Free Falling, As If in a Dream

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

  “Thanks,” said Anna Holt and smiled. An exceptionally appetizing woman, she thought.

  64

  By exploiting her informal contacts with SePo Anna Holt found a woman who was alleged to have been involved with Claes Waltin at the time of the Palme murder. Jeanette Eriksson, born in 1958, assistant detective with SePo.

  A co-worker of Waltin’s thirteen years his junior who quit the police the year after the Palme murder to work as an investigator for an insurance company. She was still there, now head of the department, and she did not sound happy when Holt called her. The day after the meeting with Berg they met at Eriksson’s office.

  “I don’t really want to talk about Claes Waltin,” said Jeanette Eriksson.

  “Not even a little girl talk?” said Holt. “No tape recorder, no papers, no report. Just you and me, in confidence.”

  “In that case then,” said Jeanette Eriksson, smiling despite herself.

  Claes Waltin had been her boss at the secret police. In the fall of 1985 they had started a relationship. In March of 1986 she ended the relationship.

  “Though by then he was already tired of me, for otherwise he probably wouldn’t have let me go. He already had another woman.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Holt. “He seems to have been a full-fledged sadist according to people I’ve talked with.”

  “That’s what was so strange,” said Jeanette Eriksson. “Because I don’t have that tendency at all. I’ve never been the least bit sadomasochistic. And yet I ended up with him. To start with I thought it was some kind of role-playing he was involved in, and when I understood how it really was it was too late to back out. He was horrible. Claes Waltin was a horrible person. If he was drinking he could be downright dangerous. There were several times I thought he was going to kill me. But I never had a single bruise that I could show to be believed.”

  “You were involved with him for six months?”

  “Involved? I was his prisoner for five months and eleven days,” said Jeanette Eriksson. “Before I could get myself free. I hated him. When I was finally rid of him I would sit outside his apartment and spy on him and wonder how I could get revenge on him.”

  “But you never did anything,” said Holt.

  “I did do one thing,” said Jeanette Eriksson. “When I realized he’d acquired a new woman. When I saw her together with him the second time in a week. Then I found out who she was so I could warn her.”

  “You talked with her?” asked Holt.

  “Yes, just the two of us. She worked at the post office. When she left work one evening I approached her. Told her who I was and asked if I could talk with her.

  “It went fine. We sat at a café in the neighborhood and talked.”

  “So how did she take it?” said Holt.

  “She didn’t understand what I meant,” said Jeanette Eriksson. “She seemed almost shocked when I told her what he’d done to me. Actually asked if I was still in love with Claes. Thought that that’s what it was really about. After that not much was said. Not that we argued. We just went our separate ways. Since then I’ve never talked with her.”

  “Do you know what her name is?” asked Holt.

  “Yes,” said Jeanette Eriksson.

  “So what’s her name?” said Holt.

  “Now it gets a little complicated,” said Jeanette Eriksson. “I’m assuming it’s not for her sake that you’ve come here?”

  “No,” said Holt. “I had no idea about this woman’s existence until you mentioned her.”

  “May I ask a question myself?” said Jeanette Eriksson.

  “Sure,” said Holt.

  “You work at the national bureau, you said. Isn’t that where Lars Johansson is the boss? That big Norrlander who’s always on TV?”

  “Yes,” said Holt.

  “That’s what makes this a little strange,” said Jeanette Eriksson. “You see, he’s married to the woman I talked with. Then her name was Pia Hedin. Today her name is evidently Pia Hedin Johansson.”

  “Are you sure of that?” said Holt.

  “Quite sure,” said Jeanette Eriksson. “I saw them together at a party at SEB a few years later, when I started working here at the insurance company. Then they were newlyweds. Must have been sometime in the early nineties.”

  “You’re quite sure?” asked Holt.

  “Quite sure,” said Jeanette Eriksson. “She’s a very beautiful woman. Pia Hedin is not someone you forget or confuse with someone else.”

