Gieger

by Gustaf Skördeman

  Hedin was silent.

  ‘Why would anyone blow that place up today?’ Sara added.

  ‘There could be any number of reasons.’ said Hedin. ‘Loyalties shift over time, and yesterday’s enemy is today’s friend. Did you know that the German security service’s headquarters in Pullach belonged to the Waffen-SS? And their commander-in-chief, Gehlen, was a dedicated Nazi and spy chief during the war. The USSR was his area of expertise, and they thought that was the perfect fit in post-war West Germany. The Nazi past didn’t matter so much then.’

  ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘There’s a lot you don’t know.’

  Sara didn’t know whether ‘you’ referred to the police, the school pupils of the day or all of humanity, as far as Hedin was concerned.

  ‘Do you want to know what you should do?’ said Hedin. ‘You should talk to someone who has more of a military interest – someone more international. My research is about Sweden.’

  Sara was a little surprised when Hedin pulled out a mobile. She’d almost been expecting an old Ericsson Dialog with a dial.

  ‘Good morning, it’s Eva Hedin. You’ve someone specialising in Fulda and Germany with you, don’t you?’ She listened and nodded. ‘Yes, that sounds good.’

  She grabbed the back of a cut-up tea packet and took notes.

  ‘And you think he’ll answer?’ she said on the phone. ‘Good. A police officer is going to call. I don’t think she wants to say much about why, but I guess that’s something you’re used to?’

  For the first time since Sara had met Hedin, she saw her smile.

  ‘Thanks for your help, and thanks for the annual conference, by the way. Such a fascinating lecture. What a pity Theutenberg couldn’t make it. Goodbye.’

  Hedin ended the call and looked at Sara.

  ‘Tore Thörnell. Retired colonel. He may be able to help you.’

  ‘Who did you call?’

  ‘Christer Hansén.’

  ‘Military?’

  ‘Chairman of Sweden’s Eyes and Ears.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘A society for people who’ve worked in or are interested in intelligence services – primarily the historical side.’

  ‘And you’re a member of this society?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hedin, sounding rather taken aback, as if Sara had asked whether she customarily engaged in breathing. ‘I’ve given several papers to them. Here are the numbers. Now it’s time for you to leave.’

  Hedin handed over the piece of card with the phone number, then sat back and began to rattle away at her keyboard. She didn’t even reply when Sara said goodbye.

  Out in the street, Sara began by checking whether the number was registered. It wasn’t. Only four other people had searched for it, according to her app, so it was clearly not a well-used number. Then she called.

  ‘Thörnell,’ said a grave elderly voice on the other end of the line.

  Sara introduced herself, said she’d been given his number by one Christer Hansén, and that she hoped Thörnell would be able to answer a few questions about the Cold War and the Fulda Gap. He promised to do his best and asked her to come to his home an hour later. Bergsgatan 16; the door code was 1814.

  ‘1814?’ said Sara. ‘The last year Sweden was at war.’

  ‘At least officially,’ said Thörnell, before hanging up.

  *

  An hour gave her enough time to run home again and shower before taking the number 3 bus to Kungsholmen. Everyone had left for school and work, so she had the apartment to herself. As she turned on the water and pulled off her running clothes, she thought back to the evening before, and how dramatic it had been for her and her family. The others probably all thought she’d overreacted and stuck her nose in things that weren’t her business. Personally, Sara wanted just wanted to protect her family – both the individual members of it and the family as a unit. But did that have to be on her terms? Was she struggling to accept that the others had their own wills? She just wanted the best for them.

  Sara turned off the shower, towelled off and then stood for a long time in front of the bathroom mirror, examining herself. This was who she was. Sara Nowak. Mother of two, police officer, resident of Stockholm’s old town. When she was a child, she wouldn’t have been able to guess much of what would happen during her life. Was she satisfied with her life? Was there anything she regretted? Anything she felt she ought to have done? A dream she still hoped to realise? She’d probably had loads of dreams in her childhood and teens, but by and large she felt that her dreams changed as her life went on. They were no longer about glamorous jobs or fame. Now she dreamed of success on behalf of her children, retaining her health, someone tackling the world so that it started going in the right direction again.

