Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End

CHAPTER XVI

And all that remained was the cold of winter

Stockholm in January and February

Waltin never tried to get hold of Hedberg. Instead he was seized by boredom while the days simply slipped away without his being able to get anything reasonable accomplished. He even broke off the training of little Jeanette, despite the fact that now was when he ought to have had the time to seriously attend to it. Instead he just sat there brooding about all the idiots who surrounded him fixated on only one thing-how to get at him and hurt him. Berg, for example, who quite obviously was trying to put the blame on him for the fact that that crazy junkie Krassner happened to tumble out his window. And he would rather not think about what that lunatic Forselius was up to along with his bosom buddies in the government building. Then that red-haired sow and her miserable husband-that is what they were called, regardless of whether or not they were fulfilling their marital duties-who had more or less accosted him on Christmas Eve. What she was in the process of cooking up he would rather not think about either.

Of course he stayed away from work-a benefit of the external operation-because he’d heard through the grapevine that Berg’s fat stable boy, Chief Inspector Persson, was sneaking around, asking strange questions. If there was anyone he didn’t want to encounter it was Persson. Primitive and brutal and completely unscrupulous, fully capable of coming up with just about anything as soon as the master snapped his fingers. Not Persson, anyone but Persson, thought Waltin.

For a few days he tried to get some temporary relief by fussing with his collections. He had hundreds of Polaroids, and quite a few regular pictures as well, which to be on the safe side he’d had processed abroad, and almost as many hours of videotapes and tape recordings, so as a private collection it ought to be the finest in the country, but there were also irritating imperfections and blemishes.

Take, for example, the pictures of that red-haired sow he’d seriously considered sending as a “reader’s contribution”-where did they get them all, those jerk-offs, for you know they couldn’t read?-to one of the working class’s many pornographic publications, but on closer consideration he’d refrained, because you actually couldn’t tell from the pictures that she was the subject. A fat red-haired sow lying tied up to the bedposts, before and after the removal of a portion of red bush; true, you could see that, and for many people perhaps that was good enough, but you actually didn’t see that she was the one it depicted, and that was of course the whole point of publishing the pictures.

Because she had wriggled so infernally his meticulously applied muzzle had slid up so it covered half her face, and unfortunately he’d missed correcting that little detail during the photography, overworked and stressed as he was due to Berg and his incessant paranoid fantasies.

All the inactivity and idling at home in the apartment finally almost made him crazy, and because he was in the process of jerking himself dry just to get a little peace and quiet, he hadn’t had any choice. Despite the fact that the risks were considerable, for they always were, and with the bad luck he’d had lately they would scarcely have lessened, he nonetheless decided to go out into the field again. Sink or swim, thought Waltin, but I have to find something sensible to do.

First he deliberated whether he should arrange a wiretap on her-he’d done that before and it was simple enough to sneak in an extra number when you were turning in the usual monthly lists anyway-but because that madman Persson was running around loose somewhere out in his own terrain he didn’t dare take the risk. Instead he had to reconnoiter himself-in and of itself he’d done that before and he did it better than most-but the problem was that it was so doggone boring. It was only policemen and ordinary brain-dead people who endured sitting for hours in the front seat of a car staring at the same entryway while the object of surveillance was lying at home in bed playing with himself or looking at videos or gobbling down pizza, so he did what he usually did. He improvised a little and chanced it a little to get the time to pass, and one way or another it always worked out for the best.

But not this time.

Instead of sitting the whole day outside her office, he crank-called her a half hour before she quit in order to make sure she was there, and when she answered he just put down the receiver, got into the car, and took up a suitable position outside the exit to her office. It took only a quarter of an hour before she suddenly stepped out onto the street, her coat unbuttoned despite the cold, so that no poor, overworked wretch who only wanted to go home to suburban misery would be able to miss those fat breasts straining under her yellow sweater. The stuffed sow is always the same, thought Waltin, giggling as he visualized her, how she sat there rubbing against the seat of her chair all day while she stuck things into small holes.

But instead of disappearing in the direction of the subway-he planned to approach her right before the intersection-she remained standing. She just stood there, then she looked at her watch, and suddenly that well-known excitement started to sneak up on him. The one he always felt right before he found out something about someone that he could make use of. She’s waiting for someone, thought Waltin.

And at the same moment someone knocked urgently on the windshield of the car, pulled open the door, and stuck a police ID in his face.

“Move over,” said Police Inspector Berg, nodding with narrowed eyes toward the passenger seat.

Berg’s nephew, thought Waltin. Hadn’t he just been taken out of service for those reports of brutality? The jeans and the jacket seemed to indicate that, but why in that case hadn’t they taken his ID away from him?

“What’s this about?” said Waltin guardedly. He already knew, though, for in the corner of his eye he saw that the stuffed sow on the other side of the street was almost jumping with delight. She’s fucked him too, of course, he thought. She’s certainly fucked all of those cavemen.

“Are you deaf or do you want me to help you?” asked Berg.

And because his eyes looked the way they did, despite the completely improbable situation, Waltin nonetheless did as he was told and wriggled over to the passenger seat.

“I’ll make it brief,” said Berg. “Lisa is a good friend of mine. Stop messing with her, or I’ll see to it that things get fucking disagreeable for you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Waltin, sticking his hand in his pocket in order to take out his own ID to get him to understand the seriousness. You don’t threaten a police superintendent with the secret police, thought Waltin.

“Stop persecuting Lisa, or I’ll see to it that she reports you, and don’t try to say that you’re here on duty,” said Berg, pushing aside Waltin’s hand with the ID card.

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” said Waltin. The guy is completely crazy, he thought. You can see it in his eyes.

“You and I both know,” said Berg. “She reports you, my colleagues and I who’ve seen you stand up and testify. Do we understand one another?”

“I would encourage you to leave my car immediately,” said Waltin. Completely crazy, he thought. Totally crazy.

“This isn’t your car, it’s the department’s car, just so you know,” said Berg as he opened the door to get out.

Waltin didn’t say anything, for the threat in his eyes was so real that he could touch it.

So he just remained sitting and watched Berg go over to the stuffed sow and take her by the arm. They both disappeared up the street. Only then did he drive away. I’ll kill them, thought Waltin.

After Berg had followed Lisa to the subway he met his comrades. It was a meeting that they’d already planned during the Christmas holiday, and it was also then that they’d set up the tactics for how to find the traitor who had wormed his way into their ranks. They already had their suspicions, so now it was only a matter of setting the trap and seeing to it that it closed on the right man.

Lisa’s a good girl, he thought. Really good lay too, and a jerk like that Waltin should just be killed. It was clearly enough to poke at him to make him shit in his pants, so it probably wouldn’t be all that difficult, thought Berg.

At the meeting he “surprised” the assembly with a few well-prepared little semi-red viewpoints that he and the group had agreed on, and it was the very guy that they’d guessed in advance who started to carry on and go on the rampage. Damn overacting, thought Berg. We’ll get you soon. Then they had coffee and he only needed to exchange a glance with the comrades to know that they’d understood exactly the same thing he had. The traitor had worked like a beaver to ingratiate himself and provoke people to say wrong things, but of course that hadn’t gotten him anywhere.