  “I know,” said Holt. “I’ve met her.” What do I do now? she thought.

  65

  Despite his illness—after all he had suffered a serious stroke—Bäckström fought on and refused to let go of the case that had been his from the very start. Claes Waltin’s involvement in the murder of Olof Palme.

  Murders were about two things. Money and sex. Bäckström knew this from his own rich personal experience. What remained was to find out which of these motives had led to the victim’s life being taken.

  Right now there was much that argued that it was about sex. Both the perpetrator and the victim seemed to be literally bathing in money, which made it less likely that they were at each other’s throats for that reason. Waltin had been as rich as a mountain troll. Everyone knew that. The victim had concealed tens of millions in various secret accounts in Switzerland and other tax paradises. Bäckström knew that, as did everyone else in the know, who had it from reliable sources. Besides, you could read about it on the Internet nowadays. How the Swedish arms industry paid out hundreds of millions in bribes to the murder victim and his shady companions from the third world.

  There was also a witness to the murder who made a deep impression on an analytically oriented police officer like Bäckström. A witness who all his moronic colleagues only shook their heads at. A witness who waited until the third interview to admit that he had seen how the perpetrator talked with the victim and his wife before he started shooting at them. Presumably when they tried to get away, considering that the shots hit them from behind.

  Murder victims and murderers almost always knew each other. Bäckström knew that too based on his long, solid police practice. The same dealings, vices, and desires, when it came down to it. When a man like Bäckström got the opportunity to let all the skeletons out of their closets. When the truth was finally revealed.

  Waltin had undeniably been an extremely perverse type. Bäckström’s meticulous survey left no room for doubt on that score. What remained was to link him with his victim, and there were already a number of circumstances that could hardly be owing to chance.

  Both were multimillionaires, attorneys, had an upper-class background, had grown up in the same city. Surely socialized in the same circles. Ought to have, reasonably, considering all the rest. Besides the purely external likeness between them, that was almost striking. Short, delicate, skinny characters, with dark, dissolute eyes and moist lips.

  I’ll be damned if they weren’t related to each other, thought Bäckström, experiencing a slight excitement.

  It remained to verify this. To demonstrate beyond any reasonable human doubt. This would not be easy considering that his informant seemed to have abandoned him. First he had pursued GeGurra by phone and left a number of messages. His efforts were met by silence, and in that situation the only alternative was action. Bäckström watched for him outside his residence on Norr Mälarstrand. Saw when he arrived home. Rang at his door and of course covered the peephole while he did so.

  At last the little coward cracked the door open carefully and asked what Bäckström wanted. Bäckström fixed his eyes on him and GeGurra unwillingly let him into the hall. Once inside he started by reminding GeGurra about an old common acquaintance, Juha Valentin Andersson Snygg, who despite his youth had a very extensive personal file in the police department’s central archive. Nowadays it was missing, however that might have happened, and who could a known, respected individual like art dealer Gustaf G:son Henning really trust? If he only thou
ght about it the least little bit? For it was hardly Anna Holt and her bosom buddies, who didn’t even draw the line at secretly tapping other people’s phones. If GeGurra chose that sort ahead of Bäckström he was lost.

  Of course he backed down. They all did when Bäckström started waltzing around them. Mostly to be nice and give GeGurra a chance to get his bearings, he also started off easy before things got serious.

  “How did Waltin know Prime Minister Olof Palme?” said Bäckström, looking slyly at GeGurra.

  “I had no idea he knew Olof Palme,” replied GeGurra, looking at Bäckström with surprise. “Where did you get that from?”

  “Listen,” said Bäckström. “Just to save time. I’m asking the questions and you answer.”

  “Sure,” said GeGurra, “but I’m really a bit surprised that—”

  “Now I happen to know that Waltin talked a good deal about Palme,” Bäckström interrupted, examining his victim.

  “Didn’t everyone?” said GeGurra. “Talk about Palme, I mean. At that time, at least.”

