Authors: Helene Tursten
She sheltered from the rain in the car to dial Superintendent Andersson’s number. Ten rings, no answer. She dialed Central Station and reached Håkan Lund again. There was nothing for it but to tell Lund that she’d be on call the rest of the night. Birgitta Moberg was scheduled on Sunday. Then everything would be back to normal.
IRENE’S PHONE RANG
at 2:25
A.M
. She was awake immediately and quickly threw on her clothes. Krister did not stir at the sound. He’d just gotten home one hour earlier and was in deep sleep.
This new case was not pleasant, but not unusual. A man had beaten his wife to death in their Guldheden apartment building.
When Irene arrived, the husband had already been taken down to the station. The woman was lying in a pool of blood in the bathroom. Her face was misshapen after a beating gone berserk. The technician was already in the middle of investigating the crime scene. Irene didn’t recognize him and decided to wait with her questions until he was finished.
In the meantime she did a hasty reconnaissance. It was a five-room apartment, complete with kitchen. The place was tidy and well cared for. In the largest bedroom, there was a huge, unmade king-size bed. The sheets were rose-colored. There was a great deal of blood there as well. It appeared that the beating had begun in the bedroom and culminated in the bathroom. In the photo of the woman on the dresser, she seemed young and beautiful, and she was smiling at the photographer.
The technician appeared to be wrapping it up. He stood and wearily pulled off his gloves as Irene walked toward him with a friendly nod.
“Hi, Irene Huss. Inspector in the Violent Crime Division.”
The young man looked at her gloomily from behind glasses as thick as bottle bottoms. Maybe it was his thin black hair, parted on the side, that made Irene think of a vampire. He was unusually tall, thin, and sallow besides.
“Hi, I’m Erik Larsson, Åhlén’s substitute.”
“How do you think this happened?”
“Major trauma to the head and neck. The back of the skull is broken. The victim reeks of alcohol, as does the perpetrator.”
“Where’s the patrol car?”
“They got another call. I told them they could take off, since you were on the way. This lady and I could take care of ourselves in the meantime.”
Maybe he said it as a joke, but Irene still shivered. Where had Svante Malm dug up this guy? Probably in the nearest crypt.
The men from the funeral home arrived. They packed up the body and then drove off to Pathology. Irene left the technician in the apartment. As she walked into the hallway, a neighbor stuck her head out from her front door.
“So did he finally beat her to death?”
It was five in the morning, and the woman was dressed in sweats and a sloppy cotton sweater. Her hair was greasy and gathered in a ponytail. Even though she wasn’t as tall as Irene, the woman gave the impression of being fairly large. She probably weighed over two hundred pounds. Irene’s experience told her she’d found a witness eager to talk. She showed the woman her police ID by waving it just like they did in Hollywood.
“Morning. Criminal Inspector Huss here. May I come in and have a little chat with you, as long as you’re awake?”
“Sure.” The woman couldn’t hide her pleasure and eagerly backed up to let Irene come through the door.
Irene automatically let her eyes sweep through the room. She concluded that this was a woman who really needed a cleaning service. The hat rack was covered in clothes, and the floor beneath it was layered in shoes of various styles. Irene’s feet crunched crumbs and other debris as she walked over the floor. In the minimal kitchen, the counter was piled with dirty dishes, which she thought might have been the source of the odd smell in the place. However, when Irene entered the living room, the smell’s origin was clear. It had probably not been cleaned in a year or more, and cats filled the place. There were at least nine that she could count. Unconsciously, she touched the surgical tape beneath her chin.
“Please go ahead and sit down,” the woman said. She gestured toward a worn-out armchair of an indistinct gray, its seat cushion covered with stains.
Irene gave the cat colony a mistrustful look. “No, thanks. I’m not going to stay long. Excuse me, I didn’t catch your name.”
“I probably didn’t say it. I’m Johanna Storm.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Profession?”
“I’m studying psychology. I have one year left until I take my qualifying exams.”
Mostly for appearance’s sake, Irene wrote the details in her notebook. “What did you mean by asking if he’d finally beaten her to death?”
