Detective Inspector Huss: A Huss Investigation set in Sweden, Vol. 1 (41 page)

Suddenly Irene was struck by an idea. “It was meningitis that Henrik suffered as a result, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“As a result of what?”

“A childhood illness.”

“Which childhood illness?”

“The mumps.”

There was nothing left of the little contented kitten, only a sorrowful mother huddled in the corner of the sofa. Something clicked in Irene’s mind. One of her male colleagues at the police academy got the mumps while they were attending Ulriksdal. Both his testicles were also affected, and they swelled up so grotesquely that he couldn’t walk. Unfortunately his name was Paul, and he was always called “Paul Fig-Ball” after that. At a party he later confided to Irene and Tommy that there was a great risk that he was now sterile. Apparently it wasn’t an unusual complication in adult men who got the mumps. Had this also happened to Henrik? It was a long shot, but she decided to try.

“It’s common for adult males to become sterile after having the mumps. Were Henrik’s testicles affected?”

Sylvia’s eyes widened with terror. With a horrible crash the ice shattered and she fell through. She hid her face in her hands and began to cry hysterically.

It took twenty minutes before she calmed down enough for Irene to consider her somewhat stable. But Sylvia refused to answer any more questions and stubbornly repeated, “You have to go now! I’m due at the seamstress at one o’clock to try on my dress for the funeral. Go! Go!”

 

IRENE HAD a lot to think about as she sat in a mediocre pizzeria a few blocks down the street gnawing on the “daily special.” It consisted of a serving of tough lasagne, along with some pitiful cabbage strips in vinegar. The ice water was lukewarm and the coffee looked like Sammie’s bathwater. Not even Irene could manage to drink it. But it didn’t really matter, because questions and facts were tumbling through her head. Sylvia was scared stiff when the spare keys were mentioned. She knew, or had an idea, who might have taken them. Or had they been given to someone? Why wouldn’t Sylvia talk about it? Charlotte von Knecht and Bobo Torsson were old friends and had worked together. She initiated the contact between him and her father-in-law, and then Torsson was able to rent the two apartments. Did they still see each other? Did it have any significance for the investigation? Was this the point of contact they had been looking for? Irene had a hard time believing it. Not in her wildest fantasy could she picture Bobo Torsson knocking down Richard von Knecht and throwing him off the balcony, fabricating the bomb on Berzeliigatan, and then blowing himself to kingdom come. The last maybe by mistake. It wasn’t even logical, since it didn’t answer the question of why.

Why would Bobo murder Richard von Knecht? Why would he destroy his own home and studio? Not to mention himself! Picturing Charlotte in any of these roles was even harder. She certainly wasn’t a bomb maker. But the fact that Bobo and Charlotte knew each other was interesting. Were they still friends? More than friends? It seemed to be time to have a talk with young Fru von Knecht. Henrik von Knecht had gotten the mumps as an adult, and subsequently meningitis. Had the mumps spread to his testicles? If so, was he sterile? Viewed in the light of this latest information, she thought that many of Sylvia’s odd reactions over the past few days became more understandable. If you know that your son is sterile, would you be glad to hear that your daughter-in-law is pregnant? And the follow-up question was possibly even more interesting: In that case, who was the father of Charlotte’s child? Why did Henrik react as he did? According to his own statement he was prepared to try to keep his shaky marriage together, “For the sake of the child and the survival of the family.” That didn’t make sense. Either he thought he was the father of the child, or else he didn’t care. But if he was sterile he must know it! And if he didn’t care, would he then be prepared to continue working on his relationship with Charlotte?

She was aroused from her musings by a voice in her ear.

“’Scuse. Lady want more coffee?” A short, dark waiter was giving her a friendly smile and holding out the glass coffeepot. To her dismay she realized that in her distraction she had actually been sipping the coffee slop.

 

JIMMY’S FACE brightened with joy when she came in with a bag of goodies and a stack of newspapers. He looked about like he did the day before, only a little darker purple in complexion. The IV was gone and he was sitting in a high-backed vinyl armchair over by the window. There was room for one more patient in the room, but that bed was still empty.

“Hi Jimmy! You look like an LSD hallucination,” Irene said cheerfully.