  Her meditation in front of the bathroom mirror had left her short of time. When she saw how late it was, she’d to pull on whatever she could find, skip her makeup and run down to the bus stop at Mälartorget. She had to be there on time.

  After six minutes on the bus and two minutes’ walk, Sara reached Bergsgatan 16. It was a grand old salmon-pink stone building with bay windows and balconies, beautifully situated opposite the Kungsholms Church. She entered 1814 and the door opened.

  At least officially, she thought to herself.

  And then: Voi ch’entrate . . .

  The stairwell echoed in that fine old way. A warm, dark echo. It wasn’t at all cold and hard, like the stairwells in the social housing blocks from the 1960s.

  The building had clearly been constructed with the well-heeled in mind. There were three doors on each landing – one large set of double doors and two singles. On several floors, one of the single doors was just a side entrance to the double doors, and had probably been used as the way in for the kitchen and domestic staff from the beginning. Sara got the impression that the building had been designed to house one large apartment and one smaller flat on each storey. One for the landed merchants and important dignitaries, and one for the more anonymous civil servants, who still benefitted from a central location with beautiful views beyond the church towards Norr Mälarstrand.

  When Colonel Thörnell opened his door, Sara’s theories were confirmed. Behind him, there opened up a vast expanse of apartment with wooden panelling on the walls and plaster on the ceiling.

  ‘Sara Nowak,’ she said, proffering a hand.

  Thörnell shook it and showed her inside.

  The retired colonel was a gentleman of around seventy years old, with his white hair slicked back, a small moustache, a moss-green cardigan and a white shirt and tie. And shoes indoors. He was properly turned out, even in the midst of a heatwave. He looked a little like an aged movie star from the 1940s. A white-haired Cary Grant.

  ‘Coffee? I’ve laid the table in the drawing room.’

  Sara stepped inside and jumped when she saw a movement from the corner of her eye, but she quickly realised it was just a huge floor-to-ceiling mirror in the hallway. A sign of vanity that didn’t quite fit in with Thörnell’s rather stern image.

  They entered a living room with a bay window looking out over the trees of the cemetery. There were five windows in a gentle outward curve. The sun was shining, and Thörnell went over to draw the curtains.

  There was a sofa, armchairs and a table – all in neo-classical style. Sara couldn’t determine whether the furniture was all genuine antiques or just made to look that way. Hanging on the walls were oils of grim-looking men, some in uniform, others civilians, even the odd priest’s cassock. There were a couple of framed diplomas and a telegram – in English and French, so it seemed.

  ‘The Fulda Gap,’ said Thörnell, apparently accustomed to coming straight to the point. He didn’t seem to be in any rush, anyway. The calm in the stately apartment was palpable – almost physical.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sara. ‘I gather that was where they were expecting the Third World War to break out.’

  ‘Correct. There were several plausible scenarios, but Fulda was d
eemed the most likely by, among others, NATO. That was why they put extra reinforcements on the border, just in case – and that’s putting it mildly. There were even nuclear weapons. Germany risked being the stage for a completely devastating war.’

  ‘Does the explosion the day before yesterday have anything to do with the Cold War? It happened in that area.’

  ‘But the Soviet Union and the DDR are long gone, as you know.’

  ‘Russia is no less aggressive,’ Sara said tentatively.

  Thörnell leaned back in his armchair, coffee cup in hand.

  ‘What happened in Germany happened on historic land – but that doesn’t have to mean it has ties to history. In mainland Europe, more or less all land is historic. Two world wars and a string of bloody dictatorships – both left- and right-wing. No matter which stone you turn over, you risk finding a body underneath it.’

  Silence descended on the room, and it struck Sara that no sound was penetrating from the outside world. The traffic was probably not all that busy up here by the church, but there was no sound of cars, children or sirens to be heard. It was well insulated.

