they had been looking for? Irene had a hard time believing it. Not in her wildest fantasy could she picture Bobo Torsson knocking down Richard von Knecht and throwing him off the balcony, fabricating the bomb on Berzeliigatan, and then blowing himself to kingdom come. The last maybe by mistake. It wasn’t even logical, since it didn’t answer the question of why.
Why would Bobo murder Richard von Knecht? Why would he destroy his own home and studio? Not to mention himself! Picturing Charlotte in any of these roles was even harder. She certainly wasn’t a bomb maker. But the fact that Bobo and Charlotte knew each other was interesting. Were they still friends? More than friends? It seemed to be time to have a talk with young Fru von Knecht. Henrik von Knecht had gotten the mumps as an adult, and subsequently meningitis. Had the mumps spread to his testicles? If so, was he sterile? Viewed in the light of this latest information, she thought that many of Sylvia’s odd reactions over the past few days became more understandable. If you know that your son is sterile, would you be glad to hear that your daughter-in-law is pregnant? And the follow-up question was possibly even more interesting: In that case, who was the father of Charlotte’s child? Why did Henrik react as he did? According to his own statement he was prepared to try to keep his shaky marriage together, “For the sake of the child and the survival of the family.” That didn’t make sense. Either he thought he was the father of the child, or else he didn’t care. But if he was sterile he must know it! And if he didn’t care, would he then be prepared to continue working on his relationship with Charlotte?
She was aroused from her musings by a voice in her ear.
“’Scuse. Lady want more coffee?” A short, dark waiter was giving her a friendly smile and holding out the glass coffeepot. To her dismay she realized that in her distraction she had actually been sipping the coffee slop.
JIMMY’S FACE brightened with joy when she came in with a bag of goodies and a stack of newspapers. He looked about like he did the day before, only a little darker purple in complexion. The IV was gone and he was sitting in a high-backed vinyl armchair over by the window. There was room for one more patient in the room, but that bed was still empty.
“Hi Jimmy! You look like an LSD hallucination,” Irene said cheerfully.
“Thank you. That’s just what I needed to hear.”
He laughed heartily and they chatted about neutral topics. Irene gave him the latest news on the investigative front. He was exceedingly interested in the information about the traces of narcotics in the summer cabins.
“We’ve been investigating part of the motorcycle gang for a long time. Death Squadron Number One is especially interesting. They’ve been full members of the Hell’s Angels for several years. The gangs ride around Europe and visit each other. It takes a lot before two lowly customs agents down in Helsingborg will start rummaging through twenty Hell’s Angels packs when they’ve been visiting their brothers in Denmark or Holland. We also know that they smuggle narcotics in other ways.”
“Why do they deal drugs?”
“Big business. Hardly any of the members have a job. They need plenty of money for daily living, new choppers and spare parts, club-houses and weapons. They have enough weapons to start a revolution! And many of them are drug users themselves. So dope for their own use too. They say they belong to ‘the extreme percentage—the sociopaths, for whom no laws apply.’”
He fell silent and both of them had the same thought. It was Jimmy who expressed it. “Sometimes I think, They could have done whatever they wanted to me. I was completely defenseless. And a defenseless cop! So sometimes I wonder why they didn’t finish us off.”
Once more Irene saw the glow of the explosion and she felt the hot pressure wave against her face. She could only whisper, “They thought about it. They tried.”
Softly, she began to tell him as objectively as possible. Sometimes she had to pause to wipe away her tears, but she wanted him to know the exact course of events. He was the only one who could understand her feelings, since he had been there. While she was speaking, she noticed that the last emotional knots were loosening and she felt a sense of calm rising inside