Night Rounds

by Helene Tursten

  “No, only Carina, but I knew that already, of course.”

  For the moment it looked as if nothing more could come out of this interview. The police officers stood up and thanked the doctor for his time. Then Irene was struck by a thought. “Does your ex-wife, Barbro, know that you’re going to shut the hospital?”

  Sverker looked at her quizzically. “No, why would she know that? We’re not in touch at all, especially after John and Julia moved to the United States.”

  “Do you have contact with your children?”

  “Of course,” he replied tersely.

  “Do you think that she might have heard from them about Carina’s plans to start a fitness center?”

  For the first time during their conversation, Sverker looked irritated. “No, they hardly talk to her. Why are you asking these kinds of questions anyway?”

  “Just a thought. Barbro has tried to throw suspicion on you and Carina before. Like the time when the mansion burned down.”

  “We didn’t take that seriously. Nobody believed her. It was clear that she wasn’t in her right mind. Barbro would never hurt a fly.”

  That might depend on how strong her desire for revenge is, Irene thought.

  IRENE AND TOMMY swung by the ICU to have a chat with Nurse Anna-Karin.

  “I believe she’s hiding something,” Tommy said.

  “Why do you think that?” Irene asked.

  “Just experience and a cop’s nose.”

  They decided they’d bring her to the police station if she didn’t cooperate about what she knew.

  When they pressed the door opener to the ICU, nothing happened. The door stayed shut. Tommy knocked hard, and they could hear approaching footsteps.

  “Who is it?” a voice called.

  It wasn’t Anna-Karin’s voice but that of a somewhat older woman.

  “Inspectors Huss and Persson,” Tommy said.

  The door was opened carefully. The elderly nurse introduced herself as Margot.

  “We’re looking for Anna-Karin,” Tommy said in his friendliest voice.

  “Anna-Karin isn’t working today. There aren’t any operations planned, so she took the day off.”

  Not what they expected to hear.

  “Do you know where we can find her?”

  Margot smiled conspiratorially and lowered her voice. “I believe she’s found herself a boyfriend. It’s a new relationship. I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but since you’re police officers.… He lives in Varberg.”

  “Varberg? Do you know where?”

  “No, but I think her friend is a teacher. Or somebody who works in a school. Maybe he’s a principal. No, I really don’t remember. Why are you in such a hurry to find Anna-Karin? Nothing else … horrible has happened, has it?”

  “No, we’re not in a rush. We can talk to her tomorrow,” Tommy said.

  Something occurred to Irene. “If she didn’t go to Varberg, maybe she’s at home. Could we have her address?”

  “Sure. I have it written down in here.” Nurse Margot walked over to her desk and opened the bottom drawer. She took out a black address book similar to the one at the reception desk. “Here’s her apartment on Munkebäcksgatan. She is subletting it from someone. And here’s her phone number.”

  The nurse handed the slip of paper to Irene, who immediately asked if she could borrow the phone. She dialed the number on the slip. The phone rang, but no one answered. A shadow of worry passed over the elderly nurse’s face.

  “If she hasn’t gone shopping in town, then she must be in Varberg,” Irene said, giving the nurse a soothing smile.

  As soon as the heavy ICU door closed behind them, Irene turned to Tommy and said softly, “Let’s get to Munkebäcksgatan right away.”

  THE REDBRICK, FOUR-STORY building appeared peaceful. The keypad at the entrance was broken, so all they had to do was push open the door and go right in. They found Anna-Karin’s apartment on the second floor. She’d written her name on a bit of surgical tape and stuck it over the nameplate. They rang the worn-out doorbell a number of times, but no one answered. Irene opened the mail flap and glanced inside. She could see a number of advertising flyers on the floor inside.

  “She’s not home,” Irene said.

  “I WAS SURPRISED how freely Löwander admitted his medical mistake in the case of Nils Peterzén but how close-mouthed he was about Linda and his ex-wife,” Tommy said. They were driving back to the station in the squad car.

