The Fire Dance (33 page)

“So, do you believe she became mentally ill shortly before her death?” asked Irene.

“Her actions just before her death indicate some kind of paranoia.”

“Could Frej have become infected as well?”

“No, that’s not how it works. It’s a complicated process. Frej seems to have had a strong dependent relationship with his sister. Perhaps he has some kind of guilt complex because his sister had to bear the suspicion for the arson he’d started. He also had guilty feelings concerning his father’s death. These are heavy things to deal with at such a young age. The boy should have had help fifteen years ago.”

“Do you think he will be sent to a mental health institution instead of jail?” asked Andersson.

“I can’t say right now. Perhaps he’ll serve time in jail for arson or manslaughter or both. That will be judicial hairsplitting. His sister died from the fire. The autopsy showed she was still breathing when it started, even if she was unconscious from an extreme overdose of opiates, including both the pills and the suppositories.”

“What’s a suppository?” asked the superintendent.

“It’s medicine that is inserted into the anal cavity. The medicine is absorbed more quickly that way. She’d taken the last of the pills and the suppository at the same time, and she took too much. A serious and often fatal side effect of an overdose is that breathing is suppressed. The part of the brain that regulates breathing is paralyzed. The person, quite simply, stops breathing. Before death arrives, the breathing is so shallow that even a doctor can have difficulty determining if the patient is still alive. Sophie had a high concentration of opiates in her body, and she would have probably died of the overdose before the fire took her life.”

Andersson sat quietly for a long time. Finally, he gave a heavy sigh and said, “So, we’ve spent a great deal of time and resources investigating what we thought was premeditated murder, and it’s really accidental manslaughter we’re dealing with.”

“So it seems,” the psychiatrist agreed. After a moment, he
added, “Unfortunate circumstances. Unhappy people in an unhappy family.”

Silence hovered over the room again. The forensic psychiatrist took off his reading glasses, and said, “Well, what do you say we go get a cup of coffee?”

“T
HE DOCTOR SAYS
I shouldn’t start working again until after Christmas,” Krister sighed as he sank into the sofa.

“You should listen to the doctor’s orders,” Irene replied.

“How can I? Last weekend we had the first Christmas smorgasbord! It’ll be fully packed between now and New Year’s Eve! I have to be at my station!”

“You often tell me that no one is irreplaceable.”

As she said that, she realized it was the wrong thing to say. Krister’s face darkened as if he were angry enough to hit her.

“You’re one to talk! You’re never home!” He jumped up from the sofa and headed to the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

Irene sat helplessly on the sofa. What had happened to her kind husband who was almost never angry? He’d rarely raised his voice and hardly complained at all—what happened to the man who loved his family and his job?

K
RISTER DECIDED TO
go ahead and take the medicine the doctor had prescribed. He didn’t like it. He finally began to realize that he really did need to rest. He’d been working much too hard all through the fall. To tell the truth, he’d been working much too much for the past few years. He’d been under too much stress. He still did not remember what had happened during the hours he’d suffered amnesia.

On New Year’s Day, he and Irene were sitting and drinking coffee. Krister was dipping the last saffron bun of the season into his coffee and eating it with great enjoyment. Irene had already been outside with Sammie and was warming her hands over her coffee cup. Both jumped when the phone rang, disturbing their holiday peace.

Krister said, “Don’t get up. I’ll get it.”

He walked into the hallway. After a few minutes, Irene realized he was talking to his cousin Inga-Maja from Arvika. They talked for a long time. Irene could hear Krister say the words “burned out” over and over.

When Krister returned to the kitchen, he was chuckling to himself. “That was Inga-Maja. She was telling me about two of her colleagues from work, who had been hospitalized because they were burned out from working too much. Apparently, I’m not the only person who suffers from it. But you know what the people from Arvika call it? They don’t say ‘burned out.’ Do you know what they say?”

He started to chortle again and looked teasingly at Irene. She shook her head.

“No, what do they say in Arvika?”

Krister spoke in a broad Värmland accent as he said, “There are many folks these days who have all burned up!”

Irene smiled, although she realized that she and her husband were thinking of different things. In her mind, she saw the heart-shaped face of a young girl, whose deep brown eyes were looking right into hers. Around the girl’s serious mouth, a smile began to play, and her eyes began to shine. Then the picture began to fade. Irene understood that it would be the last time she saw it.

“All burned up,” she said.

F
LORIAN
M
ONTOYO, THE
Head of Instruction at the Ballet Academy of Gothenburg, who guided me around the institution and informed me of the latest trends in the instruction of dance.

Tuula Dajén, my friend of many years. She is also a teacher as well as a trained dancer and choreographer. For the past few years, she has directed many cultural events and is now a cultural administrator. She founded the Ballet School of Sunne in 1980, which has graduated a number of professional dancers over the years. Her abilities and enthusiasm inspired my daughter’s interest in dance. During the decade when my daughter studied it, I also learned a great deal about the world of dance.

Maina Sahlman, Detective Inspector in Göteborg, who has given me a great deal of valuable assistance, both with this book and with
The Glass Devil
(2002). I often say she is the template for Irene Huss, though we didn’t actually meet until I was researching the fourth book in the series …

As usual, I have used a great deal of artistic license when describing the geography of Göteborg. I don’t make my stories fit the real environment, but the environment must fit my story. None of the characters in this book are knowingly drawn from real life.

Helene Tursten