Helene Tursten - Detective Inspector Huss

The stairway began right next to the light switch panel and led up along the wall where they stood. With Andersson in the lead the techs quickly climbed the broad marble staircase.

Henrik pressed the last button on the panel, and with a soft hum the thin champagne-colored side drapes slid open.

She had envisioned it all wrong. The tall windows were not windows, but French doors to the balcony. And they didn’t stretch from floor to ceiling. The height of the ceiling at the outer wall was indeed eight meters. But above their heads the ceiling was only four meters high, stopping abruptly a few meters farther toward the windows. Irene walked into the room and looked around. What was the ceiling in this room was of course the floor of the upstairs level. Where the upper-level floor stopped, there was a lovely wrought-iron railing. It extended on two sides of the dining room. High above her head vaulted the stuccoed ceiling. No wonder she had the feeling of being in a church. From the ceiling hung three colossal chandeliers. The entire room was oblong, but it looked narrower than it was because marble pillars stood in rows supporting the upper floor.

Her colleagues walked with purposeful steps along the railing, over to the corner of the balcony in the big open library. She returned to Henrik, and they walked silently up the wide staircase together.

On the upper floor the odor of cigars was very strong. They followed the railing up to the airy library. To the left Irene saw a corridor with several doors. This must be where the other rooms and the sauna were, she realized. The sauna. . She slowed her steps and stopped. Underlying the cigar smell was a familiar fragrance.

She took a deep breath and turned to Henrik. “Do you know what this smell is?”

He sniffed the air and nodded. “Eucalyptus. Pappa took a sauna. That’s why he had on his dressing gown,” he replied with a slight quaver in his voice.

She had a fleeting vision of the scene: the crushed body of Richard von Knecht dressed in a thick dressing gown of wine-red velvet terry cloth, his naked legs contorted and white in the floodlights, and the brown leather slippers lying a few meters from the body. She shuddered and concentrated on her colleagues standing by the door to the balcony.

The three men silently faced the locked door. Slowly Superintendent Andersson turned around and said solemnly to Henrik von Knecht, “Unfortunately, I must prepare you for the fact that there are strong indications that your father was murdered. The balcony door is locked from the inside, the key is in the lock, the handle is pulled down. And there’s no handle on the outside.”

This was too much for von Knecht. He dropped to his knees inside the balcony door with his hands to his face and broke into quiet, dry sobs.

Irene called for help, for someone from a squad car to drive him home in his white Mercedes.

BEFORE THE cruiser arrived, Inspector Huss asked him whether he could try to answer a few questions. He nodded affirmatively.

She began neutrally, “Where do you live?”

“The Örgryte neighborhood. On Långåsliden.”

“Do you have anyone who could stay with you tonight, or would you like us to contact someone?”

“My wife is home.”

“Oh.”

Irene could hear how stupid her remark sounded, but she was very surprised that von Knecht had a wife. She quickly tried to cover up her reaction.

“Does your wife know about what happened this evening?”

He shook his head without taking his hands from his face.

She went on, “If I understand correctly, you and your mother were in the street at the time your father fell. You were getting out of a car, is that right?”

For a long time he remained sitting silently in the same position. Irene began to wonder whether he even realized she had asked a question. She considered reformulating it when he removed his hands and looked straight at her. Again she saw the rigid mask. Even though his eyes were shining with tears, there was a layer of ice beneath the tears. He rubbed his face in a weary gesture.

“Pardon me. . What did you ask me?”

Irene posed the question again. He took a deep breath before he answered.

“We parked around the corner, on Aschebergsgatan. I didn’t notice that anything had happened as I hurried around to open the door for Mamma. Then I heard a scream. I could see that. . something was lying on the ground, and people were running over to it. Mamma ran there. She started screaming. I called the police from my cell phone. Well, you know the rest.”

“Where had you and your mother been?”

“We had decided to meet at Landvetter Airport. She came in on a plane from Stockholm that landed fifteen minutes after my own flight from London. It was a pure coincidence that our flights were arriving at the same time. We discovered it last Saturday when we had a party here. Mamma and Pappa were celebrating their thirtieth anniversary. .”

He swallowed hard and fell silent. Huss realized that he wouldn’t be able to say much more.

“We can postpone the rest of our talk until tomorrow. Would you like me to come to your house or will you come down to the station?”

“I’ll come down to the station.”

“How does eleven sound? Bring your wife too.”

“We’ll try to be there at eleven.”

“It’s about time for us to go downstairs. The officers in the squad car can’t come through the front entrance, as you know,” she said gently.

She escorted him down in the elevator. He muttered his thanks and disappeared out into the darkness between the two waiting uniformed officers.

IRENE HAD to stop and admire the skillfully laid marble floor. The pattern was a black swan surrounded by pink and white lilies. It was the most beautiful floor she had ever seen. Carl Larsson on the stairwell walls, as an extra bonus, didn’t hurt the overall impression either.

In her many years on the police force, she had passed through hundreds of stairwells, most of them depressingly dilapidated, with the smell of piss and cooked food slamming visitors in the face like a kind of urban tear gas. The walls were scratched up and the graffiti shrieked COCK, NIGGER GO HOME, KILROY WAS HERE, and other cheery messages. Filthy stairs and front doors that had been kicked in were part of the usual picture. The police are seldom called to stairwells with marble inlay on the floor and Carl Larsson paintings on the walls.

THE BALCONY door was open and the techs were busy securing evidence. One obvious item was a meat cleaver. Not the size used by a butcher, but rather a smaller kitchen variety.

“This was lying on the floor of the balcony, right next to the wall. It was sheltered by part of the roof, so we’ll probably find something of interest on it,” said Andersson.

The superintendent was more excited than he wanted to show. His cheeks were flushed a bright red.

Irene said softly, “Are you okay? I mean. . your blood pressure?”

“Why the hell are you bringing that up now?”

The superintendent was thrown quite off balance and looked annoyed. No one wants to be reminded of the incipient infirmities of old age. Hypertension was one of his. The techs looked up from their tasks in surprise. With great effort Andersson controlled himself and lowered his voice.

“The sauna was turned on. I got overheated when I looked inside,” he said without convincing even himself.

Irene decided to drop the sensitive question of her boss’s blood pressure. “Was the heating unit still on?” she wondered.

“No, it was off. And here’s the explanation for the cigar smell.”

Andersson pointed at the gray cylinder of ash left by a cigar that lay in a blue crystal ashtray, placed on a smoking table inset with a round copper disc. Beside the ashtray stood a short whisky glass with a trace of amber-colored liquid in the bottom. The smoking table stood between two sofas, which stood perpendicular to each other. They looked invitingly comfortable and were covered in soft wine-red leather. The sofa nearest the balcony was placed with its back to the wrought-iron railing, one end facing the balcony door. A wing chair was ensconced in front of the big mullioned window, upholstered in leather that matched the sofas. The halogen reading lamp next to it resembled a flesh-eating plant made of brass. The other sofa faced the balcony door, with its back to the stairway and the bedroom corridor. The placement of the ashtray and the whisky glass indicated that Richard von Knecht had been sitting on the latter sofa. The superintendent pondered the scene.