  “You think? I bet that his mistake about Peterzén has been eating him up inside and he needed someone to talk to about it.”

  “He doesn’t need to worry about the police as much as he has to worry about the National Board of Health and Welfare, that’s for sure. But listen to yourself. You’re trying to defend Löwander’s behavior. I’d guess that women often are willing to make excuses for that guy.”

  “You do?” Irene said weakly. She’d been thinking about Birgitta’s comment that some people were born to be monogamous. Now she also thought about Tommy’s words, and something began to stir deep in her mind.

  THAT AFTERNOON BOTH Tommy and Irene spent planted squarely in front of their computers catching up on paperwork, lost in concentration.

  “There must be a common motive for all three murders,” Irene said. “We just haven’t figured it out yet.”

  She paused in her typing and watched Tommy peck away with his one-finger method. His only reply was, “Hmm.”

  “We’ve got to get Anna-Karin to talk. I just know she’s sitting on something big.”

  “Hmm.”

  Irene gave up and went back to her typing.

  THAT EVENING THE town house was filled with the wonderful smell of crispy fried fillets of flounder and mashed potatoes. Jenny was enjoying a bowl of lentil soup and eating a side dish of raw carrots. Krister dipped his spoon into Jenny’s bowl for a taste.

  “Well, it’s edible,” he declared. “But I don’t think it tastes all that great.”

  “Nothing should lose its life for my meals,” Jenny pronounced.

  “Did you hear that vegetables scream when you harvest them?” Katarina asked, a mischievous look on her face.

  “They do not,” Jenny replied.

  “They sure do. Russian scientists have proved it. They’ve measured—”

  “Katarina, cut it out,” Krister ordered.

  Both daughters shut up and stared at their father. He seldom became angry, but once he did, they knew to watch out.

  Irene was grateful that her husband had stopped that particular argument in its tracks. She had no illusions about Jenny. If she began to feel sorry for vegetables, she might just stop eating them, too. And once she’d stopped eating vegetables because the poor things screamed when harvested, she would starve to death. There were limits to what parents could put up with.

  Chapter 20

  “A NEIGHBOR DISCOVERED the fire shortly after midnight. Arson. The technician—that Svensson guy—called me from the scene of the fire and told me that he’s absolutely sure it started in the hallway. The whole apartment burned up, even though other units in the building were not damaged as much. It looks like someone poured flammable liquid through the mail slot and then set it on fire with a burning rag or the like.” Superintendent Andersson, in deep gloom, surveyed his investigators. No one commented on his report, but they all were unusually alert, especially for that hour of the morning. “The technician also said there was no one in the apartment at that time.”

  Irene had a fledgling idea. “Did Anna-Karin contact us?” she asked.

  “No, but it’s only been eight hours since the fire broke out. I doubt it’ll even be in the paper this morning. In any case, as soon as she hears about it, she’ll contact us, I’m sure.”

  Tommy said thoughtfully, “One of the nurses in the ICU told us that she was planning to be at her boyfriend’s place in Varberg.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  “No, and when we asked, she said she only knew he worked in
a school.”

  The furrows in the superintendent’s brow were so deep he was beginning to look like an English bulldog. After a moment his face relaxed and he recovered his voice. “This is what we’ll do. Call the radio stations and have them send a bulletin out instructing her to contact the police immediately.”

  “You can only do that in a case of life-and-death danger,” Jonny pointed out.

  The superintendent bellowed, “This is a case of life-and-death danger! Anna-Karin is the killer’s next victim.”

  TWO HOURS LATER a frightened Anna-Karin called Superintendent Andersson’s direct line. He told her that something serious had happened, but not what it was. He said that she had to come to the station immediately. He was sending a squad car to pick her up and bring her to the Göteborg Central Police Station.

  Irene and Tommy found the wait tedious. Irene kept mulling over her thoughts.

  Some people are monogamous. And now another fire had broken out.

