The Fire Dance

by Helene Tursten

  “Which girl?” Irene asked, although she knew the answer.

  “The girl who danced. I’d often hide in the garden and watch her. She danced in a weird way, but…” He stopped for a moment to release a loud burp. “…really good.” He didn’t bother to excuse himself.

  “Did you ever see her down here in the basement?”

  “Nah, she never came down here. Nobody ever does. Lucky for me!” He laughed out loud and revealed teeth that would made all the dentists in Göteborg weep. He interrupted his laugh to look at her skeptically. “Nobody ever comes down here, but here you are. Who the hell are you?”

  “A friend. If you say nothing about me, I’ll say nothing about you. Well, good night. Sleep tight,” she said, and turned to go. As she was about to press down on the door handle, Hasse asked, “Is there a party going on? That girl has never had a party before…”

  Irene stepped quietly out of the sauna and then out of the room. As the door closed behind her, she remembered that Hasse had mentioned an unlocked door. She headed toward the back side of the house and easily found the unlocked door. It was heavy and hard to push open. The hinges groaned when she pushed, but there was no risk that anyone could hear it. The party was going full blast.

  Fresh air was a relief, and Irene took several deep breaths to cleanse herself of the bad air from the sauna. The encounter with Hasse had cleared up one important question: Sophie had never been kept prisoner in her own basement. With that theory eliminated, the question remained—where had she been those three weeks?

  Irene stood still for a moment and listened to the revelry in the house. It was incomprehensible that Angelika could be having a party so soon after the death of her daughter.

  And tomorrow would be the fifteenth anniversary since the death of her husband as well. I wonder how Frej is dealing with all this, Irene thought, feeling some sympathy toward him.

  Irene had to admit that she would never be able to understand a woman like Angelika. She hadn’t fifteen years ago after the fire and she certainly didn’t understand her now. She began to walk slowly around the house. It was not difficult to see her way since light flowed from each and every window and illuminated the garden behind the house.

  She took only a few steps before she heard the sound of running feet and hushed giggles. She drew back into the shadow behind a large bush and stood completely still.

  A couple came running past, hand in hand. The woman let herself be pushed against the outside wall, panting, and they kissed hot and eagerly. Their breath hovered above them like a cloud of smoke. The woman wore a knit sweater against the cold, but he had on just a short-sleeved T-shirt.

  He lifted her shiny black skirt and pulled down her panties. She eagerly kicked them away, unbuttoning his jeans. She cupped his enlarged penis and led it between her thighs.

  Then she curled one of her legs around his hip. He was panting hard and quickly. Their excited moans were covered by the loud music.

  The woman was Angelika.

  The man was Marcelo Alves.

  He lifted her up by her ass and she wrapped her other leg around his other hip. She hid her mouth in his hair, and he burrowed his face between her breasts. They were in that pose for some time. Slowly, Angelika’s feet returned to the ground and she let her dress drop back into place. Marcelo buttoned his pants. They kissed once more, and then they headed in different directions. Angelika walked past Irene’s hiding place, but her focus was straight ahead and a smile curled her lips.

  Irene felt like a voyeur, but she also realized this was another complication to the case. Would this information lead to something in the murder investigation? Sophie had shown interest in Marcelo and had even attempted to seduce him. Was this a murder fed by passion? This couldn’t be about jealousy on Sophie’s part—then Sophie would have murdered her mother, not the other way around. How long have Marcelo and Angelika been hooking up? She’s just about to move in with the wealthy and much older Staffan Östberg!

  Irene made another attempt to head around the house. She’d almost gotten to the gate, but just as she was about to make her escape, she heard a voice behind her exclaim: “Mamma! What are you doing here?”

  Katarina’s voice. Irene’s heart sped up yet again. She was able to put a smile on her face before she finished turning around.

  “So there you are! I didn’t see you, so I thought you weren’t here!” Irene said. She saw Felipe and nodded a greeting with a wide smile.