On the first day of the new job, Johansson noticed a newspaper clipping on the internal bulletin board next to the cloakroom. It was the annual New Year’s greeting from the Stockholm chief constable to his faithful personnel, which someone had clipped out of the Stockholm Police Department’s personnel newsletter, and to be on the safe side marked it, with the help of a felt pen, with a thick black frame.

It was no ordinary New Year’s greeting, especially not within the police. True, he’d heard whispering for a long time about the chief constable’s literary ambitions, but he really hadn’t counted on this. People didn’t usually throw themselves headfirst out of their private closets when they’d finally made up their minds, thought Johansson, while he muttered his way through the poem’s seven short lines. One of them he happened to recognize from some other context, but he’d forgotten from where, and on the whole it was all the same.

Black asphalt,

shining neon,

the stench of urine from the tile of the subway,

in the station john a junkie dies of an overdose,

Stockholm, city of cities,

A dove pecks on the window ledge where I live,

there is Hope!

Under the chief constable’s poem someone had written with the same black felt pen, “Give me a real policeman from Ådalen,” and when Johansson saw the brief assertion something touched his Norrland heart. Nice to know you’re welcome.

An unusual lot of poets around lately, he thought as he walked down the long corridor in the direction of his office. Prime ministers and police chiefs and God knows what. Perhaps you ought to write something yourself, he thought, but because that idea was so absurd he immediately dismissed it. A real policeman never wrote poems, and personally he’d already quit that kind of thing when he was a kid. Long before he became a policeman.

Bureau Chief Berg used to think about Swedish defense as a cheese, an unusually hollow, large-holed cheese of the classic Swiss model, and the primary reason for this was the stable and resistant foundation of stone on which the nation rested, for in it you could make holes, and in holes you could put things. He was more hesitant about the hedgehog the military used to talk about, and when they sometimes pulled out the Swedish tiger from the days of the cold war he was definitely not with them anymore. A taciturn Swedish tiger? The very thought was preposterous, Berg used to think, because if the Swedes really had been taciturn there would be no need for people like him. Berg existed, for good reason, because certain people talked too much, and it wasn’t any more complicated than that.

The hollow cheese was a better image than both the hedgehog and the tiger because it was there that all the necessities of war were stored, from coffee and underwear to fuel and grease, plus an artillery piece or two that must be on hand when you wanted to strike back. The good Swedish rock foundation was crisscrossed with mile after mile of secret passages and ten million square feet of secret spaces where everything that would be needed could be stored, just in case.

The practical problems connected with this choice of strategy dealt in all essentials with the requirements for heat, ventilation, air humidity, and dehumidifying, and it was hardly by chance that Swedish industry was also the world leader in these technical areas. In Sweden there were thus two multinational corporations that produced and sold everything from fans and pumps to air-conditioning and dehumidifying installations, with customers over the whole world, regardless of whether their requirements were military or civilian.

These products were sold on an open market and protected in the usual way through patents and licenses, and so far didn’t involve spies, but as soon as they were installed in military installations it became a completely different matter. For the materiel to be put into place and function demanded a thorough knowledge of the installations where they were to be placed, and based on this knowledge a number of interesting variables could then be calculated: site, size, and range of application, type of materiel, and quantity of various products and commodities, in order to codify those that concerned military capacity, strategic direction, and endurance. Depending on who the purchaser was, a banal, ordinary industrial fan might quickly be transformed into an espionage assignment of the first order.

A good year and a half earlier, detectives in the secret police conducting routine surveillance of an official with the Soviet trade delegation had gotten wind of a previously unknown Swede who, after the customary checks, was shown to be working as a sales engineer at the smaller and faster growing of the two multinational Swedish companies in the business. When the alarm had been sounded Berg had been on vacation, the first real time off he’d had in several years, and it was Waltin who filled in for him. When Berg came back the case was already closed and evidently disappeared, for however Berg rooted in his memory, he couldn’t find the least trace of it.

…

“And you’re quite certain that it was in June of the summer before last,” asked Berg.

“Quite sure,” said Persson. “Waltin took it over just as soon as it came in. It was the sixth of June, National Day, in fact. It was concluded less than a month later, the first of July.”

“So what did he do?” said Berg. “Waltin, that is.” While Marja and I were in Austria, he thought.

“Unclear,” said Persson. “The person involved quit rather abruptly, so the basic tip-off is that Waltin contacted the company executives. We don’t seem to have done anything here in the building, in any event.”

“This sounds completely unreal,” said Berg. “Why in heaven’s name did he do that?”

“Personally I can only think of one reason,” said Persson.

“Yes?”

“Their single largest export market is the United States. How do you think the Yanks would have reacted if they’d found out that the company was the object of an espionage investigation? That concerned the Russians?”

“But why on earth would Waltin do something like that?”

“There’s only one reason,” said Persson, suddenly looking rather satisfied.

“Yes?”

Persson held up his large right hand with the back of his hand toward Berg and rubbed his thumb against his index and middle fingers.

“Maybe he needed to buy a new watch,” Persson grunted contentedly.

I don’t believe my ears, thought Berg.

“We have to talk with him,” he said.

They had the first weekly meeting of the new year the third week in January. None of the issues Berg chose to bring up were especially important or urgent. He did not touch on the prime minister’s personal security awareness in any way. Most likely because he was now beginning to resign himself to the thought of having to live with it as it was-that is to say, nonexistent, or at best insufficient.

Kudo and Bülling as usual reported a great number of questions “of the utmost importance for the security of the realm” during the operations bureau’s preparation of those cases that he needed to take up with the government, but personally he’d been content to communicate to his political superiors that all appeared calm on the Kurdish front. Contrary to his habit, the minister of justice didn’t come up with any moronic follow-up questions, either, contenting himself with nodding in concurrence.

Berg devoted most of the time to the ongoing survey of extreme right-wing elements within the police and military, but even there he was able to provide reassurance. According to the operations bureau’s informants, activities within these groups appeared, if anything, to have decreased, and the future would show whether that was due to the fact that they’d eaten too much Christmas food or to something else.

Then final questions remained, and because that point traditionally was given over to a somewhat more lighthearted summing-up and give-and-take, it came as a total surprise when the minister of justice started asking questions about very sensitive command-and-control procedures in connection with the work of the secret police. As a breach of etiquette it was almost shocking, but etiquette was clearly the thing they were least interested in talking about.

“I guess I’ll get right to the point,” said the minister of justice, who suddenly sounded like a completely different person than the one Berg had become accustomed to, “for unfortunately it is the case that this so-called external operation has concerned us a great deal.”

Then the chief legal officer took over. The legal officer, of all people, who had hardly opened his mouth during all these years, thought Berg, and from the papers that he started to shuffle and from what he then said, Berg understood two things. That he of course was not one to speak unprepared, and that he must have a very large bone to pick with Berg and his operation.

“To summarize,” said the legal officer with a crackling-dry voice and as though he were addressing a child, “the business-enterprise element of the external operation is not in accord with the instructions of the government. Quite apart from the entire construction, it must be considered utterly dubious as an instrument of control.”

