The Sword of Justice

by Leif G. W. Persson

  ‘You really should try the dry sherry, Superintendent,’ the bar owner said, shaking his head sadly. ‘Among my countrymen, it’s the custom when we eat tapas.’

  ‘That’s probably why there’s such a big difference between real Spaniards and fake ones,’ Bäckström said with a cheery smile. The bastard looks like a sad Andalucian dog after it’s been raining, he thought. Anyway, what’s wrong with adopting the traditions of your new homeland? Otherwise, you might as well move back home again.

  After his meal the sun had started to shine again, and Bäckström moved outside and drank his coffee and Spanish brandy as he put on his black surveillance sunglasses and teased his appetite before his impending visit to Little Miss Friday.

  He had strolled down there and, once he was in position on the broad leather massage table, he amended his usual programme and performed it in reverse order. Probably the result of all that spicy food and those hot sauces, Bäckström thought, as he chose to begin with a salami-ride and let her conclude by softening up his muscles and joints for him. Towards the end of her ride, Little Miss Friday had begun to mutter incomprehensibly with her eyes closed, and when the moment arrived she showed the whites of her eyes and screamed out loud. Still in Polish, which was complete gobbledegook to a proper Swede like him.

  She really ought to be paying me, considering all the noise I have to put up with, he thought as he tucked his note-clip back in his pocket and stepped out into the street to go home and embark upon the third part of his packed programme.

  He woke up after a three-hour nap. Fresh as a daisy, his mind clear as crystal. Then he spent about an hour in the shower, anointing himself with scented potions, and concluded by dressing with the utmost care.

  He checked the finished result in the hall mirror, nodded in approval at what he saw, called a taxi, had a little drink to set him up – without bothering about throat sweets – and headed off to the restaurant to have dinner with his old acquaintance GeGurra. At the stroke of eight o’clock he stepped into the foyer of Operakällaren, unquestionably the most illustrious restaurant in Sweden.

  Nothing over the top, he thought. Just an ordinary, simple three-course dinner. While all his foolish and impoverished colleagues were sitting in front of the television with their miserable wives, cretinous children, pizza boxes, cheese puffs and flat beer.

  IV

  The true story of Pinocchio’s nose.

  Part I

  73

  GeGurra was already sitting waiting for him as he stepped into the room. Elegant as ever, from the shiny black shoes you could use as a mirror, the dark blue silk suit, to the pale, cream-coloured shirt that he was wearing open at the neck, possibly as a tribute to summer, which finally seemed to have arrived after a long winter and chilly spring. The effect was perfect, like a Spanish nobleman from another age, from his shoes to his suntanned, chiselled profile and the thick white hair that crowned his head.

  He had also brought his old diplomat’s briefcase with him. It may have been a thin, worn affair in pale leather but it was simultaneously a sure sign that there was some good business in the offing. Bäckström knew that from previous experience. Just as much as he knew that, if things were sufficiently urgent, GeGurra’s briefcase was capacious enough to contain a large brown envelope as soon as the handshakes were over and practical details agreed.

  In spite of his own impeccable appearance, Bäckström always felt a pang of envy when he saw GeGurra. He wasn’t remotely like your average gypsy, he thought. Who would believe he grew up in a caravan packed with all the other folk-dancers in his massive family, travelling round the country in the good old fifties, stealing chickens, tin-plating copper pans and – for good measure – robbing the occasional pensioner?

  ‘Marvellous to see you, Bäckström. Marvellous to see you,’ GeGurra repeated as he squeezed Bäckström’s right hand in both of his.

  ‘Good to see you too,’ Bäckström grunted. Must remember to count my fingers afterwards, he thought.

  GeGurra started their meeting by giving Bäckström a surprise. Instead of going into the large restaurant and settling down at their usual secluded table, they took the lift up one floor and walked right through the great Opera House. At the end of the corridor GeGurra stopped and tapped a code into the lock of the thick oak door, which immediately swung open with a discreet click.

