“This is getting stranger and stranger,” said Lewin. “What do you think about all of this?”
“At best what’s happened is that someone, in that case probably Waltin, committed at least two crimes to get out of a parking ticket.”
“And in the worst case?”
“In the worst case, it’s really bad,” said Mattei.
Lewin devoted the rest of the day to unpleasant musings. He did not like the fact that one and the same person showed up in several places in the same investigation without there being a common reason for him or her to do so. A natural, human explanation. Not the kind that had already started to torment him.
Mattei continued as if nothing had happened. As of twenty-four hours ago there were other things going on in her head, and work had to go on as pure routine. First she prepared a page of reminder notes about the mysterious parking ticket that would certainly interest her boss. Then she went to work on the strange special assignment he had given her. Sent a friendly e-mail to the administrative assistant at Magdalen College in Oxford from her private e-mail address, signed by Lisa Mattei, PhD at the University of Stockholm to be on the safe side. And that is really me, she thought.
An hour later she got an answer. Goodness, things are moving fast, she thought.
Dear Dr. Mattei,
Thank you for your kind e-mail. It’s a nice old tale, but I am afraid it’s not true, and there’s never been any actual evidence for it. I rather suspect that it’s a legend that’s been passed around by other colleges—and perhaps even colleagues. It’s true that our deer herd is occasionally culled. However, this has nothing to do…
Good or bad and what is he really looking for? thought Lisa Mattei, and because it was Lars Martin Johansson, and urgent as usual, she called him on his cell phone.
“Lisa Mattei,” said Mattei. “I have an answer to your questions, boss. I’m afraid the whole thing is a tall tale.”
“Brilliant,” said Johansson. “Come over at once, and I’ll tell Helena to put on the coffeepot.”
“Two minutes,” said Mattei. And I’ll tell Helena to put on the coffeepot, she thought, shaking her head.
Lars Martin Johansson was on his thinking couch and waved at the nearest chair.
“I’m listening,” he said.
Not the slightest sign of any coffeepot, fortunately, Mattei thought after a quick look around.
“According to the administrative assistant at Magdalen, a Mr. Edgar Smith-Hamilton, whose official title by the way is bursar, which means he’s in charge of the change purse so to speak, there are presently thirty-two deer in the park behind the college, and they’ve had approximately that many for a number of years. On the other hand the number of fellows is considerably greater than that. More than a hundred, if you include honorary fellows. The deer park is over three hundred years old, but there has never been any rule that the number of deer must tally with the number of fellows. In the old days it seems to have been the case that there were considerably more deer than fellows, but for the past fifty years it’s been the other way around.”
“Phenomenal,” said Johansson, glowing with delight. “Go on, Mattei. Go on.”
Nor was it the case that a deer was shot when a fellow had died. On the other hand a certain amount of shooting was done for reasons of game management, as a rule after rutting, which happened in October each year.
“Although you know about that sort of thing better than I do, boss,” said Mattei.
“Just a guess,” Johansson smiled. “Do continue.”
The part about the dinner didn’t add up either. Dinners in memory of deceased fellows were held twice a year. One in early summer and one in late autumn. To be sure, exceptions had occurred, but then it was for very esteemed members of the college. Most recently a deceased Nobel Prize winner had been honored with a dinner, a theme day with lectures and seminars to discuss his scientific work, plus a Festschrift from Oxford University Press.
“So what do they eat?” asked Johansson eagerly.
“As far as the menus are concerned it does happen that deer from the park may be served at college dinners, but it’s not a mandatory feature of the memorial dinners. Varied menu, in other words. Usual banquet food, as I understood it.”
“I’ll be damned,” said Johansson, sighing contentedly from the couch.
“You’re satisfied with the answers I got, boss?”
“Satisfied,” said Johansson. “Do we celebrate Christmas Eve on the twenty-fourth of December?”
“Yes, that was all I guess,” said Mattei, making an attempt to stand up.
“Just one more thing,” said Johansson, stopping her with a hand gesture. “How did these rumors arise?”
“From what I understood between the lines it was a story that was tended very carefully by those most closely affected. Well, not the deer, that is.”
“I’ll be damned again,” Johansson grunted.
Wonder if he’s checking information in some old interrogation or what, thought Mattei as she left. Johansson was still Johansson, despite his highly suspect view of women, she thought.
45
On Tuesday Inspector Evert Bäckström was engaged in archival research.
The Stockholm police department’s old central archive was in the basement of the big police building and it was there his sensitive nose had led him. Following a scent no stronger than a vague hunch. Impossible to be detected by all his nasally congested colleagues. Concealed from everyone except a seasoned old bloodhound like him.
Besides, he had good memories of this archive. When he had worked overtime at the after-hours unit in the eighties, it was here he would make his way for a moment of reflection and rest. It was necessary so as not to capsize in the tidal wave of common gangsters, lunatics, drunks, and glowworms that the half-apes in the uniformed police ladled in through the duty desk.