“Just what I said.”
“So he often beat her up?”
“Yup.”
“How often?”
“Since Christmas it’s been every weekend. Maria—the wife, that is—is Polish and can’t speak Swedish.”
“When did she come to Sweden?”
Johanna thought about it. “I don’t know. She moved in with Schölenhielm last summer. But she’s probably less than half his age. What a horny old goat!”
“Were you the person who called the police?”
“Yes, because it was worse than usual this time. The police have been here lots of times before. At least five or six. This time she screamed so horribly, one long scream, and then everything went totally silent. My cats got really nervous, and I just knew something terrible had happened.”
“That was right before two?”
“Right.”
Johanna Storm didn’t know much more about the couple in the neighboring apartment than that Maria had stayed at home during the day and Schölenhielm was a used-car salesman. “Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked.
Irene declined politely. Although she’d recently had her tetanus vaccination, she doubted she would survive drinking tea from one of Johanna’s mugs.
IT WAS ALMOST
eight o’clock when Birgitta stuck her head through the door of Irene’s office. “Hi, what are you doing here?”
Irene explained the unfortunate circumstances that had brought her to the office that Sunday morning. When she mentioned Hans Borg’s name, Birgitta’s face clouded over.
“Andersson is going to let him off. He called me yesterday and said he and Bergström had decided to let Hannu Rauhala and Borg switch jobs. On paper, Borg is still with us in the Violent Crime Division. But the exchange is made already.”
“So no internal investigation?”
“Nope. The bosses say that there’s already too much bad publicity. It wouldn’t look good after the incident with the woman walking her dog in Stockholm.”
“You and I both know that similar incidents happen all the time that never get reported to the media.”
“That’s exactly what I told Andersson. Unfortunately, I got really upset and said a few things I probably shouldn’t have. But I was so damned disappointed. Andersson told me to think everything over. If I argued too much, he’d consider moving me, too.”
Irene contemplated her colleague. “So what you’re after is revenge on Hans Borg?”
“Of course! He made my life hellish for years.”
“Then you want to move to another department?”
Birgitta stiffened. “No.”
“Well, then listen to me. Forget fantasies of revenge. Of course what Borg did was disgusting. But if bosses feel backed into a corner, they’ll lash out. At you. If you keep pushing, you’ll be transferred, and there will be a write-up in your file about how uncooperative you are to work with. They’ll bury you in the bowels of the department without a chance of any career advancement.”
Birgitta didn’t answer.
Irene continued calmly. “This whole time you’ve kept your cool. Wait it out. Don’t show your feelings.”
“So if they smell blood, they’ll attack, is that what you’re saying?”
“Something like that.”
The atmosphere became tense. Finally Birgitta broke the silence. “Finish your report on the Guldheden incident, and I’ll take over.”
“I’ve already written up my questioning of the neighbor, Johanna Storm, as well as my report of the crime scene.”
Irene pulled the disc from the computer and handed it to Birgitta, who took it without looking at her. With a curt “Thanks,” she disappeared into the hallway.
THE HOUSE WAS
empty and silent. Krister had taken Sammie for a walk. The rain poured down in sheets outside so solid it looked like laundry hanging between the trees. Irene gratefully crawled into bed at ten in the morning. Before she fell asleep, she set her alarm for two hours later.
WHEN
I
RENE WOKE
up, Krister had already left for Glady’s and Sammie was in his dog bed, his paws in the air, almost dry from his walk in the rain. On the other hand, Krister had gotten his half of the bedsheets so wet they needed to be hung up to dry so that they would no longer be damp that evening. Irene felt as if she were hungover, an effect of sleeping during the day. A long shower alternating between hot and cold water helped her wake up. Since her mother’s lunches tended to be filling, all she needed was a cup of tea and a hardtack sandwich for breakfast before she headed out to teach the women’s class. Sammie had to come, too, and wait in the car. He was so thrilled to realize he was going for a car ride that he hardly took the time to lift his leg on the spirea bushes along the garage wall. In Sammie’s mind the car was his, though he was generous enough to let his masters drive him.
