by Sten, Viveca
Isabelle von Hahne had expected they would come. She knew Ingmar would not.
“Do you understand why we’re here?” Thomas asked. “We want to talk to you about the murders of Oscar Juliander and Martin Nyrén.”
She nodded.
“Can you tell us what happened?”
She nodded again but said nothing.
Thomas pulled a chair from the wall and sat down. Margit did the same.
He got straight to the point.
“You were the one who shot Oscar Juliander and Martin Nyrén, weren’t you?”
“Yes, I did.” Isabelle’s voice was quiet.
“Why?”
She remembered the night she’d met Oscar at the Midsummer’s Eve party. She’d gone outside for some fresh air and stumbled upon him in a dark corner near the boathouse.
“I saw him doing cocaine! At a party . . .”
Before she could say a word, he’d attacked her, lightning fast, as she stared at the small mound of white powder.
“He threatened me,” Isabelle said softly.
“With what?”
“If I didn’t keep his drug use secret, he’d reveal something about my husband.”
“What did he threaten to expose?” asked Margit.
Isabelle clenched her jaw. She had difficulty even saying the words.
“Ingmar had a relationship with Martin Nyrén.”
Margit and Thomas exchanged looks.
Isabelle shuddered. She’d almost vomited when Oscar had told her. Of course, she’d suspected for some time that Ingmar was seeing someone. But never that the affair was with a man! Never would she have suspected that Martin Nyrén, that dumpy middle-aged member of the RSYC Board, was his lover.
The knowledge disgusted her. Thinking about them naked together made her want to throw up.
After a pause, Margit said, “Please continue.”
“I begged Oscar not to do it.” She was silent for a moment. “Revealing their affair would have destroyed my life. I would have become a laughingstock. Everybody would snicker behind my back.”
She spit out the words.
“Martin and Ingmar! How disgusting. Unnatural.”
Ingmar had betrayed her in the worst possible way. In addition, he had been so indiscreet that Oscar had known about it.
A double betrayal.
“And what did Oscar say?”
“He promised to keep quiet. And I promised to do the same.”
“Did you trust him?” asked Margit.
Isabelle said nothing for a moment.
She’d humbled herself. Begged Oscar not to tell the truth to anyone. He’d promised, but she knew what Oscar’s promises were worth, especially around women. She knew Oscar might say something in the heat of passion and then go on his way when desire lured him in a different direction.
It had been only a matter of time until Oscar, knowingly or not, would spill the secret.
“No,” she said at last.
“What did you do then?”
“I tried to find a way out.”
She didn’t sleep for nights in a row. She worried herself crazy over what to do, debating various solutions, but she kept coming back to the same answer. Oscar had to die.
“So you decided to kill him?” asked Thomas.
“Yes.”
There was nothing else to do. It took her only four more days to figure out how. She headed out that Wednesday.
“How did you get the rifle?”
“I went to Riga. It’s easy to get weapons there.”
“How did you know to do that?” asked Margit.
“I hunt a great deal, you see. I’m a good shot. Much better than my husband. When we have dinner after a hunt, people often talk about ways to get guns cheaply.”
She shrugged a shoulder, and the IV tugged at her arm.
“So, how did you get the rifle into Sweden?” Thomas asked.
“I just brought it with me in my car. Nobody checks a well-dressed Swedish woman coming back into her country on the ferry.”
“Where is it now?”
“I buried it in the forest next to our summer place.”
She reached for a glass of water on the bedside table, but the movement seemed to hurt. Thomas pushed the glass closer to her. She took it, drank, and put it back down.
“How did you plan out Juliander’s death?” asked Margit.
“I pretended I had to go to the bathroom just before the start. There is only one, by the forepeak.”
“And you fired from there?” Thomas asked.
“I put the rifle together, opened the hatch, and then all I had to do was push the barrel out and shoot.”
