Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End

by Leif Gw Persson

  The room was small, untidy, and sparsely furnished, with the standard assortment of worn-out furniture: a bed, a nightstand, a wall-mounted bed lamp, in the opposite corner a simple reading chair with a floor lamp, toward the window wall a bookshelf, and on the other side of the window a desk and a chair.

  “Damn, what a cozy place he has,” said Bäckström.

  People who didn’t work, students for example, shouldn’t have food or a roof over their head, but if necessary he could tolerate this. The present occupant didn’t seem to have settled in for a long stay, and he didn’t seem to be especially orderly. The personal effects were few: a suitcase, a few clothes, some books with titles in English. On the unmade bed was a short quilted jacket, under the bed a pair of well-worn shoes. It was no opium den, but if the person who was living here didn’t pull himself together it would soon be a lot like one.

  The desk was the most organized. There were papers and envelopes, pens, paper clips, an eraser, and a few cassettes with colored ribbon for the handy little portable electric typewriter that was placed in the middle of the desk. In addition a paper with a text in English was sitting in the typewriter cylinder, only a half dozen lines but revealing enough for a pro like Wiijnbladh.

  “If I were to summarize,” Wiijnbladh began with a contented expression, “I think probably all we have seen speaks for a suicide. If you see the window there,” Wiijnbladh pointed toward the now-closed window, where the broken window catch lay on the floor below, “you see that he has broken the catch loose. Otherwise it can only be opened a few inches. If you want to air out or something.”

  Bäckström nodded contentedly. Wiijnbladh was certainly a long-winded bastard, but this sounded like music to his ears.

  “Yes, and then you have the message he left in the typewriter. It’s in English and I would definitely say that it exudes a great weariness with life, a sort of …”

  Wiijnbladh looked for words, but since his knowledge of English was limited, to put it mildly, it wasn’t all that easy.

  “Yes, a typical suicide note, quite simply.” Wiijnbladh nodded with extra emphasis.

  Bäckström nodded too. They were in the same boat, after all, so he could grant him that. “Yes, then we mustn’t forget the front door. It was locked from inside,” he said.

  “Certainly.” Wiijnbladh nodded. With a common, patented catch, he thought. How stupid can you really be?

  “Okay then. I think we’re about done here.” Bäckström looked at his watch. It was only a quarter past ten, and if he hurried back to the after-hours unit he should even have time to call the old man with the dog who’d seen him jump—that little extra concluding detail that was the mark of a completely unobjectionable investigation—and soon he’d be sitting in the bar, enjoying a well-earned beer.

  Johansson and his companion had left the restaurant in the good spirits that naturally arise when certain not entirely simple decisions have been postponed while at the same time possibilities for choice still remain. They walked together to her hotel down by Slussen, and Johansson wasn’t hard to convince when she suggested a last beer in the hotel bar.

  “The course ends in a week. Any chance you’ll show up then?” The tensions had relaxed. She sat leaning forward. She smiled and lightly drew her nails over the back of Johansson’s right hand. She herself had narrow, strong hands.

  Johansson shook his head regretfully.

  “In a week I’ll be sitting on a plane to the U.S. I’m going to meet a lot of people from Interpol and the FBI.” Johansson gave a faint sigh. Sometimes I wonder if there’s someone up there who’s actively out to get me, or if I’m just bad at planning.

  She sighed too. “You certainly are leading a boring life. I’m going to a course in Härnösand with our civilian employees. It’s going to be really exciting.” Now she smiled again.

  Johansson saw the opportunity and laced his hand into hers. Just lightly, though, very lightly. Skin touching skin. No pressure.

  “I’m going to buy something nice for you as a Christmas present. Something we don’t have here.”

  “A solid gold sheriff’s badge?” She giggled and squeezed his hand harder.

  “Yes,” said Johansson. “Or perhaps one of those blue baseball caps that say FBI.”

  Bäckström was still at the after-hours unit despite the fact that it was half an hour past midnight, and he was sour as vinegar. Wiijnbladh and he had sealed the door to the do-it-yourselfer’s room before ten-thirty, and by dawn next day the whole sorry story would be lying on the desk of the officer in charge at Östermalm. Real policemen like him and Wiijnbladh shouldn’t be involved with this kind of shit. The peasant police in the local precincts could deal with it.

  Everything had gone like a charm, and they were just about to close the door to the corridor when that damn black guy had shown up together with some Swedish student whore with purple lipstick, and you didn’t have to be a policeman to figure out what the two of them had in mind. He’d also been obstinate in some incoherent African English. He refused to move and wanted to know what the hell they were doing in his corridor. Bäckström’s only thought was to bypass the piece of shit and take the elevator down, although he really ought to have called for a patrol car with two types like Oredsson in it, but naturally the coward Wiijnbladh got involved. He had shown his ID and started negotiating with the gook in his own lousy English. Then the whore had interfered too, partly in Swedish and partly in English, and the misery had broken loose in earnest. He couldn’t have taken his own life, he was a really fine guy, not the least bit depressed, blah blah blah.

