Free Falling, As If in a Dream

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

“Claes Waltin,” said Lisa Mattei. “Tell me what he was like as a person.”

  “Why are you asking about him?”

  “Pull yourself together, Mom,” said Lisa Mattei. “This is about work, and now I’m the one who’s asking the questions.”

  “Okay, okay, okay,” said Linda Mattei, making a deprecating hand gesture.

  Then she told her daughter what she knew about Claes Waltin.

  Already the first week after he had started at SePo he tried to make a pass at her.

  “He made a pass at you. So what did you say?”

  “I told him to go to hell,” said Linda Mattei. “Then I basically didn’t see a trace of him for the rest of his time with us. I was glad. Anything else you’re wondering about?”

  “What type was he?”

  “Not my type anyway,” said Linda Mattei, curling her upper lip. “According to what was whispered in the corridors he was a real creep. But I’m sure you’ve already heard that?”

  “Ad nauseam,” said Lisa. “What I’m wondering is whether he associated with other police officers. With regular colleagues.”

  “I have a really hard time imagining that,” said Linda Mattei, shaking her head.

  “Explain,” said Lisa Mattei.

  Waltin despised regular police officers. Waltin was very stuck-up. Regular policemen were much too simple for him. He never said that. He had shown it clearly enough without having to say it.

  “So he didn’t even have a humble confidant?”

  “Humble confidant,” said Linda Mattei, looking at her daughter with surprise. “Someone like me, you mean?”

  “Some male colleague. One of those strong, silent types.”

  “I have a really hard time imagining that,” said Linda Mattei. “Do you mean he’s supposed to have been homosexual too?”

  “Okay,” said Lisa Mattei and sighed. “What do you think about actually eating lunch?”

  Before she went home, for lack of anything better to do, she printed out a computer list on Berg and his associates on the riot squad, the dozen uniformed police who most often appeared in the Palme investigation’s police track. Despite the fact that none of them seemed particularly credible as henchman for someone like Claes Waltin. Besides, half of them had alibis for the time when the prime minister was shot. Real alibis, not the kind they’d given each other or gotten from other officers.

  63

  The following day Mattei opened the binders that dealt with the thirty or so policemen who could not be identified with certainty. At the top of the first binder was a lead file where serious attempts at least had been made. At the top of the file, the anonymous letter that was the origin of the matter.

  A handwritten letter, cheap lined paper, ballpoint pen. Surprisingly flowing handwriting. No misspellings. Basically correct punctuation. On the other hand no envelope, even though the envelope might often say more to people like her than the message that was inside. Especially if the sender pasted the stamp with the king upside down. Barely ten lines of text.

  Dear uncle blue. Saw on TV the other night that there were a lot of cops in the air when Olle called it quits. I myself saw an old acquaintance at the Chinese restaurant on Drottninggatan at the corner by Adolf Fredriks Kyrkogata. A real SOB who worked at the bureau out in Solna in the seventies. Then he became a fine fellow and got to go to SePo. Think what can happen when the hasp isn’t closed. He was sitting there sucking on a glass of water when I came but I kept my cool and my mouth shut and that was probably luck because otherwise I’m sure my ass would have been kicked again. Mostly he looked at his watch and right before eleven he paid up and left. Maybe to guard Olle? Or else perhaps to come up with something else with Olle? Anonymous from personal experience.

  If people could just give their names, Mattei was thinking as Holt entered the room.

  “Everything okay, Lisa?” said Holt. “I saw on the voice mail that you were looking for me.”

  “Yes,” said Mattei. “Berg and his associates,” said Mattei, giving her the plastic sleeve with the information she’d produced.

  “What do you want me to do with these?”

  “Ask Berg if he or any of his associates knew Waltin,” said Mattei. “Berg with the uniformed police that is. The one who’s the nephew of the old SePo boss,” she clarified.

  “Do you think that’s wise?” said Holt, weighing the papers. “Considering Johansson.”

