Then Bäckström had called him on his landline. They heard the sound of the phone ringing inside the apartment but no audible human activity in response.
Then he had called him on his cell phone.
“Roly,” Stålhammar grunted, but Bäckström didn’t say anything. “Hello. Hello?” Stålhammar repeated. Then Bäckström had ended the call.
“I’m convinced he’s scarpered,” Bäckström said, nodding toward Stigson as Stålhammar’s next-door neighbor opened his door and stood there staring at them. A sinewy little old man, circa seventy years old, Bäckström thought.
This sort of thing didn’t often happen in the book’s versions of events, but naturally Bäckström had solved the situation that had arisen.
“Do you know where Roly’s gone?” Bäckström asked amiably. “He’s an old friend of ours and we’d like a word with him.”
“Yes, you don’t have to be a genius to work that out,” the old man hissed, and stared at Bäckström’s Hawaiian shirt and Stigson’s shaved head.
But he didn’t have anything he could tell them, and if they didn’t get out of there at once, he’d call the police.
On their way back to the station Bäckström had explained all the usual, obvious stuff to Stigson. That he should talk to surveillance and get them to keep an eye on Stålhammar’s address, and let Annika Carlsson know at once if he showed up. Then give Stålhammar’s cell number to the team who dealt with phone surveillance and see if they could locate the tower closest to Stålhammar when he had taken the call.
“You made a note of when I called?” Bäckström asked.
“Fourteen forty-five and twenty seconds,” Stigson nodded. “No worries, boss,” he assured him.
When Bäckström got out of the car down in the garage he had bumped into Annika Carlsson, who had asked for a private chat with him and given Stigson the evil eye.
“What can I do for you, Annika?” Bäckström said with a gentle smile.
“I’ve spoken to the prosecutor. They’ve given it to Tove. She’s good,” she reassured him.
So you’ve been there as well, Bäckström thought. But it would have been unwise to say it out loud. Don’t want to start the weekend by getting my skull fractured, he thought.
“Do you want me or you to keep an eye on things over the weekend?” Carlsson went on.
“It would be great if you could,” Bäckström said. “Things got a bit out of whack in my last post. I had to put in way too much overtime toward the end, and—because I want to be around if things heat up—I thought I might take this weekend off,” Bäckström lied.
No problem, according to Carlsson.
When Bäckström returned to his office to pick up the bare essentials and make his escape, Niemi suddenly stuck his nose in and seemed to have a lot on his mind.
“Can I sit down?” Niemi said, and since he’d already sat down, Bäckström had made do with a nod.
“What can I do for you, then?” Bäckström said. Bastard Lapp, he thought.
Not much, according to Niemi. The question was more what he could do for Bäckström.
“A piece of advice in good faith,” Niemi said.
“I’m listening,” Bäckström said.
“I think you should take it easy with Roly Stålhammar,” Niemi said. “He isn’t the type who needs a saucepan lid to put the lights out on someone like Danielsson. And they were friends. He just feels wrong for this.”
“Really?” Bäckström said, smiling happily. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but first Danielsson and Stålhammar sit and get blitzed and have a high old time until circa quarter past ten that evening. Then the neighbor comes down and tells them to shut up. Shortly after that, Danielsson is beaten to death. But not by Stålhammar, because he has already lumbered off home to get his beauty sleep. Instead, more or less immediately an unknown perpetrator appears out of nowhere, invisible and soundless and without leaving any evidence, because neither you nor Fernandez seem to have found the tiniest little trace of him, even though he was evidently the one who beat Danielsson to death. Have I got that right?”
“I know it sounds odd,” Niemi said, “but—”
“Have I got that right?” Bäckström repeated, glaring sourly at Niemi.
“Yes, because I don’t believe Roly would do something like that to a friend, so that must be what happened. However unlikely it might sound.”
“Well, I don’t happen to believe that,” Bäckström said. “Now, you’ll have to excuse me.”
