The Glass Devil

Chapter 11

”THAT’S A HELL OF a lot of drivel about Rebecka’s nerves!” Superintendent Andersson bellowed. He wasn’t at all pleased about the cancellation of Irene’s trip to London. “That Frog seems to be determined to delay her questioning,” he concluded angrily.

He marched around his office, upset, with strides as long as his short legs would allow. Irene sat in his visitor’s chair, waiting for the storm to blow over. Andersson stopped in front of his window and pretended to contemplate the view over Ernst Fontell’s Place through the thick layer of dirt. He took a few deep breaths and turned toward Irene again.

“I understand that she had a shock, and a serious one, when she got the news. That’s not surprising. But we need to speak with her in person. It’s a matter of her own safety! We don’t have the faintest idea about a motive. All we have are those damn Satanic stars.”

Irene was just about to correct him and start explaining what the pentagram stood for, but she came to her senses at the last moment. She would never be able to explain what had happened at Eva Möller’s. Truth be told, she still wasn’t sure herself.

The superintendent didn’t pay any particular attention to her silence. He continued, “Can she come to Sweden and the funeral without taking a risk, or do we need to protect her? We don’t know a damn thing! She must have some clue as to motive!”

Irene nodded and jumped in. “I agree with you. I’ll call Glen Thompson again and see what he has to say.”

“SHE SAYS she isn’t up to talking. I tried to speak with her, but she burst into tears.”

Inspector Glen Thompson had a deep voice. Irene tried to imagine what he looked like.

“I understand that you’re starting to feel pressured. As you said, you need a motive. . Is this tale of Satanic symbols true? There was something in our papers about it. . Your murders are spectacular, even by English standards.”

“Yes. Symbols were painted on two computer screens with the victims’ blood.”

“So what the newspapers wrote was true. The last time I met with Rebecka, I asked her if there had been any threats against the family from Satanists, but she just shook her head. Then she began crying. She’s very difficult to interview.”

“Naturally, the shock was tremendous-” Irene started, but he interrupted her.

“True, but she wasn’t well before, either. Psychologically speaking.”

“She wasn’t?”

“No. Dr. Fischer says that he has been treating her for depression since last September.”

Then Rebecka had had psychological problems before the murders. Her brother had been on sick leave during the fall for psychological problems after his divorce. That is to say, everyone assumed it was after the divorce. Was there a completely different reason? Her thoughts were interrupted by Thompson’s voice. “Maybe as a fellow Swede, you’ll have an easier time speaking with her.”

“I’ll have to make an attempt soon. We’re at a complete standstill in our investigation, since we have no motive. We still don’t know if Rebecka’s life is also in danger.”

“She denies that there were any threats, but that may not be true. I have a very strong feeling that she’s hiding something. It’s only a hunch, but it’s there.”

“Rebecka is like her father”; “Sten’s hidden depths”; Eva Möller’s words popped into Irene’s memory.

“I need a few days to prepare Rebecka and Dr. Fischer,” Thompson continued. “She needs to understand that she’ll be forced to speak with you. If worse comes to worst, we’ll question her in the hospital.”

“I’m very grateful for your cooperation,” Irene said, and meant it.

“No problem. Let’s see. . today is Tuesday. If you come on Thursday and stay one night, then we have two days to work in. That should be enough.”

She was stung by a feeling of disappointment. She would have loved to stay longer, but then this wasn’t a vacation.

“My sister runs a pleasant little hotel in Bayswater. I’ll make a reservation for you there for Thursday night. Call me when you’ve booked your flight, and I’ll pick you up. Don’t forget to look up which airport you’re flying into.”

“Thanks,” Irene said.

IRENE BOOKED a seat on the Thursday morning flight to London at seven ten, which, according to the friendly voice on the phone, would land at Heathrow. She decided to make her return flight as late as possible on Friday, a seven twenty departure. She might have a chance to see something of London if the meeting with Rebecka didn’t take too long.

