The Department of Sensitive Crimes

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Ulf smiled as he parked the Saab. He had much to be grateful for, in spite of his limited freedom, in spite of being a small part of a great and complex machine. Not the least thing to be grateful for was the fact that he was who he was, living where he was: he was Swedish, at a time in history when there were many worse things to be than to be Swedish; and even if there was a small number of people who would happily blow him up simply for being Swedish, then there were many, elsewhere, who lived their lives under the threat of whole armies, with generals and air forces, and all their costly and destructive paraphernalia directed against them. The misfortune of others, thought Ulf, is our misfortune too—its ripples spread a long way, touch the lives of all of us.

  A sign at the edge of the car park said Commandant’s Office. Ulf went in the direction indicated, past an ordered flowerbed, the plants laid out in neat rows by a military-minded gardener—but with weeds pressing in from the edge, Ulf noted. Then, beyond the flowerbed, was a circle of stone from which sprouted two flagpoles, at the top of one of which was the Swedish flag, and of the other a regimental flag of some sort—private symbols of soldierly association: a bugle, a drum, a lance. The flagpoles had been white, but were no longer: here and there the paint had blistered, exposing the dark wood below.

  Then Ulf was at the office, a square, impassive building of three storeys, built in an indeterminate period, in front of which various official-looking cars, gleaming and beflagged, were parked. The colonel did not keep him waiting, and within a few minutes of his arrival, a smartly attired female corporal, her skirt pressed in starched lines, her two chevrons of rank golden and gleaming, ushered him into a large office at the front of the building.

  This was the office of Colonel Bååt Püke Téörnflychte, commanding officer of the Carl XII Gustav Infantry and Semi-Mechanised Base, aristocrat, bon viveur, and decorated veteran of several NATO peacekeeping ventures in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. The colonel, a man in his mid-fifties, was at the height of his career; he was not interested in being a general, as that would have too seriously restricted his ability to pursue his other interests, and would have resulted, too, in excessive scrutiny of how he discharged his duties. Being a colonel was just right: he could run the base as he wished, surrounded by the genial and supportive company of the officers’ mess, with plenty of time for the parties and official receptions in which he took such delight. Life was quiet, and comfortable, and he wanted to keep it that way. Of course, every so often one of the men went off and did something stupid—committed a crime involving a civilian, or something of that sort—and would need to be dealt with outside the framework of military discipline. Those cases were distasteful, as they involved the civilian police authorities, and that, he thought, as he greeted Ulf in his office, was what this detective had come about. A murder, perhaps? Or could it be something involving those missing stores of dynamite? The colonel had been concerned right from the beginning that those could end up in the wrong hands—a safebreaker’s, perhaps—and that would lead to all sorts of questions about security. Perhaps that was what brought this...what was he called? Ulf Varg—unlikely name—to his office. We would see.

  The colonel came from behind his desk to shake Ulf’s hand. He led him to the side of the room where two easy chairs had been placed on either side of a table. The table bore copies of various foreign military magazines and armament catalogues: High-Tech Weaponry, cheek by jowl with The Modern Infantryman and Special Forces Review.

  He saw Ulf’s eye fall on the magazines.

  “Light reading, hah!” said the colonel.

  Ulf pointed to High-Tech Weaponry. “I suppose everything is pretty complicated these days.”

  The colonel spoke in an elaborate, plummy drawl. It was not an accent one heard very often, thought Ulf. It was as if it had been dredged up from a black-and-white film of the thirties. “Immensely,” he said. “The days of simply pulling the trigger are over, hah! We have to read the instruction manual every time we fire a shot.”

  “I was reading that the battles of the future will be fought by electronic proxies,” said Ulf. “Drones and robots—that sort of thing.”

  The colonel gave a toss of his head. “I read something similar myself, somewhere or other. That won’t leave much for fellows like me to do, hah!”

  He looked at Ulf pointedly, as if challenging him to disagree. Ulf returned the stare, noting the colonel’s very light blue eyes, and his unusually pink face. Drink, he thought. Food. Other things.

  The colonel was clearly not one to beat about the bush. “I assume, Mr. Varg, that you are here about one of the men doing something or other. Let me apologise in advance: we try to choose our men very carefully, and by and large we make the right choices. But these days...” He shrugged. “You’ll know what I mean—we don’t have the choice that we used to have. Young men don’t fancy the military life.”

  “Of course, the reintroduction of national service will make a difference,” said Ulf.

  The colonel made an equivocating gesture. “We’ll see,” he said. “I don’t look forward to getting today’s eighteen-year-olds. Look at them, Mr. Varg, just look at them. Scruffy bunch, hah! High on drugs and electronic gizmos in equal measure.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be able to lick them into shape.”

