“For reasons that I’ve never managed to get entirely clear,” the county police chief said. “He isn’t a bad detective, after all. He’s solved a large number of serious crimes.”
“Hmm,” said Holt, who had worked with him. “He runs round like a herd of elephants, tearing up everything in his path. Once the dust has settled, his colleagues usually manage to find one or two interesting things. Apart from the way he goes about things, I might actually agree with you. Whenever Bäckström is around, things do at least seem to happen.”
“Yes, the man seems to have an inexhaustible amount of energy,” the county police chief said with a deep sigh.
“Yes, it’s completely incomprehensible, considering the way he lives and the way he looks,” Holt agreed.
“His current posting in property was an unfortunate choice. It’s not that any of his bosses have come up with anything concrete against him. But there’s a huge amount of gossip. I don’t actually think enough has been done to try to help him. He’s been given work that doesn’t interest him. Bäckström feels that he’s been unfairly treated. Unfortunately there’s a degree of justification in that, and the Police Officers’ Association are on my back constantly. He also has excellent references. Outstanding references, actually.”
The sort of references you get when your bosses want to get rid of you, Holt thought. How on earth had that happened? she thought, but contented herself with a nod.
“Anna,” the county police chief said, with another sigh. “I have a feeling that you’re the only person who can handle him. And if you fail, I promise to take him back. Maybe even sack him, although that would have the union demanding my head on a platter.”
“I’m still listening,” Holt said.
“Over the past six months he’s been going round saying that he’s uncovered a secret cabal that was involved in Palme’s murder. And I was stupid enough to let him present a report about it. I can assure you, Anna …”
“I know,” Anna Holt said. “I’ve heard him myself.”
“Obviously it’s ridiculous, especially when you consider that one of the people he identifies as being part of the cabal suddenly got in touch with me and asked me to help him. Help Bäckström, I mean. A senior member of parliament. He reckons Bäckström’s the victim of official maltreatment. Several times over, no less.”
“You want to give Bäckström something else to think about?” Holt said.
“Exactly,” the county police chief said. “Serious violent crimes seem to be the only thing in his head anyway. And we’re not exactly short of those in the Western District.”
“Okay,” Anna Holt said. “I promise to try my best, but before I make a decision I want to talk to the person who would be his immediate superior and hear what he thinks about it. I owe him that much.”
“Go ahead, Anna,” the county police chief said. “Just so you know, I’ve got my fingers crossed.”
“Bäckström?” said Superintendent Toivonen, head of the crime unit in the Western District. “We’re talking about Evert Bäckström? About him working under me?”
“Yes,” Holt said. Toivonen, she thought. A legend within the Stockholm Police. Toivonen, who never backed away, never wasted time on pleasantries. Who always said what he thought and felt.
“Yes,” Holt repeated. “I can understand that you might feel a certain reluctance.”
“Fine,” Toivonen said, shrugging. “I have no problem with Bäckström. If he starts causing trouble, he’s the one who’s going to have a problem.”
“Fine?” Holt repeated. What’s he saying? she thought.
“Completely fine,” Toivonen said with a nod. “When’s he coming?”
At last, Toivonen thought, as he left his boss. It had taken twenty-five years, but now at last it was time. Even though he had almost given up hope of ever having the chance to get even for all their past dealings. Just you wait, you fat little bastard, damn you, Toivonen thought, and the subject of his anger was his new colleague, Detective Superintendent Evert Bäckström.
Toivonen hadn’t been up-front with his boss, Anna Holt. More than twenty-five years ago, when he was a young trainee officer—a “fox,” as they were known in those days, and still are to officers of Toivonen’s generation—he had done three months’ work experience on the violent crime unit in central Stockholm. His supervisor had been Detective Inspector Evert Bäckström.
