tone, Irene began to run down the facts for the terrified Charlotte.
“We know that Bobo and Shorty planned a major narcotics purchase, via Bobo’s old friend Glenn ‘Hoffa’ Stromberg, vice president of the Hell’s Angels Goteborg chapter. The guys from Holland were supposed to deliver it. Everything was arranged and ready, when suddenly Bobo had trouble raising the cash. We now know why. Richard refused to pay.”
Charlotte was pale gray beneath her makeup, but her eyes were fixed on Irene. Slowly Irene continued. “Five hundred thousand. Half a million. For pictures in which Richard’s face can’t be seen. No wonder he refused to pay!”
With these words Irene whipped out the sex pictures, in which there was no doubt who the female participant was. For a moment it looked as though Charlotte was going to faint. Irene declared, “We know that it’s Richard you’re having sex with in these pictures.”
“No! It’s. . someone else!”
“Who?”
“I don’t remember.”
“So. . you don’t remember. Are you accustomed to having sex with men whose names you can’t remember afterward?”
Charlotte raised her head defiantly. “It happens!”
“And this man isn’t Richard?”
“No.”
“Then I can tell you that his face is actually in the picture. And it
“No. His face can’t be seen.”
“Yes, it can. Do you see the big painting in the background of the picture? Yes, that one. One of Bengt Lindstrom’s famous ‘monster heads.’ I had our technician blow it up and make a copy. Then I took it to Valle Reuter last night. He identified the painting as the portrait of Richard von Knecht that he gave to Richard for his sixtieth birthday! Since Sylvia thought they already had plenty of Bengt Lindstrom’s paintings on the walls, Richard hung the painting in his office apartment. How do we know that? Because the pictures are of Richard von Knecht’s office apartment, taken with a telephoto lens. Where from? From across the street. Who lives there? Why, Shorty Johannesson, cousin of your pal Bobo Torsson! Who took the pictures? Bobo, obviously! Don’t try to tell us that the man you’re fucking is anyone other than Richard von Knecht!”
One look at Charlotte was enough. Her face was a clay mask. It was inconceivable that it could ever have been considered beautiful. Her features were distorted with loathing. Half choking she said, “I was forced to do it. I didn’t have any choice. I owed Bobo money. A lot of money.”
“Drug debts?”
“Yes. I thought I could get a little money over at the car dealership, but Henrik managed it all through his account. I was desperate. I didn’t have a cent.”
“Didn’t you get money from Henrik? For the household, I mean.”
“Sure. Ten thousand kronor a month. But it wasn’t enough. At first I had my own money, from my modeling days. But that ran out. Henrik took care of all the payments for the house and the cars and that was all.”
“How much did you owe Bobo?”
“Eighty-five thousand.”
“Cocaine and amphetamines, I suppose.”
Charlotte nodded.
“How did Bobo find out about your relationship with Richard?”
“He met me a few times on the stairs, on the way to or from Richard’s apartment. And at a models’ party in September he asked me straight out. And I was dumb enough to tell him. I’d snorted a lot and was babbling.”
“And so he got the bright idea to blackmail Richard by taking pictures of the two of you.”
“I didn’t want to. He forced me. And I owed him money.”
“But you did it. Tell us.”
“I actually liked Richard. At first. He was cool and loved sex. Henrik didn’t at all. The past year we’ve hardly touched each other. He’s. . was abnormal, I think. And boring. Boring in bed.”
“But Richard wasn’t?”
“No.”
“How and when did your relationship with Richard start?”
“Last summer. At the end of July. Sylvia had gone to Finland to visit her mother and sister. Henrik was at Marstrand, of course. Richard called and asked me out to dinner. There was nothing strange about it. But it turned into something more. We suited each other, in some way.”
“How did you manage to get the pictures taken?”
“We used to meet in Richard’s office apartment. But we usually did it in the bedroom. It was a great room for. . that. The only time I managed to lure him into the living room, he had to put on that damned hood! Or ‘Roman helmet’ as he called it. He called himself ‘the Roman commander’ when he had it on. Ha!”
“And that’s why he refused to pay when he saw the photos?”
“Yes. He said that Bobo could never prove who the man in the pictures was. Laughed right in his face. Although it was over the phone, of course.”
“And then you two got the brilliant idea of blackmailing your husband for the money instead?”
“I didn’t know anything about it. It was all Bobo’s idea. He didn’t mention anything to me.”
“When did you find out that Henrik had seen the pictures?”
She put her hands to her face and whimpered. When she took them away there were no tears. Tonelessly she said, “The Thursday before Richard and Sylvia’s anniversary party. The Thirty Years’ War, you know. All the men said that in their dinner speeches. It was the worst thing I’ve ever been to. Henrik knew that Richard and I. . and then to sit there and pretend that nothing was going on.”
“What happened on Friday?”
“Henrik drove up to Marstrand. In the morning.”
“And you went to the gynecologist, to get confirmation of your pregnancy?”
“No. I knew that I was pregnant two weeks earlier. But I didn’t know what to do about it.”
“Whether you should keep the child?”
“Exactly.”
“Let’s return to Henrik and Friday. When did you see him again?”
“On Saturday afternoon. We were supposed to go to the party that evening.”
“Had he taken the keys from you on Friday?”
“The keys?”
“The keys you took from Richard, after his sixtieth birthday party at Marstrand. Arja stated that she saw you coming out of his bedroom, with his key case in your hand.”
“That fucking dyke!”
She slumped down in her chair and said, resigned, “Richard didn’t want to give me any keys of my own, but I saw them lying on the nightstand that morning. I figured it might be good to have them.”
“Did Henrik take the keys from you on Friday?”
“Yes, I discovered that the keys were missing on Friday. I usually kept them in my handbag, but they were gone on Friday evening. I immediately suspected it was Henrik who took them. On Sunday I found them again.”
“In your handbag?”
“Yes, he had put them back.”
“When did you find out he really had taken them? Or did you just have a hunch?”
“No, I knew. He wanted to have them back on Wednesday morning, the day after Richard died. He just took them out of my handbag, dangled them in the air, and said something like, ‘You’ve never seen these keys! Get it?’ And then he left.”
“Do you know what he did with them then?”
She nodded. “Yes. He gave them to that cleaning woman. The Finn. I didn’t figure it out until Bobo was blown up too. But I had nothing to do with those bombs. It was Henrik. He was jealous of Richard. He wanted revenge. And he refused to pay for the pictures.”
