The Cruel Stars of the Night

by Kjell Eriksson

  But Ottosson could not think of anything that explained her disappearance. For a while he speculated that she may have had an accident. Perhaps she had driven off the road and sat unconscious in the car, which was hidden by vegetation. It had happened before that people had been trapped in their cars. He recalled an accident involving one car on the E-4 the driver had been able to call the emergency number on his cell phone but the ambulance and fire department had not been successful in locating him. The driver saw them pass by him and despite his injuries was able to guide them to the right place. That time there was a happy ending.

  Ottosson could see Ann’s car in his mind, driven into a bush or against a tree, with Ann hanging unconscious over the steering wheel or thrown through the windshield. She was sloppy about her seat belt.

  He quickly got up. She must be alive, he thought and was gripped for the first time during his long police career by what most closely resembled desperation.

  “What is it, Otto?” Berglund asked.

  “To hell with this!” Ottosson burst out, and Jern, who had continued his litany of the inadequate routines at the crime squad, stared at him with astonishment.

  “Out and look for her, god damn it,” Ottosson went on in an agitated voice, “instead of sitting here and kvetching like a little old lady!”

  Bea, who had also been listening to Jern’s tirade with growing anger, gave a chuckle.

  “While you’re at it why don’t you harrass some Arab in town,” she threw out. “Maybe al-Qaida is involved.”

  Jern gathered up his papers and left the room without saying a word.

  Sammy Nilsson devoted himself to Ann Lindell’s office with minute attention to detail. He had wolfed down a sandwich and a cup of coffee in the cafeteria and was forced to attend a short briefing, but otherwise he had spent all his time at Lindell’s desk.

  He thought it was possible the answer would be found there. Looking aimlessly was nothing for Sammy Nilsson. The problem was that Lindell left so little behind: scattered notes, incomplete reports, and terse theories jotted down in a notebook.

  For a while he was angry at Ann. The lack of an organizational system in her office made him wonder how she could function at all as a detective.

  Sammy Nilsson flipped through the transcript of the questioning of Ulrik Hindersten’s daughter and Lantz-Andersson’s own comments. It was very brief. Nothing had emerged that could explain the disappearance. What perplexed Sammy was the fact that the file lay on Ann’s desk to begin with. Why was she interested in a missing person’s report from September? He could not recall having talked about this Hindersten, but he sensed what Ann’s thinking had been. Three men around seventy years of age had been murdered and here there was a fourth man of the same age, missing without a trace.

  He had called Åsa Lantz-Andersson but she had gone home for the day and when he tried her at home her husband said his wife was out for a run. Two, three times a week she ran a ten-kilometer trail in the forest. She had just set off.

  Then go catch up to her, Sammy thought. He asked the man to make sure Åsa called as soon as she got home. When he had put the phone down he started calculating how long it would take to run ten kilometers. Forty-five minutes he decided and looked at his watch. It would be at least half an hour until his colleague called back.

  He flipped through the folder again. The daughter’s name was Laura Hindersten. She was most likely unmarried since she had the same last name and address as her father. The street where they lived he couldn’t place exactly but he knew it was in Kåbo.

  Ulrik Hindersten was retired but had been an associate professor in Italian literature. Sammy re-read the sentence.

  “Italian literature,” he muttered, got up, took out his cell phone, and called Berglund.

  “Hi, where are you?”

  “In the bathroom,” Berglund answered drily. “Do you want to hear me flush?”

  Sammy heard flushing water in the background.

  “Hey, Berglund, didn’t you say something about Jan-Elis Andersson being a farmer with a flair for languages? What did you mean by that?”

  “I saw an inscription on the side building,” Berglund said, and now his voice was serious. “If you remember, there was a smaller cottage a little ways off.”

  “In what language?”

  “I think it was Italian, why?”

  “Then I was right! Do you have any idea what it said?”

  “Not in the least,” Berglund said and Sammy realized he had left the bathroom because now there was no echo in the phone.

  “Can you come to Ann’s office?”

  Berglund arrived after half a minute.

  “Why were you asking?” he said as soon as he came in.

  “I had a vague memory of you talking about something Italian,” Sammy Nilsson started, and then summed up the case of the professor who specialized in Italian.

  “The connection is tenuous but . . .” Berglund said.

  “But . . .”

  “. . . but interesting,” the old criminal investigator went on. “You think there may be a connection between the professor and the farmer in Al-sike?”

  Sammy Nilsson nodded and told him about the file he had found on Lindell’s desk.

  Berglund eyed the first page.

  “Kåbo,” he said.

  “Do we know anyone who speaks Italian?” Sammy Nilsson asked.

  Berglund shook his head.

  “But that can be arranged,” he said. “Should I call Örjan Bäck? He knows these things.”

  Sammy Nilsson nodded. In his thoughts he was already in Alsike to check the inscription, which according to Berglund appeared on the wall of a farm building some thirty meters from the murdered Andersson’s living quarters.

  “Another idea would be to call Andersson’s relative in Umeå,” Berglund said. “What was her name? She may know if there were any ties between the professor and her uncle.”

  “Lovisa Sundberg,” Sammy Nilsson said. “Let’s do that. Damn that I didn’t think of it.”

