The Fire Dance

by Helene Tursten

  “Did you ever talk about her experience with this?”

  “Yes, but not much. She rarely spoke at all. If she did, it was only in response to a direct question. She never started to speak spontaneously. I believe that Sophie communicated best through dance, but she was still the only one who ever truly understood what she was trying to say. It was not by chance that she became a choreographer.”

  “Did she ever say anything about what happened the afternoon of the fire?”

  “No, she never talked about it at all.”

  “Did she ever mention her relationship to Magnus Eriksson?”

  “She never talked about anyone in her family after the first year. Then she talked a great deal about her brother. She worried about him very much. I believe he was her only friend.”

  “Did she ever tell you why she wanted to move back in with her biological father?”

  “No. She just said she would rather live with him forever. She told me that during her very first session. In fact, that was the only thing she said that first time. And she continued to live with him the entire time we were treating her.”

  “Did you ever have any indication that Sophie was abused by Magnus Eriksson?”

  “That suspicion is always in the back of our minds, so we tried to see if there was any indication of abuse. But we never found any proof. Still, she certainly had a secret, which she kept to herself.”

  “What happened after she stopped treatment?”

  The psychologist took her time before answering. “I heard that she’d done well at the School of Dance and that she wanted to continue her studies as a choreographer. Her mother said that she was a talented dancer, but that she had gotten too tall and too heavy for a professional career. I kept telling her mother not to say those kinds of things to Sophie, since the girl suffered from a severe eating disorder. But…just between you and me…I don’t think her mother ever understood the seriousness of the situation. It seemed to me that they never related well to each other.”

  “In other words, Angelika Malmborg-Eriksson never understood her daughter.”

  “Exactly. I felt sorry for Sophie. She was talented and kind, but her personality pushed people away. The only person who seemed to understand her was her father. Otherwise she was very much alone. She struggled to find a place in society, and I believe—no, I’m absolutely sure—she found it in dance.”

  Irene had just thanked Majvor Granath for her time and hung up the phone when her office door flew open and a young man exploded through the doorway.

  “You’re Huss?” he demanded.

  “You’re Frej?” Irene retorted.

  Irene knew it had to be Frej from the remarkable resemblance to his father. He had blond stringy hair hanging from beneath a black hat, and though he had developed a slight beard, it was too thin to hide the weak chin he’d inherited from Magnus Eriksson.

  As he walked into Irene’s office, he shot off a charming smile, and Irene could tell he’d inherited a few things from his mother as well. He politely took her hand and introduced himself before sitting down in the visitor’s chair. He had a solid handshake, and he looked at Irene steadily. It did not appear that Frej was suffering from any social disorders. He wore jeans and a thick down jacket with a fur-lined hood. Beneath the open jacket, Irene could see a light-blue flat-knit sweater.

  Frej stood up again abruptly and shed both the jacket and the sweater. Before Irene could say anything, he said, “Don’t mind me. It’s just too hot in here for me to keep them on. We’ve been taking photos outside all day.”

  Beneath the blue sweater, he was wearing a black T-shirt with the slogan U2 4-ever. Irene was surprised to see that he had well-defined muscles and nothing of his father’s doughy figure.

  “My aunt, my father’s sister, knitted this sweater for me. It’s a nice one, but it’s too warm to wear anywhere but outside during cold weather.”

  He smiled pleasantly and Irene smiled back. “Do you often visit your aunt?”

  “I see her, like, once a week or so.”

  “She was hurt in a car accident…” Irene left her sentence incomplete to see what he would say.

  Frej nodded. “Yeah, she was hit by a car. Drunk driver. They caught him. He hit Aunt Ingrid when she was crossing the street to the store. He bounced off her and hit a light pole. He had, like, a two-point-oh and couldn’t even stand, that drunken bastard. The police had to drag him out of the car.”

  “How badly was she hurt?”

  “She broke an arm and…what’s it called…the tailbone—but she was, like, unconscious for a week. Broke her skull when she landed on the pavement. She went flying, the witnesses said.”

  “Can she speak?”

  “Yeah, but the elevator doesn’t go to the top floor, if you know what I mean. She forgets stuff. She gets sad and starts crying. She wasn’t like that before.”

  “One of my colleagues told me that she was planning to sell the farm.”

  “Yeah, she can’t handle living there any more. She can walk for short stretches indoors with that rolling thing…you know, the one all those old people have.”

  “A walker?”

  “Yeah, but outside they put her in a wheelchair.”

  “Does she still keep animals?”

  “Nah.”

  “Did she rent out the stalls?”

  “Yeah, for a while, until the riding club built their own stable. Aunt Ingrid was okay with that ’cause she didn’t really like people tramping all over the place. So she never rented it after that.”

  Irene was positively surprised about Frej. There was nothing in this questioning that was anything like her attempt to talk to Sophie all those years ago. Frej seemed open and talkative—a police officer’s dream.

  “So who is watching the farm now that she can’t do it herself?”

  “Me.”

  “Isn’t that hard? You live in Änggården and have to get all the way out to Björkil. And you have your classes.”