“Thank you. That’s just what I needed to hear.”

He laughed heartily and they chatted about neutral topics. Irene gave him the latest news on the investigative front. He was exceedingly interested in the information about the traces of narcotics in the summer cabins.

“We’ve been investigating part of the motorcycle gang for a long time. Death Squadron Number One is especially interesting. They’ve been full members of the Hell’s Angels for several years. The gangs ride around Europe and visit each other. It takes a lot before two lowly customs agents down in Helsingborg will start rummaging through twenty Hell’s Angels packs when they’ve been visiting their brothers in Denmark or Holland. We also know that they smuggle narcotics in other ways.”

“Why do they deal drugs?”

“Big business. Hardly any of the members have a job. They need plenty of money for daily living, new choppers and spare parts, club-houses and weapons. They have enough weapons to start a revolution! And many of them are drug users themselves. So dope for their own use too. They say they belong to ‘the extreme percentage—the sociopaths, for whom no laws apply.’”

He fell silent and both of them had the same thought. It was Jimmy who expressed it. “Sometimes I think,
They could have done whatever they wanted to me
. I was completely defenseless. And a defenseless cop! So sometimes I wonder why they didn’t finish us off.”

Once more Irene saw the glow of the explosion and she felt the hot pressure wave against her face. She could only whisper, “They thought about it. They tried.”

Softly, she began to tell him as objectively as possible. Sometimes she had to pause to wipe away her tears, but she wanted him to know the exact course of events. He was the only one who could understand her feelings, since he had been there. While she was speaking, she noticed that the last emotional knots were loosening and she felt a sense of calm rising inside her. A troubling thought occurred to her: Had she transferred her anxiety to Jimmy? Not once during the entire account did he interrupt her. His one visible eye did not waver from her face. But his comment when she was done calmed her.

“What luck that you were the one who was awake and not me! I was always lousy at throwing balls. My best events have always been the high jump and the hundred meters. Those wouldn’t have helped us much!”

He laughed heartily again and offered her some of the candy from the bag. Mentally he seemed unscathed, but his physical damage was much worse.

“A crack in one of the bones in my forearm. Do you know what it’s called? You don’t? Radius fissure. You learn a bunch of useful stuff when you’re in the hospital. Although you have to be healthy to deal with it. Today I spent two hours on my back in Radiology waiting for a skull X ray. To check that there’s no bleeding between the brain membranes. Then you get a . . . what was it called? Wait, I wrote it down.”

He got up and shuffled over to his bedside table. With a shock Irene realized that his injuries were even worse than she’d thought.

“Jimmy, what happened to your legs?”

He turned and grimaced. “Violent blows or kicks to my lower back. I have to get it X-rayed tomorrow. They suspect a fracture of one of the tail vertebrae. It hurts like hell to walk or sit. That’s why I’m going to lie down now. You have to come over here. Ah, here’s the note!”

Triumphantly he waved a little scrap of paper torn from a notepad.

“Computer tomography. No, that’s the examination! A machine they stuff you inside. But you don’t feel anything. What they’re afraid I might contract is called subdural hematoma. It can appear several years later, say the doctors. That’s why I can’t go home before Friday. Damn it!”

He said the last when he had to lift his legs onto the bed. With a sigh he went on, “Then I’ll probably be on the disabled list for a while. Although I’ll try to get home care.”

The last he said with a wink and a knowing look toward the door. A young nurse with a waist-long blond braid came in. She nodded to Irene and gave Jimmy a gleaming smile. There was a light blush on her cheeks, and her eyes indicated that she wouldn’t be particularly hard to convince. She chirped at Jimmy, “X-ray preparations. Just a little micro-enema. I’ll come back in a while and help you with the enema, if you want.”

“Now you’re talking, baby,” Jimmy said in English. “No, all kidding aside, I can handle it myself.”

She laughed and left a little yellow plastic tube with a long nozzle on his nightstand. With another bright smile she vanished into the corridor.

Irene stood up and said, “Well, I’ll leave you to your anal orgies. If I can’t stop by tomorrow, I’ll call you.”

“Calling is good enough. Although it’s more fun when you come by.”

