A good sofa bed was more difficult to find. Torsten bought one from IKEA that looked attractive and comfortable, but after a few nights, he realized the bed was meant just for overnight visitors. When his back started complaining, he realized it had been a bad purchase.
These days, his conversations with Katrin were no longer hostile, so he called to ask her for help. Katrin was pleased, and when she saw the apartment, she said it had turned out well and would be a good place for Noah. She’d just gotten the job offer in Norway and would soon be moving.
Katrin headed out to all the bed manufacturers with Torsten and Noah in tow. Torsten had to curb his imagination—it was too easy to see them as the happy family they’d once been. Katrin’s purposeful search ended well. They found a store north of Uppsala with sofa beds meant for full-time sleeping. They had to wait a few weeks for the sofa to be upholstered in the color Torsten preferred, but when the beige-striped furniture was finally carried to the third floor of the building on Folkskolegatan, Torsten found he could sleep the night through without the slightest twinge in his back. He’d even learned to appreciate making the bed immediately after getting up. He actually loved the transformation from bed to attractive sofa.
Torsten bought Katrin a bottle of champagne as a thank-you gift, and she seemed truly touched. She moved to Oslo the following week. Torsten still missed her, although they’d been separated for over a year. Still, Torsten didn’t want someone who did not want him. He had his pride.
Nowadays his contact with Katrin was even more sporadic. Mostly, they just discussed Noah over the phone.
Today, Torsten looked forward to his son’s return from Norway. He’d written a list of things he needed to restock the refrigerator. Noah had been with his mother for just over a week. Katrin had one week more vacation than her husband, and Noah’s school was closed for planning sessions. It was the first time Noah had been out of the country for this long. Although he’d wanted to, Torsten didn’t call all week. He didn’t want to disturb them.
Torsten also felt nervous. What if Noah came home and said he’d rather go live with his mother? He’d just have to put up with it, although it would crush him. For his son’s sake, he knew he would nod and smile and be understanding. But the thought of it made him break out in a cold sweat. He took a few deep breaths and reminded himself that this was a normal part of any child’s growing up. He would allow Noah to make his choice without forcing his own selfish wishes on him.
CHAPTER 19
Marianne jumped when the doorbell rang. At first her body froze, but when the nerve-racking sound came a second time, she got to her feet. Her first thought was to call Peder and ask him to get the door, but then she remembered he was at the embassy renewing his visa.
The sun streamed into the bedroom where she’d fallen asleep again after breakfast, and her meal tray was still on the bed. She glanced at the clock and saw that it was ten thirty in the morning. She had only herself to blame that the dinner party had gone on so late. She really should have skipped that last glass of wine after everyone had gone home, but a nightcap in bed had been a pleasant end to the evening.
The doorbell rang again, but this time it was longer and more insistent. She called out, “Yes, I’m coming!”
She assumed it was her father, Harry. He was an impatient sort. If he’d been given the keys to her apartment, he would have already let himself in.
As she flung open the door, she found a young man wearing yellow overalls with a package in one hand and a signing tablet in the other.
“Marianne Jidhoff? I have a package for you.”
“From whom, may I ask?”
The young man glanced at the signing tablet and said, “The Prosecutor’s Office. Torsten Ehn and Olle Lundqvist.”
She quickly signed her name and took the package. It was lighter than she’d thought, and she could tell by the feel that it was a stack of paper. With a heavy sigh, she closed the door behind her and rolled her eyes. Olle didn’t miss a trick. If he was worried she’d jump ship, he knew exactly how to draw her in—her curiosity was her undoing. She couldn’t help smiling.
To tell the truth, after the family left, she’d already spent some time sitting up in bed with the light on and jotting down notes from the information Torsten Ehn had given her. Probably that was why she’d allowed herself that last glass of wine. Just like when she used to assist Hans in his investigations, once an idea was planted in her head, she couldn’t shake it even if she’d wanted to. Maybe this was part of her need to prove herself. Or maybe she was just stubborn. She just couldn’t leave something unsolved—not even a Sudoku puzzle.
Marianne weighed the package in her hand and glanced at the closed door of her library. Without thinking, she placed the package on the hall dresser and firmly retied the belt on her robe. She resolutely opened the door, stepped inside, and turned on the lights. She drew open the heavy curtains hiding the French doors and tied them off at the sides with golden ropes. The daylight streamed in, and she opened the French doors as wide as she could.
Her beloved wingback chair that faced the street was ready for her, as was the footstool beside it. They’d been waiting for her like a faithful dog waits for its master. The floor lamp had been bumped, and the lampshade was askew. Her favorite blanket lay on the ottoman. That’s where she often set down her papers after reading them. She picked up the blanket and lovingly shook it, watching the dust particles dance around the room.
The bookshelves along the walls were also fairly dusty, but there was only so much she could do about this. After all, it was her first visit to her library in many months.
