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

by Leif Gw Persson

  Chief Superintendent Toivonen wasn’t happy.

  “Explain to me how that fat little bastard managed to shoot an entire police investigation to shreds,” Toivonen said, glaring at his boss with bloodshot eyes. “Are we living in Sweden, or what?”

  “Well,” Anna Holt said, “we’re still living in Sweden, and it isn’t quite as simple as you’re suggesting.”

  “Nasir has been murdered, Farshad and Talib and Afsan are all in intensive care,” Toivonen said, counting them off on his fingers just to underline his point.

  “Well,” Holt repeated, “to start with, our colleague Bäckström didn’t have anything to do with the murder of Nasir.

  “It sounds like you should talk to Mr. Åkare and his friends about that,” Holt suggested.

  Is she fucking with me? Toivonen thought. During a long career in the police he had had a large number of completely meaningless conversations with Fredrik Åkare and his friends in the Hells Angels. The last time, Åkare had even patted him on the shoulder before vanishing in the company of his slick-haired lawyer.

  “You’re a bastard Finn, aren’t you, Toivonen?” Åkare said.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Toivonen said, trying to outstare the visitor’s scornful smile.

  “You probably know our old chairman,” Åkare said. “He’s a bastard Finn as well. He sends his greetings, by the way. Get in touch if you fancy a ride and a beer.”

  Toivonen hadn’t got in touch. Now he was obliged to, and he wasn’t looking forward to it.

  “According to Niemi,” said Toivonen, who wasn’t going to give in that easily, “Farshad had a key to Bäckström’s apartment in his trouser pocket.”

  “A recently cut copy, if I’ve understood correctly,” Holt said. She too had spoken to Niemi.

  “It’s still very odd that it just happens to fit Bäckström’s apartment,” Toivonen said.

  “I can see what you mean, and I’m aware of Bäckström’s reputation, but if it’s simply a case that they were bribing him, then they just had to knock on the door. And if that was the reason why they were there, then the negotiations don’t seem to have gone particularly well. And I say that with a great deal of reluctance,” Holt said, being a proper police officer.

  “Maybe they hadn’t got enough money with them,” Toivonen said. “According to Niemi, Farshad didn’t have a penny on him.”

  “Yes, yes,” Holt said. “Maybe we should take it easy and not get carried away. Everything that has emerged so far suggests that Farshad and Talib, entirely without Bäckström’s knowledge, got into his apartment and took him by surprise. To murder him, threaten him, blackmail him, force him to help them. Or to try to bribe him. We just don’t know. It looks like Bäckström was fully justified in defending himself. And the shot to Farshad’s leg was entirely in accordance with regulations.”

  “So what about the other five bullets, then? The ones Niemi pulled out of his walls and ceiling?”

  “Presumably things were chaotic. According to Bäckström they threw themselves on him as soon as he entered the apartment. Talib with a drawn pistol and Farshad with a knife. Bäckström managed to draw his pistol. Shots were fired. What’s the problem?”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” Toivonen said, taking a deep breath to stop the top of his head from blowing off. I’m calm, he thought to himself.

  “Bäckström wrestles Talib to the ground, disarms him, and knocks him out. His pistol just happens to go off a few times as he does so. As soon as Talib is out of the picture he shoots Farshad in the leg, a perfect shot, just below his left knee. Because Farshad is trying to stab him with his knife. Have I got that right?” Toivonen asked.

  “More or less,” Holt said with a shrug. “According to our colleague Carlsson, who had breakfast with Bäckström this morning, he says he felled Talib with some mysterious trick with his legs that he picked up when he was learning judo as a kid. According to Bäckström, he was pretty good at it while he kept up with it. Unfortunately Talib fell backward and hit his head on Bäckström’s coffee table, but under the circumstances we can hardly hold Bäckström responsible for that. Then, when Farshad rushes at him to stab him with his knife, Bäckström shoots him in the leg.”

  “According to Bäckström, that is.”

