Another Time, Another Life: The Story of a Crime

by Leif Gw Persson

  “Then I won’t disturb you any longer,” said Johansson. What else do I say? he wondered. I have to say something, don’t I, because he’s dying.

  “You take care of yourself, Erik,” said Johansson, looking seriously at his host. “And you shouldn’t worry about this, because I’m going to take care of it.”

  “That’s nice to hear,” said Berg, and he looked as though he meant it.

  Part 6

  Another Time, Another Life

  28

  Friday, March 31, 2000

  When Johansson arrived back at the office a package was awaiting him.

  “You’ve got a package, Boss,” the guard in the reception area said, lifting up an ordinary brown grocery bag on the counter.

  “Anything that’s ticking?” Johansson asked routinely.

  “Just papers, but they were to be given to you personally, Boss,” said the guard.

  “Are they from anyone I know?” said Johansson.

  “Came by courier,” said the guard. “Seemed to be a nice guy. Looked like people mostly do.”

  “But no one you recognized,” Johansson confirmed, smiling.

  “No,” said the guard. “But he said they were worth reading. Then he wished you a nice weekend.”

  “That was nice of him,” said Johansson, taking the bag.

  In the brown paper grocery bag were two letter-size binders with investigation files from the seventies and eighties, and a large envelope that contained an old-fashioned audiotape of the kind SePo had already stopped using in the early eighties, as well as a one-page summary of the essentials of the Swedish involvement in the occupation of the West German embassy almost twenty-five years ago.

  Persson, thought Johansson as he sat leaning back comfortably behind his large desk, no matter that the brief, typewritten summary was unsigned. It was both explanatory and edifying, and although it was accompanied by several hundred pages of investigation materials and a number of tape-recorded conversations, the essentials were clear to Johansson within an hour. Besides, on the audiotapes he had heard the voice of innocence, with its distinctive tone, in two conversations captured on different occasions, and this was not overly common at his place of employment, and especially not when it came to conversations monitored by the secret police.

  The first conversation was from early May 1975. A confused, furious, and very young Helena Stein calls Sten Welander at his office at the university, screaming that he had duped and betrayed her, calling him a murderer and a traitor, and threatening to go to the police and report herself, him, and all the others. The latter, by the way, seems to disturb him considerably more than do her moral condemnations of him. He seems most discomposed that she could be “so fucking dense” as to call him on his phone. When he can’t get her to be quiet he finally hangs up, and when she immediately calls back again, no one answers.

  The second conversation took place more than three years later, in the autumn of 1978, at a better restaurant in Stockholm. The law school graduate Helena Stein, who has just turned twenty, reads the riot act to Theo Tischler, eleven years her senior. She gives vent to her well-controlled and well-articulated wrath, and a very remorseful Theo Tischler simply cowers and takes it. Considering the secret police’s persistent denials that they had ever been involved in concealed electronic eavesdropping, the high technical quality of the recording is both astonishing and admirable.

  I have to talk with someone, thought Johansson, and considering what he needed to discuss there was basically only one person he could turn to, his own general director and highest superior. It’ll have to be Monday, he thought after a quick look at his watch. It was late Friday afternoon, and usually high time to call it a day, but he had people waiting for him, both in the conference room a few doors down the corridor and at home on Söder.

  My wife still comes first, thought Johansson, and called her to say that he would be a few hours late and that he hoped she wouldn’t be upset.

  “Not if you do the grocery shopping,” said Pia.

  It was a reasonable price to pay, thought Johansson as he hung up. In the worst case he could have his driver wait out on the street while he rushed into the Söder food hall and picked up the weekend necessities.

  They were running short on time, he thought. In a few hours it would be exactly three weeks and three days until the statute of limitations ran out and the case lost its status as a practical legal matter—and, at least in theory, as the basis for indictments for complicity to murder and various other atrocities. Finally the case files would become something else, source material for research in history and political science. Forget the West German embassy, thought Johansson. Regardless of what had happened there he didn’t intend to put a manure fork in that heap of shit, and in Helena Stein’s case he hoped her entanglement was mainly a matter of youthful indiscretion.

  The government offices wanted to have a background check done at the highest security clearance for the designated cabinet minister candidate in ten days latest, and evidently there was such assurance that she would get a green light that the undersecretary in charge of security in the prime minister’s cabinet did not even seem to react when Johansson called him and said that unfortunately—for various practical reasons, heavy workload, events over which one had no control, and so on and so forth—he could not promise to deliver until the very last day.

  “I see,” the undersecretary said. “We’ll have to try to live with that.” Then he wished Johansson a pleasant weekend and put down the receiver, despite the fact that normally he could be both inquisitive and demanding.

  What are you really up to? Johansson asked himself as he sat down at the narrow end of the conference table. Chasing figments of your imagination? You’re doing your job, he thought, for now it was a matter of liking the situation. You’re doing your job without sneaking a glance upward or downward or to the right or the left, with a clean desk, unsullied by history, with the greatest conceivable competence, in the national interest and in the good spirit of the new era, so you’re sitting here because you intend to do your job.

