The Cruel Stars of the Night

Thirty-six

How small he is, Ottosson thought. He stood there looking at Fredriksson from the foot of the bed, feeling somewhat at a loss as he always did with hospital visits.

Ann Lindell felt guilty. She had not yet shown the picture of the unknown woman to anyone. If she were to pull it out now it would be like adding yet another stone to the burden of her defenseless colleague.

“The question is what he was doing in Kusenberg,” Ola Haver said.

“Jan-Elis Andersson in Alsike,” Lindell said.

“Maybe he had an idea,” Ottosson said. “You know how Allan is.”

The bouquet of flowers in his hand was drooping.

“Should I get something to put them in?” Lindell asked.

Ottosson nodded absently. Lindell was glad to leave the hospital room for a few moments. When she returned Ola Haver was leaning over Fredriksson.

“At least he’s breathing,” he said and Lindell couldn’t help smiling as she arranged the flowers. They were not beautiful but Ottosson had insisted that they should bring something with them.

Suddenly Fredriksson opened his eyes. Haver jumped and grabbed Lindell’s arm.

“He’s awake!”

“Allan, can you hear me?” Ottosson asked in a loud voice.

Fredriksson’s eyes glimmered in response but then he appeared to sink back into the fog.

“The coat,” he said, almost inaudibly

Opening his mouth appeared to be an incredible effort. There was a smacking sound as some dried spots of saliva stretched like rubber bands between his cracked lips.

“What did he say?”

“ ‘The coat,’ I thought,” Haver said. “Did you say ‘coat,’ Allan?”

Fredriksson nodded very slightly. He was as white as a sheet and Lindell was afraid he was about to throw up.

“I’ll check with the staff,” she said and left the room.

They found Frediksson’s coat in a plastic bag in a nearby room. It had been cut to pieces and stained and Lindell shivered when she realized the dark spots were blood. She put it back in the bag and returned to the room.

Fredriksson appeared to have sunk back into his dormant state.

“Here it is,” Lindell said and pulled out the coat.

“Check the pockets,” Ottosson said.

“You’ll have to do that,” Lindell said.

In the left pocket Ottosson found an evidence bag containing a chess piece. A white pawn.

All three officers stared at the sleeping Fredriksson.

“Chess,” Lindell said stupidly.

“The question is where he found it,” Haver said.

Again they looked at their colleague.

“Check if he has the keys to Alsike on him,” Lindell said.

Ottosson shook the coat. There was a rattling sound.

At that moment a nurse entered the room. Her name was Beatrice and Lindell took this as a good sign.

“Is he going to make it?” Ottosson asked.

“Is he going to make it? What did you think, that he was dying?”

Ottosson became noticeably embarrassed.

“Allan is a good friend,” he said. “I was just worried.”

“He has broken his arm, injured his neck and back, and banged his head pretty hard but he’ll be watching birds again in a few weeks.”

The three police officers looked inquisitively at her.

“He’s been raving about smews and buzzards the whole time.”

“And chess?”

“No, just birds, birds, birds.”

She adjusted the IV tube that was connected to Fredriksson’s arm, patted his cheek, and swept out as swiftly as she had entered.

“Ola, you stay here and when he wakes up you’ll ask him how and why.”

“Ask him what?” Haver said with an uncomprehending look.

Ottosson stared at him.

“I was just joking,” Haver said and laughed.

He liked the idea of sitting at his colleague’s side when he regained consciousness.

Ottosson’s eyes were moist. Lindell knew that it was in response to the nurse’s friendly chatter and care of her patient. Her boss had a soft spot for TLC.

Ottosson and Lindell went separate ways in the hospital parking lot. Ottosson had to meet the district attorney and Lindell answered evasively when Ottosson asked what she would do.

She drove through the hospital area, came out onto Dag Ham-marskjöld’s Way and turned onto the road to Kåbo. She couldn’t get Laura Hindersten out of her thoughts. There was really nothing that indicated that this strange woman had anything to do with the three murders but this morning she had studied a self-drawn map where Jumkil, Alsike, and Skuttunge were marked with crosses. Between these points she drew straight lines and they intersected in Kåbo. Lindell did not put much stock in coincidences, and when the September disappearance of a seventy-year-old man was followed in October by the murders of three men around the same age, she did not believe it to be a coincidence.

Certainly, Ulrik Hindersten could have disappeared from natural causes, gotten lost, or simply run away of his free will, but in spite of intense searching he remained swallowed up by the earth. The City Forest was not that big. He would have been found, especially since police dogs had been used. The police had received help both from the military and the Uppsala Kennel Club. As far as Lindell could tell every square centimeter had been searched.

