“But you don’t believe that?” Alm said when he spoke to the doctor.
“No,” the doctor said. “It’s out of the question. Someone attacked him from behind. Probably began by hitting his knees so that he fell forward. Then set about him when he was on the ground.”
“Do you have any idea what his attacker might have used as a tool?” Alm asked.
The doctor had fairly definite views on that matter. He had even put an entry in the notes.
“A baseball bat, an ordinary cudgel, a long baton. The patient looked like people do when they’ve been attacked by football hooligans and the like. And there was actually a match at Råsunda that evening. AIK versus Djurgården, if I remember rightly.”
“You remember that? Are you sure?” Alm said.
“You’d remember too if you’d been on duty that night,” the doctor said with a wry smile. “This place looked like a field hospital.”
Then he had spoken to Seppo’s next-door neighbor. A very striking woman with a shapely and well-preserved figure even though she must have passed fifty several years ago, thought Alm, who had himself hit sixty a few months earlier.
“You mostly just have to feel sorry for the poor lad,” Britt-Marie Andersson said. “After all, he’s retarded, if I can put it like that.”
“Mrs. Andersson, do you have any idea about how he got on with Karl Danielsson?” Alm asked.
“What, apart from the fact that he’s his son?” Britt-Marie Andersson said with a faint smile.
“So you know about that?” Alm said.
“Most people who’ve lived here long enough probably know. But I don’t know if the lad himself knows. His mom …”
“Yes?” Alm cajoled.
“Well, even though she’s in the hospital,” Mrs. Andersson said, pursing her lips. “His mom was very young thing. She didn’t make any secret of the fact that she and Danielsson were an item, even though he must have been at least twenty-five years older than her. But I’m not sure if Seppo knew about it.”
“So how did Seppo get on with Karl Danielsson?” Alm reminded her.
“Mostly he seemed to be Danielsson’s errand boy. Do this, do that. And I suppose he usually did as he was told. But sometimes they fought like cat and dog, so in recent years it’s been a bit tricky, if I can put it like that.”
“Could you give me an example, Mrs. Andersson?”
“Well, there was one time last winter when I got home. I’d been out to let my little darling do his business. There was a terrible commotion in the entrance. Danielsson was drunk and was yelling and shouting, and suddenly Seppo flew at him and tried to strangle him. It was awful,” Mrs. Andersson said, shaking her head.
“I yelled at them, telling them to behave themselves, and they actually stopped.”
“But before that Seppo had been trying to strangle him?” Alm said.
“Yes, if I hadn’t managed to stop them fighting I don’t know what would have happened,” Mrs. Andersson sighed, her bosom heaving.
Hmm, Alm thought, and merely nodded.
Now the hawk takes the finch, Alm thought. As soon as he had left Mrs. Andersson he called his colleague Stigson on his cell phone and told him to get to Hasselstigen at once. Stigson was there within fifteen minutes. Seppo didn’t open the door until they had been ringing on his doorbell for a good two minutes.
“I’m playing computer games,” Seppo said.
“You’ll have to stop for a while. We need to talk to you,” Alm said, making an effort to sound friendly and authoritative at the same time.
“Okay,” Seppo said with a shrug.
The second time Seppo hit Karl Danielsson. Did he remember what day that was?
“Don’t remember,” Seppo said, shaking his head.
“What if I say it was the same day that AIK played a match against Djurgården? Do you remember what day it was now?”
“It was April ninth,” Seppo said, nodding happily. “Now I remember. It was a Wednesday.”
“You remember that?” Stigson said. “That it was a Wednesday? How come you remember that?”
“Because today is a Wednesday too,” Seppo said. “Wednesday, May twenty-eighth. April has thirty days,” Seppo explained, holding out his watch toward Stigson to underline what he had just said.
The lad must be completely nuts, Alm thought, and decided to change the subject.
“Do you remember how you hit him?” Alm asked.
