“Inspector Irene Huss.”
“Sylvia von Knecht. Anita Svensson said you had asked for me. What is it regarding?”
Irene could hear from her voice that it would be fine to skip the pleasantries and chitchat. She assumed an authoritative tone. “We have indications that there seems to have been a fourth set of keys. Do you know anything about this?”
“No, I already told you! There are no other sets of keys except for the three I showed you.”
Irene chose her words with some care before she went on. “We have reason to believe that there are. And that the murderer has access to these keys. Plus the spare keys to the garage and the Porsche.”
There was a long pause. Irene could hear that Sylvia was breathing fast on the other end of the line. Finally she said, still in a dismissive tone, “What makes you think there are more keys?”
Irene referred to the statement that the Porsche had been seen on Berzeliigatan on Friday night. Sylvia herself had stated that it couldn’t possibly have been Richard who was driving. So someone had keys to both the garage on Molinsgatan and to the car. This someone also had access to keys to the locked street doors, both on Molinsgatan and Berzeliigatan. The garbage room doors and the doors onto the courtyard were locked in both neighborhoods. Despite this the murderer had passed unhindered through these doors and stairways. So there had to be additional keys. In conclusion Irene said, “I want to remind you that you said there were keys on your own and Richard’s key rings that fit the house outside Marstrand. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
Her voice sounded thin and afraid. She had grasped what Irene was getting at. Shakily Sylvia said, “You mean that the murderer might be able to come here! And would be able to get in, because he has the keys?”
Now the panic in her voice was blatant. Irene assumed a soothing tone when she replied, “From what we can tell, there is some risk of that. It can’t be ruled out. Are you alone in the big house?”
“Yes. Henrik is down in his cabin.”
“Can you ask him to sleep in the house with you tonight? Or can you stay down there with him?”
There was a long silence. Finally she heard Sylvia’s voice, sounding much steadier and stronger. “I’ll take care of the horses up here. Then I’ll drive to a friend’s house. Henrik can drive home to his own place; the murderer wouldn’t have any of his keys, would he?”
“Probably not. Can you tell me where you’re going?”
“I can’t see that it’s any of your business!”
The familiar feeling that arose whenever Irene talked to Sylvia now reappeared. Her patience ran out and the adrenaline started pumping in her arteries. Softly and pedagogically, as if she were dealing with an unruly child, she said, “Sylvia, we suspect a dangerous killer is behind the events of the past few days. Try to understand that we’re not snooping into your private life. We’re trying to protect you.”
“Then catch the murderer!”
Click!
Astonishment changed to anger as Irene sat staring stupidly at the receiver. God damned bitch, didn’t she realize! Irene stopped her angry torrent of words. An idea popped up in the back of her mind. She picked it out, scrutinized it, and gave it her approval. Decisively she stood up and went in to see the superintendent.
“IT’S ACTUALLY not such a dumb idea. Go ahead. If anything comes of it, call me. I’ll probably be here until six. Otherwise I’ll be home all evening. Tomorrow I thought I’d try to get home a little earlier. I’m going to dinner at my niece’s place-Marianne, you know.”
Irene nodded. She was well aware of Marianne and her two small boys, even though they had never met.
“Have they found Torsson yet?”
“No. He’s gone underground; he must know that things are getting hot. You can’t just bite a police officer with impunity on the ti. . on the breast!”
Irene managed to conceal her smile in a light cough. The superintendent, struck by newly acquired respect for the fair sex, was amusing.
It was just before noon, no time to lose. Her lunch would have to be a hot dog on the way.
HIGHWAY E6 is almost ten kilometers longer, but it’s faster than driving on narrow city streets. The wind was blowing; gray clouds had drawn the damp hems of their skirts low over Hisingen. Traffic was heavy. Apparently all the residents of the suburbs were headed for Göteborg to shop, look at the Christmas displays, and eat hamburgers with their kids at McDonald’s. Suddenly Irene realized how hungry she was. She braked quickly at the first gas station that had a hot dog stand. But it wasn’t easy to eat while she was driving. The last bit of sausage slipped out of the bun and landed in her lap. The mustard showed up well on black jeans. She borrowed some words from her boss’s vocabulary. She almost missed the exit north of Kungälv, but at the last moment saw it and turned off.
The road out toward Marstrand is extremely beautiful, and she usually gave it the attention it deserved. On this gray November day, though, she was focused on driving as fast as she could while she kept an eye out for her colleagues from the Traffic Division.
She had memorized the route before she left Göteborg. Holta Church flashed by. She knew that there would soon be a side road and that she should take it toward Tjuvkil. Then she was no longer sure, so she pulled off the road and took out the map.
Just as she was about to start off again, she caught sight of a car coming toward her at high speed. A hunch, or rather an instinct, made her hold the map up in front of her face and peek over the edge.
It was a red BMW. And Sylvia von Knecht was driving. She didn’t even deign to give the old dark blue Saab a look. On the other hand, Irene saw her clearly. She sat with her eyes fixed on the road ahead, on the edge of her seat and with her back erect.
Calmly, Irene put the car in gear and made an elegant and illegal U-turn. She tried to keep one or two cars between her and Sylvia. It was easy to follow her since there was still a lot of traffic.
Sylvia took the same way back toward Göteborg. But at Olskroksmotet she headed toward the western part of town on Västerleden. Was she going out to Västra Frölunda? Apparently not, because she drove past Frölunda Square and the exit Irene usually took when she was going home to her row-house neighborhood.
Askim, Hovås, Skintebo. Now Irene knew where they were heading. She increased the distance between her and the red BMW. Sylvia passed the exit sign for Kullavik, continued a few kilometers, and turned off toward Särö.
Ivan Viktors. He was the one she planned to spend the night with. The superintendent hadn’t been far wrong when he suspected that Sylvia and Viktors had spent Sunday evening together. But Sylvia had been with her mother and sister the entire evening. And Viktors had visited his brother in the hospital. Where was the gap in the chronology? The answer was as simple as it was logical. They had concentrated on the wrong evening. It wasn’t Sunday evening, but Monday evening that Sylvia and Ivan Viktors had spent together.
She was so full of this revelation that everything nearly went to hell as she almost ran straight into the back of the BMW, which had stopped to turn off toward Särö Västerskog. Quickly, she turned the wheel and whipped by on the left side. It was her good fortune that there were no oncoming cars. Everything happened so fast that Sylvia probably didn’t have time to notice who had thundered past her. Irene swung into a passing turnout a little farther ahead. In her rearview mirror she could see Sylvia driving at a leisurely pace toward King Gustav V’s favorite tennis courts. Irene performed another illegal maneuver but wasn’t in much of a hurry to head toward the small cluster of turn-of-the-twentieth-century houses.
During the eighties large villas had been built on the meadows in front of the nature preserve, but along the narrow old country road there were several grand old patrician villas. The red BMW stood outside a big redbrick house with pinnacles and towers and a somewhat overgrown garden. Irene drove on about a hundred meters farther before she parked her car and got out. With her chin tucked down, her collar turned up against the wind, and Katarina’s black baseball cap on her head, Irene would not be easy to recognize, in case Sylvia happened to look out the window. There was a greater risk that she would recognize Irene’s jacket. But she probably didn’t burden her memory with such soiled attire.