Another Time, Another Life (8 page)

Good thing he had brought his winter coat. The be-all and end-all of crime scene investigation gear, thought Bäckström with delight, an ample coat with deep pockets. He put some well-chosen bottles in the pockets and then locked up from the outside with the victim’s keys, pasted sealing tape on the door, and took off.

When he got home he sat down on the couch in front of the TV and inspected the goods he’d brought with him. Then he pondered how to set up the investigation so that he could mess with Jarnebring and that skinny police dummy he’d had with him.

“Cheers,” said Bäckström, raising his glass of malt whiskey toward the blurred mirror image of himself in the dark TV screen. True, he didn’t have any expensive furniture like the corpse, and it was high time that he brought home a whore who liked to clean and could get laid for clearing away the worst of it, but all in all he had it good enough. We’re drinking the same alcohol, the corpse and I, thought Bäckström and sneered. Although I’m alive while he’s dead. So he poured another ample shot before taking a pee, and just as he swallowed the last swig he saw the light. Suddenly he understood exactly the way things were, clear as water, the motive, the whole nine yards. Lit up like a plain under a flaming sky he saw the truth spread out before his eyes. Hell, thought Bäckström with delight. This is going to be fun.

Jarnebring’s day had not started out well, but it got much better as it went on. At the end of the day things got a little shaky again, and if he hadn’t pulled himself together as evening approached and showed some determination the day might have ended really badly. But there was finally a good end to it and a very promising weekend lay ahead. The reasons for this were complicated but were in all essentials connected with his love life, and personally he preferred not to think about it, much less talk about it.

For almost four years Jarnebring had been engaged. His fiancée worked as a uniformed police officer at Norrmalm. She was beautiful to look at, fun to be with, had considerable household talents, and led an orderly life. Besides, she was very much in love with Jarnebring, and so far all was well and good. The problem was the engagement, and time’s more and more rapid flight, drawing him into some kind of strange union that he couldn’t seem to get a handle on.

To start with, everything had been peace and harmony. Jarnebring moved in with his sweetheart. He had been extraordinarily well taken care of and seen their engagement as an omen of an imminently approaching marriage, eternal future harmony, and peaceful domestic happiness. Then he put on ten pounds, the ring on his left hand suddenly felt irritatingly tight, and their relationship started to flounder.

Unfortunately he had also discovered new sides to his “girlfriend,” such as the fact that it annoyed her when he called her his “girlfriend” instead
of his “fiancée.” If that was how things stood for him, she had said, if he saw their engagement as just a ploy to gain time, he might just as well “come out with it immediately” so she’d have the opportunity to arrange something else instead. So he’d moved back home again, they had reconciled, he’d moved back in, moved home, and so on as time literally rushed onward. At the moment he was living at home, but their plans were no more definite, and personally he would have preferred not to think about the future. But on this particular morning he had no choice, as soon as he opened the refrigerator door at a quarter past six in the morning.

Jarnebring never slept more than five or six hours even when he’d partied. When he got out of bed he was always alert and rested, but above all hungry and in need of an ample breakfast. Even as he was standing in the shower he had unpleasant premonitions, and when he looked in his refrigerator those premonitions were confirmed.

It did not look good. Yesterday’s roll lay collapsed in a bag—who could be so dense as to put bread in the fridge?—in the company of a wedge of cheese, a trickle of apple juice, and a very tired, soggy tomato that had clearly given its all. The only consolation in this wretched state of affairs was an almost full carton of eggs. When he saw the miserable prospects for a dizzyingly brief moment he considered calling his girlfriend despite everything—she lived on the way to work after all—but then he steeled himself, pushed that thought aside, and made the best of the situation.

As a policeman I have to approve of the situation, thought Jarnebring, without really feeling convinced of that. They’re not like we are, and the ones he had in mind were the great human collective among which his fiancée could also be counted. They’re like children, damn it, he thought with irritation as he put the pan on the stove and poured in enough water for both coffee and the eggs.

Half an hour later he was on the subway en route to work after a breakfast of instant coffee without milk, half a glass of juice, almost an entire tomato, yesterday’s roll with a few shavings of cheese and five soft-boiled eggs. He was prey to conflicting emotions, only partly connected to his first meal of the day.