  “We’re all exhausted,” Berglund said.

  “Do you think Ann has called her?” Sammy Nilsson asked. “No, she hasn’t been in contact with any of Andersson’s or Palmblad’s family I’ve checked.”

  Ottosson called home to see how things were going with Erik. As he expected there was no problem. The boy had eaten and was right now playing with one of Ottosson’s grandchildren, a girl about Erik’s age. Asta had nothing but praise for his calm and social skills.

  “You can tell he has learned from day care how to be around people,” she said, which surprised Ottosson somewhat. Asta was not the one who usually had anything good to say about the communal childcare services and he couldn’t help pointing it out.

  “You don’t understand all that,” Asta determined calmly, “but I will try to explain it to you one day when you aren’t so stressed.”

  They finished the conversation and Ottosson really did feel stressed. The worst thing was not being able to do anything, not even pretend to look for Lindell. What would that even look like? Should he walk around on streets and squares and call out her name? Suddenly he understood the frustrations of relatives of missing people. They could be a complete pain during an investigation, call all the time and nag, suggest various approaches, and sometimes threaten to file a complaint with the Parliamentary Ombudsmen or go to the papers and say how passive the police were being.

  There was a knock on the door. Sammy Nilsson came in. Ottosson thought he looked as eager as a playful boy.

  “I think we have a connection between Andersson and a missing professor in Kåbo,” he started without introduction. “I called Lovisa Sundberg and she confirmed that the uncle had rented a cottage to the academic about twenty years ago. It was the same cottage she lived in later for a while. She couldn’t remember his name but she recalled that he worked with books and was unpleasant. I think it was Ulrik Hindersten.”

  “And?”

  “This is
what Ann is doing. I am absolutely sure of it. Berglund saw an inscription in Italian in Alsike. Everything adds up. He’s a professor of Italian or something.”

  Ottosson couldn’t help smiling in the midst of the misery. He now remembered that Ann had said something about a missing professor.

  “Okay, take this slowly and from the top,” he said and pointed to the visitor’s chair, grateful to have someone to talk to.

  Forty-seven

  Ann Lindell listened, fascinated against her will, at how the murmuring sound grew and became a rumble. At times there was a sharp bang as if shots had been fired. She put her hand on the door. It had not yet become warm.

  What kind of chance do I have? she thought. The house is made of wood and will probably burn like kindling. She guessed that Laura had set fire to several places at the same time, remembering how she ran around before she left. Maybe she was even calculating enough to have opened a window to increase the air circulation.

  The door was still cold. Lindell was standing there with her left hand pressed against it as if she was being sworn in as a witness in the box, when smoke started to filter in at the threshold. She didn’t see anything but detected the acrid smell and realized that if the fire didn’t get her the fumes would.

  She had on occasion seen people who had died of smoke inhalation. They fell peacefully into a slumber. She particularly remembered a woman who had died in a smoky apartment fire in Knivsta. She had looked almost pleased as she lay there on the bed. The only thing that hinted at death were streaks of black soot at the corners of her mouth. No, Ann corrected herself, it was in Vassunda she lived. The woman had a dozen stuffed animals in her bed but had lived alone for many years. Not even the neighbors could give her first name. She was thirty-five years old and known to all as “Subban.”

  Ann started to cry. Warmth was spreading to her hand. The smoke made her cough. She removed her hand from the door and walked with halting steps down the stairs.

  There was a roar in the floor above her and she tried to imagine what it looked like. A sea of flames, devouring everything in its path.

  She found her way to the store of wine, pulled out a bottle, and struck it against the shelf. The bottleneck broke off and wine ran out over her hand. The scent indicated a bold red wine. She carefully fingered the jagged edge, poured out a little wine into her almost unusable right hand that she had formed into a little cup and slurped up a sip. It was strong. Maybe it was the Amarone that Laura had talked about.

  She sipped a little more from her hand, then grew more daring and put the broken bottle to her mouth and drank. One floor up there was an explosion and it was as if the whole house swayed. Ann guessed that it was a window being blown out and knew that the fire would transform into a roaring, thundering inferno.

  She drank a little more wine and already felt the effect of the alcohol. She had drunk maybe a quarter of a bottle and that was usually enough so that she would feel it.

  She thought of the fact that she wasn’t alone in the basement, but the rats were probably fleeing now and leaving her alone with Ulrik Hinder-sten. He would sort of die a second time.

  A crackling sound made her peek out into the basement corridor. At the far end part of the roof had started to give way and sparks were flying around. Ann thought that must be what fireflies looked like. She took another sip of wine and emptied the bottle, reached for another but changed her mind and let it glide back onto the shelf.

  “I don’t want to die,” she said straight out into the dark.

  The fireflies danced.

  “I don’t want to die!” she screamed. “Erik!”

  She was overcome by a violent rage. If Laura had been in front of her she would have killed her with a bottle of wine, she was sure of it. This wasn’t fair! Her earlier calm was completely gone. It was as if she knew deep down that, in spite of her situation, she was going to wake Erik up the following morning, drop him off at day care, and then have a morning meeting with Ottosson and all the rest of her colleagues. Just like every other day, one indistinguishable from the next.