IRENE’S MOTHER, GERD
, still lived in the apartment she and her husband had bought when Irene was born. The three-story brick town houses lining the hill along Doktor Bex Gata always brought back memories of Irene’s childhood. In those days people thought of it as the outer suburbs, but now Guldheden was considered centrally located.
The wind blew stronger up here, and the rain came down harder. Even Sammie didn’t think a walk would be pleasurable, and he hurried up the stairs.
“Hello. My, how late you are. I called, but there was no answer, so I thought that you were already on your way here. But when you still hadn’t arrived, I thought something might have happened and—”
“Hi, Mama. Do you have a towel for Sammie? I forgot to bring one.” Irene said this to stop her mother’s habitual tirade. Maybe she was just lonely? No, Irene told herself, in order to placate her conscience. Her mother had always found ways to keep active.
Lunch was a wonderful flounder gratin with heaps of fresh shrimp, and they both enjoyed it. They were drinking coffee afterward when her mother suddenly said, “In three weeks I’m traveling to the Canary Islands.”
This took Irene totally by surprise, but she managed to stammer, “How … nice.” As far as she knew, her mother had never traveled to anywhere but Denmark.
Gerd took a deep breath and looked her only daughter in the eye. “We, I should say. Sture and me.”
“Who’s Sture?”
“A man I met at the tea dances. You know I go there every Thursday.”
“How long … have you …?”
“Known each other? Half a year. He started coming to the dances last fall. His wife died two years ago, and he had a tough first year, but then he began to go out and meet other people. And then we met at the dances … and, so … that’s how we met.”
“But why didn’t you say anything to me? He could have joined us at Christmas—”
“Last Christmas he was with his daughter in Örebro and I was with you. And New Year’s Eve he was with his son here in Göteborg. But we had a nice Twelfth Night together.”
Her mother’s cheeks turned pink. It was a strange feeling to be sitting across the table from her newly in love, almost-seventy-year-old mother.
“How old is he?” Irene asked.
“Seventy-two. He’s healthy and active. Though he does have a little asthma.”
“What’s his full name?”
“Sture Hagman. He’s a retired postmaster. He lives on Syster Emmas Gata. He sold his house after his wife passed.”
Now it was almost time to pick up the twins. Irene hugged her mother and wished her happiness with Sture.
IT WAS HARD
to find parking. Irene had to circle around for quite some time before she found a spot. Once they entered the elegant train station, Sammie’s little terrier heart rejoiced at all the new people. The hissing, braking train inspired him to go for much bigger game than his usual mopeds. Irene scolded him and tried to calm him.
The train from Karlstad pulled in to the station, and Katarina and Jenny were the first ones out the door. Sammie was beside himself with joy and had no intention of listening to nonsense about behaving.
The girls looked happy and healthy. After hugs and kisses, they began to tell their stories about what had happened on vacation, speaking over each other. Irene listened with half an ear, her attention drawn to the headlines posted on the Press-byrån newspaper kiosk.
WHY WAS NURSE MARIANNE MURDERED? WHERE IS NURSE LINDA? TIME IS RUNNING OUT!
In her own mind, Irene added a few more headlines:
WHERE IS MAMA BIRD, AKA GUNNELA HÄGG
?
AND WHY DID THE GARDEN SHED BURN
? And another one:
WHY DID NURSE MARIANNE HAVE NURSE LINDA’S DAY PLANNER IN HER POCKET
? Irene had the strong feeling that she did not really want to know the answer to that last question. But of course she did. That was part of the job.
Chapter 11
T
HE RAIN STOPPED
during the night, and the streets were slick. The temperature was just below freezing, and the traffic was as bad as it usually was during the winter in Göteborg.
Irene was late for “morning prayer,” but as it turned out, everyone else was late as well. Svante Malm was the last one to come through the door. An expression of relief passed over the superintendent’s face when he saw Malm. Technical investigations ought to be finished by now; maybe there would be some answers.
