‘Nothing,’ Niemi said. ‘We didn’t have a car available, simple as that. Then things seem to have calmed down until just after two o’clock at night, when the dog kicks up a hell of a racket. Howling and barking, and when neighbour number four calls and refuses to back down, and also happens to mention to the officer in emergency control the identity of the person who lives in the house with the barking dog, finally things start to move. The officer sends a car that gets there twelve minutes later. Our colleagues ring the doorbell, try the handle and the door’s unlocked, so they go in and soon enough find Eriksson dead on the upstairs landing, as you can see here,’ Niemi said, clicking to bring up a picture of their blood-soaked murder victim lying on his stomach in front of the desk.
‘And then things start to follow the usual path. Hernandez and I were on the scene about an hour later, at half past three in the morning, and that’s pretty much that. I’m happy to answer any questions if there are any,’ he concluded, clicking to switch off the picture of their victim.
‘I’ve got a question,’ Detective Sergeant Rosita Andersson-Trygg said, waving her hand in the air. ‘I find what you’ve just said very, very strange. A complete mystery, if you ask me.’
And who would ever think of asking you? Bäckström thought.
‘Go on,’ Bäckström said silkily. ‘How do you mean, Rosita?’
‘The dog’s behaviour,’ Andersson-Trygg replied. ‘Why doesn’t the dog bark?’
‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ Bäckström said. ‘But if I’ve understood correctly, it was barking like crazy half the night.’ The old bag’s clearly completely mad. High time to have a serious word with Holt about that promise to get rid of her, he thought.
‘Permit me to correct you then,’ Andersson-Trygg said tartly. ‘The dog’s actually completely silent for all of three hours, from eleven o’clock to two o’clock, and that certainly isn’t normal behaviour for a Rottweiler whose owner has been murdered.’
‘Do you know what?’ Bäckström said, smiling gently. ‘I’d like you to take an extra good look at this business with the dog, and we’ll come back to it. It feels good to know that we have an expert at our disposal.
‘Niemi,’ Bäckström went on. ‘The crime scene. What do we know about it?’
In all likelihood, the victim was murdered where he was found. Close to his desk on the landing.
There were a number of things that still weren’t clear, but they were going to have to wait on those until the medical officer had concluded his examination.
‘When can we expect his full report, then?’ Annika Carlsson asked.
‘He promised to do the post mortem this evening, so hopefully we’ll have the preliminary results sometime tomorrow,’ Niemi said. ‘The final report will probably take a week or so.’
‘We’ll just have to live with that,’ Bäckström said generously. ‘To round this off, Peter, what do we know about the cause of death?’
There were still a number of question marks that meant that a conclusive answer was probably best left for the medical officer’s report.
‘But hit in the head with a blunt instrument, if you’re asking me now,’ Niemi said. ‘Most of the evidence points to that.’
‘Good,’ Bäckström said. ‘So, to sum up what we’ve got, we’re dealing with a murder that took place at about quarter to ten yesterday evening, on the upstairs landing of the victim’s home, and the victim was murdered by being hit in the head with a blunt instrument. Annika, can you make sure that our colleagues conducting door-to-door inquiries in the area are given that information at once? Preferably without them ramming it down the throats of everyone they talk to.’
‘By all means,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘I’ll make sure—’
‘Don’t forget to tell them to ask about the dog as well, and why it was quiet for three hours. I mean, if he was quiet, he could have been whining and whimpering,’ Andersson-Trygg interrupted.
‘Of course,’ Annika Carlsson said with a sigh. ‘I hear what you’re saying, Rosita.’
‘Splendid,’ Bäckström said smoothly. ‘Well, I suggest a five-minute break to stretch our legs before you, Peter, tell us about the second body you found out on the terrace.’ That gave the animal-rights fascist something to think about, Bäckström thought. And evidently not just her, to judge from the expressions of the rest of the group.
24
Must be a new record for a five-minute break, Bäckström thought as he sat down in his seat at the end of the allotted time, the last one back into the room.