The Swan was only sixty yards away. Oscar had stood behind the steering wheel, as confident as ever. She was in the perfect position. Axel was a master at maneuvering his Storebro close to the starting line to give his guests the best view.
“It wasn’t a difficult shot. I’ve hunted for years.”
“And then what did you do?”
“I took apart the rifle and put everything back in my bag. I returned to the flybridge a few minutes later.”
“Weren’t you worried that someone would notice?”
Isabelle shook her head.
“Everyone was so focused on the start. And afterward, they were so shocked. In addition”—she smiled slightly—“they were sure I was with them the whole time. I also commented afterward about how I’d been there. Have you ever watched CSI? People remember what you tell them.”
“You planned it so well,” Margit remarked.
“I’m good at planning.”
“But why did you pick the start of the Round Gotland Race? Didn’t that make things more difficult for you?”
“In his moment of triumph, you mean?”
“Some might see it like that,” Margit agreed.
“Because I wanted to. He deserved to die at the moment when he could almost touch his heart’s desire.” She smiled.
“You were the person who broke into Britta’s room to steal her camera, right?” Thomas asked.
Isabelle nodded. “Yes, but I didn’t find it.”
“She’d misplaced it, set it down somewhere, and found it later at the harbor office lost and found.”
“So I heard.”
“Why did you kill Martin Nyrén?”
“You don’t understand?”
After discovering those disgusting texts to Ingmar, she knew Martin’s death was necessary. She could tolerate no more. She wasn’t safe as long as Martin lived. If Ingmar was careless, his affair might still be exposed. And if Ingmar ever decided to leave her for Martin . . . she couldn’t risk it. All would be lost.
A primitive hate carried her through, though he’d never injured her the way she would injure him. She took his life.
“He didn’t deserve to live,” she said.
“You mean, you couldn’t risk his relationship with your husband coming out,” Margit said. “He was a threat to you.”
Isabelle didn’t bother to answer.
“How did you do it this time?” asked Thomas.
She took a few more sips of water.
“I made copies of Ingmar’s keys to the storage room. He never noticed. I did the same with keys to Martin’s apartment.”
She realized then why Ingmar had chosen the location for his storage area in Birkastan. She’d always thought it too far from the gallery on Strandvägen.
He wanted to be near Birkastan to meet Martin. A pathetic excuse for a pathetic lover.
“And so you shot him, too.”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t you ever think that using Ingmar’s rented space would turn our attentions to him?”
Isabelle’s heart pounded.
“It’s what he deserved! And I thought you would never figure it out. You had no evidence. Ingmar would wonder for the rest of his life how it had happened!”
She sank back onto her pillow, drained of energy. “It felt like a certain kind o
f justice to shoot my husband’s lover from his own property, without him ever knowing how it all happened.”
He sat on a bench in the cemetery. Some finches twittered in the background, but he didn’t hear them.
He stared at the fresh grave, which did not yet have a marker. Half-wilted flowers lay on top.
He stared at the grave, but his eyes did not see it. Instead he imagined Martin’s face. His dear, familiar face. Ingmar knew each wrinkle, each laugh line.
He understood that Martin was not beneath that mound. It was just his earthly remains, his flesh without his spirit. It wasn’t Martin, the man he’d loved so much.
Why had he wasted so much time?
First they’d loved each other from afar. Then they’d consummated their love in secret. What joy he’d felt then. He’d considered revealing their relationship and leaving Isabelle but worried about the reactions of the rest of the world. They’d condemn him if the truth came out. He hid behind his consideration for Isabelle and the children. He brought them up whenever Martin pushed for a decision.
Was this his punishment for not standing up for their relationship? He was too cowardly to step out into the open.
Now who would call him by his old nickname? Who would say it with love? The name from the days when he’d play cowboys and Indians as a boy. He’d loved being an Indian and wearing feathers in his hair. His friends had called him the Indian, Indi for short.
