Gertrud Rosenberg states by way of introduction and in summary in part the following.
She was a classmate of Kjell Göran Hedberg from the seventh to ninth grades in the comprehensive school in Vaxholm, from September 1957 until the beginning of June 1960. After completion of public school, Gertrud began at the high school in Djursholm. There she got her diploma in natural sciences with a biology major in May of 1963, after which she was admitted to the medical school at Karolinska Institute in September of the same year. In connection with this she also, about six months later, moved to a student apartment in Östermalm in Stockholm. Gertrud got her MD degree and was certified as a physician in June of 1970.
According to what she states, Kjell Göran Hedberg started as an apprentice at a small shipyard and boat builder in Vaxholm when he finished school in the summer of 1960. Because they were neighbors in Vaxholm, up to the middle of the sixties, they ran into each other regularly when they were in town, seeing mutual friends, etc. She has not had any closer association with Hedberg, however, neither during their time in school nor later. At the same time they have never been enemies and always talked with each other the few times they happened to meet.
During the following years they met more seldom. She knows however that he started at the police academy in the mid-sixties and became a policeman a few years later. It was her parents who told her that. Sometime in the early seventies, when she was working at the emergency room at Södersjukhuset, she saw Hedberg and an associate of his who were then working as patrol officers in Stockholm. On the occasion in question they brought in an intoxicated individual who had been knifed. On the same occasion they also had a cup of coffee together and exchanged phone numbers. The reason for the latter was that she and her husband at the time were thinking about buying a sailboat and she took the opportunity to ask Hedberg for advice because she knew he had worked at shipyards before and had some contacts in the boat business. No renewed contact on account of this was made, however.
Thereafter it was almost ten years before she encountered Kjell Göran Hedberg again. On a summer evening sometime in the late seventies when she and her husband at the time visited the hotel in Vaxholm to have dinner. Hedberg was there for the same reason, together with a woman she was surely introduced to but whose name she does not recall. On the other hand she remembers that he mentioned then that he was working at SePo.
The last time she met Kjell Göran Hedberg was about eleven o’clock in the evening, on Friday the twenty-eighth of February 1986, on Sveavägen in Stockholm.
LISA MATTEI:
Tell me about the last time you saw Kjell Göran Hedberg. In as much detail as possible.
GERTRUD ROSENBERG:
As I said to you earlier it was the same evening that Palme was shot. On that point I’m quite certain. I and the person I was with were walking on Sveavägen heading north. We’d had dinner at a restaurant by Kungsträdgården. We had booked a room at a hotel by Tegnérlunden. There were a lot of people walking in the opposite direction. The movie theaters had just closed, which was probably why. Considering that we were actually both married to other people plus he was my boss, we chose to turn off to the left onto Adolf Fredriks Kyrkogata where there weren’t so many people. So as not to run into anyone we knew. It was right then that I saw Kjell. At the intersection between Sveavägen and Adolf Fredriks Kyrkogata. Right by the hot dog stand that’s there. On the same side of the street as the church and the cemetery. Just as we’d turned onto the cross street, he entered the crosswalk headed in the direction of Kungsgatan. So I saw him from the side at an angle at a distance of five or six yards, and as I already told you I have excellent vision in both eyes.
LISA MATTEI:
And the time was…
GERTRUD ROSENBERG:
Well past eleven. You see, we left the restaurant right after eleven, that I remember. Say it took perhaps fifteen minutes to walk to where we saw him. The weather was terrible so we were walking fast. We were in love, too, so I guess we were in a hurry to get back to our hotel room.
LISA MATTEI:
A quarter past eleven?
GERTRUD ROSENBERG:
Yes. A quarter past eleven. Not earlier.
LISA MATTEI:
You’re certain it was Kjell Hedberg you saw?
GERTRUD ROSENBERG:
Spontaneously, yes. I was even about to say hi to him. At the same moment it struck me that perhaps that wasn’t so suitable, considering that he had actually met my husband. Although you should know that I hesitated, went back and forth. Quite a while, then I decided that I’d only seen someone who looked like Kjell. Considering what happened, that is.
LISA MATTEI:
Did he see you?
GERTRUD ROSENBERG:
I really don’t think so. He was walking fast. Seemed to have his attention directed at the other side of the street. Sveavägen that is.
LISA MATTEI:
At the same time as he’s walking straight ahead? In the opposite direction, toward Kungsgatan and at a brisk pace?
GERTRUD ROSENBERG:
Yes. It was the way he walked too. Typical Kjell. He was like that. Good condition, goal-oriented, always had his eyes open. The clothes were also Kjell, in some way. A practical, somewhat longer jacket. Dark winter model. Dark gray pants, not jeans, certainly proper shoes on his feet even though I didn’t think about that. Nicely and practically dressed. That was Kjell to a T if I may say so…
“She’s out getting a little on the side?” asked Johansson, looking up from the papers he had in his hand and at Mattei.
“Yes,” said Mattei. “She and her boss. For a month by then. Married to other people. She was living on Kungsholmen with her husband and two children. He was living in Östermalm with his wife. Fifteen years older than her, so his kids had left the nest. Officially he was at a conference in Denmark. His wife was probably at home. Our witness, on the other hand, was a grass widow. Her husband had taken the children and gone to the mountains during sports week.”
