biological son.”
“Hannu, come take a look at this.”
Tommy held out the faked delivery record. Hannu read it without expression.
“That could have worked,” he said at last. “There were no central data registries then. An unwed mother could give her child up for adoption at birth, and the new parents could take the child at once. This must have happened in Stockholm. If the adoptive mother came back to Goteborg with papers that proved she’d given birth, there’s a good chance that the church registry would accept it.”
“Especially if the parents were upper-class and were considered respectable. And they must really have played the game well. I expect Lovisa wore a pillow under her clothes before she left Goteborg for Stockholm,” Irene said.
“Wait a moment! Tekla. The envelope with the rent receipts.” Tommy began to shuffle papers as he looked for the right envelope. He quickly pulled out the receipts. “Here! Seven rent receipts at one hundred crowns apiece. Under the name Tekla Olsson. No address, unfortunately.”
“Let’s take another look through these file folders and see if we can find a rental agreement,” Irene said.
She was only able to open to the index when the phone rang.
“Inspector Irene Huss.”
“It’s Siv Persson. Something’s happened!”
“What?!”
“The killer! The blonde! Yesterday evening. Right outside my … my door!” Siv Persson stammered.
“We’ll be right there. Don’t open the door for anyone but us, even if it’s someone you know.”
“I promise. Thank you for coming.”
Irene hung up and repeated the short conversation to the others. They decided to split up. Hannu and Tommy would go to Siv Persson, while Irene would stay to keep sifting through the papers and letters.
She hardly wanted to admit it even to herself, but she was intrigued, almost excited, to poke around among these relics of the dead. But would she turn up anything relevant? She’d have to trust her intuition, and she had a hunch these clues from the past were important. The need of the murderer to kill, on top of all these secrets, told her that.
Irene was unable to find a rental contract, so she went over the letters, which were much more interesting. There were nine of them. She arranged them according to their dates.
The first one was from July 19, 1945. A poem was quoted as a superscription above the greeting. Following the poem, the letter read:
Irene quickly read the rest of the letter. Not one word about Hilding or Lovisa Lowander. She sped through the other letters as well. Same negative result. Not one word about love—or any other emotions, for that matter— just small stuff about happenings at work and in daily life.
The last letter was entirely different. It also began with a poem, but there were only a few lines below the quote. Irene felt strong emotion at the date: March 21, 1947. It must have been written a day or two before Tekla hanged herself.
Irene leaned back in her chair and tried to think. Why had Anna kept these letters of all letters? Did they contain some important information somehow? Tekla and Anna had grown up as sisters. Did they have a secret code?
She felt her brain slow to a stop. No use continuing. Time to go to the coffee machine and get another cup.
She’d just dropped the required two crowns into the machine when she heard a familiar voice.
“There you are. Any scoops for me today?”
Kurt Hook didn’t sound angry, just sarcastic. Extremely sarcastic, actually. Perhaps he was entitled, Irene told herself.
She turned around with an innocent smile on her lips. “Well, hello. Can I offer you a cup of coffee? Not as good as yours over at GT, but this will have to do.”
Hook shrugged and mumbled something that Irene took as a yes. She stuffed two more crowns into the machine and handed him a steaming-hot cup. She hadn’t thought of any strategy, just walked ahead as Hook followed her to her office. He stopped with raised eyebrows as he reached her door.
“Are you moving in or moving out?”
Irene laughed, but she could understand his quizzical expression. Files, folders, and paper were strewn everywhere. The paper bags containing Tekla’s and Hilding’s books and clothes stood on the floor.
“You won’t believe me. These things belonged to the ghost nurse. They fill two whole bags.”
“Somebody is putting you on. People here didn’t have paper bags back then. Especially not ones with a grocery-store logo on them.”
Amazing how this guy spotted things. He was right, of course. Irene hoped he wouldn’t ask about the suitcases.
“Where did you find all this stuff?” Kurt Hook asked. “And is this everything?”
Irene could almost sense his professional antennae go up. She was just about to give him a noncommittal answer when something occurred to her. Someone had broken into the suitcases recently. What had been taken from them?
She was jolted from her musings as Hook added, “And why are you wasting time sorting through it?”
Irene waved his questions away and pointed him to a chair. Her brain went into overdrive as it tried to churn out a story not too far from the truth. She made a tentative effort.
“As you know, we found Linda Svensson hanged in the hospital attic at almost the same place where the ghost nurse Tekla had hanged herself way back when.”
Irene took a large sip of coffee as she decided where to go next.
“In one corner of the attic, we found three old suitcases. They’d been recently broken into. One of them belonged to Tekla Olsson, and the other two belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Lowander—that is, Sverker’s parents. Now I’m sorting through them to see if anything here is important, especially since someone had broken the locks to get into them. Whoever it was must have been looking for something, but what?”
“If they found it, it would be long gone, Hook pointed out.
“True. Still, we have to sort through everything just in case there’s something we missed. Probably not, but you never know.…”
She let her sentence trail off for a reason. She took another long sip of coffee. Hook bent his long body over the desk and picked up the pile of faxes before she had a chance to stop him.
“What are these?”
“Old letters Tekla wrote to her foster sister in Stockholm.”
“Why in the world would you read these?”
Irene didn’t like his inquisitive stare and sharp questions. Why did she ever invite the most inquisitive journalist in all of Goteborg into her office? But here he was!
“We were tracking down Tekla’s sister, but, unfortunately, she’s deceased. We did find her son, and he was the one who faxed these to us.”
“Why would these letters be of interest?”
“Don’t know.”
Irene could tell how dumb she sounded but decided to maintain her tack. She watched Kurt Hook flip through the letters. Then he started to arrange them by date. Thoughtfully, he read through them and hummed to himself. Finally Irene couldn’t restrain herself and burst out, “Do you think they might be in a secret code?”
Hook gave her a sharp look. “What do you expect to find?”
