Another Time, Another Life

by Leif G. W. Persson

  Before he left for the day he was becoming certain he had figured out how the whole thing fit together, even if he was far from clear about why he felt that. Police intuition, Wiklander thought philosophically, leaning back in his chair to summarize his thoughts before he went home after a long day.

  If I try not to make things unnecessarily difficult, thought Wiklander, then the most likely explanation is that both Eriksson and the now deceased TV reporter Welander were two of the four names that had been cleaned out of the registry just over two years ago. But who were the other two?

  Personally he was more or less convinced that the broker Tischler must have been one of them, and according to the searches he had already made Tischler was still alive, allowing for the fact that he had left the country ten years ago and was currently registered in Luxembourg. The simple, obvious explanation for Tischler’s generosity toward Eriksson must have been that they had a history together that would not bear scrutiny and that Tischler would fall considerably farther than Eriksson if their common secret was revealed.

  That left the fourth one who had disappeared from the registry, thought Wiklander. Who was he, or perhaps even she? Despite everything, women were considerably more common in political terrorism than in traditional serious crime, and that must be the motive in this case, he thought.

  One of Eriksson’s neighbors? It didn’t seem particularly likely based on the material he’d found in the investigation. One of his coworkers whom the detectives investigating the murder had missed because they didn’t know what they were looking for? Not at all impossible, thought Wiklander, who as a real policeman had a very strong opinion about university graduates in Eriksson’s generation. Eriksson’s Polish cleaning woman? She was in a good category, thought Wiklander, but the problem with her—he had already checked on his computer—was that she hadn’t come to Sweden until 1978, three years after the events at the West German embassy.

  It’ll work out, thought Wiklander. In any event, he had already turned over lists of all the neighbors, coworkers, and everyone else who appeared in the investigation to his colleagues at the group for internal surveillance. By the time he arrived at work the next day the names would have been checked against the secret police’s registry of politically motivated hooligans and of everyone else who just happened to be there. Despite all the truth commissions that the outside world persisted in foisting off on him and his hardworking comrades.

  But that wasn’t the question that was really interesting. If someone had gone to the trouble of cleaning out those four names just over two years ago, why had two of them been re-inserted in the same registry only a few months ago, and at a time when the top priority was flushing as many names as possible? And why had Tischler avoided making the same round-trip if he had been in the registry from the start, which most of the investigation suggested that he had? Because Tischler, in contrast to the other two, was still alive? Because he had his own channels to power? Because …

  This’ll work itself out too, thought Wiklander, getting up and flexing his computer-stiffened shoulders. As soon as he figured out who the fourth one was, there would be only one completely uninteresting detail remaining, which his colleagues in Stockholm could take care of: who had murdered Kjell Göran Eriksson?

  When Wiklander returned to his office the next morning, the lists with the search results were already on his desk. They contained nothing that he had not already figured out or suspected. Only one of the neighbors had produced a hit in SePo’s registry. An old Nazi-tainted major who, granted, lived on the same floor as the murder victim. But the mere thought that he could have had anything politically in common with Eriksson, Tischler, and Welander was preposterous. He couldn’t have murdered Eriksson either, because the Stockholm Police Department’s detectives had given him a better alibi than he really deserved: He had taken part in the celebration of the anniversary of Charles XII’s death on the same evening Eriksson was murdered.

  You lucky devil, thought Wiklander, whose political views were different from the major’s.

  A check on Eriksson’s former coworkers had produced considerably more hits in the registry. The number was even higher than expected for the office in question, but none of the five individuals whose names came up made Wiklander particularly excited. They had been ordinary members of the far left back then; two were now social democrats, one a liberal, one a conservative, and one a Green; all of them were living in a new era and evidently unworthy even of being rescued from the eyes of the review commission.

  Only Eriksson’s Polish cleaning woman remained. Even she had her own file up at SePo. Not because she cleaned but because she was Polish and had apparently been involved with at least seven of Wiklander’s colleagues within the open operation, who also seemed to have in common the fact that their discretion left a good deal to be desired. Nice-looking woman, thought Wiklander, looking appreciatively at the picture of Jolanta that was in her personal file, but just now you leave me cold, he thought, as he closed it.

  • • •

  So instead he tried a different route. Who had reinstated the information about Eriksson and Welander in the file on the embassy drama, despite the manifest lack of interest in the case itself and the fact that both Eriksson and Welander were long dead?

  Not Persson, because he’d already retired. Not Berg either, thought Wiklander, though without really knowing why. It doesn’t seem like Berg, taking them out and then putting two back in.

  Could it have been someone else in the building? After getting the necessary permissions from Johansson he had simply gone around and asked.

  Behind the third door he knocked on was a chief inspector with the terrorist squad, who happened to be sitting on the answer.

  “It was me,” he said, nodding happily at Wiklander. “I was the one who put them in the file.”

  “May I sit down?” Wiklander asked, looking inquisitively at the vacant chair in front of the desk.

  “Of course,” said his colleague with the terrorist squad cordially. “Would you like some coffee?”

