Backstrom: He Who Kills the Dragon (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original)

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Backstrom: He Who Kills the Dragon (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original) Page 7

by Leif Gw Persson


  If only Bäckström could do his civic duty and drop down dead, there’d be nothing to worry about with this investigation, Alm thought.

  14.

  Bäckström had spent the morning trying to bring some order to the murder investigation that his colleagues were already in the process of messing up beyond all reason. He also felt considerably better than he had for a long time, because his sensitive nostrils kept smelling the heavenly scent of fresh rolls with lots of cheese and butter.

  Those bloody weight watchers can fuck off, Bäckström thought. You can pretty much eat like a normal person as long as you don’t swill it all down with a load of liquid goodies. Then you stop for a while, fasting, drink like a fish and rinse out all the little blood vessels, and then you’re back to square one again.

  Just after eleven his stomach had started grumbling in that pleasant and familiar way that told him that it was high time he got a bit more nutrition.

  So he had gone down to the staff canteen in order to compose a well-balanced lunch that was completely in harmony with his own observations and conclusions.

  First he had stopped at the salad bar and put together a pleasant little heap of grated raw carrot with a few sticks of cucumber and some pieces of tomato. He avoided all the elk and rabbit shit, and they didn’t seem to have any maggots, even though those had tasted almost like real food the only time he had tried them. Then he had sniffed at the various jugs of oils and dressings and eventually made up his mind. Rhode Island dressing it would be, Bäckström thought. He knew from experience that it was perfectly edible. He even used to buy it for himself, to pour over his homemade hamburgers with loads of cheese and mayonnaise.

  Once he got to the counter he spent a long time choosing between the dish of the day, steak with fried potatoes, gherkins, and cream sauce; pasta of the day, carbonara with pork and a raw egg yolk; and fish of the day, fried plaice with boiled potatoes and gherkin mayonnaise. His strong and resolute character had won out and he had chosen the fish even though it was mostly faggots, dykes, and leftists who ate fish. Might still be worth trying anyway, Bäckström thought, feeling suddenly calm and strangely tranquil.

  Which just left the choice of drink: tap water, juice, mineral water, or low-alcohol beer? He went for a small glass of low-alcohol beer as a simple and self-evident concession to the restraint he had already so convincingly displayed. Besides, it tasted so disgusting that it had to be good for you.

  A quarter of an hour later he was finished. Which left coffee, and the chance to celebrate his triumph with a small almond cake. And maybe one of those little green marzipan cakes dipped in chocolate as well.

  Think, Bäckström, think, Bäckström thought, and with almost stoical calm he put the marzipan cake back and made do with just a single almond one on his little plate. He had taken his coffee and gone and sat in a secluded corner to finish off his frugal meal in peace and quiet.

  15.

  An hour later he had held his second meeting with his investigating team. Bäckström had felt well focused, balanced, and that he was finally in complete control of the situation. He didn’t even feel any rise in blood pressure when he asked Detective Inspector Lars Alm to open the meeting by reporting what he had found out about their victim and how he had spent the last few hours of his so tragically pissed-away life.

  “Perhaps you’d like to begin, Lars?” Bäckström said, smiling amiably at the man in question. Old Woodentop from crime in Stockholm. How the fuck someone like that ever got to be a police officer was a mystery that even he couldn’t solve, he thought.

  Detective Inspector Lars Alm had interviewed Seppo Laurén, one of the murder victim’s youngest neighbors, at home in the apartment he shared with his mother at number 1 Hasselstigen. The fact that Alm bestowed this honor on him was explained by the fact that ten years before, Laurén had been fined sixty days’ income for violent conduct. He had been one of a total of seven AIK supporters who had beaten up a supporter of the opposing team after a match at Råsunda, in an underground station in the center of Solna. That was the only time he appeared in police records, and Laurén had received the most lenient punishment of the seven. But he was also the only person in the building who had been found guilty of a violent crime and happened to be a neighbor of the victim.

  “You or me, Lars?” Annika Carlsson had asked, nodding to Alm.