Instead of trying to teach the “fucking fox” anything about detection work, Bäckström had made him into his personal slave. In spite of Toivonen’s proud background, generations of peasants and warriors from Karelia, Bäckström had treated him as a Russian serf. Used him to sort the chaos on Bäckström’s desk, empty his wastepaper bin, make coffee, buy pastries, drive Bäckström around the city in a police car on mysterious errands that seldom seemed to have anything to do with work, stopping to buy hot dogs and mash for him whenever he got hungry. And he had had to pay with his meager trainee’s wages, since Bäckström had always left his wallet in his office. Once, when they had been detailed to help guard an embassy, Bäckström had even made him polish his shoes for him and, when they got there, had presented him to the security staff as “my own fucking fox, a bastard Finn, you know.”
Toivonen had been Swedish wrestling champion on several occasions, Greco-Roman as well as freestyle, and he could easily have broken every bone in Bäckström’s body without even taking his hands out of his pockets. The thought was constantly there in the back of his mind, but because he had decided to become a police officer, a proper police officer, unlike his supervisor, he had gritted his teeth and resisted the urge. Generations of Karelian peasants and warriors had been adding bark to their bread since time immemorial. Twenty-five years later things were looking brighter. Considerably brighter.
That night Toivonen had had the most delightful dream. First he had softened up the fat little bastard with a standard Lindén hold, then tried both full and half nelsons, plus a few other tricks that used to get you disqualified in the days when he was active. Now that Bäckström was warmed up, he had gone on to a series of flying mares in quick succession. He had concluded with a scissors hold around his fat little neck. And there he lay, twenty-five years later, lilac blue in the face and flailing with his fat little hands while Toivonen panted with satisfaction and squeezed just a bit tighter.
26.
A couple years before he ended up with the Solna Police, Superintendent Evert Bäckström had been expelled from his natural habitat in the National Criminal Investigation Department to the property tracing department of Stockholm Police. Or the lost property store, as all proper police officers, Bäckström included, called this final resting place for stolen bicycles, lost wallets, and wayward police souls.
Bäckström was the victim of evil machinations. His former boss, Lars Martin Johansson, a bastard Lapp, eater of fermented herring and closet socialist, simply hadn’t been able to deal with Bäckström’s successful battle with increasingly organized crime. Instead he had woven a rope from all the individual slanderous strands, hung it round Bäckström’s neck, and kicked the chair from beneath him himself.
The job in the lost property store was obviously a form of punishment. During the two years that followed Bäckström had been forced to look for stolen bicycles, an industrial digger that had disappeared, a yacht that turned out to have sunk in the outer archipelago, various items of environmentally hazardous waste, and barrels of shit. It would have broken the strongest man, but Bäckström had somehow put up with it. He had made the best of things. He had picked up one of his old contacts, a renowned art dealer, and had got a good tip-off, found a stolen oil painting worth fifty million, and made a nice little bit on the side while his cretinous bosses stole the glory from him. He was used to that, and he could live with it.
In the autumn of the previous year the same informant had given him some interesting information about who had killed Prime Minister Olof Palme, and he hadn’t hesitated for a second. F
airly soon he had uncovered both the murder weapon and a cabal of four upstanding citizens. All of them undoubtedly deeply involved in the murder. They had shared roots going back many years. Right back to the sixties, when they all studied law together at Stockholm University and spent their free time on various perverse and criminal activities. Among other things, they had a secret society that they called Friends of the Cunt.
When Bäckström had been on the point of questioning one of them, who happened to be a former director of the Public Prosecution Authority and a current member of parliament for the Christian Democrats, the shadowy forces that Bäckström was on the trail of had hit back and tried to destroy him. His archenemy, Lars Martin Johansson, who had spent his whole life as the lackey of those in power, had sent him to the police state’s own group of professional killers, the National Rapid-Response Unit. They had done their best to try to get rid of Bäckström, on one occasion throwing a shock grenade at his head. When they failed miserably in their objective, they had locked him away in a mental hospital.
