“We never had children,” she said briefly.
“Why not?” said Mia. “Couldn’t you conceive or what?”
“I think we could have. But it just sort of never happened. And we accepted that.”
Henrik cleared his throat and started talking to prevent Mia from asking more questions along this line.
“Okay. You didn’t mix with many people, you said?”
“No, we really didn’t.”
“When did you last have visitors?”
“That was a long while ago. Hans was working all the time...”
“No other visitors to the house? Repairmen, for example?”
“Around Christmas a man knocked on the door selling lottery tickets, but otherwise there haven’t been...”
“What did he look like?”
Kerstin stared at Henrik, surprised by the question.
“Tall, blond as I remember. He seemed nice, presentable. But I didn’t buy any tickets from him.”
“Did he have any children with him?”
“No. No, he didn’t. He was alone.”
“Do you know anybody with children?”
“Well, yes, of course. Hans’s half brother. He has an eight-year-old son.”
“Has he been to your house recently?”
Kerstin stared at Henrik again.
“I don’t really follow your question...but, no, he hasn’t been in our house for ages.”
Jana Berzelius drew a ring around the half brother’s name on her notepad. Lars Johansson.
“Do you have any idea who might have done this to your husband?” she said.
Kerstin squirmed a little, looked out of the window and answered, “No.”
“Did your husband have any enemies?” said Henrik.
Kerstin looked down at the table and took a deep breath.
“No, he didn’t.”
“Nobody he was angry with or had argued with or who was angry with him?”
Kerstin didn’t seem to hear the question.
“Kerstin?”
“What?”
“Nobody who was angry with him?”
She shook her head no so violently that the loose skin under her chin wobbled.
“Strange,” said Henrik as he laid out copies of the threatening letters on the table in front of her. “Because as you know, we found these at your house.”
“What are they?”
“The letters from your closet. We are hoping you will tell us about them.”
“But I don’t know what they are. I’ve never seen them before.”
“They seem to be some sort of threats. That means your husband must have had at least one enemy, if not more.”
“But, no...”
Kerstin shook her head again.
“We are very anxious to find out more about who sent these—and why.”
“I have no idea.”
“You haven’t?”
“No, I’ve told you I’ve never seen them before.”
Click-click could be heard from Peter Ramstedt’s pen.
“As my client has said twice, she does not recognize these papers. Would you be so kind and note that now for the record? Then you don’t have to waste time repeating the same question.”
“Mr. Ramstedt, you are surely well aware as to how an interview is carried out. Without extended questioning, we won’t get the information we need,” said Henrik.
“Then be so kind as to stick to relevant questions. My client has clearly stated that she has not seen these papers previously.”
Peter looked straight at Henrik. CLICK-CLICK.
“So you don’t know if your husband felt threatened in any way?” Henrik continued.
“No.”
“No strange phone calls?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Don’t think or don’t know?”
“No, no calls.”
“You don’t know anybody who wanted to warn him? Or get revenge?”
“No. But the nature of his work of course made him rather vulnerable.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well...my husband thought that the decision process for asylum was difficult. He never liked having to turn away any asylum seekers, even though he wasn’t personally responsible for having to tell them himself. He knew how desperate many were when they didn’t get asylum here. But not everyone qualified. And no one has threatened him. Or has sought revenge, if that is the question.”
Henrik wondered whether Kerstin was telling the truth. Hans Juhlén could admittedly have kept the threatening letters hidden away from her. But it did nevertheless seem unlikely that he never during all his years in the job felt frightened of somebody nor talked with his wife about it.
*
“There must have been a relatively serious threat against Juhlén,” Henrik said to Jana when the interview was concluded. They both left the interrogation room with slow steps.
“Yes,” she answered briefly.
“What do you think about the wife?”
Jana remained standing in the corridor while Henrik closed the door. “There are no signs of violence in the house,” she said.
“Perhaps because the murder was well planned.”
“So you think she’s guilty?”
“The spouse is always guilty, right?” Henrik smiled.
“Yes, almost always. But at the moment no evidence links her to the murder.”
“She seemed nervous,” he added.
“That isn’t enough.”
“I know. But it feels as if she isn’t telling the truth.”
“And she probably isn’t, or at least not completely, but to arrest her I’m going to need more than that. If she doesn’t start talking or we can’t get any technical evidence, I’ll have to let her go. You’ve got three days.”
Henrik ran his fingers through his hair.
“And the secretary?” he said.
“Check out what she knows. I want you to visit her as soon as you can, but definitely by tomorrow. Unfortunately I have four cases which I have to pay attention to, and so I am not free to go with you. But I trust you.”
“Of course. Mia and I will talk with her.”
Jana said goodbye and walked past the other interrogation rooms.
As a public prosecutor, she regularly visited the place. She was on emergency duty a certain number of weekends and nights every year—it went with the job. A rotating duty schedule was posted, whose main purpose was to ensure that a prosecutor was available for urgent decisions such as whether somebody should be detained. A prosecutor could keep somebody in detention up to three days without introducing charges. After that, a court hearing was necessary. On a number of occasions, sometimes late at night, Jana had been called in and, in a rush, had to make a decision about an arrest.
Today all the cells in the center were full. She looked up toward the ceiling and thanked a higher power that she wasn’t on call the coming weekend. At the same time, she remembered that she would be on standby duty the weekend after that. She slowed her pace as she walked down the corridor, then stopped to sit and pull her calendar out. She turned the pages ahead to April 28. Nothing was noted there. Perhaps it was Sunday, April 29? Nothing there either. She turned a few more pages and caught sight of the entry for the first of May. A public holiday. ON CALL. And that was the day she had agreed to have dinner with her mother and father. She felt immediate stress. She couldn’t possibly be on call that same day. How had she not seen that? Of course, it was not absolutely necessary to be at her parents’ for dinner, but she didn’t want to disappoint her father by not coming over at all.
I’ll have to swap days with somebody, she thought, as she put her calendar back in her briefcase. She got up and continued walking, wondering with whom she’d be able to swap days. Most likely Per ?str?m. Per was both a successful public prosecutor and a popular social worker. She respected him as a colleague. During the five years they had known each other, a friendship of sorts had grown up between them.
Per was thirty-three years old and in good shape. He played tennis on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He had blond hair, a little dimple in his chin and eyes that were different colors. He smelled of aftershave. Sometimes he tended to go on a bit, but otherwise a nice guy. Only that; nothing more.