“Good morning, everyone!” Andersson began heartily. Irene understood this to be an attempt to energize the group, but both Birgitta and Jonny seemed to need more than a cheerful greeting. Jonny’s pale appearance probably was the result of having the stomach flu, but Birgitta’s face was also pinched and white. Maybe she was just tired from the weekend shift, but Irene feared she was holding in real anger.
However, the superintendent maintained his cheerful demeanor. “Hans Borg has asked to transfer to a less challenging job for now, so he’s moving to general and Hannu is joining us.”
Irene, Birgitta, and Hannu were the only ones who showed no surprise. Andersson ignored the shocked murmurs and plowed on. “Anything turn up on Linda Svensson?”
Fredrik and Birgitta shook their heads. “No one’s seen her since she left work last week,” Fredrik said. “We have only her neighbor’s testimony that Linda left her apartment at eleven-thirty that night, a strange time to leave on a Monday. There’s nothing to go on.”
“She certainly wasn’t dressed for a bar,” Birgitta added. “According to Pontus, the only things missing from her apartment are a red down coat, black stretch jeans, and a light blue angora sweater, her favorite one. But she’d never wear that sweater to a bar. She never wanted it to smell of smoke.”
“Angora sweater. Belker … she’s a cat lover,” Irene said, apropos of nothing.
“That could be important. She loves Belker and would never leave him without food,” Birgitta said. “The passport found in her apartment indicates that she’s not abroad. And if she’d left voluntarily, she certainly would have arranged a cat-sitter. Pontus Olofsson said this about her a number of times. And I think he’s right.”
Andersson looked at Birgitta a moment. “So you really feel she didn’t leave on her own.”
“No, she didn’t.”
Silence fell over the group. To everyone’s surprise, Hannu was the person who broke it. “I’ve made the rounds this weekend, and no one has seen her.”
Irene almost asked if he’d been trolling his underground Finnish contacts, but she managed to stop herself in time. The man had amazing sources. Irene remembered the first time that they’d worked together. Hannu was able to flush out things no one else could find. Whether all his methods were legal, she couldn’t say. At times she wished she knew, but at other times she suspected it was better not to know.
“I looked into Niklas Alexandersson. His alibi checks out. Three of his pals as well as employees at the Gomorrah Club saw him until two in the morning,” Hannu continued.
“Damn, he would have been perfect. Sneaking around the hospital in a nurse’s dress and murdering his rival,” muttered Andersson.
“Any clues in Linda’s day planner?” asked Birgitta.
Andersson shook his head. “No, I didn’t find anything. Maybe you should look through it again, though. A woman might see something a guy wouldn’t.”
He pushed the day planner across the table toward Birgitta. Without looking at her boss, Birgitta took it.
“I have a question. Where is Marianne’s pocket flashlight?” Irene asked.
All the others looked at her in surprise.
“I’ve been turning it over in my mind. Marianne was a night nurse. All the night nurses carry a pocket flashlight. But Marianne didn’t have one. All she had was Linda’s day planner.”
“It wasn’t in the ICU?” Birgitta asked.
“No. I asked about it when I was there getting my scratches checked out. No one had seen Marianne’s pocket flashlight.”
“Strange. And the thing with Linda’s day planner is also weird. Maybe Linda lost it before she went home and Marianne found it,” Birgitta mused.
“Maybe Linda was biking back to pick it up,” Fredrik suggested.
“Not in the middle of the night,” Irene pointed out. “She’d have called and asked Marianne to put it somewhere where she could find it the next afternoon.”
“Maybe there was something really important in it, so she needed it right away.” They could hear that Birgitta didn’t believe her own suggestion, but it wasn’t much worse than any of the others.
The superintendent broke in. “If she hasn’t left of her own free will, we must consider she might be dead. If so, where would her body be?”
“Perhaps she didn’t get far,” Jonny said.
“I agree,” Fredrik said. “The farther she biked, the more chances that someone would have seen her.”
“It was late, almost midnight, and at least ten degrees below freezing. So there probably weren’t many people outside,” said Irene.
