Helene Tursten - Detective Inspector Huss

Krister was in a teasing mood. “If he was burned up, they couldn’t have found him, could they?”

“Ha ha. Very funny. Don’t be such a konk,” was his daughter’s comment.

Krister looked deflated. Irene rejoiced to the depths of her black soul at his confusion. He obviously didn’t know what a “konk” was, but didn’t want to ask Katarina and then reveal that he wasn’t up on the latest teenage slang. He raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Irene, who merely smiled sweetly. With her fangs bared.

She turned to Katarina. “No, I never saw the guy who died in the fire. Thank God! What do you mean, Jenny’s sick?”

“You’ll have to ask her. Not me. I’m fine!” Katarina gave her a fierce glare. “Just one of those. .”

Irene sighed. And decided to change her tactics. It wasn’t good to be at odds with the whole world. In a weary tone she said, “It must have been last night that gave me the willies. I went out for a walk with Sammie right after ten. I don’t think we were out for more than half an hour. When I came around the garage Sammie jumped at somebody slipping behind the corner. I almost had a heart attack, I was so scared! It was Jenny. If I hadn’t had the dog with me, I never would have seen her. But of course he knew her scent from far away.”

Krister turned at once to Katarina. “What was she doing out at ten-thirty on a school night? Katarina!”

She was staring hard at the newspaper and pretending not to hear. But two pairs of staring parental eyes are hard to ignore. Finally she had to answer. “She was out playing. With the band,” she said sullenly.

Irene sighed again. “Yes, that’s what she told me too. But she has a big hickey on her neck. And she won’t say who gave it to her.”

Katarina sprang up, flinging the paper away. “That’s her own damned business!” Furious, she stomped out of the kitchen.

Krister’s playful teasing mood vanished instantly. He gave Irene a serious look. “Forgive me, but I didn’t know anything about this. You were all asleep when I came home at midnight.”

“Exhaustion. Exhaustion pure and simple.”

“Irene, I’ll go up and talk to Jenny. Eat your breakfast in peace and quiet.”

With a sob in her throat she threw her arms around him. She felt a deep gratitude to fate or to whoever it might be who had given her such a wonderful husband. She herself was a whining wife and bad mother who couldn’t handle a job, husband, home, and children. And a dog, she was reminded when Sammie’s ruffled mustaches appeared in the doorway.

“HELLO! DOES anyone know where Hannu Rauhala is? He’s got a call from Stockholm.”

Irene gave a start. Stockholm! It must be the inspector Hannu knew. She dashed for the intercom.

“Hello! Irene here. Switch it over to me. Hannu asked me to handle this matter.”

Not exactly true, but she didn’t have time to be entirely truthful. While she was trying to pull off her jacket, the phone started ringing insistently. Breathlessly she lunged for the receiver, with one arm still in her sleeve.

“Inspector Irene Huss.”

“Hi, Veiko Fors, Stockholm Crime Police. I’m looking for Hannu.”

“I know. We’re both working on this case. We’re understaffed so Hannu asked me to take your call today. He’s out searching for a material witness who disappeared.”

“If Hannu is on the job, you’ll have that witness pretty soon.”

There wasn’t a trace of Finnish intonation in Veiko Fors’s voice. He actually sounded like a guy from the south side of Stockholm.

“Yes, he’s a dynamo, all right. The von Knecht case has just been expanded, as you may have seen in the papers,” Irene said.

“Yes, it looks like you’ve got shit by the boxful. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t got plenty too.”

“Shit by the boxful?”

“Exactly. Jonas Söder is an artist, lives on Fjällgatan. It’s impossible to get hold of him. I called several times and even drove over there and rang the bell on my way home last night. Zip. Mona Söder also drew a blank. I got hold of the old lady’s home phone number and she answered at around five. But when I introduced myself and started to explain that we needed to talk to her and Jonas regarding the von Knecht homicide, she totally flipped out! Refused to talk to me. Says she’ll only come down to talk to somebody who’s in charge of the investigation. So I’m bouncing her back to you in G-borg. Sorry!”

Irene wrote down the address and phone number of Jonas and Mona Söder. Veiko also had Mona’s number at work. He told her that Mona Söder was listed in the phone book as “personnel director.”

Dejectedly she hung up the phone. How would she solve this? There was no time to think about it, because the phone rang again.

“Inspector Irene Huss.”

“Hi there! Robert Skytter here!”

The name didn’t mean a thing to her, but she recognized the trumpeting tone. The car dealer from Volkswagen. His youthful voice sounded like a commercial for energizing cereal flakes or some ginseng preparation. Maybe she ought to buy a bottle of ginseng. Did it come in a five-kilo size? A new trumpet blast shocked her out of her reveries.

“Hello! Are you still there?”

“What? Yes. I was busy with something else. Excuse me. Listen, Robert, I called you about the fact that Charlotte von Knecht was down there picking up her new car Tuesday evening. Is that correct?”

“That’s right!”

“When did she arrive?”

“Well, after four, maybe closer to four-thirty.”

“What time did she leave?”

There was a brief pause. There wasn’t the same self-confident zing in his voice when he replied. “Don’t know for sure. Right after five, I should think.”

“Not before five?”

“No, I’m quite sure of that. I remember hearing the five o’clock news on the radio.”

“Weren’t you selling a car? How did you have time to listen to the radio?”

“Well, we were taking a test drive in Charlotte’s new car. She was feeling a little insecure about driving it. I was giving her some advice.”

“Didn’t she have a Golf before?”

“Yes, but this one is much newer. More features. For instance, a more powerful engine, hundred and fifteen horsepower-”

“Thanks, but I already have a car. By the way, how old are you?”

Now there was a long pause. “What does that have to do. . twenty-two.”

“Married or living with someone?”

“Neither. How about yourself? Are you trying to pick me up or. .?”

Her response caught her by surprise, but she couldn’t stop it. The laughter surged up from her chest and exploded from her lips. She had to put down the phone. She leaned over the desk as tears of laughter made even more spots on the already soiled blotter on the desk. She ended up with a cramp in her diaphragm. With a powerful effort she pulled herself together, wiped her nose and the corners of her eyes with her sleeve, and picked up the receiver.

“Hello, excuse me, Robert. But it was just too funny. I could almost be your mother. If I’d only started in time.”

“That’s cool. I’m glad I can make somebody happy. Although I do prefer mature women.”

“Like Charlotte?”

“Charlotte is really something special. And fun. Nice as hell.”

“And you’re sure you heard the five o’clock news while you were in the car?”

“Yes. Even though I wasn’t sitting in the car then. I had just gotten out. Charlotte wanted to see how to remove the spare tire. The car door was open, so we heard the news. Charlotte said something like, ‘Is it five o’clock already?’ Well, then we checked to see if she had all her papers and everything. Then she left.”

“So it would have been about ten after five. Or more correctly, seventeen-ten.”