“What do you have to say in your defense?” asked Bäckström, fixing his eyes on Holt.
“That I’m doing my job,” said Holt. “In contrast to you, who are only running around sticking your nose in other people’s business. Besides, you’re supposed to be on sick leave. Go home and go to bed and rest, Bäckström. And stop reading my papers without permission,” she concluded, fixing her eyes on him.
“War,” said Bäckström, getting up out of the chair and pointing a fat index finger at Holt.
“War?”
“War,” Bäckström repeated. “Now this is war, Holt.”
59
After lunch Holt and Mattei took a flight to Kristianstad to hold an interview with Claes Waltin’s elderly father.
“I had a visit from Bäckström,” Holt reported. “He was sitting in my office when I came back after the meeting with Johansson.”
“That horrible little fatso,” said Mattei with feeling. “So what did he want?”
“Unclear requests,” said Holt. “On the other hand he did declare war against us.”
“In that case I’ll ask Johan to give him a thrashing.”
“Johan?”
“Johan,” nodded Mattei. For the rest of the trip she talked about Johan, and she would have been happy if the flight to Kristianstad had lasted even longer.
Little Lisa is in love, thought Holt with surprise as they got off the plane.
Large estate in Skåne. Whitewashed exposed-timber house, complete with thatched roof, pond, and lane of birches.
So there are people who live like this, thought Anna Holt as their airport taxi stopped on the gravel yard in front of the main building at the “Robertslust” estate.
“The Waltin family has lived here at Robertslust for generations,” their host explained when he’d led them into the “gentlemen’s room” and seen to it that the “ladies” got coffee. Large desk, crossed swords on the wall above, suite of furniture in worn velvet with crocheted antimacassars on the chair backs, old portraits in gold frames, and a hundred years later life still went on.
A really cozy old place, thought Holt.
“Is it named after director Waltin himself?” asked Mattei with a friendly, inquisitive smile.
“Not really,” snorted Robert Waltin. “It’s named after the family ancestor, my great-great-grandfather, estate owner Robert Waltin. Originally the family had the estate as a summer place.”
And you look like you’ve been here the whole time, thought Lisa Mattei. Mean old man, but far from harmless, she thought. Despite the skinny neck sticking up out of a frayed, oversized shirt collar. Certainly an expensive shirt from the days when Robert Waltin was in his prime. Those days were gone; now he seemed mostly interested in complaining about everything and everyone.
“The reason we’re here is that we want to ask a few questions about your son,” said Holt with a formal smile.
“It’s about time. I’ve never believed in that so-called drowning accident. Claes was completely healthy. Swam like a fish too. I taught him myself.”
Before he turned five and you left him to go to Skåne and marry your secretary, thought Holt.
“Taught him when he was just a little tyke and I was still living with that crazy woman who was his mother,” said papa Robert. “Then he used to come here in the summer and we sailed and swam quite a bit, he and I. He was murdered. Claes was murdered. I’ve thought so all along.”
“Why do you think that?” asked Holt.
“The socialists,” said the old man, looking at her slyly. “He knew something about them so they were forced to murder him. He worked with the secret police. He probably knew almost everything about their illegal deals with the Russians and Arabs. Why do you think they were forced to shoot that traitor Palme, by the way?”
“Tell us what you think, director Waltin.”
“Palme was a traitor. Spied for the Russians. It was no more complicated than that. Russian submarines had secret bases far inside our inner archipelago. It was a corrupt political leadership, in which the one at the top was simply a spy for the enemy. Who betrayed the class he came from besides.”
“What makes you think that Olof Palme was a spy for the Russians?” asked Holt. Keep out of the way, she thought.
“Every thinking person understood that,” said Robert Waltin. “Besides I got it confirmed early on, from a secure source. My own son. There were even papers about it with the secret police. Papers they were forced to destroy on direct orders from the highest political leadership. It’s a terrifying story of abuse of power and treason.”
Really, thought Holt, and now how do I get the old guy to change track?
“Really,” Holt concurred. “It would be of great help if you would tell us about your son.”
His dad was happy to do so. His son had been very talented. Had an easy time in school. Always best in the class. Good-looking besides. As soon as he was big enough he didn’t have a quiet moment, because of all the women running after him.
“They were crazy about him. But he handled it with good humor. Was always polite and charming to them.”
“But he never married,” Holt observed. “Never had a family and children of his own.”
“How would he have had time for that kind of thing,” his father tittered. “Besides, I warned him. I knew what I was talking about. I was married to his mother, after all.”
“The one who was killed in the subway?”
“Killed? She was drunk. She was drunk all the time. Had a couple bottles of port a day and stuffed herself with a lot of pills. She was drunk and she staggered over onto the rails, and there was no more to it than that.”
Had he and his son seen each other regularly?
In the summers, of course. At large family occasions on his side of the family, to which he didn’t need to invite his first wife. When their paths crossed, so to speak.