But Bäckström got back on his feet, turned round, and hit back. Against all the odds. He had lined up the Police Officers’ Association on his side, as well as powerful forces within the media and evidently one or two influential but anonymous figures who must secretly have sympathized with his struggle for basic justice. A solitary figure is seldom strong—that was the bitter truth—but Bäckström had shown on more than one occasion that he was stronger than everyone else.
After only a few months he had been back at work. New piles of waste, but at the same time good opportunities to do a bit of work on the side for people who deserved it. All thoughts of finally solving the murder of the prime minister had been temporarily laid aside. Bäckström’s victory had had its price, admittedly, but he had a long memory, and sooner or later he would get the chance to call in all outstanding debts.
And it looked like his enemies were starting to back down. That bastard Lapp, Johansson, had suddenly resigned with immediate effect, which is what it was called these days when someone got fired, and just a month ago the head of personnel for Stockholm Police had contacted him and offered him a post as a superintendent in the crime unit of the Western District. Suddenly he was a full-fledged citizen of the force once more, with access to all the goodies kept in police computers. The chance to help one or two old friends in trouble, and forewarned was also forearmed. No more barrels of shit and lost wallets, just your average criminals, people who had chopped their wives’ heads off, blasted holes through the babysitter, or had a go at the neighbor’s underage daughter.
“I promise I’ll think about it,” Bäckström told the head of personnel with a serious nod.
“It would be good if you could, Bäckström,” the personnel head had said, leafing nervously through his papers. “Don’t take too long—they need you, you know. Toivonen, he’d be your new boss, is keen to have you as soon as possible.”
Toivonen, Bäckström thought. That Finnish joker, his little “fucking fox” who he had trained to do some neat tricks twenty-five years ago. Couldn’t have turned out better, Bäckström thought.
The plan had been for Bäckström to start his new job as a violent crime detective with the Western District Police on Monday, May 12. That was when his new appointment came into force. But because Bäckström was still Bäckström, he had decided to start by taking some extra time off. He had called the Western District and told them that he was unfortunately unable to come in that day. An old job from his previous posting, concerning the dumping of environmentally hazardous material, was going to court that day and Bäckström was obliged to be there and give testimony.
The following day was impossible as well. He was due to undergo a thorough medical examination with the Stockholm Police staff doctors. It was a thorough check that was expected to take all day. He was therefore unable to appear at his new workplace until Wednesday. Then, the day before that, he had received the news that had almost killed him—from a doctor who turned out to be a latter-day Dr. Mengele—and when he staggered off to the Solna police station on Wednesday, May 14, it was with mortality in his heart.
Now, just one week later, he was himself again.
Bäckström is back, as always, Bäckström thought, because obviously he spoke fluent English. Since he was a discerning and habitual television viewer, on top of everything else.
On Monday, May 12, Anna Holt’s honeymoon was definitely over, and it didn’t have anything to do with Bäckström.
That morning two thieves had intercepted and robbed a security transport just as it was leaving the gates to the VIP entrance of Bromma Airport. When the criminals had transferred their takings and were about to make off, one of the two guards had used a remote control to detonate the capsules of dye inside the money sack. Then everything had spiraled out of control. The raiders had performed a U-turn and had run down the first guard as he attempted to run off. One of the thieves had jumped out of the vehicle and fired a number of shots with an automatic weapon, killing one guard and seriously wounding the other. Then they had driven off, abandoning the vehicle and the sack of money scarcely a kilometer from the scene of the crime. And then they had vanished without a trace.
That was just the start of Holt’s nightmare. That same night a renowned rogue from Finland had been shot outside his girlfriend’s flat in Bergshamra when he was about to drive away. It wasn’t clear where he was going or why, but in his hand he had been carrying a small suitcase containing everything from clean underwear and a toothbrush to a ten-millimeter pistol and a flick-knife. It was too late to ask him. Two shots to the head, definitely dead.