• • •

When he arrived Holt was already in place behind her desk, and evidently she had been sitting there a good while because she had managed to do searches on the victim, his neighbors, and the cars that had been parked on the street.

“Haven’t come up with anything, unfortunately,” said Holt, shaking her head.

“Hell,” said Jarnebring. “Have you been sitting here all night?” He nodded toward the thick bundles of computer printouts on her desk.

“I got here an hour ago,” said Holt, smiling wanly as she shook her head. “Nicke is with his dad this week, so I had nothing better to do.”

I could have fixed that if you’d come by, thought Jarnebring, although mostly from habit and without feeling that old conviction he used to feel before he got engaged. Damn that too, he thought with irritation.

“Nicke,” said Jarnebring questioningly.

“My boy. Haven’t I told you about him? He’s six and he’ll start school next fall.”

“Great age,” said Jarnebring vaguely. “Does he have any siblings?” What was I thinking about just now? he thought.

“Just Nicke,” said Holt. “None on the way and none planned.”

I’ll just bet, thought Jarnebring, who had carried on that discussion on a number of occasions in recent years.

“Well well then,” said Jarnebring, smiling. What the hell should he say? “Has anything else happened?”

“Yes,” said Holt, digging out a yellow message pad. “Our colleague Danielsson at homicide called and wondered if you could go see him before the meeting.”

“I see,” said Jarnebring, taking the slip of paper. Must be that idiot Bäckström, he thought.

“Danielsson,” said Holt. “Is he the guy they call Jack Daniels?”

“Yes,” said Jarnebring, nodding. “Although I don’t understand why. He doesn’t drink more than most of the others and he can hold considerably more, even though he’ll soon be retirement age.”

“See you at the meeting,” said Holt, as she resumed leafing through yet another bundle of papers in the pile on her desk.

“Sit down, Jarnebring,” said Danielsson, nodding toward his visitor’s chair.

“You look energetic, old man,” said Jarnebring with warmth in his voice. There’s a real policeman, he thought.

“What the hell choice do I have,” said Danielsson, “as expensive as schnapps has gotten.” He was just as big and burly as Jarnebring. Twenty years older, sixty pounds heavier, blue-red in the face, and with a tie like a snare around his bull’s neck.

He must be built like a woodstove, thought Jarnebring, looking appreciatively at the medical miracle before him.

“What did you have in mind?” he asked.

Nothing in particular as it turned out, just the same old same old. A little talk about this and that between fellow police. An opportunity to thank Jarnebring for wanting to help out. Danielsson was nonetheless the assistant head of the squad.

“Nothing’s the same here since they killed Palme. You may be wondering why our colleague Bäckström is the lead detective. If he starts any foolishness just say the word and I’ll kick some sense into the little bastard.”

“It’ll work out,” said Jarnebring. “I can arrange that myself in any event.”

“I would think so,” said Danielsson, grunting appreciatively. There’s a real policeman, he thought.

Then the old man brought up his favorite subject. Things had been much better before and best of all in “Dahlgren’s day,” referring to the legendary old squad chief who had closed up shop more than ten years ago. The one who had ended his life by his own hand and with the help of his service revolver to save society unnecessary nursing expenses and himself an undignified life. Although that particular detail was not usually talked about, not even at the time when it was fresh in people’s memory. Back then you could still talk to the crooks, who had surnames that weren’t all consonants, even
if Danielsson chose to formulate that linguistic problem in a different way.

“Do you remember those days, Jarnie,” said Danielsson, “when you could spell the crook’s name? And understand what he said?”

“Sure, sure,” said Jarnebring, smiling a little. Although Blackie, Genghis, the Pistol Gnome, and Charlie Cannon weren’t always so fun to deal with either. Sometimes you could keep a straight face.

“Lars Peter Forsman … and Bosse Dynamite,” said Danielsson dreamily. “Even the Clarkster, that fuckup from Norrmalmstorg, although maybe that wasn’t exactly his fault. Do you remember when they wrote on the front page of
Little Pravda
that they’d given Bosse Dynamite an intelligence test and he had an IQ like a professor? Do you remember how furious Dynamite got? That was one talented guy. Completely normal. He didn’t want to be compared to any crazy academics. He should have sued those bastards.”