“When this came up the first time during the previous administration,” Berg objected, “I was of the distinct impression that they were completely in agreement with us that it was only a question of a cover in order to protect the actual operation. And as you gentlemen perhaps recall, we also briefed our parliamentary committee.”

From their facial expressions Berg could tell that they didn’t share the previous administration’s understanding of the matter, and that none of them had any memory of any information from their time in opposition.

“Because you’ve done business with both private and public clients, it is quite obviously a question of a business operation in the legal sense, and thereby inconsistent with your instructions,” the legal officer repeated.

“Well,” said Berg, swearing to himself about how compliant he sounded, “but that’s of course in the very nature of the matter. How else would we be able to maintain a credible front?”

“It sounds as if it’s high time to close up shop,” chuckled the prime minister’s special adviser behind his half-closed eyelids. “I have a vague recollection that you and I talked about this previously, by the way.”

So that’s how it is, thought Berg.

“It’s naturally regrettable that the previous administration’s attorneys didn’t pay attention to this little complication,” the legal adviser stated contentedly. “If you had asked me I would have been able to enlighten you on the fact that the entire arrangement was unthinkable from the start.”

“Naturally we’re not demanding that you immediately close the whole thing down,” said the minister of justice amiably. “The control function naturally must remain, and we understand fully that you may need a certain transition period in order to find a… how shall I put it… a more correct legal form for the whole thing.”

“By Monday would be good,” said the special adviser, laughing so that his fat belly bounced.

“Oh well,” said the minister of justice sourly, because it was he who actually had a seat in the government, and he had the right to demand a little good manners even from the prime minister’s confidant. “You surely need a little longer, but if we might get your thoughts on how such an oversight should be set up by the next meeting or perhaps even the following meeting then I’ll be completely satisfied.” The minister of justice nodded affably.

How generous of you, thought Berg. Not enough that I’m expected to cut off my right arm myself. I also have to decide where, when, and how it should be done. Provided that it goes quickly, of course.

It was at that point that he decided to try a different angle of attack, and afterward he deeply regretted having done so. He ought to have understood better, he thought. This was something they must have prepared with all the precision required for a successful ambush.

“I have heard it suggested,” Berg began hesitantly and carefully, “that the government is planning a new parliamentary oversight of the entire closed operation… and it would be far from me to have any opinions about that,” he continued just as carefully as he’d begun, “but am I to understand from what you are now saying that you have abandoned the idea of a more comprehensive inspection?”

“Certainly not,” said the minister of justice, sounding just as jovial as if it was an ordinary present that was going to be given out. “Certainly not,” he repeated. “When we discussed the matter at the higher governmental level, we were only in agreement on the fact that it would be advantageous to deal with this question in particular before we set to work on the somewhat broader oversight.”

“We don’t want to embarrass the opposition,” the special adviser clarified with his usual wry grin.

“Not at any price, certainly not,” emphasized the minister with a cordial voice. “Let others score such crude political points.”

So there’s no help to be had, thought Berg. Wonder how many they’ve talked with?

“I will put together a proposal as quickly as is possible,” he said, nodding curtly. “If there’s nothing else, then…”

He understood by their satisfied head shaking that they all thought he’d gotten as much as he could tolerate for one occasion.

…

Despite repeated attempts, Waltin hadn’t gotten hold of Hedberg. After the shocking attack he’d been subjected to by that fat red-haired stuffed sow and Berg’s deplorable nephew-actually he ought to report him, but justice would have to be tempered with mercy, and first he wanted to discuss the problem with Hedberg, who always used to have good ideas when it was a matter of retaliating with interest-he’d felt anxious and phoned Hedberg on his secret number far into the night. The phone had rung and rung, but no one had answered, and finally he’d gone to bed after a few stiff malt whiskeys.

The explanation for Hedberg’s absence came in the mail the next morning. On the hallway mat below the mail slot lay a single postcard: blue sky and blue sea, white sand and green palms. When he turned over the card and saw the only word written there he understood exactly: “Diving,” read Waltin, smiling. Hedberg was clearly at his favorite place, devoting himself to his favorite hobby, and just like all the times before he would soon return from Java to relative civilization and his little house on northern Mallorca, where he’d settled many years ago when he’d had enough both of his fatherland and of the secret police he’d worked for.

Hedberg, thought Waltin, nodding with approval as he always did every time he thought about the brother that his constantly sick little mama had denied him, and when he did so this time he suddenly got a totally brilliant idea how he might use him to shut his deplorable and clearly paranoid boss up. For it was of course Berg who had supported Hedberg that time almost ten years ago when those lunatics at the Stockholm Police Department’s assault unit were after him like a pack of howling bloodhounds. We all have a history, and I’ll see to it that you don’t run away from this one, thought Waltin contentedly.

It must have been almost ten years ago, thought Waltin. Those so-called detectives in Stockholm wanted to get Hedberg for a post-office robbery and two murders. The whole story was absolutely absurd and obviously quite worthy of police thinkers like that Norrland tramp Johansson and his violence-worshipping best friend, Jarnebring, who were the ones who’d let the pack loose.

First Hedberg supposedly slipped away from a bodyguard assignment, where he was guarding the minister of justice while the latter was screwing a slightly more high-class prostitute to exhaustion, and took the opportunity to rob a post office not far from the security object’s love nest. Then he supposedly killed two witnesses who recognized him and wanted to extort money from him. True, he’d only run over the first one with his car, but the other one he’d killed in a rather more old-fashioned and honest way, dumping the body out at the Forest Cemetery. An ordinary old bum, so that was no doubt both pious and practical, but the peasant police had persisted anyway, even though it would have been best for all concerned just to bury the wretch and forget the whole thing. They were going to get Hedberg and that was that.

Until the minister of justice stood up and provided an alibi for his bodyguard. Hedberg had not budged an inch from the minister’s side during the entire day. That’s how it stood and the whole so-called case had fallen apart like a house of cards. Hedberg hadn’t even been questioned for information, and all the files in the case had been carried up to Berg for forwarding. Wonder just where they went? thought Waltin with delight.

A both interesting and morally instructive story on the importance of not sticking your nose into other people’s business and with a clearly humorous point. It wouldn’t do to remove Hedberg, but as he was the active type that liked to move around, he wasn’t all that easy to have in the office, either. Especially as there was a great deal of talk even internally. To put it briefly, Berg had had a little problem, and as so often before it was Waltin who had solved it for him. You can’t expect gratitude in this world, thought Waltin, while at the same time feeling more exhilarated than in a long time. And because Hedberg clearly was good enough to get a recalcitrant minister of justice (nowadays forgotten and removed from politics) under control, then he certainly was still good enough to get Berg to fall in line.

…

When Hedberg wanted to quit and Berg was about to end up in an acute phase of his chronic control mania, Waltin offered to shift Hedberg over to the external operation in order to see to it, under tranquil and well-controlled conditions, that he was kept in a good mood by using him as a so-called external consultant. Berg not only supported this, he thanked him warmly, and because Waltin, in contrast to his so-called boss, was no ordinary wooden head, he’d naturally seen about documenting his gratitude. It’ll work out, thought Waltin, and at the same moment the doorbell rang on his front door.

