Who Watcheth

by Helene Tursten

  Irene had almost given up hope of finding something interesting when she suddenly realized there was another trash can she hadn’t checked—in the bathroom. She flipped open the lid and peered inside. A few cotton wool pads that had obviously been used to remove makeup, a flattened toothpaste tube, an empty toilet paper roll. And a photograph. Cautiously she picked it out.

  Ingela was smiling and raising her glass to the man who was sitting beside her on the sofa. The glow of the candles on the coffee table was reflected in her eyes, and she looked very happy. The man was facing her, with his back to the camera. He was wearing a pale jacket, and Irene could see a hint of a white shirt collar. He had the beginnings of a bald patch at the top of his head.

  The picture had been shot through the living-room window. The photographer had been standing on Såggatan.

  The date in the bottom right-hand corner showed it had been taken on the Saturday evening, the weekend before the dog found the body in the churchyard. Five days before Ingela was murdered.

  They managed to get a hold of Leif Karlberg at about four o’clock in the afternoon. He explained that he had been to a football game with his youngest son. He didn’t seem to know what had happened to Ingela Svensson—either that or he was a very good actor.

  “We need to speak to you,” Irene said.

  “About what?”

  The surprise in his voice sounded genuine. Irene decided not to tell him anything over the phone.

  “Would it be possible for you to come over to police HQ in Göteborg today?”

  “No, I’ve got the boys this weekend, so unfortunately I have to stay in Borås.”

  Irene thought fast. Best to get this out of the way, as soon as possible.

  “In that case we’ll come to you.”

  There was a long silence before Leif Karlberg spoke again. This time he was obviously worried. “Has something happened? Why is it so urgent?”

  “I’ll explain everything when I see you,” Irene said.

  Leif Karlberg lived in Sandared, and neither Fredrik nor Irene had any idea where that was. Irene had been to the zoo in Borås twice, and Fredrik had gone on a date there once, but neither the girl nor the town had made much of an impression on him. However, thanks to their GPS they had no trouble in finding Leif Karlberg’s address

  Irene rang the bell, and the door opened before the chime had faded away.

  “Hi—I saw you walking over from the parking lot. Come in,” Leif Karlberg said.

  No point in trying to blend in with the surroundings, Irene thought with a certain amount of resignation. As usual they might as well have had a big illuminated sign above their heads saying cop!

  According to their information on Karlberg, he was forty-four years old and divorced with two sons. He was an electrician and ran his own business with his brother. The previous year he had been caught speeding and had lost his license for two months. Otherwise he was clean. He was medium height, with the beginnings of a paunch. His face was quite round, with warm blue-grey eyes and a pleasant smile. His sandy-colored hair was thinning on top. “Ordinary” just about summed up Leif Karlberg.

  He showed the two officers into the living room and invited them to sit down. Before they had time to settle he asked anxiously, “What’s this about? I called my parents and my brother. I even spoke to my ex-wife. Nothing had happened, and none of them had any ideas, so . . .”

  “Did you call Ingela?” Fredrik interrupted him.

  “Ingela? No—why?”

  Karlberg was staring at them, his eyes darting from one to the other like a spectator at a tennis match.

  “Oh my God . . . Ingela. Is this about Ingela? What’s happened?”

  “When did you last speak to her?” Irene asked calmly, as if she hadn’t heard his questions.

  “On Wednes—no, Thursday.”

  “Did you call her?”

  “No, she called me.”

  “What did she want?”

  Leif Karlberg took a deep breath and swallowed hard before he answered.

  “Someone had put a photograph in her mailbox. It . . . Well, the whole thing really started last Monday.”

  He fell silent, thinking back. Irene and Fredrik kept quiet, letting the silence work for them. After a moment Karlberg went on:

  “We met up last weekend. Ingela wanted me to meet her sister and brother-in-law. We had a really good time . . . it was great. Then she called me on Monday to say thank you for the lovely flower. I didn’t know what she was talking about—I hadn’t sent her a flower. I thought she might be kind of dropping a hint, maybe she thought I should have sent her something . . . but when she realized it wasn’t from me, she thought it was really weird. And it was just one flower, not a bouquet. There was an envelope, too, with something written on it, but she couldn’t work out what it meant.”

  Karlberg had shuffled forward to the edge of the sofa. He rested his elbows on his knees, and was gesticulating animatedly as he talked. He was keen to talk, and seemed to be trying hard to remember every detail. Irene was more and more convinced that he had no idea what had happened to Ingela.

  “Did she give you any details about what was on the envelope?”

  “She just said it was written with a felt-tip pen, and that it was messy and illegible. Oh—she did say it was letters and numbers.”

  “So you had this conversation about the flower and the envelope on Monday evening,” Irene said, just for clarification.

  “Yes.”

  “And what time did she call you on Thursday?”

  “At about seven. The boys and I had just gotten back from training; they were tired and hungry, so I didn’t have much time to talk to her. I was in the kitchen making pancakes when she called my cell phone.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She’d received a photograph. Nothing in writing this time, just a picture.”

  “Did she say what was in the photograph?”

