The Glass Devil

Chapter 8

”SOME IDIOT LEAKED!”

Superintendent Andersson was in a terrible mood. He stared grimly at the group during Friday’s morning prayers. None of those present looked guilty, and he hadn’t really suspected any of them. But it was enormously irritating not to have a specific person to pounce on.

Svante Malm, just joining the meeting with a lab report in his hand, said, “The strange thing is that no one did it earlier.”

The superintendent turned around on his heel and hissed, “What do you mean?”

“Spectacular! Pastor’s family murdered by Satanists! Candy for the evening papers. Whoever leaked the information was probably well paid.”

Still red in the face, Andersson mumbled something unintelligible. After taking a few deep breaths, he asked Svante to review the new information the lab had come up with.

Svante took a seat and looked down at the papers he had set in front of him on the table. “The analysis of the pentagrams is finished. The one on the computer screen in the cottage was, as expected, made with Jacob Schyttelius’s blood. We’ve found the tool that the murderer used: A bloody pastry brush was lying in the wastebasket under the desk.”

He paused briefly and took out some new papers, which he laid on top of the pile.

“The analysis of the pentagram in the rectory is a bit surprising. The star itself was made with Sten Schyttelius’s blood, but the ring around it was made with Elsa’s. The murderer used a pastry brush there as well. We found it inside one of the desk drawers.”

“Did the murderer leave any clues?” Irene asked.

“Not that we’ve found yet. Naturally, there are a lot of hairs and fibers at both crime scenes, but nothing seems suspicious so far. We’ve found a little bit of soil from the yard on the floor of the bedroom at the rectory. It doesn’t have to be the murderer who dragged it in. It could just as easily have been Mr. or Mrs. Schyttelius, or one of you.”

“No footprints, or anything like that?” Andersson asked hopefully.

“No. Nor are there any signs of bodily fluids or other foreign substances-”

“What do you mean by ‘foreign substances’?” Fredrik Stridh interrupted.

“Substances that are used during Satanic rituals. For example, smoke, different types of narcotics, alcohol, blood from sacrificial animals. There was a lot of blood, but all the blood at the crime scenes came from the victims.”

The investigators contemplated the surprising lack of evidence left by the murderer. Irene couldn’t explain how he had managed, as so much blood and tissue had to have splashed around the victims. Instead, she asked the technician another question. “Do you know for certain that the same weapon was used in all three murders?”

“Yes. All three were shot with the rifle which was lying under Mr. and Mrs. Schyttelius’s bed; and with the same type of ammunition, Norma 30–06. There are no fingerprints on the murder weapon.”

Svante gathered his papers together and returned them to his worn canvas bag. He rose, nodded, and disappeared through the door. The superintendent reclaimed his position in front of the audience.

“A man who lives a little farther down the road, right after the turnoff to the Schytteliuses’ cottage, phoned. When he was out walking his dog just before eleven on Monday night, he saw a dark-colored car parked on a forest road a little way off.”

Andersson turned on the overhead projector but didn’t bother pulling down the screen. A hand-drawn map in blue ink was projected onto the wall.

“Here’s the gravel road down to the Schytteliuses’ cottage. Here’s the cottage. The car was parked a little way down the next road. There aren’t any cottages along it, because it’s an old logging road. The technicians found some blurred tire tracks, but the sleet and rain the last few days washed away most of it. Footprints have been washed away by now as well.”

“Does he know what make the car was?” Hannu asked.

“No. He never went up to the car, just stopped on a path forty or fifty meters away from it. The dog was probably taking care of business. The man had a flashlight with him so he could see where he was walking, but the car was too far away for the flashlight to illuminate it enough to make out any details.”

Andersson pointed at the dotted line that wound its way in the opposite direction from the cottage.

“This is where the path goes. And the car was here. The witness thinks it was a smaller model car, possibly a small Mazda or something similar. It was either black, dark blue, or dark green. He thinks it had Swedish license plates.”

“But he isn’t completely certain?” said Irene.

“No. He saw the car at an angle from behind, and apparently it was parked next to a grove of spruce trees. According to him, it wasn’t visible from the main road. The car was impossible to see unless you walked in a short distance on the forest path.”

