The Cruel Stars of the Night

by Kjell Eriksson

  “What do you mean, why?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  The cashier nodded at Lindell.

  “It’s her.”

  Ante looked interestedly at the newcomer.

  “Has Nicke sent you?”

  Lindell grew tired of this and explained that she wanted Sivbritt’s address, and she wanted it right away. Ante reacted immediately, wrote it down on a piece of paper, tore it from the pad with a suave expression, and gave it to Lindell, who thanked them and hurried to the exit.

  “While I’m here,” she said and turned in the doorway. “I’m investigating a disappearance. It’s an older man who went missing about a month ago, Ulrik Hindersten. Do you know who that is?”

  “Your buddies have already asked us about it,” Ante said.

  “I’m asking you again.”

  “He was here sometimes but his crazy daughter is here, like, a lot.”

  “Crazy?”

  “She’s a real freak who asks for a sick amount of stuff.”

  “Like?”

  “Cheeses and stuff,” the cashier said and made it sound like a personal insult that Laura Hindersten wanted to buy more than bread and milk.

  “Has she been here today?”

  “Is she also missing?”

  “Thanks,” Lindell said abruptly and left the store.

  Lindell knew where Birkagatan was. Several years ago, before she worked in Violent Crimes, she had been there to check on a reported case of domestic abuse. From what she could remember a woman was later charged with assault in a lesser degree. She had hit her husband in the head with a frying pan and thereafter thrown hot potatoes at him as he tried to flee from the apartment.

  She parked directly outside the entrance, walked quickly up the two stairs, and rang Sivbritt Erikssons bell. It’s sick how many Erikssons there are, she thought and smiled to herself.

  After the third try she gave up. I thought retirees were home all the time, she thought obnoxiously, already having created a mental image of the whiny Sivbritt who disturbed young people in their work.

  When she walked back there was a man next to her car. A white piece of paper was on the windshield, attached with duct tape. It looked like an enormous invitation to a funeral. The man surveyed his work with satisfaction.

  “What the hell is this?” Lindell burst out.

  “Read it yourself,” the man said impudently, but drew back when he saw Lindell’s expression.

  She tore off the note and read, “You have repeatedly parked your car . . . “ She glared at him.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You can read, can’t you?”

  “Can you read?” Lindell said, fuming and pointed to a laminated notice that was visibly placed on the dashboard. “And secondly, I have never, I repeat never, parked in your damn parking lot!”

  “Yes, you have, I write down all the licencse plate numbers,” the man said and held up a notepad.

  “Give me that! This is a punishable offense, do you understand that? You can be arrested for it. What’s your name?” Lindell said, her voice now icy cold as she took out her notebook. “I’m with the police,” she added.

  The man ran away. Lindell stared after him with surprise.

  “So you’ve run into Crazy Gudmund?”

  Lindell turned around and there was Sivbritt Eriksson. Lindell knew at once it had to be her. Finally her luck seemed to have turned.

  “Why is he called that?”

  “It’s simple: his name is Gudmund and he is crazy. A couple of years ago he was hit in the head with a brick.”

  Lindell started to laugh.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that kind of day today.”

  The woman nodded.

  “I know how it feels,” she said, with a tone that made Lindell believe her.

  “You’re Sivbritt, aren’t you?”

  “Alice,” Sivbritt said at once when Lindell showed her the snapshot she had found at Petrus Blomgren’s.

  “I can’t remember her last name, but her first name was Alice. She died in an accident, fell down the basement stairs. Her husband disappeared this September and his daughter still lives in the house. She’s some kind of an economist, I believe. Hindersten, that’s what it was, I remember it now.”

  “You are a gold mine,” Lindell said.

  Sivbritt Eriksson looked noticeably pleased.

  “What was Alice like?”

  “A sweet woman, who didn’t have an easy time of it, if you’ll excuse me saying so. She always came in on Thursdays. That’s when our meat came in. She was very particular, but knew what she was talking about. A good customer.”