‘Well, then,’ he said, smiling broadly. ‘High time for victim number two, Peter.’
‘Yes,’ Peter Niemi said. ‘Not a pretty sight, I’m afraid.’
Then he had clicked to bring up a picture of a dead Rottweiler lying on the terrace outside the upstairs landing, ten metres from the spot where his owner had in all likelihood been murdered.
‘The dog’s throat appears to have been cut,’ Niemi declared, showing them the gaping wound in its throat and the semicircular pool of blood that had gushed out on to the pale wooden boards of the terrace.
‘When?’ Bäckström asked.
‘If the call to the emergency control room was right, then it must have happened at about two o’clock in the morning …’
‘Four hours after his owner breathed his last. Strange,’ Bäckström said.
‘Yes,’ Niemi agreed. ‘This case doesn’t seem to be entirely straightforward. We’ve sent the dog to the veterinary medicine lab, if anyone’s wondering. We also found fragments of fabric in his mouth. Threads, and a larger scrap of cloth that I’d guess came from a pair of jeans.’
‘So he probably bit our culprit in the leg,’ Bäckström said, resting his elbows on the table and putting his fingers together. ‘Anything else interesting you can tell us?’
More oddities, according to Niemi. A lawyer whose head was smashed in with a blunt object, a dog whose throat was cut more than four hours later, and also – as if that weren’t already more than enough – at least two shots had been fired on the landing.
Niemi brought up more pictures, showing the bullet holes in the ceiling above the desk and in the back of the sofa. He concluded with a close-up of two flattened bullets lying on a sheet of white paper on the victim’s desk, to show them off as well as possible.
‘Those are the bullets,’ Niemi said. ‘I think they came from the same weapon. They’re the same calibre, anyway, .22, and they’re the same type. Unjacketed lead bullets. We haven’t found any casings, which suggests a revolver, and it was probably fired by the victim, as we found traces of powder on his right hand and the lower part of his shirtsleeve. He also had a licence for a .22 revolver. For hunting and finishing off animals caught in traps. He had licences for a total of six different hunting weapons. Two sports rifles and three shotguns, as well as the aforementioned revolver. He’s got a gun cabinet down in the basement, but it’s locked, so we haven’t been in there yet.’
‘But you haven’t found a revolver?’ Bäckström asked.
‘Not yet,’ Niemi said, shaking his head. ‘We’ve only just started looking, and it’s probably going to take the rest of the week. The house is pretty massive. The ground floor is something like two hundred and fifty square metres, the first floor one hundred and fifty, plus a hundred square metres of terrace. Down in the cellar there’s a large garage, a gym, sauna, billiard room, wine-cellar, laundry and storeroom. We’ve barely started the forensic examination so far.’
No blunt instrument and no revolver. But, according to Niemi, they had found quite a few other things. In the top drawer of the desk was a thick brown envelope that turned out to contain 962,000 kronor in thousand-kronor notes, divided into ten bundles, each fastened with a rubber band. On top of the desk was an old-fashioned and well-used handkerchief containing traces of both blood and snot. There was also a crystal carafe that was half full of whisky, and an almost empty glass with just a bit left at the bottom. Niemi hadn’t yet
had a chance to think about the wider implications of this. Because a number of other things had demanded his attention instead.
‘There was another glass,’ Niemi said, showing them another picture. ‘It was on the coffee table in front of the sofa in the corner, the one with a bullet in the back. If you draw a straight line between the glass and carafe on the desk and the bullet in the back of the sofa … then the glass on the table is right on that line … just a metre or so further forward, in front of the bullet-hole in the sofa, I mean. And if we assume that the person drinking from that glass is sitting the way people usually do when they’re engaged in that sort of activity … then there ought to have been a considerable risk that he or she would have been hit in the upper body or head … which doesn’t appear to have happened, judging from the evidence.’
‘The person on the sofa was no longer sitting there,’ Annika Carlsson suggested. ‘He or she had already moved.’
