Detective Inspector Huss: A Huss Investigation set in Sweden, Vol. 1 (23 page)

Mona Söder gestured graciously toward the chair across the table. “Please have a seat, Irene. I hope you forgive me, but I’ve already ordered for us. Is grilled Baltic herring all right, followed by plum cake with vanilla ice cream for dessert?”

“That sounds fantastic.”

Irene had only eaten grilled Baltic herring once before.
Burned herring with mashed potatoes
was what she would call it.

Mona turned to the waiter who had soundlessly materialized at their table. “We’d like two large porters and two shots of Aalborg Aquavit.”

Irene gave a start. That was enough of someone else making decisions for her. “No thanks. I’d like a large pilsner, no schnapps for me,” she said quickly.

A little furrow appeared on Mona’s brow, but she only shrugged and waved away the young man with their orders. She gave a hard, curt laugh.

“Don’t think I sit and drink schnapps every day for lunch. But sometimes it seems like a good buzz is the only thing that keeps me on my feet. Today’s one of those days. You’ll soon find out why. But let’s eat first, before we get down to business.”

The herring was heavenly. Irene found herself practically shoveling in the excellent food. They drank a
skål
to Old Town, with Aalborg and Pripps pilsner, respectively. Mona was easygoing and unpretentious in her conversation. There were no embarrassing moments, although there were long pauses.

They had just polished off the fabulous plum cake and were drinking a second cup of coffee. Mona had ordered a cognac, but Irene declined. Mona could really hold her liquor. The slight tension across her shoulders may have relaxed a bit, but there was no change in her speech or gestures. Irene concluded that she was used to drinking a good deal. Mona took out a pack of cigarillos from her fashionable handbag, which perfectly matched her light gray jacket of soft wool. Under it she wore a white silk blouse with a straight black skirt. Comfortable gray pumps with a low heel completed the picture of a woman with style, power, and money. The heavy gold chains around her neck further emphasized this impression. She wore no rings.

Mona offered the cigarillo pack to Irene, who declined, and then carefully lit hers, exhaling with pleasure and sending a cloud up toward the ceiling. Squinting slightly through the smoke, she looked around. They were alone in the room. Voices could be heard from the rooms in front as well as the vaulted room, but in here there were none. Pensively, she began her story.

“We met in the spring of ’sixty-four, Richard and I. He blew in like a whirlwind one April evening, as Strindberg writes in
The People of Hemsö.
I was twenty-two and he was twenty-eight. I had been attending social work college for a year but I didn’t feel at home in Stockholm. If you’re born and raised up north in Härnösand, Stockholm is a real culture shock. Some people thrive and have a blast. Others just get homesick. Like I did.”

Only now did Irene notice the slight lilt of the Ångermanland accent in Mona’s speech. At first she had just heard a nicely enunciated, cultivated Swedish, but the hint of Norrland was there like a pleasant undertone.

“But I had nothing to go back to. Pappa died in a sawmill accident when I was fifteen. Mamma met another man. They got married and she moved to Umeå with him and my two younger sisters. I stayed behind in Härnösand, paying for room and board with Mamma’s cousin and her husband while I finished up high school. In a fit of boldness I answered a classified ad: ‘Young lady with a talent for languages wanted for office position.’ In Stockholm. I almost fainted when they called and told me I could start in August. I found a room in a boardinghouse run by an old lady on Birger Jarlsgatan. A sad little room in back off the courtyard. But it was cheap and suited my modest salary.”

Mona broke off for a coughing fit. She took a sip of lukewarm coffee to clear her throat. After a deep, greedy drag on her cigarillo, she went on. “The job was pure shit work. After a year I had had enough, and I applied to the social work college. Everybody was going there in those days! With my grades it was no problem, I got in. After just one semester I realized that sitting in a welfare office was not what I wanted to do either. Bringing salvation to tattered lives would have to be left to others. I didn’t feel I was the type who could really get involved. I had enough problems of my own.”

She fell silent and downed the last of her cognac. Irene was fascinated. It was hard to imagine this worldly and obviously authoritative woman as a lonely, uncertain student in the big city. But she must have been hard nosed even then, since she didn’t stay at the office job long.

