Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End

CHAPTER XIV

And all that remained was the cold of winter

Stockholm in December

December had started unusually well for Bäckström and his colleagues in homicide. At the beginning of Lucia week, they’d taken the boat to Finland for the squad’s traditional Christmas conference. They’d gotten thoroughly primed even before going on board, and when Bäckström and the others went to piss away most of it before sitting down to eat lunch, Danielsson was in his cups on the shit-house stairs, even before they’d passed Lidingö on the way out.

This is, God help me, too good to be true, thought Bäckström. What a fucking phenomenal start!

First he and his colleagues just stood silently and looked at Jack Daniels where he was lying, motionless and with his drunken head at a mysterious angle against his chest, but then Rundberg, that ingratiating bastard, took him by the shoulder and shook him and raved that someone had to fetch a doctor, and then Jack Daniels suddenly sat up ramrod straight and stared at them with his bloodshot eyes.

“You cowardly bastards,” he hissed. “I don’t hear any applause.”

Then everything went back to normal again. At lunch Lindberg started nagging that no one ought to take more than one schnapps, given the afternoon meetings, but then old Jack Daniels, who was also back to normal again, told him to shut up and eat. After that he made a toast with Bäckström. First he just sat and glared at him the way he usually did, but then he suddenly grinned and raised his glass.

“Skoal, Bäckström,” said Jack Daniels. “Better luck next time we go to the can.”

Say what you like about old Jack Daniels, but he’s a tough bastard, thought Bäckström, who was already into his fourth and starting to get a little sentimental.

“Skoal, chief,” said Bäckström, “and I’m not one to complain.”

Clearly that had been the right answer, for Jack Daniels had grinned like an old killer bear and treated him to his fifth.

When they got to Helsinki, Bäckström slipped away from the rest of the company. He called up a Finnish friend, a cop who had good contacts and was made of the right stuff. They went to a nightclub where they picked up two Estonian girls whom they took home to the colleague’s place. Bäckström gave his specimen a real all-round lube job. She was a small, fat brunette with big tits and good speed on her little mouse. Both she and her friend were in Finland illegally, so neither of them had been particularly difficult to negotiate with when they were going to settle the price, and the colleague told them what he and Bäckström did for work. Before they left she even asked Bäckström if they couldn’t meet again sometime. Perhaps in Stockholm?

Dream on, you horny little cunt, grinned Bäckström as he staggered on board again in good time before departure. Out of pure curiosity he’d also trotted down to the meeting room and there sat Lindberg playing the conference game along with Krusberg, another ingratiating bastard, and a couple of the younger talents who probably didn’t have much choice. Bäckström sat down for a while to rest his weary feet, but Lindberg was carrying on about some meaningless statistics that no real policeman could bear filling in. Then he left and looked up the others, who to a man sat gathered in the bar, getting warmed up before departure. Then everything was as normal again.

…

When they came back to the precinct the day before St. Lucia’s Day, old Jack Daniels took Bäckström aside and asked him if he couldn’t arrange the practical details around the Lucia celebration so it wouldn’t be so damn expensive. Bäckström understood exactly what he meant, and even though it was at the last minute he succeeded in getting hold of his contact at the coast guard, who’d gotten a meeting with his own contact, who in turn had produced a whole case of mixed goodies at a reasonable price.

“No need to pay for the whole damn geriatric system because you want to have a drink,” said Jack Daniels contentedly when Bäckström returned with his booty after a well-executed assignment.

Then they celebrated Lucia according to good old traditions, and Bäckström didn’t even need to slave at the after-hours unit over the weekend. Danielsson, that decent old drunk, had given him a special assignment and written out all the overtime forms required so he would be able to rest his weary head and take the weekend off with a good conscience.

Monday didn’t start off badly either. He’d hardly managed to stick his foot in the precinct door before one of the younger talents came rushing in all out of breath to say that there’d been a double murder out in Bromma that demanded Bäckström’s immediate professional assistance.

Unfortunately it wasn’t as good as it sounded. Despite the address it was an ordinary gook murder. A crazy Iranian who had shot his wife and young daughter. True, the wife was Swedish, but what the hell could she expect when she’d gotten married to someone like that and told the poor bastard that she wanted a divorce besides? How fucking stupid can you be? thought Bäckström.

When the camel driver was done with the old lady and the kid he’d clearly tried to do himself in too, but that hadn’t gone too well. As so often with those types, his courage had failed him as soon as it concerned his own well-being. First he’d tried to shoot himself in the head, but naturally he’d missed and only parted his hair, and when the uniformed police had gotten there, he was sitting out in the kitchen whittling his wrists with an old bread knife. In other words, a completely ordinary gook murder, and the most shocking thing was perhaps that the poor bastard had a license for two weapons, a moose rifle and a shotgun. Clearly he’d taken the hunting test, and those morons at the licensing unit had licensed the hunting rifles to him. How the hell could a bastard like that get a license to hunt? In Sweden besides, thought Bäckström.

The rest was pure routine. Fortunately he’d got hold of that little fairy Wiijnbladh in tech, so the actual crime-scene investigation had gone quickly enough, and he’d gladly turned over the gook to a younger colleague who might need a few easy cases to practice on before things got serious, and it was then of course that the whole thing had gone to hell. As always when the real pro isn’t nearby. His younger colleague simply dropped the ball, and the good doctor had of course been smart enough to take the opportunity to stuff so many pills into the poor bastard that he hadn’t been able to talk. How fucking stupid can you be? thought Bäckström. And now his colleague had the chance of a lifetime to squeeze a proper confession out of the guy as he was lying there in intensive care with his eyes crossed and tubes in both arms.

“Have you thought about starting at the City Mission, lad?” said Bäckström, fixing his eyes on the little moron from hell when he came back from the hospital and stood in Bäckström’s office, whining that he couldn’t cope with his job.

The good doctor was clearly one of those intrepid citizens who took themselves too seriously. He’d admitted the murderer to the psychiatric unit, and the guy was simply lying there keeping his mouth shut. “Deeply depressed, beyond communication, and with apparent risk of ending up in a long-term psychotic state,” according to the fax that His Highness sent over to the squad as an answer to Bäckström’s own friendly question of whether he couldn’t be allowed to talk with the poor bastard. They intend to snatch the gook away from me, those bastards, and then they’ll release him for Easter as usual and he’ll suddenly be free as a bird and healthy as a horse, thought Bäckström, who’d been there before. But we’ll see the hell about that, he thought, and went in to Jack Daniels to procure a little extra help.

Unfortunately it appeared as though he might have chosen a better occasion. A hangover had clearly caught up with his honored boss, which no doubt only proved that not even a drunk like him could cope with partying the way they usually did before Christmas. Jack Daniels had gone completely nuts and Bäckström got the whole blame, despite the fact that he was innocent. Any more special assignments before Christmas were out of the question. And so were a large number of other things, if Bäckström, who came back from the hospital without a confession, understood the matter correctly.

“How fucking stupid can you be?” bellowed Jack Daniels in his sympathetic way, pounding his fist on the desk.

So Bäckström had to make the best of a bad job, gather together his bag and baggage, and drive himself back up to the hospital and question the gook. Late in the evening, besides, so he could be certain that that damn doctor was sitting at home celebrating his victory over justice along with the rest of the red-wine leftists. Although there you shit in your pants, thought Bäckström while he rigged up his tape recorder next to the bed. The gook himself was playing the nut-house game, looking at the ceiling with empty brown, tear-filled eyes and hands folded on the bedcover as if he really didn’t have anything to do with the matter but was just a completely ordinary psycho case in a large pile of innocent people.

This will be fun, thought Bäckström delightedly. He switched on the tape recorder, did the usual introductory tirades, and looked gently at the gook while he held out the photo he’d brought with him.

“I understand that you’re not feeling well,” said Bäckström amiably, patting him on the shoulder. “But I think you’re going to feel a lot better if you unburden your heart.”

It wasn’t a bad photo, in color, of course, and with good sharpness in all details, and it functioned completely perfectly. The daughter was two years old and had clearly been asleep when little gook-papa had come in to say goodnight for good. She’d had on white pajamas with big Mickey Mouses on them, and according to another photo, which Bäckström had seen in an album at home at the crime scene, she’d been really cute like all those gook kids always were.

Now, on the other hand, she didn’t look funny. Her dear father had clearly stuck the barrel of his moose rifle in through the slats of her little bed, set the muzzle against the base of her skull, and pulled the trigger. The bullet had gone diagonally down through the body and out through her belly. On its way it had taken with it the entire package of the small intestine, which was lying like a neat, pale pink ball outside her pajamas, covering at least one and a half Mickey Mouses. It was not a bad photo, as stated, and the gook only needed to cast one brown goat eye on it in order to reconnect sufficiently for the damn doctor to be up on charges for his crazy diagnosis.

His mouth started going like a sewing-machine needle while the tears and sweat sprayed off him. Broken Swedish, of course. For long intervals he’d been completely incomprehensible, and for awhile he of course tried to put the blame on his wife, but Bäckström nonetheless got it done, although he had to toil like a galley slave with the tape recorder when not being forced to keep his interrogation object in bed where he should be if he was ever going to get healthy. It only took an hour to put all the pieces in place. Then the nurse was allowed to come in and stick a sturdy injection into the poor bastard as a reward, and before Bäckström left he took the opportunity to give him a few parting words.

“I’m certain that you’re going to feel much better now that you’ve spoken up,” said Bäckström kindly, patting him on the arm and smiling mournfully toward the nurse. “Tsk, tsk, tsk, it’s too bad about some people.”

It was clearly strong stuff she’d poked into him, for when Bäckström left he was just lying there staring at the ceiling again. Just like he’d done an hour earlier.

…

But ingratitude is the world’s reward. The following day Jack Daniels came into Bäckström’s office and raged and was not the least bit grateful. The gook had evidently taken his own life during the night after Bäckström’s visit, despite the fact that he’d been given all the chances in the world to relieve his inner pressure. So it turned out to be the after-hours unit anyway, and considering how his finances looked after the most recent partying he didn’t have any choice other than to slave over both Christmas and New Year’s. What a fucking world, thought Bäckström gloomily. What fucking people there are and what fucking lives they live.

Wiijnbladh had a lot to do, chairman of the party committee that he was, and when he was finally starting to put all the details in order, that fat loudmouth Bäckström in homicide called and nagged that he needed help with a double murder. Nice as he was he naturally joined in, despite the fact that he had more important things on the program. This was a tragic family affair. Two spouses had quarreled, the man had clearly met a new woman and wanted to separate, and in her agitated and deranged condition the wife had taken his moose rifle and gone upstairs where she first shot their little daughter and then herself. Normally it was the other way around, i.e., it was the husband who shot the wife and children, but Wiijnbladh thought that the trace evidence spoke clearly, even if Bäckström refused to listen to that version. And as he neither had the time nor the inclination he settled for finishing his own business, and then he returned to his real assignment, organizing the celebration of the boss’s sixtieth birthday.