  “No problem. I got a car. Aunt Ingrid’s.”

  “That makes it easier, of course. How long have you been living at Sophie’s place?”

  “Since last spring. I’m renting the upstairs attic loft.”

  “I see. So Sophie and Marcelo lived together in the rest of the house…” Irene stopped when she saw Frej’s expression.

  He’d raised his eyebrow and his smile dimmed.

  “Wasn’t Sophie living with Marcelo?” asked Ingrid.

  “Living together? Sophie? Nah. Where’d you hear that?”

  “Someone said…”

  “That someone was wrong. Sometimes Sophie rented a room to other dance instructors. Like, the ones who come and teach for a couple weeks or a month or so and don’t live here in Göteborg. Marcelo’s been there since the end of August.”

  “Is he still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about Sophie? Where did she live?”

  “On the ground floor, of course.”

  “It must be a big house.”

  “Yeah. Like, four hundred square meters or something like that.”

  Given Frej’s openness, Irene decided to get more personal.

  “We have to go over everything again,” Irene said. “Initially, we were dealing with a missing person, but now we’re investigating a murder.”

  His face paled but he said nothing. He just nodded to indicate he understood.

  “I therefore have to ask you what you were doing around midnight between the twenty-third and twenty-fourth of September.”

  “I’ve already said I was in the darkroom the whole evening and into the night.”

  “What did you do later on?”

  “I went to bed.”

  “What time?”

  “After two, I’m pretty sure. Maybe three. I don’t look at the clock when I’m in my darkroom.”

  “So you had no contact with your sister on the night in question?”

  “No, we just saw each other briefly when I was
getting home from class around, you know, four or five in the afternoon.”

  “Did she tell you what her plans were for that evening?”

  “No.”

  His response was the same as he’d given earlier. Irene thought hard about how to come to a different approach.

  “Do you know when she left the house?”

  “No idea.”

  A thought crossed Irene’s mind. “Where is your darkroom?”

  “In the loft apartment. That’s why I moved into Sophie’s house in the first place. The space was empty. The darkroom’s across from my apartment in the loft.”

  “Any ideas at all where Sophie went after she left the bar at Park Aveny that night?”

  “No.”

  “Any guesses?”

  “No.”

  Irene decided to change her line of inquiry. In a neutral tone, she asked, “Who were Sophie’s best friends?”

  “She didn’t have any friends.”

  His answer came at once without any pause to think things through. It was just a dry statement.

  “Were there any people at all she liked to hang out with?”

  “Yeah, of course. People in the dance world. But she, like, never invited them home or anything.”

  “Did Sophie have any enemies?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Do you know anyone who hated Sophie enough to want to kill her?”

  He took a short time to think, and he replied in a low, quiet voice. “No.”

  “Do you believe there might be a reason why Sophie was burned to death?”

  “What do you mean by ‘believe’?” He looked at her.

  “Why do you think that she was locked in that shed and why do you think the killer set it on fire?”

  Frej shook his head slowly. In his eyes, there appeared only deep sorrow. “Not the faintest idea,” he said seriously.

  “What do you remember from that afternoon and evening when the cottage out in Björkil burned down?”

  He appeared to ponder this for a while before looking back at Irene. “Not much more than Aunt Ingrid driving over there with me in the car. I can remember police cars…lots of people…then I really don’t remember much. It’s kind of strange, really…”

  “Do you remember anything from before you arrived at the scene?”

  “Nah. I was asleep. I really don’t remember much from that day at all. I remember nada. I must have been in shock or something like that.”

  It really seemed he was trying to remember as much as he could. His apologetic look at Irene spoke clearly. Irene decided to drop the subject.

  Instead, she said, “I must also ask you what you were doing the night of the sixteenth of October between two and four a.m.”

  He looked at her for a while before answering.

  “That must have been…when that shed…with Sophie caught on fire. I was exercising until seven thirty on Friday night. Then I went over to Aunt Ingrid’s place to make sure it was okay. The real estate agent was supposed to come by, like, Saturday or something.”

  He fell silent again.

  “When did you leave Björkil?” Irene continued her line of questioning.

  “Around ten, I guess. I bought a kebab from the pizzeria on Björlandsvägen and ate it when I got home. Then I worked in my darkroom for a while. But I was tired as hell so I, like, went to bed, around midnight, twelve thirty, thereabouts.”

  “Where is this pizzeria located?”

  “Almost all the way to Brunnsbo. It’s called Pizzeria Napoli.”

  It appeared there was nothing else to ask. Nevertheless, Irene thought that Frej had been very helpful. She thanked him for his cooperation and promised to inform him if anything else came up in their investigation.

  It was almost six in the evening, but Irene remained sitting in her office to mull over her conversation with Frej Eriksson. Some pieces had fallen into place, but others were still missing.

  Frej did not have anyone who could back up his alibi.

  Even if, against all odds, the employees of the pizzeria remembered he was there that exact evening, there was no one to say what he was doing in the hours when the fire broke out.

  Did those two siblings really not see or speak to each other the entire evening? Did they have a difficult relationship? They’d been living in the same house for six months.