“So why didn’t they go to her place?”
“I asked her that. She didn’t want to. Thought there was a boundary there.”
“Yes, I suppose there is,” sighed Johansson. “So instead they go to Hotel Tegnér up by Tegnérlunden.”
“Which I guess we should be happy about,” Mattei observed.
“Why?” wondered Johansson.
“I haven’t had time to tell you yet, but I found the hotel booking this morning. It was in one of those old boxes that Jan always sighs about. One of a couple of thousand hotel reservations that were never processed. Gertrud Lindberg, that’s her maiden name, had reserved a double room for one night. Did it the day before, by phone. Gives her parents’ address in Vaxholm.”
“Who would have ever thought of her if they had rooted through those piles of papers?” sighed Johansson. “So why did she wait so long before she got in touch with us?” said Johansson. “Before she contacted our dear colleagues if I were to put it correctly.”
“It’s in the interview,” said Lisa Mattei.
“I know,” sighed Johansson. “Help an old man.”
“The reason she didn’t make contact immediately was not that she’d been ‘getting a little on the side.’ That’s not the decisive reason, and there I actually believe her,” said Mattei.
“So what’s the reason?”
“That she didn’t think she had anything to add. At that point in time she didn’t have the slightest thought that Kjell Hedberg could have been involved in the murder. She didn’t see the Palmes. No Christer Pettersson character either. Or anything else that was shady or strange. She didn’t hear any shots. It was a Friday evening after payday, lots of people out in town to amuse themselves. Apparently also an old schoolmate of hers. Perhaps on his way to a secret mistress?”
“Not a peep about the historical moment?”
“Yes, actually. In the summer of 1986 she met her old teacher Ossian at a barbeque at her parents’ house i
n Vaxholm. They sat down and talked and like so many others they naturally got around to the Palme assassination. Then she told him what she had seen.”
“That she’d been out getting a little on the side and missed the Palme murder by a couple of minutes?”
“Yes. She and Ossian seem to talk about most everything. By then she’d also left her husband.”
“You’ve also checked that?”
“Yes. Ossian tells the same story.”
“Then she would also have mentioned Kjell Göran Hedberg?”
“Yes, although mostly as an amusing story. That it almost seemed like a class reunion there on Sveavägen.”
“But it was not until the spring of 1989 that she made contact with the police,” said Johansson.
“Yes, it’s a pretty amazing story,” said Mattei. “I’ve checked it too, and everything she says agrees with our own records.”
“I can hardly contain myself,” said Johansson, leaning back in his chair and lacing his hands over his belly.
First there’s the thirty-three-year-old who was arrested fourteen days after the murder, and in that situation it did not even occur to their witness that Kjell Göran Hedberg had anything to do with the murder of the prime minister. Then there was the summer and fall of 1986 when “everyone knows it’s the Kurds who murdered Palme.” Obviously not a thought about him then either.
Not until a year later did she start to think about it. The Kurds were ruled out by that time. Instead the police track had come onto the agenda in earnest. For various reasons she decided not to make contact. She was no longer so certain that it was her old classmate she had seen. Two years had already passed since the murder, and why hadn’t she made contact previously, in that case? To get help and support she talked with her old boss, and lover, about it.
“He did the wave, of course,” said Johansson.
“According to our witness he asked if she meant to kill him. Personally he did not have the slightest memory that they had run into one of her old classmates. How could he have? He was in Denmark at a conference when Palme was murdered.”
“And now the bastard is dead,” Johansson guessed.
“Died in 1997. Heart attack. Checked.” Mattei nodded. Dead a long time like most of the others, she thought.
“But in March of 1989 she got in touch with the investigation,” said Johansson.
“Yes. But not to give a tip about Hedberg, but to report that she had not seen Christer Pettersson when Palme was shot.”
“That she hadn’t seen Christer Pettersson. She calls the Palme investigation to say that she hasn’t seen Christer Pettersson?” This is getting better and better, thought Johansson.
Christer Pettersson has been in jail for several months, suspected of the murder of Olof Palme. At that point “everyone who knows anything worth knowing” also knows that he’s the actual perpetrator. To eliminate the slightest doubt about the matter, the Palme investigation nonetheless puts out an appeal to that great detective, the general public. They say they are interested in speaking with “everyone who was in the area in question at the time in question.” Regardless of whether they’d seen anything or not. Even if they hadn’t seen anything, it might be just as interesting to the police as an eyewitness to the murder itself.
Because Gertrud Rosenberg has seen neither the Palmes nor Christer Pettersson—or even anyone who is the least bit like Christer Pettersson—she decides to unburden her heart and talk. She calls the telephone number she saw in the newspaper. Talks for almost ten minutes with one of the investigators in the Palme group. Tells what she hasn’t seen, without saying a word about her old classmate. Her information ends up immediately in one of the many binders full of so-called crazy tips.
“I have a copy if you want to see it, boss,” said Mattei. “It’s a regular surveillance tip. Handwritten.”
“I’m listening,” said Johansson, shaking his head dejectedly.
