Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End: The Story of a Crime

by Leif G. W. Persson

  And I’ve heard it ad nauseam, he thought.

  “It’s been their case from the start,” said Johansson, “so it’s hard for me to see how we would be able to stop them.” Or why, he thought.

  “Well, you’re the one who decides, of course,” said the narcotics chief inspector sourly, standing up.

  “Yes,” said Johansson and contented himself with smiling with his mouth only. I’m the one who decides. And sometimes that’s awfully practical, he thought.

  Childishness, thought Johansson, which had taken the entire morning from other things that he’d needed to do instead. Such as slipping out and shopping for a few backup provisions as a present to Jarnebring, who would surely require extra contributions of both liquid and dry goods for dinner, despite his energetic protestations to the contrary. Besides, he himself needed more exact information as to the time and place.

  Now that had been solved, at any rate. Jarnebring had phoned after lunch and given the address of his latest girlfriend.

  “I was thinking it’s more practical that way,” said Jarnebring. “You know girls, they love to fuss. And then I’ve loaned out my pad too. To Rusht, if you remember him?”

  “Is there anything I can bring?” asked Johansson. To Rusht, he thought with surprise. Wasn’t he that long-fingered character with the bad breath who managed the coffee fund at the bureau? Surely that was going too far, despite the fact that he was a colleague.

  “No,” said Jarnebring. “I’ve arranged everything. His old lady kicked him out,” Jarnebring clarified, “and I can’t really let the poor bastard celebrate Christmas at the local mission. Besides, I’ve hidden the silverware in my toothbrush case, so he’ll never find it.”

  “And you don’t need any aquavit?” said Johansson, who was not one to take risks and especially not right before Christmas.

  So our colleague Rusht had a girlfriend, despite the fact that he reeked like a cadaver in a well and had six fingers on each hand, he thought.

  “No,” said Jarnebring emphatically. “I’ve got lots of liquor at home. Well, at home with my girlfriend, that is, I’m not stupid that way, and he seems to have something more permanent going for the week after Christmas. Rusht, that is,” he clarified.

  “Decent of you,” said Johansson, who had always thought that Rusht was a real son of a bitch regardless of the season.

  “So you don’t need to think about aquavit,” Jarnebring concluded.

  Strange, thought Johansson as he put down the receiver. Wonder if he’s won on one of those horses he bets on?

  That Jarnebring had a new girlfriend was nothing strange. He almost always did; to be on the safe side he usually recruited them from his own ranks. Considerably younger than he, strawberry blonde, high-busted colleagues who as a rule were doing service with the uniformed police when they weren’t fussing around Jarnebring. And so far that added up this time as well, thought Johansson when she opened the door after the second ring and smiled broadly at him. More interesting was the fact that this particular example had clearly survived spring, summer, and autumn, and that this time Jarnebring seemed to have brought pillowcase and blanket with him and, at least for awhile, abandoned his own bachelor pad in Vasastan. She’s probably both motherly and patient, despite the fact that she looks like she does, thought Johansson.

  Her friend from Skövde who’d been called in was also on the scene, and as far as her exterior was concerned she might very well have been a sister of the evening’s hostess. When they said hello he also noted interest in her eyes. Wonder if it’s something she’s heard, he thought, or if it’s just my blue eyes? For it can’t be due to the fact that I exercise too little and eat too much. Because of my blue eyes, Johansson decided, and as soon as he decided that it turned into a very pleasant evening.

  It became very clear when they sat down at the table in her small kitchen that he didn’t need to worry about the food and drink that he hadn’t brought with him. Excellent assortment of pickled herring, gravlax, and smoked eel, an excellent potato casserole with just the right creaminess, golden-brown meatballs, and little sausages that sizzled as the hostess lifted them out of the oven. There was lots of beer and wine besides. She must be rich too, thought Johansson, loading up another spoonful of scrambled eggs with finely chopped fresh chives. Nice to look at and fun to talk with. Prepares food like Aunt Jenny herself, motherly as well, patient, and … probably wealthy.

