“Do you have many friends and children?”
“Millions and millions … my lovely ones, my children mychildrenmychildrenmychildren … all of my childrenmychildrenmychildren.…”
“I see. You said you’d seen a nurse in the gardens by Lowander Hospital?”
“Nurse Tekla! I am so scared of her. So scared, so scared. I have to keep special watch over my lovely ones. She will kill them, all of them, killkillkill … killkillkill.…”
“Who is she?”
Mama Bird said nothing but hummed a nursery rhyme.
“Focus a little and I’ll give you some pizza.”
“Beer and pizza is what I want. And bread for my lovely ones. My children.…”
“I see. Anything else that you know about Nurse Tekla?”
“She died … a hundred years ago. Deaddeaddead.…”
“You saw her in the park?”
“Yes, yes, yes, yes.”
“What was she doing?”
A moment of silence and then Mama Bird’s hoarse voice: “She went into the hospital.”
“How?”
“Howhowhowhowhow.…”
“How did she get inside the hospital?”
“Through the door.”
“Did something happen while she was in the hospital?”
“God took away all the light. She was going to do a deed of darkness. The time had come, and all light was taken away. But I kept watch, I kept watchwatchwatch.…”
“Did you see her come back outside?”
“Yes, yes, yes, yes.”
“What did she do then?”
Another stretch of silence. “She raised her hands to God and thanked Him for revenge! Revenge! Revengerevengerevenge!”
“And then what did she do?”
“She took the bike. God punishes theft!”
“She took the bike? What bike?”
“The other one’s bike. But now she’s dead. Everyone goes to their death! Tremble! Keep watch! Pray! Deathdeathdeathdeath.…”
“So Nurse Tekla took the bike and got out of there!”
As a reply, Mama Bird began to sing in a way that reminded Irene of a Sami joik: “Hoyahoyahoyahoya. …”
That’s when Hook had turned off the tape recorder. Irene rewound the tape and listened to it again without pausing. Then she rewound it yet again and began to take down the unusual conversation.
She had listened to the entire conversation a fourth time before Hook came back.
“You wrote an entire article based on this?” Irene asked, not trying to hide her surprise.
“Along with my other source, who had overheard two police officers discussing the same thing. Normally I would have blown it all off. But it made sense, in a weird way. If you think about what the two officers were saying, there must have been someone else inside the hospital who’d also seen the ghost nurse. Right?”
“Yes, someone did mention the old legend, but I don’t remember who it was or why it came up,” Irene replied before she quickly switched the subject. “What did Mama Bird look like?”
“I’m not going to tell you any more about her. You already know too much as it is.” He was right, but that would not make it any easier to find this woman. “So you got yours. Time for mine.”
Irene told him everything about Linda Svensson’s unusual disappearance on the night of Marianne Svard’s murder. Hook took down notes as if his hand were on fire. Afterward he appeared satisfied.
“Thanks so much. Now I have to hurry over to your press conference at three. By the way, are they going to make Linda Svensson’s disappearance public?” he asked suspiciously.
Irene did her best to look innocent. She was happy that her bandages hid most of her face—a little silver lining there. “No idea. Superintendent Andersson will hold the press conference. This morning we were all told not to breathe a word about anything, especially to the media. So bye for now, and thanks.”
Irene tore out her pages from the notebook and got up quickly. Before too long the glass doors of the newspaper building closed behind her.
• • •
AT THE STATION everyone was running full speed before the press conference. She rode the elevator up to her office, deciding she’d hide out there to avoid Kurt Hook. He probably wouldn’t be too pleased with her after the press conference.
There were two desks in her office, hers and Tommy Persson’s, both of them bare. She took a tape recorder from one of her desk drawers and recorded the dialogue between Kurt Hook and Mama Bird. Her own voice sounded stilted when she read her notes, trying to re-create the conversation word for word. She made several attempts before she was relatively satisfied.
She sat at her desk for a long time afterward, lost in thought. Mama Bird was crazy, all right, but she’d seen something that night. Who had she really seen? How did she know the story of Nurse Tekla? Where had Mama Bird been standing when she saw this person moving about the hospital grounds? And, most important, who was Mama Bird?
THE PRESS CONFERENCE proceeded in the usual manner—mild tumult. Andersson confirmed that the night- shift nurse Marianne Svard had been strangled around midnight on the eleventh of February. The murderer was still unknown. When a reporter asked about the ghost, Andersson snorted so loudly the speakers popped.
Then Andersson changed the subject to Linda Svensson’s disappearance. It was an unexpected bone tossed to them, and they threw themselves onto it. They scribbled down her particulars, noting that she was last seen wearing a red down coat and brown leather boots with platform soles. Her bicycle was also missing, and it was assumed that she’d ridden it away.
“It’s a city bike, light green metallic color,” Andersson concluded. Unfortunately, he was still standing too close to the microphone as he said, “What the hell is a ‘city’ bike?”
Questions from the reporters flew through the air, but Andersson could not add much. Instead he promised another press conference within twenty-four hours.
Irene watched the clock hit 4:00 P.M. In an hour the detectives would meet again. Before then Irene decided to call home to check in with her twin daughters, who were on winter break. Jenny was happy that one of the girl cousins from Saffle had called. The girls had been invited to join their cousins in Saffle, and from there all four girls would head to the family summer cabin in Sunne, where they planned to go snowboarding in Finnfallet and do some cross-country skiing in Sundsberget. Irene gave them permission to go, even as she thought that this trip seemed rather hastily put together.
Then she collected her thoughts and wrote her report covering the day’s events. Actually, quite a bit had happened. She’d just finished when it was time to go to the conference room. She took the tape recorder and a new notebook. On the cover she wrote “Lowander” in black ink. She opened to the first page and wrote “pizza” in neat letters.
ALL OF THEM had written their food orders on the list, and the orders had been called in.
“Everybody here?” Andersson said to open the meeting. “I see Jonny is missing. I imagine he’ll be here soon. Let’s get going.”
He took a breath and began to tell them about the morning’s phone call to Marianne Svard’s parents, who had been extremely upset and shocked. The superintendent felt they’d need a few days before they were questioned again. Both parents agreed they’d never known of any threat to their daughter, nor had she behaved any differently when they’d last seen her over the weekend. That was two days before she’d been killed.
After that, Andersson summed up his conversation with Yvonne Stridner in Pathology. As he was wrapping up, Jonny appeared in the doorway, one eye covered with a bandage. His right hand was also wrapped up.
Irene tittered. “Hello. It looks like you’ve met Belker.” she said in her mildest voice.