“We talked with another person, a colleague of ours,” said Holt, “who had met you at home with your son at a dinner in the late eighties. In his apartment on Norr Mälarstrand.”
“Was it that little policeman who helped Claes with some forgery that art Jew Henning palmed off on him?” the old man asked. “A wretched character who sat and apologized for his existence the whole time and could barely manage the silverware.”
“That may be right,” said Holt. And personally you’re not much better than Johansson when it comes down to it, she thought.
“I remember that,” said papa Waltin. “As soon as we were rid of that buffoon I asked Claes why in the name of God he associated with someone like that.”
“So why did he?”
“He seems to have been a useful idiot. Lucrative, too, according to Claes. Despite his deplorable appearance.”
“Did he explain why he thought that?” Holt persisted.
“He didn’t go into that,” said Robert Waltin, shaking his head. “As I remember it, my son said only that the most useful idiots were those who had no idea what they were helping out with. That this particular specimen had done both him and the nation a very great service.”
Wiijnbladh and one other guest. Did he recall who that other person had been?
“Yes, I remember him well,” said Robert Waltin. “It was one of Claes’s old classmates. He too became a very successful attorney. A business attorney for some of our most successful companies. Was even on the board at Bofors for several years. He died only a year or two after Claes. His name has slipped my memory, but I seem to recall I sent a card to the widow after the funeral. An excellent individual. They studied law together, as I said, and then they were members of the same society.”
Goodness, thought Holt.
“Society?” she said with an inquisitive smile.
“First they were in Conservative Law Students, but then there was some dispute with the board. This was at the time when the Bolsheviks were trying to take over our universities, so Claes and his good friend started their own society. Law Students f
or a Free Sweden, I think they called it.”
“Law Students for a Free Sweden?”
“Something like that,” said papa Waltin, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t remember exactly. There were a lot of organizations that my son was a member of at that time, in case you’re wondering.”
“Do you recall any others?” asked Holt innocently.
“None that I intend to talk with you ladies about,” said Robert Waltin.
On the other hand he was happy to talk about his son. A two-hour-long exposition on all his son’s good qualities and merits, which at last they were forced to put a stop to themselves because their taxi was waiting for them.
“I really must thank you, director Waltin,” said Holt, extending her hand in farewell.
“If there is anyone who deserves a thank-you it’s my son,” said Robert Waltin.
“I’ve understood that,” Holt agreed.
“Because he saw to it that traitor was shot,” hissed Robert Waltin, turning abruptly and disappearing into the house where the family had lived for five generations.
“So the old bastard maintains that his son is supposed to have been involved in murdering Palme,” said Johansson. “How does he know that?”
“Unclear,” said Holt. “More a feeling, if I understood it right. In any event, those were his parting words.”
“Feeling,” snorted Johansson, and it was then he decided it was time he talked with bureau head Berg’s old watchdog, Chief Inspector Persson. A real constable who had been involved back in the day.
60
Persson lived in Råsunda. In one of the old fin de siècle buildings just north of the soccer stadium. He had lived in the same little two-room apartment since he got a divorce in the early seventies and could devote himself to being a policeman full-time. The human being he had spent the most time with during his seventy years was the legendary bureau head Erik Berg, operations head of the secret police for twenty-five years. Johansson’s predecessor in the position and Persson’s boss for two-thirds of his police career.
Berg and Persson had known each other since their days at the police academy. They shared the front seat of the same patrol car for a couple years in the sixties. Front seat only; at that time the Swedish police drove around in black Plymouths with rumbling V-8s. Before all the Volvos and Saabs. In another era.
Then Berg moved on, studied law and ended up at SePo, where he quickly made a career. In 1975 he had been named operations head with the secret police; he was the one who in reality controlled the secret police operation. The same day he got his appointment, he called Persson and offered him a job as his henchman and confidant. His only confidant, which naturally went along with the mission.
An hour later Persson resigned from his position as investigator with the Stockholm police burglary squad. He started as a chief inspector with Berg and stayed for the next twenty-four years of his active career until he retired. The following year Berg quit, and shortly thereafter died of cancer. Persson was still alive and had no intention of dying. People like him didn’t die.
“Nice to hear from you, Lars,” he said when Johansson called him. “It’s been awhile.”
“What do you think about getting together and having a bite to eat?” Johansson suggested.
“It’ll have to be at my place,” said Persson. “I never go to restaurants with guys. Besides, I can’t stand the damn music.”
“What do you think about this evening?” Johansson suggested.
“Sounds great. Don’t have anything better going on,” said Persson. “What do you think about salted beef brisket with homemade mashed turnips and potatoes?”
“Sure,” said Johansson. “I could go for that.” Is there anything better? he thought.
“Then let’s say seven o’clock,” Persson decided. “If you want aquavit you’ll have to bring it with you.”
One never ceases to be amazed, thought Johansson a few hours later as he sat in the kitchen in Persson’s small apartment while his host was just pouring a refill in their shot glasses. The eternal bachelor Persson, who was known at work for always having on the same gray suit, yellowing nylon shirt, and mottled tie, regardless of the season.