  Lindell sized up the woman in front of her. About seventy, probably no taller than 155 centimeters, graying hair with a perm that was starting to grow out, a thin body, and that combination of reserve and complete frankness that Lindell had seen so many times in older people, perhaps above all in women.

  Alice Hindersten may have been a good customer, but Sivbritt Eriksson was a good observer and judge of human character.

  “Her place wasn’t in Kåbo. She didn’t really fit in. She knew how to behave, no question there, but she would have needed another kind of man, not one who buried himself in books.”

  “How could you tell she didn’t fit in?”

  “You can tell. When a woman has had to give up too much, well, then it . . . ” Sivbritt Eriksson hesitated, “. . . it’s not good. I mean, Alice liked to laugh but that man was like a walking migraine, all puffed up with his own importance. He kept people down, you could see it from a long way away. He didn’t even have to open his mouth.”

  She stopped and Lindell was convinced she was thinking about her encounters with both Alice and Ulrik Hindersten.

  “Alice was fond of veal,” she continued. “It was for some special dish, Italian I think. It’s hard to find good veal. Alice would rather pass if I didn’t have a good piece, and then I would feel a bit ashamed but she was always so kind and said it wasn’t my fault and of course she was right about that.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Lindell put in.

  “She liked to take walks. I often saw her walk by. I think she went to the Botanical Gardens each and every day. She took the girl with her. She was already dark as a troll back then.”

  “Are you talking about Laura?”

  “They only have one. I remember Alice talking about new flowers that had bloomed. She was like a calendar. One day it was spring bulbs and the next day some primrose.”

  “Was she happy?” Lindell asked even though she already knew the answer.

  “She was happy in the garden. I have been alone for fifteen years but we had a good marriage. Alvar worked at Ekeby for a long time before they shut down. Then he received his sick pension. I have lived here for over fifty years. Here in this building, I mean.”

  “When was this photo taken do you think?”

  “Hard to say. Alice was a woman who didn’t change. May I be nosy?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why are you asking me about Alice? She died such a long time ago.”

  Lindell hesitated but decided to tell her.

  “We are investigating the murders that you have probably read about in the papers. Alice’s name has emerged in connection with them.”

  Sivbritt Eriksson clapped her hands over her mouth and stared at Ann.

  “This is also about Ulrik Hindersten. He has been reported missing, as you know.”

  “Do you think he’s been murdered?”

  “There is nothing right now to indicate that,” Lindell said.

  Sivbritt turned her head and looked out the window and sat quietly for a long time. Lindell let her think in peace.

  “Well, dear Lord,” the woman said finally and looked at Lindell.

  “I’m telling you this in confidence, you understand. I don’t want you to mention this conversation to anyone.”

  “Of course,” Sivbritt said. “No
t a word.”

  “Did Alice talk about love with you?”

  Lindell thought the question sounded silly but Sivbritt reacted like Lindell had hoped, with a meaningful silence before she began to speak.

  It was three quarters of an hour later when Ann Lindell left. The last fifteen minutes she had been sitting on pins and needles but when Sivbritt Eriksson insisted on making her a cup of coffee Lindell felt she had to accept given everything that she had just received.

  When she got into her car she gave the steering wheel a slap and drove whistling onto the street.

  Crazy Gudmund, partly concealed in the garbage room, watched her vengefully and was convinced that the Eriksson woman was suspected of a serious crime.

  “Breakthrough!” Lindell cried as she drove by the metal sheds on Karlsrogatan. She tried to restrain her excitement but the information that Sivbritt Eriksson had provided was the most sensational in the case yet. In one blow Ulrik Hindersten appeared as the key to all three murders. Was he also murdered, or the murderer? This was the question that clearly had to be put first.

