Free Falling, As If in a Dream

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

  67

  Lewin read the two investigations into cause of death with regard to former chief superintendent Claes Waltin. One that the Spanish police had done at the scene on Mallorca in October 1992. One supplementary investigation that the Swedish police carried out as soon as his remains arrived back in Sweden in mid-November the same year.

  Birds and fish had done a thorough job by the time he finally floated to land. The Spanish police identified him with the help of the report of a missing guest that the hotel had already turned in the day after the staff in reception saw him walking down to the beach. Identification was made using his swimming trunks and the room key in the pocket.

  In the forensic facility in Solna they had been more thorough. First the corpse’s teeth had been compared with Waltin’s dental records. Despite the fact that the corpse was missing the lower jaw, the upper jaw spoke volumes. Former chief superintendent Claes Waltin.

  Because he was who he was they had not been content with this, but also put the latest technology to use. Secured both bone marrow and tooth pulp. Took blood samples from his father and compared the two DNA samples that had been produced. The likelihood that the remains belonged to someone other than Claes Waltin were less than one in a million. Assuming that Robert Waltin did not have an unknown son, who had happened to drown in Mallorca while Claes Waltin was there on vacation and simply disappeared.

  They had also been content with this. Claes Waltin was declared dead. His father buried him about the same time as he appealed the will. One year later his father and only surviving relative became his heir, after the district court invalidated his will.

  Probable death by drowning, according to both the Spanish forensic physician and his Swedish colleague. Neither of them found any injuries to the bones or other parts of the body that would indicate he had been shot, stabbed, or beaten to death with the classic blunt instrument.

  On the other hand there was nothing to rule out that he might have been drowned, strangled, suffocated, poisoned, or for example gassed. He could even have been shot, stabbed, or killed with a blunt instrument assuming that the bullet, knife, or object had not left any traces on those parts of the body that had been found.

  I’m afraid we won’t get any further than that, thought Jan Lewin and sighed.

  To put at least some order into all these question marks he took out paper and pen and wrote a simple memorandum about the case that was casting a shadow over his life and preventing his two colleagues from engaging in more meaningful tasks. Unfortunately it was so bad that the most probable course of events was also the least desirable. The consequences were terrifying, which even someone like Lars Martin Johansson ought to understand.

  Probability argued that Claes Waltin, sometime before the murder of Olof Palme, had come across a revolver from the tech squad. Sometime between the middle of April 1983, when the technical investigation of the murder-suicide in Spånga was finished, and the last day of February 1986, when the prime minister was shot.

  Probably toward the end of that time period, thought Lewin. During the fall of 1985, maybe.

  After that Waltin turned this weapon over to an unknown accomplice.

  Probably in close or immediate connection with the murder, thought Lewin.

  Probably Waltin also supplied bullets for the weapon. Special ammunition that could pierce through metal or, for example, a bulletproof vest. Not the target-shooting ammunition that the painter made use of when he took the life of his daughter, her boyfriend, and himself.

  It was unclear where, when, and how Waltin acquired these special bullets. Sometime between the middle of April 1983 and the last day of February 1986. Probably right after he’d acquired the weapon, thought Lewin, and most likely he bought them in an ordinary gun shop. Showed his police ID, if they’d even asked. Paid in cash. Put the box of bullets in his pocket and left. A box of twenty, fifty, or a hundred bullets of the over six thousand similar ones that had been sold in Sweden in the years before the murder of the prime minister.

  The perpetrator probably followed the prime minister from his residence in Old Town and just over two hours later seized the opportunity in flight at the corner of Sveavägen and Tunnelgatan.

  After the murder he fled down Tunnelgatan, ran up the stairs to Malmskillnadsgatan, turned to the right, took the stairs down to Kungsgatan, walked Kungsgatan down to Stureplan, went down into the subway, and rode two stations up to Gärdet. The night of the murder he spent in one of SePo’s secure apartments, which Waltin loaned out to him. The same Waltin who happened to park illegally the next morning when he came to clean up after the perpetrator, thought Lewin.

