Helene Tursten - Detective Inspector Huss

One look at Charlotte was enough. Her face was a clay mask. It was inconceivable that it could ever have been considered beautiful. Her features were distorted with loathing. Half choking she said, “I was forced to do it. I didn’t have any choice. I owed Bobo money. A lot of money.”

“Drug debts?”

“Yes. I thought I could get a little money over at the car dealership, but Henrik managed it all through his account. I was desperate. I didn’t have a cent.”

“Didn’t you get money from Henrik? For the household, I mean.”

“Sure. Ten thousand kronor a month. But it wasn’t enough. At first I had my own money, from my modeling days. But that ran out. Henrik took care of all the payments for the house and the cars and that was all.”

“How much did you owe Bobo?”

“Eighty-five thousand.”

“Cocaine and amphetamines, I suppose.”

Charlotte nodded.

“How did Bobo find out about your relationship with Richard?”

“He met me a few times on the stairs, on the way to or from Richard’s apartment. And at a models’ party in September he asked me straight out. And I was dumb enough to tell him. I’d snorted a lot and was babbling.”

“And so he got the bright idea to blackmail Richard by taking pictures of the two of you.”

“I didn’t want to. He forced me. And I owed him money.”

“But you did it. Tell us.”

“I actually liked Richard. At first. He was cool and loved sex. Henrik didn’t at all. The past year we’ve hardly touched each other. He’s. . was abnormal, I think. And boring. Boring in bed.”

“But Richard wasn’t?”

“No.”

“How and when did your relationship with Richard start?”

“Last summer. At the end of July. Sylvia had gone to Finland to visit her mother and sister. Henrik was at Marstrand, of course. Richard called and asked me out to dinner. There was nothing strange about it. But it turned into something more. We suited each other, in some way.”

“How did you manage to get the pictures taken?”

“We used to meet in Richard’s office apartment. But we usually did it in the bedroom. It was a great room for. . that. The only time I managed to lure him into the living room, he had to put on that damned hood! Or ‘Roman helmet’ as he called it. He called himself ‘the Roman commander’ when he had it on. Ha!”

“And that’s why he refused to pay when he saw the photos?”

“Yes. He said that Bobo could never prove who the man in the pictures was. Laughed right in his face. Although it was over the phone, of course.”

“And then you two got the brilliant idea of blackmailing your husband for the money instead?”

“I didn’t know anything about it. It was all Bobo’s idea. He didn’t mention anything to me.”

“When did you find out that Henrik had seen the pictures?”

She put her hands to her face and whimpered. When she took them away there were no tears. Tonelessly she said, “The Thursday before Richard and Sylvia’s anniversary party. The Thirty Years’ War, you know. All the men said that in their dinner speeches. It was the worst thing I’ve ever been to. Henrik knew that Richard and I. . and then to sit there and pretend that nothing was going on.”

“What happened on Friday?”

“Henrik drove up to Marstrand. In the morning.”

“And you went to the gynecologist, to get confirmation of your pregnancy?”

“No. I knew that I was pregnant two weeks earlier. But I didn’t know what to do about it.”

“Whether you should keep the child?”

“Exactly.”

“Let’s return to Henrik and Friday. When did you see him again?”

“On Saturday afternoon. We were supposed to go to the party that evening.”

“Had he taken the keys from you on Friday?”

“The keys?”

“The keys you took from Richard, after his sixtieth birthday party at Marstrand. Arja stated that she saw you coming out of his bedroom, with his key case in your hand.”

“That fucking dyke!”

She slumped down in her chair and said, resigned, “Richard didn’t want to give me any keys of my own, but I saw them lying on the nightstand that morning. I figured it might be good to have them.”

“Did Henrik take the keys from you on Friday?”

“Yes, I discovered that the keys were missing on Friday. I usually kept them in my handbag, but they were gone on Friday evening. I immediately suspected it was Henrik who took them. On Sunday I found them again.”

“In your handbag?”

“Yes, he had put them back.”

“When did you find out he really had taken them? Or did you just have a hunch?”

“No, I knew. He wanted to have them back on Wednesday morning, the day after Richard died. He just took them out of my handbag, dangled them in the air, and said something like, ‘You’ve never seen these keys! Get it?’ And then he left.”

“Do you know what he did with them then?”

She nodded. “Yes. He gave them to that cleaning woman. The Finn. I didn’t figure it out until Bobo was blown up too. But I had nothing to do with those bombs. It was Henrik. He was jealous of Richard. He wanted revenge. And he refused to pay for the pictures.”

“What about your baby, Charlotte? Who’s the father?”

“Henrik.”

“No. We’ve learned that he became sterile after having the mumps. And don’t forget that we have him up in Pathology. We’ve already asked the postmortem examiner to check to make sure.”

She had fought as hard as she could but finally collapsed over the table and buried her head in her arms. For a long time she stayed like that, without moving. Once again Irene noticed that there was no trace of tears when she showed her face again.

Charlotte said harshly, “It was Richard’s. The child is a genuine von Knecht.”

“So that’s why Henrik chose to kill his father and not you. Isn’t that right? This was his chance to become a father, as biologically close to the real thing as he could get. Father to his own half sibling. The continuation of the line would be secured. But he wanted revenge.”

“Yes.” She answered in a whisper.

In a low, neutral voice Irene asked, “You knew nothing about the bomb on Berzeliigatan?”

“No.”

“That’s why you decided to murder Richard yourself. Isn’t that true?”

“No! That’s not true! I have an alibi! I was out picking up my car from the dealer.”

“That alibi has been cracked wide open. Your little cowboy from Mölndal, Robert Skytter, told us exactly what happened. How you missed the appointment on Monday. Suddenly you called on Tuesday and demanded that he had to be the one to handle the delivery of your new car. Then the cunning seduction; naked under your coat, wearing only stockings and high-heeled shoes. Not a very original move, but it worked on a young man like Robert.”

“But the time. I could never have made it back in twenty or twentyfive minutes max.”

“No. But in forty or forty-five, yes. You gained fifteen minutes with that remark, ‘Oh, it’s the five o’clock news already! I have to run!’ And little Robbie was probably still giddy from fucking in the Ford, so he didn’t react. Clever. But you made a mistake.” Irene paused.

Again Charlotte’s eyes were fixed on her lips; she was incapable of tearing her gaze away. A barely audible whisper, “What kind of mistake?”

“There isn’t any five o’clock news on the radio. Today’s Echo at a Quarter to Five is what it’s called. Why do you think that is?”

Charlotte’s voice failed her when she replied, “It’s on at quarter to five?”

She was sitting erect, with her arms hanging down at her sides and her eyes fixed on Irene’s face. She knew it was over.