Detective Inspector Huss: A Huss Investigation set in Sweden, Vol. 1 (43 page)

The dames
meant Birgitta and her. Irene knew that the accusation was groundless, but it still stung. She was the oldest, the one with the most experience and practice. All Jimmy had to do was follow orders and keep up with her. Was she to blame for what happened to Jimmy?

Andersson was bright red when he stood up, slammed his palm on the table, and yelled, “Shut up! Irene was doing her job, checking up on a possible lead to Bobo Torsson’s hideout! Damn it, nobody in this department has to run in to see me every time something comes up that needs to be investigated more closely. That would be totally inappropriate! You’re pros, after all!”

Wham! He slapped his palm on the table again, to emphasize what he was saying. Jonny was obviously unprepared for his boss’s outburst, because he said nothing. Andersson took a few deep breaths to try to control his blood pressure. More calmly he said, “No one could have known that those punks would hide an alarm in a stack of lumber! And there was nothing to indicate that there would be Hell’s Angels in Bobo’s and Shorty’s cottage. Jimmy and Irene ran into a damned unpleasant surprise at the site.”

Andersson sat back down, but the grim expression did not leave his face. He scrutinized Jonny for a long time; Irene could see that Jonny was embarrassed. She felt that there was something else behind the superintendent’s vehement reaction, but didn’t have the slightest idea what it could be.

Andersson went on, “I don’t want to hear this kind of shit again from you, Jonny. We can’t attack each other. We have to concentrate on the job. Dump your anger on Shorty instead, and see if you can make him talk! Today is our last chance. Tomorrow we have to let him go. So far there isn’t a single scrap of evidence that he did anything illegal. Even though that devil has never done anything else!”

“Now he’s an honorable tobacco merchant.” Irene gave Andersson a teasing look in an attempt to lighten the mood.

“Honorable tobacco! . . He sells drugs and nothing else!”

“But we don’t have any proof,” Irene countered.

“No. Everything points to Bobo Torsson alone. We don’t have anything on Shorty.”

“Tommy and I are thinking of paying an early-morning visit to young Fru von Knecht. Sylvia revealed yesterday that Bobo and Charlotte are old pals. We thought we’d check and see if she might be familiar with Shorty too.”

A gleam came into the superintendent’s eye. “That’s interesting news. You wouldn’t think she’d still keep up with Torsson. Funny girl, that Charlotte. Will it take two of you to interview her?”

“Two pairs of eyes see more than one. While one is talking, the other one looks around a little,” said Irene.

“Are you suspicious of her?”

Irene hesitated a moment. Finally she said, “It’s mostly a feeling I got when I talked to Sylvia yesterday. She has an idea who got the spare-key ring from Richard von Knecht. But she doesn’t want to talk about it. And I’m convinced that it has to be someone in the family. Charlotte or Henrik. Sylvia also told me that Henrik had the mumps before meningitis. When I asked her whether he had become sterile as a result of the mumps, she broke down. So Henrik could be sterile. If so, who’s the father of Charlotte’s child? I want to feel out both of them on this.”

 

IRENE AND Tommy drove slowly up Långåsliden. Big stucco functional-style houses predominated, but houses of both older and newer architecture were seen here too. Despite the fact that Örgryte and Skår were now considered the central and most exclusive sections of Göteborg, the large, showy gardens in which the houses stood were often marked by some neglect, probably because of the owners’ lack of time for gardening. They probably had to work hard to be able to afford to live in these fashionable districts, Irene thought.

Henrik and Charlotte’s house wasn’t one of the larger ones in the area. But the garden was definitely one of the most overgrown. The house was a two-story yellow stucco with a vaulted oriel next to the balcony. It would have been beautiful if large chunks of plaster hadn’t flaked off it. At ten o’clock in the morning, the venetian blinds facing the street on the upper floor were closed. The curtains on the ground floor were drawn in front of the big picture windows facing the porch. A new red Golf was parked in front of the garage.

Tommy slipped on the damp leaves that covered the slick slate flagstones. He had to watch where he set his feet, since many spring frosts had pushed the stones apart. The path up to the house reminded him of a miniature of the collapsed freeway in Oakland after the last earthquake.