Toivonen, who was leading the search for the Bromma raiders, had long since stopped believing in coincidences of this sort. There was a connection here, and the following day his forensics experts had confirmed it. His latest murder victim had traces of red dye on both wrists. Dye that was difficult to wash off, and whose chemical composition, down to the last molecule, matched the dye that the security company used in their explosive capsules. It was also in the right place, if he had taken part in the raid, between his gloves and the sleeves of his black jacket.
Someone has started cleaning up after themselves, Toivonen thought.
When Bäckström’s “pisshead murder” occurred two days later, Anna Holt had felt almost relieved. Finally a normal case, she thought. A gift from above, even. Soon she would have good cause to change her opinion on that matter.
27.
“What the hell do we do now?” Bäckström snarled, staring first at his colleague, then at the safe-deposit box.
“We have to call one of our senior officers at once, to make sure our backs are covered,” Annika Carlsson said. “We have to make sure they come down here and seal—”
“Shut the damn box!” Bäckström said, unable to look at the wretched sight any longer. Dragging a literal-minded dyke with him when he had for once been let into Ali Baba’s treasure chamber. And he had no signal on his phone either.
“The walls in a vault like this must be extremely thick,” Annika Carlsson said. “If you like I can run up and call,” she added, taking out her own phone.
“This is what we’re going to do,” Bäckström said, pointing at her with his short, stubby index finger. “You stay here, don’t do anything, and if some bastard comes in, shoot him. And for God’s sake, don’t lose that damn box.”
Then he had gone up into the main bank premises and called Toivonen. He had quickly explained the situation that had arisen and had asked for orders. To cover his back, Bäckström thought. If there had been any justice in the world, he would have been on his way to Rio by now.
“Who have you got with you?” Toivonen asked, not sounding particularly excited.
“The Anchor, Annika Carlsson.”
“You’ve got the Anchor with you,” Toivonen repeated. “How much money are we talking about here?”
“Must be millions,” Bäckström said, and groaned.
“And you took the Anchor with you?”
“Yes,” Bäckström said. Fuck, his voice sounds really weird, Bäckström thought. He can’t be drunk, can he? Not at this time of day?
“Okay, then. Ask if you can have a plain paper bag, take the damn box with you, and get yourselves back out here, and I’ll talk to Niemi and he can sort out the rest.” The Anchor, Toivonen thought. This was all too much.
“But we need to cover our backs,” Bäckström said. “I mean—”
“You’ve done that,” Toivonen interrupted. “The Anchor will stick to the rules until her dying breath, and she’s as flexible as an old traffic cop and straight as a die. Just make sure you don’t get any ideas, or she’ll try out her cuffs on you.”
As soon as he had hung up Bäckström got a paper bag from the bank official. He had signed a receipt for the box. And carried it out to the car himself, where he held it in his lap the whole way back to the Solna police station. Annika Carlsson drove and didn’t say anything.
As soon as Toivonen had got off the phone he had gone out into the corridor, called his closest and most trusted colleagues into his office, and closed the door behind them.
Then he had explained what was going on in broad strokes, saving the punch line till last in the traditional way.
“Which one of our colleagues do you think the fat little bastard took with him?” Toivonen said, so delighted that he couldn’t stand still.
Hesitant head shakes.
“The Anchor, Annika Carlsson,” Toivonen said, his smile stretching from ear to ear.
“Poor bastard,” Peter Niemi said, shaking his head. “We’ll have to take his service revolver away from him so that he doesn’t do himself any mischief.”
A quarter of an hour later Bäckström had personally placed the paper bag containing the money on Niemi’s desk. Annika Carlsson had faithfully clung to his side all the way from the garage to Niemi’s office. Was the dyke trying to scare him? Suddenly she was walking like a fucking bodybuilder, thought Bäckström, who by this point hated every single fiber of Annika Carlsson’s well-honed body.
Backstrom: He Who Kills the Dragon (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original) Page 13