He packed the copied notes and the photocopies into his briefcase, next to what he had already confiscated, and put Justine Lindberger’s Filofax back where he’d found it. Then he returned to Eric’s office, stepped out into the corridor, and went down the stairs. He nodded cheerfully at the receptionist, who looked as if she’d been eating dog poop, opened his glorious Bamse umbrella, and rushed out into the pouring rain.
He’d had to park his service Audi on the other side of Gustav Adolfs Torg, over by Operan, and now he ran straight across the square with his briefcase glued to his body to keep it dry; the Bamse umbrella hardly protected more than his head.
He jumped into the Audi and opened the briefcase. He skimmed through the pale copies of Justine Lindberger’s planner so that he would have a few trump cards in his hand when he met the recent widow; he hoped he wouldn’t have to use them.
Then he turned the car out along the Stockholm Sound, drove past Operakällaren, crossed Blasieholmen and Nybrokajen, drove up Sibyllegatan, and took a right onto Riddargatan at the Army Museum; the stupid hot-air balloon that had been filled with tourists and raised up and down all summer was still there, but it looked deserted in the rain.
Partway up the hill he stopped, did a seriously illegal parking job outside the unloading dock of a boutique, and rushed into a doorway where, sheltered from the rain, he pressed the intercom button next to the names ERIC AND JUSTINE LINDBERGER.
After four rings he heard a faint “Yes?”
“Justine Lindberger?”
“Not the press again, I hope?”
“The police. Detective Inspector Arto Söderstedt.”
“Come in.”
The lock buzzed and he went in, climbed six elevator-free flights of stairs, and found Justine Lindberger standing in the door. Viggo Norlander hadn’t been exaggerating when he described her delicate beauty in fairly unpoetic terms.
“Söderstedt,” he panted, waving his police ID. “I hope I’m not disturbing you too much.”
“Come in,” she said again. Her voice was weak from crying.
The apartment looked about as he had expected: elegant through and through, high-class but not flashy-rather, austere and subtle. He fumbled internally for adjectives.
In the living room Justine Lindberger offered him a spot on the leather sofa, which seemed unused. Of course, it was comfortable to the point of immediately inducing sleepiness. Across a low, lemon-shaped glass table, she sat down on the edge of a stylish Windsor chair. A glass door led to a balcony that looked out on Nybroviken and Skeppsholmen.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said quietly. “Have the media been difficult?”
“Yes, I’ve been feeling horribly pressed.”
It never bodes well to start off with a misunderstanding, so he refrained from quibbling over the meaning of the word press. In addition, he had to decide quickly whether to use the informal version of the pronoun you or the more formal one-Swedish has both. He decided on informaclass="underline" “Can you think of any reason at all for your husband’s murder?”
“No.” She shook her head and scrupulously avoided meeting his eyes, as she had since he arrived. “If it’s a serial killer, I guess it was just by chance. The most awful kind imaginable.”
“There’s no other possibility? It’s not something connected with your contacts in the Arab world?”
“Our contacts have been utterly peaceful.”
“You were supposed to go to Saudi Arabia on Friday. What was that all about?”
She finally met his gaze. Her dark brown eyes were brimming with sorrow, but for a split second he seemed to see a deeper sorrow there, a guilt even deeper than the survivor always feels toward the dead partner; all the unfinished things that would forever remain unfinished, everything a person ought to have said but had always put off. It was something more than that, he was certain of it, but her eyes moved away before he had time to define it.
“It was about details of some new Saudi import laws-the consequences for small Swedish businesses. What could that have to do with this?”
“Most likely nothing. I just have to get a clear picture of the situation. For example, is there anyone who would profit if you were excluded from the meeting?”
She nodded heavily, then met his gaze again; there might have been a tiny new spark in her eyes. “Do you mean that it might not have anything to do with-what was he called-the Kentucky Killer?” She spat out the word.
“I’m trying to find possibilities other than pure chance,” Söderstedt replied mildly.
“My job is to facilitate the business activity of Swedish companies in Saudi Arabia, at the expense of domestic and other foreign companies. For the time being, I’m the only person who is completely familiar with the situation, and my absence could potentially mean a certain competitive advantage for companies from other countries.”
“Which sectors are affected by these new Saudi laws?”
“Primarily the machine industry. But the changes in question are far too small to motivate anyone to commit any sort of crime, least of all murder.”
Söderstedt nodded. “How would you describe your relationship with Eric?”
“It was very good,” she said immediately. “Very, very good. In all ways.”
“Isn’t it difficult to work alongside your husband?”
“On the contrary. We share an interest. Shared. Past tense!” she shouted, then suddenly stood and ran to the bathroom. He heard the faucet running as ferociously as on an upper-class Japanese toilet.
Söderstedt got up and started walking around the apartment. It gradually dawned on him that it was much larger than his first impression had led him to believe. He walked and walked, but it never ended, and then he was suddenly back where he’d started. Three doors led out into the stairwell; the Lindberg home encompassed the entire floor, which had originally been divided into three apartments. He counted at least ten rooms. Three bathrooms. Two kitchens. Why two kitchens?
Employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he knew, had a good basic salary and their daily allowance nearly doubled it, but an apartment like this must have cost tens of millions of kronor. Likely a substantial amount of family capital had been invested from both sides.
He sat down, and when she came back, he looked as though he hadn’t moved. Her face was reddish, as if it had just been scrubbed. Otherwise everything was the same.
“Please forgive me.” She returned to the edge of the white Windsor chair.
“No problem,” he said grandly. “You don’t have any children?”
She shook her head. “I’m only twenty-eight. We still had plenty of time.”
“This is a pretty big apartment for two people.”
She met his gaze, immediately on the defensive. “Shall we stick to the point?” she asked cuttingly.
“I apologize, but we do need a clear picture of the circumstances of the inheritance. What are they? Do you inherit everything?”
“Yes. Yes, I inherit everything. Do you think I tortured my own husband? Do you think I let him suffer for an hour of hell while I stuck horrific pincers into his neck?”
Now, now, he thought. Smooth things over now.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I apologize.”
It wasn’t really enough. She had risen to her feet again and was half-shouting, the panic in her voice rising. “Small people like you can’t have the slightest idea of how much I loved him. And now he’s dead-gone-gone forever. Some fucking lunatic has tortured my beloved and thrown him into the sea. Can you even imagine what ran through his head during that last horrible hour? I know that the last thing he thought of was me; I have to find solace in the fact that it gave him comfort. It must have. It was my fault that he died! I should have died, not him! He died in my place!”