  ANNA-KARIN WAS WHITE as death and obviously terrified. As she walked between two uniformed patrol officers, she looked as if she were heading to her own execution. Irene felt sorry for her, but she also felt that this was a self-inflicted wound. She should have spoken up right from the start.

  Irene ushered Anna-Karin into their office and thanked her Varberg colleagues for their help in bringing her in. Tommy started to exchange pleasantries with the young woman.

  “I’ll go get three cups of coffee,” Irene chirped as she headed down the hallway. She wanted Anna-Karin to relax with Tommy before she would hit her full force.

  Anna-Karin was sobbing when Irene came back. Tommy was sitting next to her and petting her hand comfortingly as he murmured consoling words. He was great at this. He glanced up at Irene with a look that said, Let’s give her a few more minutes.

  “I’ve just told her about the fire in her apartment and that it was arson,” Tommy said.

  Irene nodded and set the coffee mugs on the table. She calmly sipped from hers while she waited for Anna-Karin to stop crying. Just about the time Irene wondered if she’d ever stop, Anna-Karin began to pull herself together. She blew her nose into a paper tissue that Tommy pulled out of nowhere for her. Her voice shook as she asked, “Who would have done this? Why would anyone.…”

  Quietly, Irene replied, “We can’t say who it is, but we know that only you can answer why.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. You shared a secret with Linda. Poor Gunnela Hägg saw something that she shouldn’t have seen. Now both Linda and Gunnela are dead.”

  Irene paused dramatically to let her words sink in before she continued. “A few evenings ago, Siv Persson received a visit from someone who knocked on her door and peered through her mail slot. Siv was home, and the killer could see her feet next to the door. Otherwise a fire might have broken out there as well. Who knows?”

  “Why … why Siv?”

  “She saw the murderer dressed as a ghost on the night of the murder. The only other witness was Gunnela Hägg, and now she’s dead.”

  “How is Siv?”

  “We’ve sent her away to a safe place. Now the killer has turned to you. Why?”

  Although she cleared her throat a few times, Anna-Karin’s voice wavered. “I … I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do. You know. Or you suspect. Your loyalty to Linda is admirable but misguided. Remember, she’s dead and you’re next in line.”

  Anna-Karin began to shake. “That’s … impossible. There can’t be a connection.”

  With great care Tommy edged his way into the conversation. “Let us make that decision. Maybe what you know is just a tiny piece of the whole puzzle. But it might be the most important one, so much so that the killer is willing to murder you because of it.” He placed his hand lightly over hers again. “You’re protecting someone. Not Linda. Someone who is still alive. I have an idea who it might be, but you need to tell us his name.”

  Anna-Karin pulled her hand back and stared at Tommy wildly. He returned her look with calm, sympathetic brown eyes.

  She opened and closed her mouth a few times, as if she were trying to catch her breath, her lips pale in her white face. Irene was afraid that she was going to pass out. Instead she exhaled slowly, and tears began to slide down her face again. Her voice sounded half suffocated, but she managed to say, “Sverker. Sverker Löwander.” She received a fresh tissue and blew her nose again. It seemed that just pronouncing the doctor’s name out loud broke a dam. “Sverker and Linda were … together. They were very much in love. Linda told me that they were going to get married as soon as his divorce from Carina was final.”

  Irene had had her suspicions but was surprised to have them confirmed. Sverker and Linda! He was twice her age! She gathered her scattered thoughts and remembered the effect he had even on herself. He had “it,” as people used to say. The twins would say that he was “hot.” Some have it, some don’t. And some are monogamous by nature and some are not. Sverker Löwander had proved that he certainly wasn’t monogamous when he left Barbro for Carina. This time he was having an affair with an even younger woman. Why hadn’t he admitted to it?

  “Do you know how long this has been going on?” she asked.

  Anna-Karin nodded and swallowed. “Since the Christmas dinner. They were together after that.”

  “You know this for sure?”

  “Yes. Linda told me how it happened. I promised never to tell anyone, but … I don’t know.… It must be what you’re talking about.… This must be the secret. Though I really don’t understand why. Sverker loved Linda. He never would have hurt her. He’s a gentle man.” Anna-Karin fell silent and wiped her nose on a dry corner of the tissue.