  “I’ve spoken to both Niemi and Hernandez. According to their forensic examination, there’s nothing to contradict Bäckström’s version. They both accept the bit about Talib without question. The shots in the walls are also distributed in such a way that they couldn’t have been fired by someone standing still and shooting. It might well match what Bäckström says.”

  “Forensic investigation, right,” Toivonen snorted. “You saw what it looked like. There must have been at least fifty people traipsing through that flat.”

  “Including you and me. And the rest of our colleagues who were in there. And that isn’t Bäckström’s fault either.”

  “No, heaven forbid,” Toivonen said. “Give the little fat bastard a medal and an extra year’s salary. By the way, did you happen to notice the furniture that fat little—”

  “Hang on, Toivonen,” Holt interrupted.

  “What? I’m listening,” Toivonen said. I’m completely calm, he thought.

  “I’m suddenly starting to get the impression that you’re jealous of our dear Bäckström,” Holt said with a smile. They’re like children, just like children, she thought, as Toivonen marched out of her office.

  Even on the morning news, Bäckström was the nation’s new hero. Several of his colleagues shook their heads and wondered how on earth it could have happened. Most of them chose to keep quiet and go along with it. One or two aired their concerns.

  Jorma Honkamäki was one of them. He had bumped into Frank Motoele at the entrance of the Karolinska Hospital.

  “You can’t help wondering what the hell happened—really, I mean,” Honkamäki said, and sighed.

  “What do you mean?” Motoele said, looking at him with eyes that were suddenly as black as a winter’s night in the savannah.

  “That fat little bastard,” Honkamäki clarified.

  “Think about what you’re saying,” Motoele said, turning his gaze inward. “That’s a hero you’re talking about. Respect.”

  71.

  Bäckström and Annika Carlsson had snuck out the back way, through the courtyard. In the street outside the front door there was mayhem, and the uniformed officers had their hands full. Journalists and curious onlookers. Quite a number who tried to get into the building. If only to reassure themselves that Bäckström actually lived there. A stream of letters, flowers, parcels, and a veritable memorial garden of lanterns and banners, even though the weather outside was high summer.

  “Two things,” Annika said as soon as they got inside the car. “You have to have a debriefing, and you have to talk to our colleagues in internal investigations.”

  “Why do I have to?” Bäckström sulked.

  “The sooner the better, because then it’ll be done,” Annika Carlsson said. “Where do you want to start?”

  “You may as well decide that as well,” Bäckström said.

  “A very wise decision,” Annika Carlsson said. She patted him on the arm and smiled.

  The debriefing had gone quickly. It was with a former colleague that Bäckström knew from his time in National Crime, who had burned out, had a crisis, rediscovered himself, and found a new role within a police organization in a process of constant change.

  “How are you feeling, Bäckström?” his former colleague asked, tilting his head to one side.

  “Great,” Bäckström said. “Never felt better. How about you? I heard you hit the wall.” You useless sod, he thought.

  Five minutes later Bäckström was walking away.

  “But what am I going to put in my report?” his debriefer asked.

  “Use your imagination,” Bäckström said.

  His visit to the Stockholm Police Department for Internal Investigations h
ad taken a whole hour. Bäckström had sat there on numerous previous occasions. For considerably longer, while everyone argued and shouted at one another in an openhearted and collegial way. This time they had started by offering coffee, and the superintendent who was in charge of the Rat Squad had personally welcomed him and assured him that he wasn’t suspected of having done anything wrong. Bäckström had exchanged a quick glance with Annika Carlsson, who had accompanied him in case he needed a witness, and she was also the Police Officers’ Association’s representative in the Western District.

  Everything that had emerged thus far unanimously supported Bäckström’s version of events. The forensics team, Peter Niemi and Jorge Hernandez, had found numerous pieces of evidence to back up Bäckström’s story. The first officers to arrive at the scene, Sandra Kovac, Frank Motoele, Magda Hernandez, Tomas Singh, and Gustav Hallberg, had all given testimony in his favor.