His place smelled of cleanser and floor polish, and it was as tidy as an old-fashioned dollhouse. Not much bigger either, and because Persson weighed four hundred pounds and was over six feet tall, it was like watching an elephant cruising around in a china shop. An elephant with the coordination of a ballet dancer, and as skilled in the culinary arts as Johansson’s beloved aunt Jenny had been. In the good old days she’d been in charge of the bar at the Grand Hotel in Kramfors and supplied both lumber barons and gamekeepers with the good things of life.
“What is it, Johansson? Are you thinking about buying some furniture from me?” asked Persson, who had evidently noticed him looking around.
“Naw,” said Johansson. “It’s just that things are so orderly here. People like you and me aren’t exactly known for that.”
“I hate disorder,” said Persson. “Ever since I was drafted. So speak for yourself, Johansson.”
“I’m listening,” Johansson nodded, refilling their glasses for the third time.
Persson had done his military service in the navy. After the mandatory ten months he had remained as an NCO for another few years before he mustered out and applied to the police. He was still a policeman, even though he was now a retiree.
“A cop is not something you become,” said Persson. “It’s something you are.”
“If you’re a real constable, yes,” agreed Johansson. “Otherwise who the hell knows. Were you on a submarine when you were in the navy?”
“No,” said Persson. “Why do you think that?”
“The orderliness of your stuff,” said Johansson. “If you leave your jacket lying out on a sub, your bunkmate has to sleep on the floor. According to what I’ve heard at least.”
“Yes,” said Persson. “Pretty damned cramped, and that was probably reason enough for someone like me. Although I’ve been on board a few times. Had a tough time even then wriggling down through the tower. I’ve never been claustrophobic, but who chooses to live in a pair of tight shoes? I mostly stayed on land. Worked as an explosives technician out at the Berga naval base, taking care of the old mines that floated up after the war. In the late fifties and early sixties it might happen a few times a month that we had to go out to rescue some poor wretch who got the wrong catch in his net.”
“Then it was crucial to have order around you,” Johansson observed.
“I’d say so,” Persson agreed. “If you went half a turn too far with the screwdriver, that might be the last thing you did. And if you had the wrong tools with you, it wasn’t the time for trial and error.”
“I can imagine that,” said Johansson.
“You learn,” said Persson, shrugging his shoulders. “Actually it’s not any harder than fixing a block in the drain. It’s in your fingers, once you’ve learned. It’s the consequences that are a little different, if I may put it that way. The last fifty years I’ve mostly dealt with drains and electrical lines, to hold down the household budget, and I’m not one to complain. Besides, workmen make a terrible mess. They lie too. Never come when they promise. How the hell would that work if you have an old German mine tapping against the shell of your boat? Cheers, by the way!”
“Cheers,” said Johansson.
After the food they loosened their belts and sat in the living room to have coffee and talk about what real police officers always talked about. About other real police officers, about those who never should have been police officers, and about hooliganism in general.
“I ran into Jarnebring down in Solna center a month or so ago. Asked him to say hi to you, by the way. He was his usual self, even though he’s become a dad late in life.”
“Jarnebring is Jarnebring,” said Johansson with feeling. “Although maybe a little too much revolves around his little boy.”
“It’s e
asy for it to get that way,” sighed Persson. “That’s one of the reasons I decided never to have any of my own.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Johansson.
“You get attached to them,” said Persson. “You never started a new brood either?”
“No, it didn’t turn out that way,” said Johansson. “The first two are grown now. I’m a grandfather twice over. It’s a lot easier if you ask me.”
“Yes, you see,” said Persson, “I’ve always thought the business of raising kids was overrated. Most kids are completely incomprehensible. Speaking of overrated, by the way, how’s life at the bureau? Can’t be too much fun to wind up at that place if you’ve had the privilege of working at Sec.”
“Five years at Sec was enough,” said Johansson, shrugging his shoulders.
“Erik was there for twenty-five,” Persson observed. “Till the cancer took him. For me he could just as well have stayed there for good.”
“Though you quit before he did,” said Johansson.
“Yes,” said Persson. “The year before. But then he was already sick and I couldn’t really take seeing what was happening to him. Not every day, at least. But we had regular contact all the way to the end. We saw each other several times a week, actually. And I probably phoned him every day.
“Are you getting Palme straightened out, by the way? It’s about time,” his host continued, looking at Johansson inquisitively.
“Why do you ask that?” said Johansson.
“Saw something in the newspapers a month or so ago,” said Persson.
“The newspapers,” snorted Johansson. “The Palme investigation doesn’t look too lively, if you ask me.”
“I guess it never has,” said Persson. “That case was already on its back the first day.”
“Though there is one thing I’ve been thinking about,” said Johansson.
“You know what, Johansson,” said Persson, raising his cognac glass. “I almost suspected as much.”
Free Falling, As If in a Dream Page 38