“So someone wanted to hide the car,” Irene concluded.

“Looks that way, yeah. I’ve measured on a real map and if you keep to the roads, it’s almost exactly a kilometer to walk from the car to the Schytteliuses’s cottage. The question about the shortest distance, as opposed to staying on the roads, is whether the undergrowth is too thick to allow someone to walk through the woods. If it’s possible, then it’s barely two hundred meters as the crow flies from the car to the cottage. Someone should take a closer look.”

Fredrik held up his hand and Irene slowly followed his lead. It was the thought of the reports that needed to be written and the piles of paper that. . She held her hand a little higher so the superintendent wouldn’t miss how interested she was in the navigable aspects of the terrain around Norssjön.

There was a knock at the door, and a head could be glimpsed through the opening. A female voice said, “Telephone for Huss. It’s about the pastors’ murders.”

The door closed again and Irene got up and went to her office. The call was put through, and to her surprise Louise Måårdh was on the other end of the line. Louise went straight to the point: “I’ve read the papers about the symbols that were written in blood. What are they called. .? Pentagrams! It struck me that I’ve actually seen one of those symbols recently. Namely, in Eva Möller’s car.”

If she listened for Irene’s reaction, she was probably disappointed. Even if Irene was surprised, her voice didn’t reveal anything. “In Eva Möller’s car? Where?” was all she said.

“The gearshift. She has one of those pentagrams on the knob.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’ve ridden with her several times to church choir rehearsals. She drives past our house, and I usually catch a ride with her when the weather is bad. After Christmas, I noticed that knob, and I asked her why she had traded the old one in for this strange one and she laughed and said it was a Christmas present.”

“What does this knob look like?”

“The knob itself is black, and the pentagram is silver.”

“Thanks a lot. I’ll speak with her.”

When Irene had hung up the phone, she stared blankly in front of her as the thoughts swirled around in her head. A gearshift knob with a pentagram on it? Maybe Eva Möller didn’t know what kind of symbol she was driving around with? But the chances of her not knowing were slight. For the first time, they had gotten a lead on a possible Satanic link to the Schyttelius family but this lead had led to a most unexpected place.

TOMMY SWEPT by in the corridor with a cheerful “Things are starting to move in the Speedy murder case!”

Irene vaguely wondered why he had a video camera in tow but when Fredrik came steaming in with the car keys jingling in his hand, she lost her train of thought. She would have to get going if she was going to keep up with Inspector Stridh.

They drove out toward Boråsvägen. Irene said, “Eva Möller can’t meet with us until one o’clock. Apparently she’s also a music teacher and has lessons until then.”

“Should we eat lunch before, or after?”

“Before. It will buy us some time.”

Irene had the directions to Eva Möller’s cottage in her pocket. She had been surprised when she realized that the cantor lived alone in a house in the middle of the woods. To get there, one had to drive toward Landvetter Church and then wind one’s way on some smaller roads. “I’m right out in the middle of nowhere,” Eva had said.

They turned off what was now the familiar road to Norssjön, but this time they didn’t turn at the little wooden sign with the faded text “Luck Cottage”; they continued a few hundred meters further until they came to the forest road. There was no sign here. Fredrik slowed down and drove onto a narrow road, more like a wide lane. The car lurched over the deep ruts and holes.

“It wouldn’t be easy to drive in here, even with a small car,” Fredrik noted after the Saab’s chassis had bottomed out on the rough road.

The forest stood thick around them on both sides. Tall pines, planted several decades ago at a disciplined distance, now had a tangle of undergrowth between them. Whoever owned the forest hadn’t been looking after it properly. Yet a bit farther on, Irene could see that the trees opened up, revealing some deforestation.

The beautiful weather of yesterday still held. When the wind was still, the silence was almost overwhelming. The sun rays fell through the tree trunks at an angle. There was a heavy scent of damp earth and of vegetation that had started coming to life in the first of the spring warmth.

“This must be it,” said Fredrik. He stopped a few meters in front of a group of spruce trees growing in a clump, creating an impassable wall.

Irene and Fredrik walked toward the spruces with their gazes fixed on the ground, tracing several old tire tracks from heavy vehicles but also a few barely noticeable ones from regular cars.