  “You know Berg, don’t you? You’ve talked with him at least. I think he trusts you. I’m pretty sure he likes you. The question is free. Pull a Johansson on him.”

  “A Johansson?”

  “Yes, if you’d been Johansson and he’d been you. And was always getting himself worked up about something. What do you think he would have done?”

  “I understand exactly,” said Holt and nodded. “I’ll pull a Johansson.”

  Nice to have colleagues who understand, thought Mattei, whereupon she returned to her binder.

  The first letter had come in to the Palme investigation about a month after the murder. Nothing in particular seemed to have happened. A special file had been opened and entered under what was already—even in the building—being called the police track. But there was nothing else.

  Not until the second letter was received, which arrived a month later. Only a few days after the TV news program Rapport had aired a major feature on what the TV journalists were also now calling the police track. The letter was postmarked Stockholm, May 7, 1986. This time the envelope had been saved. Even examined for fingerprints, on both the letter and the envelope.

  Dear uncle blue. I think uncle gets things a little slowly but I already knew that. Maybe ought to write direct to Rapport and tell about your dear colleague who was sitting in the bar and hoping for better times until he sneaked away and clinched the deal himself. If he really did it? What do you think yourselves? He is damned like the one who did it in any event but the witnesses must have seen wrong if it really is a cop they’ve seen. So of course it’s cool for the sonofabitch who worked at the bureau in Solna before he became a fine fellow and ended up at SePo. Guess I’ll have to call the complaint department on TV. Anonymous from personal experience.

  After a week there was already a response from the tech squad. A number of fingerprints had been secured on the envelope. On the other hand none on the letter. Probably someone had wiped it off before it was put into the envelope. Of the prints that were found, one produced a result. A female drug addict with numerous convictions for narcotics crimes, theft, and fraud, Marja Ruotsalainen, born in 1959.

  Maja Svensson, although in Finnish, thought Mattei. Sweet name, she thought.

  Holt called Berg. Arranged a meeting at the same café as the first time. As soon as they sat down with their coffee cups, she pulled a Johansson.

  “Claes Waltin,” said Holt. “Former police chief superintendent with SePo. Drowned on Mallorca fifteen years ago. Is that anyone you knew?”

  “Claes Waltin,” said Berg, who had a hard time concealing his surprise. “Why are you asking?”

  “You don’t want to know and I can’t say,” said Holt. You knew him, she thought.

  “Okay by me,” said Berg, shrugging his shoulders. “Knew him is probably putting it too strongly. I met him twice. That was at the time when your boss was messing with me and my associates. Right after New Year’s, the same year Palme was shot. Sometime in January or February. We were back on duty, in any event.”

  This time things had happened, thought Mattei. The case seemed to have wound up with one of those officers who would be described by all other completely normal colleagues as “a zealous bastard.” As soon as he found out that Marja Ruotsalainen’s fingerprints were on the envelope things had happened. He realized she didn’t work as a letter carrier as soon as he searched for her in the police registry.

  In the summer of 1985 Ruotsalainen had been sentenced to two years and six months for felony narcotics crimes. A conviction that was never appealed and which she
started serving at Hinseberg women’s prison the week after the conviction. Ruotsalainen was tired of sitting in jail on Polhemsgatan and longed for the relative freedom at the country’s only closed facility for women.

  After six months she had been granted leave. She absconded and kept out of sight from the end of January until the middle of May, when she was arrested during a police raid on an illegal club in Hammarbyhamnen. She had been taken to the jail and had to go back to Hinseberg the following day. When the two anonymous letters had been placed in the mailbox she was on the run. Two days after the last one she was sitting in the jail on Kungsholmen.

  Because the zealous colleague from SePo had the idea that it was a man who had written the two anonymous letters he searched for her male contacts in the police surveillance registries. Without success. Not because she lacked such contacts, but because none of those who were in the register could have sent the letter.