  In her inner map she drew in Jumkil, Alsike, and Skuttunge, extending the lines to Uppsala and the house in Kåbo. A connection was now established between Jumkil and Kåbo. Now she had to map out the connections between Jan-Elis Andersson and Carl-Henrik Palmblad and the Hindersten family. Ann Lindell was convinced such a connection existed.

  The murders were no vendetta against the countryside, as many had believed. Neither the rental agreements, tractors, nor LRF had anything to do with the case. The three old men had qualified themselves to be brutally clubbed down in the eyes of the killer and everything most likely pointed right back to the rundown house in Kåbo.

  “Motive, motive,” Ann Lindell muttered as she drove past the Eriks-berg Church.

  Laura Hindersten was priority number one. She must have the answers. Of course she had denied knowing any of the three but Lindell was now convinced she had been lying. Or was her father Ulrik the spider in the web? In that case, where was the murderous professor?

  She decided to return to the Hindersten house. The street was deserted and the driveway was still empty.

  Ann Lindell parked on a side street and returned on foot to the house.

  Thirty-seven

  The forensics department found no fingerprints on the chess piece that had been removed from Allan Fredriksson’s coat. Ottosson had not expected there to be any, but he still sighed heavily when he received the news. He put down the receiver, then immediately lifted it and rang Ola Haver.

  “Has he woken up?”

  He listened to Haver with growing concern. Admittedly Fredriksson’s neck and spine injuries were not as serious as they had initially feared but he was still basically unreachable.

  “Have they operated on the arm?”

  “They’re waiting,” Haver said. “He has to be stable first, they say. There’s no bleeding in the brain but he has a severe concussion and from what I can understand the brain swells up. They may operate tonight.”

  “Has he said anything about the chess piece?”

  “He’s talking a lot of nonsense,” Haver said in a quiet voice, “but from what I can tell he’s been at Andersson’s in Alsike. Wasn’t Sammy going to go out there and check?”

  “He called in,” Ottosson said and Haver could hear in his voice that he was feeling under pressure. “He didn’t find any other pieces, nor a chessboard.”

  “It seems a bit mysterious to only have one chess piece, don’t you think?”

  “You could say that. Säpo-Jern, Morenius, and Fritte the DA have been here,” Ottosson said. “They’re starting to get good and nervous. Silvia is arriving tomorrow.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I’m as lost as all the others,” Ottosson admitted.

  “What does Ann say?”

  “I don’t know. She’s disappeared.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I’ve called but she doesn’t answer.”

  “She’s probably having a cup of tea at the Savoy,” Haver said, grinning.

  “Perhaps,” Ottosson said. “Give my greetings to Allan.”

  They wrapped up the conversation and Haver promised to call as soon as Fredriksson said anything of interest.

  The big machine had been set in motion and that made Ottosson depressed. The decision had been made to reinforce the security around Silvia. On top of this she was not going to get to Uppsala by car, as previously planned. Instead she was going to land on the roof of the 85-building at the Academic Hospital and thereafter be escorted to the oncology division, and return the same way. Dinner at the castle had been cancelled and the governor was upset. He had been looking forward to hosting the queen. Now he had been cheated out of the prize of getting some positive press, for once.

  The decision had been made at the National Police Heaquarters. A superintendent whose name Ottosson had repressed had called and briefly conveyed the news. A crisis group, with representatives from all thinkable areas, had been assembled and taken over. The national security force had been called in. Uppsala would for one day be a besieged city. All this on account of a recovered chess piece.

  Ottosson knew he should go down to the large conference room, where a meeting was underway, but lingered in his office.

  Perhaps the right decision had been made, perhaps it was an overre-action. At least the police chief had expressed his relief. Ottosson thought this mostly stemmed from the fact that he no longer had to shoulder responsibility for the state visit and Ottosson felt a similar relief. Others would take over.

  As long as Fredriksson gets well, he thought, and slowly rose from the chair and walked out into the corridor where he immediately bumped into Berglund and Modin from Criminal Investigations.