“Now we know why he parked here. It’s not possible to go any farther.” Fredrik pointed at the continuation of the road behind the spruce grove. There it descended into a deep hollow filled with water at the bottom. It was obvious that any car that drove down there would get stuck in the mud.

Irene started walking back to their car. When she reached the path that the witness with the dog had been on, she turned and looked around her. Their Saab could be seen at an angle from behind, since the forest road curved around the spruce grove. The small car that the witness had seen had been parked closer to the spruces. With a sigh, Irene had to agree with him: It was impossible to see the license plate and doubtless difficult to determine a particular make, since all compact cars seemed to look alike these days.

She walked back to Fredrik, who was standing near the waterfilled hole, deep in thought. “I think I would try to reach the clearing, rather than force my way through this mass of undergrowth. It must be easier to make one’s way along the edge of it,” he said.

“If it stretches far enough in the direction of the cottage, then I agree. Let’s take a look.”

They made a circuit around the mud hollow and trudged forward toward the clearing, stopping at the edge of the woods to look around. The clearing was narrow and relatively long.

“You could walk at least a hundred meters here. Then you’d have to get out your machete,” Fredrik concluded.

It was still quite difficult to make their way. The earth’s surface was damp and porous, and they sank into it at each step. Irene’s suede boots would need to be both washed and brushed before she could show herself in public in them again. Fredrik, who went around in boat shoes, was even worse off. The best footwear would have been rain boots.

They stopped at the edge of the clearing. The vegetation looked impassable.

“What do we do now? I wish we really had a machete,” Fredrik groaned.

“I suggest we do what my dog would do.”

“And what does your dog do?”

“Follow the game trail.”

A short distance away, she had noticed a narrow opening between some spruce trees, a game trail. A large pile of moose dung was lying in the middle of it.

“It probably leads down to the lake, because the animals want to drink after they’ve grazed. Let’s follow the path and see how close to the cottage we can get,” said Irene.

They had to bend down and push away hanging branches, at the same time as watching where they put their feet. Irene slipped several times on the slimy roots.

“Good thing it’s not tick season yet,” Fredrik puffed.

Irene was about to answer, when she felt a thread across her mouth. She spit and sputtered, thinking it was a sturdy spider-web. Disgusted, she wiped her mouth with her hand and got ahold of the filament. She instinctively glanced at it before she shook it from her fingers. She stopped and held it up to the sunlight that filtered down through the spruce trees.

A spider hadn’t produced this thread, but a sheep probably had. A thin forest-green-colored woolen thread, about three or four centimeters long, dangled from Irene’s fingers, pinched between her thumb and index finger.

“What is it? Why are you stopping?” Fredrik asked, irritated.

He was busy picking things out of his hair. The hair gel he always used in the morning to get his bangs to stand straight up turned out to be the ideal surface for twigs and pine needles to attach themselves to.

“A thread. Someone has been on this path before us. It hasn’t been here very long, because it isn’t faded or dirty.”

She showed Fredrik her find. He whistled softly. “We’ll have to keep an eye out for more fibers.”

Irene found a new thread only twenty meters farther up, but this one was bright red. It hung on the outer branch in a patch of thick shrubbery. Irene stopped and pointed. “It’s at shoulder height for me. This piece is about as long as the green one. Where could these threads have come from?”

“I think we’re looking for a short murderer, max one hundred and sixty centimeters tall, wearing a hat with a tassel or pompom made of green and red yarn.”

Irene laughed and took a doggie poop bag from her pocket. She carefully placed the two woolen threads inside. Maybe the technicians could get something out of them.

The path led down to the lake. They estimated that if they walked fifty meters along the edge of the lake and then turned their backs to it and walked into the vegetation, they should arrive at the cottage.

To their relief, the lake shore widened into a small sandy beach, and a narrow gravel path led into the woods from the beach. The path ended about ten meters from the Schyttelius cottage’s gate.

“It’s probably a community path to the beach for all of the cottage owners in the area,” Irene suggested.

“Maybe. But there’s nothing keeping someone from turning off the path earlier and climbing over the Schytteliuses’ fence at the back of the property. No one would see. Should we check?”