  “Were you looking for me?” asked Katarina.

  “Yes, but I didn’t want to go in. I’m not invited, after all. I looked in the windows and doors, but I didn’t see you…there’s a real crowd in there.”

  “Why did you want me?”

  “I have to borrow your house key. I left mine at home.”

  “But Jenny was supposed to be home tonight…”

  “I know, but I was working late. It was already nine thirty when I left the station. We’re just finishing up on the murder of that guy two weeks ago, the one at the Central Station, and in the car I saw I had my car keys but not my house keys. I called Jenny’s cell phone, but she didn’t answer, and neither did your pappa. He must be busy at the restaurant this evening. Then I remembered you said something about a party…and I thought maybe I’d be able to run into you, if I was lucky.”

  Katarina gave her a long look, but said nothing. Irene had the feeling that her daughter had seen through her lie, but didn’t want to say anything in front of Felipe. Even if Irene could lie—she liked to call them white lies—as part of her job, she’d never lied to one of her family members. And she didn’t feel good about lying now, either, but necessity knows no law. She couldn’t tell her daughter that she’d been in the basement without a search warrant.

  Katarina opened her purse and began to rummage around.

  While she was looking for the house keys, a figure came along the sidewalk toward them. Irene recognized Frej at once. He stopped to greet them. Although he was standing beneath a streetlight, Irene couldn’t read the expression on his face because the brim of his hat put his face into shadow.

  He asked the natural question: “What are you doing here?”

  Irene repeated the story about the forgotten keys, and it seemed as if Frej believed her. He nodded toward the house and did not even try to hide his bitterness. “She’s fucking crazy.”

  He did not have to say her name. He continued in a falsetto: “I always have a party on Halloween. This year I’ll do it in honor of Sophie! She received such wonderful reviews for her Fire Dance.”

  The expert imitation of his mother was uncanny. Irene had no doubt that she’d said exactly those words. They looked back at the house for a while in silence. Then Frej cleared his throat and said to Felipe, “Could you come inside with me? I’d feel better than going in by myself.”

  “Sure.” Felipe smiled at his friend.

  They turned to say goodbye to Irene. Felipe laid his arm over Katarina’s shoulder, and they followed Frej. They walked into the house and were sucked into the whirling mass of celebrating party guests.

  Irene stood on the sidewalk not knowing what to do. After a moment, she decided to go back into the house herself. She had a good reason. Katarina had actually forgotten to give her the keys.

  Irene took off her jacket and draped it over her arm as she passed through the door. She almost ran into an older couple on their way out. The woman looked surly, and the man was unsteady on his feet. Both Irene and the woman said “excuse me” at the same time and smiled at each other. The man leaned toward Irene and stage-whispered, “Don’t go in there! It’s full of hippies!”

  His breath had the same smell as Hasse’s. He was wearing an elegant black suit and a white shirt. His red silk tie was held in place by a gold tie clasp. Irene guessed he was about sixty, and the woman was the same age. She was well dressed in a black velvet suit jacket over a red top and a black skirt. The colors suited her silver hair, which was in a long page cut. Diamonds glit
tered on her fingers whenever she gestured.

  “We don’t really know anyone here…just my brother Staffan, of course. And my other brother Kenneth, but he’s already gone…”

  Irene smiled at Staffan Östberg’s obviously upset older sister. “I’ve actually met Staffan once.”

  “Are you a friend of…hers…Angelika?”

  “Nooo, I wouldn’t say that. Our children hang out together,” Irene replied.

  “Yes, well…we hadn’t met Angelika before, or any of her friends…but now we really have to get going. Pelle is tired.”

  Judging by the fact that he was leaning against the doorpost with his eyes closed, she was probably right. With a determined look on her attractively made-up face, the short woman took one of her husband’s arms and helped him down the stairs.

  He began to speak loudly. “Can you believe they were openly smoking hash in the living room? I really ought to call the police! I wonder how Staffan found himself among people like these?”