  The day after the murder the perpetrator had disappeared. It was unclear when, how, and to where.

  At some point after the murder Waltin smuggled the weapon back to the tech squad. To the most secure storage place of them all, assuming you were unrestrained enough to even think of it. And he was, thought Lewin.

  Two and a half years later, in the fall of 1988, he secured the weapon by trickery from Wiijnbladh and got him to remove all traces of it. At the last minute, because he’d already been fired, thought Lewin. A man completely without boundaries. A man who thought he could succeed in virtually everything. Who actually had done that, and never had any intention of giving up the decisive evidence that he had done it.

  What do I do now? thought Lewin when he was done writing his memo. First I’ll talk with Anna and then she’ll have to try to have a serious talk with Johansson. Personally he didn’t even intend to try.

  68

  “Please sit down, Anna,” said Johansson, gesturing toward the visitor’s chair in front of his desk. “I’ve just read Lewin’s memo that you e-mailed over. A model of brevity. One never ceases to be amazed. Dear Jan seems to have had a complete change of personality. Clear and precise, right to the point. Suddenly, just like that.”

  “So what do you think about what’s in it?” asked Holt.

  “Interesting. Unfortunately unsubstantiated. In the current situation, exciting speculations. An obvious lead file,” said Johansson and nodded.

  So it’s along those lines he intends to finish this, thought Anna Holt.

  “If it’s an obvious lead file, then I suppose it should be on the Palme group’s desk,” said Holt.

  “In the present situation I think it’s much too speculative for us to trouble them with this sort of thing,” said Johansson. “Besides, they’re fully occupied with other things, so I’ve understood from Flykt.”

  “So what is it you’re missing?” asked Holt.

  “If you give me a name of the bastard who did the shooting, then I promise that you’ll see some changes around here,” said Johansson. “Then I promise I’ll call in the police’s top five on the carpet, and it’s perhaps not mainly our colleague Flykt and his friends that I have in mind.”

  “When you’ve got a name,” said Holt. “And if you don’t get one?”

  “Then we’ll have to think this through one more time,” said Johansson. “At this stage we’re embracing every situation.”

  Whatever that has to do with it, thought Holt.

  “There’s another thing we have to talk about,” said Holt. “I’m afraid it’s a troublesome story.”

  “You can talk about anything and everything with me,” said Johansson.

  “It’s about Pia, your wife,” said Holt.

  “About my life, you mean,” said Johansson, suddenly sounding serious. “What has she come up with this time?”

  Holt recounted the conversation with Jeanette Eriksson, and that Johansson’s wife apparently had a relationship, an affair, or in any event a personal involvement with Claes Waltin during the spring of 1986.

  “I already knew that,” said Johansson. “That too was a model of brevity,” he said and smiled. “Besides, it was several years before she got involved with the right man in her life.”

  “How did you find out?” asked Holt.

  “She told me abo
ut it,” said Johansson. “That she’d seen Waltin a few times during the spring of 1986. The first time when Pia and a girlfriend of hers were out at a bar to meet guys. Although I had no idea that former colleague Eriksson supposedly warned her. Retroactive jealousy isn’t something I engage in,” said Johansson, shrugging his shoulders.

  “So you’ve never been worried,” said Holt. “Considering Waltin and what he might have got up to with your wife.”

  “About Pia?” said Johansson, shaking his head. “What would a fool like Waltin have been able to do to her? I’m sure you must understand, Anna? You’ve met Pia, haven’t you?”

  “Do you have anything against me talking with Pia? Considering where we’re at, I’m afraid we probably have to.”

  “Sure,” said Johansson. “Only I get to talk with her first. I can’t imagine she would have anything against it. For informational purposes,” he added, nodding toward Holt.

