He stopped but everyone saw that there was more and waited from him to finish.
“I believe in an irrational motive,” Fredriksson said, “something we won’t think of in the first instance. This could be the work of a sick mind with an idée fixe, something that doesn’t have anything directly to do with the victims.”
“Give me an example,” Sammy Nilsson said.
Fredriksson pinched his nose.
“Someone who doesn’t like seventy-year-old men,” he said. “I’m thinking like this: it could be a woman who in her childhood was abused by dirty old men. At that time, perhaps twenty, thirty years ago, she was quiet, but now she’s taking her revenge.”
“Do you mean that all of the victims are pedophiles?” Bea asked.
“No, not necessarily. Perhaps none of them are. But they are seventy-year-old men and represent their gender and age group. Perhaps the real pedophile is dead but would today have been seventy.”
“I see you’ve really thought about this,” Ottosson said. “That’s good! We need to consider this from all possible angles.”
“We’re completely in the dark, in other words,” Haver said.
The discussion continued for another hour. Berglund reported on all of the telephone calls that Blomgren and Andersson had made over the last while but so far there was nothing that looked out of the ordinary. It was a short list, in Blomgren’s case sixteen outgoing calls a month, and none made to any numbers that could be considered surprising.
Beatrice had checked out the alarm company, whose phone number they had found in Blomgren’s kitchen, but it had not led to any discoveries. The only thing that was somewhat noteworthy was the fact that he had declared bankruptcy four years earlier and that eight years ago he had been charged with unlawful threat. That case was laid down.
Fredriksson made an overview of the murdered Carl-Henrik Palm-blad’s career. Born and raised in Härnösand, his father a pastor, his mother a deaconess, moved to Uppsala in order to attend the university, studied history of religion, French, and Nordic languages, later taught at the university, and the last ten years before his retirement worked as a bureaucrat in the university administration.
He had two children, his daughter Ann-Charlotte who was a grammar school teacher and had lived in Erikslund for twenty-five years, and a son, Magnus, who sold cash registers and other equipment in a retail business and lived in Täby, north of Stockholm.
Palmblad did not appear to have had any financial difficulties, at least not according to his daughter. After his divorce fifteen years ago he had not sought out any regular female companionship, as far as she knew, and certainly not in the past five, six years. Palmblad seemed to have spent most of his time in the stables.
That was the outer picture of Palmblad’s life. Now Beatrice and the two investigators brought in from Criminal Investigations continued to work on filling in the details.
Lindell felt as if she was sitting on pins and needles, even though she knew it was important to hear all of the thoughts of the group. But Haver was right when he said they were fumbling in the dark, without having a single true lead.
The first thing she did when she came back to her office was to open the chess folder.
Ander began with a look back at the history, describing the two combatants from the tournament in Barcelona. He had apparently dug down properly in his sources, because the background was substantial, with the Spanish civil war as a backdrop and the feeling of euphoria that apparently characterized Catalonia and Barcelona during the beginning phases of the war. To arrange a chess tournament was a way of upholding civil life—Franco was not going to be allowed to disturb something as important as chess—and also, Ander wrote, it was an expression of international solidarity with the republican government in Madrid. Especially after the failure of the alternative sport competition held in 1936 as an answer to the Olympics in Nazi Germany. Ander described how the boxer Henry Persson and the other Swedish competitors had to turn back in Paris after getting the news that civil war had broken out.
Antonov was at that time a celebrity in chess circles, with legendary matches against stars such as the cautious Dutchman Euwe, the antise-mitic Russian Alekhine, and the Cuban, Capablanca, who was the world champion in the twenties and had only lost thirty-five out of almost six hundred matches in major tournaments. Anders had also made a note of several matches against Swedish masters such as Lundin, Ståhlberg, and the uneven Stolz.
The Basque player, Urberuaga, was, however, relatively unknown but immediately received attention as the one who, although he had not perhaps been able to shake the great Russian, had nonetheless made a little history.
Ander had also attached a short biography of the Basque. Lindell was at first irritated over the extensive nature of the report but soon found herself drawn into Urberuaga’s later fate. How he enlisted in the republican army, taking part in the struggles in Teruel and Belchite, was wounded on two occasions, and then fled together with a hundred thousand others to France when Franco’s troops surrounded Barcelona. There he ended up in a camp, escaped, and participated in the underground resistance against the Nazis during World War II, fled once more, and eventually ended up in Mexico where he lived until his death in 1966.
In Jalapa he started a chess club that got the name “No pasarán,” apparently a battle cry during the civil war, and he frequently took part in tournaments, even internationally.
“A pretty decent player,” Ander commented. “Uneven in both his temperament and his strategy, and who with time developed severe alcoholism.”
Antonov’s fate was even worse. When he returned to the Soviet Union he was immediately imprisoned. The list of accusations included spying as well as traitorous activity. In all likelihood he died in a camp somewhere beyond the Ural. Whether he had had the opportunity to play chess in the camp was not known.
The next part of the report dealt with the literature available on the subject. There was a list of eight titles. “There are probably many more,” Ander wrote, “but it is these that are somewhat known in Sweden. To this one should add a large number of print articles and information on the Internet.”