The boss, whose name was Holger Blenke, was something of a legend within criminal investigation. To start with he’d been a cadre commander in the cavalry-that was at the end of the Second World War-but as soon as the war was over he’d applied to the police department. Had to patrol his way up like everyone else to eventually end up in the tech squad, because he was a handy fellow who not only had a good way with horses but generally liked to fiddle around with things.

Blenke had already been around during the old boss’s time, when the technical squad was established; it was with him that Blenke had earned his spurs. You might well say that it was the old boss who’d broken ground and after that it was Blenke who had administered the forensic fields that the old boss had plowed up, thought Wiijnbladh, hurrying to put this well-thought-out formulation down on paper. In the midst of everything else, of course, he was to make the speech in honor of the boss. Unfortunately it hadn’t gone so well for the old boss in the autumn of his years. Instead most indications were that in a drunken delusion he had beaten his oldest son to death in connection with a garden-variety apartment break-in, but because Blenke had been in charge of the crime-scene investigation, it had nonetheless finally been resolved for the best. The case had been written off as an accident, and if nothing else the efforts Blenke had made then indicated his qualifications to be the old boss’s obvious successor. But to bring up such unpleasant details in a birthday speech was of course completely out of the question, and Wiijnbladh had decided early on to stick to the more general and all-embracing features of the history of the squad when the time came. That was still the most interesting, while the other things were just the usual police-station gossip, thought Wiijnbladh.

The work of planning his big day had unfortunately not proceeded without friction. Differing ideas and conflicting desires had demanded their tribute of compromises in matters both high and low, and at times Wiijnbladh had to mobilize all the diplomatic ability he was capable of in order for anything to get done. First they’d argued about the present for which they were going to collect money. Olsson, who never missed a chance to make himself seem important, had suggested that a travel stipend should be established in the boss’s honor, but considering the relevant amounts the whole idea was ridiculous to start with. Including a short stay, the money would hardly be enough to take you round trip to Växjö or Hudiksvall, quite apart from the question of what exactly you might be able to pick up in terms of knowledge of criminal investigation in such places.

Instead Wiijnbladh had underscored that in a context like this it must obviously be a personal gift, and the only natural thing was to proceed from the boss’s personal interests and hobbies. That was why they had finally decided to buy a chain saw, for the boss had a little summer place out on Muskö south of the city, and his major free-time interest was felling trees on his property.

After this they’d gone over to planning the party itself, and that was when things had gone seriously wrong within the committee. First Olsson, who was always the same, had developed an extremely peculiar idea that amounted to devoting the whole day to lectures and seminars where various problems and methods of criminal investigation were elucidated, but an otherwise united party committee had fortunately voted him down at once, even if one or two-considering the context-had perhaps not expressed themselves so well.

“The Chimney Sweep doesn’t give a damn about such novelties” was how one of the really old foxes on the squad summed it up.

Chimney Sweep was the boss’s nickname, even if it wasn’t what you called him when he was listening, and the reason he’d gotten this nickname was that he had always been a warm adherent of the classic old technique of searching for fingerprints with the help of brush and coal powder. Fingerprints in particular were Blenke’s great professional passion. The one time he could get really engaged and worked up was when he got onto the subject of what he called the Great Betrayal. As early as the beginning of the century, and throughout the Western world, apparently, the technique of using coal powder had been abandoned in favor of various other mysterious powders, liquids, light rays, or even gases that reacted chemically with the prints you were seeking, and which were completely incomprehensible to regular, normally constituted people.

“Gas me here, gas me there, the only gas we policemen need is tear gas,” as Blenke himself had so pointedly concluded the discussion when the question had been on the agenda during a morning meeting at the squad.

And as always, of course, it was that loser Olsson-Doctor Olsson, as his colleagues called him, even though he’d probably only gone to elementary school like all the others-who recommended that perhaps one ought to take a closer look at these new methods. Who was going to do that, since all the books were in foreign languages? Olsson seemed to have good contacts, in any case, as was shown most recently, when the ombudsman’s office had courted him despite his miserable efforts in connection with the murders of those three Turkish narcotics dealers.

But clearly it had been that careerist Johansson, who was head of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, who had chosen to write an amazingly lax statement that the ombudsman’s office had obviously accepted.

The whole thing was inexplicable, thought Wiijnbladh. What interest could a bigwig like Johansson, known for stepping over colleagues’ bodies if needed, have in supporting a lightweight like Olsson? Probably it was just an expression of the general arrogance and laziness that characterized people like Johansson, the Butcher from Ådalen, as certain members of the uniformed police called him. Personally Wiijnbladh had only met one leader within the corps who possessed the moral stature, the knowledge, and the capacity for practical action that one ought to have the right to demand of every person at that level. Police Superintendent Claes Waltin with SePo, thought Wiijnbladh with warmth. A man who had also personally sought him out to ask for advice on various technical questions of interest to the closed operation.

If he’d only had the opportunity he would have sent him a personal invitation to Blenke’s dinner, but for cost reasons the number of invitations to persons outside the squad had been kept to an absolute minimum. And considering the locale and the remaining arrangements that the party committee’s majority had voted through against his express wishes, it was surely just as well. Waltin on a Finland boat, thought Wiijnbladh with a shudder.

For all too many of his colleagues it was unfortunately the case that the boundary between a normal party and a conference was fluid. A work conference was a party that your employer was paying for, and the most popular locale for the Stockholm Police Department’s conferences was the boat to Finland, which regrettably-in the midst of the drunkenness, spending, and common immorality that were its essence-provided conference rooms. As a sort of alibi, thought Wiijnbladh, and the sorrow that was always with him could sometimes turn into pure impotence and despair.

Obviously his colleagues had also gone behind his back and made contact with the travel agent in advance. Because the technical squad had already been one of the shipping company’s steady customers for many years, there hadn’t been any problems in negotiating various benefits when it was finally time to celebrate the squad’s boss. Wives, fiancées, live-ins, and regular girlfriends would thus be allowed to come along for free, Blenke himself would have the shipowner’s cabin, the price of both liquid and dry goods had been heavily discounted, and the matter was already decided. A trip with the wife on a Finland boat, thought Wiijnbladh, and the hopelessness he suddenly felt was without limit.

They sailed the week before Christmas. The entire squad, including partners both formal and informal, as well as the birthday boy himself, bringing along his wife and a half dozen close friends; in total a good sixty people, and to start with everything had gone according to the program. First a reception with champagne, which the shipping company had paid for, a few short speeches along with the presentation of gifts. Blenke was very happy with his chain saw, and so far all was well and good.

But then everything reverted to the norm again. First there were free activities until the evening’s celebration dinner, and all too many of the participants, exactly as he’d feared, used that time in the usual unfortunate way and for the usual unfortunate reasons. And when it finally came time for Wiijnbladh’s celebration speech-minutely prepared for several months-the atmosphere was at such high volume that only those sitting closest to him were able to make out what he was saying. After dinner his wife disappeared, as usual and for the usual reasons, as usual unclear where and with whom. And when she returned to their little cabin late that night he-as usual-pretended to be asleep.

I’m going to murder her, thought Wiijnbladh while she, giggling and intoxicated, reeking of alcohol, sweat, and sex, undressed, lay down in her bunk, fell asleep immediately, and started snoring loudly. But then he must have fallen asleep himself, for when he woke up their boat was already at the dock. This he understood from the sounds and voices and the water that had stopped moving against the wall of the cabin where they were lying.

I must see how the weather is, he thought, and as silently as he could he pulled his clothes on and sneaked out on deck. It was overcast and gray and very cold, despite the fact that there was snow in the air. He didn’t feel sorrow any more, just hopelessness and despair. Impotence naturally, because he was the type who couldn’t even manage to kill his own wife. He couldn’t even kill her.

The closer it got to Christmas, the tighter the clouds had massed over Berg’s head. At the final weekly meeting of the year-they usually took a break over Christmas and New Year’s, since everyone was off anyway and nothing in particular was usually going on-he was once again compelled to take up the question of the prime minister’s personal security and his awareness of the issue. Nonexistent awareness of security, thought Berg, but naturally he didn’t say that, and fortunately he’d forgotten how many times he’d kept it to himself.

The old threats against the prime minister remained. The only thing that had happened was that new threats had emerged. The Harvard affair, with attention from the media, seemed to have released a pure spirit of readiness among the country’s ideologues, and a day did not pass without new reports coming in of fresh lunatic recruits to the ranks.

“I’m not going to make things worse than they are,” said Berg with unexpected frankness, “and I’m not trying to maintain that these characters can be compared with the Jackal or other professional terrorists and hired killers”-Berg paused before he continued-“but at the same time let us not forget that the most common attacks against highly placed politicians and other similar persons are actually carried out by the so-called solitary madman. A simple man who works with simple means and unfortunately can attain gruesome results.”

“I have understood that my esteemed boss has declined all security over the holidays,” said the special adviser behind half-closed eyelids and with the usual irritating smile.

“Yes,” said Berg curtly. “He wants to be in peace and celebrate Christmas and New Year’s with his family and a few close friends.”

“The blessed Christmas season,” nodded the special adviser under cover of his half-closed eyelids and his wry grin.

“What worries me most,” continued Berg, who didn’t intend to let himself be sidetracked, “is that he clearly intends to spend almost a week at Harpsund.”

“I know, I know, for grace has even befallen me in the form of a small invitation,” sighed the special adviser.

“Harpsund is a security nightmare,” said Berg, nodding with emphasis at everyone at the table.

“You’re thinking of that cook they have,” said the special adviser. “Yes, she’s really a nightmare. If I actually accept, I’m thinking seriously about bringing my own food.”

“I’m not thinking of the cook,” said Berg, who was not inclined to witticisms. “I’m thinking about one or several assailants, and considering the way things are down there, none of them needs to be particularly well qualified.”

“I actually brought that matter up with my dear boss,” said the special adviser. “That head of personal security you have can be extremely tedious and finally I gave up. So I talked with him, but he simply wants to be left in peace. It’s been a little much lately, if I may say so, and if I should be so indiscreet now as to quote him he doesn’t think that the crime rate in municipal Flen during the approaching holidays constitutes a major problem in his existence, not right now anyway. He just wants to have a few days off, wife and children, peace and quiet, presents and tree, pleasure and enjoyment, no bodyguards, no police whatsoever, not even a little guard in a red Santa suit lurking down by the gate.” The special adviser chuckled with delight.

“I too am hoping for a peaceful holiday,” said Berg seriously.

“Yes, we all are, I guess,” said the minister of justice, sounding unusually engaged. “Personally I’m going to celebrate Christmas with my old mother, and considering that she’s almost a hundred I’ll really have to decline…”

“Can you arrange it so that he avoids having them in the house?” interrupted the special adviser.

“Yes,” said Berg. “I can do that. I can arrange it so that he doesn’t even need to see them.” Even if that requires more than twice as many resources, he thought.

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” decided the special adviser. “I’ll warn the boss so he doesn’t take out his moose rifle and shoot them by mistake if they’re sneaking around in the park.”

“That would certainly be practical,” Berg agreed.

“Although I can’t guarantee that he won’t try to invite them in for mulled wine and ginger snaps,” said the special adviser. “My dear boss easily turns sentimental this time of year, and we shouldn’t underestimate his ability to adapt himself to… what is it you policemen say?… his ability to like the situation.”

