Another Time, Another Life

by Leif G. W. Persson

  “Yeeesss,” said Martinez, raising her clenched left fist in a victory gesture from the suburb north of Stockholm where she had grown up. “Those are her fingerprints. Both on the kitchen counter and on the door under the sink.”

  It was too late to call Johansson and get yet another dose of cynicism and sarcasm, thought Holt as she looked at the clock.

  “What do you think about seven-thirty tomorrow morning?” she asked instead.

  “No beer, no hunks, fine with me,” Martinez summarized.

  “That suits me fine too,” said Mattei. “I’m actually a morning person.”

  Instead of going home to sleep, Holt borrowed an unmarked car and took the route past Helena Stein’s residence on Östermalm. Parked discreetly a little way down the street, she sat in the car for an hour while she kept an eye on the windows in Stein’s apartment. There were lights on in there somewhere in the inner regions, and at one point she saw someone go past behind the curtains in the room that she now knew to be Stein’s living room. But she wasn’t able to see whether it was Helena Stein or someone else.

  What are you up to? thought Holt with irritation. Then she drove straight home and went to bed. What kind of a life are you living anyway? she thought as she fell asleep.

  33

  Monday, April 3, 2000

  When Holt reached work on Monday morning she immediately went to see her boss to report on the latest developments. Johansson was not there. According to his cool and correct secretary, the boss might show up after lunch, assuming of course he didn’t have anything else going on. Reaching him on his cell phone was out of the question as well, because he was in important meetings where he could not be disturbed. Johansson’s secretary suggested that perhaps Holt should try speaking with Wiklander instead. And if he wouldn’t do, then she would just have to be patient and wait until Johansson came back.

  Wiklander was also conspicuously absent, and because he didn’t have a secretary who refused to say where he was, all that remained were Holt’s closest coworkers, Martinez and Mattei.

  “Okay,” said Holt. “The boys are staying out of sight as usual, so what do we do while we’re waiting?”

  “I have more than enough of my own work to do,” said Mattei, nodding at the piles of papers towering beside her computer. “But if you want I can help you look for connections between Eriksson and Stein at the time of the murder.”

  “Good, Lisa,” said Holt. “If you look for any financial connections—and for God’s sake don’t forget her cousin Tischler—then Linda and I will try to check the phones.”

  “Almost eleven years ago,” said Martinez doubtfully, shaking her dark-haired head. “The AXE system wasn’t completely built at that time, and almost nobody had cell phones. I don’t even know how long Telia saves its call lists. Surely not for ten years.”

  “We have to at least try,” said Holt. “The lists of Eriksson’s calls are included in the investigation, but if I remember correctly it was like you say, pretty slim. But we have to check again anyway.”

  “You do that then since you’re the one who knows the case,” said Martinez, “and I’ll talk with Telia and the other cell phone companies.” It has to be done anyway, she thought, and she might even get the chance to get out and move around.

  Chief Inspector Wiklander met with former chief inspector Persson, and it was Johansson who had arranged the contact. The substance of Wiklander’s mission was simple enough. He would interview Persson for informational purposes and make sure that everything Johansson and Persson had talked about that evening when they had brown beans and roast pork—and a drink or two, and as the time passed quite a few—ended up on paper and was read out loud and approved by Persson. Because if Johansson was getting ready for war, he wanted to be well prepared.

  The business between them had been taken care of both quickly and painlessly. Considering that Persson looked like an old, red-eyed male elephant who might at any moment drive his tusks through the person he was talking with, he had been both obliging and talkative. Wiklander’s extra assignment remained.

  “There was one more thing,” said Wiklander, trying to sound as if he had just happened to think of it. “It was Johansson who asked me,” he added to be on the safe side.

  Persson just nodded.

  “It’s about your former colleague Claes Waltin. The one who quit a few years after the Palme assassination, when you shut down the so-called external operation.”

  Persson nodded again, but without saying anything.

  “Johansson was wondering if you had anything interesting to say about why he quit and what happened to him later—they say he drowned,” said Wiklander, and for some reason he felt slightly uneasy when he finally squeezed out the question.

  Persson on the other hand reacted in the most unexpected manner. He looked almost delighted, and considering how he usually looked this was a frightening sight for Wiklander.

  “I never talk about colleagues,” Persson growled. “I don’t even talk shit about them if I don’t like them, but where that little asshole Waltin is concerned I’ll be glad to. Do you want to know why?”

  “Yes, please,” said Wiklander, for he did want to know, and it was one more reason why he was where he was. Besides, Persson wasn’t the type you said no to, regardless of what you wanted personally.

  “I never considered him a colleague,” Persson snorted. “Waltin was no policeman; he was an ordinary little gangster dandy with police chief training and good manners. So I hope you have enough tape with you so it doesn’t run out,” said Persson, nodding toward Wiklander’s little tape recorder, which he had set on the table between them.

  And then Persson told him about former deputy police superintendent Claes Waltin.

  “We actually received the tip from our American friends,” said the colonel. “We get together occasionally and exchange a few common experiences,” he added evasively, “and when we had a session at the beginning of December this case came up. They were the ones who offered it to us actually.”