Outside stood Berg’s own stable boy-he saw that through the peephole-although just now he appeared more fat than terrifying, thought Waltin as he quickly checked his morning getup in the hall mirror before opening the door.

“The earlier in the day the finer the guests,” said Waltin tranquilly as he let the fat man onto his expensive rug. “What can I help you with, chief inspector?”

“Berg wants to talk with you,” said Persson curtly. Don’t put on airs, you stuck-up devil, he thought.

“What does he want?” said Waltin. Since he’s sending his fat household slave, he thought.

“You can take that up with him,” said Persson. You pompous little bastard, he thought.

“Has he forgotten to pay his phone bill?” asked Waltin innocently.

“Don’t know,” said Persson. “Why do you ask that?”

“Because he’s sending you, chief inspector,” said Waltin conciliatorily. “At this early hour.”

“Shall we go?” said Persson. Or should I drag you out, although I probably won’t have such good luck, he thought.

“Tell him that I’ll see him in his office in an hour,” said Waltin, holding the front door in a way that even someone like that ought to understand.

He evidently had too, for he only grunted something before he turned on his heel and left. And Waltin himself whistled under his breath while he stood in the shower and pondered how he would set the whole thing up. High time that he did something about little Jeanette too, he thought. He’d actually been neglecting her lately.

“You chose a preventive effort, you say,” said Berg, looking at the dandy sitting on the other side of his good-sized desk, pinching his eternal trouser creases.

“Not the hint of suspicion of a crime, products that can be purchased freely on the open market and that even the Russians might need… So at that point I chose to inform the corporate executives and recommended a number of preventive measures to them,” Waltin summarized. Instead of injuring our exports, he thought.

“These crime-prevention measures,” said Berg. “What did they consist of?” He seems completely unmoved, Berg thought as he heard the alarm bells in his head start to ring. Faintly, to be sure, but nonetheless clearly enough.

“That it was probably best they move their employee, for his own sake if nothing else, and then I arranged it so they had contact with one of our external consultants, who helped them with an analysis and a security program-forward-directed preventive measures, quite simply. I don’t recall the details, but I’m assuming it was managed and invoiced in the customary way, and I definitely know that from the company’s side they were very satisfied with our efforts.” You should have seen the check they gave me, he thought.

“An external consultant?” asked Berg, although he ought to have listened to the alarm bells, for they were ringing louder now.

“You surely remember Hedberg, whom you asked me to take over a number of years ago,” said Waltin, smiling cordially. “An extraordinary person, as it turned out, even if at the time I no doubt felt a certain hesitation regarding your decision. Yes, considering his earlier difficulties, I mean,” said Waltin with the right worried smile. “So I was wrong, you were right,” said Waltin, allowing his well-manicured fingers to illustrate how wrong he’d been and how right his boss had been.

Hedberg, thought Berg, and now the alarm bells were booming in his head.

“Hedberg.” Waltin savored the name as though it were a fine wine. “I owe you a great debt of gratitude there, considering everything that man has helped us with over the years.” Not least with the Krassner case, he thought. He almost started to giggle out loud when he saw Berg’s face. I’ll wait to mention the Krassner case, he decided.

That’s enough now, thought Berg. That’s more than enough.

“There’s been a lot of talk, as you understand,” said Berg, exerting himself not to sound compliant.

“Yes, I can imagine that,” said Waltin empathetically, “and considering that Hedberg must have been completely innocent, I recall that you told me that the minister of justice at the time personally vouched for him, so it’s really rather frightful.” And let them talk, he thought, for the money I got neither you nor anyone else is going to find.

“I hope you weren’t offended,” said Berg. Does the trap feel like this when it closes? he thought. A week, at the most fourteen days until he had to inform Waltin that his operation would be shut down. Waltin, who certainly would not hesitate for a second to strike back and use Hedberg and his story against him.

“Certainly not,” said Waltin with conviction, smiling with his white teeth. “I think your questions were completely legitimate, and considering that it’s your old protégé Hedberg who has helped us, then I hope that you understand that everything has been managed in the best way.” For now the shit has finally hit the right fan, and considering the context, that was probably an unusually apt description, thought Waltin.

Enough, thought Berg. And the alarm bells were thundering so it was impossible to even think.

“I understand what you mean,” said Berg. What do I do now? he thought.

A little over a week at the new job and Johansson had never felt so frustrated in his entire professional life. He’d of course been aware that he would no longer be working as a police officer. It was the price you had to pay if you wanted to advance, and Johansson could actually imagine life as a high-level bureaucrat. He was good at getting people to feel comfortable and do their part and see to it that there was order in existence, even within the police department. But unfortunately that wasn’t what he was working on. He’d become clear about that after a few days, and there was nothing that even suggested a different, and better, future. During the week that had passed he’d only worked on reassigning bad police officers to higher positions with the help of their extraordinary ratings, and arranging it so that good police officers got to quit early because they’d already had enough. One of them he remembered from his time with the surveillance squad. An officer fifteen years his senior, who not only was a real policeman, but who had gladly shared with a young and inexperienced Lars Martin. Johansson called him up and asked him out to lunch. If for nothing else than to get to see him and see what had happened, and-if nothing had happened after all-to try to persuade him to stay.

“It wasn’t yesterday,” said Johansson, nodding with warmth toward his older colleague. He looks a hell of a lot friskier than I do, he thought enviously.

The officer had clearly made the same observation, for their lunch had started with the obligatory joke about all the superintendent muscles that were swelling around Johansson’s waist nowadays.

“You crossed my desk the other day,” said Johansson. “Saw that you were thinking about quitting.”

“And then you got the idea that you could convince me to stay,” declared his older colleague.

“Yes, you see,” said Johansson, smiling, “despite your advanced age you appear both clear and energetic.”

“That’s not the problem,” said his lunch guest, shaking his head. “Do you know why I became a policeman?”

“Because you knew that you could become a good policeman,” said Johansson, who already sensed what was going to come.

“Because I wanted to put crooks in the slammer so ordinary decent people could live in peace.”

“Who doesn’t want that?” said Johansson, and suddenly he felt gloomier than in a long time.

“I didn’t for Christ’s sake become a policeman to sit for days on end filling out forms that I stuff into a binder,” declared the older man with a certain intensity.

Me neither, thought Johansson. I became a policeman because I wanted to be a policeman, not because I wanted to become head of the personnel bureau of the National Police Board.

“How’s it going for you, by the way?” asked his guest. “I guess you’ll soon have more binders to put things in than anyone else on this sinking ship.”

And then they proceeded to talk about old times.

The only bright spot in Johansson’s existence was the lively debate that had broken out on the personnel bureau’s bulletin board over the fact that the Stockholm chief constable was nowadays swinging his pen with his visor lowered. When Johansson returned from his unsuccessful lunch mission he took a look at the latest contributions.

