“It’s an insoluble problem,” said Berg. Like the kind that you love to talk about, he thought.
Not insoluble at all, according to the special adviser from his elevated position. Instead, what it involved was simply adopting a dialectical attitude in his view of the organization and its operation. Building competition and oppositions into the structure was an excellent way to also check what the various parts of it were actually up to.
“And what will happen to a peaceful work environment?” objected Berg. Dialectical, he thought. Wonder if he’s a communist? True, there was nothing in his papers, but his manner of reasoning was undeniably suspicious.
“Think about it,” said the special adviser with a dismissive shrug of his shoulders. And suddenly Berg’s inner alarm bells started ringing again.
On Friday Berg informed Waltin that Krassner was now a closed case, and despite the fact that this concerned what was fundamentally a serious story that might have ended considerably worse, Waltin was his usual irresponsible self. A well-tailored shrug of the shoulders, thought Berg, and if I don’t do something about that I may well have a new parliamentary oversight round my neck.
“What were you thinking about doing about that senile character with the cognac?” asked Waltin, who was not one to let things pass.
“I’m hard at work on it,” said Berg, who had already decided to change Forselius’s clearances and hadn’t the slightest intention of announcing it to anyone. Least of all Waltin.
“If you want you can send him an invoice,” said Waltin, smiling like a satisfied wolf. “He’s cost me almost a thousand man-hours.”
“Oh well,” said Berg, changing the subject. “It’ll work out.” And in the worst case I’m sure you can pawn your watch, he thought, but naturally he didn’t say that.
Instead he contented himself with giving a few general directives for the ongoing work: the survey of antidemocratic elements within the police and the military, the Kurds and other terrorist organizations, threats against the prime minister and other pillars of society—just to mention the general overview.
Knife ourselves in the back, gnomes and trolls, Krassner and other loonies—sounds like an excellent agenda, thought Waltin, but obviously he didn’t say that.
“Fine with me,” said Waltin. And he himself had more important things to get to work on.
On Saturday the prime minister’s special adviser met his old teacher and mentor, Professor Forselius, at the Turing Society’s annual Christmas dinner at an exclusive gentlemen’s club. An informal society, to be sure, but the guests were in tails and full academic regalia in memory of one of the greatest who had also lived his life between the promise of summer and the cold of winter and chosen to finish it by his own hand when the chill around him had become all too apparent.
The annual Christmas dinner was always enjoyed on the first Saturday in December, because it was preferable to be done in good time, and the ceremonies, the pace, and the majority of the members had been the same since the days of the cold war. First a simple buffet and a few shots of aquavit without preamble so that even the gout-afflicted professors could mingle easily with one another. Then a traditional, bourgeois dinner, which always ended with the carafe of port going clockwise around the table before they headed to one of the inner rooms for coffee and cognac.
Forselius had taken his old pupil aside and placed them both in chairs in the corner that he considered most suitable for informal conversations about such things as were included in the secrecy laws of the realm.
“Do you still have your professorship or do the socialists pay so damn little that you can’t afford to buy a new tuxedo?” grunted Forselius, nodding toward the wreaths of oak leaves around the special adviser’s black velvet collar.
“I still have the appointment and I have the salary to keep a horse, kind of you to ask,” said the special adviser. You’re your usual self, you old bastard, he thought with the warmth that naturally ensued from a fine dinner.
“You should watch out for those devils,” warned Forselius. “Next time it may be you who goes out on your ears through your window.”
“Those that I’ve spoken with maintain that he took his own life,” said the special adviser. And I promise to watch out as soon as we start the election campaign, he thought.
“Obviously,” snorted Forselius. “Is it the one with the gold watch who says that?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” said the special adviser, “but wasn’t it you who made contact with him?”
“With Berg, yes,” said Forselius. “Berg is a good fellow, a little stupid, it’s true, like all policemen, but simple and pleasant and good to deal with. Always does what you tell him.”
Give me a break, thought the special adviser, who belonged to a different generation than his mentor.
“What do you think I should have done, then?” he asked.
“Seen to it that the staff took care of it. That’s what we always did in my time. I’m sure you know what SePo thinks about people like you and your boss? He of all people ought to know that, shouldn’t he?”
Sometimes you’re awfully tedious, thought the special adviser, but he didn’t say that.
“Why in heaven’s name should SePo kill someone like Krassner?”
“Sometimes I actually worry about you,” said Forselius, looking sternly at his old pupil. “In order to get their mitts on his papers, of course.”
“His so-called papers contained mostly nonsense—only nonsense, actually.”
“So that’s what they say,” said Forselius. “And you, what would you say if you thought about it?”
That it was just nonsense, thought the special adviser, but he didn’t intend to enlighten Forselius about that in any case.
Waltin had chosen to spend this weekend on the estate he’d inherited from his father in Sörmland. True, his apartment on Norr Mälarstrand was very good for meeting his normal needs, and he had laid out a good deal of money both to soundproof it and install the technical equipment that he needed for his private documentation, but for the sensitive initial phase greater isolation than that was required.