  “Exactly,” said Bäckström. “Exactly, but now let’s forget about what everyone else said. I want to know what Waltin said.”

  “I guess he said what all the others did. When they talked about Palme, I mean.”

  “So what did they say?”

  “That Palme was an underhanded type,” said GeGurra. “Yes, that he tried to socialize the country by stealth and let the government take over the companies with the help of those employee funds. At the same time as he personally took bribes from the defense industry so they could sell cannons to the Indians. It was the usual.”

  “That he was a Russian spy?”

  “Yes, sure. I actually remember that I asked Waltin about that. Considering that he worked at SePo, I thought he was the right man to ask.”

  “So what did he say?”

  “That he couldn’t answer that, as I surely understood. But at the same time I obviously got a definite impression of what he wanted to say.”

  “What impression did you get?”

  “That Palme was a spy for the Russians,” said GeGurra, looking at Bäckström with surprise. “Didn’t everyone know that? It was even hinted at more or less openly in the newspapers.”

  “Of a more personal nature then? What did Waltin have to say about Palme that was of a more personal nature?”

  “That was probably personal enough,” said GeGurra. “Saying that he took bribes from Bofors and was a spy for the Russians. I mean what do—”

  “We’re talking about sex,” Bäckström interrupted.

  “Sex,” said GeGurra, looking at Bäckström, confused. “I really don’t understand what you mean. Waltin talked a great deal about sex. About his own efforts in that area. But never in connection with Palme.”

  “But he must have known him,” Bäckström persisted. “It’s completely obvious that someone like Waltin must have known someone like Palme.”

  “Why?” said GeGurra. “If you ask me I think they never met each other. Why would someone like Palme associate with someone like Waltin?”

  “How did you know Palme yourself?” said Bäckström.

  “You’re just going to have to give up, Bäckström,” said GeGurra, putting up both hands to be on the safe side. “I never met Olof Palme.”

  “I think you should think about that,” said Bäckström with an ambiguous smile. “On a completely different matter.”

  “Yes,” said GeGurra, sighing. “I’m listening.”

  “Friends of Cunt. That perverse society Waltin was chairman of. Who were the other members?”

  “Well, not Palme in any event,” said GeGurra. “As far as the age difference is concerned he could have been their father, but I strongly doubt he could have had such children. Even if he had been a spy for the Russians.”

  “Names? Give me names,” said Bäckström.

  “Okay then, Bäckström,” said GeGurra. “On one condition. That you leave me alone from here on.”

  “The names?”

  “There were apparently four members in this illustrious little group of friends. All were studying law at the University of Stockholm. This was sometime in the mid-sixties. For one there was Claes Waltin. Then there was someone who became a well-known business attorney but he died rather young. I think his last name was Sjöberg, Sven Sjöberg. Died sometime in the mid-nineties.”

  “Waltin, Sjöberg…”

  “Yes,” sighed GeGurra. “Then there was Theo Tischler. He’s a private banker and very—”

  “I know who he is,” Bäckström interrupted. “We know each other.”

  “I see,” said GeGurra, who had a hard time concealing his surprise.

  “The fourth man,” said Bäckström. “Who was the fourth man?”

  “Alf Thulin,” said GeGurra, sighing again. “Nowadays a member of parliament for the Christian Democrats, although to start with he was a prosecutor.”

  Now this is starting to resemble something, thought Bäckström. A crazy SePo boss, a high-ranking prosecutor, a billionaire, and a so-called business attorney. Four pure sex lunatics. True, two were dead, but two were still alive and could be questioned. Now this is starting to resemble something, he thought again.

  66

  On Thursday the twentieth of September the coin dropped into the slot in Lisa Mattei’s head. Some gray cell up there had been holding back for more than a day, and as soon as she stopped thinking about it, suddenly the answer came.

  For many years SePo made use of four-digit codes to protect their co-workers’ identities from the outside world. Their names would remain secret, and even when they testified in court they did so using their numerical code.

