“No.”
“Did your ex-father-in-law ever remarry?”
“No.”
“Do you know of any stories circulating around him … about other women …?”
Irene left her sentence unfinished on purpose to see if Barbro would swallow the bait. She did, with a bitter grimace.
“I read the article in the paper about Nurse Tekla. Of course I’d heard her story. Everyone who worked at Lowander knew it. I don’t believe it. Ancient gossip and rumors.”
“It looks like Sverker didn’t know anything about any relationship between Hilding and Nurse Tekla.”
“Well, it’s possible. He did know that she’d hanged herself in the attic, and people said she haunted the place. But he never talked about any of it. Perhaps no one dared mention the gossip to his face.”
“So there never was another woman in Hilding’s life as long as you knew him?”
“Never, but he was seventy-two when I met Sverker.”
“I understand that his parents were fairly well along in years when Sverker was born.”
“Yes. Hilding was fifty, and Lovisa must have been … almost forty-five. Oh, I’d never thought of her as that old. She’d been dead many years by the time we got married, and Sverker never talked much about her. But then there were many things he didn’t talk about.”
Barbro was back to the divorce like a tongue probing a loose tooth. Even though it hurts, you can’t stop.
“So he never told you he’d started a relationship with Carina?”
“Of course not! I was the last to know, as usual. I was presented with a fact. Carina was expecting, and so now he wanted a divorce. For the baby’s sake. Not thinking he already had two children. He never gave them a thought while he was busy chasing that cat’s tail, just like she’d planned. He fell into the oldest trap in the book.”
Obviously Barbro saw Sverker as an unknowing victim of Carina’s wiles.
“How long had their relationship gone on before you knew about it?”
“About six months. The worst thing was his lying and sneaking around. That they were doing it almost right in front of my eyes. I’ve never been so humiliated in my whole life.”
Finally some color had come into Barbro’s face and a spark into her eyes, but it was not attractive. Her hate and bitterness shone through.
Irene felt it was time to ask the most important question. “Someone at the hospital told me that you accused Carina of setting fire to the old mansion.…”
Barbro sat silent for a moment. Then she said stiffly, “No one would listen to me. No one believed me. But I saw her.”
“Where did you see her?”
“Outside the house. She was circling it. I saw her try the basement door, but it was locked. Then she moved backward to look up at the upper floors. She stood there for a long time. I heard her laugh to herself and saw her raise her fist and shake it at the house. Like this.”
Barbro bent her head back and laughed a hissing laugh. She shook her fist toward the ceiling.
“Were you still living in the house at the time?”
“No, the children and I had moved out.”
“What were you doing there?”
Barbro looked depressed, but now she was more willing to talk. “There was a police investigation after the house burned down. The police asked why I’d been there. I’ll tell you what I told them: I wanted to see what Sverker and Carina were up to.”
“So you were spying on them?”
“Yes.”
“Was Carina living in the house with Sverker?”
“No, she hated that house and never intended to move in. That’s why she burned it down. She and Sverker denied it during the investigation. They said I suffered from a jealousy bordering on mental illness.”
Again the deep pain appeared in her eyes, and she pressed her lips together. Irene realized that would be about all she would give. She thanked Barbro Lowander for her time, lifted her leather jacket from the hook, and left.
FOR THE REST of the afternoon, Irene busied herself with all the paperwork that had collected on her desk. She read through her report of her conversation with Barbro Lowander several times without feeling any wiser. It was not pleasant to meet with such hatred and pain. Irene had the impression that Barbro was the kind who cherished her grudges, whether they were real or imagined. It looked like she was the one who had suffered the most from the divorce, since her mental health appeared so unstable. Was there any truth in her accusations against Carina Lowander? It certainly was high time to meet Carina herself.
Irene’s colleagues were all taking their chairs in the conference room. To Irene’s surprise, Birgitta was back in her seat. She nodded in reply to Irene’s greeting. The superintendent did not comment on Birgitta’s reappearance but handed the floor to Svante Malm immediately.
“I can begin by saying that we found the same kind of dark fibers on Linda Svensson’s clothes as we had on Marianne Svard’s clothes. The fibers seem to have come from the same garment—namely, the nurse’s uniform found in the burning garden shed last Saturday evening. There was enough left of the uniform dress so we could establish that fact with absolute certainty.”
“No such fibers on Gunnela Hagg?” Tommy asked.
“No. On the other hand, Gunnela had a great deal of talcum powder on the upper part of her skirt. We even found a fuzzy handprint. The murderer appears to wear size seven and a half in gloves.”
“Large female hands or small male hands,” Irene pointed out. She wore size eight in gloves, size ten in shoes. If you’re five-ten in stocking feet, that’s how it is.
“We’d also found glove talc on the two nurses. The murderer wore medical gloves while he committed all three murders. In addition, we were able to secure blood and hair samples from the wire cutters. Both came from Gunnela. We believe that we have also found the murder weapon used to kill Marianne.”
Svante Malm flipped through his notebook. Everyone else was silent.
“As you know, the killing length of rope was still around Linda’s neck when she was found, even though she was hung up after death. This rope was deep in her musculature, and the murderer did not bother to remove it. Marianne was also strangled, but the ligature was not still on her body. We wondered why, and now we know. The murderer still needed it.”
Svante said nothing as he bent down to pick up a paper bag by his chair, and he drew out a clear plastic bag containing thin, white rope. Before opening it, he pulled on a pair of thin latex gloves.
“This is the rope for the flag that was stolen from the security guard’s roll. There’s almost six meters of it. One meter was cut off and used to strangle Linda. That’s this piece.”
Malm took out a meter-long piece of rope. It was darkly stained in the middle.
“The strange thing was that there was also a stain in the middle of the rope used to raise Linda’s body. We thought it must be blood, but of course we had to analyze it. And it was blood, but not Linda’s. It was Marianne Svard’s blood.”
The superintendent’s breathing had become labored, and he started to gesture wildly. “Wait a minute. This sounds nuts. First strangle Marianne and then bring away the rope because it’s still needed to hang up Linda? And Linda left with the shorter part still stuck around her throat? There’s no rhyme or reason to any of this.”
To everyone’s surprise, Hannu corrected the boss. “First Linda. Then Marianne.”
Andersson glowered at this suggestion. “Explain,” he said shortly.
“First he strangled Linda with the short piece of rope. Then he strangled Marianne with the long piece. He took it back because he needed it to hang up Linda’s body.”
The timeline might be correct, but why? Why was Linda hung up in such a way?
Andersson turned to Irene to hear if Barbro Lowander had brought any leads. After Irene summarized her interview, it was Tommy’s turn.
“I met with Siv Persson, the old nurse, today. She was practically one hundred percent certain that the nurse