There was a little of everything, from various commentaries and suggestions arising from the chief constable’s problematic living situation to mixed literary viewpoints: “It can’t be fun to live like that” declared “A concerned colleague,” while the contribution from “Unlicensed real-estate agent within the corps” was both clear and constructive: “I can arrange a studio in Sumpan for you off the books for just twenty-five bills so you don’t have to spend the night on your windowsill.”

Police humor is crude without exactly being warm, thought Johansson, proceeding to the literary portion: “This year’s Nobel Prize winner?” speculated the pseudonym “I write too in my free time” while “Poetess in a blue uniform” was more to the point in her appreciation: “Write more! Release my longing! Slake my thirst!” Even a completely innocent Johansson was included in one corner as “Old Man from Ådalen.”

Oh well, thought Johansson, sighing as he settled down behind his even bigger desk, despite the fact that the one he’d had before had been more than large enough.

It was considerably worse for himself. In a formal sense he was still a policeman, and if he was doubtful on that point he only needed to dig his police ID out of his pocket and look at it. A small national coat of arms in yellow and blue, the word “Police” in red block letters, and the only thing that might confuse a badass was possibly his highly suspect title “Bureau Head.” Although on the other hand they never did look very carefully, and when by the way would he have an opportunity to flash it, for this was actually only a friendly gesture from his employers’ side to keep him, and people like him, in a good mood.

Already the object of social therapeutic measures, thought Johansson, and that was when he decided. High time to clean up Krassner, he thought, taking the government office telephone book off its shelf. Next highest up on the first page, thought Johansson, and with a longer title than anyone else in all of Rosenbad. “Special adviser at the disposition of the prime minister,” he read, and he dialed the number.

Not completely unexpectedly, it was the special adviser’s secretary who answered his telephone.

“My name is Lars Johansson,” said Johansson. “I’m bureau head at the National Police Board. I would like to speak with your boss.” An extra lot of Norrland in his voice, however that might have happened, he thought.

“I’ll see if he’s in,” said the secretary neutrally. “One moment.”

Do that, thought Johansson, silently sighing, and to be on the safe side check that he hasn’t hidden under his desk. And then he answered.

“We’ve only met in passing,” said Johansson, “but now the matter is such that I would like to meet you again.”

“I remember, I remember,” said the voice in Johansson’s telephone, and he could picture him, poured out in an easy chair and with the heavy eyelids at half-mast. “It was an interesting discussion we had.”

“Yes,” said Johansson. And you aren’t going to be any happier this time, he thought.

“You don’t want to say what it concerns?”

“There are a number of papers that I want to unload,” said Johansson. “It’s a long story and I’m not calling on official business.”

“Yes?”

“They’re about your boss,” said Johansson. But it’s clear, just say the word so I can heave them over to the colleagues at SePo, he thought.

“You have a hard time talking about it on the phone?” asked the special adviser.

“No,” said Johansson, “but I thought it would be best if I came over so we could deal with this privately.”

“Now I’m getting really curious,” said the special adviser. “You don’t want to…”

“There are greetings to your boss from Fionn,” Johansson interrupted.

“One moment,” said the special adviser, “just one second.”

It took longer than that, more than two minutes, but then things progressed rapidly, and less than an hour later Johansson was sitting across from the special adviser in his office on the eighth floor at Rosenbad.

He’s his usual self, thought Johansson. Although the smile on his lips was friendlier than the last time. An interesting smile.

“It concerns these papers,” said Johansson, pushing across the bundle with Krassner’s manuscript and documentation.

The special adviser nodded amiably but without even a hint of a movement in the direction of the papers he’d just been offered.

“I received them without having asked for them,” said Johansson. “It’s a long, involved story that, moreover, I don’t intend to go into.”

The special adviser nodded again.

“I’ve read them, naturally,” said Johansson. “They deal with your boss. A few of the papers he’s even written himself, and because I haven’t received them as part of my job and I have no reason to suspect him of any crime, I thought that you could give them to him. I think it’s really not my department,” said Johansson.

“You want to relieve yourself of a worry,” said the special adviser understandingly.

“Because it isn’t my worry,” said Johansson. “And if someone else wants to worry about it, I don’t intend to get involved.”

“I understand,” said the special adviser, nodding.

“I’ve written a little memorandum on the whole thing,” said Johansson, handing over the short summary that he’d written on his brother’s typewriter, without signing it.

…

Obviously he’d thrown away the ink ribbon and the typing element, so his brother’s electric typewriter would be of no help if someone happened to think of that.

“If you don’t have any questions then I can wait while you read it,” said Johansson.

“If you don’t have anything against it,” said his host. “Perhaps you’d like more coffee after all?”

Experienced reader that he was it had only taken him five minutes, and when he was done there were two things he had noted in particular. Forselius had clearly been right all along, and Berg’s judgment of Johansson seemed to fit to a tee.

“Are you certain that SePo killed him?” asked the special adviser.

“Not SePo,” said Johansson, shaking his head. “I believe their operative landed in a situation he wasn’t able to handle and so he killed him and then solved his own problems by feigning a suicide.”

“In that case that’s shocking,” observed the special adviser, without showing any particular feelings. “In that case they’ve made themselves guilty of a murder,” he continued.

“Not they, but he,” said Johansson. “My colleagues have written it off as a suicide, and the only reason they’ve done that is that they’re convinced it was one. And should this person not appear and confess, then I see no possibility at all of opening a preliminary investigation into the case. All possible evidence of anything else is unfortunately already gone.”

And what you’ve gotten from me isn’t sufficient for that in any case, he thought.

“Do you know who the operative is?” asked the special adviser.

“Not the faintest idea,” said Johansson. “You’ll have to ask SePo about that.” Then you’ll have to see if they answer, thought Johansson.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” said the special adviser. “Your colleagues have written off the case as a suicide, from conviction you say, and there is no evidence whatsoever that might give support to suspicion of anything else, not the least reason to open a preliminary investigation. You can’t even open a preliminary investigation, if I’ve understood the matter correctly.”

“Quite correct, couldn’t have put it better myself,” said Johansson, smiling.

“Excuse me if I appear tedious,” said the special adviser, “but you yourself are still convinced that he was murdered.”

“Yes,” said Johansson. “He was murdered all right.”

Not my department anymore, he thought a quarter of an hour later as he stepped out into the winter sun outside Rosenbad, and the relief he felt was noticeable even in the weather. What if I were to call up Jarnebring? Go out and eat a little and ask what they want for a wedding present. If she’ll let her new fiancé out, of course, and for some reason he’d also started thinking about that dark woman he’d met at that little post office up on Körsbärsvägen just two months ago. I really ought to look her up, he thought. Now that I’m a free man.

As soon as he’d said that about Fionn, the special adviser had excused himself and gone out to his secretary and called Forselius on her telephone, and unexpectedly enough he had answered at once and sounded completely sober, despite the fact that it was already late morning.

“Who is Fionn?” asked the special adviser.

“Fionn, Fionn,” teased Forselius. “Why are you asking, young man? That was long before your time.”

“Please excuse me,” said the special adviser, “but we’ll have to discuss that later.”

