In English
About Helena Sigander
HELENA SIGANDER (b.1947) uses various styles in her twelve books. As crime novels for instance: The love-starved, 30 year old, private detective Eva St. Clair, lives in the Old town of Stockholm. Dead Husbands Don´t Talk has the Agatha Christie way of ending up in the library-revelation. The Dead Blondes Club is deadly realistic. Both Eva St. Claire novels are inspired from the spirit of P G Wodehouse. In a series of three novels, Signs of Terror, Last Call and A Very Nervous Man, Helena Sigander´s main theme is how to maintain democracy and human rights when fighting terrorism. Two Swedish agents, Goeran Hoekmark and Lorraine Zeck are in charge of the Swedish branch of Sécurité du Terrorisme; both of them marked by previous personal experiences. In Marionett Poliscommander Maria Louisa Magnusson, 53, deals with a serial killer at the same time she realizes that her grown up triplets are no longer in the need of her advice. They don´t return calls.
Helena Sigander writes drama, mostly, for the stage, as well as directs plays for the theatre. Ms. Sigander has academic degrees in drama and litterature. Since 1976, she has been married to her university sweetheart.
Deckarskolan (School of Literary Crimes)
HELENA SIGANDER runs her own school for individual writing support for fledgling crime writers on the Internet, www.deckarskolan.com.
Sorry, just for Swedish speaking people.
Crime writing courses in Färna
Helena Sigander runs intensive creative writing courses week-ends in Färna.
Sorry, just for Swedish speaking people.
Dead Husbands Won´t Betry Her
Summary:
Private detective Eva Saint Clair lives and works in Stockholm`s medieval Old Town. Eva´s aristocratic origins in the ”socialist” Kingdom of Sweden keep her ever in touch with exclusive circles. When oft-widowed countess Sofie von Schenken, 32, one of Europe´s richest women, receives a letter threatening her life if she goes through with her impending wedding to a Norweigan magnate she begs Eva to be her bodyguard. In Dead Husbands Won´t Betry Her Eva and Sofie share more than the childhood memories of a privileged world. It is six years, three months and seven nights to the day that Sofie stole Eva´s fiancé. Work is in i slump, Eva reluctantly agrees to move to the estate, Rosegarden, with her cherised cats Yellow and Black until the wedding is over.
Four people live in Sofie´s manson. All have strong reasons to benefit from Sofies´s demise. These are her late husband´s relatives who might look forward to bancruptcy and homelessness as soon as Sofie weds. The housekeeper is her late husband´s mistress. In the background is the countryside doctor and nurse who hade other interests in the household. The major-domo Sofie charges with running her estate is the almost invisible butler, called ”Butler”.
Parallell to two fresh murders runs a love story. Eva falls madly in love with detective superintendent Tor Bonde. Tor has waived the right and previlige of a noble heritage to devote his energy to the Swedish police force. He is divorced from the police commissioner, Barbara Bonde, who runs the force with iron discipline.
The first corpse is found hanging on a crook behind the pantry door of Rosegardens´s spacious kitchen by the housekeeper. Nobody seems to know anything about him. They are all interviewed by the detecitve superintendent Tor Bonde, his colleague Svantesson, Lund, the police doctor, and Eva Saint Clair.
Here follows a translation of chapter seven.
Tor urged Svantesson to talk as he pointed to the corpse.
”A foreign narcotic syndicate is establishing itself in Stockholm”, said the gray-haired Svantesson, still in trenchcoat and buckled hat. ”The narcotics squad is working round the clock. We´re helping them. Taking in everyone for questioning that we´re tipped about. One of them was Albert Morelli. He just sneered at us. We had to release him directly. Said he was a tourist. Damn cocky.”
”Did you get anything out of him?”
”Clammed up. Someone said he was pure dynamite. One of the worst. Uses false names, according to the squeal.”
”No one is bad enough to deserve ending up this way,” I reproached Svantesson for his hard-boiled tone and turned away.
Svantesson patted me on the shoulder without commenting. My unreserved belief in young people must have made him speechless. Tor took out his mobile phone and pressed a programmed number.
”Gabriella. Check out Alberto Morelli.”
It was way past office hours. Were Barbara Bonde´s police always on call or was Gabriella waiting for his phone call? Tor´s expression convinced me that police duty is a twenty four hour job. I still doubted that Gabriella let herself be commanded out of her plush sofa, good book and box of chocolates, to be ordered across the street to the police quarters and obediently grub through their archives.