“Yes,” Seppo said, nodding.
“Did you use karate?” Alm asked.
“No,” Seppo said. “I hit him with my baseball bat.”
“Seppo, what you’re telling us is very serious,” Alm said. “You told me before that the first time you hit Karl you used karate, but this time you hit him with a baseball bat? Why did you do that?”
“I told you,” Seppo said. “I was very angry.”
Alm made a whispered call to the prosecutor on his phone. Then they took his baseball bat but left him there.
“We’ll probably have to talk to you tomorrow,” Alm said. “So we don’t want you to go anywhere.”
“That’s all right,” Seppo said. “I never go anywhere else.”
80.
Two days after the press conference Bäckström gathered his strength for another meeting of the investigative team. Alm was sitting there, desperate to start talking, so Bäckström took his time dealing with various formalities before eventually asking Nadja to talk about her big discovery, Danielsson’s accounts and will.
Nadja wasn’t in any hurry either.
“So you mean that Danielsson was good for twenty-five million?”
Bäckström said. A common drunk? Where the hell was Sweden heading? he thought.
“More or less,” Nadja said, nodding. “Since we got rid of inheritance tax, that’s pretty much the amount that Seppo and his mother will share between them.”
“What about the tax office?” Bäckström said. “They’re going to want to get their hands on every last krona.”
“I can’t really believe that,” Nadja said. “They’ll have a hard job blowing any holes in his bookkeeping—”
“Which surely reinforces my own theories,” Alm interrupted, evidently not prepared to sit and listen any longer. “There’s more to this than usual paternal hatred. The lad also had strong financial motives for killing Danielsson. I think it’s high time we had a serious talk with our prosecutor, so that we can bring the boy in and declare him a formal suspect. Do a thorough search of his flat. And get forensics to take a look at that baseball bat that we brought in yesterday.”
For some reason Alm glared at both Bäckström and Nadja as he relieved some of his internal pressure.
“Don’t let’s get carried away,” Bäckström said with a friendly smile. “How are you getting on with the cell phone surveillance, Felicia?”
Absolutely fine, according to Felicia Pettersson. The day before, she got hold of the records of the phone that Akofeli used to ring almost daily during the months leading up to his death. The same phone that he called five times during the twenty-four hours before he disappeared.
“That pay-as-you-go account has only been active for about six months,” Felicia said. “It seems to be used mainly to receive incoming calls on.”
“From Akofeli,” Bäckström said.
“Mainly Akofeli. I’ve found another pay-as-you-go cell number, but it only calls the same number as Akofeli once a week at most. And that one’s been in use for several years.”
“So what do we know about that one?” Bäckström said.
“Everything,” Felicia said with a satisfied smile. “At least I daresay we know everything.”
“Everything?” Bäckström repeated. What the hell is she saying? he thought.
“I got the list of calls for that one yesterday, so I’ve only just started going through it. But I’m pretty sure who it belonged to.”
“So whose was it, then?” Bäckström said.
“Karl Danielss
on’s,” Felicia said.
“What the hell are you saying?” Bäckström said.
“Bloody hell,” Stigson said.
“How do you know that?” Annika Carlsson said.
“Interesting,” Nadja said.
What the hell is going on? Alm thought. He was the only one who didn’t say anything.
“It wasn’t very hard to work out,” Felicia said. “Like I said before, it was you who put me on the right track, boss.”
“I’m listening,” Bäckström said.
“This phone was in regular use until the day Karl Danielsson was murdered,” she went on. “Since then, nothing. The last three calls were all made at around seven o’clock in the evening, just a few hours before Danielsson was killed. First a short call to a cell belonging to Roland Stålhammar. Probably to see if he was on his way to Danielsson’s for a meal. Then a slightly longer call to Gunnar Gustafsson, Jockey Gunnar as he’s known. Maybe to thank him for the tip about the horse. And finally a short call that ends up with the recipient’s messaging service. Probably because Seppo Laurén didn’t want to be disturbed when he was sitting at his computer playing games. In fact, there are loads of previous calls to Danielsson’s various friends and contacts. I’ve only just started, so it’ll be a couple days before I’ve got a comprehensive list.”
