Helene Tursten - The Glass Devil

IT WAS with a great deal of discomfort that Irene took part in the interrogations surrounding the motorcycle-gang murders. The physical scars from her confrontation with a Hell’s Angels gang a few years ago, which the superintendent had referred to, were less significant than her mental ones. She still woke in the middle of the night bathed in sweat.

The officers were usually alone when they questioned people at the police stations during regular interrogations, but these were far from ordinary; therefore, they put together teams with two officers on each team.

Irene and Fredrik were a team. They had three of the Alingsås gang’s members allotted to them. The gang, Hells Rockets, had been members in good standing of Hell’s Angels for four years. Because one of the ten club members was dead and three were in the hospital, there were only six left. The six of them were in various stages of intoxication and on the verge of thundering hangovers. None of them had been at club headquarters when it was attacked; they had been at a strip club in Göteborg. A plainclothes policeman at the strip club had recognized some of the club’s members in the haze around two in the morning and contacted the station, which had been able to collect them for interrogation, but they hadn’t come without a fight. The drunken bikers thought that they were going to be harassed for firing shots at “the Asshole.”

“The Asshole” was the Hells Rockets’ name for the gang leader of the Bandido-affiliates, The Devils. His real name was Ronny Johnsson.

The interrogation room at the jail was occupied. Irene and Fredrik decided to question the three at the station, after handcuffing them during the transport to and from the jail. There would be a guard present during the interrogation.

First up was Roger “Killer Man” Karlsson. Irene shivered involuntarily when, led by Fredrik and a prison guard, he appeared in the doorway. He was of average height but very stocky. Powerful arms with swollen biceps stood out from his body; he couldn’t have pressed them against his sides even if he’d wanted to. Although it wasn’t warm outside, he wore only a vest lined with leather and beneath it only a black T-shirt with the text “Hells Rockets” across the chest. His arms were bare to emphasize his muscles and multiple tattoos, some of which were real pieces of art, others just graffiti. There was a reason for his accumulation; Killer Man was thirty-eight years old and had spent sixteen of them in prisons.

His black hair was thin and tied in a small greasy ponytail at the back of his neck. Puffy cheeks were covered with reddish stubble, and his eyes were tinged with red as he stared angrily at the police and the guard. Irene could see his hangover hammering behind his eyeballs.

“I’m not saying a damn thing! Bring me my lawyer! You don’t have the right to hold us, you bastards!” he yelled.

His breath stank of aged Danish cheese, tinged with rich amounts of garlic and alcohol. It spread throughout the room when he opened his mouth. His dirty shearling vest, with its sour smell of ingrained sweat, added to the aroma.

“Please, have a seat,” Irene said. She forced herself to smile and made an inviting gesture toward the chair on the other side of the table. He sat down, not so much to obey her order as because his legs couldn’t hold him.

“None of you have been formally remanded into custody yet. We brought you here this morning for practical reasons, so you could sleep off the worst of your drunkenness before we started talking about the events of the past few days.”

In reply, Killer Man lifted one of his butt cheeks and let a big one go. He thought this was hilarious and started laughing. Maybe he thought that a female cop would give up before the interrogation had even started. But Irene was experienced and had seen a lot over the years, even if the air in the room had become stultifying.

Addressing the tape player, which was recording, she said dryly, “The interrogation will be on the defendant’s level.

“Consider,” she continued, but more in the direction of Killer Man, “that we’re protecting you. One of your friends is dead and three have been critically injured. There’s a threat hanging over the rest of you,” she said, forcing a friendly tone of voice.

Killer Man shook his heavy head. Fredrik had been sitting at the end of the desk. He asked a question which both he and Irene had raised when they had heard about the gang’s arrest. “How come the six of you went to a strip club when you knew that Ronny Johnsson had been popped? Didn’t you realize that they would be seeking revenge?”

For the first time, a faint trace of interest could be glimpsed in Killer Man’s eyes. He grinned and said, “The Asshole got what he deserved, but it wasn’t us who-” He paused, and his mouth snapped shut.

“Please continue. ‘It wasn’t us who. .’?”

Fredrik tried to get him going again, but Killer Man refused to say anything else.

Irene decided to get to the point. “Where were you around four o’clock on Easter morning?”

The gangster couldn’t resist the urge to again try to shock a female police officer. “We had a hell of a smoker party out in the yard. Headquarters, and all the stuff you could want. I fucked a fourteen-year-old sometime in the morning.” The look of sensual pleasure that crossed his face was corroboration enough of his story.

“Sex with a minor is, as is commonly known, punishable by law,” she intoned.

“Suck me, baby!” he answered, smiling at her mockingly.

Irene was becoming provoked by his attitude. Maybe she had better let Fredrik take over. She gave him a quick glance and he responded. “So you claim that you were in the yard around the time shots were fired at Ronny Johnsson. Was everyone in the gang there?”

At first Irene didn’t think Killer Man would answer but to her surprise, he suddenly said, “Yes.”

“No one from the gang was missing?”

“Nope.”

“Why were six of you in the porn club the following night while four were left at what you call headquarters?”

“The others weren’t up to coming, so they stayed and kept an eye on the house. The Easter party was, as I said, really cool!”

“Didn’t you feel threatened? Didn’t you know that Ronny Johnsson had been shot?” Fredrik continued.

A troubled expression passed over the biker’s pasty face.

“We didn’t know that they had popped the Asshole. The Easter party went on until late in the morning, then we slept the whole day. We started up again in the evening, but those who stayed at the house were too tired to tag along with us. It wasn’t until we got there that we found out that someone had wiped the Asshole.”

“Weren’t you concerned? Afraid of revenge and retaliation?”

“Nope. It was a damn good reason to party harder!”

Killer Man grinned triumphantly again. Irene wondered if he really was as stupid as he sounded. Was he trying to buy time? Maybe get some information out of the detectives? That was the only reason Irene could give for him to speak with them at all. Could Hells Rockets really be innocent of the attack on Ronny Johnsson? That would explain why they hadn’t been concerned when they learned of the shooting of the gang leader and his girlfriend. In a cold, expressionless voice she asked, “And who do you claim did shoot Ronny Johnsson?”

Killer Man hadn’t been prepared for this question and he didn’t like it. “I haven’t claimed anything!” he screamed.

But uncertainty could be heard in his voice even if he was trying to conceal it.

“You say it wasn’t you. And it could hardly have been the Devils themselves. Then it must have been someone else. Probably another gang. Which one?”