Tor, dr Lund and forensics were methodically at work in the kitchen. They inspected every square inch without a thought that it was close to midnight. Svantesson trotted dutifully back to the intractable witnesses in the library.
My glance drifted through the kitchen windows. It was pitch black outside. No moon, no stars to honor the young corpse. There wasn´t a hint of the forest edge in the field meadows or the distant sea inlet. If it weren´t for the narrow streak of light to the West, the entire world might hade seemed darkened. The light was blinking blue and approaching along the distant highway. Now and then it disappeared behind the rolling rises and dips of the road in soft undulating movements, while its blueness intensified.
Shortly another police car turned into the estate drive. The weels crunched on the gravel. The kitchen windows transformed to milky walls, spintered in sharp pulsation iceblue. Our faces turned ghostly pale.
A van from the morgue arrived. Quiet. Black. Anonymous. Its staff laid Alberto Morelli´s body on a strecher and carried him out into the entrance hall. The corpse was to go to forensics, to be undressed and examined meticulously. The knife thrusts were to be measured from various angels. The wounds would be put together and then separated, the edges studied. Certainly the body would be examined in its entirety. The staff were in a hurry but Tor stopped them. He needed the deceased a moment longer. The morgue bearers shrugged their shoulders. They went out to the police in the darkness. Lit cigarettes glowed lika cat eyes through the open door. Pebbles rustled under rubber soles. The door closed.
Tor, dr Lund and I stod over the stretcher. Svantesson was to bring the witnesses in one by one to identify the corpse. Svantesson made a wry face.
”They´re sloshed. The lot of them. They want to shoot us.”
”Threaten to check their gun licenses. That will keep them awake all night. I just want a short confrontation. After that they can go to bed.”
Mr Olav Naarby, Sofie´s fiancé, was first. He went directly to Tor and wondered if it really was necessary to view the body again. They hade already done that at the kitchen door. He assured them that neither he nor Sofie, who by the way hade gone through much too much already, had anything to do with the incident. Tor apologized for the inconvenience. Mr Olav Naarby protested. Tor made his request. Mr Naarby protested again. It was an ongoing cockfight.
In the library there were people in shock, on empty stomachs, who probably had never seen a murdered person hung up on an antique towel hook, I philosophized. Was this masculine performance necessary right now? They were still fencing, verbally, over the body. Dr Lund was picking at his finger nails. Eventually mr Olav Naarby gav in. Dr Lund cooly put the toothpick he´d used on his nails back in his pocket.
The intermezzo had taken several minutes. We were back in business.
Tor pulled the black plastic away from the dead man´s face. I studied Olav Naarby´s reaction. It was completely normal for a healthy male who usually mixes with living people. He swallowed. He made a gesture with his hand which said ”my God.” He forced himslef to study the pale features, trying to recollect if he had ever seen them pink or in motion. He shook his head.
”I have many immigrants employed. In Norway of course.”
Tor became interested. Mr Olav Naarby realized he had awakened a sleeping bear and denied fiercely that he knew anything about the man on the stretcher.
”Does the name Alberto Morelli say anything to you, sir?”
”I´ve never hear it before. Is it Italian?”
”Do you possibly own a stiletto?”
Olav Naarby answered first no, but was suddenly struck by a thought and looked at them mulishly. A pillar of society always looks like a jackass when he unexpectedly perceives he´s said an untruth to another pillar of society who happens to be a detective superintendent of police, for example. After a half second he decided to keep to his first statement and said a resolute ”no”. Tor raised an eyebrow. He inquired if Olav Naarby had ever possibly possessed or usued narcotics? Enraged, mr Naarby replied that if he ever need stimulating substances it was in the form of cognac. That´s just what he was going to do now in his room. He stomped up the staircase.
Tor and I exchanged a significant look. Dr Lund put his weight on his other leg. He called the next witness. It was countess Sofie.
She was ludicrous as usual, a caricature of the Dying Swan with a flowing veil and distraught eyes. It was pathetic to see her tottering gait towards the strecher. Tor was duped into supporting her. At last in front of the dead body the conceited fool continued her role play. She couldn´t induce herself to look at the body and whispered into Tor´s ear. Tor gathered her transparent clothing close to her saying something like her country expected her to do her duty. It was difficult to hear the exact wording amidst the swishing of countess Sofie´s diaphanous fabric and her flirtatious swooning. She vacillated around the body, her hand on her forehead. Tor pointed strictly towards the cadavre. At that point she opened her mouth and the most incredible words ever from the oriface which comprises tongue, salivary glands and jaws were emitted.