  In honour of the occasion, because it had been quite a while since they last met, and considering all the important things they were going to discuss, GeGurra had made sure that they would be able to eat, drink and socialize in peace.

  ‘This is a private restaurant run by Operakällaren,’ he explained, gesturing to Bäckström to go inside. ‘There’s only a very select number of members, and this evening there will be just the two of us.’

  Hardly the sort of place where you were likely to run into the Anchor, Toivonen or any of his other impoverished colleagues, Bäckström thought as soon as he had sat down at the window table for two, which was already laid with a white linen cloth, ornately folded napkins, silver cutlery and a large array of sparkling crystal glasses. Not even Cajsa with the rat, even though she was district police chief, would be let into this little hideaway, he thought.

  The staff, too, appeared to be well prepared. Without even asking, they had been brought their usual drinks. A Czech pilsner and a Russian vodka worthy of a proper superintendent, and a large dry Martini with a saucer of olives for his more refined host.

  ‘Cheers, Bäckström,’ GeGurra said, raising his glass. ‘Something tells me this is going to be a particularly pleasant evening.’

  ‘Cheers to you too,’ Bäckström said. He nodded, snapped his neck back and downed half his glass in one smooth movement.

  ‘As far as the food is concerned, I don’t think you have any reason to worry,’ GeGurra said, putting his glass down after a cautious sip. ‘I’ve taken the liberty of ordering. First, a little Swedish smorgasbord, as a simple, preliminary tribute to our Swedish summer – herring, vendace caviar, smoked eel, Skagen prawn salad, butter, cheese, bread and tiny new potatoes, fresh from the rich soil of Skåne. All the usual, you know. I did, admittedly, exchange the Swedish liver pâté for French foie gras, but I don’t think you’ll have any reason to be disappointed. After that, we shall have grilled veal fillet, and for dessert I was going to suggest that meringue pie I know you’re so fond of.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ Bäckström said. Nothing over the top. Not in these difficult times, when half of Europe is on the brink of starvation, he thought.

  ‘I hope you won’t be offended if I begin by asking a little question,’ GeGurra said, leaning back in his chair and smiling at him and turning his glass in his well-manicured fingers. ‘As I mentioned on the phone, I’ve been abroad on business for a while, but when I checked online to see what was happening at home I saw the news that Eriksson the lawyer had apparently been murdered, and that my dear friend … in the usual, estimable way that has become your trademark within the Swedish police service … had been given the task of leading the search for the perpetrator.’

  ‘Yes,’ Bäckström said, nodding. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘In that case, I believe that I might for once be able to help you, my dear friend, by making a tiny contribution to the great investigative effort.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ Bäckström said. Even if the bastard talks like he’s got a red rose stuck up his arse, he thought.

  74

  A tiny contribution to the great investigative effort, and before Bäckström leaned back to listen to GeGurra, their admirable maître d’ had taken the opportunity to refill his glass. And he was quiet as well, Bäckström thought. Just appeared and topped him up, without saying a word, and without you having to tap the glass to get his attention.

  On Friday, 17 May, some two weeks before he had been murdered, Thomas Eriksson had called GeGurra and asked to meet him to get help in valuing a small art collection that one of his clients had given to him to sell. Because
GeGurra was due to travel to London that evening, they had met in his office in Gamla stan that same afternoon.

  ‘He was most insistent,’ GeGurra explained. ‘I had a number of things to do in advance of my trip, but when he heard that I was going to be gone for almost three weeks, he wanted to meet before I left, at all costs. Because he was so persistent, I gave in. He appeared at my office that afternoon.’

  ‘You already knew him,’ Bäckström said, more as a statement of fact than a question.

  ‘Not personally,’ GeGurra said, shaking his head. ‘I met him in connection to a court case some years ago. I had been called in as an expert witness. By the prosecutor, in case you were wondering. The case concerned a large art fraud in which Eriksson was defending the principal suspect. Fake pictures, supposed to be by Matisse and Chagall, lithographs, quite a catch.’ GeGurra sighed, shaking his head sadly.

  ‘You said he wanted help with a valuation.’