Fredrik had already turned on his heel and was on his way back in the same direction they had just come. Thirty meters away, he stopped and pointed.

Irene could also see a barely noticeable walkway between some raspberry bushes. It followed the rotten wooden fence along the lake side of the Schytteliuses’ property. The fence sagged to the ground in the middle from age and poor maintenance.

“We can step right onto the property,” Fredrik determined. They did so, taking a good look at where they put their feet.

“If the murderer went this way on Monday, the ground would still have been frozen. It has rained since then, and the frost has started rising out of the topsoil. The murderer didn’t have as much trouble getting here as we did,” said Irene.

“Think about the position of the car and the trails. He knew he was going to get here without risking being seen. Everything points to familiarity with the area.”

Fredrik was right. The murders had been planned, and the murderer had known how to make his way to and from the cottage without being seen.

They walked toward the back of the cottage. The Schyttelius family had built a large glassed-in veranda running the length of the wall. So this was where the superintendent had sat at the crayfish party seventeen years ago. Irene turned her back to the veranda and looked down at the lake. She could glimpse water through the thicket.

“Too bad they didn’t own the property all the way down to the lake. Then they could have cleared it for the sake of the view,” she remarked.

“Must have been irritating for them.”

“Probably.”

“Should we take the road back? It’s longer. .”

“. . but it will be faster,” Irene finished.

THEY STOPPED at a hot dog stand and ate before heading for Eva Möller’s house. It was easy to find Landvetter Church, but trickier to locate the right small road. They were on a gravel road that rose steadily. According to Eva Möller’s directions, they were supposed to go over the crest of the hill and then they would almost be there. The coniferous trees didn’t grow as thickly up here. Deciduous forest and fields could be seen.

“Turn to the right after the split oak,” Irene read from her notes.

“I see it,” Fredrik said, indicating the silhouette of a large mangled tree. Most of the crown was gone, and the branches that were left splayed out in all directions. No branches grew at all on one side, since only half of the tree remained. Right after they passed this oak tree, they turned onto an uneven dirt road.

“How can someone live in a place like this?” Irene asked, holding on to the dashboard as they slowly jounced down the rutted road.

After they had lurched forward a good distance, a Falu-red cottage appeared in the back of a glade bathed in sunlight. The forest came up to the eaves on three sides, but there were no woods at all on the western exposure. They parked next to a relatively new bright-red Honda and got out. Because the cottage was located on the crest of the hill, the view to the west was fantastic. Irene and Fredrik stood for a moment to admire it. Irene took the opportunity to look at Eva Möller’s car before they walked up to the house. What Louise Måårdh had said was correct: There was a black knob with a silver-colored pentagram on the gearshift lever.

The blue-painted front door opened and Eva Möller stepped out onto the porch. She was wearing a light-blue floor-length dress with wide sleeves, trimmed with beautiful dark-blue embroidery around the neck and on the chest. The dress matched her eyes. Her blond hair, hanging down to her shoulders, glittered like silver in the sunlight.

“You did a good job of finding the place,” she said, laughing.

Her hearty smile and the smell of coffee that trickled out through the open door made Irene feel welcome.

They hung their coats from the rack of hooks, pulled off their muddy shoes just inside the door, and stepped right into the kitchen. The sun shone through the light-yellow curtains in the western window, bringing a cozy warmth to the small kitchen. It was decorated country-style with a lot of pine that seemed relatively new, like the kitchen appliances. There didn’t appear to be a dishwasher, but the old iron stove had obviously been kept through the renovation. A shelf holding old objects was located above the stove. A three-legged iron pot was enthroned on its center, surrounded by a beautiful glass goblet and a purple stone the size of a fist, cut in half. The crystals on the inside of the stone emitted small flashes of light when the sun shone on it. A half-meter-long glass staff lay in front of the objects, and a small round glass paperweight was located farthest out on the shelf. Sturdy iron hooks were fastened to the wall above the shelf. A double-edged knife with a beautifully carved wooden handle and an old-fashioned table knife with a handle made of bone hung from these hooks. The sun reflected along the sharpened edges, which scintillated in its light.

