The Blinded Man (16 page)

‘A caddy, perhaps?’

‘I was joking,’ said Chavez.

‘I realise that,’ said Hjelm. ‘But if we make a few changes in your story, it sounds more serious. The three men show up right after a tedious board meeting. They’ve had time to relax and chat a bit on the cab ride over, maybe had a few whiskies in the bar, and all the usual business bullshit comes pouring out of them. They’re fucking awful. Even the flowers wilt as they pass by. Their tongues are so loose, they flap. Okay? So maybe the caddy is a little late to arrive and starts off by making some mistake, who knows, but they start in on him, badgering him, or her for that matter, and laughing good-naturedly. Then for the rest of the game they treat him like shit, inescapable, but revolting. It’s possible that sexual harassment takes place. They casually force him or her so far down that it takes several years for the caddy to recover and start fresh.

‘Maybe their behavior was some sort of – what’s it called? – catalyst that ignited a bigger reaction already in process. Maybe this caddy had previously spent a few years in a mental hospital or something like that. And then he was let out with the rest of the lunatics during the general wave of cutbacks and release legislation. Finally he’s got hold of his life and figured out what triggered his persecution mania. Okay? He’s beyond
desperate
, everything seems clear, and then he takes them out, one by one, simply, quickly, elegantly. Sweet revenge.’

‘Very imaginative,’ said Chavez. He had stopped typing. ‘And not without a certain interest.’

‘I’m going to make a call,’ said Hjelm, and quickly punched in the number.

‘But if you’re right, then the killing is over now. And it doesn’t explain the Russian bullet. Plus it eliminates the whole financial angle.’

‘Hello, this is Paul Hjelm from the NCP. Who am I speaking to?’

‘Axel Widstrand,’ said the voice on the phone. ‘Secretary of the Stockholm Golf Association. Are you the one who took all of our guest books? Lena doesn’t have the authority to release them. Are you going to be done with them soon?’

‘
I
gave her the authority. Do the golfers normally use a caddy when they play a round at the club?’

‘I’d like to have those books back.’

‘Three of your members have been murdered in less than a week, and you want to have the books back? What kind of world are you living in?’

‘Oops,’ said Chavez. ‘Breach of confidentiality.’

Hjelm took the noon edition of
Aftonbladet
out of his top desk drawer and placed it in front of Chavez. The headline screamed:
EXTRA.EXTRA. THE POWER MURDERER STRIKES AGAIN. THREE CEOS KILLED. DIRECTOR NILSEMIL CARLBERGER’S BODY FOUND BY MYSTERIOUS WOMAN
.

‘“The Power Murderer”?’ Chavez held up the tabloid by one corner, as if it had been steeped in day-old vomit. ‘Newborn, yet already baptised.’

‘Might as well start using the name. Everybody else is going to,’ said Hjelm grimly, and went back to his phone call.

‘Just answer the question.’

‘Caddies?’ the secretary of the Stockholm Golf Association echoed on the other end of the line. ‘Sometimes.’

‘Sometimes?’

‘It’s rare that anyone would use a caddy for an ordinary round of golf. But it does happen.’

‘How do the players get hold of one?’

‘We usually provide them. But you have to make the request in advance.’

‘So if three men are going to play a round of golf, then you find a caddy for them. Is that right?’

‘As I said: if they make the request in advance. It takes a few hours to set it up. And in the case you mentioned, there would be
three
caddies. One for each of them. One caddy can’t carry clubs for three people, of course.’

Hjelm suddenly had an idea. It was a long shot, but he had to try.

‘Is Lena a caddy?’

‘Lena Hansson? She used to be. But now she works inside.’

‘Was she active as a caddy in September 1990?’

Axel Widstrand, secretary of the Stockholm Golf Association, was silent for a moment. Hjelm could hear
a
murmuring, as if the man had covered the receiver and was talking to somebody nearby.

‘Yes, she was. She didn’t stop until last season.’

‘If you’ve got her there on your lap, could you ask her if she remembers caddying for Kuno Daggfeldt, Bernhard Strand-Julén and Nils-Emil Carlberger when they played a round on the afternoon of 7 September 1990?’

‘I must say that I don’t appreciate your attempt at a joke. If that’s what it was.’

‘Ask her.’

Again a muted murmuring on the line.

