“Yes, of course … What time is it?”
“Quarter past eight.”
“Thanks. I have my first patient in fifteen minutes.”
“Will you be up to performing surgery this morning?”
“I have to be. The patients come first. Thank God there’s nothing major today.”
“But after a night like this?”
Sverker Löwander gave him a tired look as he rubbed one of his eyes. “I have to. We don’t have many people on staff right now. And the patients can’t wait. They don’t seem to understand there could be anything else going on in their doctors’ lives.”
The two officers contemplated Löwander for a moment in silence. Finally the superintendent pulled a notebook from his jacket pocket and began to pat the other pockets fruitlessly. Sverker Löwander understood and handed him his own pen from his jacket pocket. In gold lettering the pen advertised, LÖWANDER HOSPITAL YOU’RE IN SAFE HANDS.
“Are you able to answer some questions for us?”
“Sure, as long as you’re quick about it. Or we could schedule an appointment for this afternoon, when I’m not so short on time. Why don’t you come back at four-thirty?”
“All right, but let me ask one short question right now: Why aren’t you wearing anything underneath your coat?”
Sverker Löwander started and stared down at his misbuttoned doctor’s coat. “Thanks for pointing that out. I’d forgotten. I’ll have to put something on before I leave.” He moved as if to get up from the armchair but then sank back down again. He continued, “Yesterday I took a shower and went to lie down in bed to read. It was a tough day, with several difficult operations. Not to mention the complications that set in with Nils Peterzén. Just as I was about to turn off the light, the power went out. My first thought was for the respirator. I wasn’t really worried, though, because Marianne Svärd is … was an extremely competent ICU nurse.”
He stopped speaking for a moment and sighed. The superintendent had the chance to slip in another question. “Were you lying down with your clothes on?”
“No. I was intending to sleep for a little bit. Peterzén’s condition was stable.… Where was I? Yes, the power went out. I stayed put, waiting for the backup generator to kick in, but it didn’t. When I heard the respirator alarm, I threw on my pants and coat as I rushed out. The rest of the night was just as hectic. I haven’t had the chance to think about how I look.”
Now Löwander did get up from the armchair and knelt to look under the furniture. He found a T-shirt beneath the bed. “Sorry. I’ve got to run. Come back at four-thirty and we can talk more.”
The doctor held the door open for the police officers.
IRENE DECIDED TO plant herself on a wooden chair just inside the door to listen to the superintendent’s first round of questioning the night nurse Siv Persson.
“Nurse Siv, you must understand our difficulties believing that a ghost was the murderer,” Andersson began carefully.
Siv Persson pursed her mouth but did not answer. The superintendent spent a moment considering the photograph that Siv Persson still held in her hand.
“Would you be so kind as to describe this ghost?” he continued.
“You and I are probably the same age, so don’t be so polite,” Nurse Siv snapped.
“Fine.” He looked down at the old picture again. “Did she look the same as she does in this photo?”
“Yes, she looked exactly like this.”
The photograph had been taken from overhead and from a distance. The superintendent remembered the window he’d checked not that long ago. Farthest to the right side, there was a black car. A tall, muscular man was opening the door to the passenger’s seat for a much shorter woman. She was holding her hat in the gusty wind so that her coat sleeve blocked her face. The man’s light-colored coat was fluttering, and the tiny birch sapling’s branches were bending to the left.
Between the tree and the people next to the car stood a nurse. She was in profile. In spite of the camera angle, it was easy to see that she was tall. The lens was sharply focused on her. She wore a nurse’s uniform: white hat with a curly brim and black ribbon, white collar, white cuffs, calf-length black dress, and black shoes with stout heels. It was apparent that she had blond hair, which had been pinned up under her hat. She carried a suitcase in each hand.
Slowly, the chief inspector turned over the photo and read the caption written in black ink. The handwriting was elegant but gave only the date: May 2, 1946.
“Where did you find this picture?” Andersson asked.
“It’s always been here in the ward. Nurse Gertrud showed it to me.”
“Is Nurse Gertrud still working here?”
“No, she died last year. She was exactly ninety years old.” Nurse Siv looked directly into the superintendent’s face, with eyes that seemed unnaturally large behind the thick lenses of her old-fashioned glasses. She hesitated before she continued. “Nurse Gertrud came here in 1946, in the fall. She took Nurse Tekla’s place as the head nurse of the ward and house mother. Gertrud never met Tekla in person. She only met her, so to speak, after she died.”
Siv Persson reached for the photograph, and Andersson let her take it. Nurse Siv contemplated the picture for a moment. “Of course, Gertrud had heard a great many rumors concerning her. Nurse Tekla was an extremely fashionable woman.” Nurse Siv fell silent. When she picked up her story again, she seemed even more troubled.
“Now, I’ve only heard this thirdhand, but … they say there’d been a love affair between Nurse Tekla and Dr. Löwander.”
Superintendent Andersson stirred suddenly. “Wait a minute! I’ve just met Löwander. He wasn’t even born when Nurse Tekla worked here!”
Nurse Siv snorted. “Of course not! I’m talking about the old Dr. Löwander, Hilding Löwander. Sverker Löwander’s father.”
Naturally. Irene knew that Superintendent Andersson was probably feeling just as sheepish as he looked. The hospital had been named Löwander Hospital after the deceased doctor.
“Apparently his wife found out about the affair and demanded that Tekla be fired. The hospital belonged to the family of Mrs. Löwander, after all. She’d inherited it from her father.”
“So Sverker Löwander’s mother was wealthy?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about his father … Hilding?”
“I remember Hilding Löwander very well. He was a doctor from the old school. No one dared talk back to him. He performed surgery until he was seventy-five years old.”
“What happened to Nurse Tekla?”
“Gertrud told me all about this love affair. Nurse Tekla had just turned thirty, and he was twenty years her senior. What’s remarkable is that, according to rumor, Mrs. Löwander didn’t mind at first. All three of them even went on vacation together. According to Gertrud, this photograph was taken secretly as they left for one such vacation.”
Andersson took the photo back and peered at it with renewed interest while Siv Persson continued.
“The Löwanders had been married for many years when Mrs. Löwander unexpectedly became pregnant. She’d already turned forty. It was then she decided that Nurse Tekla had to go. Somehow Nurse Tekla found a job in Stockholm and moved there early in the fall of 1946. No one heard anything from her until March 1947. It turned out she was found in the attic of this building at that time. She’d committed suicide. Hanged herself.”
The room was quiet. Irene realized that the superintendent had no idea how to interpret Nurse Siv’s story. She looked as if she truly believed she’d seen the long-dead Nurse Tekla during the night. In order to break the silence, Irene asked, “How did you find this photograph?”