  “What else did Linda tell you? Did she say how it came about?”

  “As I said, it was after the Christmas dinner for the employees. We always have a dinner before we close the hospital for Christmas vacation. We went to a restaurant. I guess they used to have the dinner at the hospital, but I wasn’t there back then. Anyway, we had a Christmas smorgasbord, and there was dancing later. The older nurses went home early, but we younger ones stayed. Sverker Löwander stayed, too, and danced with all of us. He knows a bunch of different dances.”

  He’s certainly old enough to have lived through all those dance styles when they were brand-new, Irene thought.

  Anna-Karin paused for a moment to think. “We were all really loaded, too. We’d been drinking mulled wine, beer, and schnapps. Linda told me later that lightning seemed to strike them when they were out on the dance floor together. They probably slipped away in a taxi when we weren’t looking.”

  “Where?”

  “The hospital. They couldn’t go to his place or hers. Pontus was still living with her, and Sverker had Carina. So they went to the on-call apartment.”

  Irene had the unpleasant thought that history certainly had a tendency to repeat itself. “Did they meet there often after that?”

  Anna-Karin nodded. “Yes, that’s the only place they could be together. On the weekends, when the hospital was empty. Then Linda broke up with Pontus. They probably could have gone to her place after that, but the neighbors.…”

  “Linda told you that they were planning to get married?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did she tell you that?”

  Anna-Karin swallowed a few times before she replied in a whisper, “The weekend before she … died. She’d come to my place because I was alone. My guy was at work. We shared a bottle of wine. That’s when she told me everything. Nobody else knew anything about it. But I guess she felt she had to confide in someone.”

  “Please excuse this personal question, but what is your boyfriend’s name and why was he working on the weekend? We’ve heard he worked at a school, and they don’t work on weekends, do they?”

  A tiny smile appeared on Anna-Karin’s otherwise troubled face.

  “His name is Ola Pettersson, and he is the principal of Varberg’s high school. He was one of the cha
perones for a school dance Saturday evening, so we weren’t together that weekend.”

  Irene returned to her main line of questioning. “So in that short space of time, Sverker had already proposed?”

  “Yes, that’s what she said.”

  “Did she say anything else? Did she feel threatened by anyone?”

  “No, not at all. She was out of her mind with happiness.”

  Irene thought over what she’d just heard. Now she understood why Linda was at Löwander Hospital in the middle of the night. She asked carefully, “Do you believe that Linda was meeting Sverker the night she and Marianne were killed?”

  Anna-Karin nodded and said with a shaking voice, “Yes, and I just can’t figure it out. I’ve been beating my brains out over this. I was the only person who knew that they were together and meeting at the hospital. Why were Marianne and Linda killed? It can’t have been Sverker. I know that. He loved Linda.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because of what Linda said. And you police, too, must see that he’s sick with sorrow! I can tell you he’s aged ten years in just the few weeks since Linda disappeared—and was found.”

  Anna-Karin had turned her tissue into a hard ball by this point, and she started nervously plucking tufts from it. Irene sighed and reached for the wastebasket under her desk. She held it toward Anna-Karin as she said in a friendly manner, “You can throw it here.”

  For the first time that day, the nurse’s pale face flushed again to the well-known bright red. It looked much healthier. Irene continued, “Have you thought of where you’re going to live now that your apartment is gone?”

  Anna-Karin started. “I haven’t thought about that yet. I guess I’ll have to stay with Mama for a while. She lives in Kungälv. I can take the bus to work from there.”

  “Good. We will need your telephone number and address there. However, do not go back to work until these murders have been cleared up. And under no circumstances are you to give your new address and phone number to anyone at Löwander Hospital. It’s much too dangerous. Lie low for a while in Kungälv.”

  “Can I leave Kungälv to visit Ola in Varberg?” Anna-Karin asked meekly.