  Half an hour later Wiklander had consumed two cups. In addition he now knew how the names of two corpses had been reinstated in the as yet inconclusive investigation of one of the most serious crimes in Swedish history. On the other hand, he had not become any wiser. Definitely not wiser, thought Wiklander.

  Analysts at the military intelligence service had sent in the tip. The chief inspector with the terrorist squad who received it had obviously noticed that the two individuals in question had been dead for some time, but because his informant had also said that there would probably be more tips concerning the same matter, involving individuals who were both alive and not at all uninteresting to SePo, the guy from the terrorist squad had chosen to put them back in.

  “You know how finicky our analysts can be,” he added by way of explanation.

  Was there anyone else, Berg, for example, who had reacted against this measure? Wiklander asked. No one, his colleague summarized, and obviously not Berg, since considering the order of command in their mutual workplace the information wouldn’t have been filed over his objections.

  “Berg must have approved it,” said the chief inspector with the terrorist squad. “A mere chief inspector like myself …”

  “Yes,” said Wiklander. Berg must have approved it, he thought.

  “From the fact that you’re here I’m guessing that our friends up in the gray building have gotten in touch again, so this doesn’t seem to have been completely wrong,” said Wiklander’s host, winking slyly.

  Wiklander nodded in such a way that a sympathetic observer might perhaps have understood as agreement. What rock did they dig you out from under? he thought.

  “I have a slight difficulty right now … as you’ll surely appreciate,” said Wiklander evasively. “What we’re trying to do is to assess our previous information … in light of the new material we’ve come up with, if you know what I mean.”

  “I understand p
erfectly,” said the colleague with a smile of mutual understanding, in spite of the fact that he hadn’t understood a thing.

  “It’s true I haven’t been here very long,” said Wiklander, “but it seems like it’s pretty unusual for us to get any tips from those quarters. From the military, I mean.”

  “Tell me about it. What do you think I was thinking?” The colleague at the terrorist squad nodded with emphasis. “So I asked them straight out where they’d gotten it from—the information they were submitting, that is.”

  “And?” Wiklander tried to appear eager and appropriately curious.

  “They said they got it from the Germans,” the chief inspector said, leaning forward and lowering his voice. “From the lads at the BND. And because it wasn’t any of their business, they handed it off to me … well, to us that is.”

  “The BND,” said Wiklander, who was new to secret ops and had not yet gone through any courses.

  “Bundesnachrichtendienst,” answered the chief inspector. “Which as you surely know is the Germans’ counterpart to the CIA.”

  “You don’t say,” said Wiklander, making an effort to appear at least somewhat shrewd. “Any idea how they got hold of it? The BND, that is,” he clarified.

  The chief inspector wiggled his right palm.

  “Nobody’s talking about it, as you can appreciate. But some things you figure out for yourself and some things don’t need to be said. That part was more implicit,” Wiklander’s host replied.

  “Wait a second,” said Wiklander. “Did anyone say … or did anyone not say—that they got the information from the BND?”

  “That’s not the kind of thing you say,” said the chief inspector deprecatingly. “It would be a real dereliction of duty if you said that sort of thing.”

  “You figured it out anyway?” asked Wiklander.

  “Of course I did,” said the chief inspector contentedly. “I don’t know if you know, but around that time the Germans found some previously unknown material in the old Stasi archives. It was the so-called SIRA archive, which, among other things, contained a lot of names of their old spies and political sympathizers abroad. There was also quite a lot of information from the seventies and eighties, so that even a child could figure out what had happened—when the Germans found out about it, I mean. Well, and then we got it. Of course it was here in Stockholm that the shit hit the fan. And I can’t rule out that this was just their way of tweaking our noses. Even if it’ll soon be twenty-five years since those leftist maniacs blew up the West German embassy.”

  “You’ll have to excuse me,” said Wiklander, “but why in the name of God didn’t Stasi get rid of the papers in that SIRA archive?”

  “The official explanation is that they didn’t have time. They had a shortage of shredders,” the terrorist chief inspector said comfortably. “Fate bestows her favors unevenly. They should have called me. They could have borrowed as many as they wanted.”

  This is getting stranger and stranger, thought Wiklander as he returned to his office. High time to talk with the boss.

  Johansson immediately made room in his schedule, and a few hours later Wiklander reported his findings.

  “This is getting stranger and stranger,” said Johansson. “Here’s what we’ll do,” he continued, nodding encouragingly at Wiklander.

  “I’m listening,” said Wiklander.

  “I think you’re completely right about Eriksson, Welander, and Tischler,” said Johansson. “Try to find out who the fourth one is, and then I’ll see if Berg has any ideas. At least he’ll be able to tell me why he removed them from the file two years ago.”

  “If you’re going to talk with him anyway you might as well ask him how common it was back in his day for us to get help from the military,” Wiklander suggested.

  “Well, I know what it’s like these days,” said Johansson with a wide grin. “They seem to finally understand that these are new times. Nowadays we’re greeted with standing ovations. I had dinner with the supreme commander last week.”

