Another Time, Another Life

by Leif G. W. Persson

  “Now,” said Tischler. “Just give me five minutes so I have time to powder my nose. Do you have the address?”

  Five minutes later she had arranged a lift with one of the detective squad’s cars, and in another ten minutes she was walking into his office.

  “Please have a seat,” said Tischler, pointing to the antique armchair on the other side of his large desk. “Are you Inspector Anna Holt?”

  “Yes,” said Holt. Strange man, she thought. Small, balding, at the same time rugged, his body almost square, with completely attentive eyes that looked at her with undisguised appreciation and without seeming to be the least bit embarrassed on that account.

  “I’m Theo,” he said. “May I call you Anna?”

  “That’s fine,” said Holt, smiling faintly. Watch yourself, Anna, she thought.

  “What can I do for you, Anna?” said Tischler. “You can ask whatever you want, and keep in mind that I am immeasurably wealthy, extraordinarily talented, extremely entertaining, and when need be even quite charming.”

  “I want you to help me go through these papers,” said Holt, taking out the file box with Eriksson’s telephone book, photo album, and private notes and setting them on his desk.

  “That sounds so dreary,” said Tischler, sighing. “But we certainly have to start somewhere, and if it’s Kjell’s private notes that shouldn’t take all of our life together.

  “I forgot to ask if you’d like anything to drink,” said Tischler as he glanced quickly through Eriksson’s handwritten notations. “Champagne, wine … perhaps a glass of fresh springwater.”

  “Later,” said Holt. He’s rather dashing in his particular way, she thought.

  “Ah,” said Tischler. “A ray of hope scatters the darkness around my unhappy, solitary soul, and as far as these notes are concerned,” he continued soberly, “it looks like Kjell’s own compulsive calculations of the most recent deals he’s made with us here at the firm. He has shown me hundreds of similar calculations over the years, and if you go through all those binders in his little office I’m sure you will find corresponding statements from us. And if you just give me a note from the prosecutor I’ll let our computers do it for you at once.”

  “This is good enough,” said Holt. “You confirm what I already thought.”

  “The harmony of souls,” said Tischler, sighing romantically. “The harmony of souls.”

  The telephone book didn’t take much longer than that.

  “This number in Hjorthagen was his old mother’s,” Theo explained. “Although she’s been dead for many years.”

  “Did you ever meet her?” asked Holt.

  “One time I actually ran into her and Kjell in town,” said Tischler. “He was on his way with her to the clinic at Odenplan. The old lady must have been over eighty. She was certainly no spring chicken when she had little Kjell.”

  “Did you get any impression of her?” Holt asked.

  “Frightful hag,” said Tischler, smiling happily. “I talked with her for only five minutes but that was enough for me.”

  “What do you mean by that?” said Holt.

  “Let me put it like this,” said Tischler. “She held her little Kjell in a veritable iron grip. If there’s anyone who puts a face on the dominating mother it would have been Kjell’s dear mama. You didn’t need to be a psychologist to understand that. Strong enough that he would still have had her telephone number even though it’s been many years since she died.”

  “Do you have any idea who Eriksson’s father was?” Holt asked.

  “No,” said Tischler. “If I were to venture a guess, I’d think after the coupling the old lady immediately murdered him and then devoured him.”

  “Well then,” said Holt.

  When Tischler saw the photo of the gang of four, he looked like a happy little schoolboy. Extremely charming, thought Holt.

  “This is me, Sten, and Kjell. The little lady in braids is my delightful cousin—this must have been during her Pippi Longstocking period—and the photo was taken at the family’s so-called summer paradise out on Värmdö—an establishment completely in August Strindberg’s taste as far as family relationships are concerned.”

  “Do you remember when this was taken?” Holt asked. He actually is rather entertaining, she thought.