  On the other hand, maybe their relationship was strained, especially after Frej’s father died. Sophie had gone to stay with her father while Frej stayed with Angelika.

  And what was Sophie’s real relationship to Marcelo?

  According to Frej, Marcelo was one renter among many, but most people only stayed for weeks or months. An entire semester, on the other hand? Perhaps it was time to have a closer look at the stylish Brazilian.

  Hannu hadn't reached Marcelo Alves the previous day. There’d been a gang murder at the Central Train Station, so Andersson had shifted them to the new investigation. There were a great many people to interrogate, and not all of them were willing to cooperate with the police. They either lied or refused to answer any questions.

  Before they went home for the day, Irene told Tommy that she was planning to reach Marcelo.

  “Good,” Tommy replied. “I’ll try for another chat session with Angelika. It’s about time we met again—it’s been fifteen years.”

  He smiled an odd smile as he said this, and Irene was left with a nagging sense of worry.

  * * *

  The next morning, Irene headed straight for Högsbo and the House of Dance; it was not that far out of the way from her office. This “Mecca of a dance school”, as the website proclaimed it, was an old, red brick school building built in the late fifties not far from Axel Dahlström Square. Then, twenty years ago, a brand new school was built less than a kilometer away since there was no room for expanding the older building. Instead, the House of Dance moved in—and after some time, the School of Dance joined them. The schoolhouse building had been renovated bit by bit. Walls were ripped out, ceilings were raised. The remaining inside walls were covered with floor-to-ceiling mirrors. There were also spaces for theoretical instruction, changing rooms and administration. At present, the School of Dance was seen as one of the premiere institutions for dance instruction.

  It was exactly 8 a.m. when Irene walked through the entrance to the House of Dance. On one side, she saw a coatroom and on the other a large cafeteria. A few young people were hanging around a table with steaming mugs.

  They did not match Irene’s image of a serious dance student. These kids had dyed hair and the same kind of clothes as any other arts students. Irene was reminded of Jenny, who was finishing up her last year of high school as a fine arts major in music.

  Irene noticed one pale girl who wore all black. She’d dyed her hair pink and was wearing it in two braids across the top of her head, Gretchen style. Irene could see an inch of her blonde roots showing at the back of her neck. An ebony-skinned young man sat beside her. He was yawning so widely that Irene, in spite of the distance, could see into his throat. He was wearing an oversized knit hat, which appeared to have been created from the motley remnants of various balls of yarn.

  Farther down the hallway was a white sign with the word administration. Irene thought it wise to start her search there. When she went to push open the door, she found that it was locked. The glass doors that barred the entrance to the rest of the school were also locked. Obviously, outsiders were forbidden to go past the cafeteria.

  The girl with the pink braids called out to her. “The bell is broken. Knock hard and someone will come.”

  Irene knocked on the glass panel to the door, and almost immediately a woman wearing a light-blue leotard and white knit leg warmers came down the stairs. She was exactly what Irene had imagined a stereotypical dance student looked like. She was most likely one of the teachers. Her black hair, streaked with gray, was pulled back into a tight bun, and the lines in her face revealed that she was middle-aged. The woman smiled
and opened the door for Irene without asking who she was or what she was doing there.

  Bad security here, thought Irene. She changed her mind during the time they walked up the stairs. She realized that she hardly appeared to be either a potential student or a crazy terrorist. Perhaps she gave off the “cop” smell from yards away.

  The stairs ended in a reception area. Irene continued toward an older woman sitting behind a counter, introduced herself and told her why she was there.

  “Marcelo Alves? I believe I recognize the name, but I’m not sure. Wait a moment while I go find Gisela.”

  The sprightly white-haired woman walked down the hallway and knocked on a door. She entered and, a moment or two later, returned with a tiny woman in tow who held out her hand to Irene.

  “Hello, I’m Gisela Bagge. I’m in charge of instruction here at the House of Dance.”

  Gisela appeared almost transparent. Her light blonde hair was cut in a short style with wisps springing up around her head. Her round blue eyes and her smile made Irene think of an angel. Her white dress completed the picture. The turtleneck collar was as wide as it could be without sliding off her shoulders and falling straight to her ankles. She wore a wide, red ribbed belt, which perfectly matched her suede boots.

  “Let’s go into my office,” Gisela Bagge said.

  She spun gracefully on her high heels and led Irene down the hallway to her office, a surprisingly small room with large windows facing the old schoolyard. Gisela sat down behind her desk and gestured for Irene to sit in the opposite chair. Irene could see the autumn mist and the emptying branches of the chestnut tree outside.

  Gisela got right to the point. “Lilly told me you were looking for Marcelo Alves.”

  “That’s right. It’s part of our ongoing investigation into the murder of Sophie Malmborg. I understand Marcelo rents an apartment from her.”

  “I know. I was the one who put him in touch with her. Sophie usually rents…rented rooms to our visiting instructors at low cost. She started the practice after her father died.”

  “Marcelo has no telephone we can reach, so I thought I would try to find him here,” Irene said, smiling.