  For lack of anything better he pulled out the papers from the police operation in Hammarbyhamnen during which she was arrested. Besides Ruotsalainen, who was wanted and immediately recognized by the Stockholm police detective squad who led the effort, another half a dozen individuals ended up in jail. One of them was a known criminal with twenty or more previous convictions for serious crimes, Jorma Kalevi Orjala, born in 1947, and at that point in time he was strangely enough neither on the run nor suspected of anything else. About the same time that Ruotsalainen took a seat in the jail’s blue Chevrolet to be transported to Hinseberg, Jorma Kalevi Orjala stepped out onto Kungsholmsgatan a free man.

  The zealous colleague with SePo called the police inspector with the central detective squad who had led the raid against the club in Hammarbyhamnen. To save time and out of personal curiosity, because this was the first time he had crossed paths with one of the Stockholm police’s great legends, Bo Jarnebring.

  He had two questions. Why had Orjala ended up in jail? Was Orjala involved with Marja Ruotsalainen? On the other hand he never asked the third question. One that with reasonable probability might have led to his solving the murder of the country’s prime minister barely four months after the event. The secrecy surrounding his work was so high that those ordinary questions, between fellow officers, were never asked.

  Berg had met Waltin twice. The first time he had been alone. The second time four of his associates from the riot squad had been there.

  A woman he knew had called him. She had been out with Waltin on one occasion. Then Waltin started pursuing her. Called her place of employment. The usual wordless panting. Sat in a car out on the street. Followed her. She called Berg to get help.

  “I caught him in the act,” said Berg. “He was sitting in one of SePo’s service vehicles outside her workplace.”

  “I told him to lay off,” he continued. “Unless he wanted a beating, of course.”

  “So what did he say?” asked Holt.

  “He did as I said,” said Berg, shrugging his broad shoulders. “Lucky for him, you know.”

  I can very well imagine that, thought Holt and nodded.

  “The second time,” she asked. “When you and your associates met him?”

  The zealous colleague’s conversation with Jarnebring had gone wrong right from the start. If not, it is very possible that the third question would have been answered anyway.

  “I see then,” said Jarnebring when he was asked the first one. “So which of my associates is it you’re going to grill this time?”

  “I can’t go into that, as you understand,” answered the zealous colleague.

  “Imagine that,” said Jarnebring. Then he replied to the two questions that were asked.

  Orjala ended up in jail because Jarnebring always put people like Orjala in jail, as soon as he had the chance, and he got the chance because Orjala was in a place where there was both illegal serving of alcohol and illegal gambling. In addition Jarnebring had taken Orjala’s keys from him, squeezed his address out of him, and had gone there while Orjala was resting up in a cell at Kronoberg.

  “I didn’t find anything in particular,” said Jarnebring. “Other than Marja’s bag and baggage. She was living with him while she was on the run. In principle I could have locked him up for protecting a criminal, but I guess I didn’t have the energy to write up that kind of shit.”

  “Thanks for your help,” said the zealous colleague. “I’ll have to talk with Orjala.”

  “I’m afraid you’re a little late,” said Jarnebring. “The fire department fished him out of the Karlberg Canal yesterday morning. We thought about celebrating with cake on our next coffee break.”

  The second time was a few weeks later. Midmorning outside the police building on Kungsholmen. Waltin came walking up Kungsholmsgatan. They eased up alongside him. Waltin stopped them, got into the van, and told them to drive him down to Stureplan. If they didn’t have anything better to do, of course.

  “He was cocky, that stuck-up little prick. But sure. We were going in that direction anyway, so he got to ride along.”

  “Did anything in particular happen?” asked Holt.

  “A sock in the jaw, you mean?” said Berg, smiling wryly. “No, nothing like that,” he said, shaking his head. “But he did say two things that were strange to say the least.”

  “So what did he say?” said Holt.

