But everything has its time. My decision is irrevocable and is simply due to the fact that my task has also taken over my life and hasn’t left anything else behind. For that’s how it’s turned out. I have lived my life caught between the longing of summer and the cold of winter.
As a young man I used to think that when summer comes I would fall in love with someone, someone I would love a lot, and then, that’s when I would start living my life for real. But by the time I had accomplished all those things I had to do before, summer was already gone and all that remained was the winter cold. And that, that was not the life that I had hoped for.
Pilgrim
You can really accomplish a lot with small means, thought Johansson; specifically it was the altered paragraph division in the quotation that irritated him, even if it had improved the poetic substance.
The spy who gave notice, thought Johansson. For being a mere twenty-seven years old when he did that—Johansson had looked up the prime minister’s year of birth in one of his many reference books—he seemed truly sardonic. Buchanan could probably keep from laughing, and if he’d been the way Sarah had described him, Pilgrim’s eloquence had probably been wasted effort.
After that he gathered together Krassner’s papers and put them back in the bag. The rest that was there could well wait, because he was a policeman, not a historian. Perhaps they ought to be donated to the archives of the labor movement, thought Johansson. Or I could forget about the whole thing, have a tall highball, and call up some nice woman, for this of course wasn’t the life I had imagined either. Wonder if they’ve gone home at the foreign nationals unit? he thought, looking at his watch.
[TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, TO WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18]
It was the Defense College that acted as host for the conference where questions of total defense were to be discussed from and including luncheon on day one until and including luncheon on day two. An exclusive affair with only a dozen hand-picked delegates who ordinarily worked as high-level bosses within the media sector, industry, and the governmental administrative apparatus.
The first meetings had been held as early as the late 1940s; according to the official history it was then–prime minister Tage Erlander himself who had hatched the idea of gathering representatives of both private industry and the public sector under the aegis of the defense department for the purpose of strengthening the country’s defenses. Thus the new concept of “total defense”: a Europe crisscrossed by new borders, new alliances and power constellations, a cold war between East and West, a strongly questioned Swedish policy of neutrality. In that situation it seemed both logical and obvious that the country’s prime minister would decide to try to create peace in his own backyard at least.
This time they would be gathering at a comfortable and well-situated conference center in the archipelago south of Stockholm, and for some reason it was Wiklander who was to drive Johansson there.
He wants to talk about Krassner, thought Johansson, but because he himself didn’t intend to open that discussion, he sat in the backseat and read through his conference material. It was only when they’d started heading east at Järna, and there wasn’t much time left to play with, that Wiklander spoke up.
“There’s something I’ve been thinking about,” said Wiklander. “If you have time to listen, chief?”
“Of course,” said Johansson, making the effort to sound as though he really did.
“It struck me when we left each other yesterday. I don’t know if I’m on the wrong track, but your questions got me thinking. I suddenly got the idea that maybe the colleagues at SePo took the opportunity to do a little house search in that guy M’Boye’s room and that was why our colleague Eriksson had carted him away to the restaurant.”
“The same thought struck me,” said Johansson. “That was why I asked you.” Only a half lie, he thought.
“And while they’re doing that, that wretch takes the opportunity to jump out his window,” said Wiklander, his voice actually sounding rather gloomy.
“I’ve thought about that too,” said Johansson, trying to slip in a little extra authority in the service of the lie and of credibility. “They did their thing and Krassner did his and then they left without having any idea that Krassner had already jumped or was just about to jump out his window.”
“Can it really be that bad?” said Wiklander doubtfully. “I mean, they must have had people outside keeping an eye on the situation, don’t you think?”
“They must have been standing outside the entrance at the back in that case, while Krassner jumped out on the front side,” said Johansson, who had decided to preserve Wiklander’s misunderstanding.
“Yes. Well,” said Wiklander, but he didn’t sound especially convinced. “It doesn’t appear to have been very professional.”
“I think we’re in complete agreement about that,” said Johansson without needing to sound uncertain, “but personally I think they probably never did a house search.”
“You mean …” said Wiklander.
“That Eriksson and M’Boye went out and ate and that was all,” said Johansson.
“Hmm,” said Wiklander, nodding. “That’s sort of what I’ve been thinking. That it’s a coincidence, plain and simple.”
“And I also think that was why they wanted to check out the investigation of Krassner’s cause of death,” said Johansson. “To be sure that M’Boye didn’t have something to do with Krassner in some mysterious way.”
“Well,” said Wiklander, sounding considerably happier. “There’s probably no doubt he took his own life. There’s simply no other possibility.”
“No,” said Johansson. It’s nice to hear that you’ve arrived at that insight, he thought.
