the escalator proved to be wrong, imagine with what scornful laughter it would be scattered, like fog, into empty nothingness. In that case it would be a sweaty conversation with Sylvia.
JUST BEFORE three o’clock they went back to the car. All three had tired feet, but they were happily sated with purchases and impressions. There was no doubt about it: This year there would be a Christmas too. Irene started the car, and only then did she tell the girls that she had to run an errand at someone’s apartment. But it was on the way home, not a detour. The girls griped but promised to wait in the car. Irene parked on Kapellplatsen so that they could stroll around and do some window-shopping. It wasn’t that much fun, though, because all the stores were closed, except for the Konsum grocery store and the bakery. After NK all the other Christmas decorations were an anticlimax. IT WAS Arja who opened the door. She smiled her pleasant smile but it faded rapidly when her sister’s whiny voice was heard from inside the apartment.
“Is it that cop person?”
Before Arja could reply, Irene shouted back, “It’s Detective Inspector Irene Huss from the Homicide Commission.”
She’d be damned if she’d let herself be called a “cop person”! And there wasn’t anything called the “Homicide Commission,” but Sylvia wouldn’t know that. It sounded good. Arja at least was impressed, when she stepped back to let Irene in, as evidenced by her wide eyes and slightly gaping mouth.
Sylvia came out of the kitchen with her lips pressed together in annoyance. Presumably she had gotten lost because the kitchen was not one of the places where she usually spent any time. Irene recalled the virginal kitchen implements over the stove. And the empty hook where a meat cleaver was missing. She tried to smile and look pleasant.
“Thanks for letting me come up and bother you for a moment. I just need to check on one thing. It’s about the keys.”
“Yes?”
“Can we go upstairs?”
Sylvia jerked her neck and began striding toward the stairs to the upper level. Irene assumed that it was all right to follow.
In the upstairs hall Sylvia stopped and turned. She coolly raised one eyebrow and said, “The keys?”
“Would you please get the spare-key ring? The one you said you keep in your desk drawer in your office. I’ll go in and get your husband’s key case. That is, if it’s still on his nightstand?”
Sylvia snorted lightly before she replied, “In the drawer of the nightstand. The police just traipse around at will in my home! I don’t suppose I can stop you. You’ve already taken his car keys, without returning them!”
She swiftly turned and glided away toward her office. Irene swallowed the words that were on the tip of her tongue. Don’t get mad, don’t get mad . . .
The room had changed. It took a fraction of a second before Irene noticed that the paintings were gone. There were a couple of paintings on the empty walls, but they weren’t “sex pictures,” as Irene in her ignorance had called them. A “collection of erotica,” Henrik von Knecht had corrected her. Imagine how much useful information she had learned in the course of this investigation! The ones that were in the room now were completely normal paintings. Modern and eccentric, but not nudes. A sudden pang of sympathy for Sylvia went through her. She quickly went over to the enormous silk bed and opened the drawer of Richard’s nightstand. It contained paper tissues, some ice-blue cough drops in transparent wrappers, and the shiny, black leather key case. Now she would see if she was right. She was surprised to see that her hands were shaking a little when she unsnapped the case. Out fell the six keys, hanging from their hooks. All were equally shiny. All were made of exactly the same type of metal. All had no numbers or markings. No wear whatsoever. This was the newly made set of keys, the one that Richard had had made at Mister Minit less than six months ago. A sigh of relief escaped her.
“Did you find anything of interest?”
Irene heard Sylvia’s voice behind her back. You could have cut glass with it. Calmly Irene turned around, walked over to the rigid, thin little woman, and said, “Have you looked at Richard’s set of keys since he died?”
Sylvia’s eyes widened in astonishment but soon resumed their inimical attitude.
“Why would I do that? I have my own!”
“You haven’t