  “I’ll talk to him,” Alm said.

  “Thanks, Lars,” Annika replied.

  A child in a grown man’s body, Alm thought, as he concluded the interview and left Laurén. At least ten centimeters taller than him, at least ten kilos heavier, with broad shoulders and long, gangly arms. A grown man. Apart from the long fair hair that kept falling over his forehead, which he kept pushing back with his left hand and a toss of the head; the naïve look in his eyes—a child’s eyes, they were blue as well; his ungainly body, his awkward posture. A child in a grown man’s body, a pretty wretched state to be in, Alm thought, as he left him.

  At four o’clock on Wednesday afternoon, May 14, Karl Danielsson had returned home to his flat at number 1 Hasselstigen in Solna. He had got out of a taxi, paid, and had bumped into Seppo Laurén, twenty-nine, in the doorway.

  Laurén, who was in receipt of a state pension in spite of his young age, was living alone at the time. His mother, who he usually shared his flat with, had suffered a stroke and had been in a convalescent home for a while. Danielsson had told Laurén that he had been in to the city, where he had been to the bank and done a few other errands. Then he had given Laurén a couple hundred-kronor notes and asked him to go and buy him some food. He was heading off to Solvalla that evening and didn’t have time to do it himself. Pork chops, two decent packs of ready-made kidney beans in sauce, some cans of tonic, Coke, and soda water. That was all, and he could keep the change.

  Laurén had run similar errands for Danielsson for many years. When he returned from the local ICA shop Danielsson was just getting into another taxi and seemed to be in good spirits. He had said something about it being time for “Valla, and some serious money.”

  “Do you remember what time it was then?” Alm asked.

  “Yes,” Laurén said, nodding. “I remember exactly. I look at my watch a lot.” And he had held out his left arm to demonstrate.

  “What time was it, then?” Alm said, smiling amiably.

  “It was twenty past five,” Laurén said.

  “What did you do after that?” Alm asked.

  “I hung the bag of groceries on his door, then went up to my place and played computer games. I do that a lot,” he explained.

  “This all fits well with other information that we’ve received,” Alm stated, leafing through his notes. “Danielsson placed a bet on the first V65 race out at Solvalla, which started at six p.m. It can’t take more than fifteen minutes to get there by taxi, and he would have had plenty of time to place his bet before the race started—”

  “Hang on, hang on,” Bäckström interrupted. “Reading between the lines, I get the impression that this Laurén is a few sandwiches short of a picnic.”

  “He’s got learning difficulties,” Alm said. “But he can tell the time. I’ve checked.”

  “Go on,” Bäckström grunted. What a meeting of minds, he thought. Woodentop’s first witness is another nutcase, and they’re both saying they can tell the time.

  In the first race Danielsson had put five hundred kronor to win on horse number six, Instant Justice. A rank outsider that would pay out forty times the initial stake, and the forensics team had found the winning slip in the drawer of his desk.

  “We’re absolutely certain of that?” Bäckström went on. The bastard could just as easily have been given it or stolen it, he thought.

  Absolutely certain, according to Alm. He’d spoken to an old friend of Danielsson’s, who said Danielsson had called to tell him. He had been the one who tipped him off about Instant Justice. A former rider and trainer out at Valla, now retired, Gunnar Gustafsson, who had known D
anielsson since they were at primary school together.

  “Apparently Gustafsson is something of a legend out at Solvalla,” Alm said. “According to colleagues who know about racing, he’s known as Jockey Gunnar, and he’s not known for handing out tips, so it’s probably true that he was a good friend of Danielsson. Danielsson is known as Kalle the Accountant among his old childhood friends from Solna and Sundbyberg.

  “Anyway,” Alm went on, as he ticked off points in his notes, “Gustafsson said that he was sitting in the restaurant at Solvalla with a few friends when Danielsson suddenly appeared, in an extremely good mood. That was at six-thirty or thereabouts. Gustafsson invited him to join them but Danielsson declined. He was going to head home. He had asked another old school friend over for dinner later on. And this friend had good reason to celebrate as well, since he and Danielsson had shared the bet.”