  “Yes . . . it was a picture of us. Last Saturday. Someone had taken it through her living-room window; she lives on the ground floor.”

  “Were her sister and brother-in-law in the photograph?” Irene asked, even though she already knew the answer.

  “No, it was just the two of us. She said we were sitting on the sofa.”

  “How did she feel about this business of the flower and the photograph?”

  “How did . . . Why don’t you ask her?”

  For the first time he sounded slightly irritated, but that could just as easily be attributed to nerves.

  “I’d like to know how you perceived her reaction,” Irene said.

  “She thought it was weird. I tried to joke with her, said that whoever had sent her the flower must have taken the photograph, but she got kind of mad at me. I guess she found it a little creepy.”

  “But you had football practice on Thursday evening, so you couldn’t go over to Göteborg to see her?”

  “That’s right. The boys are with me this week. We change over on Mondays. I pick them up from day care, then they stay with me until the following Monday. I don’t want them to meet Ingela yet; it’s best for both them and her. She doesn’t have kids of her own, and they need time to get used to the idea. Their mother might have found herself a new boyfriend before we’d even split up, but I think you have to be a little more careful with children’s feelings. And then—”

  “Do you work full-time?” Irene interrupted him.

  “Yes. And more. When the boys are with their mother, I work as many hours as I can, often late into the evening. But when they’re with me I always finish at three-thirty on the dot. I pick them up from day care, then fix dinner. On Mondays and Thursdays they have football; I train the junior team.”

  “Where are your sons at the moment?” Irene asked.

  “They’re with their grandma . . . my mot
her. We’re having dinner there tonight, so I asked her to come and pick them up before you arrived. I was a little worried because the police wanted to speak to me. But it has something to do with Ingela, doesn’t it? Please . . . what’s happened?”

  They told him. His reaction seemed entirely genuine, and Irene was sure his alibi would hold when they checked it out.

  Leif Karlberg had not murdered Ingela Svensson.

  It was dark by the time Irene pulled into her parking spot. It warmed her heart to see Krister’s old Volvo in the next space. He was home. It was almost eight o’clock, so there was a good chance dinner would be ready. The thought cheered her up as she realized how hungry she was.

  She opened the front door and took a deep breath, trying to guess what delicious meal her husband had come up with.

  Nothing.

  Just to be on the safe side she sniffed the air a few times, but all she could smell was dust and the morning’s leftover coffee sitting in the machine. The light above the table was on, but the kitchen was empty. The table hadn’t been laid. From the floor above she could hear a TV weather forecaster outlining the prospects for tomorrow. Irene took off her coat and went upstairs.

  Krister was sitting in one of the armchairs, snoring away. Next to him on the table was an open can of beer. Nothing else—no plate, no crumbs from a sandwich. He had simply drunk the cold beer straight out of the can.

  Irene went over and kissed him gently on the forehead. He gave a start and opened his eyes, gazing up at her in confusion.

  “Krister, honey, are you sick?” Irene asked with a reassuring smile.

  “Sick? No, I’m just so goddamn tired,” he replied.

  He sounded as if he was about to go straight back to sleep.

  “Would you like something to eat?” Irene ventured.

  “No. I just want to sleep.” He sighed heavily and struggled out of the chair.

  Irene was worried. Was he heading for a burnout again? A few years ago he had taken an extended break from work; since then he had been more careful, working less and taking steps to cut down on the stress. She thought things had been going well, but right now he looked exhausted.

  “This has nothing to do with burnout,” he said, as if reading her mind. “Two of our chefs called in sick this weekend, and I couldn’t find anyone to cover. Needless to say the restaurant was fully booked. I can’t carry on like this.”

  Irene knew they had to talk about this, but she didn’t really know what to say.

  “Listen . . . I’ll make an omelet. And there’s salad . . . bread and cheese . . . a couple of slices of ham . . . You stay there, I’ll fix something.”

  He gazed at her, a tired smile playing around one corner of his mouth.

  “You, make an omelet? I don’t think so. I’ll do that—you fix the rest.”

  Irene knew she was a terrible cook, but Krister only had himself to blame. He had spoiled her. She crept into his arms, feeling safe and warm as she inhaled the smell of him.

  “You’re the best,” she said, licking his ear.

  “Careful—I might just forget about the food and get interested in something else!”

  “One thing at a time,” Irene said, kissing him on the nose.

  They cooked dinner together. The omelet smelled wonderful; it was filled with onions, ham and cheese. There was a salad of tomatoes, black olives and thinly sliced red onions sitting on the table along with a piece of Brie and several slices of toast. The kitchen was beginning to smell exactly the way it should.

  At that moment the telephone rang. Irene’s first instinct was to ignore it, but then she thought it could be one of their daughters. She went into the hallway to take the call.

  “Hi, it’s Malin.”

  Irene recognized her neighbor’s voice. Perhaps Viktor’s mother wanted to apologize for her behavior the previous day. Before Irene had time to speak, Malin continued.

  “Håkan and I just got home. We parked the car, and as we were walking toward the house, we saw someone coming out of your gate. He or she headed in our direction, but then they saw us, turned around and hurried off the other way.”