  Finally Bäckström had been forced to crack down. He’d told them to call on Monday, and to be on the safe side he’d given them the name and extension of a colleague in the bureau who was almost always on sick leave this time of year because of his severe alcohol problem. They were finally able to drive away after a quarter hour of his life had gone down the toilet.

  When at last he sat down behind his desk to tie up all the loose threads in this sorry story, it was time for the next lunatic. That fat clod Stridh clearly had his work orders turned upside down and had submitted an interrogation with the witness. Two closely spaced typewritten pages, for something you could be done with in ten lines, and completely incomprehensible throughout. According to the witness, the early retired Gustav Adolf Nilsson, it was clearly not he but his mutt who had heard that lunatic Krassner jump out the window. The same mutt who, despite his good hearing, had been killed by a mysteriously falling shoe.

  What do you mean, early-retired? thought Bäckström. Social Swedish for a drunk who didn’t want to pay his way, but was still able to cheat the pants off some naïve socialist bastard at the unemployment office. Up yours, thought Bäckström as he dialed Vindel’s home number.

  A quarter of an hour later the whole thing was signed, sealed, and delivered, as always when a real pro was at work. Bäckström pulled the report from the cylinder of the typewriter and made corrections with his ballpoint pen while he read the brief, clarifying text, in which, by the way, there was not the least trace of an as yet unburied dog.

  “Upon questioning by telephone the witness Nilsson states the following in summary. Circa 19:50 the witness found himself below the student dormitory the Rosehip on Körsbärsvägen. The witness states that at that point he became aware of a sound from one of the upper stories of the building. When he looked up he observed the body of a male person who had jumped out of a window, fallen straight down along the façade of the building, and struck the ground only a few yards from the place where the witness was standing. The witness has had this questioning read to him by telephone and has approved it.”

  The last was a complete lie, but because Nilsson was hardly the type who recorded his telephone conversations with the police, no damage was done. In addition, the old fart had sounded completely confused when Bäckström was talking with him. He ought to be grateful that someone helped him put the pieces in place, thought Bäckström, whi
le he put the papers into a plastic sleeve and applied a handwritten slip of paper for the officer in charge at Östermalm.

  Bäckström looked at the clock. Five past one but still there was no great hurry. There was even time to carry out a little idea he’d had while he wrote out the interview with Nilsson. A stitch in time, thought Bäckström, as he folded up his overcoat and hid it in an empty binder that he’d found on the bookshelf. Bäckström took the binder under his arm and the plastic sleeve in his other hand, sneaked out to reception, and placed the plastic sleeve farthest down in the pile in the Östermalm police in-box. After that he stuck his head in through the door to the on-duty chief inspector’s office.

  “It’s about that suicide you sent me out on.” Bäckström nodded toward the binder, which he was carrying under his arm.

  “Are there any problems?” The on-duty chief inspector wrinkled his brow.

  “No. It’s completely clear that it’s a suicide, but it concerns an American citizen and that can be sensitive, you know. There are a few things I was thinking about checking in the register.”

  “What’s the problem?” The on-duty chief inspector looked inquiringly at him, but the wrinkle in his brow was gone.

  “I was thinking about overtime. I should have gone off duty more than an hour ago.”

  “It’s okay. Put down whatever time it takes.”

  I’ll be damned, thought the on-duty chief inspector, looking after Bäckström’s quickly vanishing backside. Of all the chiselers. Maybe he’s gotten religion, he thought, but at the same moment the phone rang and he had other things to think about.

  Finally free, thought Bäckström as he slipped out through the gate to Kungsholmsgatan and set out toward the bar. He tossed the empty binder into the nearest garbage can.

  . . .

  At midnight Lars Martin Johansson was already in his bed on Wollmar Yxkullsgatan, listening to the bells ring in Maria Church. A nice-looking woman, he thought. She was nice to talk with too, although a police officer, of course. Wonder if she’s married to that idiot in Växjö or if they only live together? You can’t have it all, thought Johansson and sighed. Or can you? Perhaps you can have it all? This new thought cheered him up markedly. Tomorrow was a new day, he thought, and then perhaps he would have it all? Johansson stretched out his arm and turned out the bed lamp, lay on his right side with his arm under the pillow, and within a few minutes he was sleeping as soundly as he always did.

  Vindel was standing in the parlor. He’d lifted Charlie’s basket up onto the oak table by the window. He stroked the soft fur and Charlie lay as quietly as if he were sleeping. Tomorrow he would arrange the funeral. Time will tell, thought Vindel, although just now it didn’t feel so merry. He wiped away a tear with the back of his hand. Best to open the window a little, he thought. Pomeranians don’t like it when it gets too warm.

  Police Assistant Stridh had gone home directly after his shift. Made himself a substantial and nutritious sandwich, topped with a well-considered mixture of the goodies to be found in his generously supplied refrigerator. Plus a cold beer. Now he was lying on the sofa in his living room, reading Winston Churchill’s biography of his ancestor the Duke of Marlborough. It was in four volumes and almost three thousand pages long, but because he didn’t need to be at work before Monday afternoon he had all the time in the world. A great man, thought Stridh, in contrast to that mustache-wearing lunatic who tried to set the whole world on fire and would just about have succeeded if it hadn’t been for old Winston. Strange that he wasn’t a bachelor, thought Stridh, while he made himself comfortable on the couch and looked up the place in the second volume where he’d stopped reading the last time he’d gone off duty.

