him who she was, and then couldn’t figure out exactly what to say next. She was deliberately vague. “I’m at your mother’s right now. She . . . had a slight breakdown. She wants you to come over.”
“Certainly, I’ll be right over. Mamma is quite unstable right now. Why did she break down?”
That was precisely the question Irene wanted to avoid.
“I tried to cheer her up with something positive. I congratulated her on becoming a grandmother . . . I thought she knew.”
There was a long silence. Irene wondered whether Henrik had keeled over too. Finally he snapped, “God damn it!”
Click! He had hung up on her. Irene felt stupid. As if she had done something wrong. Had she? Guiltily, she thought about how she had restrained the hysterical Sylvia. Could she have done it some other way? Hardly.
When she turned back to the bed again, she saw that Sylvia was holding a medicine bottle in her left hand and was about to put her cupped right hand to her mouth. The top drawer of the nightstand was open. Instinctively, Irene bent over and grabbed the woman’s right hand. Three small white tablets with a notch across the middle lay in her palm. There was no question of a suicidal dose.
Making an attempt to regain Sylvia’s trust, she said in an overly cheerful voice, “Would you like some water to take the pills with?”
Sylvia nodded without looking at her. Irene pried loose her grip around the medicine bottle. She quickly read the label: STESOLID TABLETS, 5MG. When she put the bottle back in the drawer, she saw several more just like it. The technicians must have noted this so she closed the drawer.
She went out to the luxurious bathroom and ran some water into a toothbrush glass hanging in a gilt holder on the wall. The glass was cut crystal; and the faucets were gold plated. A large, wet terry-cloth bath towel had been tossed on the floor. Absentmindedly, she hung it up on the heated towel rack on the wall. Pirjo would have a lot to straighten up when she returned.
Sylvia lay staring up at the ceiling when Irene brought her the water glass. She raised herself up on one elbow to take the pills. Then she sank back, exhausted, on the comforter. With her eyes closed she whispered in a barely audible voice, “I didn’t mean to hit you. I wasn’t prepared. It’s all been too much for me.”
Irene didn’t want to let Sylvia off quite yet. It was easy to be seized with sympathy for the small, fragile woman, but Irene had a strong feeling that there was much hidden beneath the surface that needed to be dug out. Why not the truth?
She decided to proceed more cautiously. In a voice overflowing with empathy she said, “You have to forgive me. I thought you knew that Charlotte is pregnant. They told me about it yesterday at police headquarters.”
Sylvia kept her eyes shut. It was an effective way to block out Irene and her disagreeable prying.
Irene was at a loss; how was she going to make any headway? Then she remembered something. “The telephone list, the addresses and phone numbers of the guests last Saturday. Could I have the list?”
Reluctantly Sylvia raised her eyelids. Her eyes were furious and cold, just as hostile as her tone of voice. “I can’t do it. You made me faint. My head is spinning and it feels like I have cotton in my ears. I feel terrible.” She pressed her thin fingers against her temples and began to massage them.
To her own amazement Irene felt anger rising from the pit of her stomach, to her throat, to explode in her head. She tried to control herself, but it was no use. In a cold, neutral voice she said, “Now that you’re lying down anyway, I might as well ask my next question. I’ve looked through a bunch of old newspaper clippings. Richard was seen remarkably often with various beautiful young women. How did you react to that?”
Sylvia stopped massaging her temples. Her eyes again blazed with rage, but her voice revealed nothing when she replied. “Those stupid bimbos were his hobby. He had strong . . . desires. I was always the most important woman in his life. He always came back to me when he began to lose interest in his latest conquest. It usually didn’t take long. He would cower behind me when they started pressuring him, making demands. It’s