The Fire Dance

by Helene Tursten

  “I believe we should just leave Sophie to Child Protection Services. She’s a hard nut to crack. Maybe she’ll open up to them. Maybe then we’ll have another chance to question her. It was interesting that you got the sister to admit that Eriksson had an alcohol problem. It corroborates what I’ve found out,” Tommy said.

  He pulled out his notebook from the top drawer of his desk and began to read out loud. “Magnus Eriksson was forty-two years old when he died. He’d worked the last ten years as a freelancer because no newspaper would give him a full-time job. For one, he didn’t write well. Two, he wasn’t dependable. Never met his deadlines, according to my source at GT.”

  “Your source at GT?” Irene interrupted. “Who’s that?”

  “A guy who went to the same high school as me. Kurt Höök. Nice guy. We’ve never been that close, though we have some friends in common. So that bit he told his sister about GT offering him a job was an outright lie. According to Kurt, they hadn’t bought anything Magnus Eriksson wrote in over five years.”

  “So he never went to town to turn in an article that Monday.”

  “Nope. He probably headed to the state liquor store and straight back home.”

  “So it’s likely he was soused already when the fire broke out and didn’t even notice when things started to burn.”

  They were actually getting somewhere with setting the last moments of Magnus Eriksson’s life into place. The only missing piece was how the fire broke out and whether or not Sophie had a part in it. Did the fire start after she left the house? Or did she use a bit of blind courage to set the fire herself?

  “By the way, what do you know about Ernst Malmborg?” Tommy broke Irene’s revery with his question.

  “Ernst who? Oh yes, Sophie’s father. No, I don’t know a thing about him.”

  Tommy smiled at her in a teasing way. “You’re probably the only woman I know who isn’t interested in celebrity gossip. As a matter of fact, I remember fairly well what was in the papers twelve years ago. Kurt Höök helped me fill in the blanks. Even though I was only seventeen at the time, I remember how Angelika looked back then. I thought she was a real fox. I couldn’t see how she could settle down with an old man like that.”

  Irene raised her eyebrow in surprise. “Who? What old man?”

  “Ernst Malmborg. He was over fifty and she was barely twenty! He was disgusting. And she didn’t even know that I existed!”

  He smiled again and gave Irene a swift glance. Irene remembered quite well how electrified the meeting between Tommy and Angelika had been just a few days earlier. Now Angelika certainly knew that Tommy existed.

  Irene quickly tried to turn back the conversation to Ernst Malmborg. “So it was a big scandal that a fifty-year-old and a twenty-year-old got together? These things happen. Rich men buy themselves young women who want a father surrogate with money…not that unusual.”

  “Well, it was a bit more trashy than that. Ernst was married when he met Angelika. His wife was a famous actress who’d starred in a number of movies. She was more famous than he was. She was older, too. They had no children, but they’d been married a long time. When Ernst met Angelika, she got pregnant right away. His wife fell apart. There were whole columns about it in the papers. On the same day Sophie was born, Ernst’s ex-wife committed suicide.”

  As Tommy recited the story, Irene began to remember fragments of it. Wasn’t Ernst’s wife named Anna-Britta or Anna-Lisa or something like that? Irene had a vague memory that the woman had overdosed and had been found dead in her apartment, but since she couldn’t remember for sure, she asked Tommy.

  “How did she die?”

  “The usual, with some embellishments. She’d taken a huge amount of pills, not so unusual for suicides. The reason most people don’t succeed is that they start to feel nauseous and throw up. So to be sure that she’d really die, she’d tied a plastic bag around her head, and she suffocated.”

  Irene shivered. There’d been a great deal written up about her films after her death. Her work with Ingmar Bergman had been highly praised. Irene had never seen any of his films, but she knew that working with Bergman was one of the highest honors a Swedish actor could receive.

  Tommy turned a page in his notebook and continued. “According to Kurt, there was some speculation at the time of her death. Obviously she’d been depressed and bitter, but her doctor had thought she was starting to recover.”