With a sigh, her gaze fell on the pile of paper before her. It had a strange ability to grow from day to day even though she tried to work on it at every available moment. Could paper reproduce itself? Her depressing thoughts faded when Svante Malm’s freckled face appeared at her door.

“Howdy. I thought I’d give you the book we found at Jacob Schyttelius’s.”

He stepped into the room and lay Anton LaVey’s book on her desk. Church of Satan. She felt a strong desire to throw it out the window. “Avoid that which comes from evil,” as Eva Möller would probably say.

“Lots of Jacob’s fingerprints were inside the book, and only his. There were some unidentified ones on the outside, probably from the employees at the bookstore. Jacob had done some underlining and written a few notes here and there in the margins.”

“Have you read it?”

“I’ve skimmed through it. Haven’t had time to read it properly, but I’ll certainly borrow it again. It’s interesting.”

“Why do you think it’s interesting?”

Hesitantly, Svante said, “It’s probably because of the criminal investigations with Satanic connections that I’ve worked on. At first you think it’s absolutely incomprehensible, how people can devote themselves to Satan-worship and strange rituals. Then, in some way, you become interested against your will. You wonder what makes these people tick.”

“What is it that makes them tick, then?”

“Power. They want power over other people and power to accept themselves. According to LaVey, nothing limits you more than yourself and your own conscience, until you realize that no one else is allowed to make decisions about you. No one else is allowed to judge your acts. You are free to look after yourself and your needs. As long as you personally feel good, then everything is okay.”

“Everything?”

“Everything. It’s no coincidence that in the USA in particular, there have been major investigations where they’ve found that young children have been drugged and used sexually during rituals. Satanism gives people permission to live out forbidden desires. Most of the meetings within the Satanic church end in group sex. Sex with animals is also common. And, as we know, they also sacrifice animals during their black masses. The ultimate sacrifice, of course, is a human sacrifice. It has happened, but it isn’t as common.”

Irene thought about what Svante had just said.

“Could you say that Satan is the same as God for them?”

Again Svante looked uncertain. “Not really. From what I understand, they have their black masses in order to gain some of the devil’s power. That’s the power that allows people to free themselves from their upbringing and religious conventions. You dare to let Satan loose inside you. The figure of God in different religions often has a law-giving role. The god says what you are and aren’t allowed to do. That’s not the case in Satanism. There, you’re supposed to accept yourself, and Satan gives you the power to do so.”

Irene looked at the book on her desk with distaste.

“ ‘ I’ is the secret word,” she said.

Svante nodded. “And complete satisfaction of one’s own desires. I can trace Satanism in most of the crimes we investigate.”

Irene was taken aback by his statement. When she had pulled herself together a bit, she said, confused, “What. .? Satan in most crimes. . What do you mean?”

“Most crimes are about satisfaction of one’s own needs. Money, sex, power, or as a way of finding an outlet for one’s anger. The guy waiting in line to get into the pub, who wasn’t let in and then out of anger stabbed the bouncer, may have been inspired by the devil who is in us all.”

“Cut it out. Drugs are always involved in those cases. Everyone doesn’t knife someone just because they don’t get into a club! And to start blaming the devil. .!”

Irene stopped her angry flood of words when she saw that Svante was mischievously smiling at her.

“Well. Maybe some of us have more of Satan inside than others.” He turned around and waved to her before he disappeared.

Irene sat for a long time looking at Church of Satan.

Why had Jacob Schyttelius read this book? Was it to learn more about how followers of Satanism think, or did he have entirely different motives? Was that why he had hidden the book? But maybe it was so that Pappa Pastor wouldn’t accidentally see it.

The question was whether Satanism really had anything to do with the triple murders.

The only person who might have the answer had been admitted to a psychiatric ward on the other side of the North Sea.

SUPERINTENDENT ANDERSSON’S mood hit rock bottom when he neared Pathology Professor Yvonne Stridner’s door. To his relief, he saw that the yellow “Wait” light was on; but as he was just about to leave, it went off. With heavy steps, he walked forward and pushed the visitor’s button. An unconscious sigh escaped him when the green light immediately came on.