  The fire had meant a change that she unconsciously had regarded as positive. Now she realized the full extent of the approaching catastrophe.The fire changed the situation, but for the worse. To be locked in was bad enough, to fry to death was worse.

  It was only now that she started to actively plan for her survival. Soon even greater parts of the floor joists would give way and that which was the basement ceiling would cave in. She would be buried by burning timber.

  Even though she didn’t want to face up to how badly things looked, she was forced to try to estimate how far along the fire had progressed. The ceiling was now burning in several places. Wood shavings that had caught on fire and were whirling around gave the illusion of fireworks.

  It occurred to her that somewhere in the basement she had seen a bathtub. It was probably in the far end of the basement where it was burning the most. She went down on all fours and crawled along the corridor. With the help of the light from the fire she caught sight of the recessed area where she believed the bathtub was.

  A beam that collapsed tore down large amounts of wood shavings that immediately caught fire. The heat became more intense. She kept crawling. The tension, or perhaps the wine, made her vomit. She crawled, vomited, coughed, and crawled on.

  In the narrow recess she saw the bathtub. It was an older model, heavy and awkward. Would she have the energy? After having kicked away a piece of plank blocking the entrance she grabbed the tub with her left hand and tried to drag it toward her. It was heavier than she had imagined. The heat singed her cheeks and bare arms. On the floor there was a rag that she draped over her head and she tried to turn the tub so she could pull it farther.

  She turned around in order to assess her options. It was burning behind her now. A rat ran past, then another. They were leaving their feast and running toward certain death.

  With her last ounces of strength—she had to use her right arm and the pain was brutal—Lindell managed to tip the bathtub on its side and pull it out of the recess. Then it suddenly came to an abrupt stop. One of the legs had caught in the door opening. She laid down on her back and braced herself with her foot while she tugged with her left arm. The tub came loose.

  The fire was spreading quickly. New areas were burning and Ann was having a harder time being able to stand the heat and smoke. She pulled the tub, on its side, all the way to the wine cellar. In this part of the basement the heat was not quite as bad. She reached in and grabbed a bottle of wine, smashed the neck of it and let wine run over her face and chest. It was a white wine. She licked her lips. Before she tossed the bottle to the side she tried to read the label. She thought it said “Peter Pan.”

  Now larger and larger pieces were tumbling down from the ceiling. Soon the whole basement would be on fire.

  Forty-eight

  Sammy Nilsson became increasingly impatient. The interpreter had still not arrived and Sammy set off on his own. He wanted to see the inscription with his own eyes. He drove south on Kungsgatan at a death-defying clip. At the traffic lights shortly before the Samaritan home he took a risk and drove against a red light. He almost crashed into a city bus that was coming out of Baverns Alley.

  “Damn farmers!” he yelled for no reason.

  The bus driver gestured, car drivers beeped, and Sammy sped up. He had his first doubts as he drove over the Fyris River bridge. Was he doing the right thing in hurrying out to Alsike?

  At the crossing with Rosendal some fire trucks came trundling along. Sammy was forced to stop, tried to finesse his way past a truck, but the driver discovered his maneuvering and with a huge grin pulled up a few centimeters and blocked the gap.

  The blaring of the fire trucks could be heard long after they had disappeared in toward the city.

  The light turned green and Sammy turned left, but then realized he had taken the wrong road. He should have taken the old Stockholm Road, of course. Now he would have to drive
through Sunnersta and over Flottsund.

  “Shit, shit!” he yelled.

  He drove off to the side, looked in the rearview mirror and in line with the Skogskyrkogaarden graveyard made a U-turn with screeching tires. It was ridiculous to waste time on Alsike. The barn with its Italian text would still be standing. He cursed his stupidity.

  Instead he headed to Kåbo. If the missing professor had anything to do with the murders then that was where he would have to start looking for Ann.

  Seven minutes after the alarm had sounded the first fire truck arrived. It was a pump truck with five firefighters. Thereafter came a ladder truck, and command car.

  “There it is!” a man on the street cried out and pointed at the Dream House, as if there was any doubt where the fire was.

  “Step aside,” the fireman who had been the driver said. “I’ll connect the hydrant!” he yelled.

  Hoses were being rolled out at high speed. Within a minute the firemen were dousing the house with the water they had in the truck. Flames were coming out of all of the windows in the lower story. The windows one floor up were still intact. Smoke was rising from the seams in the metal roof, and a thick pillar of it was coming out of the chimney.

  After a couple of minutes the approximately two cubic meters of water in the car were gone but by then the driver had connected the fire hydrant to the truck’s pump.

  A patrol car was in place. One of the patrol officers, Hjalmar Niklas-son, was speaking to the neighbor. It was the professor.

  “Who lives in this house?”

  “The professor, but he’s missing and so is his daughter.”

  “Are they at home?”

  “The professor is missing,” the professor repeated.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He disappeared about a month ago.”

  The officer knew who he was talking about. He had taken part in the search for Ulrik Hindersten.

  “And the daughter?”

  “She took off a little while ago.”

  “Do you believe the house to be empty?”