Now “Indi” was gone, leaving only Ingmar behind. Cowardly, unhappy Ingmar, who’d lost the only person he ever truly loved.
What would he do now?
He touched the wedding band on his finger, a ring representing thirty years of unhappy marriage. He still wore it, though his wife had killed his beloved. How traditional.
He pulled off the ring and threw it into the bushes.
“You are the love of my life,” he whispered. He lowered his eyes to the mound of earth at his feet. “I will always love you, Martin. Always.”
CHAPTER 91
Eva Timell fastened her seat belt and smiled at the cute flight attendant who offered her a drink from a tray.
She took a glass of champagne and slowly sipped it. The fresh, dry drink tasted harsh on her tongue, just as it should.
Who was the one who said champagne should be cold, dry, and free? Was it Churchill or was it de Gaulle? Either way, they were wise words.
She lifted her glass in a silent toast to her cat, Blofeld, who sat in his carrier beside her. She was thankful for the latest EU regulations permitting vaccinated pets to travel between EU countries. She couldn’t leave him behind in Sweden or quarantine him for six months.
The flight attendant asked if she wanted a refill. Eva shook her head, content for the moment.
Business class. She loved business class. It was extravagant, of course, but in Liechtenstein she had millions of reasons to indulge herself a little.
The banker she’d talked to had helped her book a meeting to transfer the account. Everyone made time to accommodate Frau Timell!
He even reminded her to bring the ten-digit code needed to access the account.
Aber natürlich, mein Herr. She’d remembered to bring it.
Oscar had been a wonderful bankruptcy attorney, but, in the long run, it had become impossible to hide anything from her. She had organized his life for decades and knew him better than his own mother.
Over the summer, she’d gone through all his cases to carefully archive his documents and files. The last thing she did was clean up his desk. It was as large and extravagant as Oscar. She’d carefully emptied all the drawers, finding a secret compartment so common in old desks. Oscar had shown it to her when he’d first brought it home from the auction house.
It stuck a bit, so she had to spring the hidden lever with a bread knife. Inside she found an envelope with foreign bank account papers. The bank’s name was inscribed on the outside of the envelope.
The Internet revealed it was one of the largest banks in Liechtenstein, the same bank where the American company had sent payment for Olof Martinsson’s patent. She appreciated the police officers who’d informed her of its existence.
Oscar, Oscar, she thought. You gave in to temptation in the end. Even after all these years.
Not surprising that you’d been nervous lately. Did you regret the decision? Did you fear you’d be discovered? Did you use cocaine to calm your nerves?
When she found the envelope, she knew what to do. And what she didn’t know, the kindly bank officer did.
Now ten million American dollars, minus the cost of one sixty-one-foot Swan boat, sat in the Liechtenstein account. The price of a patent, worthless on paper, paid for mostly under the table.
It was a great deal of money, but the company stood to gain much more. If the patent had gone to auction, they’d have paid through the nose.
And the only person who knew about it was now dead.
Eva took another sip of champagne and looked out the window as the last drops rolled across her tongue. In a few minutes, the plane would take off, and she would forever leave this country behind.
She didn’t regret sending those anonymous messages to Diana Söder. She thought Diana had killed Oscar. A woman feeling scorned when she got tired of her married lover’s endless excuses and delays—who else could it have been?
She never suspected that crazy von Hahne woman. Though the trial wouldn’t take place until Isabelle was released from the hospital, everyone knew she’d go to jail for a long time.
Eva didn’t feel bad for either of them. She’d hated Diana Söder from the start because, for the first time in many years, it had appeared Oscar might be in love.
The impatient bookkeeper’s message had given her the idea to use the daughter’s Hotmail address. The happiness she felt every time she wrote another message helped ease the pain in her heart. She felt better when she hit “Send.” Leaking the news to the papers was icing on the cake.
The flight attendant offered her more champagne. Eva smiled and held up her glass. The liquid sparkled in the sunshine.