Comfortable and off the main road. The fields and forests had long been rented out, and, considering the times, at a respectable price. The employees who had always been there had been laid off and moved, and nowadays there were no human eyes or ears in the vicinity that might see or hear things that didn’t concern them. No help to be had, in a nutshell, and his training of little Jeanette was going completely according to plan. Because she had no idea of the reality in which he lived, and that would soon become hers, she also seemed to perceive the whole thing as some type of sexual role play which enticed her more than it frightened her.
The previous weekend he’d actually already reached a breakthrough in their relationship. He complimented himself for the stroke of genius with the bag of candies: her all too ravenous appetite for salt licorice and gummi bears, the subsequent punishment, and the spontaneous opportunity that this in turn had given him to remove the annoying growth of hair between her legs with the help of a razor. Now she looked most attractive: small and slender with her thin, almost boyish body and her totally naked vagina. If only the hair on her head were allowed to grow a little, she could be almost perfect, with two small braided pigtails. Little Jeanette, age thirteen, thought Waltin with all the love and all the hope for the future of which only he was capable. Even the documentation of their budding relationship had succeeded beyond expectations. He already had enough video and audio sequences both to satisfy his own fantasies when he was alone and to nip possible attempts at rebellion in the bud. Everything indicated that Jeanette might become one of his most successful projects ever.
Why can’t he fuck like other people anymore? thought Assistant Detective Jeanette Eriksson, who this weekend was spending more time bent forward across his knees with her redder and redder backside straight up in the air than her lover, Police Superintendent Claes Waltin, was spending betw
een her legs. She felt dejected and generally confused, and not even Krassner, who had after all been dead for more than fourteen days, was leaving her in peace. There was something that didn’t add up, and finally she plucked up her courage and asked him, if for nothing else than to get a little peace and quiet. In the best case to get him to think about something other than various ways of paddling her rear end.
“There’s one thing that I don’t understand,” she began hesitantly, with the shyly downward look that she realized that her situation now demanded.
“There is so much that you don’t understand,” said Waltin with both warmth and malt whiskey in his voice.
“There was something that Dan—that M’Boye told me that evening when we came back and we discovered that Krassner had killed himself,” she continued.
“Yes,” said Waltin with an irritated wrinkle on his otherwise smooth and suntanned forehead. Wonder if she’s fucked that damn black guy, he thought, but because the very thought was so unpleasant he quickly pushed it aside.
“When he spoke with the cops,” she added quickly. “That Wiijnbladh from tech and that horrible little fat guy from homicide.”
For some reason that she didn’t understand the wrinkles had smoothed out and Waltin suddenly appeared both pleased and curious.
“I’m listening,” he said.
Daniel had arrived late. They were to have met at seven o’clock, but he hadn’t shown up until a quarter of an hour later. In the lobby of the student dormitory on his way out to the meeting with Jeanette he had run into Krassner, who was on his way into the building. The time would have been, oh, about ten or twelve minutes past seven. Briefly and in summary, she couldn’t get those times to agree with the times that the team had planned for carrying out their inspection of Krassner’s residence.
“Well thought out, Jeanette,” said Waltin approvingly. “We actually had better luck there than we deserved.”
Then he related to her how their operative had violated his instructions and had already begun the operation at twenty minutes to seven, while M’Boye was still in his room. Krassner’s home was both small and empty of interesting material, and the house search for which they had set aside an hour had been finished in less than half that time.
“Good thing they didn’t run into each other,” said Jeanette, feeling a genuine sense of relief.
“Must have been a few minutes at most that separated them,” Waltin agreed, looking at her greedily.
Nice try, Hedberg, but you’re not fooling me, thought Waltin, and suddenly he felt as exhilarated as that time when, completely by chance, he’d run into dear Mama as she stood staggering on the Östermalm subway-station platform.
Five minutes later everything was back to normal again.
Naughty, naughty Hedberg, thought Waltin contentedly while he energetically penetrated little Jeanette from behind to the stimulating and muffled sounds that she was emitting through his professionally applied muzzle.
What is really going on? thought Jeanette, for of course she couldn’t say anything.
CHAPTER XIII
And all that remained was the cold of winter
Stockholm in December
[TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10]
Finally home, thought Johansson as he stepped off the plane, feeling real ground under his feet after ten days. His colleague Wiklander had used his police identification to meet up at baggage claim and help him with his suitcases. The rest had been a pure formality, as always when police officers and customs officials meet under collegial conditions, and a quarter of an hour later they were sitting in Johansson’s service vehicle on their way into the city.
“Did you have a good trip, chief?” asked Wiklander as he changed lanes like a car thief.
“Completely okay,” said Johansson. “The food was decent and I learned one or two things that I hadn’t heard about before.” And a few things that I’ll try to forget, he thought.
“I was slaving at the after-hours unit over the weekend,” said Wiklander with an innocent expression. “Some female American cop phoned who wanted to get hold of you at any price.”
“So what was her name?” said Johansson, even though he already knew the answer.
“Detective Lieutenant Jane Hollander, I think she works for the state police in New York,” said Wiklander. “Seemed awfully urgent.”