Tommy nodded toward the house. “It looks totally dead. I don’t think she’s home.”

Irene gave him a slightly mocking look. She pointed at the gleaming little red car. “And what makes you think the little lady is even awake at this ungodly hour of the day? She hasn’t driven off in her new car, at any rate.”

They slipped and slid their way to the once lovely teak front door. Many years without oil or maintenance had left the wood gray and cracked. They rang the bell repeatedly. After a good two minutes, they heard footsteps coming downstairs. A tired voice yelled from inside, “Yeah, yeah! What’s this about? Who is it?”

Irene recognized Charlotte von Knecht’s voice, but it wasn’t as well modulated as it had been the last time they met. She waited to answer until she heard that Charlotte had made it to the door. Then she said in a loud voice, “It’s Detective Inspector Huss.”

For a moment there was utter silence before the lock began to rattle. The door was opened a crack and Charlotte whispered, “Do you have to stand there yelling like that? Think of the neighbors!”

Something had happened to her eyes. The radiant turquoise had become two ordinary bits of granite. She hastened to back up and let them into the surprisingly small entryway. She almost lurched when she turned quickly and swept the thick soft-pink dressing gown tighter around herself. Half choking, she said, “I didn’t know it was you two. Wait here, I have to go upstairs!”

Before they managed to say a word, she slunk upstairs. But Irene recognized the smell of liquor. And sex. Charlotte smelled of sex. Pheromones are potent scent factors. Less than a fraction of a nanogram is enough to make the hormones run amok. Irene took a quick look at the clothes hanging in the entryway. She found what she was looking for. A light brown jacket of soft suede with fringes on the shoulders. A pair of boots with pointed toes, high cowboy heels, and shiny buckles at the ankles, size forty-two. Henrik von Knecht was thin, but he was also tall. In this jacket he would look like he was going to a costume party. His taste in clothes was more in the line of cashmere overcoats, not fringed jackets. Three pairs of men’s shoes of excellent quality and design, size forty-four, stood in a neat row in the shoe area. Irene showed Tommy her find and he nodded in agreement. Naturally he had also registered the scent.

The sound of a shower was heard from upstairs. Irene quickly took a few steps into the hall. She chose the left-hand door. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tommy sneaking through the one on the right. The left door led to a small kitchen. The kitchen implements were new and sparkling. The door of the dishwasher was down and revealed a full machine. On the drainboard there were plates and wineglasses. Two salad plates. Two dinner plates. Two wineglasses. Two cut-glass tumblers. Two. The man was still in the house and it wasn’t Henrik von Knecht.

She hurried back to the hallway. The door they had passed on the way in led to a small toilet. The shower on the top floor had stopped, and she could hear someone moving around up there.

Tommy returned and whispered, “Living room, dining room, and a den.”

The Charlotte who came down the stairs was a completely different person from the one who had opened the door for them ten minutes earlier. This one had shiny brushed hair, smelled of Cartier, and gave them a radiant turquoise-shimmering look. Finally Irene understood. No one has eyes of that fairy-tale color. We live in the age of tinted contact lenses. Charlotte was dressed in black velvet pants and a short-sleeved, scoop-necked angora sweater the same color as her fantastic eyes.

With a courteous gesture that displayed a certain lack of enthusiasm, Charlotte invited them into the living room. It was clearly marked by Henrik’s life and passions. Paintings and antiques were everywhere in the normal-sized room. They walked between urns and curved chairs over to a cream-colored silk sofa, which proved to be astonishingly comfortable. Charlotte draped herself gracefully in an overstuffed velvet easy chair with dark mahogany armrests. She crossed her legs demurely and gave the two detectives an unexpectedly calm look. Sparse daylight seeped in through the heavy drawn curtains and fell on her face. She had been in a hurry, because the foundation under her right eye had not been properly applied; there was a little brown smear on her cheek.

Irene decided on the tough approach and began, in a friendly tone of voice, “Charlotte, we’ve discovered a number of new details during the course of the investigation. We would be grateful if you could help us go over them.”

Without the least quaver in her voice, Charlotte replied, “I’ll try.”