  “End of the sixties, early seventies. I don’t really recall. If you want we can drive out and take a look at the guest book. If we find Kjell then the mystery is solved. He was there only one time as far as I remember. We sailed out to the island on Papa’s boat. It was in Saltsjöbaden. Sten, Kjell, and I and a frightening quantity of jars and bottles.”

  “So little Pippi wasn’t along,” said Holt.

  “What a sight that would have been,” said Tischler. “No, not really, she was on land with her mom and dad and all the other relatives from nine to ninety who were always hanging around out there.”

  “The gang of four?” asked Holt.

  “Ah,” said Tischler. “You intend to convict me of youthful radicalism, Inspector. Chinese opposition politicians, conspiracies against the Great Helmsman Mao, and so on.”

  “Why would I do that?” said Holt, letting her gaze sweep across the furniture in the room in which they were sitting.

  “But here I’m afraid it was much simpler,” Tischler interrupted. “My dear cousin was at that time insanely fond of mysteries and adventure novels, she was rather precocious for her age, and the gang of four, I think, alludes to that novel by Conan Doyle … The Sign of the Four, I believe it’s called. The gang of four was a secret society that the master detective Sherlock Holmes was tracking down.”

  “Who took the picture?” Holt asked, mostly to change the subject.

  “It was taken with a self-timer, and my dear cousin got the camera from her kind uncle Theo, as she called me. She ran around for days taking the most unflattering pictures. At times there seems to have been sheer panic out there. I remember that her mother—my aunt, that is—scolded me. Personally I kept away as much as possible. It was hardly suitable for a young radical to spend his summer in the country villas of the bourgeoisie. But certainly sometimes I was weak, much too weak.”

  “Maybe it’s not really so bad,” said Holt, smiling, “but I know what you’re talking about.” Maybe a little tedious, she thought.

  “I know what you mean too and I confess unreservedly,” said Tischler. “All reasonable young people were radical at that time. We were socialists and communists with all the imaginable acronyms. We were always marching to the American embassy, and then there was quite a lot of balling too. Excellent for the health, both of them, and driving your old father up the wall was a pure bonus.”

  “I saw in our papers that Kjell Eriksson was politically committed,” said Holt. Balling, she thought. When had she last heard someone use that word? A hundred years ago?

  “Oh well,” said Tischler, smiling. “We actually called him the wet thumb, so maybe it wasn’t just commitment.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Holt.

  “There was a certain amount of opportunism, perhaps,” said Tischler thoughtlessly, “and perhaps certain problems with timing. I remember when he became a social democrat in the spring of 1979 and went on and on for a whole evening about how as soon as the election was over his union fortune would finally be made and now the bourgeoisie would be gone. Whereupon they won with a tie-breaking vote in parliament and stayed until 1982.”

  “You were all young socialists at that time,” said Holt.

  “I’m still a socialist,” said Tischler, sounding almost offended. “I’ve always had my heart to the left … and my wallet to the right,” he added with a broad smile. “As I said, we were all radicals back then, socialists or communists. For the same reason that today all reasonable people have left that behind them as soon as they realized where it was going.”

  “But you’re not an opportunist,” said Holt.

  “That is patently absurd,” said Tischler solemnly. “Hell, I was born
with a whole set of silverware in my mouth. I’ve never needed to be an opportunist.”

  “But Kjell Eriksson needed to be,” said Holt.

  “Yes,” said Tischler, suddenly sounding serious. “And the way things were for him when he was growing up I have a very hard time holding that against him. People try to adapt themselves to the time they live in, and when times change their lives change too. There are very few of us for whom things are so ordained that we, like a strong current, can ride our own waves through the sea.”

  “Nicely put,” said Holt.

  “I know,” said Tischler, grinning. “I have to confess I swiped it from a book.”

  “What do you say about having dinner in Paris, this evening?” said Tischler, keeping hold of Holt’s hand in his when she was about to leave.

  “Unfortunately,” said Holt, smiling, “I’m afraid that won’t work. In another time and another life maybe,” she said.

  “I live in hope,” said Tischler, looking at her with his very attentive eyes.