“Ginger snaps and mulled wine, that would certainly be fine,” said Berg, smiling.

“Not a lot, of course,” said the special adviser, raising his hand in a slightly dismissive gesture.

After the meeting they had lunch at Rosenbad, which had been a tradition for many years. During the bourgeois administration it had often been really nice, with ample refreshments and conversation that had been both frank and agreeable. And you didn’t need to sit and wonder the whole time what they really meant when they said something, thought Berg. Although this wasn’t a bad lunch either. Everyone except Berg, who was going back to work afterward, had schnapps with the little Christmas plate that had been served as an appetizer. The minister had two, the special adviser probably three by filling up his glass on the sly when he didn’t think anyone was looking, while the chief legal officer was content with a half to indicate solidarity.

With coffee the minister and chief legal officer excused themselves, having other urgent business, but the special adviser wanted to talk with Berg alone.

“Damn it, Erik,” he said. “Considering that it’s almost Christmas and everything, can’t I treat you to a cognac with coffee?” Suddenly he also seemed completely different. Almost like a young boy who was in a quandary and wanted the help of an adult.

“A little one, then,” said Berg, smiling. “If you’re going to have one too?”

“Sure I will,” said the special adviser, sounding normal again. “It’s possible that I’ll have two, but that’s a question for later.”

“I’m listening,” said Berg, nodding and leaning back. Perhaps there will be Christmas this year despite everything, he thought.

“Have you heard of a police superintendent named Lars Johansson?” asked the special adviser. “Big burly Norrlander, my age, works as head of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation? I believe he is going to be a bureau head after New Year’s.”

Have I heard of Lars Martin Johansson from Näsåker? thought Berg. And how do I respond to that? he thought.

“Yes,” said Berg.

“What’s he like?” said the special adviser with curiosity, leaning forward.

Berg nodded thoughtfully, taking a bigger gulp of the cognac than he had intended, to have time to think.

“What’s he like? What do you mean?”

“I mean, what’s he like as a detective?”

“He’s the best,” said Berg. For he is, of course, he thought with surprise at the same moment as he said it.

“What’s he good at?” The special adviser nodded at him to continue.

“At figuring out how things stand,” said Berg. “Actually, it’s almost a little uncanny. Sometimes you get the idea that he’s one of those people who can see around corners,” he continued, smiling. Ask me, he thought. Despite the fact that it must be almost ten years ago.

“You sound almost as if he can walk on water,” said the special adviser.

“I’m almost certain he can’t do that,” said Berg. Nor would he ever dream of doing it, either, he thought. Not Lars Martin Johansson.

“Is there anything else he’s good at?”

“He’s taciturn,” said Berg with more feeling than he intended. Ask me, he thought, for on more than one occasion he had thanked God that Johansson was clearly made that way.

“Not a telltale, exactly,” the special adviser clarified.

“If he’s decided not to say anything, then nobody hears anything,” said Berg, nodding emphatically. “The problem I guess is rather that he follows his own mind when he makes a decision.” What are you getting at? he thought.

“Sounds like a thinking person,” said the special adviser, sighing lightly. “He has none of the faults or deficiencies of us normal mortals?”

“Well,” said Berg. “On some occasions I’ve gotten the idea that when he’s finally figured out how things stand, then the rest of it is less important to him.” Fortunately, he thought.

“That justice must take its course and all that?”

“You might possibly put it like that,” said Berg. “Are you looking for my successor?” he continued, smiling wanly.

“Certainly not,” said the special adviser, sounding almost a little shocked. “Haven’t I said that, by the way? Both I and my eminent boss are extraordinarily satisfied with your contributions. As far as we’re concerned, we’d be glad if you would stay until your dying day.” And if this Johansson is as you say, then he’s the last one we’re going to take instead, he thought.

“Nice to hear,” said Berg, smiling. “And if I could be completely forthright now, then I haven’t exactly always had that impression.”

“I know, I know,” said the special adviser, looking almost guilt-ridden. “I’ve always had problems with that bit. You should hear how my ex-wives and children describe me. It’s really terrible. But we’re working on that. It’s almost the only thing that Ulla-Karin and I are working on.”

“Ulla-Karin is your current wife,” said Berg with a certain hesitation, because he only had vague recollections of these rather muddled aspects of the special adviser’s personal file.

“No, for Christ’s sake,” said the special adviser with feeling. “Ulla-Karin is my psychiatrist-my therapist, that is. Excellent person, lecturer at Karolinska, smart as a poodle, as a whole kennel of poodles, actually.”

“That’s nice to hear,” said Berg neutrally. Wonder if he’s pulling my leg? he thought.

“My wives have always been completely crazy,” continued the special adviser, seemingly mostly to himself. “Completely stark raving mad.”

“It can’t have been easy,” said Berg sympathetically.

“What do you mean by easy?” said the special adviser vaguely. “Who the hell said you should have it easy?”

Yes, who said that? thought Berg, glancing quickly at his watch.

“Now to change the subject,” continued the special adviser. “This Waltin, he worries me, actually.”

And now he looked as he always did again although without the least suggestion of a smile.

There were four primary reasons for this unease that the prime minister’s special adviser expressed. The first was in regard to Waltin’s personality. Simply and summarily, without having met him, without being able to speak more particularly of why or even who he’d spoken with, he didn’t trust Waltin.

“I understand what you mean,” said Berg, and discovered that he sounded more compliant than he ought to have.

Wasn’t someone like him expected to defend his closest coworker?

“Waltin is not a typical police officer, if I may say so,” continued Berg.

“Nice to hear,” grunted the special adviser.

“But this much I think I can say,” Berg concluded, and this was no doubt an expression of the concern that he as boss had to show, “that during all the years that we have worked together, I have never had reason to criticize him for anything that he’s done in service.”

“Think about it,” said the special adviser.

The second reason was in regard to the so-called external operation. The special adviser had thought about that and come to the conclusion that it was not a good solution to the secret police’s completely legitimate demand for supervision of its own operation. And whether the head of the operation was good or bad as a person was actually less interesting when looking at the big picture, but if he was like Waltin it could go really badly.

“You don’t want to say more,” said Berg, trying to make his voice sound completely neutral.

“I was thinking that we could take that up after the New Year,” said the special adviser. “I’m actually still thinking.”

So that’s what you’re doing, thought Berg, who suddenly felt a familiar, insidious weariness.

The third thing concerned the Krassner case. Completely disregarding whether he’d actually taken his own life-as an old mathematician, the special adviser was aware that chance could sometimes provide the most unexpected results-this was nonetheless an affair that filled him with both wonder and displeasure. What was written in Krassner’s posthumous papers was of course only confused nonsense, but quite apart from the fact that he was hardly a budding Pulitzer Prize winner, was there nothing in his history that indicated that he should have been this confused and incompetent? Where, by the way, were the traces of his uncle who had had a central position with the American intelligence service for many years? At the embassy in Stockholm to boot. For while he had irrefutably held that post, he was conspicuously absent from Krassner’s posthumous papers.

“Not a trace of the old bastard. Nowhere,” said the special adviser emphatically.

“There’s unfortunately a risk that he might have put such papers as he might have received from his uncle somewhere else,” admitted Berg, who had thought about the matter himself. “In that case I’m pretty certain that they were left behind in the States.”

“There’s no risk they might have disappeared along the way?” The special adviser looked at him seriously.

“I really don’t think so,” said Berg with a certain emphasis. “Even if I’m only speaking for myself, I really don’t think so. We’re usually rather meticulous about that sort of detail.”

“Hmm,” said the special adviser, looking as though he was thinking deeply.

…

The fourth reason dealt with a very unpleasant story, and if it was true, Berg had been nurturing a snake in his bosom. Fortunately it was also so concrete that he ought to be able to check it out. And if there was something to it, then Waltin’s days were numbered, at least with him. The only question that remained was where in that case he would get to number the rest of them.

“You don’t want to talk about where you’ve gotten your information?” asked Berg.

“Far be it from me to insult a man of your intellectual abilities,” said the special adviser, smiling.

“Thanks for the compliment,” said Berg. The military, he thought. Who else?

“One last question,” said the special adviser, indicating that that was the case by pushing his coffee to one side and making an effort to get up from the table.

“I’m listening,” said Berg.

“Waltin and that Johansson,” said the special adviser. “There’s no possibility that they’re in it together?”

“No,” said Berg. “I take that to be completely out of the question.” What is it he’s saying? Berg wondered to himself.

“Why? Why is it out of the question?”

“I don’t really know how I should put it,” said Berg thoughtfully. “Let me say this. If what you believe about Waltin is true, then Johansson is probably the last person that he would be in league with. As Johansson would have seen to it that he landed in jail long ago.”

“If it isn’t true, then? Might they possibly see each other socially?”

“I know they’ve met professionally at some point,” said Berg. “And I’m as certain as you can be that they’ve never met or even talked to each other in the private sphere. No,” said Berg, shaking his head. “I think you can forget that.”

“Why?” persisted the special adviser.

“Johansson is a real policeman,” said Berg. “He would never dream of socializing privately with Waltin.”

Like Persson, thought Berg. Or me too, for that matter.

“But Waltin himself? I understand the fellow can be frightfully charming if he shows that side of himself?”

“Waltin doesn’t like real policemen,” said Berg seriously. For that’s of course how it was, he thought; he’d figured that out early on. We’re probably not refined enough for him, thought Berg, smiling wanly.

“Interesting,” said the special adviser, suddenly looking happy. “He actually thinks that you real policemen are real rabble, some sort of garbagemen of the legal system,” the special adviser clarified with obvious enjoyment.

“More or less,” said Berg. I’ll be darned how happy you’ve turned, he thought.

When he was sitting in the car to go back to the office he suddenly changed his mind and asked his chauffeur to drive him home. Following up on that story about Waltin that the special adviser had told him required more quiet than his place of employment could provide. Then he had to think about that strange, concluding question that the special adviser had asked. That Johansson and Waltin could be in it together, completely disregarding what “it” might be, was an impossible idea. It was quite simply wrong, because they didn’t do anything together, never had and never would, thought Berg.

The special adviser, on the other hand, was not a nitwit. If you were to believe the test results in his personal file, he was as little a nitwit as was humanly possible in a purely statistical sense. But he had nonetheless asked the question. There must be something he’s heard and gotten wrong, thought Berg. Rather recently, besides. At that conference on total defense, thought Berg. For that was certainly where he’d met Johansson. What was it Johansson had said that disturbed the special adviser so much that he was forced to go to Berg to get help? Johansson must have said something about Krassner, thought Berg, and as soon as he’d had that thought his whole line of reasoning became incomprehensible. What in the name of heaven could someone like Johansson know about someone like Krassner? thought Berg.

…

As soon as Berg stepped inside the door of his cozy house in Bromma he sat down with the telephone and called his faithful coworker Persson. Berg had two things that he wanted him to find out.

“If you can drag yourself here I’ll even see to it that you get a little food,” said Berg with the gruff solicitude that naturally ensued when you’d shared the front seat of the same radio car for a long time.