  “We’ll have a go. But, frankly, I’m not sure if it’ll be worth it. In the old days, everything worked very well because our young men were tough, Mr. Varg. We—that’s the officers—handed them over to our senior NCOs and let them get on with it. We officers had a somewhat better life in those days, I can tell you. When I was a subaltern, I went to a party every single night, would you believe it? Marvellous parties—bags of girls, champagne flowed like water—and lots of time for watching polo or whatever. Some of us raced vintage cars. My old mess had a Bugatti that we took in turns to various rallies. We went down to Belgium once, Mr. Varg—raced her there on some god-awful track. Dreadful circuit. You ever been to Belgium, Mr. Varg?”

  Ulf nodded. “Yes, but not for some time.”

  “Dreadfully dull place, hah! But wonderful food. Lashings of it. Oysters, lobsters, hundreds of different varieties of pâté. Useless forces, of course, but I gather their army catering corps is second to none. Soldiers all overweight as a result. The Belgian army can’t run to save their lives, I believe. They’d resist an invasion for five minutes and then it would be time for lunch and game over, hah!”

  “It’s not about one of your men,” Ulf said. “Or at least, it’s not about one of your men causing trouble for civilians.”

  The colonel looked puzzled. “So, what is it, then?” He stopped. “I’m sorry, that sounded impatient. I was just wondering.”

  Ulf took his notebook out of his pocket. There was nothing in it that was relevant to what he had to say, but it gave him a sense of psychological security to have the familiar leather cover between his fingers. “I believe you have community service clients working here.”

  The colonel stared at him. “Clients?”

  “That’s what the social workers call them,” said Ulf.

  The colonel’s face reddened. “Clients? Hah! Criminals, you mean.”

  Varg smiled. “You could call them that. I wouldn’t dissent. After all, they have done something criminal in order to get here.”

  “Exactly,” said the colonel. “Robbery. Fraud. Drunken assault, sexual hanky-panky...You won’t find my men doing much of that, but these low-grade characters they send us—hah! I’ll tell you something, Mr. Varg—some of these characters are real pond life. We’ve got five or six at the moment, and one of them, would you believe it, actually stabbed some poor fellow in the back of the knee. The back of the knee, hah! What a cowardly thing to do! If you stab somebody, I always say, never do it in the back. Do it in the front, like a man!”

  Ulf remained silent.

  “I’ve sorted that
chap out, I can tell you.” The colonel lowered his voice. “I can trust you to be discreet, Mr. Varg, can’t I? And we’re on the same side, I assume—law and order, you know what I mean. Stability...This fellow who stabbed the other fellow in the back of the knee is hardly fit for society, in my view. Wouldn’t be missed, so to speak—like a lot of the riff-raff we come across.” The colonel grinned. “So I thought up a terrific assignment for him. Just the ticket for a chap like him.”

  Ulf spoke carefully. He tried to smile. “What exactly is it, Colonel?”

  The colonel smiled. “Can’t tell you, I’m afraid. Hush-hush stuff. Terribly sorry, but I can’t tell you—you not being army, you see.”

  Ulf did not react. He sat back in his chair and gazed at the pictures on the walls. There were photographs of the colonel against varied backdrops. He was in the desert, his head sticking up out of an armoured personnel carrier. He was sitting on a tree trunk in a jungle somewhere, his shirt stuck to him with perspiration. There were several photographs of the colonel playing polo, and one in which he was even wielding a cricket bat. “You people do get about, don’t you?”

  “That’s one of the perks,” said the colonel. “We certainly see the world.”

  There was another photograph that caught Ulf’s attention. This was of the colonel in what looked like an army mess. There were cases on the wall displaying large silver trophies; there were officers standing in front of a bar, a glass in each hand.

  “And I gather that some of your messes have very fine chefs,” remarked Ulf.

  The colonel suddenly became animated. “They certainly do. We have one of the best officers’ messes in the country right here. I’m actually President of the Mess Committee. I rather pride myself on our standards.”

  Ulf waited for a moment or two. Then he said, “So lunch can be quite an affair, I suppose.”

  The colonel rose to the bait. “Lunch? My goodness, it can be pretty good.” He paused, glancing at his watch before continuing, “You wouldn’t fancy a bite to eat, would you? They’ll be serving lunch in a few minutes and I’m feeling slightly peckish, truth to tell.”

  Ulf replied immediately. “That’s very civil of you, Colonel.”

  “I believe that our cook has been experimenting with rack of lamb,” the colonel said. “Fancy trying that?”

  “I love lamb,” said Ulf.

  “Good. Well, let’s make our way over to the mess and see what’s going on. We can talk over lunch, of course.” He looked inquisitively at Ulf. “What did you want to discuss, by the way?”

  Ulf shrugged. “Nothing in particular,” he said. Behind his back he crossed the index finger and forefinger of his right hand. It was a childish thing to do—he had always done that as a boy when he told a lie. Some old habits die hard; some not at all. “I’m just interested in seeing how your end of community service works.”

  “Good,” said the colonel. “I can show you some of what we do, even if I can’t show you the lot. The hush-hush stuff remains under wraps, I’m afraid.”

  “Of course,” said Ulf. “But there are plenty of other things we can discuss.”

