Free Falling, As If in a Dream

by Free Falling, As If in a Dream (retail) (epub)

  “I’m not allowed to say that,” Wiijnbladh complained, shaking his head.

  “I’m assuming that you were not aware at the time that Claes Waltin had resigned as a police officer.”

  “No, that can’t be right,” said Wiijnbladh, staring at Holt for some reason.

  “Yes,” said Lewin. “Waltin resigned as a police officer in June of that year. Several months before he got you to turn over the revolver, remove the test firing report, and prepare a scrapping certificate, which was incorrect on at least one point. Claes Waltin was not a police officer when you performed these services for him.”

  “That can’t be right,” said Wiijnbladh, shaking his head.

  “So why can’t that be right?” asked Lewin.

  “I got a distinction. I got a medal too. From the secret police. As thanks for my efforts for the security of the realm.”

  “Which you keep in your desk drawer,” Jan Lewin surmised.

  “Yes. Yes. I’ve had it there the whole time.”

  Poor wretch, thought Jan Lewin.

  56

  “So you intend to come along to the poisoner’s home, boss,” said Rogersson, holding the car door open for Johansson.

  “You betcha. I need to get out and move around,” said Johansson. “Although I intend to sit in front,” he said. “Falk can sit in back, then he’ll have room.”

  “Thanks, boss,” said Falk, grinning and holding open the right door.

  “So we don’t need any protective gear,” said Rogersson as they drove out of the tunnel to the police building’s garage.

  “Hell no,” said Johansson, shaking his head. “Not us. What we’re looking for are some papers and some fucking medal the bastard is supposed to have received.”

  “From the pharmaceutical company,” said Rogersson, grinning.

  “If only it were that good,” said Johansson and sighed.

  For the past fifteen years Detective Inspector Göran Wiijnbladh had lived in an assisted-living facility for early retirees in Bromma. One room and kitchen with a small bathroom. Four alarm buttons to call for help, if needed. One by the front door, which could be reached even if you were lying on the floor; one in the bathroom between the toilet and bathtub. One in the kitchen by the stove. One by the bed in the only room. It was also equipped with an extension cord, in case he wanted to have it with him when he sat at his desk or in the armchair in front of the TV.

  The place was worn-out, musty, with a faint but unmistakable odor of urine. On the floor in the bathroom was an opened package of adult diapers. In the medicine cabinet were twenty-some vials and packages with various medicines. An empty plastic denture case. Shaving razor, shaving cream, and aftershave. On the sink a plastic mug with a toothbrush and a tube of denture cream.

  Poor devil, thought Lars Martin Johansson, continuing into the one room.

  Rogersson stood rooting in the desk by the window while his colleague Falk dug through the contents of the small dresser that was against the short wall. On the nightstand beside the bed was a framed photograph of Wiijnbladh’s ex-wife. The one who had left him almost twenty years ago when he happened to poison himself, although he only wanted to kill her.

  “Is it this you mean, boss?” said Rogersson, holding up a plastic bag with a medal the size of a five-krona coin. “To Detective Inspector Göran Wiijnbladh in gratitude for meritorious efforts for the security of the realm,” Rogersson read.

  “I’m afraid it is,” said Johansson.

  “Was he some fucking war hero?” asked Rogersson, shaking his head.

  “More likely the Man of Steel,” Falk sneered, holding up a pair of white underwear. “A lot of rust in these briefs.”

  “Papers,” said Johansson.

  “Must be these,” said Rogersson. “Some kind of receipt for a firearm and a mysterious letter of recommendation. From the gumshoes in the B building. Their stationery in any event.”

  “I’ll have to see,” said Johansson. How fucking stupid can you be? he thought.

  57

  Johansson returned to the interview room in less than two hours. This time he apparently intended to stay, because he was carrying a chair that he could sit on.