“Let’s see,” Bäckström said. “So we’ve got three phones. They’re all pay-as-you-go. One belongs to Akofeli, and one belongs to Danielsson. And they both call a third, which only seems to be used for incoming calls, owner not yet identified. And both Akofeli’s and Danielsson’s phones have been missing since they were murdered.”
“Yes,” Felicia Pettersson said.
“Next question,” Bäckström said. “What about—”
“No,” Felicia interrupted, shaking her head. “Danielsson and Akofeli never called each other. If that’s what you’re wondering, boss.”
“There’s no flies on you, are there, Felicia?” Bäckström said.
“Thanks, boss,” Felicia said. “If you’re interested, boss, I think …”
“Of course,” Bäckström said.
“… that we’ll have this case cracked as soon as we find the person who has the third cell.”
“Definitely,” Bäckström said. If you closed your eyes, you could almost believe that little Pettersson has got Russian blood in her veins, he thought.
“Hang on a minute,” Alm said. “What’s the connection between Danielsson and Akofeli? Apart from the fact that they were both murdered and have evidently also rung the same cell?”
“Surely that’s enough?” Nadja said. The man must be a complete idiot, she thought.
“They both know the killer but they don’t know each other. At least that’s what I think,” Felicia said.
“And who might that be?” Alm said. He suddenly felt the penny drop inside his head. “The only person who admits to knowing both of them is Seppo Laurén. If you ask me, I can very well imagine that Seppo has an extra cell, one of those pay-as-you-go phones with no recognized subscriber.”
“Well, about that ‘admission,’ ” Bäckström said with a shrug. “The unfortunate problem with most killers I’ve met is that they aren’t usually very willing to admit anything.”
“But this is unbelievable,” Alm said, by now red in the face. “Give me a straight answer. What are we going to do with Laurén?”
“Go and talk to him,” Bäckström said. “Ask him if he beat Danielsson to death and strangled Akofeli.”
“I’ve already asked him about Danielsson,” Alm said.
“And what did he say?”
“He denied it,” Alm said.
“Well, there you are, then,” Bäckström said with a grin. “Okay, I don’t think we’re going to get much further sitting here talking. Let’s get to work. At least that’s what I’m going to do.”
But only after I’ve had a nutritious lunch, Bäckström thought. Even a living legend needs something nice to eat, he thought.
81.
After lunch Bäckström had spent the remainder of the day granting a number of exclusive interviews, in which the recipients of this honor had a few thoughtful words bestowed upon them along the way.
For the female reporter from the Christian daily paper Dagen, he confessed his childhood beliefs and his faith in the Lord.
“Beaten to the ground with deadly force, I was granted the strength to get up and strike back,” Bäckström said with a pious look in his eyes.
For the representatives of the two evening papers he had in turn revealed that he had long thought that the police were too reluctant to share information. Not least to the evening papers.
“How else can we hope to reach out to that great detective, the general public? We’d be lost without you and your colleagues.” Bäckström sighed, nodding to the reporter from Expressen.
“The public interest,” he said half an hour later when he was talking to the journalist from Aftonbladet. “It’s actually the duty of the police to inform the media, so that they in turn can tell our citizens how things are going.”
In the conversation with Svenska Dagbladet that followed he had revealed his concerns about various deficiencies in the rule of law.
“Our fight against crime must be conducted openly,” Bäckström said, looking intently at the paper’s representative. “Too many of my fellow officers have far too lax a view of the rule of law.”
Finally, Dagens Nyheter, where he contented himself with agreeing with all the leading questions put to him.