  “I didn’t think people like you existed,” said Johansson, toasting his hostess. “Speak up if you want to meet a real guy.” Wonder if she reads books too, he thought.

  “I didn’t think you knew anyone besides me,” said Jarnebring good-naturedly. “What do you think about chasing with a really old gin?” he asked, fishing up a bulging clay jug from the rows of regular bottles.

  Wonder where he’s gotten hold of all the liquor? thought Johansson. Regardless of whether she had money, she didn’t seem to be the type to buy liquor for them. Not in such quantities, in any case, and quite apart from how much of a guy she’d now gotten hold of.

  “Sounds good,” said Johansson, who’d only had three stiff ones, the effects of which he didn’t feel in the least. Must be some horse, he thought.

  Coffee and cognac were set out in the living room, along with masses of liqueurs and other oddities, and when Johansson saw the whole lot he immediately abandoned his theory that his best friend must have won at the track.

  “Coffee and cognac will do for me,” said Johansson when his host started rummaging among all the bottles. Now he was feeling the effects of the drinks with dinner and he didn’t intend to pour sugar on the fire.

  Jarnebring’s girlfriend and her friend drank cream liqueurs with obvious enjoyment—they probably don’t read books, thought Johansson—and it was then too that he got an answer to his musings.

  “God, this is good,” said the female friend from Skövde, letting the tip of her tongue feel her upper lip. “Can you ask your contact to arrange a few bottles for me too?”

  “I’ll ask him,” said Jarnebring, smiling and raising his glass.

  Hultman, thought Johansson. Wonder what Jarnie has helped him with? he thought, and if Jarnebring hadn’t been his best friend he would certainly have been a little worried.

  The time had gotten to be past midnight before Johansson finally stopped to think that it was high time to go home. Not because he felt out of sorts exactly—for the last hour he’d been content simply with mineral water—but in twelve hours he would be sitting at the steering wheel. Best to break up when it was the most fun.

  “Now it’s time for me to say thank you,” said Johansson. “You haven’t done this in vain and you must speak up in good time before the wedding so that I can repay you.”

  Jarnebring had kept a good face but still rolled his eyes when no one else could see them. The hostess had been giggly and delighted and kissed him right on the mouth, and her friend had clearly also decided to think about getting along.

  “I heard you live on the south end too,” she said, giving Johansson a smile and an assessing glance. “If you don’t have anything against it, maybe we can share a cab?”

  “Sure,” said Johansson. You’re rolling in it, lad, he thought.

  [FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20]

  He’d packed his suitcases the day before. His clothes, Christmas presents for his relatives, books to read, plus Krassner’s posthumous papers, if he were to have an extra day and didn’t have anything better to do; everything was in his suitcases. In the morning before he went to work he’d picked up the car that his brother had arranged for him. What remained was to go around at work and wish everyone merry Christmas and drink way too much coffee. He’d decided to eat lunch on the way. Right before the stroke of twelve he gave a Christmas present to his secretary, got a surprised smile, neither more nor less surprised than what he’d counted on, and a cool kiss on the cheek in thanks.

  Then he took the elevator down to the garage and sat in the large rented car, which
didn’t cost a cent, for his big brother, who was in the business, had seen to that, loaded the tape player with some nice dance-band music, and set a course northward. Just under 240 miles makes just under four hours, thought Johansson as he turned onto Essingeleden, at a good time judging by the sparse northbound traffic.

  CHAPTER XIV

  And all that remained was the cold of winter

  Stockholm in December

  December had started unusually well for Bäckström and his colleagues in homicide. At the beginning of Lucia week, they’d taken the boat to Finland for the squad’s traditional Christmas conference. They’d gotten thoroughly primed even before going on board, and when Bäckström and the others went to piss away most of it before sitting down to eat lunch, Danielsson was in his cups on the shit-house stairs, even before they’d passed Lidingö on the way out.

  This is, God help me, too good to be true, thought Bäckström. What a fucking phenomenal start!