  “Isn’t that when the risk is greatest, though? When the depression starts to lift and the patient has enough energy to go through with it? A suicide, I mean.”

  “Exactly. And that’s how people reasoned back then. It was headlined as a suicide. The body was found at nine in the morning by her housecleaner. The autopsy revealed that she’d died between nine and eleven the previous evening. At that time, Ernst and Angelika were at the maternity ward.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Anna-Greta Lidman.”

  “So Ernst left Anna-Greta for Angelika?” Irene was honestly curious now.

  “Yep, and Ernst Malmborg inherited everything from his ex-wife. They’d not yet filed for divorce. He married Angelika in the spring at the same time they had Sophie baptized. Within a few months, rumors were spreading that the marriage was already headed for the rocks. Angelika supposedly had an affair with a Frenchman: the instructor for the dance group she was in. It was all over the tabloids. Later she met Magnus Eriksson.”

  “Was Magnus Eriksson also a dancer?” exclaimed Irene, dumbfounded.

  “Of course not. They didn’t meet in the dance world, but through the tabloids. He’d gotten the assignment to interview her about her first wonderful year with Ernst Malmborg. It all ended when she left Ernst for Magnus.”

  Even if Angelika had left her first husband for another man twenty years younger, Magnus was still ten years older than she was. Perhaps Angelika just preferred older men. But didn’t Magnus’s sister just say that Angelika was only out for Magnus’s money?

  “Ingrid Hagberg said Magnus Eriksson had a lot of money when he met Angelika. What happened to it? Did he drink it all up?”

  “According to Kurt, alcohol had not been Magnus’s greatest problem at first, even if it took over in the end. He was a gambler. He frittered away every cent he had.”

  “Didn’t Angelika get any money after the divorce?”

  “Nothing. He’d made her sign a prenup.”

  “That explains…” Irene stopped when their office door opened and Superintendent Andersson stuck his balding head inside.

  “How’s the questioning going?”

  Both Irene and Tommy knew he meant the questioning of the rape victims in the Guldheden case. There were three women, all between eighteen and twenty-five.

  Tommy shook his head and said, “We’ll have to question them again. All we know is the perpetrator was young, strong and muscular. Blond. Swedish. But the last victim has a different description. Says he was dark-haired and not all that tall. Just normal sized.”

  “Do you think we’re dealing with two different guys?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “All right. You two keep going on this case. We’ll take it up tomorrow at morning prayer.”

  Andersson closed the door behind him. Irene and Tommy returned to the pile of paperwork on their desks.

  * * *

  The next day, a brutal murder took place in Kortedala, and the case fell to Irene and Tommy. From the beginning, it was suspected that the killing involved the drug cartels. But both the murder case and the rapes at Guldheden proved to be much more difficult than they had first appeared.

  Time went by. The fire at Björkil fell farther down the scale of important cases. Irene called child services once in the spring and talked to the psychologist who had been with Sophie at the police station. According to the exhausted psychologist, Sophie had never spoken about the fateful day.

  In fact, she never talked at all. The psychologist’s last words were not at all hope-inspiring.r />
  “You over there in the police department have to understand that Sophie has a handicap. She is different from other people. We have evaluated her and we’re trying to help her, but it can take a long time before she even wants to talk to us. Perhaps she never will. At least about the fire. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

  Irene sighed and hung up the phone. Child services never contacted them again, and Irene never called back. The fire at Björkil was eventually registered as accidental due to smoking in bed.

  PART TWO

  2004

  “I assume that we might have been the last people who saw her. It seems that no one else saw her later that night…or rather, maybe it was already morning…”

  “When did you arrive at Park Aveny?”

  “Well…around midnight. Or quarter past. I really don’t remember. It was a while back. We were at a publishing house party and it was really pleasant. Lots of food and drink. Honestly, there was a great deal to drink and that’s probably why I don’t remember the time so well. I usually don’t drink to get drunk but the Göteborg Book Fair is a special occasion. You can say that it’s the party of the year for the book world. A writer’s life is pretty lonely. No co-workers. No one to have coffee with or to bounce ideas back and forth with.