  “When we stopped for a red light up at Kungsgatan there was a very old lady with a walker crossing the street. The light happened to change but we stayed there so she could make her way across. Then Waltin leans over and says to the colleague who’s driving that he should step on the gas and turn that cunt of hers into a garage. That the old lady was only pretending.”

  “Word for word.”

  “Yes, something like…the old lady is only pretending. Step on it and turn that cunt of hers into a garage. He said something like that.”

  “So what did you say?”

  “I looked at him but didn’t say anything. We were pretty surprised, actually. I mean, what do you say to something like that? I’ve never heard anything like it from another officer. Even though I’ve heard most everything. But this was just a nice little old lady.”

  “The other thing,” said Holt. “What was the other thing he said?”

  “That was even more peculiar,” said Berg. “Although it took about six months before we understood it.”

  According to the forensic physician, Orjala had been run over by a car, fell into the water, and drowned. Blood alcohol concentration over .03. Hit-and-run accident, otherwise nothing to discuss, according to the forensic physician.

  For lack of a better idea the zealous colleague took a service vehicle and drove to Hinseberg to talk with Marja Ruotsalainen.

  The meeting at Hinseberg between the zealous colleague and Marja had hardly been constructive. She only said a single sentence. Repeated it until the interview was ended and he drove home again.

  “Go to hell, fucking pig. Go to hell, fucking pig. Go to hell, fucking pig…”

  Zealous as he was, he also wrote a memorandum on the matter and put it in the file.

  Zealous as he was he had also visited the Chinese restaurant, brought along pictures of both Orjala and Ruotsalainen and showed them to the personnel. No one remembered either of them. Nothing special had happened otherwise during the evening when the prime minister was murdered, only a few hundred yards from the restaurant. There had been few customers the whole evening. Fewer than they usually had on a Friday evening after payday.

  “We dropped him off at Stureplan,” said Berg. “He was going to the bank, I seem to recall that he said.”

  “What else did he say?” Holt repeated.

  “That was what was so strange,” said Berg. “First he thanks us for the ride. Then he stuck his head in through the window on my side and said that I should take care of myself. Take care of yourself, Berg, he said. Watch out for all the eyes and ears that are on people like me, he said.”

  “How did you interpret that?”

  “We talked
about it. First we thought this was his way of flexing his muscles for us. It was about six months later that we found out that SePo had been investigating us for several years. That was when we started going in and out with those police track investigators in the Palme murder. Then it was in the newspapers too.”

  “He was trying to warn you?”

  “Yes. I actually think so. A little strange, to say the least, considering who he was and considering his and my previous interactions.”

  The zealous colleague had not given up. Based on the anonymous letters and with the help of Orjala’s personal file and his recorded contacts with the detective squad in Solna, he made a description of the unidentified officer that the anonymous letter-writer—probably Orjala—had pointed out. He sent the description to the secret police’s personnel department and got an answer one month later. The one who matched the description best was a previous employee with the secret police who had service code 4711. His employment had ended in 1982. Since then he had resided abroad. The customary internal controls had been carried out. There was nothing that argued that he would have been involved in the murder of the prime minister or even in Stockholm at the relevant point in time.

  So the zealous colleague had given up and his top boss, bureau head Berg, wrote off the matter.

  Forty-seven eleven, thought Mattei. Where have I heard that? Wasn’t that the awful perfume Dad used to give Mom when I was little? Kölnisch Wasser 4711, she thought. That’s what it was called.

  “There was another thing I wanted to ask you about, Holt,” said Berg when they had finished their conversation and were standing by her car to say farewell.

  “I’m listening,” said Holt. Suddenly he’s looking very strange, she thought.

  “You are an exceptionally appetizing woman, Holt,” said Berg. “So I was wondering if I could invite you out some evening?”

  Goodness, thought Holt.

  “That would have been nice,” said Holt. “But the way it is now—”

  “I understand,” Berg interrupted. “Say hi and congratulations to him from me.”