Helene Tursten - Detective Inspector Huss

“WAS THIS the reason you were so late last night?”

Krister held up the Göteborg Post to Irene’s bleary gaze. She was sitting at the breakfast table, trying to wake up. It was almost seven o’clock. Her daughters plopped down at the table. The morning shower fight had ended with Katarina first, Krister second, Jenny third, and herself last. Krister was trying to find a new thermostat for the downstairs shower. It was hopeless to have only one, when all of them had to leave at the same time in the morning. Now it was her turn to shower. But hadn’t her husband just asked her something? She saw the black headlines screeching across half the front page: RICHARD VON KNECHT DEAD AFTER FALL FROM BALCONY. Lower down on the page, in smaller type: “Police tight-lipped. Accident or suicide?”

She managed merely to nod in reply. Before she left the kitchen, she said over her shoulder, “I have to take a shower. Dear, make sure the coffee is strong!”

She stood under the water for a luxuriously long time. Feeling much brisker, she went back to the bedroom and threw on her clothes: black Levi’s, black turtleneck, and a bright red V-necked Pringle sweater. Well, a Pringle knockoff, at least. Thin blue eyeliner to match her eyes, a little black mascara, and a light spray of Red Door. Now she was ready to move mountains!

The girls had breakfast ready when she came down. Their bus would be leaving in fifteen minutes. Katarina scrambled around looking for her school bag while Jenny sat at the table. She made an effort to gather her courage. Finally she blurted out, “Do you think I could have the money to buy an electric guitar? Or maybe as a Christmas present?”

“An electric guitar?” her parents echoed in unison.

“Yes. A band at school needs somebody who can play guitar and sing … so they asked me. One of the guys plays guitar for the same teacher as I do.”

“Are any boys from your class in this band?” asked Krister.

“No, three boys and a girl from ninth grade.”

“Ninth grade! But you’re only in the seventh, sweetie pie.”

“I’m not a sweetie pie!”

She jumped up from her chair with tears in her eyes and whirled out of the kitchen. Katarina stuck her head in the kitchen doorway and said in surprise, “What the heck was that about?”

“She wants an electric guitar so she can play in a band at school,” sighed Krister.

“Oh, I get it. The White Killers. They’re not so bad. Sometimes they play in the courtyard at lunchtime,” Katarina informed them.

“White Killers? What kind of name is that for a band? Are they satanists or what?” Krister had an unusually long fuse, but now he was starting to lose his temper.

“Well. . more sort of punk rock, like. . maybe. . Punx Not Dead, Pappa!”

With a gleeful grin Katarina bounced out to the hall and the girls took off running to the bus stop.

Irene could hear the weariness in her own voice as she moaned, “Give me strength! White Killers! Will you be home tonight? I don’t know when I’ll be back. This von Knecht case is hot. There’s plenty to indicate that he was murdered, but we’re lying low until the autopsy is done. It seems nothing has leaked out to the press yet. They’re going to tear down police headquarters when they hear this!”

“Home? Probably not before six. But that works out fine, since Katarina has judo tonight. So I can try and talk to Jenny. Hurry up now, let’s get going.”

They took Sammie for a quick walk before they dropped him off with the dog-sitter, a retired widow. She supplemented her pension by taking care of four dogs, for payment under the table. Jenny and Katarina usually picked up Sammie on their way home from school.

THE DAY was already in full swing at headquarters when Irene Huss showed up just before eight. The annual flu season was approaching, but so far it was mostly autumn colds that were taking their toll. The Violent Crimes Unit had three inspectors out sick. It wouldn’t be easy, but Superintendent Andersson was going around trying to pry loose some officers from other units.

He was talking with the superintendent of General Investigations, Birger Nilsson, who reluctantly spared an inspector when he realized that von Knecht’s death would soon be the cause of even bigger headlines. Accident or suicide is one thing, but murder is something else entirely. Intrigued, Nilsson began asking for more details, but Andersson, feeling stressed, replied curtly. He knew that his new investigative group was already gathered and waiting for him at their first meeting.

“ALL OF us in this room will be working exclusively on the von Knecht case. Any other ongoing investigations will be set aside or turned over to other investigators. Has everyone seen the headlines in the morning papers about von Knecht’s ‘accident’?”

The seven around the table nodded. Andersson took a deep breath and unconsciously rose up on his toes before he continued.

“It was no accident or suicide. It was homicide!”

The effect, naturally, was an astonished murmur. The superintendent called for silence and began to report on what he and Irene had seen the night before. There wasn’t a sound during his entire presentation. He concluded by passing on what the techs had reported about an hour earlier, which was news even to Irene.

He said, “You probably all know Police Technician Svante Malm. You do too, don’t you, Hannu?”

This last was directed at Hannu Rauhala, the inspector on loan from General Investigations. No one in Violent Crimes had met him before. Rauhala nodded.

“He just informed me that there’s blood and hair, probably from von Knecht, on the flat end of the meat cleaver. On the sharp edge they found blood and skin fragments, also apparently from the victim. The length of the cut on the back of the victim’s hand matches the length of the cleaver’s edge. The comparison tests were ready by seven this morning. Svante and Per worked in high gear all night. There were absolutely no prints on the handle. It was carefully wiped off, and from the smell we don’t need any tests to tell us that a dash of Ajax was used.”

He stopped and looked around the table. On his right sat Irene Huss, who only raised one eyebrow slightly at the last piece of information. Next to her sat Tommy Persson, Irene’s fellow student from the academy and one of her closest friends. Then came Hans Borg, who still looked tired and worn out from his wife’s fiftieth birthday party over the weekend. Birgitta Moberg next to him could hardly be accused of looking tired. Her brown squirrel eyes were fixed in fascination on the superintendent. She was cute, blond, and cuddly. Plenty of guys in various departments had tried to make a pass at that little angel, who looked as if she had just left the police academy. But she was actually over thirty and possessed both brains and claws. Most of them made only one attempt. Among those who had tried was Jonny Blom, the man next to her. At an unforgettable Christmas party the year before, his wife and four kids had figuratively been shoved down his throat by Birgitta. The newest inspector in the department was Fredrik Stridh. He had worked with them for a year now and made a very good impression. The last man, sitting to the left of the superintendent, was Hannu Rauhala, who was of Finnish extraction. He looked inscrutable and slightly exotic with his slanted ice-blue eyes, platinum-blond hair, and prominent cheekbones. It was hard to tell how old he was, but probably somewhere around thirty.

Andersson clapped his hands together and said energetically, “We have to work fast because the media don’t know it’s a homicide yet. The press conference is set for one o’clock. We’ve been promised a preliminary autopsy report by eleven.”