‘No, I’m fairly sure that he … or she … was still sitting on the sofa, but without being hit. The reason I think that is the evidence we found on this sofa cushion,’ Niemi said, showing them a picture of it.
‘Look at the dark patch, more or less where the backside of someone sitting on the sofa ought to be,’ Niemi said, pointing at the picture.
‘The person sitting there shat themselves when the bullet whistled past their ear,’ Bäckström concluded. What’s going on with today’s bad guys? he thought. Crapping themselves as soon as a faggy little lawyer starts shooting at them. If it had been him, he’d have whipped little Siggy out and sent the bullet back with interest.
‘Traces of both excrement and urine,’ Niemi agreed with a nod. ‘Not the first time it’s happened, in my experience.’ He smiled amiably and closed the picture.
‘Any questions?’ he added.
‘We can do that when we know a bit more,’ Bäckström interrupted, to forestall a load of unnecessary chat.
‘Annika, if I understood you correctly, we’ve got more pressing questions to deal with?’ he went on, for some reason looking at their prosecutor and the head of their preliminary investigation, Lisa Lamm.
‘Authorization to search Eriksson’s home isn’t a problem at all,’ Lisa Lamm said, shaking her head. ‘Nor his computer either, seeing as it was in the house and was switched on. Which leaves the law firm, and that could be rather more complicated, as I’m sure you appreciate. For the time being I’ve decided to have Eriksson’s office sealed. In two hours’ time I’m going to be meeting his partners to discuss how to handle any further action.’
Bloody hell, Bäckström thought.
‘Any other questions, anyone?’ he said with a slight sigh.
Then things had gone the way they usually did – questions, speculation, all the usual nonsense – until he’d had enough, raised his hand and put an end to the first meeting of his latest investigative team.
‘That’s enough talk,’ Bäckström said. ‘Get to work. Make sure we catch the bastard who did this. We can talk a load of bollocks once he’s locked away.’
25
I’ve got to have some food, Bäckström thought. A proper lunch, a generous drink and at least one large and very cold lager. Then I need to be left in peace to think too. As it was already half past two in the afternoon and his blood-sugar levels were at roughly the same height as his handmade Italian shoes, he decided it was about time.
His right-hand man, Annika Carlsson, was sitting behind her desk in the office, demonstrating her renowned ability to multitask by eating salad from a plastic container at the same time as typing on her computer and nodding to Bäckström.
‘Let me guess, our lead detective is thinking of going out to have some lunch,’ she said with a smile.
‘I was thinking of going for a walk,’ Bäckström replied. ‘So I can have a bit of peace and quiet to think.’
‘You’re thinking of going for a walk? Okay, I’m starting to get worried. You’re not coming down with something, are you?’
‘No,’ Bäckström said, shaking his head. ‘I just need to do a bit of thinking on my own.’
The first real day of summer, Bäckström thought as he stepped out into the street. Before leaving the police station he had returned to his room to get his sunglasses. His very own surveillance sunglasses, which he always got out when summer arrived and the sun’s rays were strong enough to liberate enough female flesh to make it worth the bother. The steel-framed surveillance sunglasses whose black reflective glass protected him from being confused with all the cruising faggots who came out of the woodwork at this time of year looking for raw material for their sick fantasies.
Not like Evert Bäckström in his yellow linen suit and dark glasses, who, elevated above any suspicion of such base motives, calmly strolled down the street from the police station, cut through Solna shopping centre and walked past Råsunda football stadium, and found himself stepping into one of his favourite bars out in Filmstaden half an hour later.
There had been a fair amount to look at along the way, and he hadn’t given his latest case any thought at all. All in good time, he thought. He may have been both a mover and a shaker, well known from all his appearances on crime shows on television and with his own internet fanclub, as well as the answer to every woman’s secret dreams, but all this, his lot in life, was still only one side of his character. He was also an observer who stood above the human mud-wrestling to which the simpler creatures around him seemed to devote most of their lives. All in good time. You’re something of a philosopher as well, Bäckström, he thought as he sat down at his usual table and the bar owner bestowed his usual attentive service on him and immediately brought him an acceptably large and very cold lager.