”Okay. I will be brave.”
I thought of the great risk there was of the three of us laughing to death and that the investigation would have to be finished by other people. The scornful laugh stuck in my throat.
Two chastened policemen stood there patting her small hands. Tor held her silky waist to support her. Dr Lund´s sympathetic voice was asking her if she colud bear to try to look now? He pulled away the plastic covering. Tor was busy supporting her. Dr Lund´s face looked as though it were his fault that the body has been found in the pantry in the first place. Only I saw her reaction, a transformation from wimp to tiger. Her eyes were smouldering. Her fangs glistened. Saliva ran. Her claws appeared from underneath soft paws. This was momentary. Then I heard her tearfully begin her role as Sofie in shock.
”Is he really murdered?”
”Yes.”
Tor and dr Lund expressed sorrow at one and the same time.
”How dreadful. I have a jacket just like his. Think! What if it was me that the murderer was supposed to kill?”
A bomb exploding wouldn´t have had a better effect. Suddenly there was talk about its cuts and form and was it really exactly like this jacket.
”Yes.”
Sofie fluttered her eyelashes. They must have tickled Tor´s neck. I asked her why she had a jacket just like her servant. Sofie mumbled something about the jacket´s being bought especially for a hunting party. It just happened that way. She couldn´t remember any details about its purchase.
”Does anyone outside your circle of acqaintances know that you have such a jacket?” asked Tor.
”Everyone in the world! That jacket has been in all the fashion columns in all the magazines and newspapers. Haven´t you read them?”
Sofie´s astonishment was palpable.
I didn´t think we were getting anywhere.
”Sofie,” I said distincly. ”Have you seen that dead man before?”
”No.”
”Does the name Alberto Morelli say anything to you?”
”No.”
”Do you use narcotic substances?”
”No.”
”Do you have a stiletto in your possession?”
Sofie von Schenken shook her head dejectedly. Dr Lund´s and Tor´s faces showed at a glance that this was enough questoning. Countess Sofie smiled dog-tired, as if she´d just successfully finished labor with the birth of a child. Tor and dr Lund looked like two contented fathers.
They didn´t know what I did. Sofie had answered the questions wrong. I knew that little monkey. She had lied. Her gestures and intonation were the same now as they hade been years ago when I had pushed her up against the wall asking for the truth. ”Lars Peters? I don´t know him. Who could that be?”
Tor escorted her to the stairwell. She turned and looked at him. For a brief moment she was still. All that she was, her standing in society, herred hair, her romantic dress, could have won the title and crown for Miss Deliscious without competition. She wrapped her defenceless arms around him, pressing her lips against his.
A paralysing vision of déja-vu struck me. That was just the way I had found them, Sofie and Lars, on a balcony just after he had broken up with me.
The pace was still there.
The kiss lasted an eternity.
I tore myself out of my numbness. Demonstratively I turned away from the shabbiness and triviality, out to the world. Out of nowhere a monster stood in front of me. The face was bruised, the dress in ruins and what had once been golden hair was covered with dust and dirt. The monster´s bra was a catastrophe. It pushed in and down instead of up and out I noticed, until the scope of horror struck me.
That was me reflected in the hall mirror.
I wasn´t really at my best.
” Catch the person who wants to hurt me. I´ll give you anything, sir.”
Countess Sofie´s shameless whisper could be heard in the utter silence of the entrance hall. If there had been a trapdoor to nothingness, I would have gone there in a moment. Darkness descended on all my senses. Before my sight went black completely, I cast a last glimpse towards my dream prince. In a glance the light reappeared in full strength. Tor was trying to peel away her octopus-like arms.
” The Swedish police will do everything under its authority to fin the murderer, madam,” he stated. ”It´s our duty rendered by official taxes. It doesn´t cost anything extra.”
He pushed her hands away decisively and stepped back. Sofie´s mouth´s dropped open. She turned on her heels and fled up the staircase in a furious cloud of Dior. My heart started pumping. The love song center in my brain groped for verses of happiness.
”… you rest in my dreams on softest down pillows…
Tomorrow I would burn this bra. Push-ups were the olny ones that counted, as far as I was concerned.
The next person was ushered in by Svantesson. Aunt Hilda. She was tired and under the influence of alcohol. She hadn´t seen the dead man before but sighed at his youth.