  ‘A small collection, twenty objects in all, mostly paintings. All Russian, items dating from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In total, there were fifteen paintings, all of them so-called iconographic images.’

  ‘Iconographic images,’ Bäckström repeated.

  ‘Yes, or icons, as they’re also known. I assume you’re familiar with the term?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Bäckström said, who had attended Sunday school as a child. ‘They’re those pictures of Christian saints? Angels and prophets and other holy figures from our biblical history?’

  ‘Within the Orthodox Church,’ GeGurra clarified with a nod. ‘In a purely descriptive sense, one might say that they are illustrations to the Bible and other religious texts, but they are also part of the holy message, not least a way of transmitting and expressing it, and often, just as you say, they are portraits of people who have been significant to the history of the Christian Church.’

  ‘Yes, I know what you mean,’ Bäckström lied, nodding piously as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  ‘The tradition of painting icons dates back to the sixth century AD and, during the almost fifteen hundred years that have passed since then, there have been tens of millions of icons painted,’ GeGurra went on. ‘Throughout history, they have been a feature of practically every Orthodox home, one or more of them, assuming of course that people had the financial wherewithal to buy an icon to put in their own home.’

  ‘Expensive things,’ Bäckström agreed, taking a fortifying gulp of the excellent vodka. ‘Especially Russian icons, if I’ve understood correctly.’

  ‘No, not at all,’ GeGurra said, shaking his head. ‘It’s more a sort of religious folk art, often of mediocre or almost worthless quality. There’s an awful lot of it about, and the market’s full of modern copies. You can buy an average Russian icon for around a thousand kronor, and if you go into any junk-shop in St Petersburg you usually find stacks of them.’

  ‘So why did he want you to value them, then?’ Bäckström said. ‘It sounds to me like it was barely worth the bother of dragging them down to your office.’

  ‘He didn’t,’ GeGurra said with a faint smile. ‘He brought pictures of the objects he wanted me to look at. Pictures that had been taken in connection to a previous valuation, and they were good enough for me to make a preliminary assessment. What he showed me wasn’t a bad collection at all. The value of the various objects was above average for ordinary icons, even now the Russian art market has gone through the roof.’

  ‘What sort of money are we talking about?’ Bäckström said.

  ‘Well, there were fifteen icons in total, all of them pictures of saints. I valued fourteen of them at between fifty and two hundred thousand Swedish kronor. Each, I mean, which is more than decent for an ordinary icon. An average of around one hundred thousand per painting.’

  ‘And the fifteenth?’ Bäckström said, for some reason feeling saliva building up greedily in his mouth.

  ‘That one was worth as much as all the others put together, even though it wasn’t a real icon but more a way for the artist to make fun of his father-in-law. The artist’s name was Alexander Versjagin, born in 1875. He was a young radical, a troublemaker really, not the slightest bit interested in religious painting. He was a landscape painter, active towards the end of the nineteenth century. He died on New Year’s Eve, 1900. At the age of only twenty-five, in other words.’

  ‘What did he die of?’ Bäckström asked, intrigued.

  ‘He died of the great Russian illness. Drink, basically,’ GeGurra said with a gentle smile.

  ‘Sad story,’ Bäckström said. ‘Sounds like the lad had reasonable expectations, from what you’re saying.’

  ‘In spite of his youth, Versjagin was an extremely talented artist. Today, his work – and here I’m talking about his landscapes – sells for between five and twenty million. Sadly, he didn’t leave very many paintings behind. There are only twenty or so that are known to be his – which may possibly have been because he was a terrible rascal. Versjagin drank like a navvy, and he hated his father-in-law. The father-in-law was a wealthy man of German origin, a shipbroker in St Petersburg. He was also a good and deeply religious man, who, after much deliberation abandoned his Lutheran faith and converted to the Russian Orthodox Church. And it was his father-in-law who made sure that Versjagin and his family had a home, food, clothing and everything else they needed. Whereas Versjagin, in contrast, devoted himself to drinking, leading a riotous life, betraying his young wife, neglecting his little children and every now and then managing to produce the occasional excellent painting.’

