The Cruel Stars of the Night - Kjell Eriksson [91]
“Whatever you say,” Sammy said. “But of course he joined the Nazi party in the early thirties, earlier than—”
“Okay,” Ottosson interrupted the exchange. “It’s unlikely that a group of masked youths are behind these serial killings, definitely not if the design follows a chess game.”
In the long and intense discussion that followed Lindell only participated infrequently and the longer the meeting went on the more difficult she found it to say anything about the photograph.
Should they cancel the royal visit? That was the DA’s considered opinion. The chief of police and Ottosson argued against it. Morenius weighed in that he thought the court should be contacted at once and that they would have to make the final decision.
Lindell tried to meet Sammy Nilsson’s gaze. He looked tired but smiled at her. She took it as a sign and decided to wait with the photo, talk to Sammy, and hear him out. There was still time.
“But what if the media gets wind of this?”
Morenius’s tense voice made everyone else stop talking.
“You can imagine the headlines. I think we pass this along to the court,” he continued, “that way we’re in the clear.”
“Yes, perhaps we should inform them,” the police chief said.
“And look absolutely ridiculous,” Ottosson objected with unexpected vehemence.
Ander coughed and waved his hand.
“I know that many of you think this hypothesis is absurd but my intuition tells me it can’t simply be coincidence. Lindell, do you have something else?”
She realized that Ander sensed her doubt and now he wanted to hear her say that they didn’t have a single other lead to pursue. She was again tempted to bring up the photo but resisted. She didn’t want to embarrass Fredriksson in such a public setting.
“That someone out to kill the queen would first perpetrate a whole series of murders I find, mildly put, very unusual,” she said cautiously, “but stranger things have happened.”
Ander accepted this as a half confession and smiled at her.
The final decision was to inform the court but that they would not at the present time take any additional measures. Nothing was allowed to leak to the media. If the papers got wind of a possible threat to the royal family then the resulting situation would be chaotic.
Twenty-eight
The container had been picked up and yet more cubic meters of the family’s history had been carried away Laura had asked the driver where he dumped everything.
“It can be burned, and in that case it’ll end up in the furnace in Bolän-derna,” he answered, casting an indifferent eye into the container.
She had an impulse to follow the container truck, and see all the junk tumble into an enormous burning inferno, catch fire, and literally go up in flames.
Now a new container stood in the driveway Laura dragged out several bags from the garage and furniture from the house and the container was already half full. Her activities attracted a certain attention on the street. Many of the neighbors had already found a reason to walk past “the Dream House,” they slowed their pace and stared with curiosity at what the Hin-dersten woman was tossing out.
There was talk. Some speculated that she was on her way to leaving the neighborhood. Others believed she was cleaning up after her father. A rumor had arisen that she was going to do a large-scale renovation of the house. Someone had seen her run half naked from the house to the garage. Another could tell that she had heard mysterious, shrill sounds from the upper story.
From having been relatively quiet for a time, the gossip had now gained new momentum and the house stood in the center of the neighborhood’s attention.
Laura noticed her neighbors’ interest but ignored their curious looks and questions. She worked on purposefully. Where this drive came from she wasn’t sure. She was still going to leave everything—the house, Uppsala, and Sweden. But she didn’t want strangers to touch the objects, books, and furniture. It was up to her and no one else to settle the score with her former life.
The upper floor was the hardest, not because she