That he had left of his own free will was more implausible. His passport was still in the house, no personal effects were missing, and no withdrawals or purchases had been made with his bank cards since the disappearance.

Lindell played with the idea that Ulrik Hindersten was the perpetrator and that perhaps his daughter either sensed it or was even party to it.

Her behavior was odd, to say the least. To burn up all his belongings, especially the valuable books, implied a degree of feeling out of the ordinary. Was it a kind of grieving or was it the expression of hatred and revenge?

Lindell had to get an answer to these questions before she could let go of Laura Hindersten.

She turned onto the street and kept her fingers crossed that Laura would be home. The driveway was full of garbage bags but there was no car.

She parked on the street and got out. A woman peeked out of the window of the neighbor’s house but quickly drew back. Lindell got the impression that she was fearful, maybe a cleaning lady working without a permit. There were rumors about a cleaning service that employed women without work permits from Poland and the Baltic states, who earned thirty-five kronor an hour. Rosén had written a memo after an investigation into the matter but nothing had been done. This female slave trade had a low priority. The clients moreover were well-adjusted Swedes in Sunnersta, Kåbo, and Vårdsätra.

Lindell walked up the stairs and rang the bell. The signal echoed inside the house but no one opened.

A strange feeling of foreboding came over her. It reminded her of an event several years ago when she visited a house in order to search for a hidden refugee. That time it had been just as forbiddingly quiet but in the end the door had been opened.

Lindell walked down the stairs and out into the garden. The place where Laura had burned the books was now a black gash surrounded by flattened grass. A few pages from a book had been blown into a bush. Lindell picked up a singed page and read a few lines. It was a poem, that much she could tell, and she guessed that the language was Italian.

She let go of the paper and it flew away between the bushes, fluttering nervously, lifting and landing in the fork of a tree about a meter above the ground. Lindell followed its flight and thought she recognized the tree. She didn’t know much about plants but it was not your everyday tree, she could see that. The striped, arrow-straight trunk with the branches at sharp angles gave it an almost aristocratic appearance.

She walked closer and stroked the bark. Something told her she had seen a similar tree lately. Fredriksson should have been here, she thought, smiling.

She looked around, pulled on the ladder in the hopes that Laura would turn up. The garden really was run-down but it had a kind of charm that appealed to Lindell. Its wildness, the small rooms that were created in the midst of the overgrown vegetation, and the dark tunnels that led to dead ends reminded her of an unexplored jungle. At any moment you could disturb a strange animal who, as quickly as it had appeared, would disappear again into the wilderness. From the low-hanging tree branches, coldblooded venomous snakes could unexpectedly attack.

Lindell forced her way through a couple of bushes. A cat came rushing past as if shot from a cannon and made her scream with fright. She shivered. The charm was completely lost and she tried to find her way back to the house. A twig was stuck in her hair, her shoes were damp, and she was cold.

Heavy clouds made their way across the sky and suddenly a strong wind blew through the trees, leaving the garden mysterious and gloomy.

Ann Lindell walked back out onto the street. A red Nissan Micra stopped in front of the neighbor’s house and the woman she had spotted in the window stepped through the door, hurried down the stairs, and got into the car. She had a large sports bag in her hand.

Lindell memorized the license plate, walked back to her car, and called to find out who owned the Micra. It belonged to a bus driver with a Polish-sounding name.

Ann Lindell drove down Norbyvägen toward the castle and then took a right. Her thought was to drive to Alsike. She had taken the keys out of Fredriksson’s bloody coat. That he had found a chess piece there didn’t mean anything. Many people had chess sets in their homes. She seemed to recall they even had one in her childhood home in Ödeshög but she couldn’t remember anyone who played chess.

She suddenly took a right at Artillerigatan. Without putting on her blinker and almost without braking she took the curve much too quickly and came close to crashing into an oncoming car.

It was a stab in the dark, the flash of the woman in the photograph and another in front of a bonfire, that made her perform the insane maneuver. At the Vivo grocery store, a couple of hundred meters from Laura Hin-dersten’s house, she stopped the car and got out, consumed with an idea. The chance of success was minimal but it was worth testing.

There was a young woman at the cash register. She smiled when Lindell came in. Lindell introduced herself and asked if there was anyone around who had worked in the store about twenty years ago. The young woman looked perplexed.

“You mean here?”

Lindell nodded.

“Twenty years ago?”

A new nod. A polite smile doesn’t always mean quick wits, Lindell noted.

“No, I don’t think so. It’s just mullah Ante and me here.”

“And Ante?”