  “There wasn’t anything that caused you to wonder then?” asked Johansson.

  “What do you mean?” the colonel counter-questioned.

  “A twenty-five-year-old case on which the statute of limitations was due to run out and that no one seems to have given a thought to for decades. Besides, if I’ve understood this correctly, you got tips about a couple of people who have already been dead for many years. Eriksson and Welander, I seem to recall,” said Johansson, despite the fact that he knew quite well who he was talking about.

  “So that’s why you think we shared this with you,” said the colonel, smiling. “You can have two old corpses to be forwarded to our dear truth commission. Was that what you were thinking, Johansson?”

  “The thought may have occurred to me,” said Johansson, and he smiled too.

  “But it wasn’t that way at all,” said the colonel, looking at him with his honest blue eyes. “The fact is, I asked the exact same question you did, and the answer I got was convincing enough.”

  “What was that?” said Johansson.

  “That there would be more,” said the colonel. “And that we might need Eriksson and Welander for our background analysis, if nothing else. The Americans have devoted a good deal of time to analyzing the data they got when the Germans took possession of the SIRA archive, and among other things they’ve been running it against their own Rosewood material and a few other goodies they’ve collected in boxes over the years. However it was, they seemed pretty convinced that names would be produced of individuals who are still highly interesting. To both you and me,” the colonel concluded.

  And if you think they’ve produced these with the help of the SIRA archive then they’ve been holding out on you, thought Johansson, who had no problem whatsoever believing his predecessor Berg’s story of what had gone on when Welander removed himself and his comrades from the Stasi files.

  “Did they say anything about who would be included in futur
e deliveries?”

  “Young radicals from the seventies who have become established citizens and come up in the world,” said the colonel. “But who perhaps haven’t really made a clean break with their past and who might therefore be interesting both to you and to us. Far more interesting today, by the way, than at the time when they were just marching in a lot of demonstrations and giving you hell,” he added.

  Not someone like Tischler, but quite probably Helena Stein, thought Johansson.

  “And you don’t think this may be part of a disinformation campaign from their side?” he asked.

  “No,” said the colonel. “For the simple reason that there is no reason to carry on with that sort of thing anymore. We’re living in a new era,” said the colonel credulously.

  So that’s what we’re doing? The hell we are, thought Johansson.

  “Give me a name. Who was it who gave you this information?”

  “I’d rather not,” said the colonel, squirming. “And you know why as well as I do.”

  “Then I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you again,” said Johansson, who was suddenly reminded of Berg’s old hand, Chief Inspector Persson. If you don’t want to keep company with your former colleague Wennerström of course, thought Johansson.

  “Normally it doesn’t work like that,” said the colonel evasively, “but I’ll make an exception because they gave us the go-ahead to share this with you.”

  How did the CIA get the idea that they could decide that sort of thing for us? thought Johansson, who could already feel his blood pressure rising.

  “As I said, we get together occasionally, and this time it was more of a social event, I guess, it being almost Christmas and all, so we had a nice dinner at the old mess out at Karlberg and listened to a darned interesting lecture that one of their guys gave us. A real old legend in the industry actually, and what he had to tell was both highly informative and highly entertaining. He was the one who came up and asked me after dinner if we were interested, and when I said we were he promised to get back to me. Then one of our regular contacts at their embassy contacted us within just a few days and did a presentation for us. Our analysts were obviously included, so we’re entirely in agreement here, they and I,” said the colonel, nodding. “It was the genuine article we were offered.”

  “Has anything else arrived?” asked Johansson. How naive can he be? Or is he pulling my leg? he thought.

  “Not yet,” said the colonel, shaking his head, “but there’s nothing strange about that, because even then they said it might take a good while.”

  “The legend,” Johansson reminded him, “what was his name?”

  “Since you’re the one who’s asking,” sighed the colonel, “Liska. Michael Liska, born in Hungary during the war, fled as a teenager to the U.S.A. after the revolution in 1956. Big burly guy in his sixties. Called the Bear actually, Michael ‘The Bear’ Liska,” said the colonel, nodding with the sincere expression of one who did not need to unburden his heart.

  • • •

  “What a fucking story,” said Wiklander, despite the fact that he almost never swore. Persson had just finished talking about the former police superintendent Claes Waltin.

  “I told you he was a fucking jerk,” said Persson. “And if you want a piece of good advice to take with you, by the way,” he added. This Wiklander seems to be a real policeman in any case, thought Persson.

  “Yes, please,” said Wiklander. He’s actually quite pleasant once you get to know him, thought Wiklander.

  “This job,” said Persson, “be sure to keep your distance, otherwise you’ll go crazy, start seeing ghosts in the light of day.”

  “Sure,” said Wiklander. “I’ve already sensed that.” Because I really have, he thought.

  “Never forget you’re a policeman,” said Persson, nodding seriously. “Keep your distance from the crooks, don’t make things complicated, and never start compromising with them.”

  Johansson’s first task when he returned to work was to call in his head of counterespionage and ask him to find out as soon as possible, preferably immediately, what information the group had about an old CIA agent by the name of Michael “The Bear” Liska.