Eva Möller had set out thin gold-edged coffee cups and a plate with cinnamon rolls by the window. The yellow-and-white checkered cotton tablecloth looked newly ironed. A shallow blue porcelain bowl holding blooming blue windflowers was placed in the middle of the table.

She invited the officers to sit down. The coffee smelled heavenly when she poured it. She told them to help themselves to the rolls.

“Take as many as you want. I have more in the freezer. Unfortunately, I don’t have any coffee cake to serve you,” she said.

“Wonderful rolls,” Fredrik announced with his mouth full.

The cantor flashed him a delighted smile and looked into his eyes. Irene noticed that he stopped chewing for a few seconds. Eva Möller continued to smile as she strolled over to the stove to put the coffeepot back on a burner. Fredrik had a hard time taking his eyes off her, but with an effort he focused on the coffee cup, chewed the rest of the cinnamon roll, and swallowed loudly.

Irene recognized Fredrik’s behavior. The caretaker for the cemetery, Stig Björk, and Pastor Urban Berg had displayed exactly the same kind of reactions at the Fellowship Hall on Wednesday, though Berg had shown a bit more self-control. Tommy was the one who had questioned the cantor on Wednesday. Had he also experienced the same kind of attraction? Irene and Tommy knew each other well enough that she could ask him.

“The blue windflowers are so nice,” Irene said in order to start the conversation.

Eva Möller smiled. “Yes. I’ve borrowed them from Mother Earth. When they are done blooming, I will put them back. And then maybe I’ll be allowed to take a tuft of cowslips instead.”

“Which you will also replant when they start wilting,” Irene assumed.

“Yes. Why did you want to speak with me again?” Eva Möller asked.

Since Fredrik had his mouth filled with cinnamon roll, Irene replied. “We need to supplement the introductory interrogations. The picture is starting to take shape, but new questions come up all the time. We hope that you will be able to help us answer some of them.”

“I’m happy to help, if I can.”

Irene remembered something Tommy had said; she decided to start with it and save the question about the pentagram for later. “Our colleague who spoke with you on Wednesday mentioned that you told him that Sten Schyttelius was a man with hidden depths. Could you explain what you meant by that?”

Eva Möller gave Irene a long, thoughtful look before she replied. “Sten had several sides to his personality, just as we all do. He was a sociable person. He could let loose, and he never turned down a drink. However, he rarely held any parties himself. It was probably because of Elsa’s illness. When it came to his job, he was conservative through and through, with respect to his work in the parish as well as his position in the church. During the service, everything was supposed to go according to tradition. There were supposed to be shining chasubles and polished candelabras, and he was happy to sing the liturgy. If he had been allowed to swing censers, then he would probably have done so.

“Those were perhaps the two opposite sides that were most obvious. But sometimes I thought there was something else about him. Something dark. . secret. . or maybe sad. I don’t know really.”

“Did you like Sten Schyttelius as a person?”

Eva Möller took her time before she replied. “I accepted that he was the way he was. He was old and about to retire. We never had any difficulties between us. It was probably because he let me take care of the music and the church choir the way I wanted to. Actually, he never got involved in my work and I stayed away from his.”

“How long have you been the cantor in this. . congregation, is it called?”

“Church Association. I’ve been here almost exactly four years. It was actually this house that lured me here.”

“First you got the house, and then the job?” Irene asked.

“Yes. I was fortunate enough to buy it very cheaply from an acquaintance who had renovated it but realized he would never have the time to stay here. He wanted to use it as a summer cottage, but his new wife couldn’t imagine spending her vacation in the woods. But I felt that it was my house the first time I saw it.”

“Was it for sale then?”

“No. But I knew it would become mine.”

Fredrik didn’t seem to have a single question. He chewed on rolls and sat and stared, fascinated by the lovely Eva. Irene was slightly irritated at her colleague’s passivity. She decided that it was time to broach the real reason for their visit.

“As I’m sure you’ve read in the papers we found pentagrams at the crime scenes. At both places the pentagrams were painted directly on the computer screens with the victims’ blood.”

Eva Möller nodded.

“I spoke with Louise Måårdh this morning. She mentioned that you have a pentagram on the gearshift of your car. Can you tell us why?”