  ‘You may have read about the former television presenter Stellan Broman being murdered,’ said Sara.

  ‘Shot in his own home,’ said Thörnell, casting a glance over his shoulder as if he was considering the possibility that the same thing might happen to him.

  ‘It’s emerged that he was supposedly an informant for the DDR,’ said Sara, awaiting the colonel’s reaction.

  ‘Continue,’ Thörnell said calmly.

  ‘I wonder whether this explosion in Germany might be related to Stellan’s murder in any way? Both are acts of violence that can be tied to the Cold War.’

  ‘And what does this have to do with me?’

  ‘Do you see any connection? Why did Hedin and Hansén send me to you?’

  Thörnell looked at her like a teacher scrutinising their favourite pupil when they couldn’t answer a question. Surprised, disappointed, almost wounded.

  ‘I confess,’ said Sara. ‘I don’t know what you’ve done – merely that you’re a colonel. How is it that you know so much about Fulda and the Cold War?’

  ‘I’m not in the habit of speculating about the motives of others, but it’s not unreasonable to assume that Hansén had my rather specific specialism in mind. I shouldn’t think Hedin’s aware of it – we’re not so public in my line of work. But I should think that’s why she rang Hansén.’

  ‘And what is your line of work?’

  ‘Let’s just say that for many years I worked on . . . certain international matters.’

  ‘Which means?’

  Thörnell smiled. He seemed to appreciate Sara’s frankness.

  ‘Liaison officer in military intelligence on secondment to NATO headquarters in Brussels. Look at you – now you know something that only half a dozen other people in Sweden are aware of.’

  ‘And why are you telling me?’

  Sara couldn’t help but feel a small twinge of suspicion. Hedin had been so helpful from the off, and now this secretive colonel had received her without hesitation into his home and answered her questions. Did they have motives other than helping her, or was Sara just so used to encountering resistance and refusals to co-operate in her usual work that she’d forgotten what normal people were like? Or had she just struck lucky when she found Hedin? Perhaps Sara could have made use of Hedin’s dedication to old Stasi informants. Sometimes you really did get lucky.

  ‘Because it’s been fifteen years since I retired,’ said Thörnell. ‘And as a favour to my good friend Hansén. If he asks me a favour like this, I deliver – usually I wouldn’t even admit I’d been abroad. Well, except to Majorca.’

  Thörnell indulged himself in a smile.

  ‘I’m a childhood friend of Stellan’s daughters,’ Sara said, ‘and I remember that there were sometimes big parties at their home with lots of people. Plenty of them were recognisable even to a child – people off TV, celebrities. But I now gather that there were other important people there. Politicians all the way up to cabinet level, business leaders, researchers, sometimes even people from the military. And spies from the East.’

  ‘He did indeed have a wide network of contacts.’

  ‘Did you ever go yourself?’

  Thörnell looked slightly taken aback, Sara thought to herself.

  ‘Good question,’ he said. ‘I thought we were going to discuss the Fulda Gap, but by all means . . . Yes. I met Stellan Broman at his home a couple of times. Socially. He was an incredibly hospitable person.’

  ‘Just a couple of times?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve never been madly keen on festivities. And even back then, I got the impression there was some sort of underlying motive to it all.’

  ‘So you reported it?’ Sara asked.

  ‘If I did, then the files are still classified as secret, and I can’t confirm or deny.’

  ‘Then what would an East German informant have wanted to find out that you knew about?’

  ‘Good question. What did the DDR want to know, full stop.’ Thörnell thought for a bit. ‘Sweden’s attitudes towards NATO, of course,’ he said.

  ‘Whether we were going to join?’

  ‘More to what extent we were already in it.’

  Sara remembered reading about Sweden’s far-advanced co-operation with NATO – an alliance that was kept secret from the Swedish people, and that the USSR obviously knew about. Some journalist had uncovered it. An alliance that had been top secret for decades, and had led to heated debate when it had been disclosed, but which had then been pretty quickly forgotten about again. The issue of neutrality was obsolete – as Sara assumed the colonel would have put it.

