Detective Inspector Huss: A Huss Investigation set in Sweden, Vol. 1 (15 page)

IRENE HUSS ONLY HAD time to skim through the faxes from
Swedish Ladies’ Journal.
She jotted down a few important dates and events on her notepad. The rest of the investigative group needed a report on the von Knecht family’s past at five o’clock.

It was interesting to read old gossip now that she had personally met those involved. Her picture of Richard von Knecht had to be constructed solely from the clippings and from what she had seen and heard during the course of the investigation.

After his military service, young Richard was apparently sent to England for two years. In an article about a college party at which Princess Birgitta was a guest, she found a picture of Richard and the princess in the midst of the dancers. The caption read: “Princess Birgitta was dazzlingly happy in the company of stylish Richard von Knecht.” In the brief article it said she “danced several times with young Richard von Knecht. He has just returned from studying economics at Oxford. His father Otto von Knecht, king of Göteborg’s shipping magnates, must be pleased that his son will now begin his MBA studies at the Stockholm School of Economics.”

From the picture she could see that the gossip columnist was right. Richard was definitely stylish. Tall and slender. His dark blond hair was most certainly too long for the fashion of the time. He wore it parted on the side, with an unruly shock of hair slipping forward in a thick wave over his left eye. But the most attractive thing about him was his smile—a smile that glinted in his eyes and radiated from his perfect teeth. A lovely mouth. A sexy face, no doubt about it. Not a pretty boy’s face, but handsome. Masculine. How in the world could this man be Henrik’s father? Everything about Richard that seemed alive and vibrant in a photo almost forty years old was no more than a vague physical resemblance in his son. Henrik possessed none of the joie de vivre evident in Richard. Had he ever? Curious despite herself, Irene continued leafing through the faxed pages. There were several pictures from parties and premieres where Richard was seen in the crowd. Always with some young lady on his arm. Seldom the same one twice in a row. In 1962 Richard attended a large Whitsuntide wedding and was photographed with a beautiful woman at his side. Irene didn’t recognize her. The article said: “One of the young men from the princess’s jet set, Richard von Knecht, converses with an enchanting young lady. Could he be telling her that he just passed his MBA exam and will start at Öberg’s brokerage in the fall? When our reporter asked why he didn’t start right away with his family’s shipping company in Göteborg, Richard von Knecht replied that it’s always useful to gather experience from other fields before you settle into one profession.”

The following two and a half years he appeared in various society photos. But in January 1965 the magazine ran a whole spread with a huge headline: OTTO VON KNECHT DIES SUDDENLY. From the article it appeared that Richard’s father suffered a cerebral hemorrhage on New Year’s Day and died a week later, at the age of sixty-nine. Richard was called home to take the helm of the family shipping company. His mother appeared in some of the pictures, a rigid and severe-looking woman. From the text it was quite evident that she was the one running the shipping operation. Richard must have met Sylvia relatively soon after that. In a photo from the May Day Ball that year, Richard was seen dancing with a tiny, graceful blond woman. “Our new shipping magnate Richard von Knecht danced all night with the new star of the Grand Theater, Sylvia Montgomery, 22.”

The tall Richard and the elfin Sylvia made a very handsome couple. They were magnificent at the elaborate wedding of Waldemar Reuter and his Leila on Whitsun Eve, a month later. Richard was elegantly attired in his white tie and tails, and Sylvia was innocently sexy in a bare-shouldered pink silk gown. The wedding took place in the old Örgryte Church. The bridal couple looked quite odd. He was half a head shorter than the bride, short and plump. According to the article, he worked in his family’s brokerage firm. She was a brunette, startlingly pretty, and looked to be no more than twenty years old. Even though she was holding the bouquet in front of her stomach in the photo on the church steps, it was obvious that she was pregnant.