  “Have you seen Ann?” Ottosson asked.

  Berglund shook his head. Ottosson kept walking. He heard Modin talking about bomb-sniffing dogs.

  Instead of going to the conference room he went down to the cafeteria in hopes of finding Ann there. Ottosson had had the impression the last few days that she was unusually distracted. He was used to her shifting emotional states—it could be a roller-coaster ride in the space of one hour—but Ottosson knew her so well that he realized this time it was something out of the ordinary.

  She no longer had the same spark. Ottosson thought there were problems with Erik and had cautiously asked some questions. But Ann had assured him that everything was great and the way her face lit up when she spoke about Erik made Ottosson believe her.

  Was it the chess angle, that Lindell had so loudly and categorically dismissed, that had created this visible dissatisfaction in her and her almost deliberate inability to cooperate?

  Suddenly it hit him: it was love. Ottosson smiled broadly and some uniformed police officers gave him curious looks.

  Obviously he had heard the talk going around the station: Lindell had been seen at the movies and on the town. Sammy Nilsson had also said something about the new technician, Morgansson. He and Lindell had been spotted outside a restaurant together. Ottosson thought that was less positive—police couples were not exactly an ideal combination.

  He took out his cell phone and called her again. No answer.

  Thirty-eight

  “You’ve had a visitor,” the professor said when Laura got out of the car.

  It almost seemed as if he had been waiting for her.

  “A woman,” the neighbor continued. “She seemed very anxious to get ahold of you.”

  Laura gave him a look of indifference.

  “She even walked around the garden as if you were there.”

  Laura shut the car door. On account of all the garbage bags in the driveway, half of the car was on the sidewalk. She opened the trunk. The pipe wrench lay in full view. Laura picked it up and weighed it in her hand.

  The professor’s smile faded.

  “Don’t go poking around in my life,” Laura said menacingly.

  Her neighb
or stared at the pipe wrench and took a couple of steps back. Laura followed.

  “Don’t poke around in my life.”

  The professor backed up a couple more meters, looked around quickly as if to find help, but the street was quiet as usual. There was no one to be seen.

  “Are you scared, you little professor-shit?”

  “Calm down,” he managed. “I haven’t done anything to you, have I?”

  “Not done anything?” Laura said furiously and charged at him. “You have talked behind our backs and spied on us all these years. Shouldn’t that count?”

  The professor fled while Laura laughed heartily.

  “Hi Laura,” a voice said behind her and she spun around.

  Laura lowered the pipe wrench and concealed it behind her legs.

  “He was threatening me,” she said.

  Ann Lindell nodded.

  “Could we talk?” she said.

  “Not today,” Laura said quickly, “I don’t have time.”

  “This will only take a few minutes.”

  “I don’t have time!” Laura shouted.

  The professor, who had been following this exchange from his front steps, suddenly became brave, ran down the steps, and stopped on the lawn with only the slim hedge between him and Laura.

  “I’m calling the police,” he said. “This can’t go on. She’s an embarass-ment to this whole neigborhood.”

  “It’s not necessary,” Lindell said.

  “Necessary! If you only knew how we have suffered, year after year, with this crazy family.”

  “You old bastard!” Laura screamed. “You damned freak!”

  “That’s enough,” Lindell said.

  Laura’s face was distorted with anger.

  “I am a police officer. I’m here to talk about Ulrik Hindersten’s disappearance. It’s perhaps understandable that Laura is upset right now,” she said and turned to the man.

  “You’re from the police?”

  “Did you think she was from your illegal cleaning service?” Laura said. “She’s here to talk to me and not to be accosted by some impotent professor.”

  “No, this is going too far! Did you hear what that Neanderthal said?”

  “We’re going in,” Lindell said, and took Laura by the shoulders and led her like a hapless child toward the house. As they passed the car Laura tossed the pipe wrench into the trunk.