others.”
Fredrik lived a few minutes from HQ. For him it was no big detour. But Irene decided not to waste any more time. The best thing for her would be to zip up the big freeways and not venture downtown. Two SIG Sauers should be enough.
She said curtly, “Okay, I’m on my way.”
She hung up. An idea occurred to her. She took a few steps over to the hat rack and started rooting around in the pockets of her leather jacket. In the inside pocket she found her little notebook. She turned to the last pages with the heading “R. v. K.” Richard von Knecht. The murder of that man had started this whole merry-go-round. Irene shook her head as she searched for the phone number of the caretaker, Lennart Svensson. She found it. The phone rang ten times with no answer.
She went back to her family in the living room. Doing her best to sound casual she said, “Sorry, but I have to run off. Things are happening in the von Knecht case.”
Krister unconsciously pursed his lips and said, “And so you have to be there, of course? Even though it’s your day off? Can’t they get along without you?”
Her mother and the twins also looked disappointed. Irene felt a pang of guilty conscience, as usual, but steeled herself. Somewhat more authoritatively she said, “We’re beginning to get close to solving the case. At least I think so. And Birgitta Moberg is in a bind. I have to help her out. She hasn’t had any luck contacting anyone else. See you later, and thanks for a wonderful dinner.”
She turned on her heel and made a flying start back out to the hall. Way too much time had already been lost. She grabbed her jacket and heavy jogging shoes on the way out to the garage.
THE SIGN HOLTA CHURCH flashed by and she slowed down. Now she had to make sure not to miss the exit. There it was! Tjuvkil. She turned onto the gravel road. There were no streetlights out here. The darkness was intense outside the field of her headlights. A little yellow arrow with black text said KÄRRINGNÄSET. She had to turn there. The road was narrow. The branches of the bushes and trees along the ditch scraped along the side of the car.
It was a good thing that Birgitta had the presence of mind to turn on her taillights, or Irene would have crashed into the rear of her car. True to form, she had been driving too fast. Birgitta had left the dark blue Volvo stakeout car in the middle of the road. There was no other place to park it. She turned off the taillights, hopped out of the car, and approached Irene.
“Good of you to come. And here comes Fredrik,” she added.
Irene also put her blinkers on. The arriving car braked, and Fredrik jumped out even before the engine turned off. Eagerly he said, “It took a little extra time, but I slipped into Narcotics and borrowed a weapon. I was thinking of you and Jimmy. Too bad they couldn’t spare another officer. So it’s just the three of us. You didn’t have any luck getting hold of Jonny or Hans?”
Birgitta shook her head and stretched out her hand so she could take a look at the famous night-vision telescope in the flashlight beam. Irene answered for her, “Borg is probably taking an after-dinner nap. And there’s no hope of trying to get Tommy to come out here. He’s in Borås at Agneta’s parents’ house.”
They walked toward the two-meter-high gates of solid iron with inhospitable spikes on top. Fredrik shook the heavy iron bars to test them, but the gate was locked. The fence was just as high, and barbed wire ran along the top between tall iron posts.
After thinking for a moment, Birgitta said, “Irene, you’ve studied the map of this area better than we have. How far is it to the house from here?”
“Almost a kilometer. Close to the fence here are pastures for Sylvia’s horses. A few hundred meters farther along the road—I’d say about five hundred—is the caretaker’s house.”
Birgitta looked around, pondering, and said, “Shorty’s car isn’t parked here, as far as I can see.”
“Are you sure he was coming here?”
“Yes. I followed him up to Holta Church. He turned down toward Tjuvkil and then continued straight ahead. So I turned around and headed down the same road. I saw his lights in front of me. Then I switched