on Monday, when they were here cleaning. Does she usually bring her daughter along?”
“No, only if we’ve had a big party. And if the girl is free,” replied Sylvia brusquely.
Irene looked around the huge room. Now she saw that the columns supporting the floor of the upper level were not made of solid marble at all, as she had thought two days earlier. They were wooden columns very skillfully painted with a marble finish. Naturally, real marble would have been too heavy. The walls were lined with groupings of antique furniture and beautiful cabinets. And what paintings! Irene felt like a lone privileged visitor to an art museum. Parallel to the row of balcony doors shone a dark dining table of mahogany, the longest she had ever seen. She saw a good opening for her conversation with Sylvia.
“What a lovely table. And so long! Is this where you sat on Saturday evening?”
“Yes, of course we were here,” Sylvia said guardedly.
“How many were you?”
“Twenty. We didn’t want to invite too many, just our closest friends. They had all attended our wedding. Except for Henrik and Charlotte, naturally.”
That depends on how you look at it, in Henrik’s case, Irene thought.
Sylvia went on, “Richard’s sister and her husband couldn’t come. They live in Florida. He was having an operation on his prostate or something. He’s seventy-five.”
“And how old is she?”
“Sixty-seven.”
“Could you please tell me who was at the party?”
“Of course. Besides Richard and myself, there were Henrik and Charlotte, Sven and Ann-Marie Tosse, Peder and Ulla Wahl. They had come back to Sweden to see grandchild number four. They were here a whole week before the party. Their eldest daughter Ingrid and her husband came too. Ingrid was a flower girl at our wedding. She was five years old at the time, so sweet. She wasn’t the one who has the new baby; it was the middle daughter Kerstin. She was only two when we got married, so she wasn’t at the wedding. That’s why I didn’t invite her. Or the youngest daughter either. She’s the same age as Henrik.”
She stopped, looking confused. Irene realized that she had lost her train of thought. She had managed to jot down all the names Sylvia had mentioned and was pleased at the pause; it gave her a chance to catch up.
Irene took pity on her and said, “You’ve told me that your family, the Tosses, and the Wahl clan were present. What’s Ingrid’s last name?”
“Von Hjortz.”
“Thank you. I’d like to get the phone numbers for all of them before I go.”
Sylvia nodded and took a deep breath before resuming her guest list. “My mother, Ritva Montgomery. She’s seventy-eight. My sister Arja came over with her from Helsinki. Then there was Valle Reuter—”
She broke off. A cloud of undisguised contempt passed over her face. Quickly she continued, “We were so pleased that Gustav Ceder and his wife, Lady Louise, could come. Her father is almost a hundred years old and on his deathbed. They came last Friday night and flew back to London at lunchtime on Sunday. We haven’t seen them since their silver anniversary four years ago. They couldn’t make it to Richard’s sixtieth birthday, because that’s when her father fell seriously ill, although he made a recovery . . .”
Suddenly she fell silent again, confused. Angrily she exclaimed, “God, how I’m going on! Now I’ve lost my train of thought again!”
She cast an imploring look at Irene, who humored her and said, “Valle Reuter and then Gustav Ceder with his noble wife Louise.”
“Thank you. Our good friend Ivan Viktors, the opera singer, you know, was here too.”
Irene vaguely recognized his name. Apparently he was someone she ought to know, since the superintendent had been so charmed when he heard of him. But Andersson was an opera fan, and Irene was not. The Beatles, Rod Stewart, and Tina Turner were more her taste.
“That leaves only Richard’s two cousins and their husbands. They’re the two daughters of Richard’s aunt. They’re our age and were, as I mentioned, at the wedding. Pleasant, but we don’t see them very often. Both of them live in Stockholm. My mother-in-law was from Stockholm. I’ll give you all the names and addresses you want,” Sylvia said.
She turned on her heel and began gracefully ascending the stairs to the upper floor. Irene decided to follow. The thick runner effectively muted her brisk footsteps on the stairs. At the top Irene caught a glimpse of Sylvia heading through the doorway to the room