in the middle of the hall floor.

  “I’ll pick up a little. Erik makes these messes. He has a little cold.”

  She walked rapidly around the living room, picked up the wineglass and looked around uncertainly then put it down behind a curtain. The bottle, she thought, but at the same time she remembered she had tossed it into the trash.

  “You have a nice place,” Morgansson said.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Ann said and straightened the cushions on the couch. “When you live by yourself . . . well, you know. Do you feel like having anything?”

  “No, thanks. I’ve just come from my cousin who lives nearby, just two buildings down actually. Svante Henriksson is his name.”

  “No, no one I know,” Ann said.

  “He was actually the one who lured me down here, to Uppsala I mean. He talked so warmly about the city so when . . . We played basketball together earlier.”

  Ann nodded. Why did he come here, she wondered, while she kicked some toys under an armchair.

  “How are things at work?”

  “You know that as well as I do,” he said and laughed.

  “Yes, I guess,” she said sheepishly.

  They sat down across from each other.

  “Maybe you’d like a glass of wine? Or a beer?”

  He shook his head. Make this easier for me, she thought, and got a little exasperated with her smiling colleague.

  “There’s something I’ve been thinking about,” he said as if he had read her mind. “Why do you kill yourself? Blomgren wanted to, though he didn’t have the opportunity Do you think he would have gone through with it?”

  “I do. He was the type of person who followed through on his plans.”

  “But why? Sick of life? I don’t think so. There was something that weighed on him. Had he hurt somebody?”

  “Who would that be?” Ann asked.

  Morgansson laughed suddenly.

  “It’s silly to sit here and talk about work. You must think I’m totally crazy.”

  He stopped and looked at her.

  “Should we do it again? The movies, I mean.”

  Ann nodded. Morgansson got up abruptly.

  “It’s time for me to go,” he said and Ann barely had time to react before he was at the door, putting on his coat.

  Then he left as quickly as he had arrived. Ann Lindell had the feeling that he was out on an inspection round to check out her place.

  When she fetched her wineglass from behind the curtain she looked out the window and saw him walk swiftly across the courtyard. The unpredictable manner, the rapid changes, the short lines, and the flash of his smile that changed as quickly into serious reflection, confused her.

  Morgansson reminded her of a thief, Malte Sebastian Kroon, whom Ann had come into contact with many years ago. “The Jewel” as he was called, was quick both in his thinking and with his hands. He stole with a restless energy, driven by a fire greater than that of most in his field. At a house search in Kroon’s home on Svartbäcksgatan they recovered over seven hundred items that could be classified as stolen, among these over eighty pairs of shoes. In the interrogation sessions he denied everything, but with such humor and quick wit that his replies were still repeated among the officers at the station.

  Charles Morgansson did not appear as humorous, but the quickness and the disarming smile were things he had in common with Kroon.

  Ann remained standing in the window long after he was out of sight and looked out at a rain-hazy Uppsala. She held her breath and tried to perceive the faint whistling sounds from Erik’s room and her own inner voice.

  “I’m fine,” she muttered.

  The following days nothing happened to help further the murder investigations. Of course, Ottosson claimed that they drew closer to solving the cases with each detail that they added to the case files, even if none of them could see it themselves. It was a worn cliché that afforded them little comfort.

  Sammy Nilsson’s mapping of Jan-Elis Andersson’s life constructed the picture of a stingy, if not greedy, man. His own pedantic documentation bore witness to this. The oldest item was a receipt for a toaster bought in 1957.

  A disagreeable man, Nilsson said in conclusion, who himself put all his important documents in a box, pushed into the bookcase with all the photos he was someday going to put into an album that he had not yet managed to buy.

  It took him two working
days to go through the folders but he had not found anything eye-catching, nothing that awakened interest or gave any clue to why the man had been clubbed to death in his own kitchen.

  When Andersson’s financial assets were added up the final sum was around one million kronor. On top of this was the value of his property and all the inventory. Strangely enough there was no will and his niece was most likely the one who would inherit it all.

  Lindell decided that Sammy Nilsson should go to Umeå and question the beneficiary, Lovisa Sundberg, and her husband, the architect who was confined to a wheelchair.

  Nilsson took the morning flight to northern Sweden, returned the same day, and then reported back on his excursion in a meeting late that afternoon.

  “They live in an area called Pig Hill,” he told them and sounded as if he thought it fit them perfectly.

  “Were they pig-like?” Lindell asked.

  “Stuck-up, if you like. If I had just been made a millionaire so painlessly I wouldn’t be so damn sour.”

  “Painlessly,” Lindell objected. “We’re talking about a murder.”

  “They weren’t grieving a whole lot, that much was clear. I got the impression that they only kept in touch with the old man because of the inheritance that was coming their way.”

  “Were they sure of it then?”

  “Hard to say They asked if there was a will.”

  “Did they know Petrus Blomgren?” Ottosson asked.

  Sammy Nilsson shook his head. He told them that Lovisa Sundberg had lived in Uppsala for a short time in order to study. She was a teacher and had studied French at the university in order to expand her competency. During that time she had lived in a small cottage on her uncle’s farm.

  For a while she had thought about staying on in Uppsala but then she had met the architect, who was not disabled at that time, and he had a well-paying job in Umeå. So when she was done with her studies she moved up there.

  Jan-Elis Andersson was both angry and disappointed. He would have liked to have seen his niece stay on, probably with the thought that he would get help with the horses he was taking care of on the farm.