“Okay,” said Lisa Mattei. “This is what our colleague wrote. I quote. Informant states that she has not observed Christer Pettersson. In addition she states that she has not observed the Palmes either or made any other observations of interest at the time in question. End quote.”
“Wasn’t that the kind of witness they were looking for? Sounds like an almost ideal witness,” said Johansson.
“The colleague who received it doesn’t seem as enthused as you, boss.”
“So what does he think?”
“Quote. Bag lady. Says she’s a doctor. End quote.”
“So she ends up in the loony binder.”
“Yes, although a more judicious colleague apparently entered her as a witness in one of the computerized registries. That’s where I found her.”
“And then?” asked Johansson.
“Then she never made contact again,” said Lisa Mattei. “I understand her. She gives a very vivid description of that conversation.”
“Conclusion,” said Johansson, looking urgently at Mattei.
“She links Hedberg to the scene of the crime in immediate connection to the time. Probably right before he crosses Sveavägen and positions himself and waits for Olof and Lisbeth at the corner of Tunnelgatan and Sveavägen.”
“I think so too,” said Johansson. “Besides, she’s a doctor, not some ordinary dope fiend who has reason to hate Hedberg.”
“Yes,” said Lisa Mattei. Not an ordinary drug addict, she thought.
“Do you know what one of the foremost signs of a bad boss is?” said Johansson suddenly.
“No,” said Mattei. Now it’s coming, she thought.
“That he has favorites,” said Johansson.
“So there won’t be any more gold stars,” said Mattei.
“Between us I guess there will be,” said Johansson. “If you promise not to tell anyone.”
“I promise,” said Mattei.
“And never do it again.”
“I promise.”
83
Despite his convalescence, Bäckström had not been idle. Now a crisis situation prevailed, and in a crisis situation “danger in delay” always applied. Every real constable knew that, and Bäckström knew it better than all the rest. Once he had been close to missing an open goal, just because he hesitated a little unnecessarily. True, it had worked out in the end. Obviously—what else was to be expected when Bäckström was at the rudder? He didn’t intend to risk it this time, regardless of what the good doctor was harping on about. That he’d suffered a heart attack, minor stroke, or in the worst case both. What can you expect from someone who makes a living by dealing with a lot of malingerers? thought Bäckström.
First he talked with his relative at the police union. He was still sitting like a kind of spider in the police web, gathering in all the information that his members picked up as they were running around town. It was reasonable that someone like him ought to have a few things to say about Palme and his sex life. Even though he hadn’t been one of their associates.
“Palme,” said his relative. “How the hell would I know that? He wasn’t a cop.”
“Our colleagues, then. They must have talked a lot of shit about Palme, didn’t they?”
“You’re calling to ask if our colleagues talked a lot of shit about Palme. Are you joking with me? Are you sick or what? You’re wondering about the guy’s sex life? I guess he was just like everyone else.”
“It seems to be considerably worse than that,” said Bäckström.
“I suppose he took the opportunity,” said his relative. “Who the hell hasn’t? Must be a real shooting gallery if you were in his position.”
“See what you can find,” said Bäckström. You incompetent union bigwig bastard, he thought, slamming down the receiver.
Then he connected to the Internet. This bottomless source of knowledge and cause for rejoicing. Pretty soon he’d also found quite a bit that was both heavy and serious. First a lot of information about a famous female singer his murder victim was supposed to have been involved with. A lad
y who didn’t appear to be one to play around with, if you believed what you read about her on the Internet.
Then he found a crazy artist hag who apparently supported herself by taking nude pictures of herself that she then dabbed paint on and sold for big money. She had written an entire book about her rich love life, and most of it was apparently about Palme. At least according to the newspaper articles about the book.
Surely just the tip of the iceberg, thought Bäckström. The guy must have been sex crazy. And on the very next search he hit gold. Pure gold. A vein as thick as his own index finger.
Two journalists had written a revealing exposé a few years earlier. It was about the Brothel Madam and the major brothel scandal that shook the establishment in Stockholm in the mid-seventies. One of her most frequent customers was apparently the prime minister at the time, who moreover had the nerve to flagrantly exploit two underage prostitutes. One who had just turned fifteen and one who was only thirteen.
The net is closing in, thought Bäckström, and at the same moment his phone rang.
“Bäckström,” said Bäckström with a suitable damper on his voice because the Eagle of History had just flown past and touched its wing to his forehead.
It was his relative at the union. He had dug around a little and for practical reasons started in the break room at work. There an old colleague who had worked with the uniformed police in Stockholm in the seventies told him that Palme had evidently been involved back then with Lauren Bacall.
“You know, that dame who was married to Humphrey Bogart,” the relative explained.
“So how certain is that?” asked Bäckström. “That old lady must be a hundred?” At least, he thought.
Quite certain, according to his relative. Bacall had visited Stockholm and stayed at the Grand Hotel. Late at night she had a visit from the prime minister.
“So how certain is that?” Bäckström persisted. A hundred years old, he thought. He jumped from teenagers to hundred-year-olds? Must have been crazy perverse, thought Bäckström.
Free Falling, As If in a Dream Page 49