The head of Pathology was enthroned behind her cluttered desk. Her Dior eyeglasses had slid down her nose, and she looked unusually stressed. A blush was evident on her cheeks.

“Andersson? For once maybe you can be useful. What do you do when the computer has frozen? I can’t work on my presentation!”

Irritated, she hit the plastic cover of her IBM.

“I. . I’m not so good with computers,” Andersson stammered.

“But don’t you use a computer for work?” Stridner stared the superintendent in the eye with her sharp gaze, and he felt himself shrinking. He always became a nervous, sweaty schoolboy when he was around her, a blithering idiot.

“Yes. . yes, of course,” he said, but he could hear how unconvincing he sounded.

Stridner pursed her lips and mumbled something about “technology-hating bosses in middle management.”

This made Andersson angry, and he said stiffly, “I haven’t come to repair computers, but to find out if the tests have been able to pinpoint the exact time of each death.”

Stridner’s eyes were frosty, and her voice tinkled like icicles when she replied, “I could have looked it up if my computer hadn’t been out of order.”

Back to square one. Andersson glared at the pathologist with the flame-red hair. Resigned, he was turning to go when he heard her say, “But I can use the other computer.”

Without waiting for a reply, she clattered past him on her stiletto heels and disappeared down the corridor.

Andersson sank onto the uncomfortable visitor’s chair. It was both lumpy and covered in vinyl. Andersson suspected that most people who sat in this chair soon found themselves in varying states of nervousness and general dissolution. From his own experience, he knew how quickly one began to perspire on a vinyl chair. Medical students or police officers, it didn’t matter: Everyone broke into a sweat during a meeting with Professor Stridner, the superintendent continued his gloomy train of thought.

He was interrupted when the clattering of the professor’s heels in the corridor grew closer. She rushed in and stepped up to her ergonomically designed office chair, which was covered in Bordeaux-colored soft leather. It looked more like a small comfortable recliner than a work chair, Andersson noted jealously as he squirmed in his uncomfortable chair.

Stridner straightened her glasses and looked down at the paper she held in her hand. She read directly from the page: “‘Jacob Schyttelius’s stomach contents showed the half-digested remains of a hot dog and mashed potatoes. He drank orange soda along with it. His last meal was consumed at around six o’clock.’ Does that match your information?”

Stridner peered at Andersson over the edge of her glasses.

“Yes. The assistant at the hot-dog stand on Södra vägen got in touch with us. She remembers him. Apparently he was a regular and usually came around six o’clock, several evenings a week. She remembers that it was Monday, because the next day she had a backache and was out sick. And the owner of a men’s clothing store on Södra vägen also phoned us. Jacob was there just before closing on Monday evening.”

The superintendent became annoyed at himself when he heard how he blurted out his information, strutting to show that, by golly, he was in the know. A simple “yes” would have been sufficient.

Stridner nodded and looked down at her paper again. “Then I would like to place the time of the murder at between eleven o’clock and eleven thirty. I can’t be more precise, since we don’t know exactly when Jacob ate his hot dog with mashed potatoes.

“Regarding the parents’ stomach contents, it’s even more uncertain, since we don’t know when they ate their last meal, which was salmon mousse and green peas. Based on the level of digestion, they probably ate six hours before the time of death. And drinks. . ”

Again Stridner gave Andersson a sharp look. Unaware, he sucked in his stomach, which was hanging over his belt.

“Elsa Schyttelius had coffee and water in her digestive tract. Sten Schyttelius had beer and whiskey. His blood alcohol level was one point one. High, but he was only slightly drunk. The condition of his liver bears witness to a rather significant alcohol intake over the years.”

“Was he an alcoholic?”

Stridner hesitated. “Alcoholic?. . More like a regular heavy drinker. His blood sugar was also a bit high, and he was overweight.”