  What was going on? Was Malin trying to lay the blame on some ghostly figure hanging around the area, instead of tackling Viktor and his pals? At the same time Irene remembered her conversation with Viktor and her conviction that he wasn’t the one who had damaged her garden.

  “When was this?”

  “Just now.”

  “I’ll go outside and take a look, then I’ll call you back,” Irene said quickly.

  Before Krister had time to ask what was going on, she was out of the front door without even pulling on her jacket.

  Malin and Håkan had walked from the parking lot toward their house, so the person they had seen must have gone off in the opposite direction. Irene broke into a run, moving as fast as she could. She was a good sprinter, but she was wearing ordinary loafers, not proper running shoes. Two blocks along there was a bigger parking lot with several spaces for visitors. She heard the sound of a car engine starting. She reached the lot just in time to see two taillights disappearing in the direction of Stora Fiskebäcksvägen.

  “Shit!” she yelled.

  She made her way back home at a more leisurely pace, giving herself time to catch her breath and to think. The car that had driven off didn’t necessarily belong to whoever Malin said she had seen coming out of Irene’s garden; the driver could have been visiting a friend who lived nearby.

  But if there had been someone in their garden, who was it? And what were they doing there? Had this person done more damage? If so, why?

  Too many questions, all requiring an answer. Irene decided to unravel the mystery systematically; she had to start in the right place. Resolutely she went inside and ate the omelet, which had gone cold on her plate. She told Krister what Malin had said, then she fetched a powerful flashlight.

  “I’m leaving this to the police,” Krister said with a big yawn. “I’m going to bed.”

  Irene gave him a kiss on passing as she headed out into the darkness.

  This time the Prowler, as she had begun to think of their visitor, hadn’t destroyed anything. Or perhaps he hadn’t had time. The only proof that someone had been in the garden were the imprints of two toecaps in the soil under the kitchen window.

  When Irene had removed the seat from the flower bed, she had weeded and raked both beds, and fresh marks were clearly visible in the smoothed-down earth. Only the front part of the sole could be seen, so it was impossible to determine the shoe size.

  But one thing was certain: someone had stood there looking in through the kitchen window. It was the window above the counter, not the one by the table. The Prowler had been out there under cover of darkness, watching them as they prepared dinner and sat down to eat. But something had startled him, made him decide to leave.

  Neither Malin nor Håkan was able to provide a clear description of the person they had seen. Dark clothes, a bulky jacket with the hood pulled up. They had no idea of age or sex, although Malin thought the figure had been quite powerfully built and not very tall. Håkan wasn’t so sure.

  “I’d guess it’s a young guy,” he said. “Maybe he’s checking out different places, planning a break-in.”

  “But then he wouldn’t leave traces behind like he’s done in Irene’s garden,” Malin objected.

  “It doesn’t seem like the smartest thing to do. We’ll just have to be more careful about locking doors and closing windows,” Irene said. “And maybe we should start keeping an eye on each other’s houses and gardens.”

  “Neighborhood Watch! I’ll put up some posters,” Malin said determinedly.

  It wasn’t such a bad idea. Irene had nothing better to suggest, so she nodded in agreement.

  “And perhaps you might even stop suspecting Viktor,” Malin said sharply.
r />   “I stopped suspecting him as soon as I’d spoken to him,” Irene replied.

  He drove out your enemies before you and said: destroy them!

  That is what I did. My beloved is at peace now; she has been redeemed from sin.

  This one is faithful. She comes home when she is supposed to, she does not behave foolishly. Behold, I am close to you. Now she is starting to make dinner. Aha—it’s one of those soups that you drink from a cup. You only need to add hot water. Convenient for one person. We will share more lavish dinners. Romantic dinners. We are happy together. Because she is mine. Only mine. Even if we are not yet formally married, we are one in our hearts. Both she and I respect that. Remember this: thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife.

  And she thinks I don’t know about the wine in the pantry. She has poured herself a glass. I will allow this for the moment if she has had a particularly stressful day at work, but I cannot tolerate alcohol abuse. It must change. He will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in Him. Drinking is most definitely a transgression. Under my loving control, she will learn to abstain from all alcohol.

  But now she is pouring herself another glass of wine.

  5.

  Superintendent Efva Thylqvist walked into the conference room with DI Tommy Persson following close behind. According to the rumors there was something going on between those two, but no one knew for sure. Irene thought the gossip was probably true, but she had no real proof, except for the fact that the guy who had been her best friend for the last twenty-five years hardly spoke to her these days, unless it had to do with work. He was never unpleasant, just very correct.

  She and Tommy had become friends during their initial training in Ulriksdal. In those days there had been no training facilities outside the capital, so they had had to travel from Göteborg to Stockholm. They had found each other right away. Over the years they had maintained a strong friendship, probably because they had never been anything but friends. They had both married and had children, and the two families had spent a great deal of time together, joining forces for major celebrations and vacations. They were godparents to each other’s children. Everything had been fine until Tommy and his wife, Agneta, split up.