“You’ve just made me an offer I can’t refuse,” said Persson, and twenty minutes later he was standing on Berg’s front stoop.

When Berg had fed Persson, they moved to the study with coffee and a cognac each to be able to sit in peace. First Berg told the story about Waltin he’d heard from the special adviser and that he in turn had probably gotten from the military intelligence service. That was taken care of in less than ten minutes, and Persson didn’t make a single notation in his little black book.

“Well,” said Berg. “What do you think?”

“I’ll believe anything at all about Waltin,” said Persson. “But you knew that already, of course.”

“Yes,” said Berg, smiling faintly. “I think I’ve understood that much.”

“I’ll check it out. You had something else,” said Persson.

“Yes,” said Berg. “It concerns that dreadful Krassner. At least I’ve gotten the idea that it does.”

“The do-it-yourselfer,” said Persson.

“Exactly,” said Berg.

“I’m listening,” said Persson.

For some reason it took Berg almost a half hour to explain and to recount the conclusions he’d drawn from the fact that the special adviser had asked him whether Johansson and Waltin might be in this together. Persson sat silently the whole time, and he did so even when Berg was through.

“Well,” said Berg. “What do you think?”

“I’m thinking,” said Persson, holding out his glass. “May I have another cognac?”

…

When Persson had gotten his cognac, he sat silently for another few minutes without even sniffing the expensive drops. He just sat there, sunk in his chair with his gaze turned inward. Finally shook his head, looked at Berg, and raised his glass.

“Naw,” he said. “Both you and that socialist in the government building have gotten this wrong. So I think we’ll just forget that.”

“What do you mean?” said Berg, with his faint smile.

“Someone like Johansson wouldn’t even touch someone like Waltin with a ten-foot pole,” said Persson. Johansson’s a real policeman, thought Persson, but he didn’t say that. And a good fellow, he thought, but he didn’t say that either, for Berg could certainly figure it out all on his own.

“So if Johansson were to have said something about Krassner, in any case he hasn’t heard it from Waltin,” said Berg.

“We can just forget that,” said Persson. “If indeed he has said something… for that’s of course just pure guesswork on your part.” Persson smiled and nodded at Berg. You need a vacation, he thought.

“You don’t think he might have heard something from Jarnebring?” Berg persisted. “They’re both still like two coats of paint.”

“Whatever he might have heard from him,” said Persson. A good fellow, Jarnebring, thought Persson. And a real policeman, just like him and Johansson, or like Berg when he was young. Before he became the boss and started looking under his own bed for ghosts that were never there.

“So you think we should close the case,” said Berg, smiling. Peculiar, he thought. Suddenly he felt both calm and happy, despite all the special advisers and strange colleagues with Rolex watches who took the joy out of existence.

“I don’t even think we have a case,” said Persson. “If you don’t believe me I suggest you ask Johansson if he’s said something about the Krassner guy to that socialist in the government building. For that matter, perhaps you should question all three. Johansson, Jarnebring, and the socialist. Good luck,” he said and chuckled.

“I give up,” said Berg. “I’m on the wrong track.”

Persson shrugged his fat shoulders.

“He might well have heard something,” he said. “Given how much shit all the police are talking the whole time. He might well have said something to that socialist. If for no other reason than to test him,” said Persson, who was a real policeman. “Or to mess with him. I’ve heard that he can be as annoying as his boss.”

“Skoal,” said Berg, raising his glass. “And merry Christmas, by the way.” And peace to both great and small, he thought.

Berg and Johansson had a story in common, and Berg hoped that Johansson, despite his sometimes uncanny ability to be able to see around corners, was unaware of this.

Almost ten years earlier Johansson, who at that time was working with the Stockholm Police Department’s central detective unit, developed suspicions about someone in the bodyguard unit of the secret police. According to Johansson-for likely his old armor-bearer and best friend Bo Jarnebring had been acting as travel companion-one of Berg’s officers (granted, one at the base of Berg’s high pyramid) robbed a post office in connection with a security assignment. And as if this wasn’t bad enough, he tried to cover his tracks by murdering two witnesses who had recognized him.

Briefly and in summary, it was quite a hair-raising story, and how Johansson-who truly lived up to the epithet “a real policeman”-was able to think along such uncollegial lines at all was a complete mystery. Possibly here as well it was a matter of his ability to sometimes be able to see around corners. In any event, there were unfortunately many things that indicated that he was correct in all the essentials. This even Berg was forced to admit, although it still pained him every time he did so. The investigation had been closed rather quickly and the man concerned had not even been questioned, much less informed that he was under suspicion in the matter. He hadn’t even been fired-however that could have been arranged-but after a few more years he had chosen to leave of his own free will, and instead of returning to the open operation he had quit the police force. Where he’d gone after that Berg had studiously avoided finding out.

His own role in this sad story was not something he was proud of, despite the fact that he’d been able to turn it into an advantage for the operation instead of the catastrophe that would have otherwise been the alternative if Johansson had prevailed. Actually it also concerned far more important issues than one policeman who ought never to have been allowed to become one. Important matters that Berg was assigned to protect and in which the price, regardless of how the whole thing came out in the end, would always be too high. For all that, the only one who had acquitted himself creditably in the matter was Johansson, despite the fact that, measured by any objective legal standard, he had failed completely.

During the years that followed, Berg had been worried about how things would go for Johansson. Would he run around like a rabid dog telling his story to anyone who had, or didn’t have, the energy to listen? Would he, like so many before and after him-completely disregarding whether they were right or wrong-go to the media to get help?

Johansson had shown himself to be exactly what he seemed to be, a real policeman. He had never said a word. Just held his tongue and shook himself and continued as though nothing had happened. Instead he’d made a career within the same operation that had betrayed him. Certainly not a bad one, and the way he’d gone about it fit in well with the reputation that had always surrounded him. Say what you will about Lars Martin Johansson from Näsåker, and there were many of his colleagues who did, no one would even think that he was anything but “a real policeman.” There were plenty enough who’d arrived at a painful insight in that regard.

And Berg would never think so, for he himself was “a real policeman.” Or had been, in any case, before the bureaucracy that he was now appointed to lead had started to eat him up from inside. He had tried to do what he could for Johansson, and as far as such things could be done in secret. He’d tried to become his secret mentor, his “rabbi,” his “padre,” his “godfather,” as his foreign colleagues used to describe the situation. Why isn’t there any good word in Swedish for that, by the way? thought Berg. Because such things are un-Swedish, naturally, and in any case nothing you can talk about openly. Especially not in these times.

But with Waltin it was much simpler, for regardless of what he might be, in any case he was not “a real policeman.” Berg and Waltin also had a history in common. It went even further back than his one-sided secret contacts with Johansson. Most recently it had unfortunately developed less well, and by the day after his meeting with Persson, Berg decided that it was high time to change that. Despite the fact that it was almost Christmas.

“So, here we sit like two little birds on a branch,” said Waltin with a conciliatory smile while in passing he adjusted a crease in his new trousers of classic English tweed. And you’re only getting sadder and grayer, he thought, nodding toward his boss.

“There are a few things we need to talk about,” said Berg.

It certainly did not turn out to be a pleasant conversation. The subjects that Berg had chosen didn’t allow for that.

First he brought up the Krassner case. It was as though he couldn’t avoid the misery, despite the fact that Krassner had taken his own life. Despite the fact that their own covert house search was only an unfortunate coincidence. Despite the fact that they had done exactly what they were expected to do and what their employer actually had the right to demand of them. Which he actually had demanded of them, even if the special adviser hadn’t left any paperwork about the matter.

“What I’m trying to say,” said Berg, “is that we could have avoided a great deal of trouble if you had followed my advice and made an ordinary narcotics arrest. I’m not ruling out the possibility that he might have tried to take his own life as soon as he’d been let out of jail, but then this wouldn’t have ended up as close to our table as it does now.”

I don’t believe my ears, thought Waltin. He seems to have become as gaga as old man Forselius.

“With all respect I seem to have a different recollection,” said Waltin with a friendly smile. “I seem to recall that when I suggested that we should do it like that, you rejected the whole idea.” And I never found out why you did, he thought.

“Then I am afraid that our recollections diverge,” said Berg, digging out a paper from the pile on his desk. “I have a notation here that we discussed the matter the day before; it was Thursday, the twenty-first of November, at sixteen zero five hours in the afternoon and I was the one who called you…”

This isn’t true, thought Waltin, but he didn’t say that. He was content to smile and nod, for if it was really going to be like this it was important to keep a good countenance.

“And according to my notes,” Berg continued, “you then told me that you had planned a narcotics arrest the following day. I’ve also noted that I approved that.”

“Sure, sure,” said Waltin. “But that was at the point when Forselius had not yet made contact, but then he did late in the evening and we went back to our original plan.”

Berg moved his shoulders regretfully.

“I have no notes about that,” he said. “Why didn’t you call and tell me about your change of plans?”

My change of plans? thought Waltin. This is not true, dammit, he thought.

“I seem to recall that you’d gone to the Germans,” said Waltin.

“That wasn’t until the following day,” said Berg. “And if so, wouldn’t it have been possible to call me there too? Or what?”

“Yes,” said Waltin, smiling despite the fact that it was starting to be an effort. “Somewhere there seems to have been a breakdown in communication.”

“Yes, unfortunately that does appear to be the case,” said Berg. “A completely different matter,” he added.

Then he discussed the department’s view of the external operation and that he himself would not be opposed to an inspection if one were to be requested. There was no one outside pulling on the door handle exactly, but sometime during the spring it would certainly come up.

“We’ll have to set aside a few days and go through all the papers,” said Berg. “Sometime at the start of the new year.”

“Fine with me,” said Waltin, getting up.

He’s not smiling anymore, thought Berg.

Wonder how it’s going for Persson, thought Berg, leaning back comfortably in his chair after he’d been left alone in his office. The only light in my firmament; wrong, he thought, for there was actually one more, faintly glistening in the distance like the Star of Hope. The hope that he would finally be rid of Kudo and Bülling.

The Stockholm chief constable and Kudo and Bülling had found one another. Given the police context it almost resembled a love story. Not because they slept with each other or even cuddled a little, for they were all fully reliable homophobes, and in that respect no shadow fell on any of them, despite the chief constable’s secret literary leanings, Kudo’s recurring observations of gnomes, and Bülling’s general peculiarities. What was involved instead was a very strong, almost transcendental spiritual communion of the type that can only arise when highly gifted people are united by a common interest even greater than themselves.

“The Kurds,” said the chief constable with ominous emphasis on both words. “Gentlemen,” he continued solemnly, nodding toward his two visitors. “We are talking about what is at the present time the most dangerous terrorist organization in the entire Western Hemisphere. So give me some good advice. What do we do?”

Finally, thought Kudo. Finally someone in the leadership who realizes the seriousness of the situation. Necessity trumps the law, thought Kudo, for he’d read that somewhere, and purely concretely it was the incomprehensible secrecy rules of the secret police that this very necessity had in mind. Then he and Bülling related everything to their new ally, but first they had naturally given him the necessary background.