  ‘Ingratitude is the way of the world,’ Bäckström said with a smug sigh.

  ‘Yes, and in this case it found expression in the fact that he painted an icon representing Saint Theodore, a fat and infamous Greek prelate from the sixteenth century who was expelled from the Orthodox Church because he kept having affairs with whores and conducting dubious financial deals in the name of the good Lord. Versjagin’s icon of Saint Theodore was also an excellent work of art, not least in a technical sense. It was painted on a wooden panel that was several centuries old, using glazing techniques that dated back to the Renaissance, and it was a gift from the artist to his father-in-law on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. The only problem with the present was that the resemblance between Saint Theodore and the artist’s father-in-law was a little too striking. Because Versjagin’s father-in-law also happened to be a rather corpulent man. Saint Theodore was also depicted dipping his right hand into a collection bag, which, to put it mildly, is an extremely unusual motif in this context. I’m sure you’ve already worked out what the father-in-law’s first name was.’

  ‘Yes, I have,’ Bäckström said. ‘I’m also getting an idea that you discovered that the works of art the lawyer wanted you to value were stolen.’ Renowned gangster lawyer was also a big-time fence, Bäckström thought, seeing the headlines in front of him the moment he got the chance to talk to his reporter.

  ‘No,’ GeGurra, said, shaking his head. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but on that point I’m inclined to think that the opposite was the case. If you want to know what I think, I have a feeling that things are considerably better than that, actually.’

  ‘You never asked Eriksson who this client of his was?’

  ‘Of course I did,’ GeGurra said, lowering his voice and leaning forward. ‘Eriksson was cold as a fish and slippery as an eel, but on this occasion I happened to believe him.’

  ‘So what did he say, then?’ Bäckström asked, leaning back in his chair.

  ‘He said his client was keen to preserve his anonymity, and that his oath of silence as a lawyer and solicitor was absolute. He had no intention of giving any indication at all about who his client was.’

  ‘And you bought that?’ Bäckström said.

  ‘Without the slightest hesitation,’ GeGurra said. ‘It’s very common in situations like this for the seller to prefer to remain anonymous. If we’re not dealing with an inheritance or someth
ing similar, the usual reason for the sale tends to be that the seller needs money. He or she is in financial straits, or is perhaps just a bit short, and that’s not the sort of thing you want to advertise.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Bäckström grunted, making do with a deep nod. Who’d want that? he thought. It’s bad enough being skint as a church mouse. Why make it even worse by talking about it?

  ‘But Eriksson assured me that there was no need for me to worry on that score. He had known his client for many years and was familiar with the history of the collection. It had been in the family’s ownership for three generations, since they received the collection as a gift about a hundred years ago.’

  ‘I’m guessing from what you’ve just said that you have an idea who Eriksson’s client was.’

  ‘Definitely,’ GeGurra said, smiling happily. ‘On that question I have very firm suspicions. That’s also one of the main reasons I wanted to talk to you.’

  ‘So who is it, then?’ Bäckström said, leaning forward over the table.

  ‘I’m getting to that, I’m getting to that,’ GeGurra said, and indicated with a slight gesture with his left forefinger that he wanted another drink.

  Bäckström merely nodded. GeGurra definitely wasn’t your average gypsy, he thought. He was cold as a fish, slippery as an eel, and sharp as a razor blade. It had to be fifty years since he’d given up stealing chickens and, compared to him, Eriksson must have seemed like a complete novice.

  ‘As far as a number of these items are concerned, I happen to know with absolute certainty that they were sold recently at auctions in Sweden and abroad,’ GeGurra said, sipping cautiously at his freshly filled glass. ‘I said as much to Eriksson, and that was when he began to ease the curtain up slightly.’

  Ease the curtain up? Where do they get this stuff from? Why do they talk like that? Bäckström thought, conscious that he had eased up on practically everything it was possible for a human being to ease up on. But never any curtains, as far as he was aware. Whatever the hell that was supposed to mean.