  “The head of NBCI is entering the room,” said Holt. “We interrupt the interview at—”

  “Turn off that piece of shit,” said Johansson, waving toward the tape recorder. “Now we have to have a serious talk, you and me, Göran,” he said, nodding at Wiijnbladh. “You have nothing to worry about,” he added. “So you can be completely calm. But first we’ll have coffee,” said Johansson, looking at Holt for some reason. “Black or with milk, Göran?”

  “With cream, if there is any,” Wiijnbladh stammered.

  That man defies all description, thought Anna Holt. Wiijnbladh did not seem the least bit calm. Despite Johansson’s assurances, she thought.

  Then she got the coffee. What choice did she really have? And saw to it that Wiijnbladh got cream in his, and listened to Johansson while he talked to Wiijnbladh as if he were talking to a child.

  “As perhaps you know, I was operations head of the secret police for a number of years,” said Johansson, nodding at Wiijnbladh.

  “Yes, that was before the boss…before you became head of the bureau,” Wiijnbladh concurred.

  “So what I’m saying to you now is in strictest confidence,” said Johansson. “Before we leave I also want you to sign a confidentiality agreement. The usual, you know, on nondisclosure.”

  “Of course,” said Wiijnbladh.

  While the maid fetched coffee, the boys had apparently dispensed with formalities, thought Holt.

  “As I’ve understood it, it happened in the following way,” said Johansson in a leisurely manner, pretending to read from his papers.

  Waltin had tricked Wiijnbladh. Abused his confidence. Blatantly exploited him.

  “Let’s get some order into the details,” said Johansson. “What went on when the revolver was turned over?”

  First Waltin had called him on the phone. At work. He remembered that distinctly. He needed to see Wiijnbladh immediately. It was a matter of the utmost importance. Wiijnbladh could not talk about it with anyone. He was not to contact Waltin. The matter was so sensitive that Waltin was forced to work outside the police building for a while. For that reason he could not be reached.

  “I knew from before that he was head of the so-called external operation, so I assumed he was working on reorganizing that,” Wiijnbladh clarified.

  “So it was Waltin who came to see you?”

  “He came up on the weekend. It was sometime in the middle of September. I was on after-hours duty, and he asked me to call as soon as I was alone at the squad so we could talk in private. So when my associates, who were on duty with me, had to leave the building I called him. On the secret number he gave me. I think it was a Sunday. Sometime in the middle of September. We had a suspected death out in Midsommarkransen. It turned out to be a suicide.”

  “And then he came over to see you?” asked Johansson.

  “He came like a shot,” Wiijnbladh confirmed.

  Wonder how he pulls it off? thought Holt with reluctant admiration.

  Once up at the tech squad Waltin explained his business. The secret police needed to take possession of a certain weapon from the tech squad. Why he could not say, other than that it concerned a story of the utmost importance for the security of the realm.

  “He had a complete description of the weapon with him. Serial number and everything. And a photo too.”

  “Do you remember what it looked like?” asked Johansson. “Was there anything besides the weapon in the photo?”

  “Just the weapon,” said Wiijnbladh and sighed. “Photographed right from above against a white background where the usual measuring stick had been placed to show the size, and a tag with the serial number in the lower corner. I got the impression it had been taken by our colleagues at the tech squad at SePo. But naturally I didn’t ask.”

  “Wh
at did you do next?” asked Johansson.

  First Waltin checked that they actually had the weapon in question. They did. It was in a drawer in the weaponry library along with the bullet that had been used for the test firing plus a cartridge that had not been fired. Wiijnbladh gave him the revolver, the bullet, and the cartridge. Plus the report from the test firing.

  “It was very important that all traces of the weapon disappear,” Wiijnbladh explained. “That’s why he wanted me to arrange a scrap certificate.”

  “No one at the Defense Factories wondered?”

  “They weren’t so careful at that time. Not like today,” Wiijnbladh explained. “I put together some loose gun parts from revolvers. A cylinder magazine, a sawed-off barrel where the serial number was filed off, and a loose butt, among other things. We have a lot of that lying around. Then I put it in a bag and pasted on a regular tag with the serial number of the weapon that Waltin had signed for.”