  “Of course there are,” said the colonel. “Do you play polo by any chance?”

  Ulf crossed a finger again. “No, but I’m very interested in it.”

  “Are you now?” said the colonel. “That’s wonderful. We can talk a bit about that too.”

  “I look forward to it,” said Ulf—and crossed his fingers once more.

  “You know something,” said the colonel. “Polo is beginning to catch on in Russia.” He shook his head in disapproval. “Mind you, they’re the most dreadful cheats—they really are. No sense of fair play—none at all.”

  They left the colonel’s office and walked a short distance to a low-roofed building on the other side of the parade ground. Two miniature cannons, knee-height and made of polished brass, stood on either side of the front door.

  “Those don’t work,” said the colonel, pointing to the cannons. “But we love them. They were stolen from the Germans at the end of the war. Hah!”

  Inside, a uniformed attendant spirited Ulf’s overcoat off to an unseen cloakroom. Then the colonel led him into a large rectangular dining room, down the middle of which a polished mahogany table ran from one end to the other. This was laid with six places at the far end—gleaming silver, starched white table napkins and glittering crystal.

  Once seated, the colonel showed Ulf the printed menu. Officers’ Mess, it was headed. Beneath the heading the menu read: Lunch, Wednesday: Potage d’Asperges; Rack of Lamb with Rosemary and Red Wine Sauce; Tiramisu; Coffee and Petits Fours.

  The colonel nodded towards the menu. “You see?” he said. “I told you we’d get a very good lunch.” He reached for a small bell in the middle of the table and rang it. “This will summon the steward,” he said. “He will bring us a bottle of wine. Any preference?”

  Ulf, who never drank at lunchtime, demurred. “A very small glass for me,” he said. “Whatever you choose, but I’m driving.”

  “All the more for me,” the colonel said cheerfully. “I have only to get myself to the other side of the parade ground. Not difficult. Hah!”

  The steward appeared and the colonel ordered a bottle of Medoc. “Goes well with lamb, I’d say, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Ulf. “You can’t go wrong with Medoc.”

  “No,” said the colonel. “Bordeaux, toujours Bordeaux, I always say.”

  When the steward appeared with the opened bottle of wine, the colonel gestured for Ulf to be served first and then took the bottle from the steward and filled his own glass up to the rim. Toasts were made and the meal began.

  The colonel had drained his first glass of Medoc by the end of the soup course. He replenished his glass and downed that too before the rack of lamb arrived. That required a third glass, but given the voluminous nature of the crystal glasses, the bottle was now virtually empty.

  “Please don’t hold back,” said Ulf politely. “Would you allow me to buy the next bottle?”

  “Absolutely not,” said the colonel. “That’s against mess rules. I’ll sign for everything.”

  The steward was summoned and another bottle of Medoc appeared. By this stage, the colonel’s face had turned from pink to red. His speech was still quite clear, but seemed to have loosened up considerably. He was now talking about other NATO powers and was giving Ulf his assessment of their capacities. “The French aren’t bad,” he said. “And some of them are pretty good. But they’re difficult soldiers to command. Dreadful. Constantly complaining and making strange noises of disagreement—bof and pouf and so on—when you give them an order. They also gesture a lot. Watch them marching. They gesture a lot with their hands while they march. Very odd.

  “Of course, they have their Foreign Legion. I visited them down in Corsica once—Camp Raffalli, just outside a place called Calvi. Full of bandits and desperadoes from all over. They give them false names when they sign up. But they’re pretty effective. You put a platoon of legionnaires in somewhere and—pouf—trouble over: opposition all dealt with. Just like that. Pretty effective. Rather like the Gurkhas that the British use. They frighten the wits out of the other side with those kukris of theirs.”

  The colonel took another large mouthful of wine. “Now, the Italians. Oh dear, such charming people, mostly—apart from the thirty-three per cent of the population engaged in organised crime. Lots of style, and fantastic uniforms—really very smart. Even their carabinieri are dressed every bit as smartly as our generals, if not even more so. Wonderful chaps to have on show but a bit flaky when it comes to the business. Their heart isn’t really in it, you see. The Italian army loves sitting about drinking cappuccinos. Their Alpini, of course, have those wonderful hats with feathers in them. I envy them that. That must give the Russians something to think about, I’d say.”

>   And so it continued. After they had eaten their rack of lamb and were waiting for the tiramisu, Ulf decided the moment was ripe to continue his inquiry.

  “These people you get for community service,” he said. “These...”

  “Riff-raff,” said the colonel, now beginning to slur his words. “Yes, what about them?”

  “You mentioned somebody who had been convicted of stabbing someone in the back of the knee.”

  “Yes,” said the colonel. “Very short fellow. You could trip over him if you weren’t watching your step. Ridiculous.” He paused. “I wish I could tell you what I have planned for him.”

  “You could, you know,” said Ulf.

  The colonel shook his head, and then tapped the side of his nose in a gesture of confidentiality. “Sorry. No can do.”