  “Welcome,” said Johansson. “There’s something I wanted to ask you to help me with. I hope I’ve got the whole thing turned around, but in any event I wasn’t going to miss a chance to ruin your weekend.” That sounded pretty good, he thought. Pleasant and democratic, and everyone already sitting around the table waiting suddenly appeared both happy and expectant. What a great guy that Johansson is, thought Johansson.

  Not too many, not too few, and only the best, he had told Wiklander before he had left to meet Berg, and he hoped it was that directive and that alone that explained why there were only four people waiting for him and why three of them were women. Besides Wiklander, there were Detective Chief Inspector Anna Holt and Police Inspectors Lisa Mattei and Linda Martinez. Or maybe it was a reflection of the new era, thought Johansson, feeling almost hopeful.

  First he gave a brief explanation of why they were sitting there.

  “We’ve taken over a security classification from the folks at background checks,” Johansson began. “It concerns an undersecretary in the defense department by the name of Helena Stein. Without knowing for sure, we have reason to believe that the intention is to promote her by appointing her as a member of the government, and so far all is well and good,” said Johansson as he served himself a cup of coffee, apparently without the slightest thought of passing the coffeepot on to any of the others.

  “Where was I,” Johansson continued. “Yes … the reason that Stein ended up with us is that our esteemed colleague Wiklander here discovered by pure chance that in her youth Stein featured in the occupation of the West German embassy—as one of the four Swedish citizens who at that time were suspected of complicity. In that connection she is now acquitted and has been eliminated. My predecessor Berg conducted an, as far as we can judge, unobjectionable investigation that shows that in all probability she was unaware of what it was all about and she was possibly exploited
as well. She was only sixteen years old at the time, and considering that the statute of limitations on the embassy case will run out in less than a month I have no intention of taking up that matter in this context.”

  Nor in any other context for that matter. God preserve us all, he thought.

  “I’m sure you’re wondering why we’re sitting here,” said Johansson, smiling amiably at his coworkers. “I hope the reason,” he continued, “is only that I’m starting to get old and tired and occupationally injured and paranoid and have begun seeing ghosts in the light of day, but regardless of all that—and not least considering that I want to be able to sleep at night—before we put a grade A stamp of approval on Ms. Stein, I still want to be sure she’s not carrying any old skeletons in her baggage.”

  “You have nothing specific, Boss?” asked Inspector Martinez.

  “Not at all,” said Johansson with more conviction than he actually intended to show. There was an unpleasant feeling growing in the back of his head that he intended to keep to himself for the time being. “Wiklander, perhaps you should explain what we’ve been thinking,” said Johansson, nodding at the person who had started the whole thing.

  “There were four Swedes identified in connection with the West German embassy occupation,” said Wiklander. “It seems two of them were actively involved, Sten Welander and Kjell Eriksson. The other two, Theo Tischler and the just-named Stein, were probably not, and as far as Stein is concerned it appears, as the boss has already said, quite certain that she wasn’t.” Although God knows where Tischler is concerned, thought Wiklander, who was a real policeman with an old-fashioned view of things. He took the opportunity to pour fresh coffee for himself and of course passed the coffeepot on as soon as he’d done so.

  “Two of those involved are dead. One of them, Kjell Eriksson, was murdered in 1989. The case is still unsolved, and I thought we should go over his murder if only for the reason that both Tischler and Welander appear in the investigation. Neither of them is a suspect, however, and anyway Sten Welander died of cancer in 1995. In addition, it so happens,” said Wiklander, nodding at Holt, “that Anna here was involved in that investigation from the beginning, so I thought she could outline the case for you.”

  “How nice,” said Johansson with surprise. I had no idea, he thought. Could Holt have been around already at that time? Jarnebring of course … whatever that has to do with it, he thought.

  “Oh,” said Holt, smiling hesitantly. “True, I remember Eriksson, because that was my first murder investigation, but I don’t really think it was all that successful.”

  “But Stein wasn’t part of the Eriksson investigation,” said Mattei. “Have I got that right or not?”

  “No she wasn’t,” said Holt. “Given that the investigation left a lot to be desired, and based on my own memory—it was more than ten years ago—I’m pretty sure about that. Stein was not mentioned at all in the investigation.”

  “What business do we have getting into this?” asked Martinez, looking at her top boss with curiosity.

  “Yes,” said Johansson, smiling weakly and shaking his head. “Good question … what the hell business do we have getting into this? I really want to emphasize this: This is not about clearing up an old murder, and least of all about whacking our colleagues down in Stockholm on the fingers. It is simply one last check … to be on the safe side, so that we haven’t missed anything. Go ahead, Holt. We’re listening,” Johansson concluded, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers over his stomach.

  Given all the years that had passed since Eriksson was murdered, Holt gave a clear, composed, edifying summary of the case. First she briefly recounted the factual circumstances: where, when, and how Kjell Eriksson was murdered. Then she described the victim’s character: unpopular, solitary, almost strangely isolated. The investigation had revealed only two friends—Tischler and Welander—both of whom had watertight alibis, but because this was not about solving a murder mystery she wasn’t going to go any deeper into that aspect.