  “And then it’s like this…this huge party and everybody comes. All kinds of people, other colleagues, publishing houses, media—and as a writer, you’re the center of attention. It’s a huge contrast to sitting in front of the computer all day. Of course, you’re pulled into the flow! It’s only once a year. And we usually go to Park on Thursday evening after the publishing house party. That is, all of us who have our books published at Borgstens. It’s like an after party where you meet all the people you know. Most of them, anyway. Also a lot of people who…”

  “Was Sophie already there when you arrived?”

  “No, I’m fairly sure she came later on. It looked like she knew that dark-haired guy—quite good-looking—Marcelo, that’s his name! If I remember correctly, she was just standing next to him all of a sudden. I was at the table next to theirs—we hadn’t moved to their table yet—but I saw her from where I sat.”

  “Who is Marcelo?”

  “Marcelo? Oh, he’s another dancer, I believe. He’s a friend of Pontus Backman, you know, the new star in the heavens of poetry. Max and I both know Pontus because we have the same publisher. Although I don’t write poetry, not in the least. I’d never be able to put a stanza together. I just plod away at my detective stories. When you’re as old as I am, you have to keep doing what you know. By the way, I have two published books about growing roses. That was before I started writing crime novels. I was a journalist atGardening Magazine and…”

  “Did she come alone?”

  “Yes, indeed. I’m absolutely sure about that. At any rate, she was alone when she turned up next to Marcelo.”

  “So you didn’t see her when she came into the bar?”

  “No, it was impossible. There were so many people in the foyer. People were constantly coming and going through those swinging doors—do you call them swinging doors? What do you call doors that go around and around without stopping? Revolving doors?”

  “Right. What time was it when she appeared at your table?”

  “Between twelve thirty and one, I think…somewhere around then.”

  “When did you decide to break up the party at the table?”

  “One thirty. They close the bar then. We thought it was much too early for us to quit. So a group of us decided to head up to Max Franke’s suite. He always brings a whole case of really good wine to the Book Fair. Max is one of our most famous authors. We’ve been good friends since we were kids. These days we have the same publisher and his first wife, Barbara, and I were close friends during our days at the School of Journalism. It was…”

  “Was Sophie going to go with you to that suite?”

  “Yes. Max and her father were related—I think they’re cousins. You know that Ernst Malmborg is her father?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Yes, well, I guess most everyone knows that. It was a huge scandal when…”

  “So Sophie was supposed to go up to the suite. What happened then?”

  “The suite was on the top floor. We all packed ourselves into the elevator. Sophie didn’t want to get in with us. Said she’d rather take the stairs.”

  “She said nothing more than she’d take the stairs?”

  “Not that I heard. Just that she wanted to take the stairs. And she must have. The last I saw of her was her back. She was heading toward the stairwell. And from what I hear, that’s the last anyone saw of her.”

  Detective Inspector Irene Huss nodded slightly, as if she agreed. The author had just given her a witness report, which for the most part agreed with what they’d already figured out. Which was not much.

  The woman on the other side of the table, Alice Mattson, seemed to be nearing retirement age. Irene had never heard of her before. She didn’t have the time or interest to read all that much. Still, she’d bought one of Max Franke’s paperbacks at the Landvetter Airport bookstore and read it on her vacation to Cretet. It was a detective novel set in Stockholm. According to the back cover, Max Franke had sold an incredible number of books, and he’d become one of Sweden’s most well-known authors. Now he was a part of the investigation that she was conducting.

  As soon as she’d read the first chapter in the book, Irene had found herself irritated at all the mistakes the investigators were making. There were also a surprising number of wine enthusiasts and opera lovers in the literary police department. She’d been a policewoman for seventeen years, and she only knew one single colleague who listened to opera. Strangely enough, that was her boss, Sven Andersson. He also kept a great number of CDs with music from the fifties and sixties. His favorites were Glenn Miller and Louis Armstrong. On the other hand, Andersson drank strong beer and schnapps. He thought that wine was for women.