A memory from another time. Before computers took over the fine old handiwork. A time when all real constables sorted their thugs in neat hanging folders with cardboard tabs. Where every thug had at least one file, and where the most diligent would be rewarded within a short time with several. Arranged in endless rows by social security number. In different colors over time. Brown, blue, green, light red, red…and already by the change in color Bäckström understood early on what was about to happen.
The dear old central archive. The wellspring of police knowledge, where he himself had both slaked his thirst and refreshed his soul on numerous memorable occasions. This final safeguard and stronghold of knowledge, where literally everything you put your mitts on was collected and never discarded. Regardless of unverified suspicions, dismissal with prejudice, withdrawn indictments, verdicts of acquittal, and all the other nonsense that attorneys were involved in. The crook remained in the central archive. For all time. Once in, you never got out.
Of course he’d been right, he was always right. There he hung, dangling in his blue sixties file. Now I have you, you little leather boy, thought Bäckström, releasing Waltin from his hook.
A thin file with copies of old typewritten forms. Initial report, interview with the plaintiff, personal information about the suspect, interview with the suspect, summons to new interview with the plaintiff, dismissal with prejudice, no crime, and if it hadn’t been for the central archive, Claes Waltin would have been lost to worldly justice for all time.
The night between April thirtieth and the first of May 1968, the twenty-three-year-old law student Claes Waltin had, according to the report, shoved a wooden candlestick into the vagina of a twenty-five-year-old woman who was a doctoral candidate in Nordic languages and supported herself working as a substitute teacher at a high school in the southern suburbs. They had met earlier in the evening at the Hasselbacken restaurant on Djurgården in connection with the students’ traditional celebration of Walpurgis Eve.
Assuming that you believed her, the following was said to have happened.
Waltin had gone home with her to her residenc
e on Södermalm. There he had first assaulted her sexually by forcing her to have anal intercourse. Then he bound her, put a muzzle on her, and inserted the candlestick into her genital area. When he was done with that he left.
An hour later the woman suffered severe bleeding, called for an ambulance herself, and was taken to the Söder hospital. There she remained for over a week. A female social worker visited her, got her to talk, and saw to it that she filed a police report.
A forensic examination had been made and damage to the entry to her vagina, vaginal walls, and portio vaginalis had been observed. In conclusion the forensic doctor observed in his statement: “that the observed injuries appear to have arisen through physical impact from a hard, oblong object inserted into the vagina”; “that the insertion of this object probably required considerable force”; “that the injuries do not contradict the description the patient has given”; “that at the same time it may have arisen in some other way through comparable physical impact”; “that it cannot be ruled out either that they are self-inflicted.”
Not until a few weeks later was the young Waltin called for an interview with the police. He denied any form of assault against the plaintiff. They had met at the Hasselbacken restaurant, he had gone home with her, and it was on her own suggestion that they had had normal intercourse in which moreover she had taken the initiative.
An hour or so later he left her and walked home to his student apartment on Östermalm, because he would be getting up early the next morning. He had promised to visit his mother, who was sickly and needed regular checking by her only son.
In conclusion he also said that he was shocked and shaken by the horrible accusations he was being subjected to. He could never even imagine doing something like that and did not understand why the plaintiff said what she had.
A week later the plaintiff had been called to another interview. She never appeared. Instead she called the police and said that she wanted to withdraw her report. She never provided any more detailed explanation for this turnabout. A month later the prosecutor had written off the report. “The reported incident is not to be considered a crime.”
Typical police chief candidate, thought Bäckström, rolling up the file and putting it in his jacket pocket. Much simpler than wasting your precious time at that copy machine that never worked. Gold, Bäckström, he thought, patting his jacket pocket as he came out onto the street again, and because it was both simplest and safest he went straight home.
For lunch he took a few things out of his own refrigerator, where these days there were a number of delicacies, had a cold pilsner, even allowed himself a little drop of liquor. Then he lay down on the couch so he could think in peace and quiet about an ordinary leather boy’s motives for murdering a prime minister.
It must have been something sexual, thought Bäckström. The same motive, although a different modus operandi, so to speak. What remained was to link Waltin to his latest known victim. Perhaps they belonged to the same secret society of leather boys? Was it an ordinary little internal settling of accounts because they had a falling out over some little ass-whipping subject? It was about time that inspector Bäckström started smoothing out the perpetrator profile, he thought.
In the midst of these pleasant musings he must have fallen asleep, because when he woke up it was time for dinner.
One thing I know that never dies, and that is the reputation of a dead man, thought Bäckström when a while later he was walking at a slow pace to his usual place. That was straight talk. Not that liberal drivel about never speaking ill of the dead. It’s enough if it’s true, damn it, he thought.
46
For the second day in a row Anna Holt called her old colleague from the bureau who was now head of the tech squad.
“It’s me again, Holt,” said Anna Holt. “At the risk of being tedious, do you have two minutes?”