He’s the same as ever, thought Jarnebring, sneaking a look at his watch.

“Fine lads,” said Danielsson and sighed nostalgically. “And what the hell do we have now? A lot of Yugos and Polacks and Turks and Arabs and guys like that fuckup Bäckström who’s going to take charge of all the misery. And on the shelf there”—Danielsson nodded toward the bookshelf behind his desk—“I have two rows of binders with unsolved murders. Damn, Dahlgren would have killed me if he’d lived. Although he never even swore at you.”

“Dahlgren was good,” Jarnebring agreed, despite the fact that he was always going on about his diploma, he thought.

“Sure,” said Danielsson. “And here I am talking shit.”

Then they went their separate ways. Jarnebring went to his meeting and Danielsson leaned back, looked at the clock, and wondered whether he could slip down to the liquor store before lunch so he could avoid standing in line for hours. In recent years he’d had an awful ache in his knees, and it was the weekend anyway and soon it would be Christmas.…

The first meeting of the invesitgation team with lead detective Bäckström had astounded all those who knew him. He was alert and freshly
showered, despite what was for him an early hour, and radiated both effectiveness and a strong odor of menthol-flavored throat lozenges.

“Okay then,” said Bäckström energetically, opening up his folder of notes. “Allow me to welcome everyone. We have a murder and we have to like the situation.”

And not make things unnecessarily complicated and mistrust the chance coincidence, thought Jarnebring, something touching his heart at the same time as he thought about his best friend, police superintendent Lars Martin Johansson, and his three golden rules for a murder investigator. I’ll have to call Lars Martin. It’s been awhile. What the hell has happened to Bäckström anyway? He must have put vitamins in his nightcap, thought Jarnebring.

“Let’s see now, said blind Sarah,” Bäckström said, leafing among his papers with his fat right thumb. “First we have our corpse … Eriksson, Kjell Göran, born in 1944, single, no children, no known relatives whatsoever … that we could produce in any event.” Bäckström gave Holt an inquisitive look.

“No,” Holt confirmed, without needing to consult her own folder. “No wives, no children, no relatives.”

This is almost too good to be true, thought Bäckström, feeling how the keys to the victim’s apartment were keeping warm in his right pants pocket.

“Worked as some kind of bigwig down at the Central Bureau of Statistics over on Karlavägen. Isn’t that the monstrosity at the intersection down by the Radio and TV building?”

New nod from Holt, although more hesitant this time.

“Not exactly a bigwig,” she said. “He was bureau director, hardly a bigwig.”

Typical, thought Bäckström. Fucking attack dyke. As soon as you’re a little nice to them and extend a hand, they try to tear off your whole arm.

“Yes,” said Bäckström. “Bureau director. Wasn’t that what I said?”

“I don’t recall,” said Holt, “but a bureau director is hardly a bigwig,” she clarified. “That must be the lowest management position they have. Like a detective inspector with us.” Watch out, you fat little schmuck, she thought.

“He’s dead anyway,” said Bäckström. They always have to talk back,
he thought. Thank the Lord he had resisted the pressure and was still a free man.

“Where, when, and how,” said Jarnebring, looking encouragingly at Bäckström. So we can get out of here sometime, he thought.

“Exactly, exactly,” said Bäckström with newfound energy. “The scene of the crime is the victim’s residence. More precisely, the living room in his apartment on Rådmansgatan. Of that point we can be completely certain.”

Wiijnbladh nodded in agreement, without Bäckström condescending to give him a glance.

“So then there is the time,” Bäckström continued. “If we’re to believe our witness and the call she makes to the colleagues down in the pit, the whole thing seems to have gotten going about eight o’clock, quarter after eight, yesterday evening.” Bäckström let his gaze sweep across those assembled, but no one seemed to be of a different opinion.

“Cause of death … one or more knife wounds in the chest area … from the back. Wiijnbladh?” Bäckström looked inquisitively at Wiijnbladh, who nodded obligingly.

“Yes, well, I’ll be meeting the forensic doctor later today, but that’s my definite opinion as well,” said Wiijnbladh. “And I believe we’ve found the knife.”