  “We spoke to Motoele just an hour ago. Evidently he was the first man in, and what he told us was pretty strong stuff. Said it looked like a battlefield in there, and that it’s a miracle you’re alive, Bäckström. And you’ve probably heard that another of the perpetrators tried to stab Motoele out in the street a couple minutes before they were able to get inside and help you.”

  “An awful business,” Bäckström said. “That young lad. How is he, by the way?” What do you mean, help me? Snotty-nosed kids, he thought.

  “Good, under the circumstances,” the investigator said, without going into any details. “Well, really we only have four questions.”

  “I’m listening,” Bäckström said, and Annika Carlsson’s eyes had already narrowed in a clearly cheering way.

  Bäckström had been carrying his service revolver when he went into his flat at half past eleven in the evening. Why?

  “I was on duty,” Bäckström said. “Considering the current situation, I and my colleagues carry our service revolvers whenever we leave the station. I was home to change my shirt and get a bite to eat before going back to the police station in Solna.”

  “We’re more or less working round the clock at the moment,” Annika Carlsson said. “We’ve got two double murders that both seem to be connected to the armed robbery out at Bromma. We’re seriously understaffed. A total of six officers to cover two murder investigations.”

  Fuck me, Bäckström thought. Surely she can’t be falling in love with me?

  “Yes, it’s terrible,” the investigator agreed, shaking his gray hair. “We’re on our knees right now.”

  Farshad Ibrahim had a copy of the key to Bäckström’s flat. Did Bäckström have any idea how he might have got hold of it?

  “Well, he didn’t get it from me,” Bäckström said. “I’d never met Ibrahim before he attacked me in my flat. I have two keys, one that I keep in the drawer of my desk at work, and one on my own key ring. And the caretaker has a copy, of course.”

  “You have no idea how Ibrahim might have got hold of your key?”

  “No,” Bäckström lied. He had already worked out what had happened, but intended to sort that out with GeGurra and Tatiana Thorén. “I haven’t lost a key, if that’s what you’re wondering. If I had, I would have changed the lock at once.”

  “The caretaker?” the investigator suggested.

  “I’ve hardly ever spoken to him,” Bäckström said.

  “The copy you keep in your desk drawer at work. Do you keep the drawer locked?”

  “Hang on, now,” Bäckström said. “You’re not seriously suggesting that one of my colleagues might have given my key to anyone like Ibrahim and Talib?”

  “What about the cleaners?” the investigator persisted.

  “I don’t think we’re getting very far,” Annika Carlsson said. “Besides, this isn’t really our subject, if I can put it like that.”

  “No, of course not,” the investigator agreed.

  I must remember to put a key in that drawer, Bäckström thought. Just in case, but how do I get hold of one that looks the same but doesn’t actually fit? he thought.

  Bäckström had drunk alcohol in his flat. Why?

  “I took a whiskey,” Bäckström said. “My heart was racing at something like two hundred a minute, so I thought I needed one. I’d already worked out that I wouldn’t be doing any more work that night, and I handed my own gun to Niemi as soon as he arrived.”

  The investigator had complete understanding of this too and would probably have done the same himself.

  Back of the net, Bäckström thought.

  Bäckström had fired a total of six shots. One of them had hit Farshad Ibrahim. Did he have any idea which of the shots that was?

  “The last one,” Bäckström said. “Now that I’ve a chance to think about it for a while, I’m pretty sure of that.”

  First the gigantic Talib had thrown himself at him, and he had already drawn his pistol. Bäckström had tried to defend himself and managed to draw his own weapon. Several shots had been fired while he was wrestling with Talib, before he managed to bring him down and disarm him with his bare hands.

  “Then the other one came at me with his knife, ready to strike,” Bäckström said. “So I took aim and shot him in his left lower leg.”

  “Yes,” the investigator said, and sighed. “Well, I think that’s everything. Sometimes there really does seem to be someone holding a protective hand over us police officers.”