Johansson was the only police officer at the conference, and when he’d read through the list of participants a few days earlier he’d thought that by God this wasn’t cat shit they’d scraped together—with certain reservations about himself. The list contained two chief executives, a supreme court justice, six managing and deputy managing directors from industry, two editors in chief, plus a police superintendent who, to be on the safe side, had been propped up with the addition of “and head of the Swedish Bureau of Criminal Investigation.” All in suits and ties, of course, because it was only the Scots who made war in skirts.
It had been a very civil affair. True, it had started with a war game where first the participants drew lots and swapped occupations, not in order to go to the front lines but rather to see to it that communications, the food supply, and the medical and legal systems were functioning. In other respects as well the conference had primarily dealt with just that: how you got roads and telephones, electricity and water, to function, how you saw to it that people didn’t starve to death and that they had clothes on their backs. And how you got them to behave like “people” even if the worst were to occur.
The final morning had been devoted to a seminar drill under the leadership of a “special adviser to the prime minister,” the latter’s own éminence grise, who also bore the highest responsibility for security questions affecting the government and the central administration. Considering that, he’d been unusually specific when he handed out his assignment. He wanted the course participants to write down the names of the three living Swedes who ran the greatest risk, ranked by likelihood of personal attack. Not just anybody, obviously, but those who were in high positions in politics, industry, or the bureaucracy. Or were celebrities for other reasons such as, for example, the queen, Astrid Lindgren, or Björn Borg.
In total the delegates had written down twenty-some names, and the country’s prime minister had landed overwhelmingly in first place, having received twice as many risk points as the remaining names combined. All of the delegates had placed him topmost, and one managing director of a large fashion company, himself far from unknown, had written the prime minister’s name three times to be on the safe side. Despite their seminar leader’s title.
“So the result app
ears to be quite unambiguous,” said the special adviser as he began the concluding discussion. “It would be interesting to hear your reasons,” he continued while he observed the delegates behind half-closed eyelids and with a sardonic smile.
Peculiar type, thought Johansson. If he hadn’t been so fat you could easily take him for a viper lying in the hot sun, only pretending to be asleep.
“Politicians of course often become a bit controversial,” one editor in chief began tactfully, because someone had to begin.
“Good God,” moaned one of the executives, who, judging by his complexion, ought to do something about his blood pressure. “If people like you read what you yourselves were writing, you must surely understand that he doesn’t seem the least bit controversial. You just have to read back what you’re writing.”
“What do you mean?” said the editor in chief with a faint smile.
“I think it’s touching that you all appear to agree that the fellow is a real son of a bitch. I myself have no idea, for I’ve never met him,” he added, glaring acidly at the editor in chief.
“Which I have,” clarified the editor in chief, looking for some reason rather superior.
“So he is a real son of a bitch, then,” said the executive, and the ensuing laughter drowned out the weak protests of his opponent.
Then things had broken loose in earnest: “arrogant,” “upper-class type,” “rotten,” “malicious,” “holds a grudge,” and “very un-Swedish.” In addition he was “much too intelligent,” “much too educated,” “much too verbal,” “much too talented,” and all in all “much too unreliable.”
“And let’s not forget that he’s obviously spying for the Russians too. How he manages that between all his tax evasions,” said the executive with the blood pressure, looking sternly at the second editor in chief for some reason.
The only one who hadn’t said anything was Johansson. He hadn’t even changed his expression but was content to surreptitiously observe their seminar leader, whose body language, apart from the wry smile and the lowered eyelids, was not completely unlike his own. But now he had the chance.
“I think that’s all nonsense,” said Johansson suddenly, and because he was who he was and looked the way he did, the room suddenly went completely quiet.
“What do you mean?” said the special adviser, with a faint twitch of the eyebrow.
Good, thought Johansson. Here’s a nibble, and it’s the big fish who’s circling the hook.
“Well,” said Johansson leisurely and with a lot of Norrland in his voice. “Quite apart from all the logical and rational reasons that argue against that … and you know that sort of thing better than someone like me,” he added good-naturedly, nodding toward the rest of the assembly.
“Speak up, man,” hooted one of the younger executives who’d been on a survival course abroad. “If you’ve said A then you have to say B.”
“Purely from a police perspective, then,” said Johansson hesitantly in order to secure the bait thoroughly around the sinker and the line. “Purely from a police perspective, then … he’s simply the wrong type, as we say. The type who would never spy for the Russians. Not him, no.” Johansson shook his head heavily and everyone who saw him understood that the very thought was impossible.
“It is quite nice to hear that opinion from such an esteemed representative of the police,” said their chairman. “It’s not always what I’ve heard being whispered among his colleagues.”
“What do you mean?” asked Johansson.
“That the prime minister would not be a spy,” said the special adviser with clear emphasis.
“I didn’t say that,” said Johansson with well-acted astonishment while he carefully traced the line between his thumb and index finger.
“I thought you said he was completely the wrong type?” Now the prime minister’s special adviser had hoisted up his eyelids at least halfway.