“Okay. We’ll keep on pounding away on Linda’s disappearance. Hannu, Birgitta, Fredrik, and Jonny will continue that search.” Andersson slammed his palm onto the table’s surface so hard that his mug leaped and spilled coffee on the table—which didn’t matter much, since it was marbled in old stains already.
“Irene and Tommy, what’s up with the bird lady?”
Tommy told what they’d found out about Mama Bird. Then Hannu asked to take the floor again.
“I’ve contacted Lillhagen. Gunnela Hägg had been in care there since 1968, when her alcoholic mother died. The death of her mother triggered a psychosis. Schizophrenia, in her case.”
“How old was Gunnela when that happened?” Irene asked.
“Eighteen.”
Irene was surprised to hear that Gunnela was only forty-seven years old. Most of the witnesses that they’d questioned seemed to think that she was closer to sixty. Life had definitely not been kind to tiny Mama Bird.
“During the seventies and eighties, they’d tried to get her back into society, but were unsuccessful. She was just too sick.”
“Any support from the family?”
“No. Her father and one of her brothers are deceased. Gunnela’s younger brother works as a businessman and wants nothing to do with her. I called him, but he got angry. His family doesn’t even know that she exists.” Hannu’s calm face, with its high cheekbones and icy eyes, did not reveal his personal feelings, but a slight sharpening of his tone perhaps indicated some compassion for poor, disowned Mama Bird.
“When did she leave Lillhagen for good?” asked Tommy.
“She moved to an apartment on Siriusgatan in the fall of ’95. After a while a group of drug addicts took that over and she was booted out.”
“Where’s she been living since then?” Irene asked.
Hannu shrugged.
“I see. At least we know that she found shelter in the garden shed next to Löwander Hospital last Christmas. She was there as late as Tuesday night. That’s almost a week ago now. Where is she? Was she the person who set fire to the garden shed Saturday night?”
Irene turned to Svante Malm in expectation.
Svante’s freckled horse face broke into a smile. “I have no idea where she is. That’s your job. The fire inspectors took a look at the shed yesterday. It was a good thing that the patrol caught it before the fire could spread. Otherwise the hospital could have burned down. The fire was definitely arson. It started in a corner heaped with rags. The technicians found a charred candlestick. The person who started the fire probably lit a candle and then held some flammable like paper right next to it, counting on the fact that the fire would spread to the rags.”
“No sign of gasoline?”
“None. Underneath it all was an old sleeping bag covered with some kind of cotton blanket. Over that was a blackened layer of thin wool. And this.”
From a pocket in his jacket, Malm pulled out a murky plastic bag, within which was a flower shape with four visible blooms. Malm turned the bag over to show the soot cleaned away there. The silver metal inside contrasted brightly with the dark soot.
“This is a nurse’s brooch.”
They could hear Andersson inhale sharply; color flared up in his face. Malm did not notice. “Yes, I’ve talked to the school of nursing. This brooch is from the H.M. Queen Sophia University College of Nursing in Stockholm.”
Malm noticed the odd looks on the faces around him, and his proud smile faded. Andersson seemed dangerously close to having a stroke. Malm sat quietly, wondering what kind of apoplexy this was and whether it would pass.
Andersson looked down at the table and said in a controlled voice, “Excuse me, Svante, it’s just that damned ghost coming to haunt us again.”
Malm knew enough not to ask any questions. He just nodded. “The woolen cloth on top of the rag heap is extremely interesting. I studied it all yesterday afternoon. The fibers we found on Marianne’s smock, as well as the ones that Tommy found on a pine branch, came from this wool, which seems to be part of a dress. We found buttons and what was apparently a belt made from the same fabric.”
If Malm had imagined that this information would have been accepted calmly, he now could see he was wrong. The officers around the table were leaping to their feet. Irene stared at the technician. Strange. Now we’re back to where we started. Löwander Hospital and Nurse Tekla’s ghost.”
“I’m a scientist. I would like to point out that my results indicate a living person. The talc on the victim’s underarms reveals that the murderer wore gloves. Threads and fabric remnants indicate a dress. The brooch is real. And what’s more, so is the fact of Marianne’s murder,” Malm said.