  First he and his colleagues just stood silently and looked at Jack Daniels where he was lying, motionless and with his drunken head at a mysterious angle against his chest, but then Rundberg, that ingratiating bastard, took him by the shoulder and shook him and raved that someone had to fetch a doctor, and then Jack Daniels suddenly sat up ramrod straight and stared at them with his bloodshot eyes.

  “You cowardly bastards,” he hissed. “I don’t hear any applause.”

  Then everything went back to normal again. At lunch Lindberg started nagging that no one ought to take more than one schnapps, given the afternoon meetings, but then old Jack Daniels, who was also back to normal again, told him to shut up and eat. After that he made a toast with Bäckström. First he just sat and glared at him the way he usually did, but then he suddenly grinned and raised his glass.

  “Skoal, Bäckström,” said Jack Daniels. “Better luck next time we go to the can.”

  Say what you like about old Jack Daniels, but he’s a tough bastard, thought Bäckström, who was already into his fourth and starting to get a little sentimental.

  “Skoal, chief,” said Bäckström, “and I’m not one to complain.”

  Clearly that had been the right answer, for Jack Daniels had grinned like an old killer bear and treated him to his fifth.

  When they got to Helsinki, Bäckström slipped away from the rest of the company. He called up a Finnish friend, a cop who had good contacts and was made of the right stuff. They went to a nightclub where they picked up two Estonian girls whom they took home to the colleague’s place. Bäckström gave his specimen a real all-round lube job. She was a small, fat brunette with big tits and good speed on her little mouse. Both she and her friend were in Finland illegally, so neither of them had been particularly difficult to negotiate with when they were going to settle the price, and the colleague told them what he and Bäckström did for work. Before they left she even asked Bäckström if they couldn’t meet again sometime. Perhaps in Stockholm?

  Dream on, you horny little cunt, grinned Bäckström as he staggered on board again in good time before departure. Out of pure curiosity he’d also trotted down to the meeting room and there sat Lindberg playing the conference game along with Krusberg, another ingratiating bastard, and a couple of the younger talents who probably didn’t have much choice. Bäckström sat down for a while to rest his weary feet, but Lindberg was carrying on about some meaningless statistics that no real policeman could bear filling in. Then he left and looked up the others, who to a man sat gathered in the bar, getting warmed up before departure. Then everything was as normal again.

  . . .

  When they came back to the precinct the day before St. Lucia’s Day, old Jack Daniels took Bäckström aside and asked him if he couldn’t arrange the practical details around the Lucia celebration so it wouldn’t be so damn expensive. Bäckström understood exactly what he meant, and even though it was at the last minute he succeeded in getting hold of his contact at the coast guard, who’d gotten a meeting with his own contact, who in turn had produced a whole case of mixed goodies at a reasonable price.

  “No need to pay for the whole damn geriatric system because you want to have a drink,” said Jack Daniels contentedly when Bäckström returned with his booty after a well-executed assignment.

  Then they celebrated Lucia according to good old traditions, and Bäckström didn’t even need to slave at the after-hours unit over the weekend. Danielsson, that decent old drunk, had given him a special assignment and written out all the overtime forms required so he would be able to rest his weary head and take the weekend off with a good conscience.

  Monday didn’t start off badly either. He’d hardly managed to stick his foot in the precinct door before one of the younger talents came rushing in all out of breath to say that there’d been a double murder out in Bromma that demanded Bäckström’s immediate professional assistance.

  Unfortunately it wasn’t as good as it sounded. Despite the address it was an ordinary gook murder. A crazy Iranian who had shot his wife and young daughter. True, the wife was Swedish, but what the hell could she expect when she’d gotten married to someone like that and told the poor bastard that she wanted a divorce besides? How fucking stupid can you be? thought Bäckström.