”There´s something wrong with nature when the older generation outlives their children, wouldn´t uou say, ” she reflected.
Her eyes filled with tears.
” When all hopes and plans turn to nothing, what does the future hold? Why did he have to die? I hope someday I will find out why.”
The elderly woman spoke as if time stood still, as if she spoke about all the youth who had died and I thought about her nephew Karl Wilhelm. / Sofie´s late husband/
”Does the name Alberto Morelli mean anything to you, Aunt Hilda?”
She shook her head. Dr Lund followed her up the stairs. None of us had thought it necessary to ask the older woman if she usued narcotic substances or owned a stiletto.
Count Greger Kraagher came in. He was drunk. He reproached Tor for his threat about checking all weapon licenses on the estate.
”Tor. You know damn well there´s a license for ev´ry bullet in this house. Tha´s right. You´ve been here huntin´ ya´self and then…”
”I had to ask. Sorry Greger. We´ve just got new information about the dead man. We had to make you understand that a confrontation is necessary. Look at him carefully.”
Count Greger mumbled inaudibly.
”Did you know him? They always look different when they lie on a stretcher.”
”Naw.”
”Alberto Morelli?”
”Nope.”
”Do you know if anyone in this household uses narcotics?”
Caount Greger coughed and cleared his throut.
”What say?”
”Morelli was probably a pusher.”
”Di´ he shell drugs here?”
”I don´t know that yet,” said Tor.
Count Greger uttered disconnected and winding phrases about the curse of narcotics until hus arguments trailed away. He left in silence. It was Britta´s turn.
Rosegarden´s houskeeper was tired and visibly shaken.
Phew! All this business. Sir, you have to realize that I hadn´t pushed the knife in him deliberately. Didn´t mean to start the fight between Eva and Sofie either. There´d been too much to do in the kitchen. Needed the salami. I´d forgotten to take it out for the evening supper. Always place everything on the buffet table to avoid opening the pantry door. Once Beasty sneaked in there and ate everything all night long. No. Absolutely, no more cats in the pantry, ever again. And then the door opens. And he´s hanging there like a marionette! Held the knife in my hand to cut the salami. It went right into his stomach. It was horrendous.
”Britta. What time was supper laid, do you think?”
”The cold cuts were sliced and laid about five o´clock, sir. Took a coffee break between doing the main course and the hors dóuevres. Dinner was to be cold buffet with smoked and marinated salmon and sliced meats. Miss Saint Clair and the cats were there.
”So that after five o´clock you didn´t open the pantry door, Britta?”
”No. Everything was in the refrigerator.”
”Is the name Alberto Morelli familiar?”
”No, sir.”
”Do you use any narcotic substances?”
”I´ve never even seen anything narcotic.”
Britta was granted permission to return home.
Countess Elisabeth Kraagher was brittle, pale and completely absent. Her vocie was kind but sounded as if it came from another world. Dr Lund´s medical background wasn´t enough to decide if it were the influence of alcohol, shock, exhaustion or narcotics she was under. He led her away while she was pronouncing a few sentiment about the dead man.
”Such a poor young thing. Now he can´t sing any more. I could have been his mother. But I am no one´s mother. Maybe it´s just as well. Mothers do suffer terribly when their sons die.”
The stretcher was taken away into the night. Dr Lund took his medcial case and went too. Tor, Svantesson and I remained in the desolate entrance hall. It felt liberating to not have the dead body there with us.
What still filled the air however was Sofie´s kiss.
”A bit of food would taste good,” ventured Tor carefully.
”The kitchen is stocked with delicatessen,” said Svantesson and turned to go.
”One ought not to go to bed on an empty stomach,” I said reticently and followed.
We ate our fill in the dining room.
”It´ll be a long night,” Tor mumbled in my direction.
The kiss was alive. Too long. Too hungry. Too much! I touched my tender nose with my fingertip. It burned. That snake Sofie was omnipresent. Like a ghost from prehistoric past she poisoned every second. Would that continue for ever?
No.
I had to fight her! When all was said and done Tor had rejected her, with dignity and force. It wasn´t going to happen again. Tor wasn´t like that.
Tor.
I recalled the many cups of coffee we´d drunk yesterday. Our loveglowing meeting in the hall way just a while ago.
My Tor.
I smiled at him as sweetly as I could.
”A long night. Yes, sir. Certainly.”
Tor contentedly ate his food.