She gave Andersson a meaningful look. He was terribly close to asking her what the pastor’s blood pressure had been, but managed to stop himself. A sulky Professor Stridner was the worst thing you could confront. Instead, he said, “We’ve traced a phone call from the rectory to Jacob’s cell phone. The call came at six thirty-two. That’s the last telephone call registered to or from the rectory’s telephone on the night of the murder. I wonder if one of the parents called Jacob to see if he wanted to join them for dinner. If I’ve guessed right, it means that Mr. and Mrs. Schyttelius ate around six forty-five or a little later. That would mean that they were killed as late as quarter to one. Fifteen minutes in each direction, but probably closer to one o’clock.”

Stridner nodded. “That’s possible,” she said. She took off her glasses and tapped one of the rims lightly against her front teeth. “It was an execution,” she said.

Andersson replied, “Those Satanic stars and all that damn. . drivel were meant to suggest a ritual murder. But it doesn’t really look like it. I mean. . there aren’t signs of any sacrifices.”

“No. These are not ritualistic killings,” Stridner agreed.

“Have you seen any Satanic murders?” Andersson ventured to ask.

“Yes. One. The Purple Murder. I had just started here in Pathology. Are you familiar with the case?”

“Yes. I remember it, but I didn’t participate in the investigation.”

“Then I don’t need to go through the circumstances surrounding the case itself. The man was found dead in his apartment with his throat cut. But that’s not all. Someone had carved a pentagram on his stomach. It wasn’t very deep, but it had bled. The man was alive while the pentagram was being incised.”

“Could he have done it himself?” the superintendent interjected.

“No. It was very well done, with the points all being exactly the same size. You wouldn’t be able to do that to yourself. Not even if he had stood in front of a mirror. Besides, he was heavily drugged.”

“What kind of drug?”

“LSD, which actually is a drug commonly used during Satanic gatherings, I learned. I discussed this case a few years later with a colleague at a conference in Philadelphia who had experience with three ritualistic murders with connections to Satanism. Very interesting! It was two young children and a teenage girl who-”

Stridner stopped herself. “But it was the the Purple Murder we were discussing. So the man had taken LSD, or someone had forced him to take it. Because of the drug, he probably didn’t feel anything when the symbol was carved on his stomach. Aside from his throat being cut after the carving session, he also had five stab wounds in his body. The interesting thing about the stab wounds was that all of them were inflicted with the same knife, but not by the same person.”

Andersson raised his eyebrows in surprise. This last was news to him.

“I didn’t hear anything about that at the time. It was, after all, not my case, but you would think I would have heard something like that through the grapevine-”

“No. We chose not to spread it about, because the information wasn’t supported. Rather, it was only a hypothesis.”

“What did you base it on?”

“The man was alive when the pentagram was carved, and he was also alive when his throat was cut. The blood shot out in a cascade and he quickly bled to death then.

“The stab wounds on the body differed greatly. Two of them were only about a centimeter deep and located peripherally on his chest. One went straight to the heart and would have been fatal in and of itself, just as the fourth, a stab wound to the stomach which perforated the liver, would also have resulted in death. The last stab wound was, strangely enough, positioned directly above the pubic bone and slanted in toward the bladder. None of these knife wounds had bled much, which points to the fact that the man had been dead for a while before they were inflicted on him.”

“I seem to recall that evidence of sexual contact was also found. …”

“Yes. We found vaginal secretions on his penis and sperm in his anus. So he had had sex with at least one man and one woman. If it had happened today, we could have done DNA profiles, but we didn’t have that back then.”

Stridner fell silent.

“You remember this case surprisingly well,” Andersson ventured to say.

She replied dryly, “Yes. It was a case that stays with you. Unusual.”

She straightened her glasses mechanically and looked down at the papers in front of her on the table. “The reason I started talking about that case is to justify my doubt that the killing of the Schyttelius family was a ritualistic Satanic murder. Firstly, we have the appearance of the crime scenes. No strange objects or utensils for Satanic rituals, only the symbols painted on the computers.”

“There was an upside-down cross in Mr. and Mrs. Schyttelius’s bedroom. . ”

“Just to mislead. Nothing about the bodies pointed to ritualistic activities. They were simply executed in cold blood.”