  “And it was nice,” said Wiklander neutrally. Whatever that has to do with anything, he thought.

  “Yeah,” said Johansson. “I got the impression that attitudes have changed somewhat.” Although the food was only so-so, he thought.

  “Let’s hope so,” said Wiklander. “We still owe our salaries to the same taxpayers.” Although they seem to have considerably better per diems than we do, he thought. At least that’s what he’d heard at one of the courses he’d taken since getting his new job.

  “Joking aside,” said Johansson, suddenly looking serious. “If they’re just fucking with us, they won’t get away with it. I didn’t have that good a time. Find the fourth man for us, and I’ll take care of the foreign policy. And see if Jarnebring has any ideas. I just remembered he was involved in the investigation of Eriksson’s murder,” said Johansson, who had finally put the pieces together after Wiklander had recounted the case from 1989.

  “The fourth man,” said Wiklander. “I’m on it.”

  As soon as Wiklander left, Johansson called Berg at home. It was high time, even just for social reasons. It had been more than a month since they’d last talked.

  Berg’s wife answered. She sounded tired and depressed. Her husband was not at home and might be gone for a few more days. Could she ask him to call Johansson when he came back? She would ask, but she couldn’t promise anything. And as soon as she had said A she also said B.

  Her husband had been admitted to a radiation clinic for treatment. He had been several times during the past six months and she did not want Johansson to tell anyone about it. She herself had promised her husband that.

  “Erik has cancer,” she said. “We have to hope for the best.”

  “If there’s anything I can do …” said Johansson. What do I say now? he thought.

  “I promise to tell him that you called,” Berg’s wife interrupted, “and if it’s something to do with work then maybe you should try talking with Persson,” she suggested.

  Johansson sighed as he hung up, and suddenly he felt gloomy, even though Berg wasn’t exactly a close friend. I’ll have to try Persson, he thought, looking up the number on his computer. At least he isn’t dying of cancer, thought Johansson. Not with all that fat and that blood pressure.

  “Yes,” said Persson, succeeding in a single word at sounding as cheerful as Berg’s wife had when she had answered the phone.

  “Do you have time to meet?” said Johansson, who was more like Persson than he realized and wasn’t going to risk any small talk.

  “If you want, you can have roast pork and brown beans in an hour,” said Persson morosely. “If you want a drink you’ll have to bring it with you. I’m all out here at home.”

  “I’ll stop at the liquor store, then I’ll see you in an hour,” said Johansson heartily. That’s a real old-time policeman there, he thought. He himself had all the time in the world. His wife was away at a conference, and the alternative would have been to eat alone or in the company of the TV. Without having any idea of Persson’s domestic talents he was willing to take the risk.

  25

  March 2000

  Persson lived in Råsunda, in one of the old fin de siècle buildings north of the soccer stadium. On the way there Johansson had his taxi stop at Solna Centrum while he trotted into the state liquor store and bought some strong beer, a bottle of pure aquavit, and half a bottle of Grönstedts cognac. No reason to be stingy, thought Johansson. If his meeting with Persson didn’t produce any results he could always enter it as a work expense, to be forwarded to that myth-enshrouded blue book, the royal realm of Sweden’s most secure storage place for such information.

  I never cease to be amazed, thought Johansson half an hour later as he sat in the kitchen of Persson’s small two-room apartment while his host was just pouring a refill in their shot glasses. If Johansson remembered correctly, Persson had lived as a bachelor since separating from his wife in the early seventies, and at work he had bee
n known for going around, regardless of the season, in the same gray suit, same yellowing nylon shirt, and same mottled tie.

  At his place there was the smell of cleanser and polished floors. It was as tidy as a dollhouse, and not much bigger. Given that Persson weighed close to four hundred pounds, he was like an elephant in a china shop. An elephant, however, who had the gracefulness of a ballerina and who was as skilled in the art of cooking as Johansson’s beloved aunt Jenny. In the good old days she’d been in charge of the bar at the Grand Hotel in Kramfors and had supplied both lumber barons and ordinary gamekeepers with the finer things in life.

  “This is damned good,” said Johansson emphatically, and because his wife was at a safe distance at a conference in southern Sweden he was finally free to let loose both his genetically inherited Norrland taste buds and his always tight-fitting belt.

  “Real men should have good food,” Persson muttered, rocking his shot glass meaningfully. “By the way, I heard you got married.”

  “Yeah,” said Johansson. “Although it’s been a while now.” A little over ten years to be more exact. You’re your usual self, thought Johansson, feeling almost moved by Persson’s concern.

  “Personally I’ve had the same thought since I got divorced,” said Persson, as if thinking out loud. “But it never worked out. Though I do have a lady friend I see now and then.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Johansson. What the hell should I say? he thought. I can’t really ask if she’s nice.

  “She’s a good woman,” said Persson, reading Johansson’s mind. “She’s Finnish. Works in home services, but she’s going to retire soon too. We’ve talked about buying something in Spain.”

  “It’s supposed to be a little warmer there.” Persson in Spain, thought Johansson. Where the hell do people get such ideas?