”Is there an ice cold beer anywhere?” quipped Svantesson.
end of chapter seven
Summary continues:
The witnesses all lie. Most of them are aware of countess Elisbeth Kraagers´s drug problem. Her husband count Greger feels that his patience with her is ending. He doesn´t love her either. He thinks of his nerver ending passion for Britta. He both suspects and hopes that he is the father of her ten year old boy. He hopes for Elisabeths death. Countess Elisabeth suddenly remembers the dead young man. He is Italian and was the son of a maffia boss. Elisabeths brother, when married to Sofie, was killed in Italy. She suspects Sofie for her brothers murder as well as the murders of Sofie´s other husbands. Elisabeth, a former actress of the theater, arrange a soaré at Rosegarden where she plans to show how the murders have taken place. Butler has been hurt in an attempt to kill Sofie. He is back in the house, på kryckor och inlindad i bandage. Nurse Liselotte has come to stay in the house in order to take care of Sofie who has had a nervous break down.
For secutity Sofie sleeps in Eva´s room. By accident Eva is the hearing witness of a love meeting between Butler and nurse Liselotte. Sofie, almost sleeping, drags to the dining room for the soaré. Elisabeth plays Sofie. Elisabeth is shot. Count Greger is arrested for the murder of his wife Elisabeth. Sofie is sent to a mental hospital for recreation.
Summary continues:
Eva Saint Clair makes an entry in the Vogel bureau. She goes through the computerfiles about Sofie. She also discovers files which are contected in business with Sofie; Pontus Vogel and Lars Peters /Evas and Sofies former fiancé/ The business is import and export of dill. The smell of dill covers the smell of drugs i tullen. Lars Peters come to the office in the night. Eva suddenly understands that Lars Peters is Bulter. Lars and Sofie have been secret lovers althrough Sofie´s marriages. Lars is a gambler. He needs money and he gets it from loving Sofie. Sofie is not mentally sain. She is still at the mental hospital. Commissioner Barara Bonde and several snipers come to arrest Lars Peters in the Vogel bureau. Commissioner Barbara Bonde orders her snipers to open fire while Lars Peters has taken Eva as hostige. Lars Peters is shot dead. Eva is sent to hospital for gun-shock.
During Evas recovery in hospital Tor visits her and tells that the whole thing was a drug affair. Alberto Morellis mother was Swedish. Lars Peters is considered to be the brain. But Eva knows that he hasn´t got that capacity, nor the gut to be the boss of a drug syndicate. The answer must be at Rosegarden. She phones there and Britta tells her that the countyside doctor is due in a few moment to see to Aunt Hilda. Eva understands that he must be the brain. She makes her way out of the restricted hospital and steals an ambulance to get to Rosegarden in time to save Aunt Hilda from the doctor. But Eva is mistaken. It is nurse Liselotte who is the brain. Liselottes father was the maffia boss. When he wanted to start a syndicate in Stockholm he sents his son to do it, Alberto Morelli, Liselottes brother. She, who has been living with her Swedish mother, has grown a hate towards her rejekting Italian father(??) and brother. She also killed Elisabeth for not beeing avslöjad som narkotikalangare and because Elisabeth evetuallu recognized her brother on a photo. When meeting Liselotte Lars Peters had found his destany, he becomes her lover and tool.
When Eva comes to Rosegarden she misstakenly hits the doktor. But suddenly screams for help are heard. Liselotte is almost killing a young schoolgirl who has found out about the photo. A fight starts between Liselotte and Eva. Liselotte is on the edge of winning (Eva is still weak from skottschocken) when police commissioner Barbara Bonde and Tor come and arrests Liselotte.
The very last chapter is about Tor and Eva and their blomstrande kärlek. Tor has dated Eva. He doesn´t show up. Barbara Bonde has ordered him to night duty. Eva understands that this will be her future - to wait for her darling policeman to come home. Advokat Pontus Vogel sends her a bunch of roses and asks for a date when he comes back from abroad. Eva puts on her television. There is Barbara Bonde and Tor, smokingklädda, recieving grattitude in Stadshuset for att de hade sprängt nakrotikasyndikatet.
Eva climbs up the roof of her medieval house together with her cats and looks at the sunset of Stockholm. Alone.
In the following book Dead blondes do not recite poetry (I döda blondiners sällskap), the love story between Eva and Tor continues.
1999, Förlag Gondolin AB. Cover: Lars Jacobsen. Softcover 2000