She now had over eight million American dollars.
That would be more than enough for a spacious apartment in southern France, one with an enormous balcony. The rest of the money would go into secure investments that would take care of her for the rest of her life.
Once things died down a little, she would sell her Stockholm apartment. After she’d completed her six-month sick leave.
It hadn’t been hard to get the doctor to sign off on that. He’d been sympathetic and understanding, offering to lengthen her sick leave if she needed it. Nobody questioned her grief.
The money from the sale would go into the investment pot, too. Perhaps she’d eventually open a small business on the Riviera. She was a smart businesswoman with many options.
But right now, she planned on enjoying life. Indulging herself. Perhaps taking a lover. A passionate Frenchman who knew how to treat a woman right.
Thank you, Oscar, she thought. She lifted her glass and toasted silently again. I knew you wouldn’t forget me in the end. I didn’t doubt you for a minute.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This entire story is fiction with no resemblance to any person living or dead.
As I came up with the plot, I was thinking about how ambition and the love of power could develop in a close circle of people. The RSYC, with its connections to Sandhamn, became a natural launching point. I have been active in that club for many years and have witnessed the great amount of work it puts in to support the sport of sailing. I also would like to mention that its annual meeting is in February and not September, and also many vessels, not just Swans, are capable of racing in and winning the Round Gotland Race.
During my work, a number of people have generously assisted me with their expertise and knowledge.
I would like to thank Jan Fellenius, an attorney from the Fylgia law firm, who explained to me what a bankruptcy lawyer does. Criminal Inspector Sonny Björk descr
ibed forensic technology and ballistics. Dentist Hans-Olof Örnefeldt explained the Brånemark method. I have also received the assistance of radiologist Katarina Bodén and visited Marie Frykberg at the bankruptcy unit with the help of acting senior judge Cecilia Klerbro.
A warm round of thanks goes out to family, friends, and colleagues who took time to read the manuscript and give clever suggestions: Lisbeth Bergstedt, Tord Bergstedt, Anette Brifalk, Helen Duphorn, Carin Hildebrand, Gunilla Pettersson, and Göran Sällqvist.
I stand in deep gratitude to my efficient publisher, Karin Linge Nordh, and my unbelievable editor, Mathilda Lund, as well as everyone else at Forum who put so much energy into my books.
As always, my daughter, Camilla, is my biggest fan, and she’s been the first to read and give her opinion on my work. My wonderful husband, Lennart, also supported me all the way. He answered many questions about hunting and ammunition and also took over running the household efficiently as I disappeared mentally and physically during the final stages of this book. My wonderful sons, Alexander and Leo, have always given me encouragement through their hugs.
Sandhamn, November 2008
Viveca Sten
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2010 Anna-Lena Ahlström
Swedish writer Viveca Sten has sold almost three million copies of her enormously popular Sandhamn Murders series. In 2014, her seventh novel, the hugely successful I maktens skugga (In the Shadow of Power), was published in Sweden and cemented her place as one of the country’s most popular authors. Her Sandhamn Murders novels continue to top the bestseller charts and have been made into a successful Swedish-language TV miniseries, which has been broadcast around the world to thirty million viewers. Sten lives in Stockholm with her husband and three children, but she prefers to spend her time visiting Sandhamn to write and vacation with her family.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Photo © 2015 Tess McMillan
Laura A. Wideburg has translated over fifteen novels from Swedish. Her translation of Inger Frimansson’s Good Night, My Darling won ForeWord Review’s Gold Medal for Best Translated Book in 2008. She began learning Swedish as an exchange student in high school and went on to get an MA in Scandinavian Studies and a PhD in historical linguistics and medieval German from the University of Washington in Seattle. She still lives in Seattle, where she now is the lead teacher at the Swedish Cultural Center (Swedish Club). The Swedish language is her greatest passion, and she returns to Sweden whenever she can. This is her first Viveca Sten mystery.