“Why was the father upset?”
Georg squirmed. Clearly, he wasn’t happy, with his seat or the situation.
“He claimed that his little eight-year-old daughter had a breakdown over the weekend. She said that Jacob had made her do ‘bad things.’”
“What kind of bad things?”
“The father said that Jacob had shown her his ‘thing’ and forced her to undress completely. Then he supposedly. . touched her.”
“Where did this supposedly happen?”
“At school. After regular school hours. Jacob apparently offered to give the girl extra help. She has difficulty with the language and is quiet. She had fallen behind in math.”
Andersson looked at his cousin in his elegant suit. Finally, he said slowly and with emphasis, “You stupid shit!”
Georg jerked back but didn’t say anything.
Upset, Andersson got up from the armchair and started walking around the room. “Do you realize what you’ve done? You’ve withheld important facts in a murder investigation! It’s prosecutable! Damn it, you’ve gone and kept to yourself a motive for murder!”
Andersson had to pause to catch his breath, and Georg tried to defend himself: “But Jacob denied the accusations. He protested his innocence and said that the girl had misunderstood his kindness. She was the one who wanted to sit in his lap. He had had to turn away her affectionate impulses. Maybe she had imagined more than there was. Or maybe she simply wanted revenge.”
Andersson glared at his cousin. “An eight-year-old?” he asked dryly.
“Well. . kids lie.”
“What did Jacob say about forcing her to take off her clothes? And the accusation that he had exposed himself?”
“Naturally, he was horrified. He swore several times that he was innocent. He was terrified of an investigation. What would his parents say? Think of his father, being a rector.”
“And a good friend of yours. Did you believe him?”
“Yes. . he seemed trustworthy.”
“And there never was an investigation into the accusations?”
“No. He died. That night.”
“What a relief for you. No unpleasant publicity for the school. No fear of loss of subsidies. No fear of the parents complaining on behalf of other children. Everything works out.”
Andersson’s voice dripped with sarcasm, and he did nothing to conceal it.
Georg rose from the sofa. He was almost a head taller than his cousin. In an attempt at retrieving his dignity, he said, aggrieved, “I came here to inform you about what happened on the morning of the murder. Actually, I shouldn’t have bothered, since it has nothing to do with the murders. . ”
With three quick steps, Andersson was at Georg’s side. He craned his neck back and stared up at his cousin. “How do you know it doesn’t have anything to do with the murders? How do you know that the girl’s father or uncles, or whoever the hell else is in that big family, didn’t shoot Jacob and his parents?”
“Why. . why would they have done that?”
All of Georg’s arrogance disappeared. He glanced away and tried to brush a non-existent spot off one of his sleeves.
“Ever heard about a thing called vendetta? They dispose of the whole family to get revenge. We were stymied for a motive in this investigation for a long time. This is actually a serious motive,” Andersson said.
Georg tried to tough it out and said formally, “It was a mistake for me to come here and take up your precious time with these unimportant details and-”
“Deep inside, you’ve known the whole time that they were damned important. Otherwise you wouldn’t have driven across the whole city in order to ease your delicate Christian conscience!”
In the dark room, the two men stood and measured each other. Georg turned away first. Stiffly, he said, “I’m going now.” He turned and hurried into the hall.
Andersson heard the front door close behind him with a bang. Sighing, he walked over to the coffee table and grabbed his beer can. He made a gesture with the can at the closed door and said loudly, “You do that. And say hello to Bettan!”
Chapter 22
IRENE LOOKED AT HER colleagues. The last shot had just been heard on the tape that she had played for them. They had sat, mesmerized, for a whole hour while she described the events that had taken place in England and Scotland. It almost seemed as though no one wanted to break the silence. But Superintendent Andersson finally cleared his throat.
“Georg Andersson. . the director of the school where Jacob worked. . got in touch on Friday. There I was, up to my neck in motorcycle shit, and then he comes and finally decides to talk. … Started blabbering about his conscience.”
Andersson stopped and Irene saw the color in his face rise. She wasn’t completely unprepared when he slammed his fist onto the table in front of him and bellowed, “If that ridiculous jackass had only said something! We would have solved this a lot faster! But he was worried about the school’s reputation, and since Jacob was dead, then it wasn’t necessary to drag events into the daylight! Both he and the girl’s parents thought it was best not to say anything. Load of crap! I told him a thing or two.”
It was clear that the superintendent’s cousin had gotten into hot water and was on the minus side when it came to brownie points, but the reason for his having fallen into disfavor was still concealed. Irene finally ventured to ask what the superintendent meant.
“On the morning of the murder-so, on Monday-a student’s father came to the principal’s office. He was sad and angry, and that can be understood. His eight-year-old daughter had told him, sobbing, that her teacher had several times forced her to perform different sexual acts. Guess who the teacher was.”
“Jacob Schyttelius,” several of the officers answered at the same time.
“Exactly! Georg called Jacob to his office and told him what the girl’s father had said, but he flatly denied it. Said that people from other cultures could get hold of the wrong side of the stick, might not understand our Swedish openness between students and teachers in a Swedish school. The girl’s family are Syrians, I believe it was. So I checked with the police in Norrland, where Jacob was a teacher before his divorce.”
The superintendent waved a pile of faxes in the air. “These came a few hours ago. That damn Jacob had been forced to quit his job after he was suspected of making sexual advances toward students! Or he resigned voluntarily, rather. Then he moved down here, and proceedings against him there came to a halt. Up there in Lapp hell, they were just happy to get rid of the bastard!”
Irene remembered the sad, intimidated Kristina Olsson, the ex-wife who had moved to Karlstad. Her unhappiness had an explanation. But she hadn’t said anything either.
“If only someone had said something!” Andersson exploded.
Thoughtfully, Irene said, “I’ve been thinking quite a bit about something Svante Malm remarked. He said that the devil is inside us all. Where the devil clearly manifests himself in heinous crimes, it’s easy to see him. Murder, sexual abuse, and rape are definite and clear manifestations of evil that we can fight. But it isn’t so easy to fight against glass devils.”
“What the hell kind of nonsense is that?” Andersson hissed.
Irene continued, “A glass devil is a person in whom evil becomes transparent. People simply don’t see it, despite the fact that it’s there all the time. The side of himself that the devil shows blinds people. No one saw the devil in an old clergyman who wore a silver cross around his neck and donned gold-embroidered chasubles. And who saw the devil in a handsome young teacher who was so friendly and well-liked by his students? No one. And no one
Andersson glared at Irene as if he couldn’t believe his ears. “Seriously. . Maybe this has been too much for