  “What do you want to do now, Bäckström?” Annika Carlsson said. “Do you want to go home and get a few hours’ rest? And you should probably get something to eat?”

  “The station. A burger on the way will do,” Bäckström said. “After all, we’ve got a case to clear up.”

  “You’re the boss, Bäckström,” Carlsson said.

  72.

  Nadja had given him a hug. Whispered in his ear.

  “I put the bag in your desk drawer.”

  Bäckström was almost touched. As always when someone touched his heart.

  “Thanks, Nadja,” Bäckström said. Russians, sentimental bastards, he thought.

  Young Stigson stood up and saluted, even though he wasn’t wearing a uniform.

  “Welcome back, boss,” Stigson said. “Good to see you, boss.”

  “Thanks,” Bäckström said, patting him on the shoulder. Wonder if his dad had a go at him as well? he wondered.

  “Lucky it turned out okay, Bäckström,” Alm said.

  “Thanks,” Bäckström said. You slimy bastard, he thought. As if being crazy wasn’t enough, you’re an ingratiating sod as well.

  “I’m so happy you’re alive,” Felicia Pettersson said, then she gave him a big hug. Just wrapped her arms round his neck and squeezed.

  “There, there,” Bäckström said. They’re crazy about you, he thought.

  “Back to business,” Bäckström said. “What is there to report?”

  Everything was going according to plan. More or less, anyway. The door-to-door out in Rinkeby was unfortunately going slowly, though. Nothing of interest, even though their colleagues in the neighborhood police unit seemed to be putting their backs into it, Annika Carlsson declared.

  The plan to map out Danielsson’s circle of acquaintances was also proving troublesome. Many of his old friends didn’t even seem particularly interested in talking about it, and Alm was starting to have more and more doubts about several of them.

  “Our erstwhile colleague Stålhammar really isn’t a terribly nice person. Seems to have had a personality transplant, sadly.”

  “You’ve changed your tune,” Bäckström said, smiling in an extra-friendly way.

  “I don’t know about that,” Alm said. “I’ve had my doubts all along.”

  Nadja Högberg was still looking for Danielsson’s accounting files. She had identified and checked a number of companies that rented out storage space. So far she hadn’t come up with anything.

  Toivonen had been onto her in Bäckström’s absence, asking how they were getting on following up the connections between Farshad and
Danielsson. He had even offered help if it was needed. Was prepared to lend her two people from his armed robbery investigation. Nadja had explained that she thought it would all sort itself out once her boss was back. Besides, it wasn’t up to her to take that sort of decision.

  “Who did he have in mind?” Bäckström said. “What did he want to palm off on us?”

  “Luft from National Crime and Asph, who works in central Stockholm,” Nadja said with a sigh.

  Airhead and Cardboardhead, Bäckström thought. He knew them both. And he already had a standard-issue Woodentop, he thought.

  “We can manage without them,” Bäckström said. Honestly, what can you say? he thought. The minute someone tries to blow my head off they start trying to infiltrate my murder investigation.

  “Anything else?” he added.

  “Well, I think I might have found something interesting,” Felicia Pettersson said.

  “I’m listening,” Bäckström said.

  Felicia Pettersson had been through Akofeli’s telephone. She had requested comprehensive lists of his calls over the past three months. The number that he called five times during the last twenty-four hours before he disappeared had been listed practically every day.

  “He seems to have called that number on pretty much a daily basis,” Felicia Pettersson said. “Often early in the morning. Between half past five and six o’clock, while he was delivering papers. There’s no one else that he calls anywhere near as much.”

  “But we still don’t know whose number that is?” Bäckström said.

  “No. But it isn’t anyone he worked with, because I’ve spoken to them. And none of his family recognize the number. None of his friends. He doesn’t seem to have had many friends, actually. The people he socialized with were mainly people from the courier company or people he used to know at university. A couple of old friends from high school, and one of his neighbors. None of them recognize the number.”