time, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, that was the house that brought him back to life. He was apathetic and depressed after his illness. Had to fight to become reasonably healthy again. He was unhappy. But then Richard decided to build a guest cabin down by the water at their country place, and Henrik asked if he could have his own cabin. I assume he probably wanted to be left in peace. The two houses were built at the same time. Henrik was full of energy. He was with the workmen from the first dynamite blast to the last roofing tile! It did him good, both physically and mentally. Doing manual labor.”
“Dynamite blast?”
“Yes, quite a bit had to be blasted out there on the rocks by the sea. For the building site. Henrik thought it was fun. He used to be a commando, you know. They learn a lot about explosives. Good grief, my throat is getting so dry with all this talk! Shall we have a little glass after all?”
She declined, friendly yet firm, as her brain worked in high gear. Henrik had both access to explosives and the knowledge to handle them. They had to go up to Marstrand and search for plastique explosive and detonators. And the det cord. Proof! That would be tangible evidence. Although there might not be any left. Maybe he used all of it for the devil bomb and Bobo’s briefcase. She suddenly realized that Valle had started talking again.
“. . extremely lovely up there. But Charlotte doesn’t like it. She thinks it’s too isolated. At first she went up there often. But not so much lately.”
“How was Richard’s relationship with Charlotte?”
“Good. He didn’t talk about her very often. Although he thought it was a shame that they couldn’t have children.”
Crash! The whole roof fell in on Irene’s head. Mentally, at least. Without betraying her inner excitement she asked in a neutral voice, “Can’t she have children?”
“It’s Henrik who can’t have children after his illness. He was tested several times, but he had no viable sperm. Richard told me the boy is totally sterile.”
“Did Charlotte know about this when they got married?”
“Yes. But she didn’t think it mattered. She didn’t want to have children, probably didn’t want to ruin her figure. If you’re a photo model, you have to think about your appearance. Really a very beautiful girl.”
“Did Richard also think she was beautiful? I mean, did he ever mention it?”
Valle gave her a surprised look. “Yes, I suppose any man can see that. Most normally constituted men probably consider Charlotte to be tremendously beautiful,” he said with emphasis.
“He never talked to you about his relationship with his daughter-in-law?”
Now Valle looked annoyed. “Since he seldom talked about her, it must have been fine! What does Charlotte have to do with Richard’s murder?”
Valle and Richard had been very close, had known each other for years. But clearly Richard had never mentioned to Valle any intimate relationship between him and Charlotte. Irene decided to drop the subject.
“You don’t happen to know what taxi company you took home from Johanneshus, do you?”
“But of course! We always use the same company, Richard and I. The only company in the downtown area with nothing but Mercedes cabs. A small firm, but they operate twenty-four hours a day. Wait, I’ll get you the number.”
He toddled off toward a door that led into a den. A window lamp with a flower-shaped glass shade shone faintly over a large, bare desk of dark, polished wood. The light reflected in glass doors and shiny leather. The reading chairs resembled those in von Knecht’s library. For a second Irene felt a longing to take a book from the shelves and sink down into one of the chairs. Just let herself be surrounded by its substantial leather embrace.
“Here it is!” Valle waved a slip of paper. He copied the number onto another piece of paper and came back into the living room.
“I always keep their card in my wallet too. It’s good to have it along. This company has excellent drivers. Helpful and friendly.”
Irene suspected that Valle was generous with his tips when he was in his cups, which would certainly be a contributing factor to the driver’s helpfulness. But she kept this thought to herself. She stood up and thanked Valle for his kindness.
“Oh, think nothing of it! If I can assist in catching the person who murdered my friend, I am at your service,” he said solemnly.
A little more of this attitude among those involved in this case and it would have been solved. Which made her wonder how the conversation at Sylvia’s was going.
“SHE WENT nuts when I asked about the sandwiches. She screamed at us to stop badgering her. She certainly shut up when Hannu said something to her in Finnish just as we were leaving. What did you say?”
There was a little tug at one corner of Hannu’s mouth as he hissed in a muffled voice, “This is about a murder investigation!”
Tommy laughed and turned to Irene, who was driving. “The conversation with Sylvia that preceded this didn’t produce much. She wouldn’t let us talk to her sister or mother. She told us that she had been up at Marstrand today. A horse had come down with bronchitis and a cough. But the vet had given it penicillin, so it would probably be fine. That was all the information we got. Otherwise she just grumbled. But she said something in Finnish to Arja just as we came in the door. Did you hear what she said, Hannu?”
“Yes. ‘Not a word about the party.’”
“‘Not a word about the party.’ Are you sure about that?”
“Yes, I am.”
“What party? She couldn’t have meant the funeral, could she?”
Irene had an idea just as she turned into the parking lot at headquarters. She said, “Could it have been the celebration of their anniversary? Or the ‘Thirty Years’ War,’ as someone referred to it during the course of the investigation.”
Tommy pondered out loud as she was parking. “None of them who were there said that anything special happened. They agree that it was an enjoyable party. Only Charlotte and Henrik seemed subdued, according to one account.”
“No wonder! She’s been knocked up by someone other than her husband. Maybe even by her father-in-law. And Henrik has just primed a bomb to send his father to kingdom come! No wonder they were subdued!”
Hannu put in, “Tense. Not subdued. Tense.”
It took her a second to realize what he meant. The engine was turned off, but they were still sitting in the car. She nodded. “Not subdued. Tense. Precisely. Henrik was nervous that something would go wrong with the bomb. And Charlotte had other things on her mind. Plans to take the life of her father-in-law, her lover, her child’s father? What was his relationship to her?”
Tommy sighed and threw up his hands. “It’s all circumstantial! We need proof! Proof!”
THE SUPERINTENDENT had driven home, simmering with fever. The three inspectors sat down and went over what the day had produced. On Andersson’s desk was a fax from the lab. The techs reported that the pipes in the cellar on Berzeliigatan had been located and “in all probability match the pipes that were used in the fabrication of the bombs in question. Additional tests for positive verification are ongoing.” They called the techs to ask about the sandwiches in von Knecht’s refrigerator, but no one answered. So they sent a fax too: “Definite information received that Richard von Knecht bought two ready-made sandwiches an hour and a half before his death. Did you see these sandwiches in the refrigerator? If so, were any of you hungry?”
Irene called the cab company. After lengthy explanations and fuss it came out that the driver they were looking for was on vacation. He was probably at his summer cabin in Bengtsfors. No, there was no telephone. But they could have the number of his apartment in town. Irene thanked them and hung up. As she had expected, she got no answer at the driver’s home number. She turned to her two colleagues and said, “Let’s go home now. I’ll take the number with me and try to get hold of the taxi guy over the weekend. Although tomorrow morning I’ll be downtown with the twins. It’s a tradition. We’re going to look at the Christmas decorations. I promised to go with them. I thought they were too old to want to take their old mother along. But they actually asked me to come with them.”
Inside she felt both happy and flattered.
