Detective Inspector Huss: A Huss Investigation set in Sweden, Vol. 1 (49 page)

All signs seem to indicate that that was the case. No one answered when they rang the doorbell. They started to go around the house, looking in windows. When Irene stood at the edge of an overgrown flower bed in the backyard, she could look right into the kitchen. The dirty dishes were gone. Everything was clean and orderly. Henrik would never dream that his wife had had a visit from a cowboy. On the other hand, he was going straight up to Marstrand, according to Charlotte. While she herself was going to a party at a friend’s house . . .

Irene’s train of thought was interrupted by a gruff voice that shouted, “Don’t move, or I’ll shoot! The police have been called and will be here any minute!”

Startled, she turned toward the voice and stared straight into the barrel of a rifle. It trembled ominously in the hands of a fat, bald, elderly man.

 

THE THREE detective inspectors had almost managed to convince the armed man that they were actually police by the time the squad car arrived. The two officers came around the house with their weapons drawn. Fortunately one of them was Hans Stefansson. Or perhaps unfortunately, Irene wasn’t sure. She
was
sure of one thing, though. The story of how a suspicious neighbor stood holding the three detectives in check with a moose gun while he waited for the patrol car would be all over PO1 before evening.

The poor elderly gentleman was terribly embarrassed when he realized his mistake. He defended himself in a shrill voice. “You can’t be too careful these days. The wife saw some strange figures creeping around here and peeking into cars. A gang of burglars, that’s what I thought!”

Irene suspected that “the wife” was the woman behind the curtain who had spied on her and Tommy the day before.
It’s better to have them with us than against us,
she thought.
Some average citizen who thinks he has the confidence of the police might start telling us something that would prove useful.
As long as it was about someone else, that is. So in a confidential tone Irene said to the corpulent neighbor, “We’ve been trying to get hold of Henrik von Knecht, but with no luck. Do you happen to know where he is?”

There was no risk, since she knew he was in Stockholm. But the neighbor probably didn’t know that. He shook his spherical head and said indifferently, “Henrik von Knecht? He’s almost never home. For a while I thought he and his wife had gotten a divorce. But last week we saw him again.”

“We met with Charlotte von Knecht yesterday, but would like to get hold of her again. You understand . . . everything has to be checked and double-checked in a homicide investigation.”

The neighbor nodded eagerly in agreement. But when he thought about it, he turned grumpy. This was an excellent opportunity to complain. “We don’t see much of the wife either. I mean . . . she’s never out in the garden. Which really needs it! We always have to clean up the hedge between our properties. They never take care of their side. And I’m the one who has to clip it. Every year!”

“Don’t they have a gardener to take care of their side?”

“No, and you’d think they could afford it! But they expect me to take care of their part too!”

Irene clucked her tongue sympathetically and decided to approach the actual target. Evasively she said, “If her husband is away so much, does she have a lot of friends and relatives visiting?”

The reply was curt and quick. “No.”

There was something. Best to keep dangling the bait. She took a new tack. “But does she have parties occasionally? Otherwise she’d be pretty lonely in this big house, wouldn’t she?”

The neighbor looked uncertain, and Irene thought she sensed some reserve when he replied. “No, there haven’t been any parties all year. The house is empty most of the time. But sometimes she has had . . . visitors.”

“Gentleman visitors?”

A light blush spread over the round cheeks and up toward his forehead. Probably about the person who had been standing behind the curtains and indignantly taking notice of these visits. Those lucky dogs who were allowed to visit the beautiful Fru von Knecht. For his own part it was out of the question, for several reasons. But he could always dream. And enviously keep an eye on those granted access to the beauty.

Irene clarified her question. “Have there been different gentlemen, or perhaps one special gentleman?”

The well-meaning neighbor began to have a vague sense that he was being subjected to a regular questioning, but it was too late to retreat. Once you’ve said A, you have to say B. Self-consciously he stood digging the toe of his worn-out loafer into the soft lawn and muttering indistinctly.

Quickly Irene said, “Excuse me, I didn’t hear you.”

