“Was the mood good?”
“It certainly was! Top-notch, as they say. Excellent food and drink. Although the young people seemed a little subdued.”
“The young people? Do you mean Henrik and Charlotte?”
“Yes.”
“But Richard and the rest were the same as usual?”
“Yes. Richard, Valle Reuter, and Peder Wahl sat and talked about wine for half the evening. They reminded me of druids, sitting and trumping each other with exciting decoctions. ‘Taste this one, my good man! You’ll be in seventh heaven!’ And then we sang a bunch of wine-drinking songs.”
“You’re not a wine connoisseur?”
“Ha! Next you’ll be writing down in the minutes of the interview, ‘V. not a wine connoisseur’! No, not like those other three. For them it’s almost a sport. Actually borders on religion. What country, what valley did the grapes grow in? What type of grape? What vintage? I’ve never had time for that. Sven Tosse and I like to joke about it and say that at least we can tell the difference between a forty-five-krona wine and a two-hundred-krona wine. Then Valle cringes so hard he starts shaking. ‘Fie on you two! That’s blasphemy!’ he says.”
His imitation of the fat little Valle Reuter was extraordinarily skillful. Andersson caught himself laughing out loud. Jonny looked even grumpier, if possible, and said sourly, “There’s nothing more you have to say about the murder of Richard von Knecht?”
Both Viktors and Andersson were stopped short in their merriment. Viktors gave Jonny a chilly look.
“No,” he said curtly.
“Will you be home in Särö in case we need to contact you again?”
“Up until Sunday evening. Then I have to go to Copenhagen again. I’ll be back next Wednesday.”
Andersson thought that Viktors was pleasant, but he realized that he had let himself be entranced by the man’s charm. There was something there, but it slipped away like quicksilver as soon as he tried to get a grip on it. Ivan Viktors headed for the door, turned around, and made a deep bow.
“Good-bye, gentlemen!”
“Good-bye.”
Andersson tried to ingratiate himself with Viktors as the stately man vanished out the door. When he had closed the door, Andersson turned to Jonny and said, “You noticed it too, didn’t you?”
“Yes. That devil weaseled out of it. What kind of hanky-panky was he up to on Sunday night?”
“Maybe it’s like he said, of no importance to the case. But it doesn’t seem that way. Maybe he was with some hooker.”
“Quite possible.”
Suddenly Andersson froze and his eyes took on a glassy, faraway stare. Jonny sat quietly. He knew that when the chief looked like that, he was getting an idea. Anyone who didn’t know this might think he was about to have an epileptic fit. Excitedly Andersson said, “Maybe he met Sylvia von Knecht! She was in Stockholm last Sunday night!”
“But not alone. Her mother and sister were with her. They were at the theater,” Jonny reminded them.
“Yes, that’s what she said. Check that out with the sister and mother. Ask them what they did in Stockholm on Sunday evening. It’s a shot in the dark, but they’ve paid off before.”
Jonny’s resigned sigh revealed what he thought about the possibility. But since he didn’t have any better idea, he started searching for the addresses on his computer.
“When are you supposed to relieve Borg at the parking garage?” Andersson asked.
“Twelve-thirty. He’ll take an hour for lunch, then come back and take over until four. Then I’ll go over there again, and both of us will stay until seven.”
“Okay. If anything comes up, call me on my direct line. Tomorrow I’ll be here. Eight o’clock Monday morning we’ll have a big meeting to go over everything. Hopefully by then we’ll know more about the fire on Berzeliigatan. And where Shorty fits into the picture. Maybe he didn’t have anything to do with it. Although if there’s mischief going on in Shorty’s turf, he’s probably mixed up in it!”
“That’s not really his thing, though. Drug abuse, firearms, bank robbery, yes. Arson homicide, hit men, bombs-I doubt it. It takes planning and intelligence, and that’s not typical for Shorty,” Jonny offered.
The superintendent pouted a little and screwed up his eyebrows, but it was no use. He had to agree with Jonny. Irritated, he exclaimed, “There’s some shit in here stinking up the place! I know the smell, but I can’t find the source. And I don’t know who’s responsible. But someone’s walking around with shit on his shoes, that’s for sure!”
Amazingly poetic for Andersson. Jonny knew what he meant and agreed. He’d been a cop long enough to recognize something unpleasant when it popped up. This whole case was unpleasant. Like the superintendent said-it stank.
EXACTLY FORTY-EIGHT hours earlier Andersson had walked through the doors to Pathology, just as he was doing now. Yvonne Stridner didn’t know he was coming in person this time either. She expected him simply to call her. But the pale sunshine had prompted an impulse to get outside for a while. It seems reasonable to ask why someone who longs for a little sunshine gets into a car and drives through downtown Göteborg breathing nothing but exhaust. But he knew the answer. He wanted to get out of the four walls of police headquarters. Sometimes they stifled him. Not that the walls at Pathology were any less stifling, but they would do as a change of scene.
Stridner wasn’t in her office. No matter how much he hated the idea, he was going to have to go into the autopsy room. With a gurgling feeling of discomfort in his stomach region, he was already regretting his little outing.
She stood dressed in a green paper smock and something that looked like a shower cap of the same material, talking to a young man who was also dressed in scrubs. Slowly she pulled off her rubber gloves as she coldly observed the graduate student.
“If you don’t finish up the course on forensic medicine I don’t comprehend how your previous autopsies could be approved. You’re a typical slacker. Others have to do the job, while you stand next to them and ‘assist.’ That means handing them instruments and looking the other way. Leaving the room when it starts getting disgusting. Don’t you understand that pathology is the basis of all medicine? If you don’t know what it looks like both inside and outside a person who’s been struck by a particular illness or trauma, you’ll never be able to figure out what’s happening! What stage is the illness in? How is it developing? What’s happening to the patient? And if the patient is dead, what happened, and why did it happen? If this doesn’t interest you, I think you ought to seriously consider whether you’re at all suited for the medical profession! I’m flunking you!”
The young man hadn’t said a word during the dressing-down. Without a word he turned on his heel and rushed out. He apparently didn’t notice the superintendent, who saw the expression in the student’s eyes. An experienced detective can read murder in someone’s eyes when he sees it.
Stridner noticed Andersson and nodded curtly. She gave him a stern look, and the superintendent had the strong feeling that he had also flunked.
“The standards for graduates are getting worse and worse. They’re slackers. They think all they have to do is read a few pages in a textbook to make it! No desire whatsoever to do a little extra,” fumed the professor.
She snorted audibly and fixed Andersson with her gaze. The feeling that The Last Judgment was approaching grew stronger.
“And you police officers! Can’t even tell the difference between girls and boys.”
Astonished, he stared at the angry redheaded pathologist. Lamely he stammered, “That. . that’s something we can usually handle.”
“Not this time.”
With determined steps she strode across the room to an autopsy table. His stomach turned over when he realized what she was about to do. She whipped off the sheet. The body was severely charred. Arms and legs were bent in the typical defensive position since the intense heat had contracted the musculature. A faint smell of roasted meat penetrated the other odors in the autopsy room.