The Fire Dance (2 page)

“It’s been three months since the day you and your partner found the girl on the side of the road. Let me tell you, she still just sits and stares, saying nothing at all!”

The superintendent’s voice rose; his anger was apparent. Or perhaps he was just frustrated, not angry. Irene knew that the superintendent had no children of his own.

Irene raised her eyebrows but remained quiet. She didn’t really know what she should be saying. She was not part of the Björlanda District house fire investigation. She and her colleague, Håkan Lund, had been the first patrol car on the scene, but that was all. The only thing she knew about the investigation was what she’d read in the newspapers.

“Both Hasse and I tried to get her to talk, but it was impossible! She just sat and glared at us with those big brown eyes of hers.”

“Is she able to speak? I mean, are you sure she’s not mute?”

“No, she can talk. She’s apparently the silent type, even before the fire, I mean. Do you know how old she is?”

Andersson gave her a look before he replied, “Read it for yourself. It’s all in the paperwork. You and Sophie Malmborg are going to take over the questioning.”

“But why should I …? I mean, if she won’t talk to you or Hans …”

“You’ve just answered your own question. She does not want to talk to us. Why? Maybe because we’re men. So the shrinks say. We’re going to test that by putting you in. You’re a woman. You have kids yourself.”

Irene was floored. This was a big case to be just dumped in her lap. A man had died in the fire, and there still were
lots of unanswered questions. There were even indications that Sophie might know something important, or maybe more than that …

“Or do you think you can’t handle it?” Andersson challenged.

There was a threat beneath his sarcasm.
If you can’t figure this out, you won’t stay long in this department
.

Irene felt her stomach turn into a lump of ice. Then a warm wave swept through her body and she forced herself to look her boss in the eye and steady her voice before she replied.

“I’ll talk to her.”

“Good. She’ll be here tomorrow.”

I
RENE SAT AT
her desk in the office she shared with Tommy Persson. He’d started working as a detective inspector the previous year, and he was also the one who’d convinced her to apply for the job in the department. They’d met at the police academy in Stockholm, and they’d become good friends—perhaps, in the beginning, because they were the only ones from Göteborg at the academy. Irene’s then-boyfriend, Krister, had been wary of Tommy at first, but now they were all close, and Tommy had even been Krister’s best man in their wedding five years ago. Irene was seven months pregnant with the twins when she married, and she thought she looked like the
Potemkin
in her wedding pictures.

She was twenty-four at the time. Her own parents had been older when she’d been born. Her mother, Gerd, was thirty-six and her father, Börje, forty-five. Irene found it funny that her parents had the same age difference she and Krister had.

“So here you are—daydreaming!”

Tommy’s happy greeting jerked Irene out of her thoughts.
She hadn’t heard him open the door. He was grinning from ear to ear as he headed for his desk.

“Martin can say ‘Pappa!’ Well, he says ‘pa—pa—pa—pa.’ It’s almost his first birthday. He’s obviously advanced for his age, just like his old man.”

Tommy was filled with pride. Martin was his first son with his wife, Agneta. Irene was the boy’s godmother.

She couldn’t help but smile. “Great! Or should I say congratulations? Just be happy that pa—pa—pa is all he can say. Once he’s started talking, you’ll wish you were back in the good old days. I was almost late this morning because Jenny threw a fit the minute we walked in the door at preschool.”

“Did she want to go?”

“Oh, yes, she loves preschool. But she wanted me to promise to buy her a pet tiger before I left.”

“The tiger she wants to keep in the yard?”

“That’s the one. She’s not letting go of the idea.”

Krister and Irene had brought the twins to Borås Zoo one fine Sunday afternoon in August. Jenny and Katarina had run around from animal to animal and jumped with joy whenever they caught sight of a new one. Katarina liked the monkeys the best, but Jenny had fallen head over heels for the tigers. She wanted one for herself. She said they could put a high fence around the backyard they shared with the other people in their townhouse row. Jenny was not dissuaded by the argument that tigers were dangerous and might like to make a meal of the residents. She insisted it would be the nicest tiger in the world. She’d raise the tiger from a cub and teach it not to eat meat, so the neighbors would be safe. She started to save all her allowance toward the tiger, putting her money into her red plastic piggy bank. Jenny called it her tiger bank. Every bit of money that came her way would go toward the tiger.

Last weekend, Jenny demanded that Irene open the piggy bank so she could count the money. Irene struggled with the lid on the piggy’s stomach, but finally got it open. She counted to thirty-two Swedish kronor and 50 öre. Jenny looked at Irene with her big eyes and asked breathlessly, “Is that enough?”

“No, a tiger is pretty expensive. Keep saving and maybe you’ll have enough money in … oh … two or three years. Or maybe you could buy something else that you’d like.”

“A Barbie house!” Katarina suggested.

“No, I want a tiger!” Jenny said with determination.

Katarina loved to play with her Barbie doll. She could occupy herself for hours combing the doll’s long hair and changing her clothes.

Jenny, on the other hand, was completely uninterested in Barbies. She would rather stand in front of the mirror and sing, imitating her idol, Carola.