  “So what’s his name, then?” Bäckström said. “The one Danielsson had invited to dinner?”

  “You and I both know him,” Alm said. “He went to the same school in Solna as Danielsson. Exactly the same age as Danielsson, sixty-eight. When you and I knew him he worked in surveillance in the old violent crime division in Stockholm. Roland Stålhammar. Roly-Stoly, Iron Man, or just plain Stolly. Well, we give the things we love lots of names.”

  There we go, Bäckström thought. Roland “Stolly” Stålhammar, caught as good as red-handed, an iron man with a load of rust in his pants, in Bäckström’s opinion.

  “Well, then,” Bäckström said. He leaned back in his chair, folded his hands on his stomach, and smiled with satisfaction. “Something tells me that this case is finished,” he said.

  “Why don’t you explain for the benefit of our younger colleagues? Tell them about our former colleague Roland Stålhammar,” Bäckström went on, nodding benevolently toward Alm.

  Alm didn’t seem particularly keen, but he told them anyway.

  “Roland Stålhammar was one of the legendary figures from the old violent crime division. He worked in the division’s own surveillance unit. He knew every single ruffian in the entire county. And even they were fond of him, despite the fact that he must have locked up hundreds of them over the years. He retired in 1999. Taking advantage of the option that older officers had in those days to take early retirement.

  “Well,” Alm said, sighing for some reason. “What else can I add? He was born and raised in Solna. Lived here all his life. Keen on sport. First as a participant, then as a coach. Extrovert. Dynamic. Found it easy to get on with people. He made things happen, you could say—”

  “But that’s not all, eh?” Bäckström interrupted with a sly look on his face. “There was quite a bit more to him than that, wasn’t there?”

  “Yes,” Alm said, nodding curtly. “Stålhammar used to be a boxer. One of the best in Sweden in his day. Swedish heavyweight champion several years in a row in the sixties. On one occasion he was up against Ingemar Johansson for a charity gala out in the old Circus building on Djurgården. Ingemar Johansson, Ingo, as he was known,” Alm clarified, nodding for some reason toward Felicia Pettersson.

  “Hearing you describe what a decent old fellow he was almost brings tears to my eyes,” Bäckström said. “I can hardly recognize Roly-Stoly from your description. One meter ninety tall, one hundred kilos of muscle and bone, and with the shortest fuse in the entire force. Used to get reported for violent conduct more than the rest of us put together.”

  “I hear what you’re saying,” Alm said. “But it wasn’t quite as simple as that. Stålhammar made things happen, like I said. He’d saved a lot of young kids who were on the slide from getting themselves into serious trouble. If I’m not mistaken, he was the only one of us who did voluntary work as a probation officer on his own time.”

  “When he wasn’t drinking like a fish, because that was still his best event,” said Bäckström, who could feel his blood pressure rising. “And still is, from the looks of it.…”

  “Maybe I can elaborate on this,” Sergeant Jan O. Stigson, twenty-seven, said with a cautious hand gesture. “In light of the current case, I mean.”

  “Are you an old boxer as well, Stigson?” Bäckström asked, now starting to get seriously annoyed.

  A radio-car officer for the modern age. Shaved head, bodybuilder, IQ like a golf handicap, and for some reason brought in from the patrol cars to help on a murder investigation. Only a stupid Finnish joker like Toivonen could come up with something like that, Bäckström thought. And it sounded like the poor bastard came from Dalarna as well. Sounded like a packet of crispbread when he talked. One of those folk-dancing cretins with scarves tied around his knees who just happened to have wandered into a murder case. Christ, what the hell is happening to the Swedish police? he thought.

  “Go ahead,” Annika Carlsson said with a decisive nod. “So the rest of us don’t have to listen to Bäckström and Lars arguing about an old friend. Because I don’t think any of us really wants to hear that.”

  Who the hell does she think she is? Bäckström thought, staring crossly at her. I’m going to have to have a word with her about respect and authority after this meeting, he thought.