  “Of course,” said Holt. “She’s not suspected of anything.”

  “Nice to hear,” said Johansson. “Sometimes she can be a little adventurous for my taste. Not that strange, really. She’s a lot younger than I am,” he said and sighed.

  69

  In the evening Johansson talked with his wife, Pia. It was not something he was happy about doing. True, retroactive jealousy was not something that usually tormented him—he had put that behind him back when he was a teenager—but if he could have chosen he obviously would have preferred that the woman who was his wife had never met someone like Claes Waltin. Regardless of whether he seemed completely different to her from the person Johansson was convinced he had always been.

  If it hadn’t been for Waltin, it could have been a perfect evening. Pia got home before him, prepared a simple dinner that went well with mineral water, so that the evening could be devoted to talking and being together, perhaps with each of them reading a good book in their respective corners of the big couch with their legs intertwined. Instead he was forced to talk with her about the time, over twenty years ago, when she had been involved with Claes Waltin.

  “What did you think of the curry?” said Pia, looking at him.

  “Phenomenal,” said Johansson. “Although there is something I have to talk with you about.”

  “Sounds serious,” said Pia. “What have I done now?”

  “Claes Waltin,” said Johansson.

  “I knew it,” said Pia triumphantly. “I knew it.”

  “Knew what?”

  “That he was the one who murdered Palme,” said Pia. “Have you forgotten that? I said that to you at least ten years ago, but you refused to listen to me.”

  “I recall that you were harping on about it seven years ago,” said Johansson. “I also remember that we agreed at that time not to talk about it anymore.”

  “So why are you asking now?” said Pia with inexorable logic.

  Sigh, thought Johansson.

  So she told him about the time she met Claes Waltin. The first time she was at a bar with a girlfriend soon after the Palme assassination. She remembered it because that was more or less the only thing people were talking about at that time. She and her girlfriend, for example, who even considered canceling their long-planned trip to the bar. They decided not to and instead she met Claes Waltin.

  Claes Waltin was good-looking, funny, charming, nice, single, and seemed completely normal in all other respects. All she desired that evening, because both she and her girlfriend had really gone out to meet a nice guy.

  “He invited me to dinner,” said Pia. “It was on Saturday, the same week. We went out and ate. Then we went to his place.”

  “I see,” said Johansson. Why in the name of God didn’t I let Anna take care of this? he thought.

  “You’re wondering whether I slept with him,” said Pia, looking expectantly at Johansson.

  “Did you?” said Johansson. Where does she get all this from? he thought.

  “Actually not,” said Pia. “I was even surprised that he didn’t take the opportunity. He showed me all his paintings. He had a really amazing apartment. On Norr Mälarstrand, with a view of the water. I asked him how a policeman could have earned that much money, and he told me he’d inherited from his mother. She died in an accident.”

  I see, so that’s how it was, thought Johansson.

  “And then?” he asked.

  “Next time I did sleep with him,” said Pia. “At my place, actually. That time we had also been to the restaurant first. It was also just a few days before you showed up at my job and asked if I wanted to have dinner with you. I’m sure you remember that. When I explained that I was already occupied you looked like a little boy who’d sold the butter and lost all the money. At that moment I was on the verge of changing my mind.”

  Close doesn’t shoot any hares, thought Johansson.

  “And then?” he asked.

  “If it’s the sex you’re wondering about then there was nothing special about it. Regular, normal first-time sex. Two times, if you’re wondering. I realized it wasn’t the first time he’d slept with a woman. It wasn’t the first time for me either, and you know that too.”

  “That’s not what I was asking,” said Johansson. “I was wondering—”

  “Although then a very strange thing happened,” Pia interrupted. “I don’t think I’ve told you this.”

  Jeanette Eriksson, thought Johansson.

  “Do tell,” he said.

  A few days later a young woman had come up to her as she left work and asked to speak with her.

