He gave Irene, to his right, an expectant look. The report on her survey of the gossip clippings from Swedish Ladies’ Journal took time but was necessary. It gave a picture of Richard von Knecht’s public life. The account of her conversation with Sylvia and Henrik also gave most of the inspectors a clearer picture of the family members. Irene summed up her own thoughts and conclusions.
“It’s a regular soap opera. Both Sylvia and Henrik seem to be emotionally cool toward Richard. Not to mention that he felt the same about them. It wasn’t a happy family. The motives are the classic ones: money, unfaithfulness. What contradicts the theory of murder within the family, of course, is the bomb. There’s a chance that the murder and the bomb had nothing to do with each other. But actually I think that chance is microscopic,” she said.
The others nodded in agreement. Irene concluded by telling them about Charlotte’s still-unconfirmed car-buying alibi and the guest list from Saturday’s party that Sylvia had given her.
Andersson looked pleased. “I myself had the great pleasure of eavesdropping on Birgitta’s interview with Waldemar, alias Valle, Reuter. Tell us about it, Birgitta.” His whole face lit up with a broad smile, but the smile was quickly extinguished when Birgitta began to speak.
“Valle Reuter is a very pathetic man. He has been a serious alcoholic for many years. I’ve been in contact with the president of his brokerage house, Mats Tengman. When I explained to him what it was all about he was quite candid. Valle is still part of the firm in name only. He owns it, but has no influence on the business end, and no one is more aware of this than Valle himself. He still has his office. He sometimes goes inside and locks the door, saying that he’s extremely busy and is not to be disturbed. This usually means that he’s hung over. But they have to keep him on. The president calls it ‘social therapy.’ Reuter doesn’t have anywhere else to go. Except on Tuesdays, when Richard von Knecht was in the habit of having lunch with him. This was the high point of the week for Valle, Mats Tengman told me. But now we know that there were also other high points on Tuesdays. . Valle was thoroughly loaded when he came here and he gave us a good deal of information. I checked with Johanneshus, where von Knecht and Reuter ate lunch last Tuesday. The restaurant owner confirms the time. They arrived between one and one-thirty, left around three-thirty. The reason Valle Reuter wasn’t home on the night of the murder was that he spent the night with his girlfriend of the past three years, Gunilla Forsell. He managed to remember the address, and I contacted her this morning. She wasn’t particularly happy about the attention, to put it mildly. At first she refused to meet me. But I threatened to have her picked up by a squad car if she didn’t show up voluntarily. Then she was more cooperative, because the neighbors in the fancy boardinghouse on Stampgatan have no idea what little Fru Forsell does on the side. An extra job that pays more than her regular job. Guess what her day job is.”
Birgitta looked around among her colleagues, who were following her report with interest. “Stripper,” “day-care worker,” “nurse” were some of the suggestions. Birgitta laughed and shook her head.
“Wrong, wrong! Librarian!”
Everyone around the table looked disappointed. None of them had imagined such a genuinely musty occupation. Jonny Blom whispered to Fredrik Stridh, “Ha, the driest bushes burn the best!”
Birgitta pretended not to hear him and continued. “I went over there at eleven. She turned out to be thirty-five years old and good looking-but no supermodel, if you know what I mean.”
Jonny interrupted again. “No, I just don’t get it. I’d better head over there and check her out!” He pretended to get up, grinning broadly at Birgitta.
She gave him an icy stare and said in a neutral tone, “It’s no news that you don’t get it. But the rest of us, of normal intelligence, will proceed. As I said, Gunnel was not happy to see me. But after a while she started to talk. She’s been divorced for five years, no children. For ten years she’s had a part-time job at the city library. She didn’t think it would be so hard to find a full-time job after her divorce. But it turned out to be impossible. In these times of cutbacks, all the municipalities are reducing their library staffs. She couldn’t make ends meet on a half-time salary, so the solution for her was four gentlemen on the side. All of them are older men. Valle is the only one who isn’t married. She has Tuesdays, Thursdays, and weekends off from her library job, and that’s when she devotes herself to the gentlemen. She didn’t want to explain the arrangements, but apparently they have fixed days and times. On Tuesdays she has two visitors. Gentleman number one usually comes at twelve and leaves at two. ‘Extended lunch,’ he calls it. Valle is gentleman number two and has a special agreement. He comes at five-thirty, they have something to eat, talk, and watch TV. He’s always fairly loaded when he arrives, since by then he’s already had lunch with von Knecht. They usually go to bed around eleven. For the most part he falls asleep right away, but sometimes he wants to have a ‘little massage,’ as she called it. Then they sleep in her big queen-sized bed. In the morning they have breakfast together, then she goes to work and he toddles home.”
Andersson couldn’t help interjecting a question. “How much does he have to pay for that?”
Birgitta looked at him with her clear brown eyes until he started to blush. “She wouldn’t say. But I can tell you this: She lives in a cozy three-room apartment on Stampgatan. The art and furniture are firstrate. She wears jewelry that could easily have financed my trip to Australia, and she was impeccably and expensively dressed. When I was leaving I saw a car key on the hall table. I asked what kind of car she has. A Saab 900, she said, last year’s model.”
A meditative silence fell over the room. This wasn’t your usual type of prostitute, selling herself for a couple of hundred kronor on the backseat of a car and quickly spending it on booze or dope. Everyone had heard of call girls and high-priced “escorts,” but no one in the room had ever actually encountered someone in that category. Not until now.
Andersson wanted to proceed with the investigation and broke the silence. “What did she say about Valle’s visit on Tuesday?”
Birgitta smirked when she replied, “That must have been some entertaining day! It’s precisely for that reason that Gunnel was quite sure of the times. On Tuesday, gentleman number one didn’t show up at twelve like he normally does. She assumed that he was sick or tied up. But at four-thirty he rang the doorbell and demanded his weekly screw. That’s a good deal of money for Gunnel. She said that if he hurried it would be fine. And it would have been, if Valle hadn’t come staggering to her door just before five on that particular Tuesday. She couldn’t have him yelling out in the stairwell, so she had to let him into her living room and prop him up with a stiff drink while she finished off gentleman number one. Then she had to pilot him out so that the two gentlemen wouldn’t see each other. According to Gunnel, all four of them think they’re ‘the one and only’ for her.”
“Could Valle Reuter have paid her to give him an alibi?” Irene interposed.
“No, I don’t think so. Their stories fit pretty well. Neither of them was overly eager to talk. No, it doesn’t seem made up. But. .” Birgitta fell silent and smiled slyly before she went on, “in exchange for a promise that we leave her in peace with her ‘gentlemen,’ I got the name of Tuesday’s gentleman number one!”
“Hot damn!” said Andersson, looking impressed.
“I called him at his office and explained what it was all about. He was not eager to cooperate, but faced with the threat of a formal request to come down here to make an official statement, he gave in. He confirms Gunnel’s and Valle’s stories.”