“My fellow students were Communists on the far left who wanted to change the world. The Social Democrats were viewed as a bourgeois party. Imagine, how the pendulum always swings back!”

She laughed heartily and stubbed out her cigarillo in the little glass ashtray.

“I followed the administrative path and have always worked as a civil servant. First a few years in Södertälje municipality. But I started in the private sector in the late seventies. The past ten years I’ve been the personnel director of a computer firm.”

She coughed again and rinsed out her mouth with the last drops of coffee.

“My life. That’s all there is to it. The only things that ever happened are Richard and Jonas. So, back to Richard.”

Again she fell silent. Her hand trembled a little as she ran her fin-gers through her short, well-coifed steel-gray hair. Their waiter appeared in the doorway, and to Irene’s surprise Mona whistled softly to him. When he came over to their table, Mona said, without taking her eyes off Irene, “Two cognacs.”

Irene tried to object but Mona silenced her by placing her hand over hers.

“Richard and I met on a glorious April evening at Mosebacke in southern Stockholm. As you can hear, the ghost of Strindberg is back. There was spring in the air even though it wasn’t very warm yet. I was wandering around aimlessly, feeling lonely. I had just broken up with a boy at school. I was fed up with him and all the other boys. I was sitting on a bench, trying to think of nothing at all. Suddenly a man sat down next to me. I was scared to death, and it was quite obvious. We started talking and the time just whirled away. He was simply effervescent with . . . the joy of life. Yes, that’s the phrase I associate most with Richard. Joie de vivre. Jonas has that in common with his father. I had never ever experienced anything like it before!”

Mona paused to light another cigarillo.

“I realized that he was older than I was. So urbane! I was dazzled and very impressed. Of course I was attractive in those days, but no man had ever looked at me the way Richard did. He thought everything I said sounded intelligent. Everything he said sounded exciting and exotic to my ears. We talked and talked for several hours. Then we went back to his apartment on Fjällgatan. We split a bottle of wine and made love for three days and three nights. And I stayed there the rest of April and May. I still had my room on Birger Jarlsgatan, but I was hardly ever there. In June and July he went down to Göteborg. He had to help his father with the shipping company and was taking a combined vacation and leave of absence, he said. Later I found out that her name was Madeleine. They had a hot romance, although she was married. But I, who didn’t read any weekly magazines or have any close girlfriends to gossip with, I had no clue. It wasn’t until early September that I heard from him again. And I was idiotically happy. Didn’t ask a thing, didn’t want any answers. Just made love and made love. In late November I realized that I was pregnant. I wasn’t overjoyed, but I thought it would all work out. Richard did have a great job and made plenty of money. I would have to take a year off from my studies. Then we would get a nanny. And before that we’d get married. Or so I thought. Richard never let on what he thought about getting stuck with me and with a kid on the way! Getting married was the last thing he wanted to do. At least to me. But he didn’t say a thing; he was just as charming and tender to me as before. He did start working late more often, though. He said he needed money now that the child was coming. And I wanted to believe it was true.”

She broke off and gave Irene a sharp look before she went on. “It probably doesn’t sound too smart to your ears. What a dope I was! But you have to realize that I’m talking about a different person. The girl I’m telling you about no longer exists. She’s been gone for years. But once she was a real person. With tears and laughter and love. She could love unconditionally. And she still believed that people were basically good. You get thick skinned from fighting and losing too many battles.”

Irene saw the reflections from the candle flame glittering in Mona’s tears. Several years as an interrogation leader had taught her that the biggest mistake at such a moment would be to say anything. The person being interviewed has a need to talk things out.

As if she had read Irene’s mind, Mona continued in a more businesslike tone of voice. “What I’m telling you now I’ve never told anyone but Jonas. It doesn’t concern anyone else. But since Richard has been murdered, everything has to be completely aboveboard. I want to explain how everything was and why neither Jonas nor I have anything to do with the murder.”

She was embellishing her speech with many more sweeping gestures now than she had at the beginning of the conversation. It was the result of equal parts fervor and cognac.