“First, a question that I’m asking now so I won’t forget it at the end. When does your husband come home?”

“On Saturday night.”

“Late?”

“Yes, around ten. Presumably, he’s going straight to Marstrand. I’ll be at a birthday party for a friend who’s turning thirty.”

“Henrik’s not going?”

She hesitated before answering. “No, he’s not so wild about big parties. Lots of people and all that,” she said evasively.

“But you enjoy that sort of thing.”

She looked surprised at Irene’s statement. “Yes, of course I do.”

“Do you often go out alone?”

Now her gaze wavered. “Usually. Henrik never wants to go. What does this have to do with the investigation of Richard’s death?”

“Well, we know that you were often seen with Bobo Torsson. That you were good friends and that you worked together. We also know that you were the one who talked to your father-in-law and arranged for Bobo to rent the apartments on Berzeliigatan.”

“That’s correct. But Bobo has an aunt who owned the tobacco shop across the street. She gave Bobo a tip that Richard was renovating the apartments in his building. Then he asked me to ask Richard whether there was any chance he could rent one of them.”

“Do you know that Bobo is dead?”

Now Charlotte’s eyes glistened and she swallowed hard before replying. “I heard it on the news. How horrible!”

“Do you know if Bobo was involved in anything that might have made someone want to kill him?”

Something flared up behind the turquoise blue. Unease and wariness.

“No. Absolutely not!”

She crossed her legs harder and started to massage her bare forearms as if she were cold.

“Did Bobo sell drugs to you?”

Just like Lot’s wife, Charlotte was turned into a pillar of salt. It took a long while before she replied apologetically, yet still aggressively, “Everybody uses a little smack nowadays. Everybody does it. There’s nothing unusual about that. It’s like using alcohol!”

“I see. But it falls under different legislation. Did he sell a lot?”

Now she was prepared and made a brave attempt to sound haughty. “Not at all! He was a prominent photographer. The little he sold was only to friends and at private parties.”

She was almost successful, but not quite. Since Irene had a lot of other sensitive questions to ask, she changed the subject. “Do you know a man named Lasse ‘Shorty’ Johannesson?”

Charlotte was startled, but not scared. She pursed her lips and said, “That’s Bobo’s cousin. But I’ve never met him.”

“So you don’t know him at all?”

“No.”

Clearly Irene wasn’t going to get any farther with Shorty. Time to switch tacks. She continued calmly, “We also have information that you received a spare-key ring from Richard von Knecht this summer. Why did he give it to you?”

Her astonishment was not feigned. Or else she was a better actress than Irene thought.

“Spare keys? I never got any spare keys from Richard.”

“Your father-in-law never gave you any keys?”

“No.”

“Was it Henrik who got them?”

Now her gaze flickered before she answered, “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t know if Henrik was given the spare keys by his father?”

“No.”

“But you did know that there was a key ring with spare keys on it, didn’t you?”

“No, I tell you! No!”

A new scent broke through the heavy Cartier perfume. Terror.

“Then we’ll have to ask Henrik when he comes home,” said Irene.

She pretended to look at something in her blank notebook. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Charlotte relax and sink a bit in her chair. She obviously thought the danger was past.

Thoughtfully Irene said, “Well, you know, Sylvia told me yesterday that Henrik contracted the mumps when he was in the service. Apparently he became sterile, since it also affected his testicles. I think that seems a bit strange, considering that you’re pregnant, don’t you?”

The question remained hanging in the air over their heads, like the blade of a guillotine. Charlotte turned pale as a corpse underneath her makeup. “What are you talking about? I feel sick!”

She got up and rushed toward the hall. On her way she knocked over a large Chinese vase. It shattered on the marble hearth in front of the open fireplace. They could hear her tear open the door to the toilet in the hall and slam it shut. Tommy pointed toward the upper floor. Irene nodded, because she had heard it too. A light thump, like a bouncing ball. Someone upstairs had dropped something on the floor.

After nearly five minutes Charlotte returned. She was composed, but they could see she had been crying. Her voice was ice cold when she said, “This is Henrik’s child. I’m having a test, whatever it’s called. The kind they do to determine paternity.”