  His wife shushed him and pulled him toward the gate. They had trouble keeping their balance on the still slippery flagstones.

  Irene turned back to the house, but she couldn’t see either Katarina or the two boys. For a second, she was tempted to turn around and go straight home, but her curiosity got the better of her yet again. She headed into the hallway and began to look around discreetly.

  First she looked into Sophie’s room. A cluster of young people was inside, looking at Sophie’s dance notation on the wall. Irene recognized Lina’s pink braids, but she had difficulty placing the others. She could tell by their analytical comments that they were all dancers. She gently backed out of the room.

  The smell of hash, which Staffan’s brother-in-law had protested about, wafted from the living room. Irene followed it and tried to sidle in without being seen. But she awkwardly bumped into a middle-aged woman coming out. The woman’s black upsweep had come loose, and a clump of hair hung over one of her ears as if it were a Jamaican hat set askew. All her eye shadow had smeared beneath her eyes in black and blue lines. It didn’t look like she’d intended to wear Halloween makeup, but it certainly looked like she was now. Her heavy breasts were generously exposed in the deep décolletage on a silver-embroidered black kaftan. She was holding a joint between her fingers. She turned her runny red eyes toward Irene and said, “Don’t bother going in here. All the guys are over thirty.” She pressed a lilac-painted fingernail onto Irene’s collarbone and, confiding in a low, intimate tone, she said, “I like ’em young and fresh. My last one was just twenty-two…”

  She laughed hoarsely and winked conspiratorially at Irene, before an entirely different expression crossed her face. She muttered, “Gotta find the bathroom…” as she swept away, her kaftan billowing around her corpulent body. Obviously she shared her preference with Angelika.

  Irene spied Angelika herself sitting on a sofa chatting with two men much younger than she was. One of them was Marcelo, but Irene did not recognize the other one. They sat on either side of Angelika and looked like they were enjoying themselves. Everyone else in the living room seemed to be having fun, too, except for Staffan Östberg, who was in a recliner by the fireplace. He was sipping red wine from a cocktail glass, but his stiff smile seemed plastered on. For some reason, he was wearing a pair of dark blue suit trousers, a white shirt, and, instead of the customary jacket, a blue, embroidered vest. A young woman with red hair had fallen asleep with her head in his lap. Every once in a while, he stroked her hair as if she were a cat or twirled a lock of it and let it slip through his fingers. His eyes were staring at a painting on the other side of the room.

  Irene moved closer and confirmed her suspicions. The Volvo CEO was completely stoned. Once he finished his red wine, he’d probably be unaware of what went on around him for hours. Angelika would have plenty of time for more fun before the night was through.

  Irene slipped back out of the living room. It seemed as if Angelika hadn’t even noticed she’d been there.

  In the dining room, a dance party was in full swing. The furniture had been pushed aside and the rugs had been rolled up. There was a stereo on the large table. Robbie William’s song “Radio” was going full blast. Vampires and witches were packed tightly together on the dance floor. No one noticed Irene. She might as well have been invisible.

  She decided to climb the stairs to the second floor. She tried the door to Ernst’s music room, but it was locked. So was the room with the grand piano. For some reason she couldn’t put her finger on, Irene was relieved. She didn’t think it had to do with preserving a sacred space if the partygoers had gotten access to the rooms, but rather preventing destruction.

  Irene pushed open the door to the guest room, but heard a noise that made her quickly shut it again. The bed was occupied.

  Guitar music and singing came from Marcelo’s room. Someone was singing “In the Ghetto” in a way that would make Elvis roll over in his grave.

  She found herself in the deserted hallway of the upper floor. As quietly as she could, she went to the door hiding the stairway to Frej’s attic apartment.

  She knocked on the door. When no one answered after three times, she tried the door. It was locked. She looked in the tiny bathroom. It was empty. The remaining door was the one to Frej’s darkroom. She knocked loudly, and there was no response. To her surprise, she found the door slid open when she tried it. She hesitated on the threshold, and then decided to go in. She quietly closed the door behind her.