The very first thing they had related was their secret language. About weddings and other events, about poets and about lambs who were to be butchered. About cakes, pastries, and rolls and all their difficulties in working out what this actually meant.

“We will have a wedding, we will butcher a lamb, we will have two poets, cakes, pastries, and rolls…” The Stockholm chief constable nodded with pleasure while he savored every word… “Exactly like myself, you gentlemen have paid notice to the strongly ethnic character of the codes they’re using.”

“Exactly,” said Kudo. “Exactly.”

“Exactly,” said Bülling, nodding toward the chief constable’s newly polished floor.

“So it’s hardly by chance that they have chosen these particular codes for their operations here in the West,” stated the chief constable. “Tell me,” he said as he rubbed his hands with delight. “Tell me how you’ve solved this ethnically oriented problematic.”

It was Kudo then who told about their new informant. He was himself a Kurd. Political refugee like all Kurds, but in contrast to the rest of their informants he had applied of his own free will. He was a baker besides, and had a brother who was a butcher, and together they ran a little catering business whose customers were almost all Kurds too. For many years they’d been delivering their wares and services to countless Kurdish weddings, funerals, and parties.

In such a context that particular background was unbeatable, Bülling had thought as he made the preparatory analysis. Their new informant knew everything about what deliveries and other arrangements were part of a real wedding, a normal funeral, or an ordinary party. Apart from his special knowledge he could see directly if there was something strange when their surveillance objects were planning their activities, and as a result they were sitting in a tight spot, thought Bülling. Planning a political murder based on the orders for a real wedding was naturally impossible. The operation would be doomed to fail.

The fellow had another quality besides, and it was not so strange that it was his best friend and closest colleague, Kudo, who had discovered it, considering that he himself had received the same gift: Their new informant was also a seer. He could see contexts, connections, and occurrences that were hidden to normal people, and this regardless of whether they were already a fact or were still in the future. At first Bülling had resisted the very thought that it might be like that. Considering his informant’s other qualities, it was almost too good to be true, and Bülling’s critical bent and analytical mission made him generally skeptical of such possibilities. Therefore Kudo had proposed a scientific test, and it was Bülling himself who had set it up and carried it out. Down to the least detail and in order not to leave any imaginable explanation untested.

First he’d pulled out a number of cases that he and Kudo had succeeded in clearing up and of which their new informant could not have the least knowledge. Based on these cases he had then formulated twenty or so specific questions that had taken him and Kudo months to reach a solution to. Their new informant had only required a little less than an hour to answer all the questions, and all of his answers had been correct.

Before they’d told the chief constable about their new weapon in the struggle against Kurdish terrorism, they had discussed whether they should reveal to him that their new informant was also a seer, that he had the gift. It was unfortunately the case that many people resisted such possibilities for primitive, emotional reasons, and because their own worldview was then at risk of collapse. This had solved itself quite naturally and obviously. Toward the end of their lecture, Kudo had nodded toward their new ally, and when he saw the look in his eyes, those gentle, wise, boundary-crossing eyes, he had simply said it. Straight out.

“And besides, he has the gift,” said Kudo. “He can see things that others don’t see.”

The Stockholm chief constable only nodded at first. Mostly to himself, it seemed. Then he looked at them with great seriousness and great sincerity.

“They’re the best,” he said. “And the most difficult.”

Finally they told about their most recent and most urgent surveillance case. On the planned assassination of a “highly positioned but not more closely identified Swedish politician.”

“He has given us the name,” said Kudo.

“I’m listening,” said the chief constable.

“The prime minister,” said Kudo.

…

When Kudo and Bülling had left him, the chief constable decided that he must warn the prime minister. The prime minister was still his personal friend from long ago; he himself was the only police officer that the prime minister could trust. He had helped him before and at a time when he wasn’t even the prime minister. Most important of all: If the prime minister met with a political assassination, it was the chief constable’s personal responsibility to see to it that it was cleared up and that the perpetrator was brought to justice.

I must warn him in good time, thought the chief constable. Before something happens, he clarified to himself and in order to rule out any possibility of a mistake.

If Kudo and Bülling and the Stockholm chief constable had seen the light, it was all the darker in the world where Göransson and Martinsson were nowadays. First that mysterious work trip to Petrozavodsk in the middle of a biting-cold Russian winter, where they were both about to freeze their rear ends off. When they’d come home, a series of freezing-cold, meaningless surveillance assignments, one after another, which never seemed to end.

The news that they would be moving back to the open operation after the New Year had almost come as a relief. Naturally they hadn’t been told the reason that it had turned out that way, but in the squad there were rumors of yet another reorganization. The week before Christmas they were called in to the top boss’s own stable boy, Chief Inspector Persson, in turn-Göransson first because he’d been serving the longest-and as usual in these contexts he’d had the company of the bureau’s attorney. There they had to sign the usual papers, which promised secret legal proceedings, multiyear prison sentences, financial ruin, and personal disgrace if they uttered a word about their time with the closed operation. More terrifying than the documents they signed was Chief Inspector Persson himself, and before Martinsson left the room he gave him a parting word.

“You’ve had damn good luck, lad. If I’d been the one to decide we would’ve boiled you for glue.”

Whatever, and you can shove it up yours, you fat asshole, Martinsson thought, and that evening he went to the local bar and got royally drunk.

…

Obviously it had been the usual old dive down on Kungsgatan, and as it was right before Christmas there was no lack of police officers in the place. The line wound all the way down to Vasagatan-a few guys who were working in radio cars had been in such a hurry to get there that they still had their uniform trousers on-and when Martinsson finally got in there was so much going on that the floor, walls, and ceiling shook. But despite the fact that he got drunk as a lord, he couldn’t summon up the right mood. After a while he spotted young Oredsson, who was sitting with a couple of girls in a corner, and because they seemed unusually sober it was there that he sat down.

He’d met Oredsson last summer. They went to the same gym and had run into each other while exercising, lifting weights, and sitting in the sauna and male bonding, and one thing had led to the other and rather quickly it had become clear to each of them where the other stood. Because he himself was working quite a lot with the survey of the police at Norrmalm, he had also tipped off his chief about Oredsson. Here was a budding officer who shouldn’t have any difficulties making his way into the circles they were working with. There was nothing really wrong with Oredsson, thought Martinsson. There was nothing really wrong with his opinions either, for most of what he said was both right and reasonable and everyday police fare, for that matter. As an infiltrator he would have passed like a hand in a glove, but just before he was to give him the invitation, the boss had suddenly blown off the whole thing, and as usual he hadn’t been told a damn thing about why. And considering what he himself had met with it was no doubt the best thing that could happen, thought Martinsson.

When he was standing in the john relieving the pressure, Oredsson came in and stood at the urinal beside him.

“How’s it going, Strummer?” said Oredsson, sounding worried. “You seem a little down.”

“It’s okay,” said Martinsson, shaking the artillery piece before lifting it into his trousers. With just one hand, thought Martinsson, for he always thought that.

“How’d it go, by the way, with that job you were talking about last summer?” said Oredsson. “You never got back to me.”

“It got fucked up,” said Martinsson. And you should probably thank God for that, he thought.

“Too bad,” said Oredsson. “That thing with SePo sounded exciting.”

“I’ve quit,” said Martinsson.

“Did something happen?” said Oredsson, taking him by the arm.

“Fucking fifth columnists,” said Martinsson, and then he pulled Oredsson into the john. Locked the door and told him everything about what Berg and the other bastards were doing.

Afterward it felt much better. Oredsson stood him a few beers and they made a toast in silent collusion. And that stable boy Persson could shove those fucking papers up his fat ass, thought Martinsson.

Bäckström celebrated Christmas at the after-hours unit. It wasn’t the first time and certainly wouldn’t be the last, either, especially now that old Jack Daniels was completely off the wall, but on the whole it wasn’t too bad. The union had clearly celebrated a victory, for they’d gotten yet another nap room since last year. Not that Bäckström cared. He used to sneak up to the homicide squad when he needed a nap, for it was a lot quieter there, but the union rep was proud as a rooster and because he was a tedious bastard Bäckström made sure to take a potshot at him while passing through.

“I thought we were here to work, not to slack off,” said Bäckström. “But correct me if I’m wrong.”

The poor bastard just glared at him, despite the fact that it was Christmas and everyone should be happy, and then the safety rep took over and nagged for a quarter of an hour about that new disease A-I-D-S. Doesn’t concern me, thought Bäckström, for he didn’t poke assholes, blacks, or drug addicts, and if he needed to touch someone there were always plumber’s gloves that he could put on.

The cases were mostly shit as usual. Nothing worthy of a real pro such as himself. Mostly thefts and drunken driving, and who had the energy to care? Not Bäckström, in any case, so he took the opportunity to nap for a few hours. Although there was naturally a bright spot or two despite the fact that the Christmas food in the break room had disappeared rather quickly. Three Finnish tramps-real geniuses from Karelia-had broken into a shoe store on Sveavägen and emptied the Christmas display of fifty left shoes, and when the police cars came with their blue lights one of the Finns had almost cut his own throat as he was trying to finagle his way out through the window. So when they came to the after-hours unit there were only two of them, but every little bit counts, thought Bäckström as he locked up the remaining two, each in his own barred compartment.

Then the riot squad came in with a little gypsy lad who had been siphoning gasoline up on Karlbergsvägen. It was Ornery Adolf’s squad-dear colleagues have many names-and he and his guys were sour as vinegar, for the rest of the tribe had managed to escape. He was a funny little guy, thought Bäckström. With Goofy shoes, trousers a foot too long-where had he pinched those?-and the tribal chieftain’s cap on his curly little head. He was bent over like a poker and moaning that he’d gotten gasoline in his little belly and had to go to the hospital, so Bäckström arranged a barred compartment for him too. Farthest in, to be on the safe side, so he wouldn’t disturb the others who were there.

But then the boss started to make a fuss about the gypsy’s age, and that perhaps it would be best if someone sat with him in a normal room until the old ladies from the social services after-hours office had time to drag themselves there and take over.

“It’s cool,” said Bäckström. “I’ve counted his fingers and there are six on each hand.”

The boss, who was a Pentecostalist, was a humorless bastard, so he didn’t want to hear that, and for a while it looked rather critical. But then the tribal chieftain himself showed up with half of his numerous relatives to talk the lad out, for he was only thirteen according to Papa Taikon, and then it became a real circus. For clearly they’d missed the fact that Ornery Adolf and his lads had taken the opportunity to stay and chow down a holiday snack. And then they suddenly had six folk dancers arrested instead of one. This is a pure Christmas week sale, thought Bäckström.

Then of course a bunch of old hags came in too who’d gotten a little well-deserved Christmas whipping. One of them wasn’t half bad. True, her face looked like a Lappland owl, but she had rather nice tits and was only half as old as the other drunken hags who’d gotten a beating. High time for a case of my own, Bäckström decided, took her into an interrogation room, and turned on the red light on the door in order not to be disturbed.

First the usual sniveling, but Bäckström had paper napkins on hand, so that would no doubt work out.

“I understand that this is awfully difficult for you,” he said with his most sympathetic tone of voice. “You shouldn’t feel any pressure, so take your time and start from the beginning. You can take my card, by the way, in case you need someone to talk with.” So you can get your little mouse greased up too as soon as you look human again, he thought.