Andersson nodded and admitted that she was right. These were thoughts he had had several times himself. “So if it wasn’t Satanists who murdered them, who was it?”

“A murderer without mercy. Familiar with guns and with a perfect aim. None of the victims were moved after the murders. He was sure they were dead.”

Andersson thought about what Stridner had said. “The strange thing,” he said, “is that the only ones familiar with firearms and who were expert marksmen, in the context of this investigation, are the victims, Sten and Jacob Schyttelius.”

IRENE HAD started preparing for her trip to London on Tuesday evening. She ironed her navy-blue linen pants and matching blazer. The new low-heeled dark-blue pumps would be perfect, but what could she wear under the blazer? After a great deal of agony, she decided to go for a light-purple sleeveless top with a deep V-neck. The time between checking in and boarding the plane would be spent in the airport shops. There she would try to find a new lipstick and a new perfume. Her mascara was almost out, and-

The door opened and Katarina stormed in. “Guess what.”

“Hello. What?”

“I’ve pulled out of the contest. I called the club where the final is being held on Saturday and said that I don’t have time for that beauty stuff.”

“What did they say?”

“They became, like, so angry. But I don’t give a damn. Those idiots can run their competition any way they want.” She disappeared into her room.

Why the quick change? Why didn’t her daughter need proof any more that she was pretty enough? Was it out of fear that she wouldn’t win? Or-?

Irene stopped her train of thought when she realized what the answer must be.

“What’s his name?” she called toward Katarina’s room.

Her daughter stuck her head through the door opening with a surprised look on her face. “He? How do you. .?” Then she broke into a sunny smile. “Johan.” She ducked back into her room. Irene smiled to herself, feeling like a very good detective.

A little while later, when she was considering the Schyttelius murders, that feeling evaporated like a dewdrop in the desert. What if her trip to London was unsuccessful? Maybe Rebecka really didn’t have the faintest idea about the motive for the murders or who the perpetrator might be. She hadn’t lived in Sweden the last couple of years. She hadn’t had close contact with her family. They hadn’t found any letters or postcards from Rebecka to either her parents or her brother.

Then a thought struck her: computers. They had each had access to a computer. Maybe they kept in touch through them. Sent E-mail or chatted. . But they would never be able to prove it, since the hard drives had been destroyed.

But maybe something had been saved on removable disks? Irene stopped herself. They hadn’t found a single removable disk, whether floppy diskette, Zip disk, CD/R, or any other kind, either at Sten’s or at Jacob’s. The investigators had assumed that they had stored everything only on the hard drives. But what if they hadn’t? What if the murderer had taken the removable disks with him? How do you utterly destroy such a disk? She suspected that the answer was probably different for each kind. She made a mental note to herself to find out first thing the next morning.

RIGHT AFTER morning prayers on Wednesday, the telephone in Irene’s office rang. She threw herself through the door and hurdled over the desk in order to catch it in time.

“Inspector Huss.” She could hear that someone was breathing heavily on the other end of the phone but trying to calm down.

“Hello? Who’s calling?” Irene asked.

She could hear the person at the other end clear his throat nervously. “Yes. . I don’t know if I really should, but this is Assistant Pastor Urban Berg in Bäckared.”

“Good morning.”

“Good morning. I was wondering. . it happens that I’ve found out about something which may have nothing to do with the murders, but one never knows. . ”

“Do you want me to come and see you so that we can talk, or is it okay to do it via telephone?”

“No, . I’m coming into the city today anyway. . Can we meet this afternoon? I would prefer if no one finds out that I’ve spoken with you.”

“What time works best for you?”

“After two o’clock. Does that suit you?”

“Of course. Just announce yourself at the reception desk and they’ll call me. I’ll come down and meet you.”

“Thank you.” Relief could be heard in his voice.

What had Urban Berg found out that he couldn’t tell her over the phone? Maybe this was the first crack in the case they had all been hoping for? But that was probably wishful thinking, she told herself.

IRENE DEVOTED the entire morning to administrative cleanup. She was very pleased with her efforts when she looked out over her bare desktop before she went to lunch just before one o’clock. The Insurance Office’s cafeteria was offering an acceptable chicken stew.

