Helene Tursten - Detective Inspector Huss

The last sounded like a reproach. And it was. She shook her head, but stopped and cocked it to one side. She had a mischievous gleam in her eye.

“Well, maybe. The little charmer didn’t have so bad a cold that he wasn’t able to have sex the day before he died. It’s not a hundred percent certain, but I’m actually quite convinced that he did have it. Intercourse, that is.”

“The day before? Tell me about it!”

“On the tip of his penis, on the glans itself, I found a shallow cut four millimeters long. I’ve seen such things before. They occur during intercourse when the man gets a hair caught in between. The interesting thing is that the wound was no more than a day old. Of course a man can get a hair inside his foreskin without having sex, but that usually doesn’t cause injury. He would notice the hair before that happened. But during high arousal he usually doesn’t, as we know.”

Andersson nodded and said meditatively, “So on Monday or Tuesday he got laid in the marital bed. But not with his wife, since Sylvia was in Stockholm. Someone else. Who could it have been?”

“Now we’re talking about your job again, not mine,” said Stridner.

She smiled wanly and seemed pleased at the effect her discovery had on him. Possibly the flushed coloration of his face indicated that his blood pressure was getting a little too high.

“Are you taking medication for your hypertension?” she asked.

“My hyper. . What the hell does that have to do with von Knecht and Pirjo Larsson?”

When he realized what he had done, his blood ran cold. He had yelled at pathology professor Yvonne Stridner! That wasn’t good.

Her voice was low and absolutely ice cold when she replied, “Nothing. Except that you could have a cerebral hemorrhage and never solve Richard’s murder or find out what happened to the Finn. Was her name Pirjo?”

“Yes. Pirjo Larsson. Please forgive me for yelling. There’s a lot going on right now.”

“All the more reason to check your blood pressure and tend to your medication. That’s all the time I have for you right now.”

She turned on her computer screen and started to type, without looking at him.

Disgraced! He always felt stupid and disgraced when he was with Stridner. Everything was on her terms. He was like one of the poor graduate students. They had his full sympathy.

“Thanks a lot. See you later,” he said lamely.

Without looking up from her screen she muttered, “’Bye.”

So busy with her important work. He felt anger rising up inside him as he walked toward the exit. His temples were pounding, and he guiltily recalled that he hadn’t taken his blood pressure pill this morning. Maybe he should go to the health service and get his pressure checked. Still, it was a little late for that. Whew, who has time for this? That silly doctor. What did she know about blood pressure? Look at the state of the patients who came in contact with her. In their case there was no longer any blood pressure to talk about!

Invigorated by telling off Stridner in his mind, he got into his car and drove back to headquarters. It was lunchtime but he wasn’t at all hungry. The smell of grilled meat was still lingering in his nostrils.

BIRGITTA MOBERG was in her office. She was surprised when she heard that Andersson had been looking for her. That’s not why she had returned to headquarters; she was there to eat lunch before her meeting with Bobo Torsson. Should they go to the cafeteria together? No, not a good idea.

He motioned to her to come into his office. Without interrupting even once, she listened attentively to his account of what had happened at Pathology. He left out the discussion about his blood pressure since that was no one else’s concern.

Her brown eyes, usually so lively, now looked sad. “It sounds like it actually is Pirjo. Her poor kids, left all alone,” she said.

“What about their stepfather, Larsson?”

“Hannu got hold of him on the phone this morning. Göte Larsson, forty-seven years old. He’s moved down to Malmö. Evidently he lives with a Polish woman in Rosengård. He’s working on a Polish freighter right now. Claims that he hasn’t set foot in Göteborg in two years.”

“Hmm. Welfare will have to look for her relatives in Finland. No, you go on and eat, I’ll wait for Hannu. At one o’clock I’ll be busy for a while, but we’ll meet here at two-thirty.”

“Okay. I’ll try to figure out who von Knecht’s sex partner might have been. Valle Reuter’s little girlfriend Gunnel denied all knowledge of Richard. And I believe her. She was as open as you could want about her gentlemen. No, it has to be someone else. Maybe he got himself a call girl. Too bad he took a sauna and shower.”

With a wave she vanished down the hall toward the lunchroom. Andersson sat there a long time staring thoughtfully into space. Not one usable idea occurred to him. He kept on seeing the image of Pirjo’s charred body. In his ear Stridner’s voice rang, You should be asking what she was doing there!

HE PUT a note on Hannu’s desk. The last line read, “Urgent amp; important info re Pirjo L.,” to underscore the importance of talking to each other.

He returned to his office after a tiresome and sweaty fitting for the uniform pants. Hannu was sitting with a notebook on his lap, looking out his dirt-streaked window. Were the pale, sparse sun breaks also tempting him to go out into the city? His ice-blue eyes revealed nothing of his longing or any other feelings when they turned toward Andersson. They were calm and alert.

Hannu also listened without interrupting. He just nodded a few times. Clearly the pieces fit together for him. The superintendent envied him. He himself thought that everything seemed like one big mess. If only he could get hold of the right string and start to unravel the tangle. But in the present situation they had to sniff around for a while longer and dig where they smelled the most shit. Routine police work, in other words.

The superintendent asked, “What have you found out about Pirjo besides what we already know? Birgitta told me that Pirjo’s old man is in Malmö now, so we can skip him for the time being. What we need is something that can explain where she fits into the picture when it comes to the bomb on Berzeliigatan.”

“I found her in our records. She’s been up twice for shoplifting. Suspended sentence each time. The first time she took some ski overalls at Obs department store, the second time Falun sausage and a box of macaroni at ICA on Angered Square,” Hannu reported.

“Nothing else?”

“No.”

“She doesn’t sound like a terrorist bomber. Interesting that she has a rap sheet; it means she had some criminal inclination, at least. Have you asked our colleagues in Helsinki whether they have anything on her in their records?”

“I have. They’ll get back to me this afternoon.”

“One of your pals in the Helsinki police force?”

Andersson could have bitten off his tongue. But at the same time he was so damned curious about this reticent man. Why? Because he was an old snoop, he chastised himself. Still, the question had been asked. And would get the answer it deserved.

“Yep.”

Calmly Hannu turned to a page in his notebook. Without looking up he began to summarize, “On Monday Pirjo and Marjatta cleaned von Knecht’s apartment. During the night Juha and Timo took sick; they got the flu. Pirjo cleaned the Press Bureau office on Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday morning Pirjo took the bus to the von Knechts’ but had to return home. She told the kids that von Knecht was dead. In the afternoon she cooked dinner. Just after five she told her daughter that she ‘had to go out and do some extra cleaning.’ Then she disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Literally.”