  Irene thanked Alice Mattson for taking the time to come down to the police station and file a report. The tiny, plump author chirped that it hadn’t been any trouble at all. She was going to put down the cost of the car ride from Sävedalen as “research” on her taxes.

  “Do you know that I’ve never been inside a real police station before? And I’ve written thirteen mystery books! My heroine has a flower shop and just has the habit of wandering into criminal investigations,” she confided to Irene before she disappeared through the reception room.

  Irene tried to hide her irritation and made a mental note to never buy a single book by Alice Mattson.

  * * *

  Irene sat down in her office to think. It felt odd to stir up ghosts from the past. There had been times when the girl had turned up in her dreams: her large, slightly almond-shaped eyes and the emotionless expression. But had she truly been emotionless? Had she just lowered a protective curtain to avoid revealing anything? Irene had thought about Sophie Malmborg’s gaze as the years went by. She never figured out what it meant or what Sophie was hiding.

  And now Sophie was dead. Fifteen years after the house fire out in Björkil.

  Irene turned on her computer but couldn’t focus on the screen. She stared out of the one window in her office. The rain had created patterns in the thick dirt. Twilight was falling. She ought to turn on the ceiling light but just kept sitting in her chair as the darkness gathered. Her thoughts went back in time again to try to piece together what had been gathered in the investigation.

  She could hear the clattering of china in the hallway. The scent of coffee and cinnamon buns seeped beneath the gap in her office door. Or perhaps it was just her imagination, since she already knew that she’d need something sweet with her coffee.

  According to numerous witnesses, Sophie Malmborg had arrived late, perhaps around twelve thirty, at the bar. She had come to join a group of friends who had arrived at least an hour beforehand. The group consisted of three men and a woman. Everyone knew each o
ther.

  Around 1 a.m., Max Franke, Alice Mattson and the publisher, Viktor Borgsten, had joined the young people. The older group was just as drunk as the younger one.

  According to poet Pontus Backman, Max Franke went up to Sophie’s table and bellowed: “Well, if it isn’t my itty-bitty cousin!” or something to that effect. Then Max had hugged Sophie, who was as stiff as a statue. “A really strange girl, that one,” Pontus concluded at the end of his testimony. The poet had no clear memories about the rest of the evening. The only thing he did remember was waking up at the apartment of the sulky blonde. Her name was Kia and he never caught her last name. He didn’t ever find out what it was, as he hadn’t seen her since September. Kia lived in the Majorna district and was an art student.

  Pontus stroked his thin goatee tiredly and sighed. “Her apartment reeked of paint and turpentine. If I didn’t already have a headache, I would have gotten one from the smell. And I’m getting another one now.”

  He gave this last sentence as half an apology. Irene would be able to swear on a stack of Bibles that Pontus Backman was even now severely hung over. His stinking breath hovered in the air between them—cigarette smoke, garlic and red wine.

  He had no recollection of the elevator ride to Max Franke’s suite. Therefore he also had no memory of anything Sophie might have said about taking the stairs instead.

  Irene’s conversation with Christina “Kia” Strömborg brought nothing new. As Irene caught a glimpse of her in the reception lounge area, she strongly suspected that Kia was high. Kia wore black clothes and a black blanket with a white pattern that she’d cut a hole and was wearing like a poncho. She’d tied a grey scarf around her waist to keep it in place. All her movements were jerky and nervous. She was walking close to the wall like a caged animal and appeared unable to make her body pause long enough to sit down.

  Kia had hardly known Sophie, it turned out. She only knew her by reputation. “Sophie was all hyped up—clothes and all—and just glommed onto Marcelo. But what could he do? He was addicted to her.” Kia’s narrow fingers kept plucking at the lint on her blanket.