Niemi had shrugged, wished him a good weekend, and walked out. Bäckström had made do with a curt nod. Then he had left the madhouse that was his current place of work and walked all the way home.
19.
One hour later Bäckström was sitting at the kitchen table in his cozy abode, and as he was sweating off the exertion he pulled out a paper and pen to get some order to his new life.
Let’s see now, Bäckström thought, wetting the pen with his tongue. First two days of fasting, he thought. Absolutely clean living down to the smallest detail: only vegetables, water, and other goodies. Then on to a more balanced dietary program for two days, and, if he had worked this out correctly, he should—according to the Bäckström method—be able to go on a real bender as early as Sunday. Great, I can manage that, Bäckström thought.
It had been somewhat sooner than that, since he had had a revelation as early as Friday evening.
First he had got in the shower, and dried himself carefully afterward, put on his bathrobe, sat down on the sofa, and watched the film the doctor had given him. He watched the whole film. Then he put on his tracksuit, walked halfway round Kungsholmen, and gulped down three low-alcohol beers as soon as he got back in through the door. It hadn’t helped. The eagle had once again flown into the power cables.
In a position like that he had had no option. He had taken one brown and one blue, collapsed like a clubbed seal, and somewhere round about then, between drowsiness and sleep, he had had a divine revelation.
It had been dark and rather foggy in his bedroom, however that could have happened, when suddenly a tall, thin old man in white clothes, with a beard down to his navel, had stepped forward to his bed, put his veined hand on his shoulder, and spoke to him.
“My son,” the old man said. “My son, are you listening to me?”
What do you mean—“Dad”? Bäckström had thought in confusion, since this was a skinny old man with a white beard. Nothing like the red-faced drunken skunk who had been a police sergeant in the Maria district, and who, according to his mad old mother, was the begetter of Bäckström himself.
Lord God, Bäckström thought, suddenly realizing what was going on. Lord God!
“My son,” the bearded man repeated. “Do you hear what I am saying?”
“I’m listening, Father,” Bäckström said.
“The life you live is no longer whole, but split,” the old man had rumbled. “You have wandered onto the wrong path, my son, you have been listening to false prophets.”
“Sorry, Dad,” Bäckström peeped.
“Go in peace, my son,” the old man said, patting him on the shoulder again. “Make sure you find the right path again. Become a whole person again.”
“I promise, Father,” Bäckström said, sitting up in bed and suddenly wide-awake.
The message he had received had been abundantly clear. He had showered once more, put on a pair of trousers, a clean shirt, and a jacket. When he stepped into the street he had raised his eyes to the boundless blue above his round head and thanked his Lord and Creator.
“Thanks a lot, Dad,” Bäckström said, and two minutes later he was sitting at his usual table in his favorite neighborhood bar.
“Where the hell have you been, Bäckström?” the woman behind the bar had said. She was Finnish and occasionally got a serious going-over in Bäckström’s sturdy Hästens bed, assuming there was nothing better on offer, of course.
“Murder case,” Bäckström said in a masculine and co
ncise way. “I’ve been hard at it all week, but now I’ve got the pieces in place at last.”
“Vojne, vojne. It’s a good thing they’ve got you, Bäckström. Sounds like you deserve a little treat,” the woman had said with a maternal smile.
“Goes without saying,” Bäckström said. Then he had ordered a pint and a large chaser before eating.
Smoked sausage with beetroot and potato gratin. For safety’s sake he had backed this up with a couple side dishes of liver pâté and fried eggs. And he had gone on to celebrate the weekend in the traditional way, and by the time he took a taxi to work at nine on Monday morning he had already thrown the crazy doctor’s film in the bin. Besides, you had to look really carefully to see any resemblance at all between him and the bloke in the diaper.
“False prophets,” Bäckström said, and snorted.
“Sorry?” the taxi driver had said, looking at him in surprise.
“Solna police station. I won’t mind if we actually get there sometime today,” Bäckström said, back to being Bäckström again.
20.
