He laughed and gave her a desperate look. “But not right under their coats!”
Irene motioned to Tommy. This looked like it was going to be man-to-man talk. He understood and turned with an expression of the greatest sympathy toward the young man. Tactfully he asked, “Robert, are you talking about the Tuesday evening last week, when Charlotte came to pick up her new car?”
“Yes.”
“When did you and Charlotte first meet?”
“Three or four weeks before. There’s a little waiting time for cars with special paint jobs.”
“Does Charlotte’s car have special paint?”
“Yes. Light yellow. A pale lemon yellow. A luscious color.”
“What happened when you were supposed to deliver the car to her?”
“I called all day Friday and Saturday, because we got word that it wouldn’t arrive until after the weekend, on Monday morning. She finally answered just before we closed. So then we agreed that she would come over on Monday afternoon. But she never showed up. On Tuesday I called her house in the morning, but she wasn’t in. Then she called at three in the afternoon and said that she could come down in an hour to pick up the car. She said that she specifically wanted me to help her, nobody else. And I. . was happy to oblige.”
He stopped and looked down at his fingers picking at the label. He had scraped almost the whole thing off the bottle. Tommy leaned forward and said, “When did she arrive?”
“Right after four. She had one of those cloth raincoats on, with a belt drawn tight around her waist and high-heeled shoes. When we went over to her old car, which she was trading in, her coat slipped open and she was wearing some of those nylon stockings that stay up by themselves. And nothing else. When she leaned over the seat. . then I saw. . Naked. She was naked. Except for the stockings.”
He stopped and his cheeks were red. He stole a glance at Irene. She responded with feigned indifference. But inside she was seething with emotion! This was a premeditated seduction.
Tommy ignored her presence and continued as though there were just two men in the room. “She made you hot?”
“What do you think? I’m a guy, after all!”
“So the two of you decided to screw?”
Robert was bright red in the face, but his expression became almost satyrlike when he replied. “You bet! We got into her new car and drove around to the back of the building where an old Ford Transit is parked; we have to fix it up a little before spring. They sell like hotcakes. People buy them as vacation cars. We hopped in the Transit. She brought a blanket and a bag from her old car. So we lay down on the blanket.”
“You were hot, I know that. So it didn’t take long before you were finished?”
To Irene’s satisfaction, some of Robert’s satyr smile was wiped away. “Well, yeah. But we couldn’t take too long because they’d start to miss me in the showroom, you know. But then she said that we’d meet again soon. If I wanted to.”
“And you did, I suppose.”
“Did I ever! It’s what every guy dreams about happening sometime in his life!”
“When did you hear from her again?”
“On Wednesday night. The next day. She said that we’d have to wait a while to meet. Her father-in-law had been murdered, you know. She also said that the police would probably want to get in touch with me. And that she had told them the truth. That she picked up the car. But not the rest. We agreed to say that we’d gone over the new car extra carefully. There are actually quite a few new details on this model. Take for example the new-”
“But that wasn’t what you were doing. Going over new details. How does this fit in with the timetable you gave us? You said that you heard the news on the radio and that she said something like, ‘Oh, it’s the five o’clock news already! I have to hurry!’ And she got her papers for the new car and drove off.”
His whole young face radiated honesty.
“But the last part is true! When we were. . finished. . she put on the clothes she had in her bag. Then when she got into the car she turned on the radio. That’s when we heard the news program. And then she said that part about the five o’clock news.”
Both the detectives could hear that he was telling the truth. They got up, thanked him for the refreshments, and Tommy patted Robert lightly on the shoulder and said, “You probably know that she was using you. Tell me seriously-wasn’t it really too good to be true?”
Robert hung his head, but nodded in agreement.
“If it hadn’t been for the drugs. . but she had to keep taking that shit all the time. Before I left this afternoon, I told her. That it’s dangerous, I mean. I don’t like stuff like that. She was mad and told me I could go to hell. I felt mostly relieved. Really!”
Thank God he was someone who hesitated about contact with narcotics. Charlotte had misjudged him, while Irene had been right. She had liked him after their first conversation on the phone. He had lifted her spirits on that rotten Friday. The Friday she had spent in Stockholm. Impulsively she decided to call Mona Söder as soon as possible.
THEY DROVE by Örgryte, but the house was empty. The garage door was unlocked and when they looked inside, the garage was empty. There was no yellow Golf. In a corner inside the door they found two empty plastic jugs marked “DISTILLED WATER.”
At the department there was still feverish activity even though it was past six. Andersson wasn’t in his office. Birgitta Moberg was deeply engrossed in her computer. On the desk lay stacks of papers and folders. They decided to go down to the pizzeria a few blocks away.
Before they left, Irene called home. Her mother answered. Yes, both the twins were home. They had rented a video, which they were watching. The girls had eaten dinner, and she was going to watch the rest of the movie with them. Before she hung up she said, “Be careful if you go out. It said on the TV news that there are young people rioting downtown. Good thing you’re not involved with such dangerous things. When are you coming home?”
THE UPROAR in the center of town could be heard clearly. They went in the opposite direction and slipped into the pizzeria, whose owner was getting rich from the Göteborg police force. Besides pizza it served excellent dinners. They each ordered goulash and a large regular beer and had bread and salad while they waited for the main course.
As they sat stabbing at the salad with their forks, Birgitta said, “I found something really interesting this afternoon. Bobo Torsson and Hoffa Strömberg were in the same prison. At the same time, that is. There’s the contact between Bobo and the Hell’s Angels.”
“What does Shorty say about that?”
“Naturally he doesn’t know a thing about it, according to him. He did seven years inside, after all. But at a different prison.”
“What was Hoffa in for?”
“Aggravated assault. The victim will never be a human being again. It was a fight between rival motorcycle gangs. We don’t have any evidence against Shorty. He’ll probably be released tomorrow. Andersson is frantic.”
Irene and Tommy told her about their discoveries that afternoon. Birgitta didn’t interrupt the story. She stared at them steadily, not wanting to miss a word. There was an intense gleam in her eyes when she leaned over her piping hot goulash and said in a low voice, “The beautiful people and their glamorous life. It’s so enticing and enviable when you see it from a distance. But if you start to scratch the surface, the gold soon turns to dust.”
AT NINE o’clock Irene called Mona Söder at home and left a message on her answering machine.