In late August Richard and Sylvia got engaged. Richard’s mother was said to be “simply delighted.” The wedding was set for November 18. Uh-oh! That was a bit rushed. The reason, of course, was Henrik. The pictures from the wedding were charming. Sylvia was a dream in heavy cream-white silk. No one could see the slightest sign that she was pregnant. Richard was more stylish than ever, and according to the captions “he had eyes only for his lovely bride.” There were three photos that showed Richard dancing with three different women. Naturally the bridegroom had to dance with all the ladies present. But there was something that suggested things were other than they seemed, upon a closer examination of the pictures. Especially one of them, which showed him dancing close with a now flat-stomached Fru Leila Reuter. Richard’s face was turned to the photographer. His eyes were closed, and his lips slightly parted. His lower body was pressed hard against his partner’s. Damned if “he had eyes only for his lovely bride.” It was perfectly obvious that it wasn’t eye contact he was looking for.

Irene leaned back in her chair and stretched. When this wedding took place, Richard’s son in Stockholm was already almost four months old. Did Sylvia know that he existed? This was an important question to ask at their upcoming meeting.

A clipping reported on their parental joy when Henrik was born in April 1966. He was a very sweet baby, just as they usually are. Richard looked straight into the camera and smiled broadly; Sylvia looked down at her child.

Then it was relatively calm on the gossip front for a while. Irene focused on two clippings from a couple of society parties. Richard was shown with the same woman in both, and it was not Sylvia. Her name was not given. The clippings were from September and October 1967.

Six years later, in July 1973, Richard’s mother Elisabeth von Knecht died, at the age of sixty-five. “She lost her courageous battle with cancer,” the magazine announced.

Less than a year later the sale of the family shipping company had been arranged. The price was kept confidential, but the article hinted that considerable sums were involved. After this, it was possible to track Richard’s meteoric career as one of Sweden’s biggest and most successful financiers.

Sylvia was glimpsed only now and then in an official capacity—a lunch with the king here and a Nobel Prize banquet there. Richard was seen often in photos from premieres and major sailing races. There were always women around him—but Sylvia was seldom among them. A distinct characteristic became evident with regard to Richard—a weakness for young, beautiful women. And he did nothing to hide it. This wouldn’t be easy to discuss with Sylvia, but it was important. Perhaps a motive? Now there were two for Sylvia: money and infidelity. The problem was that it would have been impossible for her to murder Richard. You can’t be standing down on the street and at the same time shove someone off the sixth-floor balcony. Henrik was eliminated for the same reason. But did he have any motive? Yes, money. Lots of money.

She started turning the pages faster. She was running out of time. Suddenly her attention was caught by the headline: WILL HENRIK MAKE IT? PARENTS CONSTANTLY AT HIS SIDE. To her surprise Irene actually remembered the news story. But it had been nine years ago. Back then she had been employed full time as well as having two four-year-olds. This item had been pushed back into the recesses of her memory, just like so many others. She spread out the faxes on the desk and quickly read about how Henrik and one of his army buddies from his commando unit had fallen ill. The progression of the disease turned serious, especially for Henrik. One complication was that he’d come down with meningitis. At the time the article was written he had been in a coma for two weeks. Suddenly Irene noticed a discrepancy between the text and the accompanying photo. The text said that “the parents were keeping vigil,” but in the photo only Sylvia was seen on her way in through the hospital entrance. Maybe they took turns keeping vigil? If she had the chance, she should try to ask Sylvia about it.

A week later the magazine reported that Henrik had come out of the coma. Both the doctors and parents were reticent about his condition. Richard had told the reporter that “Henrik will soon be his old self again!” After that there was no more news of Henrik in the gossip columns.

His father was seen, as before, at various society events. And even Sylvia began to be seen more often—not together with her husband, but in her capacity as a prominent choreographer. She staged several ballets at the Grand Theater, she worked with the Cullberg Ballet in a performance, and she was invited to be guest director of the Helsinki ballet company in the spring of 1991. But she returned home from Finland that same summer. The reason she cited was “homesickness,” but between the lines could be discerned
professional differences.

The only report of Henrik and Charlotte’s wedding was a brief announcement with no photo. Irene almost missed it, under the heading HEARD AROUND TOWN. In the middle of the column it said: “Richard and Sylvia von Knecht’s only son Henrik was married to Charlotte, née Croona, in a simple ceremony at the Copenhagen Town Hall on September 10. Present were the couple’s parents and the bride’s siblings.” Irene checked the date in the top corner. A little more than three years ago. She leafed further, but could find nothing else about Henrik and Charlotte.