‘No,’ said Widstrand.

‘Her memory is that good?’

‘Is there anything else?’

‘Is there any marking in the guest books that would indicate whether the players used a caddy?’

‘No. The players sign their names, and that’s all. Is there anything else?’

‘Not at the moment,’ said Hjelm, hanging up the phone and writing the name Lena Hansson in his notebook.

For future use.

The theory about a lone, persecuted caddy vanished as quickly as it had appeared. It was rare to use a caddy at all, and if the men, contrary to custom, had decided to do so, then there would have been three caddies, not just one. He drew a line through Lena Hansson’s name. If the murders stopped, he would return to the idea.

‘Listen to this,’ said Chavez, deeply immersed in the
evening
paper, which was no longer published in the evening. ‘“There should be no doubt whatsoever that we’re dealing with the first real terrorist action to occur in Sweden in a very long time. Not even during the heyday of the Red Army Faction did we see anything like this. Now top Swedish businessmen are being executed one after the other by this ‘Power Murderer.’ We may be facing the worst crime ever to take place in Sweden. The only thing we know for sure is that the police are clueless.” Which is their way of saying,’ Chavez added, as he put down the paper, ‘that since they’re not being told anything, there’s nothing to know.’

‘They forgot to mention the West German ambassador,’ said Hjelm. ‘But you’re too young to remember all that.’

Jorge Chavez stared at Hjelm. ‘Paul. If you persist in concocting old-fashioned intrigues and fiddling around with equally old-fashioned detective work – meaning if you refuse to accept that this has to do with moving money via global computer networks and professional hitmen, probably hired via the same computer networks – then you need to find out more about the people involved. Instead of relying on clichés about business bullshit and flowers that wilt as the potentates pass by. This is about real individuals, after all, not cartoon characters.’

‘A very touching speech. What sort of suggestions are you hiding behind your concern for the lost honour of these gentlemen?’

‘You don’t know enough about them. Go see Kerstin. Borrow her tapes. Learn about them.’

Chavez returned to the computer screen. For a moment Hjelm watched him working diligently. He saw the new breed of policeman, and for the first time he realised what a gulf existed between him and his officemate; it really had nothing to do with their backgrounds. Chavez, computer-literate, international, rational, without prejudices, able to maintain a certain distance, enthusiastic. If it was true that Hjelm was looking at the future of the police force, then it was not exactly a bad thing. When he thought it was possible that there might be a certain lack of heart and soul, he realised at the same instant that he was once again working from a cliché. For a moment he thought that his whole world consisted of nothing else. What the hell could he say about his own heart and soul? He felt old. What he saw in front of him was quite simply a man who was a better police officer than he was. With black hair and a Spanish surname.

Look deep into your heart, Hjelm
.

One of his tasks was to purge Grundström from his thoughts.

He went down the hall to the bathroom. He had a spot on his cheek. He tried squeezing it, but nothing came out. Instead, the skin around it split and began to flake off. He put a little water on his finger and dabbed the flakes of skin away. Then he went back out to the corridor, walked past his office and stopped outside room 303. He knocked and went in.

Gunnar Nyberg was tapping away on the computer keyboard, a woolly mammoth jabbing at a spaceship. The giant of a man looked as if he’d landed on the wrong planet.

Kerstin Holm was wearing a headset and typing on a small laptop. She turned off the Walkman lying next to her computer and turned to face Hjelm. Nyberg kept on typing, slowly, doggedly, reluctantly – but with great tenacity. Hjelm thought he was witnessing a basic personality trait.

‘A visitor,’ said Holm. ‘How unusual.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Hjelm, pointing at her laptop.

‘Haven’t you ever seen one of these?’ she asked in surprise, seeing his expression darken. Then she gave him a slightly ironic smile. He’d never thought of her as beautiful before.

‘I brought in my own,’ she said. ‘It’s faster.’

For three more seconds he thought how beautiful she was: the loose-fitting black clothes, the tousled brown hair, her alert eyes an even darker brown, the charming wrinkles that she didn’t try to hide, the perpetually ironic smile, the textbook-pure Göteborg accent. Then he blinked all these thoughts away. ‘I’d like to listen to your tapes,’ he said.

‘Is there anything in particular you want to hear?’

‘Not really. I want to see if I can get to know them better. Avoid clichés, if that’s possible.’