  As far as the motive was concerned, Holt continued, opinions had diverged sharply within the investigation team, and she recounted Bäckström’s perception and her own and Jarnebring’s opposing view of the matter: namely, that the case had to do with Eriksson’s personality, not his possible sexual orientation; that he had been trying to bully someone, extort money, exploit someone.

  “You shouldn’t judge your own case,” said Holt, “but Bäckström’s so-called homo lead probably says more about Bäckström than it does about who murdered Eriksson.”

  “Motive,” Johansson snorted, holding up both palms in a deprecating gesture. “I don’t understand this constant nagging about motives. It’s completely uninteresting. I can’t remember a single case in which the motive has given us the perpetrator. You need harder goods than motives if you’re going to solve a murder.”

  “Your friend Bo Jarnebring told me what you thought about motives in connection with the Eriksson investigation,” said Holt, smiling rather broadly for some reason.

  “And a good thing too,” said Johansson. At least one person has listened to me, he thought.

  “Just this one time he thought you were wrong,” said Holt, who was still smiling.

  “You don’t say,” said Johansson, suddenly sounding guarded. Et tu, Brute, he thought. “Well, what do you think, then?” said Johansson.

  “Just this one time I agree with Jarnebring,” said Holt, looking steadily at her top boss.

  “You do, do you,” drawled Johansson. What the hell are the police coming to, he thought. She must be at least ten years younger than I am and her practical experience of murder investigations fits on half the fingernail on my little finger, and still she sits there and contradicts me. “It’ll work out, Holt,” said Johansson. “It’ll work out, and what we do now, to be on the safe side, we go through and check the Eriksson case one more time, just to see that we haven’t missed anything.… Obviously I also want to have the usual complete rundown on Stein. How you divide that up among yourselves isn’t my concern, but I want it done no later than next Friday evening, which gives you seven days.” So that even I get a little time to think, thought Johansson.

  “At the risk of quibbling,” said Holt, “Stein is not part of the Eriksson investigation. On that point I’m certain.”

  That’s just great, couldn’t be better, thought Johansson, who saw the chance to conclude the meeting, get out of the office quickly, and leave the rest to his colleagues. If it weren’t for Mattei, who, judging by the hesitant expression on her face, clearly had something on her mind. She seemed to be ruminating, thought Johansson. Or was that just because of her horn-rimmed glasses?

  “Mattei,” Johansson asked, “is there something you’re wondering about?”

  “Maybe,” said Mattei, “in and of itself it’s a little far-fetched. Maybe …” She was leafing hesitantly in a binder with computer printouts as she pushed her glasses up on her forehead.

  “Yes,” said Johansson, exerting himself not to appear impatient. Shoot, man, he thought, but he couldn’t very well say that. Well, he could to Jarnebring and Wiklander, but not to his colleague Mattei.

  “Before I got here I did a few searches on Stein,” said Mattei. Instead of just sitting and twiddling my thumbs waiting for my boss, she thought.

  “And?” said Johansson. Get to the point, woman, he thought, in which he was evidently not alone, judging by the facial expressions of the others.

  “I see in my notes here that Theodor Tischler and Helena Stein are cousins,” said Mattei. “He’s the same Tischler who’s part of the murder investigation of Eriksson.”

  “What?” Holt blurted out, and because no one else had said a word, it echoed. “They’re cousins?”

  “Yes,” said Mattei. “According to my research they are. Stein’s mother is the sister of Tischler’s father. So Tischler and Stein are cousins. It has to be.”

  “Jesus,” Holt moaned, throwing out both arms. “The gang
of four … How stupid can you be?”

  “Excuse me,” said Johansson, “I’m afraid I don’t really understand.”

  “Forget everything I just said,” Holt moaned. “Jesus, I didn’t get it … how stupid can you be?”

  “I’m still not getting it,” said Johansson.

  “Excuse me, Boss,” said Holt, pulling herself together. “I take back what I said. Stein is part of the Eriksson investigation. I looked at a photo of her myself.”

  “I see,” said Johansson. “That’s all well and good, but I still don’t understand—”

  “The reason I never considered her is that in the picture she looks ten years old at most,” Holt explained. “But sure, she’s there in the evidence.”

  “The gang of four,” said Johansson doubtfully. “Is that something political?” Sweet Jesus, he thought. Please don’t let it be something political.

  “No,” said Holt. “Not the Chinese. It’s a reference to characters in a novel by Conan Doyle—you know, Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Jonathan Small, Mahomet Singh, Abdullah Khan, and Dost Akbar,” said Johansson, who had devoted hundreds of hours of his early youth to the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and even now could recite long passages by heart.

  “Excuse me,” said Holt. “Now I’m the one who’s not following.”

  “Forget about that for now,” said Johansson politely. “The gang of four in the novel by Doyle. Those were their names. But I still don’t understand.”

  “Then I’ll explain,” said Holt, and she did.

  Holt told about Eriksson’s photo album and the picture she’d found, about the questioning of Tischler and what he’d said about his “delightful little cousin.”