She looked for Tommy both in the station and in the cafeteria, but she didn’t see him anywhere. The Speedy investigation was probably moving along, which was more than could be said for the one she was participating in. Since she hadn’t spoken with Urban Berg during the questioning a week earlier, it would have been good to learn Tommy’s impression of the pastor before she met him herself. The only thing she remembered was that Urban Berg had said that Bengt Måårdh was a womanizer. It may have been true: Bengt was a stylish man and had a pleasant manner about him. Maybe his manner was a little too pleasant.

Irene remembered that she had viewed Urban Berg as reserved during the brief glimpse she had gotten of him in the Fellowship Hall. And, according to Bengt Måårdh, he had problems with the bottle.

What was it Tommy had called both of the pastors? Now she remembered: “petty gossiping pigs.” They had tattled on each other. Probably because they were competing for the position of Schyttelius’s replacement as rector. Bengt Måårdh had also happened to reveal Jonas Burman’s possible homosexuality and that he saw himself as being extra religious and orthodox.

It was with a certain degree of anticipation that she took the elevator down to pick up Urban Berg. The receptionist announced him at two o’clock on the dot.

He stood glued to the wall of the waiting room right next to the bookshelf. The room didn’t offer many hiding places, but the pastor had found the one that existed. With a stiff facial expression, he focused on three dark-skinned men who were sitting on the visitor’s couch. He seemed to be slightly cross-eyed, since at the same time he was keeping an eye on a suspicious man who was sitting in an armchair and reading that day’s edition of GP. Irene could have informed Urban Berg that the man in the chair was a plainclothes prison guard who was waiting for someone. She didn’t bother. Instead, she opened the glass door and smiled welcomingly at the pastor. Relieved, Berg hurried toward her.

“I’VE BEEN going back and forth about what I should do. . but I’ve decided to tell,” said Urban Berg.

He sat erect in Irene’s visitor’s chair and declined her offer of coffee. Irene left him for a moment while she retrieved a cup for herself. Based on what she could see when she came back, he hadn’t moved an inch.

Now he looked Irene in the eye and repeated, “I’ve decided to tell.”

He stopped himself. Irene drank her coffee and waited for him to begin.

“It was the Friday before the murders. Sten came over to my home in the afternoon, and we sat and talked. We had a very pleasant time and ate a little bit of food. Very pleasant. He said-”

There the assistant rector stopped and looked to the side. Irene got the feeling that he was terribly troubled. She wondered if she should ask how much they had had to drink, but decided that it was irrelevant. With the knowledge of both men’s drinking habits, it had probably been a good deal. Berg cleared his throat and commenced again. “He said that he suspected that Louise Måårdh had embezzled money from the church association.”

Irene was very surprised. Could Louise possibly have embezzled church funds? The beautiful, elegant. . then Irene stopped herself and remembered the stunning pearl necklace and the exquisitely cut dress she had worn the week before. Irene had to admit that her impression of Louise also included the word “expensive.”

“Did he have any proof of his suspicions?”

Troubled, Urban Berg squirmed before he answered. “I. . we talked about how Bengt and Louise bought a new car again. It hasn’t been more than three years since they bought a Volvo. Brand-spanking-new. Now they’ve purchased a BMW!” At the last piece of information, he opened his eyes wide, meaningfully. Apparently he viewed the BMW as clear proof of Mr. and Mrs. Måårdh’s deceit. At first he looked disappointed when Irene didn’t comment on the information, but after a short while his determination returned.

“Last winter they traveled to the Maldives, and last summer they were in Italy, and this summer they’re traveling to Greece. Their sons study at the university without taking out any student loans, and they each have an apartment. And then, they’ve bought a bigger boat which is docked at Björlanda Kile. Stuff like that costs money!”

He couldn’t conceal the triumph in his voice. Irene tried to choose her words carefully. “Did Sten Schyttelius suspect his accountant of embezzlement simply because of all of these expenses?”