  17

  Thursday, December 14, 1989

  At the investigation team’s last meeting before the weekend the opposing factions came into the open.

  Out-and-out fucking mutiny, thought Bäckström as he marched out of the room, his face bright red, after they were through quarreling.

  Bäckström started pushing his homo lead again, for the umpteenth time, and now even the three younger colleagues who were on loan from the uniformed police were starting to give audible expression to their doubts.

  “You don’t think there’s a risk we’ll get locked in?” the first one of them began cautiously. She was the only woman of the three. “In school we learned that it was crucial to have a broad and open attitude to this sort of thing.”

  Stick it up yours, you little sow, thought Bäckström, but he wasn’t going to say that when there were witnesses present, so it had to be something else instead.

  “I’m listening,” Bäckström said smoothly. “What did you mean to propose instead?”

  “I don’t know,” she continued hesitantly, “but what is there that actually indicates that Eriksson was homosexual?”

  “Apart from what the forensic doctor and his two best friends for twenty years say,” sneered Bäckström, “is there anything in particular you’re missing? Sailor costume, Vaseline jar, mesh stockings way back in the dresser drawer? Some good porno tapes with well-oiled butt princes?” Or maybe you want Uncle Evert to grease your little mouse for you, he thought.

  “Hang on,” said Jarnebring, giving Bäckström the same look he always did when he had decided that enough was enough. “Me and my colleague Holt here,” said Jarnebring, nodding toward her, “have turned Eriksson’s apartment inside out. If anyone thinks we’ve missed something, then he or she is welcome to try themselves. We haven’t found a damn thing that clearly indicates that Eriksson had any sexual orientation whatsoever. We’ve even checked his sheets—because colleague Wiijnbladh apparently forgot that small detail—and just like his cleaning woman for the past two years—because we’ve also talked with her—we haven’t found the slightest little trace of sperm whatsoever. Much less a strand of hair from anyone other than Eriksson himself, or anything that indicates that any sexual activity whatsoever has occurred in that bed or in that bedroom or in that apartment.

  “Personally,” Jarnebring continued, raising his right hand slightly when he saw that Bäckström was thinking about saying something, “I would have felt considerably more comfortable if we’d found something of the sort you usually find. Not to mention all those accessories you keep carrying on about all the time.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” said Bäckström, “but wasn’t it you who had the idea that someone had cleaned up and removed some stuff from Eriksson’s apartment? A whole suitcase if I remember rightly?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jarnebring. “That may be so, doesn’t need to be, but I think it was papers in any case. Not his old sheets or his corset, if he had something like that.” Jarnebring smiled wryly and exchanged a glance with Holt.

  “I hear what you’re saying,” said Bäckström defensively, for there was something in the eyes of the gorilla-like psychopath that made him feel extremely ill at ease. “If you hear me, all I’m saying is what his two closest acquaintances have said—and what the forensic doctor said.”

  “When I read the interviews,” said Jarnebring, “I wonder what was actually said. Welander possibly makes an insinuation, and that applies to Tischler too, even if otherwise he appears to be a motor mouth, but neither of them knows anything. One of them possibly thinks something; the other may possibly imagine something. After twenty years’ acquaintance. Talk about buddies.”

  “The forensic doctor then,” said Bäckström. I didn’t know you could even read, thought Bäckström sourly, and who the hell gave that half-ape my interviews anyway?

  “Don’t interrupt me,” said Jarnebring. “I’m getting to her. First let’s finish with our witnesses, and the way I see it there are three possibilities. Either it’s the way at least one of them suggests, in which case we’ve missed something. Or else it’s just that they’ve imagined things. Or else they’ve tried to get us to believe that their friend Eriksson was … well, homosexual. And if that’s the way it is, then it suddenly becomes damned interesting, considering what you’ve said to them.”

  Never underestimate a colleague, even if he looks like something that lives in a cave and woke up on the wrong side of the bed, Holt thought, smiling almost sweetly at Jarnebring.