“Fionn, alias John C. Buchanan,” said Forselius.

“Buchanan was Fionn,” said the special adviser in order to avoid misunderstanding.

“Fionn was Buchanan’s code name, one of them,” said Forselius, “and the only reason that I’m saying it on the telephone is that he’s dead. Not because it’s you who is asking.”

“Thanks for the help,” said the special adviser.

“Thus I would never dream of saying what your boss had as a code name,” Forselius droned contentedly. “Regardless of what I think about him.”

“We’ll discuss that later,” said the special adviser.

As soon as the peculiar Norrlander left, he said to his secretary that he didn’t want to be disturbed for a couple of hours, and then to be on the safe side he locked himself in, in the event that his boss might nonetheless come rushing in as he had a habit of doing when he wanted to talk about something important or just socialize in the most general way.

With the help of the memorandum he’d received, his own reading habits, and the mental capacity that a generous creator had given him when he must have been in an especially good mood, it only took him a couple of hours to go through the papers he’d received. Wonder how long it took him, he thought, leafing through Johansson’s memorandum, which in itself was quite uninteresting since his own problem was a different one: that he couldn’t arrive at even a marginal objection to what was there. Berg was right about that business with the corners, he thought. So it was only to be hoped that he was also right about his being taciturn, he thought.

I have to think, the special adviser decided, and then I’ll have to see what I should do. As things were now, there was only one thing he knew for certain. Regardless of everything else, he certainly wouldn’t say anything to his boss. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, he thought, and factored into this was an awareness that he now knew things about his boss that he had never known for certain before. He’d sensed it, figured out how it probably must be, which was not so strange considering his own background and Forselius’s habits with alcohol and all his more loose-lipped confidences, but at the same time he had no reason to believe that his boss suspected that he knew anything. And it has to stay that way, he thought. Out of pure concern for him, he thought, for he would prefer not to think about himself.

…

The secret police operative had not only killed Krassner. In order to arrange a credible suicide in the way that he’d chosen, he must have gone through Krassner’s papers and taken with him anything that might in the least jeopardize the credibility of Krassner’s suicide note. Probably it was as simple as that, thought the special adviser, that he’d come across a largely finished manuscript. What Johansson had received by unclear means plus the parts that Krassner had written during his time in Sweden, which hopefully were not as scandalous as what his uncle had supplied him with.

At the same time it didn’t appear particularly believable that Krassner had any documentation with him of the type that Johansson had gotten hold of. For one thing it wasn’t required for the work he was doing in Sweden; for another he appeared careful to the point of paranoia, so his basic source material was certainly not something he was dragging around. Probably a largely finished manuscript-true, à la Krassner bad enough-but probably no documentation, the special adviser concluded.

The documentation Johansson had received was mostly copies, but the simple explanation for that was that Buchanan probably hadn’t had anything else to give to his nephew. The few original documents were those that had been sent directly to Buchanan and that he, quite certainly against his instructions, had chosen to retain. The probable conclusion was that Buchanan’s employer, the CIA, was sitting on the originals of at least the majority of the documents Buchanan had copied, certainly also counter to his instructions, and then turned over to his nephew.

In some mysterious way that Johansson hadn’t wanted to go into, which he himself had avoided asking about, and which he hadn’t succeeded in figuring out, the same papers had after Krassner’s death ended up in the hands of Johansson, who had chosen to turn them over to him. So that he in turn could give them to his boss? On that point Johansson had not been especially clear, much less insistent, so it was probably as simple as he’d said. He had just wanted to be rid of them, and that also spoke strongly against the fact that he himself would have copied the files. It also appeared highly improbable that he could be sitting on any more originals. Not least considering the antique appearance of the document copies and that he’d actually turned over originals originally emanating from the prime minister himself.

You shouldn’t complicate matters unnecessarily, thought the special adviser, who’d had William of Occam as one of his philosophical favorites ever since he was in grade school. So forget Johansson, he thought. He could probably also forget the CIA. There were papers in one of their archives but this by no means meant that they had any active knowledge of the prime minister’s doings almost forty years ago. Tricky, thought the special adviser, they might know something but they don’t necessarily have to.

On the other hand, if they did know something, things got simpler. Considering the security situation in northern Europe, they must be hoping Buchanan’s spiritual inheritance didn’t become public knowledge. Perhaps during the days of the conflict in Vietnam, and in the inflammatory conditions that then prevailed, but hardly now when the wounded relations between Sweden and the United States had been allowed to heal for many years and even the scars had started to fade. Then they had themselves to think about as well. You weren’t allowed to do what Buchanan had done, never mind how incensed you might become at a former agent. Bad for business, thought the special adviser.

The problems you have are here at home, thought the special adviser, and the operative who was the cause of it all was probably the person he needed to be least concerned about. Krassner’s so-called suicide note was hardly something the operative had an interest in reading about in the newspaper. Then Johansson need not be the only one to figure out what had actually happened, and Krassner’s murder was actually almost the whole point.

If you started swinging that scythe, then the murderer would not be the only one to wind up in the rake. He would have company all the way up, but while he himself and Berg and Waltin, and possibly others that he didn’t know, would only be forced to leave their jobs and be ass-whipped in the media in the usual way, the murderer would go to prison on a life sentence, and even though the drop in social status was relative, that could hardly be what he was hoping for. On the contrary, the suicide that he had so dexterously and cold-bloodedly arranged indicated that he absolutely did not want to get caught and that he had a considerable capacity to avoid doing so.

His dear boss would naturally have to go, despite the fact that he had no idea either of Krassner’s existence or that his youthful convictions were threatening to catch up with him. For once that happened, his ignorance would be almost worse than his active involvement. The political ripple effect would of course be considerable, and the nation, the party, and the opposition would certainly be able to contain their laughter. Certain people would of course be greatly amused, but it was always that way.

We’ll take that up later, for it doesn’t need to get that bad, thought the special adviser, and he returned to Berg and Waltin. It was these two lightweights who had initiated, carried out, and been responsible for this entire extraordinarily poorly managed affair. Did they know anything about what had actually happened? Probably not, thought the special adviser. He was almost certain that Berg didn’t know anything. True, he’d never met Waltin, but if Forselius’s description was correct he hardly appeared to be the most assiduous laborer in the security vineyard. They probably neither know nor suspect anything, thought the special adviser. And if they do, they ought to have a strong and natural interest in keeping quiet about it. Out of pure instinct for self-preservation.

Provided that no one started giving them a bad time, of course, and drove them into a corner so that they stopped behaving rationally and instead started striking wildly around themselves. We actually have a little problem here, thought the special adviser, because it was he who had been the main driving force behind the secret political agreement to close down or in any case recast the so-called external operation, and as if in passing teach Berg and his coworkers to behave themselves by darkening their lives with yet another parliamentary investigation of the secret police. Good thing Johansson showed up in time, thought the special adviser, feeling almost a little energized at the thought of how he would have to convince those around him of the importance of making a complete reversal.

