Night Rounds

by Helene Tursten

  Löwander nodded in response. Before he walked out the door, he turned back to Irene and said, “Could you wait just a minute? I need to change.”

  The chief inspector raised an eyebrow meaningfully once Löwander had left. “So? You’re going out with the doctor?”

  Why did she find herself blushing? Irene sat up straight and hoped some of the redness in her face was covered by the bandages. “I thought I could chat with him on the drive home. He’s the head doctor here, after all, and he must know a lot about his staff.”

  Andersson agreed. “I interviewed him this afternoon. He says he didn’t know Marianne Svärd very well. Partly because she worked the night shift, partly because she wasn’t the chatty type. Pleasant and extremely professional about her work. And that’s all he’d say about her. On the other hand, he seemed very worried about Linda Svensson. Understandable, after the murder. He told me that Linda was a happy person and good at her job. Of course, he knows her better since she works the day shift. But to be honest with you, something tells me that Marianne’s murder and Linda’s disappearance are not related. The murder happened at the hospital. Linda was off duty then and now has disappeared from her home. We need to find the boyfriend. I called Birgitta Moberg and told her to flush him out.”

  Andersson sank onto the desk chair, which groaned under his weight. He stared at Nurse Ellen’s back as she sorted pills into small red plastic holders.

  “Excuse me,” Irene said politely.

  Nurse Ellen turned and nodded.

  “I’ve seen different nurses at this hospital all day, and I was struck by one thing. The nurses here are either very young or over fifty. Where are all the thirty- and forty-year-old ones?”

  Nurse Ellen sighed deeply. “They were all laid off in the late eighties. The hospital closed an entire ward. Only we were left, but we were younger then.”

  “How did Marianne Svärd, Linda Svensson, and Anna-Karin in ICU get their jobs?” Irene wondered.

  “Three old nurses retired within six months of one another, so Marianne, Linda, and Anna-Karin were hired around the same time.”

  “Are there more nurses retiring soon?”

  “This year there will be three: Siv Persson, Greta at reception, and Margot Bergman in ICU.”

  “I’ve already talked to both Margot Bergman and Greta—let me see … what was her last name?”

  “Norén,” Ellen informed her.

  “Right! Thanks. Neither of them seemed to know Marianne and Linda all that well. Nurse Margot thought that Marianne was a hardworking, pleasant person. And that was it.”

  Ellen Karlsson gave Irene a long look before she said, “That seems reasonable. They’re pretty different in age. They wouldn’t be meeting each other on their off hours. Just at work.”

  So Anna-Karin was the only other person who’d socialized with Marianne and Linda. Irene still felt that the murder and the disappearance were connected, even though her boss had a different opinion. She decided that she needed to keep a good eye on Anna-Karin. Although the young woman appeared flighty, maybe she knew more than she realized about the events of the last twenty-four hours. Or maybe there wasn’t a logical connection? So far there was no evidence that Linda Svensson had even been the victim of a crime, and Irene hoped with all her heart that she would turn up okay.

  IRENE HAD TO give up her hopes of getting more information from Sverker Löwander during the drive home. First of all, he’d fallen asleep the instant he reclined the seat back. Second, he only lived two kilometers from the hospital, on Drakenbergsgatan.

  As Irene swung into the driveway in front of Löwander’s home, she almost collided with a dark BMW backing out of the garage. It was one of the larger, newer models. Both drivers slammed on the brakes. The BMW’s door flew open, and a woman jumped out before the car had come to a complete stop. In three strides she’d reached Irene’s car.

  “What the hell are you doing, pulling in to my driveway like that!” she yelled.

  Sverker Löwander had been jarred awake. As the woman bent over to get a good look at Irene, who was already rolling down her window, his tired voice stopped them both.

  “This is Inspector Huss. She was kind enough to drive me home after this hell of a day. I didn’t notice you offering to pick me up.”

  Irene was startled at how quickly the woman’s face softened from twisted with rage to great beauty. It happened so fast that Irene wondered if she’d imagined the whole thing.