She looked at the dining-room table on the other side of the room, which, when completely unfolded, could seat ten people. Marianne couldn’t remember the last time the table had been used for dining—certainly it was before last Christmas. She’d located the surrounding chairs at various antique stores and flea markets and upholstered their seats in black to blend with the gray color of the table, a seventeenth-century antique. Hans had once irritably asked her why she’d bought a mismatched table that looked like it should be thrown out. But Marianne had fallen in love with it at first sight. It gave her a warm feeling.
The two silver candlesticks she’d set on it were tarnished. Some might argue that they needed a good polish, but Marianne preferred a little tarnish, as it showed the candlesticks were used. A worn Persian rug spread from the table to her armchair. The bookshelves were fastened to the wall and filled with volumes from the late nineteenth century to the present day. They gave the room its distinct character.
The room was magical, and she had loved it ever since she was a little girl. She would come here whenever she felt afraid of the dark, or when she wondered if her mother heard her when she talked to her. Marianne thought the library was the perfect place to have long conversations with her deceased mother, now an angel. Perhaps that’s why she’d avoided the room since Hans’s death. A voice inside had prevented her from entering, but now she told that voice to go to hell. She had decided to take charge of her library again.
She hurried to get her cleaning supplies and wiped away the worst of the dust with a cloth. Then she vacuumed the rug and the parquet floor around it. She leaned out through the French doors to shake the blanket more thoroughly; then she folded it neatly onto one of the arms of her chair.
From the servant’s hall, she took two long candles and pushed them into the empty candlesticks. She didn’t plan to light them, but they made the room more beautiful.
In the kitchen while pouring some coffee, she found her glasses—and a pen—sticking into her hair. Ignoring her diet, she took two of the white-chocolate truffle nougats from the box. They wouldn’t make that much difference in her diet anyway. She set her coffee and chocolates on a silver tray that had handles in the shape of roses. The tray had been one of her mother’s favorites. And Harry said that her mother had been se
rved breakfast on that tray ever since she was a little girl.
Marianne balanced the tray in one hand and picked up the package with papers in the other. She walked into her library, set the tray on the ottoman, and reverently sat down in her armchair. It embraced her, molding to the shape of her body. The clear autumn air came in through the French doors. She shivered for a moment before drawing the blanket across her knees and taking a large sip of hot coffee. She knew the fresh air would help her think.
With her feet up on the footstool, she opened the envelope and pulled out documents identified by the case number and the date. She nursed her coffee and, with pen in hand, began to read.
CHAPTER 20
Torsten Ehn read through the reports one last time, then leaned back in his chair. He folded his hands over his stomach and stared into space. The image of the man run over in the pedestrian zone refused to leave his brain. He knew this was partially due to the personal details he’d gathered: The man was an interested father; he’d been married for nineteen years; he was liked by his coworkers; and he came from a family where respect and humility mattered.
Torsten couldn’t get the picture to fit the situation. He knew he’d find the crack in this façade—it always came eventually. He just wondered where to start poking around. The best place might be the guy’s office. Perhaps a client was unhappy, or a coworker felt overlooked. Competition and jealousy were often motivating factors. They could make people do the strangest things…although killing someone was rare.
Torsten thought another alternative might be undocumented labor. Perhaps the family had gotten a renovation and fallen out with the contractor. Lately, there had been incidents where low-paid manual laborers were tired of not receiving their pay, or impossible demands had been made on them. This happened often in the well-to-do parts of town. Workers felt forced to take matters into their own hands, and violent incidents were covered up by powerful people in the business. Torsten felt this theory might fit. Perhaps the guy had ordered work on a summer house out in the archipelago, and the work had been shoddy, leading to a nasty conflict. He’d actually read that the victim and his wife owned a place on Värmdö, to the east of Stockholm, and, according to the tax records, it wasn’t a tiny fishing cabin, either.
As Torsten lifted the telephone receiver to call the land management office, someone knocked on the door. “Come in!” Torsten called out, not putting down the phone.
A young man walked in. Torsten guessed he was between twenty-five and thirty years old. He was wearing dark jeans, a light-blue starched shirt, and a dark-blue blazer with suede patches on the elbows. The blazer looked expensive. The young man’s hair was combed back and slightly longer at the neck. His face was perfect, with high, well-formed cheekbones. For a moment, Torsten wondered if he was wearing makeup. The scarf around his neck was of a rough material in dark-blue stripes, and the color matched his eyes. He must have been over six feet tall and had a lean, patrician body. Torsten had to struggle to cover his surprise. He had no idea what this person, so different from the others in the police station, was doing in his office.
The man held out his hand and smiled, showing perfect white teeth.
“Hello, I’m Augustin Madrid. Olle Lundqvist sent me.”
“Torsten Ehn. Just a moment, I’ve been put through. Go ahead and sit down.”
Augustin Madrid sat across from Torsten’s desk. He loosened his scarf, which Torsten imagined must be a bit too warm for today’s weather.
The person on the other end of the line gave Torsten some of the information he needed. He would call back again within the hour.
