Helene Tursten - Detective Inspector Huss

“So the driver had his back to you?”

“Yes. Although the windows of the car were so dark that I couldn’t see very well. But I think the driver had on a light jacket or coat.”

“Was it a man or a woman?”

“Couldn’t tell. But I think it was a man.”

“Why’s that?”

“I thought the driver was fairly tall. And when the car drove off, the cleaning woman waved a little after it. Like this.”

The old woman demonstrated a furtive wave. This reinforced Irene’s feeling that Pirjo must have known the person who gave her the keys. Hopefully she said, “Anything else you can recall?”

The woman really tried, but drew a blank. Irene asked for her name, address, telephone number, and Social Security number. Her name was Ester Pettersson and she was eighty-two years old. Irene felt her curiosity reawakened.

“It’s unusual for people to still be working at your age. Is it temporary?”

“Oh no, I’ve been in my shop for sixty-one years! My father used to own it, but he got T.B. and died. Mother was delicate. So I had to take care of the shop.”

“Didn’t you ever consider retiring?”

“Never! What in the world would I do?”

Irene declined her offer of coffee and promised to drop by again. A little bell tinkled when the door closed and shut off the olfactory symphony of foot powder, wart medicine, and liniment for tired feet.

BY ONE o’clock all three of them had returned to the car. Tommy had no new facts about the nighttime car exchange. Irene hadn’t had any nibbles other than the old lady in the foot-care shop. Fredrik had made enough progress with Quist that he was convinced the car Pirjo had approached was a larger sedan. Light-colored paint. Probably white or beige. Dark tinted windows. And then Fredrik had been invited to lunch, but as politely and firmly as possible he declined. He gave the excuse that he was having lunch with his girlfriend. Not because he was going steady with any girl just now, but there might be a chance of changing that. He decided not to tell Irene and Tommy about the lunch invitation. They were decent colleagues, not at all like Jonny, but he’d still never hear the end of a juicy detail like that! All in good fun, of course.

Tommy was looking thoughtfully at the stately art nouveau facade on the other side of Aschebergsgatan. He glanced up at the marble balustrade of the top floor and the now famous little turreted balcony. He mused, “I wonder if Sylvia von Knecht is home? I’d like to look in the garage again.”

Irene unlocked the car, took the card with Sylvia’s phone number out of her jacket pocket, and punched the number on her cell phone.

“Sylvia von Knecht’s residence,” a female voice answered in a lilting Finnish accent.

“Hello, my name is Detective Inspector Irene Huss. I’m looking for Sylvia von Knecht.”

“She’s gone up to Marstrand. One of the horses is sick.”

“When do you expect her back?”

“This evening.”

“What time?”

“No idea.” It was a cool but not at all unfriendly voice.

Irene decided to take a chance. “Are you Sylvia von Knecht’s sister? Arja Montgomery?”

“Yes, I am.”

“May we come up for a moment? We’re right outside your building, on Aschebergsgatan.”

After a brief pause she said hesitantly, “I don’t know. . Sylvia doesn’t like having the police snooping around.”

“No, I know that. She’s a little fragile after all that’s happened. But she has always helped us in our investigation. Our problem at the moment is something that can be easily solved with your help. We just need to get into the garage on Molinsgatan. The key is on Richard’s car-key ring. It’s on his nightstand, next to the case with the apartment keys.”

Again a hesitant silence. Finally Arja said, resigned, “I’ll go see if I can find them.”

There was a clatter when she put down the receiver. After a couple of minutes she returned.

“I found them. But I’ll have to bring the keys down to you. It’s a little silly, but I don’t know the code to the front door.”

“That’s okay. We’ll be waiting outside.”

ARJA WAS considerably younger than Sylvia. To Irene’s surprise, she realized that she and Arja were about the same age. It was difficult to see the resemblance to her older sister. Almost ten centimeters taller, with a powerful and slightly stocky figure, Arja was good looking in a typical Finnish way. She had thick light blond shoulder-length hair, high cheekbones, big clear blue eyes, and a wide mouth with beautiful, even teeth, revealed in an apologetic smile. She motioned at the dirty men’s shirt and worn jeans she was wearing and said, “Excuse me, but I’m helping Sylvia clean up. The funeral is on Thursday, so she wants the place to look nice.”

What was it Sylvia had once said? “Only Finns know how to clean properly.” It seemed as though she was sticking to that thesis. Arja pulled the keys out of her jeans pocket and asked, “Are these the right keys?”

“Yes, they are. And here are our IDs. It’s important that you know who you gave the keys to.”

Irene took out her police ID. Tommy and Fredrik followed her example, surprised. Arja glanced briefly at the card with the embossed metal seal and nodded.

Irene smiled and said, “After working on this investigation I know how Sylvia is. She’ll scold you if you don’t ask who you’re lending the keys to. But now you’ve seen our IDs and know for sure that we’re police officers.”

At first Arja looked surprised, but then her sapphire-blue eyes began to glitter mischievously, and a warm smile spread across her face.

“I can see that you do know my dear sister. Or more correctly, my half sister,” she said.

That explained the difference between them. Irene felt her curiosity urging her on. “Do you have the same father or the same mother?”

“The same mother. Sylvia’s father was killed during the Finnish-German offensive against the Soviet Union in June of ’forty-one. Sylvia was born seven months later. Mother remarried a cousin of her late husband. My father, that is.”

“Was it so that some ancestral estate would stay in the family?”

“No. The family’s property was located in Viborg province, which was ceded to Russia. We were wiped out after the war.”

“Is your father still alive?”

“No. He died of lung cancer ten years ago. Chain smoker.”

“And how is your mother doing?” Irene nodded up at the apartment.

Arja laughed. “She’s quite spry. Seventy-eight years old. She hears what she wants to, but otherwise there’s nothing wrong with her. She’s up there baking cookies for the funeral reception.”

“Funeral reception? Isn’t it going to be a large funeral, with pomp and splendor and a big dinner?”

It wasn’t a cop’s question, but a spontaneous expression of surprise straight from Irene’s heart.

Arja pursed her lips significantly. “If you know my sister so well, you also know that she is very frugal. It’s probably a remnant of our meager childhood. Keep up appearances, but it can’t cost anything! Sylvia thinks that a funeral reception for the closest mourners is sufficient. Guess who has to fix the sandwiches!”

She gave another warm smile, said good-bye to the detectives, and closed the beautiful front door.

IT WAS a big two-car garage. The red BMW was gone, but the Porsche was in place.

They closed the garage door behind them and turned on the overhead light. The witness two floors up was right. The door creaked and screeched terribly when it was opened or closed. The garage was deep and wide. The cars had plenty of room in the forward part. The back was obviously used for storage. Shelves all along the back wall held cartons, ladders, snow tires, a hose, slalom skis, two racing bikes painted metallic green with curved handlebars, and a lot of rope, cans, and boxes.