Helene Tursten - Detective Inspector Huss

The sound of a shower was heard from upstairs. Irene quickly took a few steps into the hall. She chose the left-hand door. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tommy sneaking through the one on the right. The left door led to a small kitchen. The kitchen implements were new and sparkling. The door of the dishwasher was down and revealed a full machine. On the drainboard there were plates and wineglasses. Two salad plates. Two dinner plates. Two wineglasses. Two cut-glass tumblers. Two. The man was still in the house and it wasn’t Henrik von Knecht.

She hurried back to the hallway. The door they had passed on the way in led to a small toilet. The shower on the top floor had stopped, and she could hear someone moving around up there.

Tommy returned and whispered, “Living room, dining room, and a den.”

The Charlotte who came down the stairs was a completely different person from the one who had opened the door for them ten minutes earlier. This one had shiny brushed hair, smelled of Cartier, and gave them a radiant turquoise-shimmering look. Finally Irene understood. No one has eyes of that fairy-tale color. We live in the age of tinted contact lenses. Charlotte was dressed in black velvet pants and a short-sleeved, scoop-necked angora sweater the same color as her fantastic eyes.

With a courteous gesture that displayed a certain lack of enthusiasm, Charlotte invited them into the living room. It was clearly marked by Henrik’s life and passions. Paintings and antiques were everywhere in the normal-sized room. They walked between urns and curved chairs over to a cream-colored silk sofa, which proved to be astonishingly comfortable. Charlotte draped herself gracefully in an overstuffed velvet easy chair with dark mahogany armrests. She crossed her legs demurely and gave the two detectives an unexpectedly calm look. Sparse daylight seeped in through the heavy drawn curtains and fell on her face. She had been in a hurry, because the foundation under her right eye had not been properly applied; there was a little brown smear on her cheek.

Irene decided on the tough approach and began, in a friendly tone of voice, “Charlotte, we’ve discovered a number of new details during the course of the investigation. We would be grateful if you could help us go over them.”

Without the least quaver in her voice, Charlotte replied, “I’ll try.”

“First, a question that I’m asking now so I won’t forget it at the end. When does your husband come home?”

“On Saturday night.”

“Late?”

“Yes, around ten. Presumably, he’s going straight to Marstrand. I’ll be at a birthday party for a friend who’s turning thirty.”

“Henrik’s not going?”

She hesitated before answering. “No, he’s not so wild about big parties. Lots of people and all that,” she said evasively.

“But you enjoy that sort of thing.”

She looked surprised at Irene’s statement. “Yes, of course I do.”

“Do you often go out alone?”

Now her gaze wavered. “Usually. Henrik never wants to go. What does this have to do with the investigation of Richard’s death?”

“Well, we know that you were often seen with Bobo Torsson. That you were good friends and that you worked together. We also know that you were the one who talked to your father-in-law and arranged for Bobo to rent the apartments on Berzeliigatan.”

“That’s correct. But Bobo has an aunt who owned the tobacco shop across the street. She gave Bobo a tip that Richard was renovating the apartments in his building. Then he asked me to ask Richard whether there was any chance he could rent one of them.”

“Do you know that Bobo is dead?”

Now Charlotte’s eyes glistened and she swallowed hard before replying. “I heard it on the news. How horrible!”

“Do you know if Bobo was involved in anything that might have made someone want to kill him?”

Something flared up behind the turquoise blue. Unease and wariness.

“No. Absolutely not!”

She crossed her legs harder and started to massage her bare forearms as if she were cold.

“Did Bobo sell drugs to you?”

Just like Lot’s wife, Charlotte was turned into a pillar of salt. It took a long while before she replied apologetically, yet still aggressively, “Everybody uses a little smack nowadays. Everybody does it. There’s nothing unusual about that. It’s like using alcohol!”

“I see. But it falls under different legislation. Did he sell a lot?”

Now she was prepared and made a brave attempt to sound haughty. “Not at all! He was a prominent photographer. The little he sold was only to friends and at private parties.”

She was almost successful, but not quite. Since Irene had a lot of other sensitive questions to ask, she changed the subject. “Do you know a man named Lasse ‘Shorty’ Johannesson?”

Charlotte was startled, but not scared. She pursed her lips and said, “That’s Bobo’s cousin. But I’ve never met him.”

“So you don’t know him at all?”

“No.”

Clearly Irene wasn’t going to get any farther with Shorty. Time to switch tacks. She continued calmly, “We also have information that you received a spare-key ring from Richard von Knecht this summer. Why did he give it to you?”

Her astonishment was not feigned. Or else she was a better actress than Irene thought.

“Spare keys? I never got any spare keys from Richard.”

“Your father-in-law never gave you any keys?”

“No.”

“Was it Henrik who got them?”

Now her gaze flickered before she answered, “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t know if Henrik was given the spare keys by his father?”

“No.”

“But you did know that there was a key ring with spare keys on it, didn’t you?”

“No, I tell you! No!”

A new scent broke through the heavy Cartier perfume. Terror.

“Then we’ll have to ask Henrik when he comes home,” said Irene.

She pretended to look at something in her blank notebook. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Charlotte relax and sink a bit in her chair. She obviously thought the danger was past.

Thoughtfully Irene said, “Well, you know, Sylvia told me yesterday that Henrik contracted the mumps when he was in the service. Apparently he became sterile, since it also affected his testicles. I think that seems a bit strange, considering that you’re pregnant, don’t you?”

The question remained hanging in the air over their heads, like the blade of a guillotine. Charlotte turned pale as a corpse underneath her makeup. “What are you talking about? I feel sick!”

She got up and rushed toward the hall. On her way she knocked over a large Chinese vase. It shattered on the marble hearth in front of the open fireplace. They could hear her tear open the door to the toilet in the hall and slam it shut. Tommy pointed toward the upper floor. Irene nodded, because she had heard it too. A light thump, like a bouncing ball. Someone upstairs had dropped something on the floor.

After nearly five minutes Charlotte returned. She was composed, but they could see she had been crying. Her voice was ice cold when she said, “This is Henrik’s child. I’m having a test, whatever it’s called. The kind they do to determine paternity.”

“DNA tests.”

“That’s it. But you’ll have to wait until May! And I would like you to leave now. I’m not feeling well because of the pregnancy and your horrible questions. As if in some way I’m under suspicion!”

When they stood, Tommy smiled at her. Automatically she smiled back, but it was extinguished when he said in a friendly voice, “You are.”

Rage glowed behind the contact lenses. Irene was almost afraid they were going to crack. She lied like a trouper, this young lady, but for the moment they would get no further with her.