The last thing she had time to glance at was the report from Richard’s sixtieth birthday celebration out on his private peninsula in Bohuslän province. In all there had been three hundred guests, including various royals, diverse celebrities, and the elite of the financial world and the social register. Irene only took time to look at the pictures; she would read the articles later. He was still good looking. His hair was flecked with gray, thick, with a shock still falling over one eye. He had put on a few kilos since the wedding pictures, but there was no sign of flab. His complexion looked deeply tanned against the white tuxedo. With a champagne glass raised to the camera he smiled his sensuously disarming smile. It was unchanged, just like the glint in his intense blue eyes.
Vitality, joie de vivre, sensuality
were the words that flew through Irene’s mind. Not the more obvious ones:
money, power, influence.
Strange, because they were equally apropos when it came to Richard von Knecht.

A quick look at the clock revealed that she had fifteen minutes left until her meeting with Sylvia. It would be best to show up more or less on time. She stuffed the stack of faxes in her bottom desk drawer and slipped a notepad into her jacket pocket.

 

SYLVIA WAS still upset over the mess in the apartment. She grumbled at Irene, who represented the police in general and the technicians in particular. Irene let her rant, following in her wake into the magnificent living room. The curtains were still open, letting in the gray daylight. Irene went over to one of the high French doors and looked out. A narrow balcony no more than two meters wide ran along the entire room. The balustrade consisted of pink vase-shaped marble columns with lintels of black marble. The railing looked dangerously low. There were also no handles on the outside of the glass doors. This prompted Irene to dismiss her thoughts of a façade-climbing killer. It would be impossible to get in from the outside through the balcony doors. And people would have noticed him, since it would only have been a little past five o’clock. No, that theory was no good.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Sylvia’s plaintive voice.

“Pirjo isn’t answering the phone either, just one of her imbecile kids. Even when I speak Finnish to him he still can’t tell me where Pirjo is. He claims he has the flu and that a Finnish policeman is coming to talk to them this afternoon.”

“That’s true. One of our inspectors speaks Finnish. He’ll get in touch with Pirjo,” said Irene.

“What’s the point of that?”

“She and her daughter may have seen or heard something on Monday, when they were here cleaning. Does she usually bring her daughter along?”

“No, only if we’ve had a big party. And if the girl is free,” replied Sylvia brusquely.

Irene looked around the huge room. Now she saw that the columns supporting the floor of the upper level were not made of solid marble at all, as she had thought two days earlier. They were wooden columns very skillfully painted with a marble finish. Naturally, real marble would have been too heavy. The walls were lined with groupings of antique furniture and beautiful cabinets. And what paintings! Irene felt like a lone privileged visitor to an art museum. Parallel to the row of balcony doors shone a dark dining table of mahogany, the longest she had ever seen. She saw a good opening for her conversation with Sylvia.

“What a lovely table. And so long! Is this where you sat on Saturday evening?”

“Yes, of course we were here,” Sylvia said guardedly.

“How many were you?”

“Twenty. We didn’t want to invite too many, just our closest friends. They had all attended our wedding. Except for Henrik and Charlotte, naturally.”

That depends on how you look at it, in Henrik’s case,
Irene thought.

Sylvia went on, “Richard’s sister and her husband couldn’t come. They live in Florida. He was having an operation on his prostate or something. He’s seventy-five.”

“And how old is she?”

“Sixty-seven.”

“Could you please tell me who was at the party?”

“Of course. Besides Richard and myself, there were Henrik and Charlotte, Sven and Ann-Marie Tosse, Peder and Ulla Wahl. They had come back to Sweden to see grandchild number four. They were here a whole week before the party. Their eldest daughter Ingrid and her husband came too. Ingrid was a flower girl at our wedding. She was five years old at the time, so sweet. She wasn’t the one who has the new baby; it was the middle daughter Kerstin. She was only two when we got married, so she wasn’t at the wedding. That’s why I didn’t invite her. Or the youngest daughter either. She’s the same age as Henrik.”