He gave up and puffed, “There used to be various cars that picked her up. Sometimes they stayed overnight. But not very often.”

“How often?”

“Well, maybe ten times.”

If he said ten times, then it was ten. He probably kept track.

“There used to be, you said. Have things been different recently?”

Embarrassed, he twisted his voluminous body before he answered. “Well, yes. Early last fall a red Porsche would come to pick her up. The first few times we didn’t think so much of it, because it was her father-in-law coming to pick her up. We recognized him from the newspapers. But one night he . . . spent the night.”

“When was that?”

“At the end of August, maybe early September. It doesn’t have to mean anything . . . inappropriate. We knew that it was him, Richard von Knecht, and he was her father-in-law, after all. But you start to wonder . . . He always came when his son, Henrik, wasn’t home. And he’s basically never home. But we’ve never seen the mother-in-law there.”

Thunk! Thunk!
Irene’s heart was pounding wildly with excitement. She thought the others must be able to hear it. But the noise of their own hearts must have drowned out the sound, since all five officers were totally focused on the older man. Did he understand what he was saying? Probably. They could tell that he had been thinking about what this might mean and finally was forced to draw the only reasonable conclusion. It
was
something “inappropriate.”

They thanked him for his valuable information and said that they would be in touch to go over things in more detail. As he was about to return to his own house, he suddenly put his chubby hand on Irene’s arm. Embarrassed, he said, “Well . . . excuse me for pointing my rifle at you . . . but it’s not loaded. I couldn’t find the ammunition. But that wasn’t . . . Do you have to tell Fru von Knecht that I was the one who told you this?”

Despite the freezing weather, his forehead was covered by a thin layer of sweat. Irene gave him a few calming pats on the hand, which she hoped would instill trust in him and said in her best official police voice, “Not unless it turns out to be of crucial importance for the investigation. At this point it’s just one of many leads. If necessary, you may be called to testify in court. However, at present there is nothing to suggest it will be necessary. If it is, we’ll let you know in plenty of time.”

Statements that sound official always calm the public. They instill a feeling that the authorities have the situation under control. Which was hardly the case for the three inspectors at the moment. The whole investigation had been turned upside down!

After the neighbor had toddled back to his house, with the barrel of his rifle dragging through the wet lawn, Irene turned to the patrol officers and said, “Stefansson, you and I know each other well, don’t we?”

Hans Stefansson nodded, at the same time giving her a puzzled look.

“Under no circumstances, and I repeat, under
no
circumstances will you and your colleague mention to anyone what this neighbor just told us! You will report precisely what happened out here, but not a word about the conversation. Word of honor!”

She held out her hand and they shook on it. Stefansson’s colleague was a young assistant and he didn’t seem to have understood a thing. But his expression was solemn and serious as he shook Irene’s hand.

The two officers took off in their car, and the three inspectors were left standing in the overgrown yard. They looked at each other but were unable to make real eye contact in the gathering dusk.

It was Tommy who broke the silence. “We have to talk. And eat! It’s almost three-thirty.”

“China House on Södra Vägen?”

“Perfect.”

As if by mutual agreement they didn’t say a word during the ten-minute ride.

THEY WERE THE ONLY customers in the Chinese restaurant, but still picked a booth at the back. They selected “Four Small Dishes” and a large light beer each. Within a few minutes the food arrived. They didn’t start talking until they could see the bottom of their bowls.

Irene began, “Henrik and Charlotte are probably the ones we need to talk to right away, not Sylvia. But it will be difficult, since we only have hearsay to go on.”

Fredrik quickly broke in, “I think that guy Henrik is shady! I’d put money on it that he’s the bomber! He could have easily arranged to get the keys to the garage and the Porsche, and he owns a big, light-colored car with dark windows. He also keeps plastic gas cans in his garage.”

Tommy nodded and said, “I agree with you. There’s a lot pointing to Henrik as the bomber. But why? Why try to blow up your own father? Why would he lure Pirjo over to trip the bomb? And why blow Bobo Torsson sky-high?”

Irene eagerly waved her hands to emphasize her theory. “I think the easiest question to answer is why he lured Pirjo to Berzeliigatan. Everything was turning to shit for him. If he’s the bomber, that is.”