To Irene’s surprise, Eva Möller burst out laughing. When she managed to stop, she said, still with restrained amusement in her voice, “I got it at Christmas from a friend. He thinks I have too much fire and wind in me. The pentagram is the tool of the earth. It stands for stability. I got the knob simply so that I would keep my feet on the ground. Or rather on the road.”

Irene was disappointed that the explanation was so simple. Or was it?

“Why does a cantor drive around with the devil’s face on her gearshift?” Irene asked.

Eva Möller instantly became serious. “Oh. Was the pentagram on the computer screens turned upside down?”

“Yes.”

“Then it was used for a Satanic purpose. The pentagram, in and of itself, is a strong tool, but it’s only Satanists who turn it upside down. My pentagram isn’t turned the wrong way. But. …”

Eva pressed her lips together and looked Irene steadily in the eye. She quickly got up and walked over to the shelf above the stove. She took down the paperweight and pressed it hard against her chest as she walked back toward the kitchen table.

“This is my pentagram,” she said. She set the glass object in front of Irene and motioned for her to look closer. She could see that it wasn’t just a paperweight, but a rounded glass dome with a pentagram engraved in its bottom.

“The pentagram in and of itself isn’t a symbol of evil but, like all magical implements, it has strong powers that can be abused. It’s easy to turn my pentagram and then-poof-you have the devil’s face.”

She turned the glass dome so that two of the points faced up and one down.

The devil’s face looked up at Irene from the glass.

The glass devil.

The phrase etched itself on Irene’s brain, though she didn’t really understand why. The pentagram’s power depended on how you used it. And if you believed in it. Clearly, Eva Möller believed. Was she nuts, or was she messing about with funny New-Age foolishness?

“How do you reconcile a belief in the pentagram’s power with your work in the church?” Irene continued.

The cantor looked sincerely surprised. “They don’t have anything to do with each other. Music is my work, and I love it. I love the church as a place of holy energy. But I feel the power of the pentagram as a tool.”

Tool? What kind of tool? Suddenly, Irene was irritated with Eva, batting her eyes and trying to make herself interesting with her New-Ageism.

The worst thing was that it worked. Fredrik sat as though under a spell, with a ridiculous grin on his face.

Unnecessarily brusquely, Irene asked, “What are your opinions about Elsa and Jacob?”

Eva was grave as she said, “Elsa was a very tragic person. There was only darkness within her. She carried a grief which she had bottled inside. Periodically, she became better, but I saw the shadow standing right behind her, just biding its time. It had her in its power. Sometimes she was close to taking her life, but she didn’t have the strength to do that.”

“How do you know she was contemplating suicide?”

“I felt it. For some people, it’s the only way out.”

Eva sat, calm and relaxed, with her hands loosely folded in her lap. Her long hair shone like a halo around her head, adding to her image as a lovely angel. Irene started to wonder how crazy this cute cantor actually was.

“And Jacob?”

“I didn’t know him at all. We only met twice. The association’s employees usually eat breakfast after Christmas Mass. . ”

“I’m aware of that. That’s the only place you met?”

“Yes. The first time he had his wife with him. They were newlyweds then.”

“What impression did you get from them?”

Eva sat quietly for some time. “There was no energy between them at all. No fire. Only cold.”

Irene was surprised. Had it been bad from the beginning of the marriage? She composed herself; that’s what Eva Möller was claiming.

“You never spoke with Jacob?”

“I did, at Christmas. But only a few words.”

“How did he seem to you then?”

Eva wound a strand of hair around one index finger while she thought back. “Neutral. Low energy. He didn’t make much contact.”

A look at Fredrik was enough to determine that full contact had been made there. His face was aglow. To finish the questioning, Irene asked, “Have you ever met Rebecka?”

“Yes. At the same time I met Jacob and his wife.”

“What impression did you have of Rebecka?”

Again Eva was quiet for some time. “She has a great deal of inner energy. It isn’t darkness, like her mother. But she hides it. Inside she is more like her father, but on the outside no likeness is visible.”

“Oh, Rebecka is very much like her father in appearance,” Irene objected.

“In appearance, yes. I’m not speaking about appearances, but about her spirit. On the surface, she’s very reserved. She never lets anyone inside. Not a single person.”