  “Signed for, you say,” said Johansson.

  “I was forced to have some kind of receipt,” said Wiijnbladh. “For my own account, that is.”

  “And it was then that he gave you this affidavit,” said Johansson, pushing over one of the two papers he had found in Wiijnbladh’s desk drawer.

  “Now I realize this is a forgery,” sighed Wiijnbladh, shaking his head. “This is terrible. But what should I believe? An affidavit written on SePo stationery. Signed and everything. I mean, what should I think? I even had to sign a special confidentiality agreement.”

  What should he believe? The following week he received a medal besides and a thank-you note from SePo signed by bureau head Erik Berg. Delivered by Claes Waltin personally in connection with an invitation to a “more formal” dinner in his apartment on Norr Mälarstrand.

  “The delivery itself happened before dinner,” Wiijnbladh explained. “Then the other guests came to the dinner itself. Although we didn’t talk about my distinction of course.”

  “The other guests,” said Johansson, sending a glance in the direction of Holt. “So who were they?”

  “An old friend of Claes, he’s dead now too, unfortunately, but I seem to recall that he was a very well-known business attorney when he was alive. Died only a couple years after Claes himself happened to drown. Then there was his old dad too. Very successful businessman at that time. Lived in Skåne, I seem to recall.”

  Before Wiijnbladh left he had to sign yet another confidentiality agreement. Johansson kept the medal, receipt, and the thank-you note. Partly because he needed them to be able to write off all suspicions against Wiijnbladh, and he had no objections.

  Before Lewin accompanied him back to the lost-and-found squad, Wiijnbladh asked Johansson one last question.

  “I sincerely hope it’s not so bad that this has happened in connection with a new crime?”

  “There’s nothing that indicates that,” said Johansson with a steady gaze and honest gray eyes. “It came up in connection with the inventory from Waltin’s estate and we wondered, naturally, because he didn’t have a license for it. By pure chance we found out some time ago that the weapon had originally been confiscated by our colleagues in Stockholm. The mills of justice grind slowly. Unfortunately,” added Johansson and sighed.

  While you continue to defy all description, thought Anna Holt.

  58

  “So what do you think about this?” Johansson asked the following day when he and his immediate co-workers had gathered for counsel and the mandatory coffee.

  “What do you think?” asked Holt.

  “If we take this in order and start with the so-called receipt, then it’s a poor forgery and an even worse joke,” said Johansson, holding up the receipt for the revolver Waltin had given Wiijnbladh.

  “According to the letterhead, the receipt comes from SePo’s tech squad,” he continued. “Signed by employee 4711, who unfortunately has an illegible signature. A good photocopier and a little imagination. Waltin seems to have had access to both.”

  “The thank-you note from Erik Berg,” said Holt.

  “Apart from the fact that such things don’t happen in the material world, the signature is decently composed. ‘To Detective Inspector Göran Wiijnbladh…I wish to express in this way our gratitude for your meritorious efforts for the preservation of the security of the realm…Stockholm, September 15, 1988. Erik Berg. Bureau Head. Secret Police.’ September 15, 1988, was a Sunday, by the way, but Berg worked all the time, so that’s not the end of the world,” said Johansson.

  “The medal then,” said Mattei.

  “Manufactured by Sporrong’s medal factory. It even says so on it. Copper plated. ‘To Detective Inspector Göran Wiijnbladh in gratitude for meritorious efforts for the security of the realm.’”

  “Have you had our technicians look at what was confiscated?” asked Lewin.

  “Not really. I’ve done it myself. Out of concern for the security of the realm,” said Johansson.

  “So what do you think about this? Other than that our colleague Wiijnbladh is perhaps not God’s gift to forensic science? What do you think, Lisa?” asked Johansson, looking at Mattei.

  According to Mattei there were a number of different explanations. These led in turn to several different conclusions that covered a very broad span of conceivable alternatives.

  “Such as?” said Johansson.

  That this whole story didn’t actually need to have anything to do with the murder of the prime minister.