  It felt as if the murder of Stellan was growing into something much bigger than she could have guessed – so big that she wouldn’t be able to keep a grip on it. Especially not given that she had her day job to think of. Everyone needed her help there, and everyone would get angry with her for meddling in an investigation that wasn’t hers. It was gross malpractice, when you thought about it, but she assuaged her conscience by pointing out to herself that she wasn’t on the clock right now. She was asking questions of an old friend of the family in her spare time. And the more she found out, the more worried she was that her colleagues wouldn’t manage to find the truth. She didn’t know what to do. Let go of it all, or carry on against her better judgement.

  ‘Was that all?’ said Sara, feeling as if she’d found out more than she could handle.

  ‘That was the overarching aspect,’ said Thörnell. ‘But the more detailed the information was, the better. NATO exercises, how they were planned and by whom. Whether the West had plans to attack under cover of an exercise. And then, of course, there was the matter of NATO’s actual capabilities. Were the West’s statistics about its own resources reliable, or were they exaggerating, just like we suspected the East did? Or were we hiding our strength in order to mislead them? Then I should imagine they wanted to know what the West’s plans for responding to an invasion were – that had a significant impact on their war planning. All told, everything to do with NATO’s top secret strategies and defences was of interest to the DDR – things like Stay-Put and so on.’

  ‘Stay-Put?’

  ‘Now I’ve said too much.’

  For a man of Thörnell’s calm and controlled demeanour, the light stress in his voice was almost akin to the desperate cry of anxiety emitted by a normal person.

  ‘Not at all. Tell me more.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t.’

  ‘I’m a police officer.’

  ‘But you’re not military.’

  Thörnell thanked Sara for her interest in what an old soldier might know, and he led her back into the hall. There he stopped and looked her in the eye.

  ‘You know you’re treading upon historic ground?’ he said.

  Before Sara had time to say anything, Thörnell stuck a couple of fingers inside the frame of the big mirr
or in the hallway and pushed. Sara saw her reflection vanish as the old colonel gently swung the glass to one side. Inside were a couple of rooms with bookcases and desks and old black Bakelite phones.

  ‘This was where the leaders of the Swedish Stay-Behind network were based,’ said Thörnell, gesturing towards the hidden rooms.

  ‘The ones who murdered Palme?’

  ‘No, they didn’t do that. They were burdened with organising defences behind enemy lines in the event that the country was occupied.’

  ‘Was that all people thought about back in the day? That the country might be invaded?’

  ‘First came Denmark, Norway, Belgium and Holland during the war. Poland and Czechoslovakia during the Cold War. And Hungary and East Germany. All countries behind the Iron Curtain had Soviet troops based in them. So yes, invasion was a real threat.’

  ‘And what were Stay-Behind supposed to do in the event of Sweden being invaded?’ said Sara, peering at the old equipment.

  ‘Organise a resistance. Sabotage.’

  ‘Isn’t this also top secret?’

  ‘I’m merely telling you things that are in the public domain.’

  ‘Have you kept this room because it might be used again in future?’

  ‘If so, I’m not sure that old typewriters will be much use. This is a reminder that history is always present. Perhaps it’s thanks to what happened in this room that we were never pulled behind the Iron Curtain, and were able to continue living in freedom.’

  ‘Wasn’t Stay-Behind something that was meant to be initiated if Sweden was occupied?’

  ‘It was vital to make sure the stakes were high. The Russians knew that every country was making preparations like this, but for as long as we could keep secret who was organising it and what resources they had at their disposal, we still had the trump card in our hand. And it worked, despite the best efforts of the likes of Stig Wennerström and Stig Bergling.’

  ‘What was the difference between Stay-Behind and Stay-Put?’

  ‘Don’t even try,’ said Thörnell, with a smile.

  They stepped back into the hallway. The colonel pushed the mirror into place and Sara once again saw her own face.