Lars Kepler - The Nightmare

“A noose from the ceiling in the small salon,” she’d answered.

“So you saw the noose?”

“Yes, indeed.”

Of course she did, Joona thinks as he watches the highway unroll before them. “Yes, indeed,” she’d said. The housekeeper’s forceful expression-in words and manner-reverberates in his head. So does the look she gave him when he’d told her she would have to go down to the police station to give a statement. He’d thought that would alarm her, but it hadn’t at all; she’d just nodded.

They’re now passing Rotebro. Joona was involved in an old case there in which they’d dug up ten-year-old remains in a garden while looking for Erik Maria Bark’s son, Benjamin. It had been winter then. Now wildflowers and greenery soften the rust-brown railroad tracks and brighten the way around the parking lot and on toward the town houses and larger homes.

Joona decides to call Nathan Pollock at the National Criminal Investigation Department. After a few rings, he hears Nathan’s nasal voice.

“Nathan here.”

“You and Tommy found circles of footprints beneath Palmcrona’s body.”

“That investigation was shut down,” Nathan answers as Joona hears him typing on a computer.

“Right, but now-”

“I already know,” Nathan said. “I’ve just talked to Carlos and he told me about the new developments.”

“So can you take another look?”

“I’m already doing that,” Nathan says.

“Sounds good. When will you have some results?”

“Now,” Nathan replies. “They’re from Palmcrona and his housekeeper, Edith Schwartz.”

“Nobody else?”

“No one.”

Saga is keeping a steady speed of 140 kilometers an hour. They’re heading north on European Route 4.

Earlier that morning, Joona and Saga had gone to the police station to listen to the recorded interrogation of Edith Schwartz while simultaneously following John Bengtsson’s handwritten notes.

Joona reviews the questions and answers in his memory. After the standard formula statements informing Edith that there was no suspicion of a crime, they requested whether she could shed some light on the reasons behind Carl Palmcrona’s death. Silence. Then Joona and Saga could hear the sounds from the ventilation system, the creaking of a chair, and the scratching of a pen on a sheet of paper. John Bengtsson had decided that due to Edith Schwartz’s apparent disinterest, he would let her speak first.

At least two minutes passed before she spoke. Two minutes is a long time to sit before a police officer’s desk while a tape is running.

Finally, she asked, “Did Director Palmcrona take off his coat?”

“Why do you ask that?” John Bengtsson replies in a friendly manner.

She said nothing. Another half minute went by. Finally, John ended the silence by asking, “Was he wearing his coat the last time you saw him?”

“Yes, he was.”

“Earlier, you told Detective Linna that you’d seen a noose hanging from the ceiling.”

“That’s correct.”

“What did you think he was going to use the noose for?”

She did not answer.

“How long was the noose hanging there?”

“Since Wednesday,” she said calmly.

“So you saw the noose hanging from the ceiling on the evening of June second, went home, returned the next morning, the third of June, saw the noose still hanging there, met Palmcrona, left the apartment, and then returned on the fifth of June at two p.m. when you met Detective Linna.”

The notes state she shrugged her shoulders at this point.

“Could you tell us something about those four days?” he asked.

“I come to Director Palmcrona’s apartment every morning at six. I am only allowed to use my key early in the morning, since Palmcrona sleeps until six thirty. He keeps regular hours and he never sleeps in, not even on Sunday. I grind the coffee beans in the hand grinder, cut two slices of brown bread, and spread extra salted margarine on them before I place two slices of truffle-filled liver pate and pickles along with one slice of cheddar cheese to one side. I set the table with starched linen and the summer porcelain. I must remove all advertisements and the sports section from the morning papers and place them, folded, on the right side of his plate.”

With minute detail she ran through the entire preparation of Wednesday’s ground-veal patties in cream sauce as well as her preparations for Thursday’s lunch.

When she got to the point where she returned to the apartment with food for the weekend and rang the doorbell, she fell silent again.

“I understand that this might be difficult for you,” John Bengtsson said after some more time had passed. “But I’ve been listening to your every word for quite a while. You have gone through Wednesday and Thursday but not once have you said anything that might touch on Palmcrona’s unexpected death.”

She said nothing.

“I ask you to search your memory again,” John Bengtsson said with great patience. “Did you know that Carl Palmcrona was dead when you rang the doorbell?”

“No.”

“Did you or did you not ask Detective Linna whether he had been cut down yet?” John asked, irritation creeping into his voice.

“Yes, I did.”

“Had you already seen him dead?”

“No, I had not.”

“But what the hell!” John’s irritation burst forth. “Can’t you just tell me what you know? What made you ask whether we’d taken him down or not? You were the one who asked that! Why did you ask if you didn’t even know that he was dead?”

John Bengtsson noted that he’d unfortunately allowed himself to be provoked by the woman’s stolid avoidance of direct answers and that after he’d cursed, she’d closed up like a clam.

“Are you accusing me of a crime?” she asked coolly.

“No.”

“Then I believe that we’re finished.”

“We would really like your help…”

“I remember nothing else,” she said as she got up from the chair.

Joona looks at Saga. Her eyes are fixed straight ahead.

“I’m thinking about the interview with the housekeeper,” he says.

“Me, too.”

“John got fed up with her attitude and thought she was contradicting herself. He assumed that she knew that Palmcrona was dead when she rang the bell and we answered.”

“Right,” Saga says, still not taking her eyes from the road.

“But she was speaking the simple truth. She really did not know that he was dead. She believed he might be, but wasn’t sure,” he continues. “That’s why she said no to his statement.”

“Edith Schwartz sounds like an unusual woman.”

Joona says, “I believe she’s trying not to lie but still keep something secret from us.”

Neither Joona nor Saga believe they’ll be able to get anything important from Edith Schwartz, but perhaps she can reveal where the photograph might be. They need it to solve this case.

Saga turns west onto Route 77 underneath the highway viaduct on the way to Knivsta, then almost immediately turns off onto a small gravel road paralleling the highway.

Low spruce forests line fallow fields. The masonry edge of a manure pool has broken and its tin roof is hanging lopsidedly.

“We should be there,” Saga says with a glance at the GPS.

They slowly roll up to a rusty boom and stop. As Joona gets out, he hears the dull drone of traffic on the highway. Twenty meters along, they can see a one-story house of dirty yellow brick. Decorative shutters are screwed on, and moss covers asbestos cement sheeting on the roof.

As they approach the house, they hear an unusual whirring sound. They glance at each other and move cautiously toward the outer door of the house. A rattling noise is coming from out back; then they hear the metallic whine again, coming closer. Racing around the house comes a German shepherd, mouth gaping wide. He slams to a stop a meter away from Saga, jerked back onto his hind legs by a long leash. He shuffles back a little, crouches, and begins to bark. He tosses his head from side to side to set himself free. As he jumps, the leash slides along a wire line with a whining, rattling sound.