“He’s twenty-five.”

“Okay, do you know of anyone who might have worked here before, someone older?”

“Like you, or what?”

Lindell smiled.

“Yes, like me, or maybe someone even older.”

“Sivbritt used to work here but she’s retired.”

“Then she’s older,” Lindell pointed out.

“She still comes in sometimes, pretty frequently actually.”

“Maybe she lives in the area?”

“Ante!” the cashier yelled suddenly. “Do you know where Sivbritt lives- you know, the one who comes in all the time and tells us how to do our job?”

Ante emerged from the back of the store. He looked much older than twenty-five, probably because of his considerable beard.

“Sivbritt Eriksson, she lives on Birkagatan. I’ve delivered groceries to her home. Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“Why do you want to know?”

The cashier nodded at Lindell.

“It’s her.”

Ante looked interestedly at the newcomer.

“Has Nicke sent you?”

Lindell grew tired of this and explained that she wanted Sivbritt’s address, and she wanted it right away. Ante reacted immediately, wrote it down on a piece of paper, tore it from the pad with a suave expression, and gave it to Lindell, who thanked them and hurried to the exit.

“While I’m here,” she said and turned in the doorway. “I’m investigating a disappearance. It’s an older man who went missing about a month ago, Ulrik Hindersten. Do you know who that is?”

“Your buddies have already asked us about it,” Ante said.

“I’m asking you again.”

“He was here sometimes but his crazy daughter is here, like, a lot.”

“Crazy?”

“She’s a real freak who asks for a sick amount of stuff.”

“Like?”

“Cheeses and stuff,” the cashier said and made it sound like a personal insult that Laura Hindersten wanted to buy more than bread and milk.

“Has she been here today?”

“Is she also missing?”

“Thanks,” Lindell said abruptly and left the store.

Lindell knew where Birkagatan was. Several years ago, before she worked in Violent Crimes, she had been there to check on a reported case of domestic abuse. From what she could remember a woman was later charged with assault in a lesser degree. She had hit her husband in the head with a frying pan and thereafter thrown hot potatoes at him as he tried to flee from the apartment.

She parked directly outside the entrance, walked quickly up the two stairs, and rang Sivbritt Erikssons bell. It’s sick how many Erikssons there are, she thought and smiled to herself.

After the third try she gave up. I thought retirees were home all the time, she thought obnoxiously, already having created a mental image of the whiny Sivbritt who disturbed young people in their work.

When she walked back there was a man next to her car. A white piece of paper was on the windshield, attached with duct tape. It looked like an enormous invitation to a funeral. The man surveyed his work with satisfaction.

“What the hell is this?” Lindell burst out.

“Read it yourself,” the man said impudently, but drew back when he saw Lindell’s expression.

She tore off the note and read, “You have repeatedly parked your car… “ She glared at him.

“What are you talking about?”

“You can read, can’t you?”

“Can you read?” Lindell said, fuming and pointed to a laminated notice that was visibly placed on the dashboard. “And secondly, I have never, I repeat never, parked in your damn parking lot!”

“Yes, you have, I write down all the licencse plate numbers,” the man said and held up a notepad.

“Give me that! This is a punishable offense, do you understand that? You can be arrested for it. What’s your name?” Lindell said, her voice now icy cold as she took out her notebook. “I’m with the police,” she added.

The man ran away. Lindell stared after him with surprise.

“So you’ve run into Crazy Gudmund?”

Lindell turned around and there was Sivbritt Eriksson. Lindell knew at once it had to be her. Finally her luck seemed to have turned.

“Why is he called that?”

“It’s simple: his name is Gudmund and he is crazy. A couple of years ago he was hit in the head with a brick.”

Lindell started to laugh.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that kind of day today.”

The woman nodded.

“I know how it feels,” she said, with a tone that made Lindell believe her.

“You’re Sivbritt, aren’t you?”

“Alice,” Sivbritt said at once when Lindell showed her the snapshot she had found at Petrus Blomgren’s.

“I can’t remember her last name, but her first name was Alice. She died in an accident, fell down the basement stairs. Her husband disappeared this September and his daughter still lives in the house. She’s some kind of an economist, I believe. Hindersten, that’s what it was, I remember it now.”

“You are a gold mine,” Lindell said.

Sivbritt Eriksson looked noticeably pleased.

“What was Alice like?”

“A sweet woman, who didn’t have an easy time of it, if you’ll excuse me saying so. She always came in on Thursdays. That’s when our meat came in. She was very particular, but knew what she was talking about. A good customer.”