“Anyway. It was getting on toward Christmas. Richard said he had to go down to Göteborg. I had moved into his apartment in the middle of December and given up my room on Birger Jarlsgatan. When I realized that he didn’t intend to take me with him to meet his family, I finally staged the big scene that I should have attempted much earlier. We argued for several hours. More precisely, I argued for several hours and said what was in my heart. I was so young and had never heard of the concept ‘fear of confrontation,’ but after a while I noticed that he wasn’t defending himself. I would attack and he would side-step without any particular finesse. He was quite simply not used to arguing! Nobody could argue with the gorgeous, charming, rich, and talented Richard von Knecht! And that’s how it had been his whole life. Free of any conflict. If things got unpleasant, he would just slip away discreetly. If any unappetizing remains were left behind, there was always someone who could be hired to sweep them away.”

Mona was now so agitated that she grabbed Irene’s untouched cognac. Irene didn’t say a word; she hadn’t intended to drink it. Mona needed it more than she did.

“His father suffered a timely embolism and Richard was granted permission from the brokerage firm to leave his job and go down to take over the family empire. You know, of course, that his father was a ship-owner. Richard left for Göteborg in early January. I was entering my second trimester. Abortion had not yet been legalized, nor did I consider it. Deep inside I believed that he would come back to me. And the child. He couldn’t ignore his child, could he? Good Lord, I was so naive!”

There was no mistaking the bitterness in Mona’s voice. She downed half the cognac in the snifter in one gulp.

“He paid the rent for six months in advance before he left. I stayed in the apartment and tended to my studies. I didn’t hear a word from him the whole time. I started using my meager student loan to buy the weekly magazines. There was a lot about him: ‘The crown prince becomes the new shipping king,’ ‘Most eligible bachelor.’ I don’t remember everything I read. In May I saw pictures from a ball in Göteborg. That’s when he met Sylvia.”

She paused and finished off the cognac.

“Then I finally woke up from my coma. The baby inside me was kicking. I felt responsible for this tiny being. And suddenly I realized that I was utterly alone and would have to fight. The new Mona began to take shape. I started calling him, both at home and at the office. I could hear from his voice that he was scared shitless. He didn’t want either his mamma or the delicate little ballerina to find out about his escapades here in Stockholm. Suddenly I had the advantage. And I intended to use it. He paid another six months’ rent. To shut me up, of course. I took it easy and lay low that summer. On July twenty-third Jonas was born. The instant he was put in my arms I knew that for his sake I would be able to fight. He’s the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Her voice broke a little and she fell silent. When she resumed her story there was a diamond sharpness in her tone.

“I began to demand my rights. And Jonas’s right to a father. After many heated arguments on the phone Richard promised to come up to Stockholm and ‘fix everything,’ as he put it. Instead he sent his lawyer, Tore Eiderstam. He threatened that Richard would deny all knowledge of me. Deny paternity. But I stood my ground. When he realized that I didn’t intend to back down, he started threatening me. I would never get a job, Richard and Tore would see to that. Then I threatened to go to the tabloids with my story. We went back and forth like this for several days. Suddenly one day Tore switched tactics. He said that he and Richard weren’t going to bother with me any longer. They proposed a settlement. Richard would admit to being Jonas’s father. He would put the apartment in my name and pay the rent until Jonas was twenty, plus child support of five hundred kronor per month. Remember that the rent in those days was four hundred kronor. A new car cost about eight thousand. A single mother who wasn’t even half finished with her studies had no choice. I accepted. In return I promised not to tell Jonas who his father was until his twentieth birthday. A week later I read in the papers about Richard’s engagement to Sylvia and their impending wedding. That’s when the old Mona disappeared for good.”

Mona hid her face in her hands. Irene cautiously inserted a question. “Did you and Richard have any contact over the years?”

“No, never. He didn’t even send presents to Jonas on Christmas or his birthday. And that had to be the worst thing. Seeing the boy’s excited anticipation before holidays. And then his wordless disappointment. After a while he didn’t care anymore. On his twentieth birthday I told him the same story I just told you. He just shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘My father never cared about me, why should I care about him?’”