The pizzas were devoured quickly, right out of the boxes, using the plastic utensils that had been supplied. The local pizza maker knew what was required when he made deliveries to police headquarters.
The coffeemaker was turned on. Andersson leaned back in his chair, feeling full, bloated.
Just at that instant a powerful muffled explosion was heard. The pressure wave made the windowpanes bend inward and start to rattle ominously.
“Damn, one of the refineries on Hising Island must have blown up!”
Jonny meant it as a joke, but nobody laughed. It was an unpleasantly large boom, even if it wasn’t the Shell Oil tank that had exploded.
Andersson shrugged his shoulders and tried to ignore the outside world.
“That explosion is someone else’s problem. Well, we’ve heard a report from everyone-except for you, Hannu.”
Hannu Rauhala looked straight at the superintendent when he began to speak. His voice was unexpectedly deep and his lilting Finnish accent sounded pleasantly soft. “I’ve been at the tax office-”
Jonny sat up in his chair and interrupted him, sounding agitated. “We don’t need to do double work!” He sounded agitated. “I’ve already ferreted out everything of interest from Financial!”
Hannu’s expression didn’t change, and his voice didn’t alter, but his eyes took on a colder ice-blue tinge.
“Richard von Knecht has another son.”
In the tense silence that followed, it seemed as though the sirens from all the police cars and fire engines in Göteborg began wailing at once.
Chapter Six
“WHAT ARE YOU SAYING? And what the hell is going on in town?”
The color in Andersson’s face rose considerably. He had thought they had a good grip on things. And suddenly all hell was breaking loose, both inside the department and out!
Hannu Rauhala kept his eyes riveted on the superintendent and continued, unmoved. “The tax authorities have copies of his personal file. Richard von Knecht has admitted paternity of a son, Bo Jonas, born July twenty-third, nineteen sixty-five, in the Katarina district in Stockholm. The mother is Mona Söder, November second, nineteen forty-one. It’s all on von Knecht’s death certificate.”
“How did you get access to. . Oh, the hell with it.”
One look in those ice-blue eyes and Andersson decided to put off the question until later. Instead he said, “This is interesting. I wonder whether the wife and his son Henrik know about the existence of Jonas? Irene, since you’re already in contact with both of them, you handle it. Hannu, you take Pirjo Larsson. We have to find out if she has a key to von Knecht’s apartment. Ask her who may have visited him while she was there, or if she saw anything else that seemed odd. And the rag. Don’t forget to ask her about the rag. Keep digging for information about Jonas and his mother. Maybe we’ll need to enlist the help of our colleagues in Stockholm. What a damned racket those sirens are making. Has half of Göteborg blown sky-high?”
Angrily he pressed the intercom button for the duty officer. At first nobody answered his call. He had to try again.
“Yeah, Dispatch here,” replied a calm male voice.
“What’s happening in town?”
“A building on Berzeliigatan is on fire. Suspected bombing. Didn’t you hear the explosion? It’s barely a kilometer from here.”
“Sounds like the boys at PO-One are going to be busy tonight!”
“No doubt. See you.”
The superintendent looked crestfallen when the intercom clicked off. To cover his embarrassment, he continued briskly, “So now we know, but that’s somebody else’s headache. We have to concentrate on the von Knecht family. Go on, Hannu, do you have more info on the second son?”
Hannu shook his head. “Nope, but you can take it from here, right, Jonny?”
“The rest of the family’s assets, last year’s tax returns. Sylvia von Knecht’s income was one hundred fifty thousand, personal net worth six hundred sixty-eight thousand. Henrik von Knecht’s income was five hundred thousand, net worth four hundred fifty-three thousand. Charlotte von Knecht’s income was seventy-two thousand and she has a net worth of zero.”
“A pauper compared to Pappa von Knecht. And who isn’t, compared to him?” Fredrik commented on Jonny’s research. Casually he remarked, “Truth be told, Charlotte and I are in the same financial bracket.”
The others laughed before taking a coffee break.
The meeting went on for another two hours. They went over and over various suggestions and hypotheses, but couldn’t tell whether they were getting any closer to the truth. Or whether it might already have been approached without anyone realizing it.
Andersson stifled a yawn and decided to wrap up the meeting with a few concluding remarks. “Okay, see you all here at seven-thirty in the morning.”
They had started packing up their notebooks, pens and pencils, coffee cups, and everything else essential to the investigation when there was another knock at the door. Without waiting for an answer, Officer Håkan Lund opened it, filling the entire doorway. He began with a greeting. “Peace. Thought I’d drop by with a report that might interest you.”
The group watched in surprise as he strode to the end of the table. Once he was there, he started his report. “I just came from the fire on Berzeliigatan. An eyewitness heard a loud explosion and then the place went up in flames. The windows of all the nearby buildings were blown out. According to the same witness the explosion came from the third floor. And there. .”
He paused melodramatically and gave his audience a look before he went on. “That’s where Richard von Knecht had his office!”
You could have heard a pin drop; no one could think of a thing to say. Håkan Lund was obviously pleased with the effect of his news. He continued, “My shift was supposed to end at four, but we were held up by a big traffic accident near the Tingstad tunnel. Sleet and black ice. Five cars involved in a rear-ender. No injuries to speak of, but plenty of peripheral work with reports and directing traffic. Just as we were finishing, we got the call about the explosion on Berzeliigatan, corner of Sten Sturegatan. It was burning good by the time we arrived. There were three fire engines on site and a couple of patrol cars.”
“Is the building a total loss?”
Lund gave Andersson, who had asked the question, a thoughtful look and replied, “Let me put it this way: On a fire scale of one to ten, where one is a match and ten is a quasar, this was a nine. An inferno. So yes, the entire building was gutted.”
“God damn it!”
It wasn’t the most intelligent comment the superintendent could have made, but it expressed precisely what everyone in the room was feeling. Lund resumed his report of the events.
“On the ground floor there’s a hair salon. The hairdresser who was in the salon escaped to the street. She was busy cleaning up after the day’s work. Fortunately, she only received minor injuries to her head and back. On the second floor there are two apartments. The residents of the larger one, a retired couple, managed to escape. They were in shock, their hearing was damaged, and they had a number of ugly burns. The tenant across the hall works as a desk clerk at the Sheraton and wasn’t home when the place blew up. He arrived just as I was leaving. Evidently he heard about the fire on the news. On the third floor is-or was would be more correct-von Knecht’s office. Apparently, it was a large apartment, according to the downstairs neighbors. By the way, von Knecht owned the whole building. The apartment next to his is currently vacant. It’s a little two-room place that he rents out to companies that need an apartment for short-term periods.”
Lund broke off, quickly went over and poured the cold dregs from the coffeemaker into a plastic cup, swished the coffee around in his mouth before swallowing, then smacked his lips contentedly and said, “Your mouth gets so dry from a fire. And from talking too.”