A blush shot up from the pastor’s throat and spread unflatteringly over his pale cheeks. “He. . he thought, as I do, that it’s very strange that they can afford all these things. Pastors in the Swedish Church are not well paid.”

“But he didn’t have any proof to base his suspicions on,” Irene asserted.

“Maybe not directly. But this has been discussed in the association for the last few years. According to Sten, we aren’t the only ones who have been curious.”

Irene watched the man sitting upright in her visitor’s chair. She was inclined to agree with Tommy; Urban Berg was a gossip-monger. Yet experience told her that a grain of truth can often be found in a rumor. Maybe it was worth pursuing. But someone else would have to do it; she was going to London.

“I’VE SCOUTED the woods around Norssjön and the rectory in Kullahult. It isn’t all that difficult to make your way through.”

Fredrik had taped together the two map pages that the superintendent had torn out when he introduced the theory about the murderer taking a shortcut through the woods.

“The first hundred and fifty meters from the cottage are a bit tricky, but then you come to an area that has been cleared for power lines. It goes straight as an arrow toward Kullahult. In some places the power line goes over meadows and fields, but it never gets close to any houses, until you’re almost at Kullahult. It wouldn’t have been hard to sneak up to the rectory on foot.”

Fredrik looked up from the map pages in order to make sure they were following along. Irene, Hannu, and Superintendent Andersson were sitting around the table, and they were paying careful attention. Encouraged, he continued. “The power lines continue across the large field that lies behind the rectory. If you go through that field, you come to the back of the church hill. There aren’t any houses until here, on the other side, where the farm that owns the field is located. It’s too far away for the people at the farm to be able to see if someone is moving near the church.”

“So you can use a flashlight without any great risk of being seen,” Hannu said.

“Absolutely. But in order to be on the safe side, you can keep to the edge of the field. I went out there last night around eleven and checked. I had no problem making my way without a flashlight by walking along the edge of the woods. The forest stretches all the way to the church hill, and then a stone wall takes over. If you continue along it, you come to the spruce hedge behind the rectory. And that’s when I did what Irene’s dog does.”

Fredrik paused for dramatic effect and smiled.

“What the hell does Irene’s dog do?” the superintendent asked, irritated.

“Follow the animals. And I followed the deer. They’ve actually made a passage through the spruce hedge. The fat tulips in the garden lure them. The opening was a tight fit for me, but it’s possible to push your way through. I can guarantee that the murderer went that way.”

The triumph in his voice couldn’t be missed. The others sat quietly because this was Fredrik’s performance, and he was playing it for all he was worth.

“I found a footprint and a red woolen thread inside the passage. I called the technicians before I pushed through the opening. They took care of the yarn and made a cast of a shoeprint. This morning I talked to Åhlén. They say that the yarn piece is the same type as the two that Irene and I found. My theory about the tasseled murderer still holds.”

Irene giggled but realized right away that she was the only one amused. Hannu and the superintendent were completely absorbed. Knowing that he had his listeners’ full attention, Fredrik continued. “The shoeprint was perfect; the rain hadn’t gotten at it. The print came from a sturdy Adidas athletic shoe, size 11. According to Åhlén, it’s a winter model, almost like a boot.”

“Gore-Tex,” said Hannu.

“Probably. Light, warm, and waterproof. The technicians are in the process of trying to find out exactly what kind of shoe made the print. It shouldn’t be impossible.”

“So we’re still looking for a short guy with a tasseled hat who has big feet on which he wore Gore-Tex boots. He shouldn’t be difficult to get ahold of,” Irene said.

In her mind, she could see the little man in a tasseled hat fighting his way through the woods, stumbling in his large boots. A second later, when she remembered what he had done to his victims, he didn’t seem as comical any more.

“I also timed how long it took to go between the crime scenes. One hour and five minutes,” Fredrik concluded.

Irene told them about Urban Berg’s visit, and Hannu promised to check to see if there was any foundation for the accusations against Louise Måårdh. Covering up embezzlement could be a motive for murder. It would have had to be a great deal of money, thought Irene.