  This woman seemed slightly shorter than Irene. She had thick blond hair, cut slightly above her shoulders. In the light from the garage, Irene could see that she was deeply tanned. Since it was just the middle of February, Irene wondered if she had a private tanning bed.

  “You know I can never pick you up on a Tuesday. My job ends at five, and my aerobics class starts at six-thirty. Why didn’t you just drive the Mazda home?”

  Her voice was now pleasant but still had a slightly hard, metallic undertone. Irene wondered if she was hearing things. Perhaps she was just projecting her feelings onto a younger and more beautiful woman.

  Löwander sighed. “I walked to work yesterday morning.” He heaved his weary body out of the car and walked through the open garage door. Irene heard a door open and close. She got out of her Volvo and reached out to shake hands.

  “My name is Inspector Irene Huss.”

  The woman’s hand was cool and her handshake surprisingly strong. “Carina Löwander.”

  “Did you hear about what happened at the hospital?”

  “Yes, Sverker called me from work this morning. But there was no time to talk.”

  Carina Löwander looked at her wristwatch, cupped glass with a metallic blue face. She was making an obvious point. “Excuse me, but my class begins in fifteen minutes. And I’m the trainer,” she said with a smile.

  She turned in her high heels and adjusted her fur coat before sliding gracefully into the BMW. The only thing Irene could do was get into her own car. She knew she didn’t have the same air, not with her scuffed boots, worn leather coat, and rusty Volvo. And a head covered in bandages. No competition with fur coats and tanned skin.

  IRENE’S FAMILY HAD plenty of comments to make when she got home.

  “What did you do to yourself?” her daughter Katarina exclaimed.

  “Just because you were at a hospital, that doesn’t mean you had to go under the knife,” said Krister.

  One of Krister’s jokes! Irene was in no mood, and she answered shortly, “Never get a cat.”

  Their dog, Sammie, rushed up and reassured Irene of his undying devotion. As she reached down to pet his soft, wheat-colored fur, he sniffed at the bandages on her face. Dinner was late this evening, since both Irene and Krister had been working, Katarina had jujitsu after school, and Jenny had been at guitar lessons until six-thirty. It felt cozy having everyone together for once, a rarity. Irene twirled a strand of spaghetti on her fork. She’d had to choose her words carefully, explaining the day’s events to her family. She noticed that Jenny hadn’t taken any of the meat sauce for the spaghetti. Since the serving dish was next to Irene’s elbow, she passed the sauce to Jenny. Her daughter stared at the brownish red sauce with its delicious tomato aroma and shook her head.

  “I’ve given up meat,” she said.

  “You’re giving up meat? Why?” Irene asked.

  “I am not going to eat dead animals. They have the same right to life as we do. Farming animals is pure and simple torture.”

  “And so that’s why you haven’t been drinking milk lately?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But milk is not meat.”

  “A cow’s milk is for her calf, not for humans.”

  Krister’s voice shook as he exclaimed, “What kind of idiocy is this? Have you turned into one of those crazy vegetarians?”

  Jenny looked him straight in the eye. “Yes.”

  Silence fell over the dinner table. Katarina broke it by complaining, “She says I shouldn’t wear my new b
oots.”

  “They’re leather! There are boots made with fabric that are warmer and better.”

  “And this morning she said I shouldn’t put honey in my tea.”

  “No, you shouldn’t. The honey belongs to the bees.”

  The two girls stared at each other furiously. Krister’s face had darkened. He had trained as a chef and was a master of a number of foreign cuisines. In a deceptively soft voice, he asked, “So what do you intend to eat?”

  “There’s lots of good food that doesn’t come from murdered and oppressed animals. Potatoes, carrots, fruit and berries, nuts and peas—and there’s even fat made from vegetables.”

  Jenny spoke by rote, as if she’d memorized a list of acceptable foods. She probably had. Where did all this come from?

  The family dinner had taken an alarming turn. Krister was a peaceful and pleasant person, but his great passion in life, both professionally and personally, was food. His love showed in his growing girth. Could this be considered an occupational hazard? Irene thought tenderly, He’ll be fifty in a few years. He should probably start watching his weight. She herself hated cooking and was glad to leave it all to him.

