Detective Inspector Huss

image from her memory had been insistently pricking at the back of her mind, and now it popped up. She remembered the four doors downstairs off the little square courtyard in back. The five stairways of all the main entry halls opened onto it, if she remembered it correctly. She hadn’t seen anything that looked like back kitchen stairs. There was every reason to look behind the door before they left, she thought.

Andersson sighed but lumbered over to the door with her. With a cautious shove she managed to open it. Behind it was no kitchen stairway, but a large scullery. The beams of the flashlights played over broom closets, a clothes dryer, drying cupboard, and a washing machine. On the latter a red light was blinking, indicating that the wash was done. Again Irene used her pen, so that she wouldn’t leave any fingerprints or wipe off any that were already there, as she opened the lid of the washing machine.

“A sheet. He put a sheet and towels in the washing machine before he met his killer,” she said dramatically to the superintendent.

They went back out through the kitchen, stepped over the rug in the hall, and inspected the guest suite. Inside the door was an airy bedroom with a queen-size bed. They glanced quickly in the guest bathroom, without finding anything of interest.

Chapter Three

IRENE HUSS DROVE HOME through the midnight stillness of Goteborg. Here and there electric candlesticks had begun to appear in windows, although it was more than a week and a half until the beginning of Advent. Was it because of the Christmas decorations in stores being displayed earlier and earlier, or was it merely a sign of the longing for light in the dense winter darkness? Speaking of light, Jenny needed a new candlestick for her window. The old one had shortcircuited last year. Was it Jenny or Katarina who said that she’d rather have a birch-bark star? Sometimes it was hard to remember which of them said what. Even though the girls were twins, they were so unlike in every way that people hardly believed they were even sisters. Jenny was most like Krister, a little uncommunicative and just as blond. But she hadn’t inherited her father’s interest in food, devoting herself instead mostly to music. Katarina was dark like Irene, extroverted and sporty. She had started going with Irene to the dojo when she was ten. Now she was thirteen and was about to be certified for a green belt, ukemi- waza.

Irene had been seventeen when she got hers. At nineteen she became the Nordic female champion in judo, and two years later the European champion. Of course in the women’s competitions there hadn’t been much significant opposition in the rest of Europe seventeen years ago, but it had still given her high status at the police academy.

Her fellow students still talked about the time an instructor came to the academy to address “the need for the police to know some basics of self-defense.” He was a cocksure Stockholmer who intended to show the puny police cadets how a real ninja hero defended himself.

He called up the skinniest boy in class, a wiry kid from Smaland who never in his life had trained in any martial arts. On the other hand, he did belong to the Swedish national team in table tennis. The cadet was told to put a choke hold on the instructor from behind, and he obediently complied. Quickly the instructor grabbed the Ping-Pong player’s left hand, turned ninety degrees toward him, pressed his hand hard against his shoulder, and put him down on the mat with an o-sotootoshi. There was just one problem-you don’t push down wiry cadets from Smaland any old way you like. Especially if they’re on the national Ping-Pong team. The cadet flared up and resisted, and then his shoulder dislocated. It hurt like hell and the poor guy lay there writhing on the mat. Instruction was halted as the student was taken to the emergency room to have his shoulder reset.

Irene was outraged. During lunch she made a decision. It was against the ground rules of the sport, but the instructor had to be put in his place. He had used a move that belonged to a blue belt, much too high a difficulty level for a beginner.

After lunch the instructor came back to the gym. With a smirk he said he hoped that “this little incident hadn’t scared them off from further practice.” No one answered, and the mood was gloomy. Quickly the instructor turned to his students and said, “Anyone figure out the hold and want to try?”

Ha, right into the trap! Irene stood up before anyone else could volunteer. With feigned shyness she lowered her eyes and said in her thickest Goteborg accent, “I guess I could give it a try.”

Tension was mounting among her fellow cadets, but the instructor didn’t notice. He was clearly annoyed when he saw that she was almost ten centimeters taller than he was. Resolutely he raised his arms so he could put a choke hold on her from behind. In a fraction of a second she had tensed her neck muscles, taken a step back with her left leg, and hooked his leg. She pulled his legs apart with a quick sweep, let him fall, and stepped back.

The cheers and applause went on and on.

The flattened instructor tried to regain the initiative as he lay on his back on the mat. “Good, very good! Anyone else want to try?”

The booing that greeted his remark was too strong to drown out. He slunk out the door. That was the first and last time they ever saw the guy.

Irene, amused by the memory, almost missed her turn onto Vasterleden at Jarnbrotts Motet and headed out toward Saro instead. Her eyelids felt heavy, and she longed to be home in bed.

INSIDE THE front door sat Sammie happily wagging his tail. He jumped, leaped, and wriggled with his whole body to show his boundless joy that she was home. Suddenly he stopped and pressed his nose tight against the door. He gave her a pleading look. Out. Have to pee. Right away!

With a sigh she put on his leash and went out in the night. After a few meters she remembered that she didn’t have any poop bags left in her pocket. If something happened now, they would have to rely on the darkness and the late hour and quickly slip away from the scene of the crime.

“WAS THIS the reason you were so late last night?”

Krister held up the Goteborg Post to Irene’s bleary gaze. She was sitting at the breakfast table, trying to wake up. It was almost seven o’clock. Her daughters plopped down at the table. The morning shower fight had ended with Katarina first, Krister second, Jenny third, and herself last. Krister was trying to find a new thermostat for the downstairs shower. It was hopeless to have only one, when all of them had to leave at the same time in the morning. Now it was her turn to shower. But hadn’t her husband just asked her something? She saw the black headlines screeching across half the front page: RICHARD VON KNECHT DEAD AFTER FALL FROM BALCONY. Lower down on the page, in smaller type: “Police tight-lipped. Accident or suicide?”

She managed merely to nod in reply. Before she left the kitchen, she said over her shoulder, “I have to take a shower. Dear, make sure the coffee is strong!”

She stood under the water for a luxuriously long time. Feeling much brisker, she went back to the bedroom and threw on her clothes: black Levi’s, black turtleneck, and a bright red V-necked Pringle sweater. Well, a Pringle knockoff, at least. Thin blue eyeliner to match her eyes, a little black mascara, and a light spray of Red Door. Now she was ready to move mountains!

The girls had breakfast ready when she came down. Their bus would be leaving in fifteen minutes. Katarina scrambled around looking for her school bag while Jenny sat at the table. She made an effort to gather her courage. Finally she blurted out, “Do you think I could have the money to buy an electric guitar? Or maybe as a Christmas present?”

“An electric guitar?” her parents echoed in unison.

“Yes. A band at school needs somebody who can play guitar and sing … so they asked me. One of the guys plays guitar for the same teacher as I do.”

“Are any boys from your class in this band?” asked Krister.

“No, three boys and a girl from ninth grade.”

“Ninth grade! But you’re only in the seventh, sweetie pie.”

“I’m not a sweetie pie!”

She jumped up from her chair with tears in her eyes and whirled out of the kitchen. Katarina stuck her head