The temperature was only five degrees above zero, Celsius, but the air already felt as if it would warm up. Maybe the first spring day would finally arrive. The birds that were singing in the bushes outside the police station seemed convinced that it was on its way.
She hadn’t had time to open either the newspaper or the book when she fell asleep, only awakening when the bus left the Saffle station. With stiff fingers, she poured coffee into the thermos lid and drank. It was almost lunchtime, and the two wilted cheese sandwiches she had packed tasted heavenly. When she sipped the last bit of coffee, she thought back on her recent telephone conversation with Jacob Schyttelius’s ex-wife.
IRENE HAD called her at seven thirty. After just two rings, a woman answered.
“Yes?” The voice sounded weak and hesitant.
“I am Detective Inspector Irene Huss. I’m investigating the murder of your ex-husband and his parents. I wonder if you might be able to meet with me today or tomorrow.”
There was a long silence. Irene started to worry that the woman on the other end of the phone had hung up.
“I don’t want to,” Kristina Olsson whispered.
A second later, she started sniffling. Irene was at a loss, but decided to continue.
“I understand that this stirs up a lot of feelings, but I really must ask you to answer some questions. We’re investigating a terrible crime, and we don’t have any leads as yet. You knew Jacob and-”
“I don’t know! I don’t know!”
The last part sounded like a desperate scream. Irene wondered if Kristina Olsson was well. She was behaving very strangely. Irene became determined to meet her as soon as possible.
“What would be best for you? This afternoon, or tomorrow afternoon?” she asked.
Again there was a long pause. Then a dejected sigh was heard and the thin voice whispered, “After two o’clock, today.”
IRENE HAD been surprised by the poor rail connections between Goteborg and Karlstad. She had already missed the first train, and the next one left too late. But as luck would have it, she managed to catch the Saffle bus. She wouldn’t be able to return by bus, since the last one left at two thirty. However, there was a train just before five o’clock that she should be able to catch.
The bus zigzagged forward between the parked taxicabs and stopped outside the central station in Karlstad. Irene took a taxi from the station, since she had no idea where Sundstavagen was. The taxi stopped outside a three-story yellow brick apartment building. The house had a few years under its belt, but the area looked prosperous. Irene pushed the button next to the name “K. Olsson.” The call box crackled. Irene leaned forward and said, “It’s Irene Huss.”
No one answered, but there was a buzz and the lock opened. The stairwell was clean, but it needed to be painted. There was no elevator, so she had to walk up to the third floor.
On the top landing, Kristina Olsson let her half-open door slide fully open. Irene stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the woman in the doorway. There was almost no resemblance between Jacob and his sister Rebecka in the photos Irene had seen, but Jacob and Kristina, his ex-wife, could very well have been siblings. The same slender build and the same dark blond coloring. Later, Irene realized that it wasn’t just Jacob and Kristina who were alike: Jacob had married a younger version of his mother.
Kristina wore her shoulder-length, straight light hair in a neat ponytail at the nape of her neck. There wasn’t the slightest trace of makeup on her face. She had beautiful skin, though it was pale. Her pallor was enhanced by the dark circles under her eyes. Or maybe it was the pale, powder-pink sweater set that made her look wan. The straight gray skirt was no more vibrant, but to Irene’s surprise she was wearing bright orange crocheted slippers on her feet.
Kristina tried to stand straight and forced a grimace-which was supposed to represent a smile-to her lips. The hand that she held out shook from nervousness. When Irene took it, it felt ice-cold, unpleasant, like the hand of a dead person.
Kristina moved aside in order to let Irene into the small vestibule. The first thing Irene noticed was the faint smell of Ajax floating toward her. A dark-blue wool coat and a forest-green down coat were hanging on the rack by the wall. A pair of sturdy brown walking boots and a pair of semi-high black boots sat beneath the shelf. A black wool beret lay on top.
A rag rug in cheerful colors covered the floor in the vestibule. Irene thought she recognized its type. When she was shown into the living room and saw the rug under the coffee table, she remembered where she had seen one like it. The person who had woven the rugs that lay on the floors in this apartment had also made the rug that adorned the hall floor of Kullahult’s rectory.
Irene took a seat on an uncomfortable yellow silk-covered couch. Kristina sat on the edge of the matching chair. These were odd pieces of furniture to find in the home of a relatively young woman, thought Irene.
“It’s lovely when the sun shines on your beautiful rug,” she began.
“Yes,” was the toneless answer.
Irene refused to give up this early, so she continued. “Did you weave it yourself?”
“No. My sister.”
“There’s a similar rug in the hall of your former parents-in-law. Did your sister weave that one as well?”
“Yes.”
Irene suppressed a sigh and got right to the point. “Our investigation is complicated by the fact that we don’t have a motive. Can you think of one?”
Kristina shook her head in reply, and Irene saw tears forming in her eyes. Why was she so nervous? Too emotional to talk about her ex-husband?
There still hadn’t been anything in the papers about the pentagrams on the computer screens, but it was only a matter of time before someone would leak this tidbit to the press. Irene decided to start with the Satanic lead.
“Were you aware that Jacob was helping his father track Satanists via the Internet?”
Kristina jerked back and opened her eyes wide. She seemed to be about to say something, but instead sadly nodded.
“Can you tell me anything about it?”
Kristina nodded again like a small, well-disciplined girl, but it took quite a while before she started speaking in her weak voice. “His father was the one who came up with the idea. After the fire. They burned down the summer chapel. The Satanists, I mean. …”
She left the sentence unfinished and there was a helpless, desperate look in her gray blue eyes. For the first time, she had uttered enough syllables for Irene to be able to make out her Norrlandsk dialect. How can she work as a teacher? Irene wondered. As if she had read her thoughts, Kristina said, “I’ve been on sick leave since. . the murder. . murders.”
“Were you involved in the hunt for the Satanists?”
“No. I don’t know anything about computers.”
Her voice dropped off, and she looked down at her tightly clutched hands.
“Did you and Jacob have any contact after the divorce?”
“No.”
“Did you see Sten or Elsa afterward?”
“No.”
It was strange to see how crushed Kristina seemed to be, even though she claimed to have had no contact with either Jacob or his parents during the last nine months.
“When was the last time you spoke with Jacob?”
“Last July. When everything was done. . after. . ”
“And when did you hear from his parents last?”
“Last June. His father called and was. . upset. . because we … we were going to. . ”
She started sniffling quietly. She was incapable of saying the word “divorce.” The crucial point was getting closer, and it demanded an answer. Irene gave Kristina time to pull herself together, and then she asked, “Why did you and Jacob get divorced?”