  “Seventy-five percent is actually only seventy-five percent, if we start with the bullet, for example,” said Mattei.

  “That Waltin only wanted to get himself a revolver in the cheapest way,” said Johansson. “That he wanted to kill badgers and other vermin on his estate in Sörmland.”

  “Well,” said Holt. “The second possibility is still that the revolver that Waltin acquired by trickery had been used to shoot Palme. Seventy-five percent is still three times greater than twenty-five, if I’ve understood this correctly.”

  “Two and a half years after the prime minister had already been shot?” asked Lisa Mattei with an innocent expression. “Between March 1986 and September 1988 it’s supposed to have been at the tech squad in Stockholm.”

  “In secure storage. In the lion’s own den,” said Lewin for some reason. “If this was the one that was used, it must have been liberated for the murder of Palme and then put back.”

  “I’m an old man,” sighed Johansson. “Too old for scientific seminars. Give me the most probable explanation. What do you say, Anna?”

  “The revolver is the murder weapon,” said Holt. “Waltin takes it from the tech squad before the murder. According to Wiijnbladh he would show up and visit him up at tech. That’s when he probably seizes the opportunity to take the revolver. Gives it to the perpetrator. The perpetrator gives it back to Waltin after the murder. Waltin replaces it in the tech squad. There can hardly be any safer storage. When the worst has settled down and he’s been fired, he fools Wiijnbladh into giving it to him. It is a trophy he wants to have, at any price.”

  “Another possibility is that right or wrong, he gets the idea that this is the murder weapon and that he uses deception to get it to sell to a collector. Not as many twists and turns now, not as complicated,” Mattei objected. “Tallies well with Henning the art dealer’s story.”

  “Now we’re there again,” sighed Johansson. “What do you think, Jan?”

  “I agree with Anna,” said Lewin.

  “Your old parking ticket,” said Johansson.

  “Yes,” said Lewin. “Waltin has the weapon in his possession. Don’t ask me how. He gives it to the perpetrator before the deed. Takes it back the day after the deed. The perpetrator spent the night at one of SePo’s secure addresses up at Gärdet.”

  “Not a bad conspiracy theory, Lewin,” said Johansson.

  “No,” said Lewin. “So we really have to hope it doesn’t add up.”

  When Holt returned to her office she had an unscheduled visit f
rom Bäckström. He was sitting on her desk, and presumably trying to read the papers lying there.

  “I’m furious,” said Bäckström, glaring at her threateningly.

  “Please sit down,” said Holt.

  Bäckström was not only furious. He was also disappointed. In Holt, in her associates, in all of humanity, actually. So disappointed that it had affected his health. He had been struck by a heart attack or possibly a minor stroke the evening before, spent the night at the ER, and now he was on sick leave. As soon as he recovered he intended to contact the union to get help with his complaint against the police administration in Stockholm, the bureau, and not least Anna Holt.

  “I think you look spry, Bäckström,” said Holt, who did not appear to have been listening.

  “For a real policeman like me an informant’s anonymity is sacred,” said Bäckström indignantly. “You and Mattei have gone behind my back. Gustaf Henning called and gave me a good dressing-down, and you should know that I understand him. But I’m not the one who tricked him. You’re the one who tricked me.”

  “You’re worried about the reward,” said Holt.

  Not really. It was deceitful colleagues that bothered him. The general decline of the police force. A society on a fast track to destruction, a society where an honorable, hardworking person like him could no longer rely on anyone. That was the kind of thing that worried Bäckström. He had never counted on any reward for his drudgery. That’s one thing he’d learned during his more than thirty years with the police.

  “Who gave you the tip about the weapon? Who gave you the name of Waltin? Without me you wouldn’t have squat. I was even the one who put you on the track of that secret sect of sex abusers. Friends of Cunt. You can count with your feet what they’ve been up to all these years. A society of perverse lunatics! You can hear it in the name, can’t you?”

  “It’s ugly to read other people’s papers without permission,” said Holt, putting the interview with Henning in her desk drawer to be on the safe side.