  . . .

  His young colleague Oredsson had changed into workout clothes after his shift and gone straight down to the gym in the cellar. There the lights were always off this time of day; lifting weights after completed service had become like a purifying bath for him. It helped him to arrange all the new impressions and experiences into a larger context. He’d understood from the first day that it was foreigners who were responsible for almost all crimes being committed in today’s Sweden, but how could the problem itself be solved? Just sending them home, which would have been the simplest, was unthinkable in the current political climate. But what should be done instead, and how could they achieve a political climate in which necessary changes would even become possible? That was worth thinking about, thought Oredsson, and discussing with trusted colleagues. Because he had also understood on that first day that he was not alone.

  At home in his bedroom Wiijnbladh lay and masturbated while he thought about what his wife had been doing that night. He’d figured out several years ago that she wasn’t out with her girlfriends. Then he’d borrowed a service car and followed her. She had gone straight home to a recently divorced colleague out in Älvsjö, and because the lights in his apartment were turned out almost immediately you didn’t need to be a policeman to understand that this wasn’t a first visit. He had remained sitting there half the night in the cold car while he stared at the black windows and thoughts were coursing like tracers in his head. Then he’d driven home, never said a word on the subject, and never showed by his expression what he knew and thought.

  He didn’t know where and with whom she was tonight. She wasn’t with his colleague in Älvsjö in any event, for he’d hanged himself half a year ago, and it was Wiijnbladh who’d had the exquisite pleasure of cutting him down from the pipe in the ceiling of the laundry room where he’d secured the rope. A heavy duty, even for the hardened investigators on the tech squad. But necessary, and Wiijnbladh had volunteered.

  How could something that started so well end so damn badly? thought Bäckström, staring drunkenly down into the beer glass that he’d succeeded in grabbing hold of at the bar while the rightful owner was out on the dance floor. He’d gone to a place with good prospects down on Kungsgatan that was mostly frequented by police and an assortment of firemen, security guards, and ambulance drivers. Plus a hellish lot of hospital orderlies, and for a scarred champion like himself the competition hardly seemed overwhelming.

  Everything had started perfectly too. He had run into a younger officer from the bureau in Farsta who wanted to get onto the homicide squad at any price and had also gotten the idea that Bäckström was the right man to arrange the matter. Two paltry beers he’d paid for, that stingy bastard, so he could forget that business with homicide. Then he’d encountered a fat Finnish woman he’d screwed last summer. She was working as a bedpan changer at Sabbatsberg hospital and lived in a filthy three-room apartment far out in hell somewhere in the southern suburbs. Single mother of course; he could still feel the LEGO pieces crunching under the soles of his feet when he slipped out the following morning. She clearly also had a faulty memory, for despite the previous visit, he had succeeded in borrowing a twenty from her. He also got a wet kiss on the cheek, but now even she had taken off. The only people remaining in the almost empty place were a bunch of drunks plus a worn-down hag who’d fallen asleep on a couch.

  What a fucking society, what fucking people, and what a fucking life they’re living, thought Bäckström. The only thing you could hope for was a really juicy murder so you got something substantial to bite into.

  [SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23]

  Police Inspector Bo Jarnebring of the Stockholm Police Department’s central surveillance squad was not one to work on a Saturday if he had the choice, but for the past fourteen days such an option had been considerably reduced: He’d started a new job as chief inspector and head of the local detective unit with the Östermalm police. It was a temporary appointment, to be sure, and, he hoped, only for a short time, but everyone around him had nonetheless been greatly surprised. Jarnebring was generally known as the direct opposite of a careerist; he always spit upward and seldom missed an opportunity to chew out both bosses and semi-bosses. In addition, his work as a detective was perhaps the most important part of his identity. H
e had worked with the central surveillance squad for more than fifteen years, and he held an unquestioned conviction that, as far as his life as a policeman was concerned, he couldn’t imagine anything better than to live and die that way.

  A month ago he and a number of colleagues within the surveillance operation had taken the Finland ferry to Helsinki for a work conference. These meetings had long been a tradition and a necessary, recurring element of the planning that must take place, even within so-called surveillance, all the bohemian and impressionistic aspects of the occupation aside.

  As always, it had been pleasant. Nothing but known quantities and guys you could trust. In the morning criminals old and new had been discussed, the usual heroic stories had been told, after which the proceedings were interrupted for a generously ample lunch, something which of course had been taken into account when the afternoon program had been determined. Among the invitees was the head of the detective unit of the Östermalm police, who would recount a few varied experiences from the local surveillance operation. He was a white man, a funny S.O.B., and despite the fact that he had departed from the true doctrine he was still an old detective in heart and soul. As the first item on the program after lunch he was absolutely perfect. He was a very entertaining lecturer, and afterward you could never remember a word he’d said. What the whole thing was about was actually something else: getting to meet friends and colleagues under somewhat more easygoing conditions, and perhaps having the opportunity during the evening to discuss something other than old crooks.