He waved with his good hand.

AT SIX O’CLOCK ON the dot, Tommy Persson rang the doorbell of the Huss residence. Sammie was the first in line to bid him welcome. Since Tommy was one of his favorite guests, it took a while before all the jumping and licking were over.

Conspiratorially, Irene whispered, “The twins are in their room. I said that you’re a grass widower today and that I invited you to dinner. They bought it without comment.”

“Good. How’s Jimmy Olsson doing?”

She gave him a detailed description of the young officer’s health status; Tommy thought it didn’t sound good. If you’re married to a nurse, you’re always learning something about diseases and their treatment.

Since they never talked shop when they were around their families, Irene wanted to know the latest news from HQ before dinner. “How did the interview with Shorty go today?”

Tommy hesitated before he replied. “Not so great. But Jonny actually managed to annoy him so much that he got mad and said something interesting. Jonny finally yelled, ‘Don’t you get it? You’re under suspicion for taking part in everything that happened, as long as you refuse to speak! We’re looking for your cousin’s murderer!’ Then Shorty leaned toward him and snarled, ‘I don’t have to look. That fuck’ll be sorry!’ And then he went back to imitating a clam. We pressured him like mad for several hours. But he’s used to it and it doesn’t bother him in the least. We didn’t get one more syllable out of him. Andersson and Jonny will have a go at him this evening.”

“Interesting. I also got a hot tip. Bobo and Charlotte von Knecht are old acquaintances. She worked as a photo model for him. She was the one who helped him rent the apartments on Berzeliigatan about three years ago.”

“You’ve got to be kidding! Although that’s a point of contact with Bobo, not Shorty. I don’t think she knows Shorty.”

“Maybe. I’m thinking of driving over unannounced to question the lady in more detail tomorrow morning. Want to come along?”

“Sounds just as good as haranguing Shorty. Jonny and Andersson can deal with him.”

An aroma of fried onions that got their stomach juices flowing came wafting into the entryway. Krister stuck his head out the open kitchen door and teasingly shook his spatula at them. “What are you two whispering about?”

“Professional secrets, just professional secrets. For instance, how hard you can hit somebody with a baton without leaving bruises,” his wife replied saucily.

“Great topic of conversation. Come and devote yourself to the hamburgers instead.”

Irene called the twins. Heavy rock rhythms were thumping upstairs. Neither of them seemed to hear her. She went up and opened the door to Jenny’s room.

They were curled up on Jenny’s bed. Jenny was tossing her head in time to the music, while Katarina looked warier. Jenny became aware of her mother’s presence and jumped up to turn off the CD player. But Irene had heard the last line of the song: “We’re gonna clean this country and throw the Jew pigs in the sea. Clean it! Clean it!” Sung with hoarse rock voices, throbbing heavy-metal guitars, and pulsating drums.

Jenny was caught off guard, but collected herself and immediately assumed a defensive position. She said quickly, “It’s not the words I like, but the music!”

Irene looked at her daughter’s shaved head and angrily clenched fists. A feeling of powerlessness descended like a paralyzing blanket over her thoughts, and she couldn’t think of a single appropriate remark. Instead she said with exaggerated good cheer, “Come on now and eat. It’s one of your favorites, Jenny, hamburgers and onions.”

“Did Pappa make his pickles?”

“Of course! And since Tommy is here, there’ll be dessert in the middle of the week.”

“What is it?”

“Apple cake with vanilla ice cream.”

Without showing any great enthusiasm, Jenny shrugged her shoulders. “Okay.”

The year before she would have been the first one down the stairs and seated at the table. Now she shambled after Irene and Katarina and sat down last. Tommy gave her a cheerful hello, his gaze lingering so long on Jenny’s scalp that she was embarrassed. But he didn’t comment on her sudden hair loss.

Pleasant conversation accompanied the dinner. No talk of murder, bombs, motorcycle gangs, dope, or fruitless interrogations with professional crooks. Irene felt safe and relaxed together with her family and her best friend.

When it was time for coffee, Tommy suggested that they go sit in the living room. He smiled at the twins and said, “I feel like telling you an absolutely true story from real life.”