Helene Tursten - Detective Inspector Huss

Irene looked around thoughtfully and asked, “Have the techs examined the garage thoroughly?”

Tommy shook his head. “No, just the car. The only strange thing about it is that they found traces of dirt or sand and oil in the trunk and inside on the floor of the car. Both at the base of the backseat and on the floor in front of the passenger’s seat.”

They went over to the car and opened the small trunk. On the bottom they could clearly see some dark oil spots, as big as one-krona coins. A little gravel and sand had adhered to them. Inside the car there were similar spots on the floor mats. It was a very nice car to look into. And surely even nicer to drive. The black leather upholstery lent the car a masculine aura. The little leather-covered steering wheel and the high-tech instrument panel gave the sense of sitting in a cockpit, which was of course the intention. Irene felt a slight flutter in her diaphragm as she settled into the driver’s seat.

“Excuse me, Irene, but have you entered nirvana or what?” It was Tommy’s voice that abruptly brought her back to earth.

Dreamily she said, “You get a certain feeling sitting in a car like this.”

“Go ahead and enjoy it. It’s not often you wind up in a Porsche. But I found something over here. Come on.”

With a sigh she hoisted herself out of the wonderful leather seat and followed him to the back of the garage. In one corner, wedged in between the end of the shelves and the wall, stood a large gasoline can of green metal. Tommy tried to wriggle it out, which he finally managed to do. He shook it and confirmed, “Empty. Only a little splash left.”

“How much does a can like this hold?”

“Twenty-five or thirty liters. It’s illegal to store gasoline in garages or similar spaces.”

“But it’s empty.”

“Yep. But it used to have gasoline in it.” Tommy unscrewed the lid and sniffed the opening.

“But maybe it was empty when it was put in here.”

“Maybe.”

He didn’t sound convinced, and Irene agreed with him. She looked at the can and said, “Could it have been this gasoline that was used for the devil bomb on Berzeliigatan?”

“Exactly what I’m thinking. But there had to be more gasoline involved than this.”

They went around looking at the junk on the shelves. All of a sudden Irene saw it. A yellow-and-black-edged snake that was trying to creep away under the bottom shelf plank. A cutoff piece of water hose. She pulled it out. It proved to be about a meter and a half long.

Triumphantly she said, “Check it out! A piece of the water hose, you say. Wrong, wrong! I say.”

Both Fredrik and Tommy looked astonished. They stared dumbly at the hose and suddenly Tommy lit up.

“Yep! You’re right. That’s it.”

Fredrik sighed, “I still think it’s a piece of hose.”

Both Irene and Tommy shook their heads and said at the same time, “It’s a siphon!”

Irene stepped over to the coiled-up water hose. The piece had come from it. The fresh cuts fit perfectly when she put them together. Her heart was pounding with excitement, a familiar reaction to a riddle that was nearing its solution.

“That’s it all right! This is what took time inside the garage. Our bomber cut off a piece of the hose and used it as a siphon, to transfer the gasoline from the metal can to the plastic can. Or the plastic cans, I mean,” she added.

Tommy nodded his agreement and said, “Yep! But it would take more gasoline. Do you think he took it out of the car gas tanks?”

They looked at the Porsche. The BMW had also been in here. That was quite a lot of gasoline. Irene looked at the Porsche a long time. Finally she said, “I think I know why he took the Porsche and not his own car.”

She took the car key, climbed into the soft driver’s seat, and turned the ignition. The engine turned over. Her heart was pounding again as she pointed at the instrument panel.

“Look. The tank is almost empty.”

“Shut it off so we don’t die of carbon monoxide poisoning!”

Coughing, Tommy opened the garage door. It was doubtful whether the air outside was much better, but at least it wasn’t as concentrated.

Feeling a pang of loss, Irene shut off the engine. It had purred as softly as a leopard. She sketched out her imagined scenario. “The bomb maker comes here after midnight. He knows that there’s gasoline in the can and in the cars. He has just filled up his own tank. Once he’s here, he discovers that the Porsche has almost no gas in the tank. It’s only enough for less than fifty kilometers. He drives the Porsche out onto the street and puts his own car in the garage, so he can siphon the gas into the plastic containers undisturbed. But he leaves enough in his car that he won’t risk running out on the way home. The oil spots in the Porsche probably come from the plastic containers he had set down on the floor in here. They got oily on bottom.”

Fredrik interrupted her. “Why didn’t he use his own car to drive down to Berzeliigatan?”

“Because he didn’t want his own car to be seen in the neighborhood at the time. It would be hard to explain what he was doing there in the middle of the night. Von Knecht’s own car would arouse some curiosity but not the same amount,” Irene said.

That sounded reasonable. Tommy nodded and took the piece of hose. “Let’s take this down to the lab, to confirm that gasoline actually ran through it. But take a whiff. It has definitely been used for gasoline. We’ll have to ask the techs to come out here and take a few samples of the oil spots on the floor-if they haven’t already-and compare them with the ones in the car,” he said firmly.

They went out and closed the squeaky door behind them. Tommy looked thoughtfully at the solid, gray-painted door.

“Imagine if we could get hold of a witness who saw them loading the gasoline cans into the Porsche! But no one has come forward. It must have happened while the witness on the third floor was putting his baby to bed and going to the john,” he sighed.

Irene patted him lightly on the arm. “Tommy, we’ve already seen plastic cans somewhere. Quite recently. In Henrik and Charlotte’s garage. Let’s swing by there and take a closer look. We’ll keep these keys and give them to the techs. I think it’s about time for another meeting with Sylvia von Knecht. Although I’m probably the last person on earth she wants to see. Things between us always seem to go a little off kilter somehow.”

Tommy smiled. “Maybe it’s time to call in some male expertise? Mine, that is.”

“What a good idea.”

THEY DROVE back out to Örgryte and went into Henrik von Knecht’s still-unlocked garage. The two plastic cans, marked DISTILLED WATER, were still in the corner. Irene unscrewed the lid and sniffed, but smelled only stagnant water. Tommy looked at them and said, “Ten-liter cans. Perfect for the purpose. Easy to carry. Five or six of them would be enough for the devil bomb. We’ll have to question young Herr von Knecht more closely about this. His wife is still away, isn’t she?”

All signs seem to indicate that that was the case. No one answered when they rang the doorbell. They started to go around the house, looking in windows. When Irene stood at the edge of an overgrown flower bed in the backyard, she could look right into the kitchen. The dirty dishes were gone. Everything was clean and orderly. Henrik would never dream that his wife had had a visit from a cowboy. On the other hand, he was going straight up to Marstrand, according to Charlotte. While she herself was going to a party at a friend’s house. .

Irene’s train of thought was interrupted by a gruff voice that shouted, “Don’t move, or I’ll shoot! The police have been called and will be here any minute!”