When Bäckström arrived in his office he found a note on his desk from one of the cell phone surveillance team. Bäckström’s nuisance call to Stålhammar on Friday afternoon had made its way to a phone tower on the other side of the Öresund, in the center of Copenhagen.
“I fucking knew it,” Bäckström growled, as he called Annika Carlsson on her cell.
“Good morning, Bäckström,” Carlsson said.
“Never mind about that,” Bäckström replied in his most polite manner. “It looks like that bastard Stålhammar has run off to Copenhagen.”
“Not anymore,” Annika Carlsson said. “I’ve just had a call from reception. Apparently he’s sitting downstairs and wants to talk to us.”
Ten minutes later Bäckström, Carlsson, and Stålhammar were sitting in one of the crime unit’s interview rooms. Stålhammar looked like he’d had a hectic weekend, to judge by his clothes and general appearance. Three days’ stubble; sweaty, unwashed clothes; and the smell of old and new drinking. But otherwise he was much the same. A large, thickset man, with sharp, furrowed facial features and without an ounce of fat on his muscular body.
“This is an awful business, Bäckström,” Stålhammar said, rubbing the corner of his eye with his right knuckles. “What sort of bastard would go and kill Kalle?”
“We were hoping you might be able to help us with that question,” Bäckström said. “We’ve been looking for you for several days.”
“I headed off to Malmö on Thursday morning,” Stålhammar said, rubbing his red eyes. “That must have been when it happened, if I’ve understood correctly?”
“What were you doing in Malmö?” Bäckström asked. I’m the one who asks the questions here, he thought.
“I’ve got an old flame down there. Damn fine woman, so when Kalle and I picked a winner on Wednesday and I suddenly had ten thousand in my pocket, it wasn’t a hard decision. I got the train down. Can’t stand planes. Way too fucking cramped. You have to be Japanese with no legs to fit in those seats. And no cart service either. I caught the morning train. Got there just after lunchtime.”
“Has she got a name?” Bäckström asked.
“Who?” Stålhammar said, looking at Annika Carlsson in surprise.
“Your old flame down in Malmö,” Bäckström clarified.
“ ’Course she has,” Stålhammar said. “Marja Olsson. Lives at number four Staffansvägen. She’s in the phonebook. She works as a staff nurse at the hospital down there. She picked me up from Malmö Central. You’re welcome to call her if you don’t believe me.”
“What did you do after that?” Bäckström asked.
“After that we didn’t leave the house until Friday, when we went to Copenhagen for a proper lunch. We carried on all day and half the night.”
“And then?”
“Well, then we came back. Sometime early in the morning. To Malmö, I mean. Back to Marja’s, and we carried on as usual again. Went out and got supplies before the shops shut. Then we got going again.”
“You got going again?”
“Sure,” Stålhammar said with a sigh. “She’s in seriously good shape, that girl, and my dander was up. I don’t suppose we got out of bed until Sunday evening when Flash called on my cell to tell me what had happened.”
“Flash?”
“Björn Johansson. Another old friend from school. You probably know him? He’s fairly well known around these parts. An old Solna character. Used to run Flash Electricals down in Sundbyberg, but now his boy’s taken over. So he told me what had happened, and it didn’t feel right to hang about in Malmö, so I got the night train up to help you find the bastard who killed Kalle.”
“That was kind of you, Roland,” Bäckström said. Looks like old Roly did some thinking somewhere in all that drinking and decided to put up a bit of resistance, he thought.
“Well, what the hell. Of course I’m going to help. So here I am,” he clarified.
It had taken two hours to work out what Stålhammar had been doing since Thursday morning, when he suddenly headed off toward Copenhagen, until Monday morning, when he showed up in the Solna police station. Then they’d taken a break for lunch.
Bäckström had stocked up seriously because he realized this was going to be a drawn-out business. Meatballs and mashed potatoes, cream sauce, and both almond and marzipan cakes this time. Annika Carlsson had taken a quick pasta salad and a mineral water before going off to make sure that Alm and the others had started to check the information that Roland Stålhammar had given them about his visit to Malmö and Copenhagen. Stålhammar had made do with a sandwich and a cup of coffee that Annika had fetched for him from the cafeteria.