A few hours earlier she’d gotten the bright idea to toddle over to her ex-boyfriend’s to give him a Christmas present. True, it was over because he drank too much and ran around with other women and was generally crazy, but he should get a little Christmas present in any case, and when he got it he’d evidently started wrestling and seen to it that he got a lay as a bonus. How fucking stupid can you be? thought Bäckström, for in the preliminary report the officers from the uniformed police had filled out there wasn’t any mention of a rape.

“You don’t have his name and address?” Bäckström asked as he leaned forward and patted her consolingly on the arm. Out in the cold, he thought gloomily, and close up those tits weren’t especially noteworthy-who the hell gets turned on by Dachshund ears? Wonder if I can ask to get my card back? he thought.

First he spoke with the boss and told him about the rape the colleagues had missed, and because the chief was that type, he got so worked up that Bäckström was worried he would get the big police medal.

“Nice to have a few people who’ve been around a while,” said the boss, nodding. “Good, Bäckström, good,” he repeated. “I’ll take care of the victim and make sure that the doctor has a look at her, then you see to it that you bring in the perpetrator.”

What the hell kind of justice is there in this world? thought Bäckström gloomily fifteen minutes later. The victim had gotten a lay and now she was lying in a warm doctor’s office resting up. The perpetrator had gotten both a present and a lay and was no doubt sitting at home boozing in that good ol’ cottage warmth. He himself was sitting in the dark in a bumpy service car in the middle of an ice-cold Christmas Eve, together with that surly guy from the union, to collar some crazy bastard who was nesting far out in the southern suburbs, and if he was even still at home Bäckström would certainly get to celebrate Christmas in the hospital with a Mora knife in his belly.

Plus the union guy sat and nagged the whole journey that they had to see to it they got backup from the uniformed police before they went into the apartment.

“Perhaps we should check if he’s at home first,” said Bäckström wearily. “Or what do you think?”

The union guy was content to nod. True, he was surly, but still he did have the good taste to keep his trap shut. The ex-boyfriend was home. Bäckström listened at the mail slot and heard sounds both of the TV and of someone going to the can. And because he was there anyway he rang the doorbell and the perpetrator opened, let them in, and asked if they wanted anything. A cup of coffee or something? On the other hand he couldn’t offer them any aquavit for he’d stopped drinking. There was something here that didn’t add up, thought Bäckström.

A dark, rather husky fellow in his mid-thirties, completely sober as far as Bäckström could determine. His apartment was small and neither tidy nor untidy. The bed in the only room was covered with a throw but it didn’t appear arranged. The TV in front of the sofa was on; clearly he’d been sitting and watching when Bäckström rang the doorbell. Nothing arousing either, a normal American flick-Bäckström had seen it himself when it was at the theater.

The only thing that gave a little hope was all the books he had and a few posters on the walls that clearly seemed political, even if they weren’t exactly Chairman Mao. Wonder if he’s a communist? thought Bäckström, and while their host, the perpetrator, was making coffee, Bäckström took the opportunity to snoop around a little. It was then that he found the dartboard that was hanging on the door to the bathroom. Damn, thought Bäckström. That was the face of our dear prime minister, with hook nose and everything. Damn solid workmanship, too, with the picture printed directly on the target itself, and the majority of the thrown darts appeared to have landed just right and straight on the nose of the poor bastard.

There’s something that doesn’t add up, thought Bäckström, for of course he couldn’t be a communist.

“Damn amusing dartboard you have,” said Bäckström when they were sitting on the sofa drinking coffee. “Where can you buy one like that?”

“You mean of the traitor?” said their host, and here there was definitely something that didn’t add up. “You can have it if you’d like. I can get more.”

“That’s okay,” said Bäckström, for that damn union guy he had with him had already started to purse his lips. “There was another thing that we wanted to talk about with you.”

So then they did that and as so often before it appeared that the little whore had made it all up. They’d been together, but otherwise there wasn’t a thing that was right. He was the one who’d left her, and it would soon be six months ago, for he couldn’t put up with her constant boozing and yelling; he himself had tried to quit drinking alcohol. Suddenly she’d shown up at his place on Christmas Eve and the present she had with her was a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.

She’d sat down on the sofa and started hitting the bottle, teasing him because he didn’t want any, and because he’d felt the need he’d suddenly gotten extremely angry. Taken the whiskey and poured out what was left into the sink and told her to leave. Then she’d attacked him and tried to smack him with a vase and he’d taken hold of her and gradually he’d succeeded in carrying her out.

“And you didn’t screw her?” asked Bäckström, who was eager to be clear about that little detail. And besides, it was the reason he was sitting here wasting his young life.

Of course he’d screwed her, although not for six months, not since he’d left her, but before that he used to be on her approximately five or six times a day. Perhaps a little more when it was a holiday and they’d partied really hearty.

There, there now, thought Bäckström, who hadn’t gotten any since he’d greased up that little Estonian whore with the big knockers, and feeling a certain draft in his crotch.

“Why’d you smack her, then?” asked Bäckström, who didn’t mind being a bit direct about things if it would save time.

“Hell, I didn’t smack her,” said their host, looking at them with honest blue eyes.

“Lay off,” said Bäckström. “I talked with her half an hour ago, and her face looked like a Lappland owl.”

“She did when she came here too,” said their host, “but when I asked her she didn’t want to talk about it. You can ask my neighbor, by the way. He was the one who helped me get her out of my apartment.”

Then they talked to the neighbor, and when they’d done that they thanked him for the visit, got in the car, and drove back to the after-hours unit.

“My God, what fucking whores there are,” said Bäckström with feeling. “I’ve got a good mind to give her a going-over myself.”

“Think about what you’re saying,” said his colleague indignantly. “It’s not appropriate to say that kind of thing if you’re a policeman.”

“Shit in your pants, you fucking amateur politician,” said Bäckström, for he’d thought about saying that for a long time, and when he looked at his watch it was already a quarter past twelve in the morning and his Christmas celebrating was over for this year.

Early on the morning of Christmas Eve, Berg had been compelled to get into a taxi and go down to Rosenbad to inform the special adviser of an embassy case that had taken an unexpected turn. The special adviser seemed to be in an excellent mood despite the early hour. He offered him coffee, and the case itself went both quickly and painlessly.

“Okay then,” said Berg, making an effort to get up. “Then I guess I should wish you merry Christmas and hope that I don’t have to disturb you anymore this year.”

“I wish the same to you,” said the special adviser. “And good luck with the reorganization. It must be the best Christmas present you’ve gotten in a long time,” he said, looking unusually cheerful.

What does he mean? thought Berg, sinking back into the sofa.

“Now I don’t understand,” said Berg.

“Then you aren’t aware either that the Kurds are thinking about murdering the prime minister,” said the special adviser, pouring more coffee for them both.

The Stockholm chief constable had phoned a few days earlier and wanted to speak with the prime minister at any price. Because it wasn’t the first time and the prime minister had more important matters on his hands, he had to be content with the special adviser. The story that the chief constable had told went in brief along the lines that “he’d gotten reliable information from a completely reliable and intimate source that the PKK was planning to murder the prime minister.”

“So I thanked him for the tip,” said the special adviser, “and to myself I congratulated you for finally getting rid of them both.”

“I’m afraid they’re probably still with us,” said Berg, sighing. And perhaps it wasn’t this that I’d imagined, he thought.

“It’ll work out,” said the special adviser, raising his coffee cup.

…

Then Berg took a taxi back to his wife and the house in Bromma. They had lunch together with his sister and brother-in-law, and after that all four of them drove to Roslagen to celebrate Christmas Eve with his aged parents. A calm and pleasant family Christmas, thought Berg when he was back in Bromma and he and his wife had gone to bed, each with a book that they’d given one another as a Christmas present. Then he fell asleep and for some reason dreamed about the child that they’d never had, and at three o’clock in the morning he had to get up as usual and take a leak.

Oredsson and his comrades had celebrated Christmas in the country. A real midwinter sacrifice according to ancient Swedish custom. They’d managed to rent an entire vacation establishment with a lodge and everything up in Hälsingland, and despite the fact that there were almost twenty of them, the majority of them police of course, they’d had plenty of room. First Berg, who was their leader, had called a general meeting where Oredsson had informed them of what their colleague Martinsson had told him.

“As I’m sure you know,” said Berg, looking at them seriously, “that traitor at SePo is my own uncle, and if there are any of you who have a problem with that then I’d like us to take that up now. Personally I can only apologize for the relationship.”

No one had any problems. On the contrary, all of them took the opportunity to express their sympathies and indicate their loyalty.

“Good,” said Berg. “So what do we now? Do you have good suggestions? Thanks to Oredsson, here, we are of course forewarned and thereby armed.”

They agreed to lie low for the time being.

“We lie low, we close ranks, and we keep our eyes and ears open,” Berg summarized, and then they ate whole roast pig and drank a great many beers. Perhaps a few too many in some cases, considering that joint exercises had been planned for both Christmas Day and the day after Christmas.

…

As the wee hours approached, Berg took Oredsson aside and thanked him for his good contribution. Then he told him about his father, who had also been a policeman and was killed in an accident when Berg himself was only a child. In a car chase he’d lost control of the vehicle that he was driving, ended up in the water, and drowned. Service car with bad brakes, two crooks in a stolen car who succeeded in getting away and were never caught, a policeman who died on duty. Things can be so different, thought Oredsson, clearly moved by what Berg had related. Two brothers, one who died a hero’s death and one who became a traitor.

Oredsson’s colleague Stridh had taken a good many comp days over the holidays. He’d celebrated Christmas Eve with his sister, who was his only living relative and an excellent human being. She was also single, worked in accounting at a small advertising agency, and was both bookish and interested in cooking.

A pity really that she’s my sister, thought Stridh as he took yet another portion of her home-preserved Christmas herring. For otherwise we might have gotten married.

Bo Jarnebring had celebrated Christmas as a twosome, the other person being his new girlfriend. Sort of new; after all, they’d been together since last summer and it had only gotten better the whole time. A few weeks earlier they’d decided to get engaged on New Year’s Eve, but for reasons he wasn’t really clear about he hadn’t told Johansson, despite the fact that he’d had more opportunities than in a long time.

Why is that? thought Jarnebring. Because you’re a coward, thought Jarnebring.

“Darling,” said Jarnebring, going out to the kitchen where she stood, cheeks red from the heat. “I’ve been thinking about something.”

“You’re hungry,” she said, smiling. “It’ll be ready soon.”

“No,” said Jarnebring, shaking his head. “I was thinking about this thing with the engagement.”

“You’ve changed your mind,” she said, moving a casserole dish from the burner.

Didn’t she look a little worried? thought Jarnebring, grinning like a wolf.

“No,” he said. “But what do you think about doing it now instead?”

“Now?” she said, giggling. “You mean now… now?”

“Yes,” said Jarnebring, putting his left arm around her waist and pulling her to him while she turned off the stove with her right hand.

“What are you doing? Aren’t we going to eat?”