“I completely agree with you,” Bäckström repeated, for the umpteenth time. “I couldn’t have put it better myself. It’s absolutely terrible. I mean, where on earth are we heading as a constitutional state?”
On his way home he paid a visit to GeGurra for an openhearted conversation between just the two of them. GeGurra wasn’t merely perplexed, he was utterly mortified now that he realized how the crooks had got hold of the keys to Bäckström’s apartment.
“I can assure you, my dear Bäckström,” GeGurra said. “That woman has deceived you and me alike. All I told her when she called and asked if I would like to take her out to dinner was that I was already engaged. That I was going to have dinner at Operakällaren with a very dear friend who happened to be a police officer. I had no inkling that she had questionable intentions when she appeared. As I understood it, she simply appeared to be quite captivated by you.”
Right, Bäckström thought.
“So what are we going to do about the coffee table, the carpet, and all the bullet holes in the walls?” Bäckström asked.
On that point he didn’t have to worry himself at all. GeGurra had all the contacts and resources necessary to put everything right. Straightaway, no less.
“I insist that you let me do that, Bäckström,” GeGurra said. “The fact that I was entirely ignorant does not release me from my obligations in the slightest. After all, I was an unwitting accomplice to your being placed in mortal danger.”
“The coffee table, the carpet, the walls,” Bäckström said, not about to let himself be sidetracked by fine words.
“Of course, my dear friend,” GeGurra said. “What do you think of that coffee table, by the way?” he asked, gesturing toward the coffee table in his own office.
“Antique, Chinese lacquerwork—the colors would match your sofa perfectly,” GeGurra cajoled.
“Nice carpet,” Bäckström said, nodding toward the carpet that the table was standing on.
“Another antique from China,” GeGurra said. “An excellent choice, if you were to ask my opinion.”
The police officers stationed at Bäckström’s door had been replaced by two contracted guards from Securitas. They helped him to carry up the coffee table, the carpet, and the various packages that had arrived during the course of the day.
Bäckström had prepared a simple meal from the things in his fridge. Then he had gone through the day’s haul. E-mails, letters, parcels, and presents.
Everything from a knitted tea cozy in the shape of a hen and a handwritten letter containing one hundred kronor to a considerably larger amount that an anonymous benefactor had transferred into his account.
He threw the tea cozy in the bin.
He read the letter. A “Gustaf Lans, eighty-three, retired bank director” wrote, “May God protect you, Superintendent. Thank you for all your hard work.”
Thanks yourself, you mean old bastard, Bäckström thought. He put the hundred-kronor note in his wallet and threw the letter in the bin.
Just as he was done with these administrative tasks there came a knock on his door.
“Hello, Bäckström,” Annika Carlsson said with a smile. “I thought I’d look in on you before you went to bed.”
Hello, Bäckström thought.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” he asked.
Annika Carlsson admired his new coffee table and his new carpet. And even the bullet holes in the walls and ceiling.
“If I were you, I think I’d leave them as they are,” Annika Carlsson said. “They’re seriously cool. Think about all the girls you must have here. Wow, this guy’s got bullet holes in his walls,” Annika Carlsson said. “It even makes me—”
“Sorry, Annika,” Bäckström interrupted. “A personal question?”
“Sure,” Annika said with a smile. “Go for it. I’m listening.”
“And you promise not to be offended?” Because who wants to get their jaw broken before they go to bed? he thought. He’d had quite enough with Talib and the other wretched prick.
“You’re wondering if I’m a dyke?” Annika said, looking at him in delight.
“Yes,” Bäckström said.
“There’s so much talk,” Annika Carlsson said, shrugging. “My most recent partner was a female police officer who worked in domestic crime in the city. That ended six months ago. But the last sex I had, if you want to know—if we’re not counting the sort you make for yourself that is—was with a guy. Not even a fellow officer. He was some sort of salesman. I picked him up in a bar.”
Backstrom: He Who Kills the Dragon (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original) Page 32