  When the camel driver was done with the old lady and the kid he’d clearly tried to do himself in too, but that hadn’t gone too well. As so often with those types, his courage had failed him as soon as it concerned his own well-being. First he’d tried to shoot himself in the head, but naturally he’d missed and only parted his hair, and when the uniformed police had gotten there, he was sitting out in the kitchen whittling his wrists with an old bread knife. In other words, a completely ordinary gook murder, and the most shocking thing was perhaps that the poor bastard had a license for two weapons, a moose rifle and a shotgun. Clearly he’d taken the hunting test, and those morons at the licensing unit had licensed the hunting rifles to him. How the hell could a bastard like that get a license to hunt? In Sweden besides, thought Bäckström.

  The rest was pure routine. Fortunately he’d got hold of that little fairy Wiijnbladh in tech, so the actual crime-scene investigation had gone quickly enough, and he’d gladly turned over the gook to a younger colleague who might need a few easy cases to practice on before things got serious, and it was then of course that the whole thing had gone to hell. As always when the real pro isn’t nearby. His younger colleague simply dropped the ball, and the good doctor had of course been smart enough to take the opportunity to stuff so many pills into the poor bastard that he hadn’t been able to talk. How fucking stupid can you be? thought Bäckström. And now his colleague had the chance of a lifetime to squeeze a proper confession out of the guy as he was lying there in intensive care with his eyes crossed and tubes in both arms.

  “Have you thought about starting at the City Mission, lad?” said Bäckström, fixing his eyes on the little moron from hell when he came back from the hospital and stood in Bäckström’s office, whining that he couldn’t cope with his job.

  The good doctor was clearly one of those intrepid citizens who took themselves too seriously. He’d admitted the murderer to the psychiatric unit, and the guy was simply lying there keeping his mouth shut. “Deeply depressed, beyond communication, and with apparent risk of ending up in a long-term psychotic state,” according to the fax that His Highness sent over to the squad as an answer to Bäckström’s own friendly question of whether he couldn’t be allowed to talk with the poor bastard. They intend to snatch the gook away from me, those bastards, and then they’ll release him for Easter as usual and he’ll suddenly be free as a bird and healthy as a horse, thought Bäckström, who’d been there before. But we’ll see the hell about that, he thought, and went in to Jack Daniels to procure a little extra help.

  Unfortunately it appeared as though he might have chosen a better occasion. A hangover had clearly caught up with his honored boss, which no doubt only proved that not even a drunk like him could cope with partying the way they usually did bef
ore Christmas. Jack Daniels had gone completely nuts and Bäckström got the whole blame, despite the fact that he was innocent. Any more special assignments before Christmas were out of the question. And so were a large number of other things, if Bäckström, who came back from the hospital without a confession, understood the matter correctly.

  “How fucking stupid can you be?” bellowed Jack Daniels in his sympathetic way, pounding his fist on the desk.

  So Bäckström had to make the best of a bad job, gather together his bag and baggage, and drive himself back up to the hospital and question the gook. Late in the evening, besides, so he could be certain that that damn doctor was sitting at home celebrating his victory over justice along with the rest of the red-wine leftists. Although there you shit in your pants, thought Bäckström while he rigged up his tape recorder next to the bed. The gook himself was playing the nut-house game, looking at the ceiling with empty brown, tear-filled eyes and hands folded on the bedcover as if he really didn’t have anything to do with the matter but was just a completely ordinary psycho case in a large pile of innocent people.

  This will be fun, thought Bäckström delightedly. He switched on the tape recorder, did the usual introductory tirades, and looked gently at the gook while he held out the photo he’d brought with him.

  “I understand that you’re not feeling well,” said Bäckström amiably, patting him on the shoulder. “But I think you’re going to feel a lot better if you unburden your heart.”

  It wasn’t a bad photo, in color, of course, and with good sharpness in all details, and it functioned completely perfectly. The daughter was two years old and had clearly been asleep when little gook-papa had come in to say goodnight for good. She’d had on white pajamas with big Mickey Mouses on them, and according to another photo, which Bäckström had seen in an album at home at the crime scene, she’d been really cute like all those gook kids always were.