Lindell sighed, eyed the list, and continued with part three of Ander’s report, the part that described the actual match: “The Basque was black and Antonov white. The beginning was not sensational. At the midpoint, black’s center was weakened and he almost landed in a forced-move situation, but defended himself decently with the sacrifice of a pawn. Antonov believed himself to be secure and saw Urberuaga’s weakness as a sign of fatigue, possibly thinning patience, and he moved the queen to De8 followed by several quick moves that also increased white’s position. The Basque lost yet another pawn. Two surprising and poisonous moves by Antonov, whereupon black reflected for a long time, countering but thereafter losing a knight. Normally this match could only have gone in one direction but Urberuaga astonished everyone, including the Russian, with a three-move combination that threatened the white queen. Slowly but surely Antonov came to realize that what he had taken for weakness had been an extremely clever trap. White lost the queen. It had cost him some pieces but in one stroke black immediately emerged much stronger.”
Good god what nerds, Lindell thought and read on.
“In spite of this, white eventually came out the winner and thereby the Barcelona exhibition match was the display of a youthful drive to shine but also of the older man’s (Antonov was thirty-six) superiority when it came to calm strategy and tactical adaptability.”
Oh really, Lindell thought, what does all this have to do with our murders? Ander pointed out what everyone in the investigative team had discussed that morning, that the murders appeared so deliberate but that it was impossible to find a reasonable explanation as to why specifically Blomgren, Andersson, and Palmblad had fallen victim to the serial killer. “The motive must still be on high,” as Ander put it, “somewhere beyond the three victims. They were chosen at random to fit a pattern. Each of them wa
s cleverly chosen in that they lived isolated and that the perpetrator could approach them without being intercepted.”
To hell with it, Lindell thought and shut the folder, getting up and standing at the window.
“The sun shone on the bones of the dead,” she recited out loud while she tried to gather herself for something that would sound like a counterargument when she now had to report to Ottosson. She was convinced that he had already read the report and had simply pretended not to know that Ander had delivered it. He had apparently wanted her to make up her own mind first.
She took the folder and went in to see Ottosson, who was speaking on the phone. He waved to her to sit down. Lindell heard that it was a higher-up on the other end. Ottosson always had a special tone in his voice when he spoke to higher command. It rubbed Lindell the wrong way but she sensed that she probably did the same thing.
Ottosson hung up with a sigh.
“The top dog,” he said in a tired voice.
“Which one of them?”
“The absolute highest,” Ottosson said. “The chief. Yes, well,” he continued quickly, apparently unwilling to comment further about what had transpired on the phone, “what do we think?”
Lindell shook her head.
“It’s doubtful,” she said. “It sounds a bit science fiction-y.”
“I was just talking to outer space,” Ottosson inserted and smiled in that kindly, sad way that only he could, “so it fits a little with science fiction.”
“I don’t believe in the fact that the murder scheme has been dictated by a seventy-year-old chess game,” Lindell started and listed all her reasons.
When she finished, Ottosson sat quietly for a while.
“Fredriksson believes it,” he said suddenly. “He can’t say why and he agrees that it sounds implausible, but something tells me we are dealing with someone this crazy.”
“Is that what you said to your superiors?”
Ottosson immediately looked embarrassed.
“No, not exactly.”
“Not even indirectly I take it? I really don’t want to learn more about chess,” she said and cursed her unusually passive tone.
“I understand,” Ottosson said.
“Put Fredriksson on it then. Oh fuck,” it slipped out of her, “I was supposed to talk to Allan. I knew there was something.”
“What?”
“In Blomgren’s house I thought I saw something like a photo album, but then Fredriksson was the one who examined the room and I forgot about it in all the activity.”
“And now you want to look through it? Don’t mention it to Allan, he’s sensitive about things like this.”
“Don’t worry,” Lindell said, “I’ll just go out there. I know where the key is.”
Lindell stood up but before she left she couldn’t help asking Ottosson: “What did the top dog say?”
“He had apparently spoken with the professor who lives next door because he said that we should, and I quote, ‘remove all bicycle officers and rookies from the investigation.’”
The maple outside Blomgren’s house was now completely denuded and the leaves lay strewn across a large portion of the lawn like a thick rug. The pale sun was filtered through the tops of the fir trees in the west and reflected across the red and yellow shades of the leaves, creating the illusion of an impressionistic painting.
Lindell felt that Dorotea Svahn had noticed the fact that she had come by and she decided to visit the old woman after she had examined Blomgren’s bookshelf.
The TV room looked even more ordinary this time. Everything was in the same place as she remembered. She opened the little cabinet next to the bookshelf. The album was still there. For the first time in this investigation, Lindell felt a certain excitement.
The photo album was an old-fashioned model with a gray linen cover and stiff pages with glued photographs. The first one was of the house. An older couple was posing in front of the entrance, a couple that she guessed was Petrus’s parents. Then a large number of snapshots followed where the farm appeared to be the center. There were only a few pictures that she thought were taken outside Vilsne village. Quite a few people appeared in them, the parents regularly and a young Petrus also, stacking hay, standing at the gate or outside the barn in a pose that was supposed to be humorous.