“No, there I think you’ve got me wrong,” said Johansson like a peasant, shaking his head. “As a spy he’s probably a rather good type, at least when he was younger. Today no doubt he has too much to do, and then he’s probably pretty much under observation too. If it’s the case that he has spied for someone, then I believe that it was long before he became prime minister. And he would never dream of doing it for the Russians.”
“That is very nice to hear. You don’t have any tips on who it might have been in any case?” asked the special adviser.
“Quite certainly for the Americans,” said Johansson. “For the CIA, if I were to speculate.”
And there you bit, thought Johansson when he saw the shift in the special adviser’s look.
“I’ve understood that within the police your political preferences differ from mine and my boss’s,” said the special adviser, sounding a little bit too offended for someone like him.
“Well,” said Johansson and nodded. “That’s no doubt correct. Although I personally think that he appears both educated and … well, intelligent.”
“But a spy? For the CIA?” said the special adviser, and got a few giggles as reward.
“It’s so easy to get into things,” said Johansson, letting him savor his heaviest police look. “And the kind of intelligence I’m thinking of here doesn’t have anything to do with it. On the contrary. What attracts a person the most is the sort of thing you’re already suited for; otherwise it would be no big deal to abstain. It’s easy to get into things, but it can be considerably trickier to get out.” Johansson nodded again, mostly to himself as it appeared, and in the room where he was sitting it was dead silent.
“I don’t believe we’ll go any further than this,” said the special adviser with a light hand movement and a suave expression. “Besides, I understand from the agreeable aromas wafting their way in from the kitchen that it’s almost time for lunch. I think it’s high time to adjourn. Gentlemen … personally I think that this has been both extraordinarily pleasant, interesting, and even exciting, and if I now may …”
What if I were to ask him to extend greetings from Fionn? thought Johansson as he gathered up his notes. Although that’s probably not necessary, for now he could read him like an open book. Despite his heavy, unmoving face, his reclining posture, the half-closed eyelids, despite all of his body language, his phlegmatic self-assuredness and well-formulated speech, Johansson could see that he appeared truly terrified. Wonder how much he knows? he thought.
[THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19]
When Johansson came to work on Thursday morning, it was as if the pre-Christmas calm had been blown away and a state of total war prevailed between his own narcotics squad and its counterpart at the provincial police department in Dalarna. They’d been working together on a large case for several weeks. The head honchos were in Borlänge and Falun, and it was there that it had started, but the case had quickly expanded and appeared to have offshoots both in the rest of the country and abroad. Finally the chief constable in Dalarna had slammed his fist on the table and put his foot down. No more travel or surveillance outside their own turf, and it was high time to bring in a partner if he wasn’t going to get the auditors around his neck.
After an agitated meeting, in which the head of the province’s narcotics squad had called his chief, the chief constable, “a fucking accountant,” the commander had nonetheless had the last word, and for the past three weeks the case had been divided between the police authorities in Dalarna and Johansson’s own national bureau. And no one was happy.
As far as the police in Dalarna were concerned, it was their biggest narcotics case since the gold rush years in the midseventies, and they had no intention of sharing the returns on their own efforts and exertions with some “Stockholm-area-code hotshots.” So the collaboration might have been better.
At the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation it wasn’t the travel allowance or even the budget in general that constituted the inhibiting factor, for in that respect new angles kept popping up. There was nothing wrong with their creativi
ty, either, and because “the peasant police out in the sticks” were always just “scratching the surface,” the joint case had grown like a mold culture until it finally landed “in the competent hands of real policemen.”
“This could become a really big deal,” explained Johansson’s traveling companion from his visit to the United States.
“But the colleagues in the province want to go in now?” asked Johansson.
“Sure, so they can celebrate Christmas in peace and quiet, those lazy bastards,” said the head of the bureau’s narcotics squad with a certain heat.
“Still, I’m thinking they must have some other reason,” said Johansson, who’d been around awhile and had heard this and that before.
“A few of the local crooks are heading to Thailand over Christmas. Those provincials have gotten it in their heads that they intend to stay there for good, which is pure rubbish, and besides they’re not the ones who are interesting. It’s our usual guys who are behind this, the Turks and then those Polacks I was telling you about, they’ve been with us of course for several years now. Those damn Dallanders are just retailers,” snorted the head of the bureau’s narcotics squad, who was from Stockholm and didn’t know better.
“Let Dalarna bring them in then, if they aren’t of interest to us,” said Johansson.
For the sake of household peace—and our own crooks don’t seem to be running away from us either, he thought.
“But it’s going to spoil our own job with the real head honchos,” objected his former traveling companion, and he didn’t sound at all the way he had the last time they’d met.
“I hear what you’re saying,” said Johansson.
Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End: The Story of a Crime Page 39