  “Young, cute girl,” said Pia. “Jeanette, Jeanette Eriksson I think her name was. Said that she was a police officer, and at first I didn’t believe her because she looked like she was still in high school, but then she took out her ID and showed me. She wanted to talk about Claes. Said that it was important. We went and sat down at a café in the vicinity.”

  “So what did she want?”

  “What she told me was awful. It was about what Claes supposedly subjected her to. That he was a sadist. That he almost killed her. I didn’t believe her, actually. That wasn’t the Claes Waltin I knew. I told her that too. Asked flat out whether she was jealous of me. The mood got very strange. Not much was said after that.”

  “So what did you do then?”

  “Thought a good deal,” said Pia. “At first I thought about asking Claes flat out. But that didn’t happen. It felt strange, considering that we really didn’t know each other very well. But I had a hard time letting go of it, so the next time we met, I think it was only a few days after I talked with that Jeanette, we also went back to my place. Don’t know why. Maybe because I wanted to feel safer.”

  “So how was it,” said Johansson. “Typical second-time sex?”

  “Better,” said Pia, looking at him seriously. “A lot freer, not as nervous. Although before he left he said something that I thought was a little strange.”

  “I’m listening,” said Johansson.

  “When he was about to go and was in the vestibule he put his hand on my neck, pretty heavy-handed, actually, and then he said that next time we got together we should go to his place. Fuck for real. Something like that, he said, and there was something in his manner that got me thinking about what Jeanette had told me.”

  “But you went home with him next time anyway,” said Johansson.

  “Yes,” said Pia, smiling as she said it. “I did. And when I was in his bed and he went to the bathroom, I couldn’t restrain myself. I peeked in his nightstand.”

  “Yes? And—”

  “It was then that I found the pictures he’d taken of Jeanette,” said Pia seriously. “They were not amusing pictures. They were horrible.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I went completely cold. Especially as he was suddenly standing in the doorway, just looking at me. He didn’t say anything. He just stood there staring at me. Looked completely strange, actually.”

  “What did you do then?” repeated Johansson.

  “I d
idn’t get aroused, if that’s what you’re thinking,” said Pia, looking acidly at him. “I was scared shitless, jumped out of bed, and started pulling on my clothes. Then he started wrestling with me.”

  “So how did it end?” said Johansson.

  “Really amazing,” said Pia. “It was only then that I understood the benefit of growing up with two older brothers who were constantly fighting with me,” she said.

  “Explain,” said Johansson.

  “I kneed him,” said Pia. “A perfect knee right in his crotch. Just like my brothers had taught me. He fell down on the floor and just moaned. I grabbed my clothes, picked up my handbag, took the coat from out in the hall, and ran down the stairs and out on the street. It was then I discovered I’d forgotten my shoes. My new black high-heeled shoes. Expensive, super-nice-looking, Italian. Do you know who I got them from, by the way?”

  “From Claes Waltin,” said Johansson.

  “Yes,” said Pia. “The third time we met. I didn’t have any idea he knew what my shoe size was. Fit perfectly. Really expensive.”

  “And then? What happened then?”

  “Nothing,” said Pia. “I never saw him again. No calls. Nothing. Although I miss my shoes,” she said, shaking her head. “And I regret I didn’t take those pictures with me, so I could have destroyed them. Someone like him shouldn’t have pictures like that.”

  “I’m sure he had more,” said Johansson. Wherever they’ve ended up, he thought.

  When they went to bed he had a hard time falling asleep for once. He pulled her next to him. A little spoon against a big ladle, who didn’t even need to pull in his belly anymore when he slept with his woman. Even though he put his arm around her he had a hard time falling asleep. What kind of arm could protect her if what he believed about Waltin was true? If it became obvious to everyone else? If the media found out about it? The story about the police chief who had a wife who had been involved with the man who was behind the murder of the prime minister. Even better, who had been involved with him at the point in time when he had just murdered the prime minister.