“Now, we can do it like this,” said Jarnebring. “First we’ll take off all our clothes so that all the new gold shows to best advantage, then we’ll exchange rings, then we’ll screw each other, and then we can eat. Then you’ll get your Christmas present too, but that will be a surprise.”

“Okay,” she said, nodding and pulling her blouse over her head.

Then I’ll call Johansson and tell him, thought Jarnebring. What do you mean, coward? he thought.

The day before Christmas Eve, Svenskan had a big advertisement with a special offer from Åhlén’s department store: KNOCKOUT PRICE ON SEXY LINGERIE! TANGA, TEDDY, AND FISHNET STOCKINGS ONLY $10.

Svenskan is really starting to go downhill, thought Waltin with slight distaste while he decapitated his hard-boiled egg with a well-timed tap with his right hand.

“Available in red, black, and white,” Waltin read, sighing and savoring his breakfast tea. Black for normal people, red for the lower classes and upstarts, white for those who don’t dare. The things you have to put up with on an empty stomach, thought Waltin, sighing again.

The following morning he took the opportunity to slink in to Åhlén’s, as he happened to be passing through the city center anyway. He purchased a half dozen in various sizes, all in black, of course, and the female clerk gave him a smile that was only a hair’s breadth from a highly unprofessional come-on.

“Should I wrap them up in different packages?” she asked, smiling flirtatiously.

“No,” said Waltin, smiling slightly. “Just put them in one bag.” And if you can’t behave properly then I’ll put you across my knee, he thought.

With the necessary commodities in a bag under his arm, distracted by the female clerk and with his thoughts elsewhere, he made a mistake that someone like him couldn’t afford to indulge in. When he stepped out onto the street he ran right into Wiijnbladh and that fat, red-haired sow who was his wife.

“Police superintendent, what an honor,” said the little fairy, who was about to tie himself in knots. “May I perhaps introduce my wife?”

“How nice,” said Waltin, noticing the rapid shift in her eyes and the secret understanding in her expectant smile.

She’s not going to say anything, he thought, extending his sinewy, suntanned hand.

“Claes,” he said, flashing all of his white teeth. “Nice to meet you, and merry Christmas too.”

“Lisa Wiijnbladh,” she said as she shook hands. And then the little whore had the gall to draw the red-painted nail of her pinkie against his palm.

“It would be nice to meet again sometime,” she said, and that idiot she was married to had naturally not understood a thing. How could he? thought Waltin, smiling the whole time, as he took back his hand and felt his crotch tightening up.

It must have been sometime last spring, thought Waltin as he disappeared down Hamngatan moving just fast enough, heading in a safe direction. Big fat white breasts with freckles on them and rather small nipples? I’ll have to look at my notes, he decided.

“That was a colleague of yours,” said Wiijnbladh’s wife with a neutral tone of voice, somewhere between a question and a statement.

“A very highly placed man at SePo,” nodded Wiijnbladh, trying to sound unmoved. “We know each other from before,” he added with a look of importance.

How nice for you, old man, thought Lisa Wiijnbladh while she felt the usual contempt bubble up inside her. Personally I’ve only slept with him, she thought.

“What was his name again?” she asked.

When his inner pressure became too strong he always tried to get as far away as possible to release it. It didn’t always work out, overworked by a demanding schedule as he was. On some occasions he’d been forced to take risks. One such occasion was last spring, and it was then that he’d run into Wiijnbladh’s wife without having any idea that she had a husband, much less that he was a policeman.

“But you’ve never worked at SePo, have you?” said his wife suddenly when they were sitting on the subway a while later on their way to her sister’s. For what use would they have for someone like you? she thought.

“No,” said Wiijnbladh, trying to sound as mysterious as the circumstances allowed. “Not in a formal sense, no.”

So you’re a secret agent, she thought. In that case they can’t be right in their heads.

He’d gone to a simple place in the city. Simple clientele, many women by themselves, middle-aged or on the way to being so, already passed over or on their way down. Abandoned, vulnerable, searching, desperate in their hunt for something better, or at least a few hours’ company. He’d found her in the bar where she sat, showing her generous cleavage for anyone who cared to look. Considering the competition she was the beauty of the place, red-haired, white-skinned, busty, twenty pounds overweight, heavily made up, intoxicated, and Waltin had felt a completely irresistible desire to hurt her.

Is that why you’re always so nervous that you can never get it up? thought Lisa Wiijnbladh while feeling how the shaking of the subway car touched the inside of her thighs.

“I’ll be darned-you’re so secretive, old man,” she said. Smiled, leaned forward, and patted him on the cheek.

“Well,” said Wiijnbladh, suddenly feeling both happy and embarrassed. “There are certain things in my job that are hard to talk about.” She touched me, he thought.

“You and he have met socially,” said his wife, trying a mischievous smile on him. It’s not talking that’s your major problem, she thought.

“Perhaps you might say that,” Wiijnbladh nodded. “We’ve met privately.”

“Where does he live, then?” asked his wife.

Waltin had taken her to one of the front addresses he used for the operation, choosing this one because there were no neighbors and the bed had sturdy corner posts. He’d brought everything else he needed with him.

“You’re awfully curious,” said Wiijnbladh evasively. What was it he’d said that time he’d approached him at work? he thought nervously. He’d mentioned it in passing.

“Admit that you don’t have a clue,” said his wife, looking exactly as she always did.

“Norr Mälarstrand,” said Wiijnbladh, suddenly remembering.

First he’d spread her out, binding her hands and feet to the four corners of the bed, and as usual he’d used his leather straps. Pulled a little tighter because she was rather drunk, because she needed it, but mostly because he was in the mood for it. Pulled her top and bra up over her head, pulled up her skirt to her waist and cut apart her panties. It was simplest that way, he liked doing it, liked the sound when he did it, and he felt as if he was going to burst apart from within when he entered her.

…

“Norr Mälarstrand,” repeated his wife. And why would someone like him invite a little shit like you home? she thought.

“Fantastic apartment,” said Wiijnbladh, nodding. “He had a really fantastic art collection,” he added, nodding again. What was it Waltin had said when he showed him that Matisse forgery? he thought.

It was not that she hadn’t played along. She went along, she was a part of it. The fat sow was actually enjoying it, and despite the fact that she was as drunk as she was she had suddenly achieved orgasm, just shrieked flat out and arched her body in the bed despite the fact that he’d tied her up. And he had immediately folded up; all his strength had suddenly simply run out of him.

“I had no idea that you were an art lover,” said Lisa Wiijnbladh sourly.

“Art is really nice,” said Wiijnbladh evasively. Now she’s her usual self again, he thought.

He’d put the muzzle and blindfold on her and tightened her a little harder. But that hadn’t helped either. Then he shaved her between her legs, for that usually helped, but all that had happened was that she’d come to climax one more time while he was at it.

And then he gave up.

“Perhaps you ought to start painting yourself,” said Lisa Wiijnbladh. “Like that Zorn.” Wasn’t that his name? she thought.

“Oh well,” said Wiijnbladh, stealing a glance at his watch. “When would I have time for that?” Won’t we be there soon? he thought.

When they were sitting on the sofa afterward he’d poured her a hefty drink. She’d needed it, for she’d looked unbelievably awful. The makeup that had run all over her face, the large white sagging breasts, the skirt bunched up around her waist, and her legs spread while she looked at her shaved sex. Suddenly the tears had started to flow.

“What have you done?” she’d whimpered. “What will I say to my husband?”

“That might be a nice surprise for him,” Waltin had said lightly, and suddenly the familiar feeling had returned. You have a husband, he’d thought.

“Or draw naked women,” persisted his wife. “What is that called, when they sit and draw naked women?” Although you’d hardly be able to manage that either, she thought.

“Life drawing,” said Wiijnbladh sourly, for he’d learned that on the job. “It’s called life drawing.”

“My God,” she’d sniffled. “What will I say to my husband?”

Now the tears had sprayed out of her and she’d suddenly appeared quite inconsolable.

“You can surely think of something,” Waltin had said helpfully. Otherwise I’ll have to help you, he’d thought, for now the feeling had come back again, just as strong as before. Before, she wasn’t able to behave the way she should.

“He’s never going to believe me,” she’d sobbed. “He’s a policeman.”

Policeman, Waltin had thought. This is too good to be true. It had felt as if he were going to burst again as he pulled her up and forced her down across the arm of the sofa. Then he’d entered her from behind and she had howled like a banshee the whole time and before he drove her home he’d tied her up on her belly in the bed and given her a good going-over with his belt.

“Maybe you think that’s really fun,” his wife teased. “Lots of naked women. Drawing them shouldn’t be all that hard.”

“We’re here now,” said Wiijnbladh evasively and got up. “It’s here we change trains,” he said. Actually I ought to kill you, he thought.

…

Because he had snooped through her handbag when she went to the bathroom, and because her name was what it was, a look at the Stockholm Police Department employee register had been sufficient to find him.

Detective Inspector Göran Wiijnbladh with the technical squad. I must meet him, Waltin had thought, feeling almost as enlivened as that time when he’d seen his dear mother take the escalator down to the subway at Östermalm Square.

The prime minister’s special adviser celebrated Christmas together with his old friend, teacher, and mentor, Professor Forselius. True, both had a number of ex-wives, even more children, and in the case of Forselius an almost unbelievable and quickly increasing number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but when it was finally time to celebrate Christmas, for various reasons they only had each other, and it had been like that for a number of years.

It wasn’t so strange either that they always convened at the home of the special adviser. Forselius either ate canned food or went to the exclusive gentlemen’s club Stora Sällskapet, while the special adviser had access to all the resources that his secret life could offer. If you looked in the phone book-he was actually in the phone book with both first and last name, but without title-he had a very modest address on Södermalm where he never set foot other than to fetch his mail, and the telephone number that went there had been forwarded from the first day to the large home in Djursholm where he actually lived. In addition he had a housekeeper, a wine cellar, a party membership book, and several million dollars that he’d buried abroad with all the care of which only people like him and Forselius were capable. Strangest of all, he’d earned all his money himself and he’d done it before he’d turned thirty-five.

Forselius loved him more than his own children, while the special adviser’s feelings for Forselius were more mixed. He liked his children best anyway, he used to think, for actually Forselius was only a grumpy old bastard who could be totally and uniquely self-absorbed. He did have one characteristic, though, that was hard to beat. Forselius was the only person that he could talk with about the kinds of things that no one else understood, and because questions of that type made up the essential reason for his continued existence, the answer was also a given.

And who the hell wants to toast themselves in a shaving mirror on Christmas Eve? thought the special adviser, raising his glass toward his only and recurring guest.

“Skoal, professor,” said the special adviser. “And merry Christmas.”

“Skoal, young man,” said Forselius, savoring the wine in his glass. “And merry Christmas to you too.”

“Well,” said the special adviser, looking at him with curiosity.

“Petrus,” said Forselius. “1945.”

“My birth year,” said the special adviser.

“A great year in Bordeaux,” said Forselius.

“A great year here, there, and everywhere,” said the special adviser generously, thinking of his own inception.

“Have I told you about that Pole?” said Forselius. “It was the same year.”

