The sound of the drill had stopped. From the doorway came the assistant and a thin, wiry man with steel-gray hair. He appeared ten years younger than his sixty years. The look he gave Irene was sharp and intensely blue. It matched his light blue dentist’s smock. In his eyes she could also clearly see uneasiness. He stretched out his hand, shook hers with a painful grip, and introduced himself. With a nod he invited her to follow him to the staff room.
Noticeably upset, he said, “If you’ll excuse me, I have a patient in the chair. This won’t take long. What was it you told Mia? Richard was murdered? Impossible! Although suicide is just as unlikely. Are you sure that he was murdered?”
“Yes, quite sure. He was knocked unconscious and pushed off the balcony,” Irene replied.
She paused. Tosse merely closed his eyes and nodded.
“We understand that you and Richard von Knecht were good friends,” she went on.
“Who said that?”
“Medical Examiner Yvonne Stridner.”
“I see, Yvonne. Then she must have mentioned that Sylvia and I were engaged when she and Richard met. It was hard for me back then, but he was a better catch than I was. I met Inga, my first wife, only a few months later, so we buried the hatchet. We went to their wedding, and they came to ours the following summer.”
Irene suddenly had an idea.
“Were you at their party last Saturday?” she asked.
“Of course. Inga didn’t come, though; we’ve been divorced more than twenty years. Ann-Marie, my second wife, was with me.”
“Was everyone from the old gang at the party?”
“Yes. But far from all those who attended the wedding were present last Saturday. There were more than a hundred guests at the wedding. Last Saturday it was about twenty.”
“Were the ones who live in France there too?”
“Yes. Peder and Ulla Wahl. Ulla is my sister. They wanted to see their new grandchild. But they went back to Provence on Monday.”
“Did Richard von Knecht seem the same as usual?”
Tosse thought for a long time before he replied. “Yes, he was the same as ever. Happy and in high spirits. He loved parties. It was a great party. The only ones who didn’t seem to have a good time were Henrik and his wife. Maybe they thought we were a bunch of old fogies.”
“And Sylvia von Knecht?”
“Exactly the same. But she’s a little. . special.”
He fell silent. Before Irene could come up with another question, he extended his hand and shook hers in another viselike grip.
“Well, now I have to get back to my patient. Catch the killer; nobody should have to be the victim of a murder. Not even Richard,” he snapped.
Irene didn’t have time to ask him to explain his last remark in more detail before he disappeared. Irene massaged her right palm and fingers. Dentists have strong hands.
The lovely Mia showed her to the door. From down the hall she could hear the speedy whine of the drill.
OUTSIDE, THE drizzle had changed to a cold breeze with an occasional drifting snowflake.
A windy Göteborg, cold and raw with the temperature around freezing, feels just as cold as minus twenty Celsius in Kiruna up in Lapland. If not colder. Irene tucked her chin down into the top of her jacket.
She was going to be a little late for her meeting with Sylvia von Knecht, but all in all she was satisfied with her ability to keep to her schedule today.
It was a quarter past three when she walked through the glass doors to Ward Five at the hospital. The corridor was deserted. The walls were painted a dirty yellow color and the floor was gray linoleum. A sign that said NURSES’ STATION was visible up ahead. She went over and found a nurse in her fifties dressed in white sitting behind a counter. She was absentmindedly staring at a monitor.
Irene cleared her throat. “Excuse me. Where can I find Sylvia von Knecht? Detective Inspector Irene Huss.”
The nurse started, turned to Irene, and gave her an annoyed look. She snapped, “Yes, I’m wondering that myself. Where is Sylvia von Knecht? And all our other patients.”
Had there been a mass exodus from the psych ward? Or was this one of the patients who had put on a white smock and seated herself at the computer?
The woman turned back to the screen. “This is the problem! I managed to knock my coffee cup onto the keyboard. Thank God there wasn’t any coffee left in it, but the entire current patient list disappeared. All I can find is the one for April nineteen ninety-three! God knows what key I hit. Maybe several. Darn it! The Countess is in two one,” she said all in one breath.
After a confused moment Irene understood that she had received an answer to her question. “The Countess” must be Sylvia von Knecht. “Two one” must mean room two, first bed.
She knocked lightly on the door marked with a scratched and barely legible “2” before she stepped inside. In the bed near the door lay an elderly, emaciated woman gazing vacantly at the ceiling. Her yellowish skin seemed to be stretched tight over her skull with no musculature in between. She had no teeth and her lips had caved in, so her mouth appeared to be a straight line. Without blinking even once, she lay staring up at absolutely nothing. A tube was stuck in one nostril. It was taped to her cheek so it wouldn’t fall out.
In the corner by the window sat Sylvia von Knecht. No lamp was lit. A gray afternoon fog had begun to creep in from the sea, lending the room an unnatural murk. The only bright thing in the room was Sylvia’s hair, which was thick, shoulder length, and platinum blond. She looked like an ethereal elf, seated, dressed in a dark suit and white silk blouse. Her hands were clasped on her knee. The small, fragile woman sat absolutely still and looked at Irene.
“Are you the one who’s the cop?” she asked.
Her voice sounded pleasant with its slight hint of a Finnish accent, but her tone was sharp. Irene felt like a tardy schoolgirl who ought to be bringing a note from home. She nodded and was just about to introduce herself when Sylvia went on, “Huss, that’s what it was. Why are you so late?”
Irene quickly took refuge in her police role and replied in measured tones, “Detective Inspector Irene Huss. I’ve been interviewing a number of witnesses this morning in order to gather facts and information. It took longer than expected.”
She had no intention of apologizing!
Sylvia von Knecht said tonelessly, “Henrik is coming to pick me up in half an hour. I refuse to stay here another night. First they tried to put me in a room with four beds. Not on your life, I said. Then they put me in here with that zombie over there.”
With a graceful gesture she pointed to the woman in the neighboring bed.
“Oh well, there’s no need to worry about her. She hasn’t moved or said a word in several years, the nurses say. She has to go back to long-term care as soon as there’s room. They force-feed her through the tube in her nose. Apparently it goes all the way down to her stomach. It’s incredibly disgusting, but it doesn’t really matter. I don’t feel like eating anyway. Although I did want to stay for afternoon coffee.”
Irene steeled herself for this interview with Sylvia von Knecht. Stiffly she began, “We’re trying to find out what motive there might be for the murder of your husband, and-”
Sylvia von Knecht interrupted her. “How do you know it was murder?”
She had clearly been thinking about it since their telephone conversation that morning. Irene took her time reporting the facts that had been uncovered so far.
During the whole account Sylvia von Knecht sat quietly with her hands clasped at her knee and her head bent slightly forward. Her hair fell like a curtain in front of her face. Irene couldn’t see her expression.
When Irene finished speaking, Sylvia raised her head. There were tears in her eyes and her voice quavered with emotion as she said, “To think that something like this would befall our family. It’s despicable! I refuse to believe it! Who would want to murder Richard? Why?”