Karen hadn’t caught the double meaning of the name the hard-to-impress locals had given the mining magnate’s residence. As a child, she had been fascinated with the extravagant building, which looked more like a castle than someone’s house. Instead of the usual limestone other islanders made do with, Old Huss had had yellow sandstone brought up from Frisel. A fairy-tale castle, Karen had thought, pressing her nose against the car window to admire the thing. She had secretly found the scornful laughter the house always drew from her aunt and uncle completely inappropriate. That The Complex was a reference to Albin Huss’s need to flaunt his wealth, rather than to the magnificence of the building itself, had only become clear to her many years later.

‘Sure, still standing, turrets and all. But it’s pretty dilapidated, I think. The upkeep must be astronomical.’

That the victim, Fredrik Stuub, was the grandchild of the man who had once ruled half of Noorö is clear enough, but Karen realises she has become lost in the tangled branches of the Huss family tree and decides to drop the subject. Should the convoluted family relations become relevant to the investigation, she’ll have to ask Byle to go over it all again. Right now, they have more important things to think about.

‘OK, the first thing we need to do is talk to Fredrik’s sister,’ she says. ‘Does she live far from here?’

Chapter 12

12

The answer turns out to be a fifteen-minute drive away. After thanking Solveig Byle and accepting a dinner invitation for some time later in the week with genuine enthusiasm, Karen climbs back into her car. They drive back up to the highway, turn north and make a right after crossing the Skre River viaduct. As they slowly pull into Gertrud’s driveway, Karen realises it must be the roof of Fredrik’s house she can glimpse on the other side of the river. The two properties are probably connected by a footbridge.

Gertrud Stuub’s house turns out to be a copy of her brother’s; Byle explains that the two plots were once part of the same estate.

‘As you know, Old Huss owned more or less everything north of Skreby, all the way up to the Gudheim country border,’ he says as they walk up the gravel path. ‘Huss’s daughters inherited half each so Gertrud and Fredrik eventually inherited half of their mother’s half each and the other half went to the Trystes. Both this and Fredrik’s house were probably workers accommodation once. Not for the miners, mind, for the overseers.’

*