“I see, her,” said Johansson. “Yes, I spoke with her before I left. On the phone,” added Johansson completely unnecessarily. You’re starting to lose your grip, Lars, he thought.
“She sounded nice,” said Wiklander neutrally. On the phone, sure, give me a break, thought Wiklander, who’d been around awhile.
“She was part of that course at the FBI,” Johansson lied.
“She sounded good-looking,” persisted Wiklander, who among other things was also one of the boys.
“So-so,” said Johansson. “She was nice, that is, but we sure have better here at home,” he declared with a trace more Norrland in his voice. “Moving on,” he continued by way of diversion. “Has anything in particular happened in old Sweden while I was away?”
Not too much, according to Wiklander. Färjestad was way ahead in the hockey standings and had most recently played the pants off Brynäs, which was especially gratifying for a Värmlander such as himself, but otherwise nothing of consequence had happened.
“For the most part I guess that’s all,” Wiklander opined. “Well, and then Edberg creamed Wilander in the final at the Australian Open, but I guess you’ve already heard that.”
No, thought Johansson, and now I’m going to try to forget it.
“How’s the weather been?”
“Cold,” said Wiklander, shaking his shoulders demonstratively. “Damn cold, in fact. The pundits are saying it’s going to be a really severe winter. That old man with the perch fins was on TV the other night and according to him it’s going to be merciless.”
“I was thinking about asking you for a favor,” said Johansson, whose thoughts were elsewhere.
“I’m listening.”
“It’s a little sensitive,” Johansson continued. “A Stockholm matter,” he clarified, to further indicate how sensitive it was to meddle in such things if, like he and Wiklander, you were now working at the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
“I understand,” said Wiklander, smiling wryly. “What have they come up with this time?”
“It’s already been written up and dismissed as a suicide,” said Johansson.
“You suspect foul play, chief,” said Wiklander, smiling a little more broadly.
“Actually I don’t suspect anything,” said Johansson. “It’s more a feeling that I have.”
“I understand exactly,” said Wiklander, nodding.
He suspects that it’s a murder and that’s not good, since Johansson actually is Johansson. Hooga hooga, thought Wiklander, who viewed his boss as both a spiritual and professional role model.
Judging by the pile on his desk, Wiklander’s description appeared to be more or less correct, and Johansson’s world had definitely not fallen apart despite his absence. In the case of the overlooked Turkish murder victims the doorman had found in the elevator shaft, the ombudsman had acted with unusual speed and issued a reprimand along the lines of on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand, which those most closely concerned would certainly be able to live with. So far so good. But new misery had occurred, and this time unfortunately it concerned his own organization.
During an unusually merry company party at one of the squads, one of his chief inspectors was said to have tried to force himself on a female civilian employee. The person making the report was anonymous—as usual, thought Johansson with a dejected sigh—but was quite obviously to be found in their own corridors. The man singled out as the perpetrator had taken sick leave on the advice of his boss, and the alleged victim didn’t want to talk about it at all. The matter had now been turned over to the district prosecutor in Gothenburg—for the usual geographic dista
nce to maintain objectivity—and in any event hadn’t been leaked to the media. And when it finally was, with any luck his successor would be sitting at his desk.
Ten days, thought Johansson hopefully. Then he would have vacation over the Christmas, New Year’s, and Epiphany weekends, and when he finally returned he would just clean out his office before he left for a more tranquil existence at the personnel office of the National Police Board. And a nice dinner or two with the old comrades from the union, thought Johansson, who in spirit was already sitting in his own neighborhood restaurant with his counterpart, making toasts with Aunt Jenny’s crystal shot glasses.
After lunch—because he hadn’t felt especially hungry he had been content with a cup of coffee and a sandwich—the jet lag caught up with him and struck with full force. True, he’d slept a few hours on the plane home, and where he was sitting it was only two o’clock, but in his head it was suddenly bedtime after a long, strenuous day.
“Now I’m going to go home and turn in before I faint,” said Johansson to his secretary. “If you can call a taxi for me, then I’ll see you tomorrow.”
At home on Wollmar Yxkullsgatan everything was as usual. The neighbor had watered the plants, fed his two fish, and sorted his mail. The pile of newspapers was much higher, but that could wait. Instead he set the suitcases down in the hall, went straight to his bedroom, took off his clothes, crept down between the sheets, and fell asleep at once. When he woke up, it was eight o’clock in the evening and he was as frisky as a squirrel. He was ravenously hungry too, despite the fact that the contents of his refrigerator offered a man with his appetite faint hope. Beer, mineral water, and way too much aquavit, thought Johansson gloomily, and what do I do now?
First he thought about pulling on his clothes and slipping down to his beloved neighborhood restaurant, but instead he got into the shower and let the water run so he could think better, and an hour later it had all resolved itself for the best. All that had been required was a systematic ransacking of the refrigerator, freezer, and pantry, and a little creative thinking as well as various practical measures à la Kajsa Warg, thought Johansson contentedly as he filled the coffeemaker and poured a tall cognac as a reward.
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