‘Welcome, Bäckström,’ he said. ‘Can I interest you in a nice piece of grilled steak with Béarnaise sauce and fried potatoes, Superintendent? Without salad.’
‘Sounds splendid,’ Bäckström said. ‘Plus the usual, a little glass of water and a nice, visible carafe of proper water alongside.’
‘Of course, by all means,’ his host replied, nodding complicitly.
Then he had eaten in peace and quiet and slowly come back to life. Now he was starting to feel more like his usual self again. Towards the end of the meeting, when his colleagues were banging on about all the ideas and suggestions bouncing around in their little heads, he had actually felt rather flat, and in serious need of a bit of privacy and reflection. The same sort of feeling he usually got when the super-salami had done its thing and he just wanted to be left alone without some completely unknown little lady lying next to him and pawing at him in his big Hästens bed.
Coming back to life, Bäckström thought, raising the little glass and draining the last drops.
As he was drinking his coffee the bar’s owner came over and sat down. He was an enthusiastic AIK supporter, just like Bäckström was the moment he entered his bar, and the rumours had evidently already reached him. That Solna’s very own legendary detective was investigating the murder of one of the club’s arch-enemies.
‘You know the bastard was on the board of Djurgården? Talk about a motive.’
‘I know,’ Bäckström said. ‘I know, it sounds like grounds for dropping all charges against whoever did it, if you ask me.’
Then he had taken a taxi back to work, stopping on the way to buy some extra-strong throat sweets to forestall any unfortunate gossip, and he had barely had time to settle into his chair and put his weary feet up on his desk before there was a knock on the door. His very own little Jenny, complete with a tight red top and a very wide smile, asking for a confidential meeting between the two of them.
‘If you’ve got five minutes, that is, boss?’
‘By all means. Of course. Sit yourself down,’ Bäckström said, gesturing towards his visitor’s chair.
Life has returned, he thought, and for a fleeting moment he even considered putting his sunglasses back on again.
26
‘What can I do for you, Jenn
y?’ Bäckström asked, crossing his right leg over the left, just in case the super-salami decided to make a move.
‘I’ve got an idea I wanted to try out on you, boss,’ Jenny said. She smiled again, leaned forward and held out a sheet of paper.
‘I see,’ Bäckström replied. He took the sheet and read. Three rows of handwriting, a neat, rounded schoolgirl style – just what he had hoped for when it came to that little detail – and the super-salami had evidently already woken up.
‘Read it, boss.’ Jenny pointed at the sheet of paper and nodded eagerly.
‘Sunday, 19 May. Courtier assaulted with auction catalogue. Tuesday, 21 May. Rabbit taken into care after being neglected. Sunday, 2 June. Lawyer murdered,’ Bäckström read out loud, with growing surprise. What the fuck is this? he thought.
‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking, boss?’ Jenny asked, leaning forward even more. More than slightly excited, apparently, given the way her bosoms were heaving.
‘I’m not sure that I am,’ Bäckström replied, shaking his head. ‘Tell me, I’m listening.’
‘It was just an idea I got while I was sitting in the meeting. All of a sudden, I mean, and how often does that happen in cases like this? And I found myself thinking of the three golden rules that apply to the investigation of any murder … to start with, you have to make the most of what you’ve got … secondly, you don’t make things more complicated than they need to be … and thirdly … and this is what struck me in the meeting … you have to hate coincidence.’
‘I see,’ Bäckström said. ‘You’ll have to forgive me, but …’
‘What I mean is, how common is it to have three cases like this in little more than a week? In the same police district? I mean, the idea that it might be sheer coincidence is a statistical impossibility, considering how unusual it must be. I had a look on the internet. Do you know how long it’s been since anyone murdered a lawyer in Sweden, boss?’
The Sword of Justice Page 10