Forselius, he thought. What do I do with him? And considering what he now knew, he already regretted that he’d called him and asked that question about who Fionn was. True, the old man was almost eighty and drank like a fish, but there was nothing really wrong with his head. Perhaps I ought to invite him to dinner, thought the special adviser; in the worst case I can always poison his food.

The special adviser had devoted days, months, and years of his life to thinking about how one might politically defuse the security politics that Sweden had carried on in secrecy during the years after the end of the Second World War. He and Forselius had even arranged seminars where this was analyzed and discussed. Those invited had been few in number-at the most there had been seven people around the table-and everyone who came had to sign the usual confidentiality agreement.

Obviously these were only the sort of people who already knew how things stood, so you avoided wasting time on that question. At the same time there were hundreds of people who knew. Politicians and military people naturally made up the largest group, but there were also historians, journalists, and corporate executives who had acquired knowledge of the matter in various ways, as well as the usual small number of thinking people who on their own steam had figured out how things were. Of course you couldn’t invite all of these people in-that was contrary to the mission and would have been both counterproductive and dysfunctional-but because the special adviser and Forselius only wanted to meet the sort of people who had something essential to say, and obviously according to their own way of viewing the matter, the number called in had not caused any problems whatsoever.

As far as Sweden was concerned, in a political-security sense the years after the end of the Second World War might best be compared with a long walk on ice that has formed overnight. What would the great neighbor in the east think up? At its heart was an almost four-hundred-year history of constant wars with and political opposition to the Russian archenemy. A country then led by Joseph Stalin and that in a geopolitical sense had never before stood so close to Swedish territory. The Russians were in Finland, in the Baltic states, in Poland, in Germany, even on the Danish islands in the Baltic Sea. Wherever you turned you only saw the Russian bear with his mighty paws, ready to deliver the final embrace.

Which way could they go? If it was a matter of flight, there was only a wounded Norway to make for, but considering how the Scandinavian peninsula looked, the only advantage of Norway was that in such a case it was a very short sprint. There was no question of throwing themselves into the arms of the West, either. First, the West wasn’t interested-they had more important things to work on-and the Swedes’ cooperation with the Nazis was well remembered by far too many people. Second, the Russians would naturally never allow such a thing and wouldn’t even need to declare war in order to make clear to the Western powers why that wouldn’t work. The West had already figured that out on its own, and considerably greater values than Swedish neutrality were at stake on the European continent. And just see how things had gone for the Poles, despite the fact that they’d allied themselves with both England and France even before the war.

The idea of a Nordic defense alliance also had to be abandoned early on, and since neither the Norwegians nor the Danes were anything to count on in a pinch, one could live with the fact that it never came to be. In that case the Finns were better, both historically and in other ways, but the Russians had already made sure of them. In such a situation only political double-dealing remained: Wave the placard of “strict Swedish neutrality” amiably toward the Russians-until your arms went numb, if necessary-and at the same time play under the covers with the American military. Take in all the help you can without being discovered. For what choice did you really have?

By and by conditions in Europe had started to normalize. The new borders that had been drawn on the map started to solidify in people’s awareness. The two large power blocs had put themselves in balance. People out in Europe started believing in peace and becoming reconciled to all the new things that were the prerequisites for peace. Both Stalin and Beria were dead, and say what you will about those who replaced them, it no longer seemed completely obvious that the Russian leaders started the day with a breakfast of small children.

In the world of rationally managed politics there was no room for any feelings, and as soon as the pressure from the East had started to lessen, it came time to slacken the ties to the West in order to gradually cut the most critical lines. And bit by bit Sweden had started to execute the policy of neutrality to which it had given not much more than lip service in the previous ten years. If the date for the prime minister’s farewell letter to Buchanan, April 1955, had been a coincidence determined by his personal situation-you could get that impression when you read it-it was in any event a timely coincidence. Talk that the policy being conducted should also have been “strict” was of course pure nonsense intended for the audience in the sixth row. No rational politician let himself be directed by emotions, but only pure lunatics tried to be strict.

In the mid-1950s it was high time to set up a new game plan. Swedish society had been Americanized at a brisk pace and in a confidence-inspiring way for the Americans. A country where the youth drank Coca-Cola, listened to Elvis, and had their first sexual experiences in the vinyl backseat of a Chevy convertible from Detroit was necessarily a good country. And from the Swedish side, of course, there was nothing to fear. The United States was at a secure distance geographically, and not even the Communist Party leader Hilding Hagberg believed in all seriousness that there was any risk of being attacked from that direction. That was just something he said when he went to Moscow to bring home his periodic support payments: that the Swedish military intelligence service let him be supported year after year was quite simply due to the fact that it served Sweden’s security and political stability on the Scandinavian peninsula.

All that was thirty years ago, and because the special adviser lived and worked in the present, it wasn’t history that was his problem. The constant postwar cheating under the cover of the wet wool blanket of neutrality was a given fact, and for him it was a matter of how the country would be able to free itself from that history without jeopardizing the policy of neutrality, which with every day that passed became an ever better and cheaper alternative.

This was the problem that his and Forselius’s seminars had dealt with exclusively. The other thing was already known, so why waste time on it? Instead they had devoted all of their power to trying to propound the required conditions so that the policy that had actually been conducted during the postwar period could be openly discussed. Not with the aim of any higher measure of historical or political insight within the population-on the contrary, they were grateful that interest had decreased with the passing years-but rather because there were simply still very strong political and security reasons to do so.

Despite the fact that the secret Swedish military and political cooperation with the United States and the other Western powers was thirty years old, and that in all essentials it had ceased twenty years ago, it still had considerable political explosive force. Describing the Russian bear as more and more moth-eaten was one thing. It wasn’t true, however, for his paws had never been more powerful than now; the fact that certain small teddy bears in his own winter lair had started talking back and nosing longingly in a westerly direction as soon as the wind was right only made him even more irritable.

Liberalization in the Soviet Union, the increasingly open opposition, the clearer signs of a faltering economy, had more and more often given the special adviser sleepless nights. As a thinker and strategist, given the choice between a stable dictatorship and one in democratic transformation, he obviously preferred the former because then the problems were much easier to calculate and solve. What the people who lived there thought and felt about the matter left him cold. It would be best for him if they didn’t think at all. And best for them if they assigned him and people like him to think for them.

Obviously neither he nor Forselius lived with the illusion that the Russian military intelligence service had been successfully deceived. Their political leaders had been informed long ago of the Swedish double-dealing. The Russians knew, the special adviser and those like him knew that the Russians knew, and the Russians obviously knew that the Swedish intelligence service knew that they knew, too. Everyone who knew something knew everything they needed to know, and obviously it was also known that in general terms this was an ineffective means for anyone who wanted to bring political pressure to bear to do so, as long as that knowledge could be met with total denial from the one who was being subjected to it. And as long as ordinary people only knew who they could trust.

It was the public knowledge and public questioning in Sweden in particular that were the critical factors. Simply put, it was the Swedish population that must first discover that their leaders had deceived them; as soon as they were convinced of that, they would also make it possible for the opponent to exploit the knowledge he’d had all along and transform it into a sharp-edged political weapon. From Krassner to the Swedish media to the citizens of the nation, thought the special adviser.