“To shit?”

“Yes. Remember that the bomb was made almost four days before Richard was murdered. If he hadn’t gotten a cold he would have gone down to his office on Monday. But he didn’t. And not on Tuesday either. On Tuesday evening he was murdered. We know that Henrik couldn’t have committed that murder, since he and Sylvia were down on the street when he fell. But Henrik knows that there’s a devil bomb down on Berzeliigatan. It will kill whoever opens the door first. Who is most likely to be that first person?”

He looked at his two colleagues. They were both pictures of total concentration. Tommy answered after a moment, “Sylvia von Knecht. It would obviously be Sylvia, who would go there to inspect her inheritance.”

“Exactly! And Sylvia von Knecht is probably the last person in the world that Henrik would want to kill. As I said before, it was too bad that there wasn’t a back entrance to the apartment. Then he could have gone in the back way and disarmed the bomb. Evidently he didn’t dare even open the door a crack to unhook the wire to the detonator. So instead he chose to sacrifice an unimportant louse. Pirjo.”

Fredrik got excited and leaned over the table, without noticing that he had put his elbow in a bowl with leftover sweet-and-sour sauce. Agitated, he said, “This fits with everything we found out today! Henrik von Knecht knows Pirjo’s hours and knows that she won’t be allowed in by the guys from the lab. So he shadows her and drives up when she’s standing there waiting for the streetcar. Hold on a minute . . .”

He paused to wipe the sauce off his elbow. Absentmindedly he rubbed at the spot on his sweater. Irene was about to tell him to go out to the toilet and rinse out the spot properly. But she managed to stop herself. With his gaze fixed on a far corner of the room Fredrik continued, “How could Henrik von Knecht know that Pirjo was at Molinsgatan? The whole city, except Pirjo, knew that the guy was dead! Wouldn’t it be more logical to assume that she knew he had fallen from the balcony? If so she would have stayed home.”

Both Irene and Tommy nodded. Irene said firmly, “We have to go downtown and talk to the superintendent. It’s probably Henrik we should be watching, not Shorty. Maybe we can get the Narcs to take over the stakeout.”

She didn’t pin great hope on her last remark, but it never hurt to ask. She continued, turning to Fredrik, “Have you guys made up a stakeout schedule for watching Shorty?”

“Yes. Birgitta is there now, until six. Hans Borg takes over and then I arrive at midnight. Jonny is taking Saturday morning. And so on.”

“There wouldn’t be anything wrong with us moving this stakeout to Marstrand, would there? According to Charlotte, Henrik isn’t coming home until around ten o’clock—tomorrow night, that is.”

Tommy sat sipping at his hot coffee. Pensively he said, “Do you think that staking out Henrik will produce anything? He comes home, tired and exhausted from his auction deals. He probably sits down and polishes some priceless trinket. And then he goes to bed. That’s what I think.”

Irene tried to persuade him. “But these are concrete leads in the investigation that we’re following now! We aren’t even sure that Shorty has a direct connection to the case. I propose that we take this up with the superintendent. What do you think about the neighbor’s story? Did Charlotte and Richard have a sexual relationship?”

All three thought about it.

“It seems likely.”

“There’s a lot to indicate it. Especially the times he stayed overnight.”

“At the start of this investigation I would have dismissed such testimony as utterly improbable. But considering what we’ve learned of Richard’s and Charlotte’s personalities over the course of the investigation, I would say that it’s not at all inconceivable!” said Irene.

Fredrik again began showing signs of some excitement, so Irene leaned over and moved the bowl of sauce. Eagerness glinted in his eyes, and he leaned over the table to persuade them.

“That gives Henrik a motive. Jealousy! His own father is fucking his wife! That’s a damned strong motive!”

Something started to stir in the back of Irene’s mind and she managed to pry it loose. “I’m not sure that Henrik is capable of great jealousy. Or any emotions at all. He’s hardly passionate about anything but his relationship to his antiques. But there’s actually another very strong motive. The most ordinary of all—namely money.”