‘Maybe. Maybe not,’ said Holm, pointing to a skyscraper of cassette tapes in front of her. ‘Maybe a lot of clichés actually apply.’

‘What’s your own opinion?’

‘We can talk about that afterwards,’ she said, pushing the unsteady tower of tapes across the desk.

The tapes weren’t labelled, so Hjelm chose one at random and stuck it into his newly purchased Walkman.

Kerstin Holm’s voice said, ‘All right. Interview on 3 April with Willy Eriksson, born William Carlberger, 8–14–63. So you’re the son of Nils-Emil and Carlotta Carlberger?’

‘Yes. Although her last name is now Eriksson. Carla Eriksson. That was her maiden name.’

‘And you’ve taken the same name? And officially changed your first name too?’

‘Yes.’

‘But your brother is still named Carlberger, Andreas Carlberger. What’s the reason behind the name change?’

‘Hmm. I don’t know. I guess I just feel closer to my mother.’

‘You’re a doctoral candidate in sociology in Lund. Are you a Marxist?’

Willy Eriksson chuckled. ‘If I was, you wouldn’t have to ask the question.’

‘Was there some sort of ideological conflict between you and your father?’

‘I suppose you could call it ideological, even though I’d be a bit cautious about using that term. What you’re trying to get at, and I might as well make it easier for
you
, is the question of whether I hated that sweetheart of a man, Nils-Emil Carlberger. The answer is no. No hatred involved.’

‘No hatred and no sorrow?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Tell me about him. What was he like? Was he the classic capitalist? From a purely sociological perspective?’

‘An elegant way to steer the conversation into my own field of interest.
Touché
. Get the guy to talk.’

‘That’s enough. If you really want to make things easier for me, then help me out here. Otherwise we’re just going to waste a lot of time that neither of us can spare.’

‘If such a thing as a “classic capitalist” exists, from a “purely sociological perspective”, then I think that’s what he was. A materialistic and disciplined childhood with sporadic visits by the authoritarian father figure. Nothing new under the sun. No hugs, but no visible violence, either. Everything had to do with money and its shiny display. Andreas and Mama and I were all part of the shiny display. Andreas a bit more than I, and I a bit more than Mama. She was always a little too grey and plain to shine, no matter how much he tried to polish her up. And no matter how much I try to find redeeming features, or even any individual traits, I can’t find any. I’m sorry.’

‘I’m the one who’s sorry. Did he have any special interests or something that might present an alternative picture?’

‘I’ve really searched for something. When I was ten or
eleven
, when the inferno was raging at home the year before their divorce, I once asked him what exactly they made in his factory. He laughed and said, “Money”. I was hoping for something slightly ridiculous, and redemptive, behind all that accumulation of wealth: condoms or teddy bears or back-scratchers or nose-hair clippers or whatever the hell it might be. But of course it was a purely financial enterprise, from beginning to end. There’s not much comedy in money.’

Hjelm was getting bored, so he fast-forwarded. A crackling female voice said:

‘But Kuno, he was a real family man. He was.’

Hjelm rewound to the start of the interview: ‘Madame Hummelstrand,
s’il vous plaît
,’ said Kerstin Holm.

There was a rustling sound, and off in the background an angry female voice could be faintly heard: ‘
Touche pas le téléphone! Jamais plus! Touche seulement moi-même!
’ Finally an emphatic voice spoke into the receiver:

‘
Allô!
’

‘Is this Anna-Clara Hummelstrand, wife of George Hummelstrand, vice president of Nimco Finance?’

‘Who wants to know?’

‘Kerstin Holm, National Criminal Police in Stockholm. It has to do with the murders of Kuno Daggfeldt and Bernhard Strand-Julén.’

‘Oh, I see.
Une agentinne, n’est-ce pas?
’

‘
C’est peut-être le mot juste, madame
,’ said Holm, her voice ice-cold. ‘I want to point out that this conversation is being recorded. Let me begin: phone conversation with
Anna
-Clara Hummelstrand in Nice on 2 April at 17.02.’

‘Tally-ho!’ said Anna-Clara Hummelstrand. Only now was it clear how drunk she was. ‘
On dit peut-être agentesse
…’

‘Maybe I should get back to you after the fog has cleared,’ said Holm.

‘After what?’