“She’s old enough now that she’s beginning to understand she will hardly be able to come up with enough money for a tiger, so this morning she decided to see if throwing a fit would work. It was awful. All the preschool teachers came running. They probably thought I was abusing that child,” Irene said with a sigh.

“If I know Jenny, I believe she’ll settle with this tiger issue one way or another.” Tommy was laughing.

“I’m sure she will. Speaking of children, I just got the word from Andersson that I’m supposed to take over the questioning of that girl, Sophie Malmborg.”

The smile disappeared from Tommy’s face and his voice had no more laughter in it as he said, “That’s a tough case. Why’d you get it?”

“Well … for one, she refuses to talk to Andersson or Borg. And two, I’ve met her once before, right after it happened. An additional reason seems to be that I have children.”

“But the twins are only four! Sophie is eleven,” Tommy objected.

“Right. But kids are kids, according to the boss.”

“Of course. Kids are
not
his thing,” Tommy said, his smile returning.

I
RENE SPENT THE
rest of the workday going through the thick folder from Superintendent Andersson and stayed a few hours after her shift had ended. She had no reason to hurry home, as her mother had picked up the twins from preschool already. They’d enjoy themselves with their grandmother until Krister came home at five. He had just gotten a part-time job as a cook at a new gourmet restaurant on Avenyn. He was thrilled to death that he’d gotten the job, despite the fact that he could only work thirty hours a week. The owner had been surprised and had tried to convince him to go full-time, but Krister told him that his wife was a policewoman in the criminal unit. “There are no part-time jobs there, so I’m the one who has to take part-time work for the sake of my girls.”

When the owner realized that Krister was not about to change his position, he reconsidered and hired his first-ever part-time cook.

Irene took a break from reading and leaned back in her chair. She remembered how the beat-up Golf had slammed to a halt right next to the patrol car and Angelika Malmborg-Eriksson had leapt out almost before the car stopped.

“Frej! Where’s Frej?” she’d screamed, her voice filled with fear.

An old Saab Combi had driven up just then, and a young boy got out, holding the hand of the large woman who had driven the Saab. It seemed as if he were unsteady on his feet and needed the woman’s support. It was likely that he’d been scared by the commotion and the devastation of the fire and wanted to be anywhere but there. The heavy, pungent smell was suffocating enough to make anyone want to get away.

The boy and the woman had walked toward Angelika, who had become quite hysterical. When Angelika caught sight of the boy, she ran to him, laughing and crying in turns, holding the boy to her tightly as tears streamed down her cheeks. The woman who had come with the boy went to the fire chief and asked him a question. The chief shook his head and, judging by his gestures, delivered some bad news. With a grim expression on her face, the woman walked back to the mother and son. Irene Huss and Håkan Lund were standing close by.

The woman said, “They weren’t able to enter the house. It was completely engulfed when the fire trucks arrived. So they don’t know if he …”

She stopped and cast a glance at the boy.

Håkan took her by the arm and gently but firmly pulled her away from the other two.

“Can someone have been in the house?” he’d asked.

She’d bitten her lower lip hard before she replied, “My brother, Magnus Eriksson. Frej’s father.”

Irene had heard the woman’s statement and turned back to the glowing inferno. If a person had been in that building, there would not be much left of him.

Two days later, the fire investigators found some remains of a skeleton, including the lower jaw, which the forensic
dentist had used to determine that the remains had indeed belonged to Magnus Eriksson.

A
NGELIKA
M
ALMBORG
-E
RIKSSON WAS
a dance instructor at the House of Dance who also taught at the College of Dance in Högsbo. The school, built in the fifties and later abandoned, had been renovated for the college. The trip between the House of Dance and the Malmborg-Eriksson home in Björkil was more than ten miles. Since public transportation in Göteborg left something to be desired, Sophie and her friend Tessan had to be driven to their ballet class. This was also part of the paperwork from the initial investigation.

Sophie had danced her whole life. According to her mother, she’d been dancing before she could walk.

Angelika had provided all the information about her daughter for the paperwork. Sophie hadn’t been helpful to the officials. Angelika insisted that Sophie had said nothing to her about the fire, either. The girl had kept to herself, though her deep, dark eyes took in everything she saw. It also appeared that she’d talked to her father, Ernst Malmborg, the composer. Angelika Malmborg-Eriksson was still upset when she told Superintendent Andersson (who had given up on hearing a word out of the girl) that Sophie had refused to move back in with Frej and herself after her latest visit with her father. Apparently, Social Services had located an apartment for Angelika and her two children since there was nothing left of their house to return to. Everything they owned had been lost in the fire, except a few pieces of outdoor furniture that would be useless in a fourth-floor apartment in the Biskopsgården District. Angelika had protested her daughter’s decision mightily, but finally had to give in, at least “until the worst was over.”

Irene checked the date for that statement and found it was given the day before Christmas Eve.

Is the worst over now? Why couldn’t Angelika and her children live with Magnus Eriksson’s sister after the fire?
It appeared that she had a good relationship with the little boy.

Irene flipped through the various papers left in the folder. She didn’t find any interviews with the sister. Irene vaguely remembered that the woman had introduced herself, but she couldn’t remember her name. She’d check on that tomorrow, after she had her meeting with Sophie at ten.