Torsten hung up and said, “So Olle sent you here. How can I help you?”
The young man appeared confused. Torsten thought he saw a light touch of red on his smooth cheeks.
“He said he’d told you that I was supposed to assist you.”
Torsten saw he couldn’t keep the guy on edge for too long—he already seemed too nervous as it was. He wouldn’t try joking with him, either.
“Oh, yes, Olle did mention that. I just didn’t realize you’d be here so quickly. It often takes months for paperwork to clear here at the station, you know. What do you say, should we go get a cup of coffee? Then I’ll show you around. Have they given you an office, or what?”
Augustin Madrid shook his head. “No—from what I understood, I was supposed to share this office with you.”
Torsten stood up. “You know, I think we really need that coffee. There’s a nice place not too far from here. So it’s Augustin? What kind of a name is that?”
“My mother gave it to me.”
Torsten was taken aback by his serious tone. Obviously he was tired of hearing that question, but it shouldn’t have been unexpected. With such an odd name, people were going to ask you about it. He felt happy that he, himself, had been given such a common name as Torsten. Nobody ever asked him about that.
“So, why do you want to work for us, exactly?”
Torsten placed the two café lattes on the table and sat down in an armchair. It was much more comfortable than it looked.
“Because I know I can make a difference. I can be useful. I can see things other people miss.”
Torsten looked into Augustin’s dark-blue eyes. Was he trying to prove himself? It didn’t seem like it.
Augustin continued: “I know I have to find the right answer right away, or I start to get bored. And I don’t fit in just anywhere.”
“But somehow you know you’ll fit in with the National Police.”
The young man shrugged. “You never know one hundred per cent, do you? I’ve helped Olle with many cases, and we’ve worked well together. He knows he can trust me.”
Torsten managed to hide his surprise.
“Yes, Olle told me about you. What case that you worked on interested you the most?”
Augustin looked at him directly, then shook his head. “It’s confidential, top secret. There were cases you had nothing to do with.”
“Really!”
“For the Security Police.”
No matter how much Torsten wanted to hide his surprise, he couldn’t any longer. “So, you worked for Säpo under Olle? How’d that work out?”
“You can ask Olle, though I believe he’s not cleared to tell you. He did say many times that he hoped I’d work for you one day. He said you have a great deal to teach me.”
“What else did he say?”
“You prefer to work alone because you need your space to work a case. But I can run errands and take care of paperwork for you. I’m good at keeping people away.”
Torsten laughed.
“So Olle thinks I’m not good at dealing with people?”
“No, that’s not true. Just that you like to work at your own speed, and someone needs to keep the wolves at bay.”
“And you can do that?”
Augustin said flatly, “Yes, I can.”
“Okay, why not? Or perhaps I should say, what choice do I have? I do need assistance, but I’m going to hand over all the crappy duties to you. I have to warn you, I hate delegating and then having to go over everything again just to get it right. If I see that it’s not working out, I’ll tell you and Olle right up front. Then you’ll have to find another job.”
“I understand absolutely. I like it when things are clear.”
“And the last thing I need is someone reporting to Olle behind my back. You have to tell me whatever you find out right away. If you don’t reach me, wait until you do.”
“Obviously.”
“Good. Now I want you to write up a report—on yourself.”
“What do you need to know?”
“Who you are: your background, who your friends are, the kinds of food you like—pretty much everything. I need to know.”
“May I ask why? Do you think I have a criminal background?”<
br />
“Not at all. If I’m going to let you work closely with me, I need to know all about your weaknesses and your strengths. I want to know if you have a complex about your mother. I want to know if you’re afraid of spiders. I want to know anything, everything, that might tell me how you will handle your job, because these little things may be the difference between life and death.”
“But I won’t be receiving a similar report about you.”
Torsten smiled at his cheeky reply.
“You won’t need one. You’ll find out all about me and my weaknesses. In our line of work, I’m responsible for you. You are not responsible for me. So give me every little shitty piece of information you can think of. I want your report by the end of the week.”
“Sure,” Augustin said.
“Also, you can go to the basement and find a desk. If we’re going to share an office, you’ll need somewhere to put your stuff. I’m used to spreading out. It’s a big enough office, but I don’t want us breathing down each other’s necks.”
“May I ask a question?”
“Not today. But think what you want to ask me and we’ll take it up tomorrow over breakfast. I’ll be here right after seven thirty, and I expect you to be here before me. Now…I have business in the fashionable part of town. So I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Augustin Madrid stood up and bowed, holding out his hand. Torsten waved back and left the café. He was looking forward to reading Augustin’s personal report, not because he was worried about Augustin’s competence, but because he was extremely curious. Who was this kid, mature beyond his years and looking like he was born to be Sweden’s crown prince? What the hell was he doing inside a police station? Torsten smiled to himself. He was pleased with his report idea. The inspiration for it had just come to him. He imagined Olle would have a good laugh when he got wind of it.
A Small Indiscretion Page 10