  One of all the thousands of police officers who worked with the secret police during the past thirty years apparently had code 4711 until the early eighties. The person whom SePo’s personnel department checked and removed from the investigation when their zealous colleague asked a question arising from an anonymous tip, employee 4711. Who had already quit in 1982, moved abroad, and for various unexplained reasons was not of interest in connection with the investigation’s police track.

  The coin dropped into the slot in Mattei’s head and she suddenly recalled where she had most recently seen the same four-digit code. Not on the bottles of German eau de cologne her father bought as presents for her mother when Mattei was a little girl and long before a Swedish prime minister was shot in the street. Much later. Only a week ago. On a paper from the secret police tech squad, where an employee with an illegible signature and his four-digit service code, 4711, acknowledged receipt of the revolver that Detective Inspector Göran Wiijnbladh had given to Claes Waltin.

  The same paper about which almost everything suggested that Claes Waltin had forged it. A chance coincidence, without the least relevance for their investigation? Or an unrestrained Claes Waltin, who could not resist the temptation to send a secret message that would never be discovered?

  Johansson’s third rule in a murder investigation, thought Mattei. Learn to hate the chance coincidence. Besides, it was time for another conversation with dear Mom, who had worked at SePo for over twenty years.

  “Why do you want to know that?” asked Linda Mattei, giving her daughter a searching look. It was their second lunch together in a week and this time at a restaurant a good distance from the building. What is she up to? she thought, feeling slightly uneasy.

  “I can’t say,” said Lisa, shaking her head.

  “You’ve worked with us,” said Linda Mattei. “For several years. You know what rules apply. What questions can be asked.”

  “Sure,” said Lisa Mattei, shrugging her shoulders. “A simple rule. Someone like me may not ask any questions the moment I’m no longer working there, and someone like you may not answer questions because you’re working there.”

  “Okay then. So why are you asking?”

  “Because you’re my mother,” said Lisa Mattei. “What did you think?”

  “If
the person who had that identity code quit twenty-five years ago, I don’t think it will be very easy to find out who he was,” said Linda Mattei. “You have a code as long as you’re working there. When you quit, the code becomes inactive for a number of years. Then someone else might get it. When sufficient time has passed so that no misunderstandings can arise. Just like when you change telephone numbers. And the only reason I’m saying this is because you already know it.”

  “Of course,” said Lisa Mattei. “But I would like to know the name of the colleague who had that code up until 1982, when he quit. For reasons I can’t go into, I cannot address a direct question to SePo.”

  “Your boss can,” said Linda Mattei.

  “Maybe he doesn’t want to,” said Lisa Mattei.

  “Have you asked him?”

  “No,” said Lisa Mattei.

  “Then do that,” said Linda Mattei. “I can’t answer. If it’s any consolation, no one else can either. This is not information that we keep for twenty-five years.”

  If we’re going to put any order into this a miracle will probably be required, thought Lisa Mattei when she returned to her binders after lunch. Only fifteen minutes later she experienced it. Or at least the hope of a miracle.

  Feeling at loose ends, she did a search on Marja Ruotsalainen. Born in 1959 and almost fifty years old, if she was still alive. Heavy drug abuser since her teens. Criminal. Prostitute. Sentenced to several prison terms. Half of her life in foster homes, youth detention centers, institutions, and prisons, when at the age of twenty-seven she showed up in the papers of the Palme investigation. How great was the chance that she was alive today? Zero or one percent, thought Lisa Mattei while she entered Marja’s social security number on her computer.

  Marja Ruotsalainen. Forty-eight. Single. No children. Disability pension. No notations in the police registry in the past fifteen years. Living in Tyresö, a few miles southeast of Stockholm.

  She’s alive. A miracle, thought Lisa Mattei, shaking her head. Wonder if it would be possible to talk with her? she thought. The time before it hadn’t gone so well, when the zealous colleague had visited her while she was incarcerated at Hinseberg.