  On the wall over a workbench, a light bulb cast a dim, reddish glow. Irene turned on her flashlight and let the beam play over the room. The brighter light revealed a rather large but Spartan space. There were a number of bowls and tubs on the counter below the red light. She could see some photographs hung on a line to dry. There was a huge black curtain he could draw shut if he wanted to block out all the light from the window. In front of the huge gaveled window was a large table and above it a long strip of fluorescent light.

  Probably Frej needed that when he wanted to inspect his photographs more carefully. A computer desk complete with a Mac was along one of the walls. There was also a color printer and a scanner. But Irene’s attention was caught by the photographs set up along the other long wall.

  Fires. In all the photographs, fires were burning. These were not small, controlled bonfires, as found on Walpurgis Night, but huge flames—true fires, and at least three of them were coming from houses.

  She heard a sound behind her back and instinctively threw herself forward. The kick went over her head.

  If she hadn’t moved, she would have been knocked unconscious. Perhaps even killed.

  He must have been hidden behind the drapes, the thought shot through her mind as she dropped lightning fast to the floor and thrust her upper leg into her opponent’s stomach while swinging her lower leg behind the leg he was balancing on. With all her power, she knocked his leg out from under him. He fell, and she scrambled up to get some distance between them. She could see his eyes glare with anger, and he was already coming up back to his feet.

  “Frej! Cut it out! You’re messing with a police officer!” she said as sharply as she could.

  He seemed not to hear, but was getting ready for another attack.

  Then the door opened.

  “Mamma! What are you doing?”

  Neither Irene nor Frej broke their gaze, but Katarina’s voice stopped Frej cold.

  “What am I doing! Why don’t you ask Frej what he’s doing?” Irene said as indignantly as she could.

  “What I’m doing!” Frej was so angry his voice broke. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re snooping around in my house!”

  Irene decided to change tactics. She smiled as if she were asking forgiveness. She said in her most friendly manner, “I really didn’t mean to snoop, as you put it. I was looking for Katarina. She forgot to give me a key. I thought she might have gone up here. But it must have been you I saw going up the stairs.”

  “You came in h
ere! Into my darkroom!”

  “Well, the door was open. Since the door to your apartment was locked, I thought she must have gone in here. And, just by the by, you ought to think twice before you use a capoeira kick. You could kill someone with that force,” Irene said in a mild reproach.

  “You had a flashlight and you were sneaking around in here, like, I don’t know, like a thief! How was I supposed to know who you were?” Frej glared at her with fury.

  “I couldn’t find the light switch,” Irene said simply. She turned toward her daughter. “Please, Katarina, please just give me the key so I can go home. I’ve really had a terrible day.”

  Without saying a word or even looking at her, Katarina took the house key from her key ring and handed it to Irene.

  “I’ll hang it back on the inside door of the garbage room,” Irene said, as she tried to catch her daughter’s eye.

  “Sure,” Katarina said without emotion. She took Felipe’s arm and practically pushed him out of the room.

  Irene turned back to Frej. “I’m sorry things have come to this. But as a matter of fact, I am investigating the death of your sister. You have to accept that part of my job is snooping around, as you put it.”

  “Like it’s part of your job to put diabetics into comas? Is it part of your job to enter a house where there’s a private party? Is it? Is it?”

  “No, that was…unfortunate.” Irene swallowed, uncomfortable with the turn the conversation was taking. To change the subject, she nodded toward the photographs.

  “So, you like fires?”

  Frej stared at her with hostility. It seemed he didn’t intend to answer, but then he surprised her by turning to look at his photographs and saying, after a moment, “No, that was Sophie. She wanted inspiration for her Fire Dance.”

  “Where did you take them?”

  “Here and there. Walpurgis Night. Some real fires.” He shrugged as if he weren’t interested in where they were taken.

  “How did you locate the real fires?”

  “Followed fire trucks and stuff.”