  “We got quite a bit of information going door-to-door yesterday,” Sergeant Stigson said. “I think a couple details might be extremely relevant in light of what Alm has just told us about our former colleague Roland Stålhammar.”

  “I’m listening,” Bäckström said. “What are we waiting for? Is it a secret or what?”

  “Stina Holmberg, seventy-eight, widowed,” Stigson said, nodding to Bäckström. “She lives in a flat on the ground floor of number one Hasselstigen. Nice old thing. She’s a retired teacher, seems alert, still got all her marbles, and nothing wrong with her hearing. Her flat’s directly below Danielsson’s, and because the walls are quite thin, she had some interesting information to add to the investigation.”

  Stigson nodded to emphasize his words and looked at Bäckström.

  Oh, for fuck’s sake, this can’t be happening, Bäckström thought. This bastard folk dancer must be related to that witness, Laurén. Half-brothers, probably, since they’ve got different surnames.

  “I’m still waiting,” Bäckström said, throwing out his hands in a despairing gesture.

  There had been some sort of party in Danielsson’s flat on Wednesday evening, May 14. According to Mrs. Holmberg it had started at nine o’clock in the evening, with loud voices, laughing, and shouting, and about an hour later it had got seriously rowdy. Danielsson and his guest had been playing records at top volume, nothing but Evert Taube, according to Mrs. Holmberg, and they sang along to the choruses.

  “ ‘The Stoker’s Waltz’ and ‘The Brig Bluebird of Hull,’ and ‘Fritiof and Carmencita’ and lots more, it just went on and on,” Mrs. Holmberg elaborated.

  It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened, but because she was a bit scared of Danielsson, she called another of her neighbors and asked for help. Britt-Marie Andersson, a younger woman who lives on the top floor.

  “That Danielsson could be a bit of a handful,” Mrs. Holmberg explained. “Even if it’s not a nice thing to say about someone who’s just died. A big, rough man who used to spend all day drinking. I remember one occasion when he was trying to help me in through the front door and he was so drunk that he fell over, almost knocking me and all my shopping flying.”

  “So you called your younger friend, Britt-Marie Andersson, and asked her for help?” Sergeant Stigson confirmed. He had conducted and recorded the interview himself and was now reading from the transcript.

  “Yes, she’s a sensible girl. And she’s not afraid to tell men like Danielsson when they’re being a nuisance; it wasn’t the first time I’d asked for her help.”

  “Do you know what Miss Andersson did after that?” Stigson wondered.

  “Mrs. Andersson, not Miss. She’s divorced, or else her husband went and died. I don’t actually know. But I suppose she went down and spoke to him, because a little while lat
er it was nice and quiet once more.”

  “Do you happen to know what time that was, Mrs. Holmberg? When everything went quiet again, I mean,” Stigson clarified.

  “It must have been around half past ten in the evening. As far as I can recall.”

  “What did you do after that, Mrs. Holmberg?”

  “I went to bed,” Mrs. Holmberg said. “Which was just as well. If I’d stuck my nose outside my door I daresay I’d have been beaten to death as well.”

  “That younger neighbor, then? The one she asked for help? What does she have to say?” Bäckström asked.

  “Britt-Marie Andersson. Hubba-hubba,” Sergeant Stigson said with a happy smile.

  “What do you mean, hubba-hubba?” Bäckström said.

  “What a woman,” Stigson said with a deep sigh. “What a woman. Blonde, a true blonde, I’m sure of that. What a body. What a chest. Hubba-hubba. Eat shit, Dolly Parton, if I can put it like that,” Stigson explained with a blissful smile on his face.

  “And could she talk as well?” Bäckström asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Stigson said with a nod. “She was lovely, and it’s a good thing I had the tape recorder with me, because, well, with that body—”

  “For fuck’s sake!” Annika Carlsson interrupted. “Just tell us what she said!”

  Okay, dancing boy had better watch out, Bäckström thought. Carlsson’s got that look in her eyes, and she’ll soon rip your arms and legs off, little Stigson, he thought.

 

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