The photographs seemed to be taken during a fairly narrow time frame. She guessed from the middle of the forties and about twenty years forward.
Ann flipped through the pages, as she believed Fredriksson had also done, but there was nothing that could reasonably have any meaning for the murder and the investigation.
A few captions had been written. One that Ann found slightly touching was written in pencil under a picture. “Me and mother” was written in spiky handwriting. Petrus, who in the shot looked to be in his thirties had his arm around his mother in a slightly awkward way. You could see that the old woman was smiling behind the hand that covered half of her mouth.
The last three pages were empty. Ann closed the album with a feeling of disappointment. She should have known better. If there had been anything to find here, Fredriksson would have spotted it.
She pushed the album back into place and was about to close the cabinet when her eyes slid to the book next to it. It was a thick volume from the Uppland Horse Breeder’s Association. She pulled it out and looked at the cover, which depicted a farmer plowing. The horse was struggling on an imagined field.
On the flyleaf, on a dotted line, it was written that the book belonged to Arthur Blomgren. She opened it and absently turned the pages. It was mostly text with statistical tables, but also several pictures of horses, among them one from a plowing competition in Rasbo, 1938.
When Lindell shut the book she caught sight of a white corner that stuck out in the back. She opened to that page and a snapshot tumbled out. In the brief moment when it swooped to the floor she knew she had found something valuable. It landed facedown so the first thing she saw was the inscription on the back: “To my beloved Petrus.”
She waited a second or so, then bent down to pick it up and turned it over. It was a picture of a woman. What else? she thought with a pleased smile. It was clearly a studio portrait but without identifying business markers.
The woman was in her forties, a brunette. The most eye-catching aspect to her was the beautiful hair pulled back into a ponytail. A girlish touch. She smiled, not an exaggerated grin, rather tentatively.
Ann thought she was beautiful and the first thing that struck her was the contrast to Petrus. But she immediately corrected herself. She had seen him dead, brutally slain, at seventy years of age. She pulled the photo album back out and looked up the picture of Petrus with his mother. Sure enough, he had been a handsome man, a little angular perhaps but that may have been the result of the circumstances. Styled in a photographer’s studio he may very well have been able to hold his own next to this woman.
Lindell turned the card over and read the dedication again, perhaps written by the companion to Mallorca and the reason he had gone to the doctor and gotten a prescription for sleeping pills. This was the tear in Petrus Blomgren’s life.
But was she also the reason he was murdered? Undoubtedly this photogenic woman was the absolute best thing, not to say the only thing, that they had found so far and that Fredriksson had missed. How would she tackle the fact that he had been sloppy? The photo had to be brought forward and the woman’s identity established. Should she lie and say that Dorotea had produced it? But why on earth would she be hoarding the picture of someone who was most likely the lover of the man she herself had probably been hoping for, at least at some point back in time?
No, that would be wrong, Lindell decided. Fredriksson would have to stand there with the shame.
Lindell laid the photo on the coffee table and then started flipping through all of the books in the small library. If he missed one clue there might be more, but the result was zero.
One photo, one woman, was the day’s yiel
d. Lindell locked the door behind her, very satisfied, and steered her course to the neighbor’s house.
Dorotea Svahn looked at the picture for a long time and then shook her head, but kept it in her hand and Lindell hoped that the old woman wouldn’t turn it over.
“You don’t recognize her?” Lindell asked and took the photograph out of her hand.
“No, I’ve never seen her before.”
“Are you sure?”
The old woman nodded.
“So this is what she looked like,” she said. “I’ve always wondered.”
Twenty-six
The stovepipe chimney howled. It usually did in gusty weather, but only if there was a westerly wind. The whistling sounds from the fireplace sounded like someone was sitting in there playing a variety of out-of-tune instruments.
When Laura was little they would make fires there. It was always Alice who arranged the wood to make sure it caught fire. When the flames were well established she would pull out an ottoman cushion and sit so close she grew red in the face after a while. Laura would lie on the floor, not quite so close but still close enough that she would grow warm, which one otherwise seldom did in this drafty house. Sometimes she stretched out an arm to feel her mother’s bare underarm.
One day a chimney cleaner came for an inspection. He declared the stovepipe unfit. It was cracked, not functionable, and if they kept making fires there was a chance the house would burn down. Down to the ground, as he put it. Ulrik grumbled, but her mother knew better than to argue with the chimney sweep. She was raised in the country and knew about chimney fires.
“To the ground,” Laura repeated to herself.
She sat in the armchair at whose side her mother’s basket of wool and knitting needles usually was. It was called the resting chair but Laura never saw Alice rest there.
“Down to ground.” It was a child’s phrase. She didn’t know then what the ground of the house would be exactly, but sensed it meant that everything would be destroyed, all furniture and books, her toys, her mother’s collection of seeds and pressed plants, yes, she saw everything before her and could even touch it. It was a dizzying thought. Frightening and alluring at the same time.
The Cruel Stars of the Night Page 20