“The one you killed,” said the special adviser, chuckling so that his fat belly jumped.

“Oh well,” said Forselius. “What the hell choice did we have?”

Appetizer, main course, cheese, and dessert, but not a herring butt, slice of ham, or Christmas pudding as far as the eye could see. A skinny, middle-aged, black-clad woman who moved like a lost soul between the kitchen, the serving corridor, and the enormous dining room table, never saying a word. Now she stood in the door between the dining room and the library, exchanging a glance with the master of the house.

“I believe that coffee and cognac are waiting,” said the special adviser, setting aside his damask napkin, pushing his chair back, and getting up with a certain effort.

Forselius nodded, cleared his throat, winked meaningfully, and leaned forward.

“Is she mute, man?” he whispered. “Is she really mute?”

“I really don’t know,” said the special adviser. “She’s never said anything.”

…

With coffee and cognac they usually exchanged Christmas presents. Always the same kind of Christmas present, yet always different than the one they’d received and the one they’d given the year before. Each a folded-up slip of paper that they gave to each other and then unfolded and read. A frighteningly long row of numerals on both pieces of paper, different numerals, wrinkled brows. Forselius’s brow smoothed out first and his wrinkled old man’s face split into a contented grin.

“I won again,” he said with delight.

“You and your fucking prime numbers,” said the special adviser sourly. “I’ve got a job to take care of, you know. Besides, I’m sure you’re cheating with the military’s big computer,” he added indignantly.

“Why do you think that?” said Forselius slyly. “Perhaps I just think better than you do?”

“Ha ha,” said the special adviser, who was a poor loser and a completely insufferable winner.

Then they played billiards and drank highballs half the night before Forselius staggered up to his guest room on the second floor early on Christmas morning. There he fell asleep immediately after he’d kicked off his shoes and despite his advanced age flung himself on top of the bedspread.

Waltin had prepared himself carefully. First he’d found out everything that was worth knowing about that fat red-haired sow and her miserable husband. Neither background, money, nor schools, but no one would have expected that, he thought contentedly. Dreary four-room apartment in a suburb, no children, the sow clearly worked at the phone company and was otherwise best known for kicking herself weary under men other than the one she was married to. Certainly started as one of those old-time switchboard operators who sit putting things in small holes the whole time and then it had just gone on from old habit, he’d thought, giggling with delight.

…

As soon as he was bored he used to take out the pictures he’d taken of her as she lay tied up with muzzle and blindfold and everything, and for a while he’d seriously considered sending the best picture as a reader’s contribution to those miserable porno rags you found in pretty much all places where there were lower-class men, but on further reflection he’d refrained. Perhaps I might need her again, Waltin had thought, and the thing about her husband appealed to him much more.

He’d called him up a month or so after the encounter with the sow, and when he’d said who he was the miserable little shit had been so flattered that Waltin regretted that he hadn’t recorded him on tape.

“As I said,” Waltin had said, “I need to freshen up my technical knowledge without blabbing about it to the whole operations bureau.”

“Of course, of course,” Wiijnbladh had gushed. “Then I propose Saturday morning, for I’m at the after-hours unit then and for the most part I’m usually alone there,” he had said officiously. Wonder who gave him my name? This can lead who knows where, he had thought, and in his mind he had already seen himself as head of the secret police’s myth-shrouded, covert tech squad.

“Fine with me,” Waltin had replied in English. “Shall we say ten o’clock on Saturday?” Wonder if he understands English, he’d thought.

“Discretion a matter of honor,” Wiijnbladh had said, unknowing procurer that he also was.

Wiijnbladh had met him dressed in white coat with a sash; only the stethoscope was missing. Plus the education, of course, but altogether it was better than Waltin could even have imagined in his wettest, most secret dreams. Then they’d walked around the unit and Wiijnbladh had shown and demonstrated and babbled like a little windmill while Waltin had had a half erection practically the whole time.

“Here, for example, we have a Matisse that came in last week,” Wiijnbladh had said, showing a painting that someone had set on a workbench. “Forgery, of course,” he’d said, sighing like the art connoisseur he surely was.

What do you say? Waltin had thought. I thought he’d painted that with his feet.

“I have a few pieces myself,” Waltin had declared with the bon viveur’s matter-of-factness. “Feels nice to hear that you keep a close watch on those kinds of things.”

Of course he had gotten on a first-name basis with him as soon as they’d shaken hands. That was half the fun. Then he’d made little snide remarks during the course of the journey whenever there was an opportunity.

“It’s just horrible that someone could do that to a child,” Waltin had said, shaking his head mournfully while Wiijnbladh showed him a little pair of undies on which one of Wiijnbladh’s colleagues in the forensic vineyard had evidently succeeded in identifying semen stains.

“Ugh yes,” Wiijnbladh had said.

“You have kids yourself,” Waltin had said; this was more a statement than a question, and of course he’d already known the answer.

“Unfortunately,” Wiijnbladh had answered, “my wife and I have not had any success in that regard.”

And in no other regard either, it appears, despite the fact that she can hardly be accused of a lack of willingness, Waltin had thought, making an effort to preserve an indifferent and sufficiently regretful expression.

“I myself don’t even have a woman by my side,” Waltin had said, shaking his head. I hardly have time to screw everyone else’s, he thought.

“Yes,” Wiijnbladh had said, and suddenly he’d seemed to have his thoughts somewhere else. “Although marriage can have its drawbacks.”

What is he saying? Waltin had thought. This is almost too good to be true.

Finally Wiijnbladh had shown him the weapons room: hundreds of weapons of all imaginable sizes and manufacture. Military and civilian automatic weapons, rifles and ordinary shotguns with whole or sawed-off barrels, revolvers and pistols, shootable walking sticks, pen pistols, bolt pistols, nail pistols, even a regular slaughtering mask.

“Mostly confiscations we’ve made in connection with various crimes,” Wiijnbladh had explained. “Although we purchase quite a few as well, to have in our weapons library.”

Yes, for you probably can’t read, Waltin had thought. What an unbelievable mess, he’d thought. Weapons on the walls, on shelves, in boxes and cabinets. Weapons and parts of weapons in an old shoe box that someone had clearly started sorting into smaller piles before he’d found something else to do. Weapons and parts on tables and benches and even a sawed-off, disassembled shotgun that someone had set aside on the seat of a chair before he’d run off to do who knows what.

“Seems to be quite a lot,” Waltin had said, nodding, as a telephone started ringing in the background.

“We have almost a thousand weapons here in the unit. Excuse me a moment,” Wiijnbladh had said.

“Sure,” Waltin had replied, and as soon as he’d heard him lift the receiver in the room outside, and without understanding how it really happened or why he did it, he’d stuck his hand down in a half-opened drawer, fished up a revolver with a short barrel, and let it glide down into his very deepest pocket.

“Excuse me,” Wiijnbladh had said when he came back, “but that was the after-hours unit that called.”

“Not at all,” Waltin had said. “If there’s anyone who should beg pardon it’s I, who am taking you away from more important tasks. I’d like to thank you greatly for the visit. It’s been very instructive.”

Almost as good as that time he’d seen dear Mother come out of the doorway where she lived and with the help of her canes and the usual antics limp away toward the stairway to the subway.

Wiijnbladh and his wife as usual celebrated Christmas with his sister-in-law, her semi-alcoholic husband, and their fourteen-year-old son in the town house in Sollentuna where they lived. It was exactly as wretched as it always was. First they ate and then they watched TV and then they passed out Christmas presents, and after that they watched TV again.

Then his brother-in-law fell asleep on the sofa after the usual intake of beer, wine, and a dozen shots, spiked coffees, and highballs. His head leaned back against the sofa at a ninety-degree angle, mouth wide open, violently snoring. His wife and her sister disappeared out into the kitchen, where they sat and giggled and drank wine behind a closed door. The son remained sitting, glaring furtively at Wiijnbladh when he thought he didn’t see him. Judging by his look he was retarded and undependable, thought Wiijnbladh, the only consolation in this connection probably being that he would soon turn fifteen and then Wiijnbladh would be able to look him up in the crime registry to see what he was really up to when he was expected to be in school or sitting at home doing his homework.

“Perhaps we should think about moving along,” said Wiijnbladh, and as soon as he opened the door to the kitchen his wife and sister-in-law fell silent. It was his wife who was telling something, he’d heard that, and clearly she’d been laughing till the tears ran while she did so.

“I believe your dear husband will have a lay… too,” said the sister-in-law after a stage pause, and then they both laughed so hard the tears were flying around them.

I ought to kill the both of them, thought Wiijnbladh.

As soon as Waltin came home to his apartment on Norr Mälarstrand, he made a decision and called up little Jeanette.

“Change of plans, my love,” he said. “It looks like we’ll have to celebrate Christmas here in town. A few things have happened at work, so I have to stay within reach,” he clarified.

“When do you want me to come?” asked Jeanette. Lovely, she thought. Then perhaps I can sit normally during the week after Christmas.

Wonder if she’s going to try to make contact with me, thought Waltin. Or if I should make contact with her. And suddenly he became so aroused that he was compelled to take out those old photographs he’d taken of her last spring and go into the bathroom and release himself.

…

What the hell is happening? thought Jeanette with surprise. First champagne and Russian caviar, then foie gras and that sweet French wine she loved, filet of sole and more champagne. Now they were eating black currant sorbet. And he was just as tender, courteous, and entertaining as the first time. And better looking than ever despite the fact that he’d been damn good-looking the whole time.

“Skoal, my love,” said Waltin, raising his glass. “By the way, I’ve bought a Christmas present for you.”

An ankle-length mink coat with a hood, and when can I wear that? she thought. In another life, wonder what it cost? One or two or several years of my salary before taxes, she thought.

“I heard it would be a cold winter,” said Waltin, smiling. “And I don’t want you to have to freeze.”

What is happening? thought Assistant Detective Jeanette Eriksson, who would soon turn twenty-eight.

I must get hold of Hedberg too, thought Waltin while he looked at little Jeanette, who was sleeping in the bed by his side. Unpunished, without being rocked to sleep after a few too many glasses of champagne and with his Christmas present as the only covering over her slender body. Then I must see to it that Berg calms down, he thought. For his own good if nothing else.

Right before midnight Jarnebring mustered his courage and called his best friend to tell him.

“I’ve gotten engaged,” said Jarnebring.

“What’s her name?” said Johansson, who sounded unusually happy and in high spirits and certainly had a few under his belt. “Is it anyone I’ve met?”

“Stop it, Lars,” said Jarnebring, who wouldn’t let himself be disturbed by such boyish nonsense on his great day.

“Many congratulations, Bo,” said Johansson, “and merry Christmas to both of you. And take care of yourself. And of her too,” he added, suddenly sounding serious again.

You sentimental old Lapp bastard, thought Jarnebring when he put down the receiver. Christ, I must’ve gotten something in my eye, he thought, rubbing the corner of his right eye with his fist.

“Was he happy?” asked his fiancée.

“Hmmmm,” said Jarnebring, nodding.

I must get hold of Hedberg, thought Waltin, but then he must have finally fallen asleep, for when he looked up again it had already started to get light outside his bedroom window.