Irene started thinking that it was high time to say good-bye. Fredrik still bore a smile that didn’t show any signs of fading away.

Irene thanked Eva for the coffee. Fredrik reluctantly got up as well. They walked over to the front door and put on their coats, taking their muddy shoes with them to the porch before putting them on. Irene’s zipper got stuck. Sweat broke out on her back while she stood and yanked at it. Fredrik wandered over to the car. Then Eva touched Irene’s shoulder lightly and said, “You have the right energy and you can reach your inner being. Contact with your spirit is strong. You can meditate and lose yourself.”

Astonished, Irene could only nod. How could Eva know that she used meditation in jujitsu?

“Together we can discover Sten Schyttelius’s hidden depths. I can’t do it alone, because it requires too much energy. Contact me when you want to try.”

Before Irene had time to gather her thoughts, Eva stepped backward across the threshold. She smiled and waved at Fredrik, who happily waved back. Then she closed the blue door.

“THE GLADIATOR Gym on Mölndalsvägen has confirmed that Jacob Schyttelius was there and worked out from eight to ten thirty on Monday night. No cashier at Hemköp remembers whether he shopped there. But since they close at ten o’clock, he must have been there before he worked out. What did you get from the questioning of Jacob and Rebecka’s cousins?” Superintendent Andersson asked Hannu.

“The cousins barely knew each other. Too much of an age difference. The youngest of the brothers is nine years older than Jacob.”

“Could they tell us anything about their uncle?” Irene asked.

“Not much. Sten Schyttelius was a surprise child. Didn’t spend a lot of time with his sisters as an adult. Their father was a pastor in a small congregation outside Skövde.”

“So Sten came from a pastor’s family?”

“Yes. Just like Elsa. Her father was a pastor in a neighboring parish. She was the only child. Elsa and Sten knew each other from childhood.”

Irene took a bite from her cheese sandwich while she pondered over the new information from Hannu. Aside from the two of them, only Sven Andersson and Fredrik Stridh were present. The sun was setting, and Friday evening began to descend on Göteborg. Soon, happy expectations would be followed by dashed hopes and drunkenness, police sirens would begin to sound, and everything would be as it always is on any ordinary Friday night.

Hannu broke the silence. “I’ve received Rebecka’s telephone number. I’ve not spoken with her directly. Chief Inspector Thompson has apparently tried to get Rebecka to talk. She says that she isn’t up to it. Thompson has been in touch with her doctor, who says that she’s very fragile. It’s going to take some time before she bounces back.”

He handed a note with Rebecka’s address and telephone number to Irene. The street she lived on was called Ossington Street, which didn’t mean anything to Irene. In London she’d heard of Carnaby Street and Oxford Street, and of a few famous places: Piccadilly Circus, New Scotland Yard, and Buckingham Palace. That was about it.

“If she works with computers, she should have an E-mail address,” said Irene.

“Probably, but Thompson didn’t give it to me,” Hannu replied.

“I’ll wait to telephone her.”

Irene folded the note and put it in her jeans pocket.

“How do we proceed?” Andersson asked shortly.

They shared the old familiar feeling of having reached a dead end. Finally, Irene said, “I’ll get in touch with Rebecka over the weekend. On Monday, I’m going to meet with Eva Möller again. Alone.”

She added the last word when she saw how Fredrik brightened up.

“Why?” the superintendent wanted to know.

“She’s some kind of New-Ager, but she’s actually the only one close to the Schyttelius family who believes in such hocus-pocus. And she owns at least two pentagrams. Maybe she knows more than she’s telling us.”

Irene avoided mentioning what Eva had whispered to her when she and Fredrik were about to leave. It was better to keep some information to herself for the time being.

“Okay. Talk to her. Hannu and Fredrik will follow up summarizing the door-to-door questioning. Possibly you’ll have to make another try,” said Andersson.

It was a boring job, but it had to be done. Fredrik nodded and shrugged in dejection. As usual, Hannu provided no clues as to what he was thinking. Hannu and Fredrik were experienced investigators and knew that it was ordinary routine chores like this that often resulted in the capture of a killer.