  “My colleague Jarnebring and I are in complete agreement,” said Holt. “We’ve both read the interviews, and as you know I’ve talked with Tischler myself. He was not exactly taciturn, but it was mostly noise and little substance.” My colleague Jarnebring, thought Holt, who a moment earlier and in a most unequal manner felt that she had received a major distinction.

  “Glad to hear you’re in agreement,” said Bäckström. “To return to reality for a moment, what do you say about the forensic doctor’s report? Has he only been imagining things too?”

  “I’ve actually talked to her,” said Jarnebring. “I happened to be in the neighborhood on another errand and I ran into her at the forensic lab. Briefly, she hadn’t the faintest idea of what either Esprit or Wiijnbladh are running around fabricating. Esprit hasn’t had anything to do with Eriksson whatsoever. And he’s on sick leave. Because she is Esprit’s boss, she needs to talk to him as soon as he locates his cane and finds his way back to work.”

  “You’ve talked with the forensic doctor?” said Bäckström. This is complete mutiny, he thought.

  “Yes,” said Jarnebring, looking at him. “Do you have a problem with that?”

  “No,” said Bäckström quickly. The guy is lethal, he thought. How could someone like that run around loose? And what the hell was going on when he became a cop?

  “Good,” said Jarnebring. “Where was I now … yes,” he continued. “She had also spoken with Wiijnbladh, and he simply asked her if there was anything to indicate that Eriksson might have been homosexual in the sense that it actually showed up in the forensic inspection and the autopsy. Do you know what she said?”

  “No,” said Bäckström. Where the hell was Wiijnbladh anyway? Typical of the little rat to sneak away in a situation like this, he thought.

  “No,” said Jarnebring. “She said no. And if you want I can trot over to Wiijnbladh and take it up directly with him.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Bäckström. Even if it would be funny because he would probably shit his pants, he thought.

  “That’s good,” said Jarnebring. “Glad to know we’re in agreement.”

  “I’m listening,” said Bäckström. “Give me a name.”

  “He’s here,” said Jarnebring, tapping his finger on the investigation files binder on the table in front of him. “You can bet your sweet ass he’s here, but we’ve missed him because we’ve been looking for the wrong things.”r />
  The guy is completely insane, thought Bäckström.

  18

  Friday, December 15, 1989

  The reason that Wiijnbladh had been absent from the meeting the day before was that he was saddled with a poisoning. A medical student who lived at home with his elderly father had been having problems with his studies. He had missed a number of exams, fallen seriously behind, and after a period of brooding decided to solve his academic problems by lacing his dad’s breakfast yogurt with an ample dose of thallium. His success far exceeded the progress of his studies. Considered as a motive, this was an excellent illustration of Lars Martin Johansson’s thesis of the cherry on the cake.

  Now the former future doctor was sitting in the jail at Kronoberg. On Wiijnbladh’s workbench at the tech squad was the bottle of thallium that the perpetrator had swiped from the chemistry department at the Karolinska Institute, and there was enough poison remaining to depopulate half the police headquarters on Kungsholmen. In Wiijnbladh’s pleasure-filled fantasies, this enchanted bottle with its death-bringing genie was a gift from above that probably, within the not too distant future, would solve his problems as well.

  Wiijnbladh’s difficulties were not related to his studies, for he had never really devoted himself to any such things. Apart from six years of elementary school, less than a year at the old police academy, and a few weeklong courses for crime technicians, Wiijnbladh had studiously avoided all theoretical extravagances, and just like the majority of his colleagues on the squad he was firmly convinced that the only abilities worth the name were those he had acquired by practice.

  “We have to distinguish between theory and practice the same way we distinguish between imagination and reality,” as his legendary boss Commissioner Blenke had so eloquently summarized the matter when, in connection with a review of the squad’s operations, he explained to the inspectors from the National Police Board why the entire library appropriation was spent on fingerprint powder.