We’re getting close, Bäckström thought, when they were back in their seats again. Stålhammar had started sweating in a promising way, and when he raised the coffee cup to his lips he had to use both hands.
“You were at Solvalla on Wednesday last week, Wednesday, May fourteenth,” Bäckström said. “What can you tell us about that?”
He had got there at about four o’clock that afternoon to watch the warm-up, and then go round and listen to his old friends for a bit.
“Warm-up?” Annika Carlsson asked. She hadn’t said much before lunch.
Stålhammar had explained. When you took the horses out onto the track before the race to get them warmed up.
“Like doing exercises, you know. Warming up. Before you go out and race properly,” Stålhammar said.
An hour or so later Kalle Danielsson had turned up. They had talked to Gunnar Gustafsson, who reassured them that the tip he had given them the day before still stood. Instant Justice had behaved impeccably during the first warm-up. His old injury seemed to have healed well.
“According to Gunnar, he was like a completely new horse,” Stålhammar said. “Not so impetuous anymore, but still with the same phenomenal physique. If you ask me, he’s like a fucking train, Bäckström.”
“How did you find each other out at Valla?” Annika Carlsson asked. “Had you agreed where to meet up or what?”
“He must have called me,” Stålhammar said, shaking his head. “At least I presume he did,” he said.
“So Kalle had a cell?” Annika said.
“Everyone does these days, don’t they?” Stålhammar said, looking at her in surprise.
“Have you got his number? The number of his cell phone?” Bäckström specified.
“Don’t think so,” Stålhammar said, shaking his head. “Why would I? I used to call him at home, or else we just bumped into each other out somewhere. If he wasn’t home I used to leave him a message on his answering machine. Then he would call back. Anyway, he had my cell number.”
“Hang on a minute, Roland,” Bäckström persisted. “You must have had Danielsson’s cell number.” There’s something that doesn’t make sense here, he thought.
“No,” Stålhammar said. “Aren’t you listening to what I’m saying?�
�� he said, glowering at Bäckström.
“Did you ever see Danielsson with a cell phone?” Carlsson asked. “Are you sure about that?” There’s something that doesn’t make sense here, she thought.
“Now that you come to mention it, I don’t think I ever did,” Stålhammar said.
Shit, Bäckström thought, exchanging a glance with his colleague and deciding to change tack.
“We’ll deal with that later,” Bäckström said. “So you and Danielsson won a whole load of money?” he said.
He and Danielsson had put five hundred to win on the born-again Instant Justice, sharing the bet, and two minutes after the race started they were some twenty thousand kronor richer.
“And then?” Bäckström asked.
“Kalle cashed out the money,” Stålhammar said, “and then he took a taxi home to get dinner. We were going to meet up back at his for a bite to eat, so I thought that made sense. That way you can’t be tempted. When you’re close to seventy you have a fair idea of what you’re like,” he explained.
“It was the right decision too,” Stålhammar went on, “because after the very next race I was completely broke. I had to borrow a hundred off an old friend to save me having to walk back to Kalle’s. It was already almost eight o’clock, and you don’t want to be eating in the middle of the night. Unless we’re talking supper, of course.”
Shit, Bäckström thought.
“Has he got a name?” he asked.
“Who?” Stålhammar said, shaking his head in surprise. “Kalle?”
“The man you borrowed the hundred from?”
“Flash,” Stålhammar said. “I thought I’d already said that. Didn’t we talk about him before lunch?”
“You took a taxi back to Danielsson’s. To number one Hasselstigen?” Bäckström asked, who had Britt-Marie Andersson’s testimony fresh in his mind.
“That’s right,” Stålhammar said with a nod.
“You’re absolutely certain of that?” Bäckström said.
Backstrom: He Who Kills the Dragon (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original) Page 9