Lindell sized up the woman in front of her. About seventy, probably no taller than 155 centimeters, graying hair with a perm that was starting to grow out, a thin body, and that combination of reserve and complete frankness that Lindell had seen so many times in older people, perhaps above all in women.

Alice Hindersten may have been a good customer, but Sivbritt Eriksson was a good observer and judge of human character.

“Her place wasn’t in Kåbo. She didn’t really fit in. She knew how to behave, no question there, but she would have needed another kind of man, not one who buried himself in books.”

“How could you tell she didn’t fit in?”

“You can tell. When a woman has had to give up too much, well, then it… ” Sivbritt Eriksson hesitated, “… it’s not good. I mean, Alice liked to laugh but that man was like a walking migraine, all puffed up with his own importance. He kept people down, you could see it from a long way away. He didn’t even have to open his mouth.”

She stopped and Lindell was convinced she was thinking about her encounters with both Alice and Ulrik Hindersten.

“Alice was fond of veal,” she continued. “It was for some special dish, Italian I think. It’s hard to find good veal. Alice would rather pass if I didn’t have a good piece, and then I would feel a bit ashamed but she was always so kind and said it wasn’t my fault and of course she was right about that.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Lindell put in.

“She liked to take walks. I often saw her walk by. I think she went to the Botanical Gardens each and every day. She took the girl with her. She was already dark as a troll back then.”

“Are you talking about Laura?”

“They only have one. I remember Alice talking about new flowers that had bloomed. She was like a calendar. One day it was spring bulbs and the next day some primrose.”

“Was she happy?” Lindell asked even though she already knew the answer.

“She was happy in the garden. I have been alone for fifteen years but we had a good marriage. Alvar worked at Ekeby for a long time before they shut down. Then he received his sick pension. I have lived here for over fifty years. Here in this building, I mean.”

“When was this photo taken do you think?”

“Hard to say. Alice was a woman who didn’t change. May I be nosy?”

“Of course.”

“Why are you asking me about Alice? She died such a long time ago.”

Lindell hesitated but decided to tell her.

“We are investigating the murders that you have probably read about in the papers. Alice’s name has emerged in connection with them.”

Sivbritt Eriksson clapped her hands over her mouth and stared at Ann.

“This is also about Ulrik Hindersten. He has been reported missing, as you know.”

“Do you think he’s been murdered?”

“There is nothing right now to indicate that,” Lindell said.

Sivbritt turned her head and looked out the window and sat quietly for a long time. Lindell let her think in peace.

“Well, dear Lord,” the woman said finally and looked at Lindell.

“I’m telling you this in confidence, you understand. I don’t want you to mention this conversation to anyone.”

“Of course,” Sivbritt said. “Not a word.”

“Did Alice talk about love with you?”

Lindell thought the question sounded silly but Sivbritt reacted like Lindell had hoped, with a meaningful silence before she began to speak.

It was three quarters of an hour later when Ann Lindell left. The last fifteen minutes she had been sitting on pins and needles but when Sivbritt Eriksson insisted on making her a cup of coffee Lindell felt she had to accept given everything that she had just received.

When she got into her car she gave the steering wheel a slap and drove whistling onto the street.

Crazy Gudmund, partly concealed in the garbage room, watched her vengefully and was convinced that the Eriksson woman was suspected of a serious crime.

“Breakthrough!” Lindell cried as she drove by the metal sheds on Karlsrogatan. She tried to restrain her excitement but the information that Sivbritt Eriksson had provided was the most sensational in the case yet. In one blow Ulrik Hindersten appeared as the key to all three murders. Was he also murdered, or the murderer? This was the question that clearly had to be put first.

In her inner map she drew in Jumkil, Alsike, and Skuttunge, extending the lines to Uppsala and the house in Kåbo. A connection was now established between Jumkil and Kåbo. Now she had to map out the connections between Jan-Elis Andersson and Carl-Henrik Palmblad and the Hindersten family. Ann Lindell was convinced such a connection existed.

The murders were no vendetta against the countryside, as many had believed. Neither the rental agreements, tractors, nor LRF had anything to do with the case. The three old men had qualified themselves to be brutally clubbed down in the eyes of the killer and everything most likely pointed right back to the rundown house in Kåbo.

“Motive, motive,” Ann Lindell muttered as she drove past the Eriks-berg Church.

Laura Hindersten was priority number one. She must have the answers. Of course she had denied knowing any of the three but Lindell was now convinced she had been lying. Or was her father Ulrik the spider in the web? In that case, where was the murderous professor?

She decided to return to the Hindersten house. The street was deserted and the driveway was still empty.

Ann Lindell parked on a side street and returned on foot to the house.