“Thank you for bringing us all back to earth,” the superintendent said darkly. He gave Irene a disgusted look. “From now on, no more talk of ghosts.”
Irene had not meant she really believed that it was a ghost, but she let it go. Instead she said, “I think Löwander Hospital is at the center of all this. Both Marianne’s murder and the disappearances of Linda and Mama Bird. The fire … it all goes back to the hospital.”
“Then I suggest you go back there and poke around some more. Tommy can keep searching for the bird lady. God knows whether she’s even important in this investigation.” The superintendent’s voice was sour.
But without knowing why, Irene believed in her bones that Gunnela Hägg was extremely important.
IRENE SAT AT
her desk and stared, unfocused, at her computer screen. Absentmindedly, she sipped her fourth cup of coffee of the morning. The caffeine was beginning to have the desired effect; her thoughts were clearing. She suddenly thought of something no one else had. Marianne Svärd was not the only person who had died that night. Nils Peterzén had been a fairly wealthy man. Perhaps the old banker was the intended victim and Marianne Svärd had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Irene turned the idea over in her head. She found Doris Peterzén’s telephone number, lifted the receiver, and dialed. The line was picked up after two rings.
“Doris Peterzén.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Peterzén. It’s Criminal Inspector Irene Huss. We met after the sad event concerning your husband.”
“Good morning. Of course, I remember you. I’m sorry I was such a mess … but it was just too much. All of it.”
“I understand. I wonder if you have time to talk with me for a little while today.”
“Ye-ess … Göran and I are invited to lunch at one, but I could meet you before then.”
“Is Göran coming to you?”
“Yes, an hour before we have to leave. There are still many details we have to decide on about the funeral. Maybe that’s just as well. This way I don’t have to think so much.”
Irene looked at the clock. “I can be at your home in half an hour. Would eleven work for you?”
“That’ll be fine.”
They said their good-byes and hung up. Irene thought through the scenario again: The murderer sneaks into Löwander Hospital, dressed as the hospital ghost. He is just about to kill Nils Peterzén when Marianne Svärd catches sight of him. The killer has to get rid of the night nurse because she would be able to recognize him. Perhaps she already knew him! Old bankers. A great deal of money. Often the sole motive for murder.
THE PETERZÉN HOME
was one of the largest and oldest houses in the area. It had been built on top of a hill and had a wonderful view of the ocean. It was somberly whitewashed, the black tile roof coated with a shimmer of frost. The pale sun did its best to thaw out the icy shell encasing Göteborg. At least it had warmed the air to above freezing.
Irene struck the door hard with the bronze lion’s-head knocker. The heavy oak door was opened by Doris Peterzén. She looked wonderful. Her silver-blond hair was combed into a thick pageboy. A necklace glimmered thinly over beautifully contoured décolletage. Her dove gray Thai silk dress matched her eyes perfectly.
Irene suddenly realized where she’d seen Doris Peterzén before. “It was kind of you to make time to speak to me.”
“Come on in. I wasn’t kind. I am angry. I want to know more about that ghost they wrote about in the newspaper. Was it really the person who sabotaged the electricity and stopped Nils’s respirator?”
Doris moved aside and let Irene in. She hung up Irene’s old, ratty leather coat next to her own beige mink without any reaction. Irene pulled off her brown boots furtively. They’d never looked worse than compared to Doris Peterzén’s elegant leather stiletto boots.
Her hostess walked before her through an airy hallway and into an enormous reception room, the whole west wall of which was made of glass and faced the ocean. Along one of the shorter walls was a lengthy dinner table surrounded by an incredible number of chairs. The view from the room was fantastic. Irene was taken by the bleak February sunshine glittering on the ocean’s lead-colored waves.
Doris Peterzén seemed used to the view. Without a single glance out the window, she invited Irene to sit down. They sat together on an oxblood sofa group of English design, less comfortable to sit on than to look at.
“Would you like a cigarette? We don’t have to be so formal.”