  Krister’s voice was tough and short as he said, “In that case you can start cooking your own rabbit food. The rest of us will continue to eat as we always have.”

  Silence settled over the dinner table once again.

  Chapter 6

  “TIME TO CHANGE your razor blade.”

  “Did you really need a face lift?”

  “Wow, that cat sure did a number on you.”

  Witticisms rained down on Irene and her bandaged ear, but she was used to her colleagues’ bantering. She knew that this was a sign of everyone’s jitters right before the start of an investigation, especially one as complicated as this seemed to be. The jokes eased the tension everyone felt.

  Six detectives, the superintendent, and the forensics technician, Svante Malm, were crowded around the conference table, Irene saw. The chief inspector appeared worn out and tired next to Fredrik Stridh, whose entire body pulsed with energy. Of course, Stridh was the youngest of them all, but that wasn’t the only explanation. Inwardly, Irene heaved a deep sigh. Energetic and alert officers were certainly good, but murder was not solved by youthful enthusiasm alone. Boring routines, inspections and repeated inspections, interrogations and even more interrogations were required. Mind-numbing work. And after all that, just maybe you’d manage to put the puzzle together.

  Birgitta Moberg was the only other female detective in the group. Last year she and Fredrik Stridh had had a romantic fling, until Birgitta went to Australia for two months and Fredrik had to stay behind. He’d been grumpy and depressed for weeks before he got back to his normal self. His new girl’s name is Sandra, isn’t it? Irene thought.

  Birgitta was a beautiful woman. She had blond hair and glittering brown eyes. She seemed younger than her true age of thirty.

  Detective Jonny Blom had joined the department a few years before Irene. He was married and had four children. His coarse jokes and sharp-tongued comments got on her nerves sometimes, but she had to give him credit for being an exceptionally good officer. He was, above all, a talented and keen interrogator.

  Tommy Persson sat next to Irene. He was not just her closest colleague but also her best friend. The others on the team had been suspicious of their closeness at first, but now they were used to it. Irene and Tommy had gone to the police academy together and had been good friends since the day they met.

  Finally Irene looked at the detective who’d been in their department the longest, Hans Borg, fifty-four years old. Hans was actually a few years younger than the superintendent, but in experience the superintendent was still wet behind the ears compared to Borg. Borg had even managed to put together his own personal safety net. He’d taken early retirement and then finagled a way back onto the job with both pension and wages.

  Andersson began. “We’re all here, so let’s get started. First I’ll review yesterday’s events.”

  He went through the details surrounding the night-shift nurse’s murder. Both the power outage at the hospital and the sabotaged reserve generator seemed to be part of the murderer’s plan. On the other hand, Nurse Siv Persson’s report of the ghost nurse, Tekla, was incredibly odd.

  “She must have seen something, right? Or was she hallucinating?” Fredrik Stridh asked.

  Andersson nodded. “She must have seen something, yes. But the real question is, what did she see? Or who?”

  Jonny Blom snorted. “Just a scaredy-cat nurse afraid of the dark. A waste of time.”

  “Would you say the same thing if an old man had reported it?” Birgitta Moberg snapped.

  Jonny Blom pretended he hadn’t heard her.

  Tommy Persson cleared his throat before he gave his opinion. “I believe she did see something. I believe she saw the person who sabotaged the reserve generator and murdered Marianne Svärd.”

  Irene nodded her agreement. “The entire hospital was in the dark. Nurse Siv was certainly shaken by the death of Nils Peterzén, the patient, and by the fact that Marianne was gone. She certainly saw someone, and I wonder if that person was the murderer.”

  Andersson looked at Irene thoughtfully before he replied. “It’s true that she was scared, but she insists she saw the figure quite distinctly. The sky was clear, and the moon was almost full, enough to illuminate the person. According to Nurse Siv, it was a woman wearing an old-fashioned nurse’s uniform: a long, black dress and a white cap.”