Holt was not the least bit tedious. She could call every day if she wanted. What could he help her with?
“This is about another revolver. The murder weapon in a murder-suicide that happened on March 27, 1983. A man who shot his daughter and her fiancé before he shot himself. Happened out in Spånga. The revolver was confiscated and is said to have ended up with you. You couldn’t pull out a more detailed description of it, could you? It doesn’t appear in the extract I got from our own CIS.”
“Sure,” said the head of the tech squad. “You don’t have a number on the case?”
“Of course,” said Holt. “I’ll e-mail it.”
“Just give me an hour,” said her old colleague.
What am I really up to? thought Holt as she hung up.
This time it had taken only forty-five minutes. The weapon she was wondering about ended up at the tech squad the day after the murder/suicide. It had been test fired and compared with the bullets the forensic doctor had plucked out of the three victims. The results confirmed what had already been figured out. The murder weapon.
“Also a Ruger .357 caliber Magnum. The same as that revolver Bäckström was raving about. Although a somewhat older model.”
“Would it be possible to take a look at it?” asked Holt.
“Unfortunately not,” replied the head of the tech squad. “It’s not here anymore.”
“So where is it?”
“Nowhere, I’m afraid. According to our papers, it was here until October 1988. Then it was turned over, along with twenty or so other weapons, to the Swedish Defense Factories for scrapping. There are papers on that too.”
“Scrapping,” said Holt. “I thought you kept all the weapons you got in?”
Far from it, according to her colleague. They kept those weapons that were interesting from an investigative standpoint. Besides that they kept those that were interesting for ballistic comparisons in general.
“As you perhaps know we have a little weapons library up here at the squad. Over twelve hundred weapons, actually. Various types of weapons. Different brands in various calibers and models.”
“So which ones do you send to scrap?”
Those that were in poor shape. Assuming they wouldn’t be needed for any crime investigation.
“Mostly old rejects, actually. Sawed-off shotguns, drilled-out starter guns, all sorts of home-made contraptions. On the other hand, if we have several copies of the same weapon in good condition we usually don’t scrap them. We apportion those out to colleagues around the country. Most tech squads have their own weapons libraries, and in Stockholm we confiscate more weapons than any other police authority in the country.”
“So this one was in poor condition then,” asked Holt.
“Ought to have been, answer yes. Although in itself it sounds a bit strange considering that the person who used it was evidently a marksman and had a license for it. They’re usually very careful about their weapons. To say the least, if you understand what I mean.”
“You test fired it,” said Holt. “Are the bullets from the test firing still around?”
“Nope. I checked that. Probably due to the fact that we had a solved case right from the start. By now it would have almost turned twenty-five, so they probably threw it out in a spring cleaning. The copy of the report from the test firing should still be around, on the other hand.”
Starts to sound more and more like a typical Bäckström, thought Holt.
“A completely different matter,” said her old colleague. “Just a question out of curiosity. What I’m wondering—”
“I know exactly what you’re wondering,” Holt interrupted. “Before you ask, I wish I knew what this was about. I don’t have a clue. Let me put it like this. I was given the task of following up a tip.”
“I didn’t think police superintendents dealt with such things.”
“Neither did I,” said Holt. Wonder if I can quote you, she thought.
What am I really up to? thought Holt as she hung up.
If there’s something you’re brooding about, something that bothers you, something that worries you, then
you have to talk about it. Share with someone you trust. Over and over again his female psychiatrist had repeated this. Like a mantra. If there’s something that…It’ll have to be Anna, thought Lewin.
“There’s something that’s bothering me,” said Jan Lewin with a cautious throat clearing and an apologetic smile.
“Then you should talk about it. You know that perfectly well,” said Holt, smiling at him.
“I thought so,” said Jan Lewin. Then he told the—to say the least—strange story about Waltin’s parking ticket.
“I understand exactly,” said Holt. “I have something that’s bothering me too.”
“I’m listening,” said Jan Lewin.
“So what do you think about this?” said Anna Holt. Then she told the hopefully not-so-strange story about the scrapped Magnum revolver.
“I know what those marksmen types are like,” said Holt with unexpected emphasis. “I was married to one myself. They spend more time tinkering with their weapons than playing with their children.”
“I get the idea that your ex-husband, our esteemed colleague with the uniformed police, is one of the agency’s more distinguished marksmen,” said Lewin.
“Exactly,” said Holt. “Although there are more reasons than that, which we can talk about some other time. But you have to admit the whole thing is a bit mysterious.”
“There must be an investigation,” said Lewin, whose thoughts seemed elsewhere.
“Certainly,” said Holt. “How are we helped by a lot of papers?”
“This was 1983,” said Lewin, shaking his head. “It was another time then. When you were done with a major investigation, you would pack it up in a box and carry it down to the archive. It wasn’t just papers that ended up in those boxes. It could be anything imaginable, like the victim’s old diaries, photographs, threatening letters from the perpetrator, even the sort of thing the tech squad wanted to get rid of.”
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