  Then his secretary stepped in to report that Chief Inspector Anna Holt was looking forward to seeing him as soon as possible.

  “She can come in now,” said Johansson. War it would be.

  “They’re Stein’s fingerprints. Both the one on the kitchen counter and the one on the inside of the door under the sink,” she said laconically. What can you say to that? she thought.

  “What do we do now?” asked Holt, looking at her boss inquisitively. “You’re the one who decides after all,” she said, smiling weakly.

  “How do you interpret her prints?” asked Johansson. “Even an old man like me can see that she’s been in Eriksson’s apartment, but do you have any idea when her fingerprints ended up there?”

  Now you’re sounding like the Johansson I’ve heard about, thought Holt, and then she spoke about the pedantic, demanding Eriksson, about his Polish cleaning woman who certainly had to earn her meager pay, and about the window of opportunity this left for her and Johansson.

  “She cleaned every Friday. Eriksson was murdered on a Thursday evening. I have a hard time believing that the kitchen counter was sparkling clean every time the cleaning woman had been there, so we have at the earliest Friday after lunch the week before—when the cleaning woman left the apartment the last time before the murder—and at the latest the same evening Eriksson was murdered, which gives us a little less than a week.”

  “Was there anything interesting in the wastebasket?” asked Johansson.

  “Not according to the report from the crime scene investigation,” said Holt, shaking her head, “but personally, I’m pretty sure the impression on the inside of the cupboard door ended up there at the same time as the one on the counter.”

  “I’m inclined to agree with you,” said Johansson, nodding. “Too bad there isn’t a date stamp on the impression.” The clouds are gathering over little Ms. Stein’s head, but the lightning bolt has not yet struck her, he thought. “Do we have anything else that might lead us closer?”

  “Martinez is checking the phones,” said Holt.

  Johansson shook his head doubtfully.

  “I think you can forget that,” he said. “We had a similar case a while ago and I’m pretty sure that this is too old for either Telia or Comviq. They were the only cell phone operators in the market at that time, weren’t they? Unless there’s something saved in the investigation about Eriksson?”

  “Nada,” said Holt. “I’ve checked that myself. He hardly ever called anyone, and there was almost no one who called him. Stein hasn’t in any event. He didn’t have a cell phone.”

  “Money then,” said Johansson.

  “Mattei is in the process of checking that part,” said Holt, “but I don’t think we should pin our hopes on that either.”

  “I agree with you,” said Johansson, “because even if there had been something like that between Eriksson and Stein, her cousin Tischler would surely have taken care of it.”

  “We have a hand towel too,” said Holt, and then she told him about the vomit-stained hand towel that Bäckström of all people had found at the bottom of the laundry basket in Eriksson’s bathroom. “The time-related problem with that is the same as with the fingerprints, I guess, but I’m pretty sure it was Eriksson’s murderer who threw up in it after the act,” Holt continued.

  “I agree with you completely,” said Johansson. “We’ll have to try to secure DNA on it.” Vomit is better than fingerprints when it concerns murder, he thought.

  “We’ve requested it to be sent up to us from the tech squad in Stockholm,” said Holt, “so I’m guessing it’s already on its way. Vomit is of course even better than fingerprints,” Holt clarified.

  “I wonder if I can ask you a favor?” said Johansson. “I’d like to look at the pictures from the crime scene, so if you
could give me the materials on the crime scene investigation and the forensic investigation, plus everything else you consider to be of interest, I’ll try to form an impression of how the whole thing played out.”

  “Of course,” said Holt. He apparently cares in any event, she thought.

  “Well,” said Johansson, smiling and leaning back in the chair, “do you still think Stein did it?”

  “Yes,” said Holt, nodding. “Unfortunately we’re moving in that direction.” And it doesn’t feel especially good, she thought.

  “And that bothers you,” Johansson said.

  “Yes,” said Holt.

  “Because she’s a woman?” asked Johansson.

  “Maybe,” said Holt, “I don’t know.” Pull yourself together now, Anna, she thought.

  “Sometimes it’s hard to like the situation,” said Johansson. “Especially when Eriksson seems to have been such an outstanding little asshole.”

  “Where would we be if it was open season on getting rid of assholes?” said Holt. He’s actually rather pleasant, she thought.

  “There would be a lot less people,” said Johansson, who seemed amused by the thought. “Now let’s do this,” Johansson continued, sitting up straight in the chair and beginning to count on his fingers. “We like the situation, we don’t make things complicated, we mistrust chance, and to start with we pull out that hand towel. When we’re done with that and everything else,” Johansson continued, holding up the fifth finger on his left hand, “then we turn all our worries over to the prosecutor with a clean conscience.”

  “All right by me,” said Holt, smiling involuntarily.

  “After all, this isn’t actually a murder investigation we’re working on,” Johansson concluded.

  This is going like clockwork, thought Johansson as Wiklander sat down on the chair Holt had just left. “I’m listening,” said Johansson.

  Everything that had been discussed between Johansson and Persson over their roast pork and brown beans was now noted in an interview, a copy of which Johansson would receive the next day. In addition Persson extended his greetings to the boss and looked forward to seeing him again in more pleasant circumstances.