  There was a silence, and then Jonny exclaimed, “Don’t tell me we have to go on a ghost hunt, too.”

  Andersson gave him an irritated glance. “No, but we have to ask what it is we’re really hunting for.” He turned to Malm and asked hopefully, “Any ideas?”

  “Not much, except you should look for a murderer with an inside knowledge of the property and a key, too,” Malm answered.

  “A key?” Andersson repeated.

  “Neither the outer nor the inner doors had any broken locks or even any damage. The entrance door is locked at five P.M. The back door is kept locked at all times.”

  “Someone could have come in prior to five P.M. and hidden. In the basement, perhaps?” Irene asked.

  “Theoretically, yes. However, there are people manning the phones and the reception desk all day, and they are there until the doors are locked at five P.M.”

  Andersson sighed. “Keys and locking times are always tricky. At least this limits the number of suspects.”

  A few of the detectives nodded.

  Malm continued his summary. “One of Marianne Svärd’s shoes was found in the elevator, which makes it likely she’d been brought to the basement that way. The murderer wore rubber gloves powdered with talcum. Svärd’s stockings were black at the heels, and she had white talc on her lower arms. This indicates she was dragged. She was probably already dead when she was taken into the elevator.”

  “To open the electrical room’s door, the murderer must have had to set her down, right?” Birgitta asked.

  “That’s correct. And that door is always locked.”

  “Once the murderer opened the door, he must have pulled Marianne upright and heaved her into the room. The murderer didn’t care that she landed on the reserve generator. The main thing for him was that her body was hidden,” Birgitta stated.

  “Just a minute,” Irene objected. “That won’t work. If he’d wanted to hide the body, he wouldn’t have cut the power first. The electrical room would be the first place to go to see what was wrong.”

  Svante Malm nodded his agreement. “There was no attempt to hide the body. Sabotaging the reserve generator was part of the plan. All of its cables were sliced, which was done before the power went out.”

  “How do you know that?” Fredrik asked.

  “When the power went out, the reserve generator would have kicked in from the drop in voltage. But its cables were already cut, so it couldn’t function.”


  Tommy Persson thought out loud. “So it’s one hundred percent sure that Marianne Svärd was murdered before the power was lost. After all, she was dragged into the elevator. It couldn’t work without power. And the murderer wouldn’t have been able to see very well in the basement or in the electrical room.”

  “That’s clear,” Malm replied. “We haven’t found the wire cutters the murderer used to cut the cords to the reserve generator, but it must have been a big johnny.”

  “What about the noose that strangled her?” asked Andersson.

  “It’s still missing.”

  “I called Stridner yesterday evening, but she hadn’t finished the autopsy. We’re supposed to receive her report right before lunch today. I’ll try to swing by the pathology lab. It’s easier to just go there than wait by the phone in case she graces us with a call.”

  “That woman must be going through menopause,” Jonny said with feeling.

  Andersson did not reprove Jonny, but he did mumble something about how Stridner was a good pathologist nevertheless.

  Malm cleared his throat loudly to get their attention back. “We vacuumed Marianne’s clothes yesterday. With our naked eyes we could see dark strands of fiber on the back of her smock, and we’ve begun to examine them more closely. So far they appear to be finely spun wool.”

  “Lord help us! We’re back to the ghost,” Irene said. “The ghost was wearing a black nurse’s dress.”

  “How do we know that the dress was made of wool?” Birgitta pointed out. “Not to mention the fact that the color might have been dark blue or dark gray or dark green. It’s hard to tell colors apart in the moonlight.”

  “Ghosts wear transparent clothes,” Jonny said sarcastically.

  Andersson’s face was starting to flush. “Exactly! Listen to yourselves. Police officers don’t run off and hunt for ghosts, because ghosts do not exist. We hunt for live murderers. This one definitely had a physical body that could murder a nurse and snip power cables. Put the whole hospital in the dark. Ghosts don’t do that kind of stuff. How do I know? They don’t exist. And if they did exist, they probably wouldn’t bother with the sorts of things that the murderer did at Löwander Hospital.”