There was one prerequisite for the special adviser to be able to solve his problem in a risk-free way for the country and its citizens, and it was more important than all the others combined. First the Russian bear must be neutralized. To just shoot him was no longer imaginable-that possibility had passed almost fifty years ago, and if the Swedes themselves had been holding the shotgun it would probably never have existed-rather it was a matter of waiting for the time when the bear, for other reasons, had become so old, feeble, and toothless that it was completely harmless.

Only then might the people begin to uncover Sweden’s secret history from the time after the Second World War. They might do that themselves, seeing to it that it happened under controlled circumstances and at a sensible pace. Preferably on the basis of new historical research, debates on the cultural pages of the newspapers, and strategically published memoirs written by old politicians whose names no one could even recall. You might even offer the occasional daring, youthful journalistic revelation.

But before that it was unthinkable, and the combination of the prime minister’s youthful risky undertakings as a secret agent and Krassner’s considerably later ambitions as an investigative reporter was a time bomb ticking under the sofa where the special adviser used to lie stretched out while he solved his problems. And right now he was heartily sick of them both. Furthermore, it was high time to take a shower and change clothes, for in an hour he would be feeding his old friend, mentor, and comrade-at-arms Professor Forselius.

“How is it, Bo?” said Johansson, nodding toward the broad gold ring on Jarnebring’s ring finger as he helped himself from the plate of cold cuts they’d ordered as an appetizer. “I thought she was supposed to give you one with a skull on it?”

“Like before,” said Jarnebring, smiling and shrugging his broad shoulders. “Damn good gal, actually. The ones with the skull were sold out, so it ended up being an ordinary plain one,” said Jarnebring, spreading his fingers.

“Nice to hear, considering you’re going to get married,” said Johansson. “That she’s a damn good gal, I mean.”

“Well,” said Jarnebring evasively. “That’s for sure, but it’s not going to be tomorrow, exactly.”

“You’re trying to stall for time,” Johansson teased. “Skoal, by the way.”

“No,” said Jarnebring with a certain emphasis, as soon as he’d set down Aunt Jenny’s glass. “But it’s for sure that there’ll be a certain adjustment.”

“I thought you said it was like before,” Johansson teased.

“What is it with you, Lars?” said Jarnebring. “Are you having problems at work or are you holding an interrogation, or what?”

“I guess I’m just jealous,” said Johansson, sighing. Perhaps you ought to take a swing by that post office, he thought.

“And here I thought you were jealous,” said Jarnebring, winking and smiling his usual wolfish grin. “Skoal yourself, by the way.”

…

Then everything had been as usual again. A little too much aquavit, perhaps, for Johansson to feel good from it-as usual it appeared not to have the least effect on Jarnebring-plus the usual stories in old and new versions about things that had happened since they’d last met.

“So how’s your new job?” said Jarnebring.

“You want a truthful answer?” asked Johansson, sighing.

“Obviously,” said Jarnebring with conviction. “How the hell would it look if people like you and me sat and lied to each other?”

“It’s probably the dreariest damn job I’ve had in my entire life,” said Johansson, and as he said that he felt it was the truest thing he’d said in a good while.

“Quit, then,” said Jarnebring. “You’ve got enough to get by. You can start in surveillance. Become one of those old owls.”

“Yes, in essence I do,” said Johansson, “but that’s not the problem.”

“What is it, then?” asked Jarnebring. “Do they have to shut down if you step down?”

“No,” said Johansson. No, he thought. “They could certainly find someone else.”

“Know what?” said Jarnebring, patting him on the arm. “I’ll give you some good advice.”

“I’m listening,” said Johansson, nodding. I really am, he thought.

“Stop whining. It’s only old ladies who whine, and that doesn’t suit you,” said Jarnebring. “Give some real thought to how you want it to be instead, and then it’s just a matter of seeing to it that it turns out that way. Write it down on a piece of paper and clip it securely to your big snout so you don’t forget what you’ve promised yourself.”

First you decide how you want it to be, and then you see to it that it turns out that way, thought Johansson. Sounds rather obvious, actually.

“Sounds good,” said Johansson, nodding, because he really thought so. “I’ll think about doing that. Seriously,” he added.

“That’s not good enough, Lars,” said his best friend, shaking his head. “You already think too much. Just do as I say, then it will work out famously.”

“I’ll do as you say,” said Johansson, nodding. “Although I’ll lose that bit with the piece of paper.”

I’ll do it. It’s starting to be high time, he thought.

A simple weekday dinner with only clear lobster soup, lamb filet, and a mango sorbet; with it a Chablis, which unfortunately was perhaps a bit on the heavy side, an excellent Chambertin, and a good port wine from 1934. Far from the best of the meals they’d enjoyed together, but their conversation had as usual stayed on a very high level.

“Did you know that Queerlund was a spy for the Russians?” asked the special adviser, sniffing in his glass of red wine. Orange, he thought. Orange, and a scent of perishability.

“Do the Turks have brown eyes?” Forselius snorted. “I’ve warned them about that damn fairy for forty years now, but do you think there’s anyone who listens?”

Queerlund was not from Denmark. He was a Swedish diplomat, now retired after a long and extraordinarily successful career. In addition he was homosexual, but in contrast to most others like him he had never made a secret of it. Within the secret police and the military intelligence service it was also an open secret that from the beginning he had sandwiched his diplomatic career with his mission as a spy for the Russians. Obviously his name was not Queerlund, for no Swede was named that. It was his code name among everyone who had tried in vain to put him away, and perhaps not well chosen, because even Queerlund used to find great enjoyment in telling everyone what they called him.

Queerlund was included in Krassner’s book in the form of a concise, routine declaration of his espionage and sexual orientation and the consequences the latter could have-“a sitting duck for the KGB Call Boys”-but in contrast to everyone else, Krassner also had an explanation for why he’d never been caught. He was the prime minister’s envoy to the Russians, and thereby also protected.

…

“Wonder why he’s never been caught,” said the special adviser with an innocent expression and his half-closed eyes directed toward a distant crystal chandelier. “If he’s been at it so long, I mean?”

“Bah,” grunted Forselius. “Hell, people like that are protected.”

Oh well, observed the special adviser. No bite that time.

Then they had proceeded to talk about other things, and only when it was time for the port and Forselius was thoroughly soaked with wines from Burgundy that he baited and threw out the hook again.

“I was thinking about that Pole you told me about,” said the special adviser with the same innocent expression. “The one you killed a few days before I was born.”

“You can be completely calm, young man,” clucked Forselius. “It had nothing to do with your mother, that I can assure you.”

Watch yourself, old bastard, thought the special adviser, who didn’t like it when someone spoke about his mother that way.

“I seem to recall you telling me that he’d dropped out through the window and broken his neck when he tried to flee? May I have the port, by the way?”

“Yes, what about it?” said Forselius, glaring suspiciously as he set the carafe beyond the reach of his host.

“I’ve heard that you shot him. May I have a little more port, please?”

“So that’s what you’ve heard,” said Forselius cunningly as he reluctantly pushed over the carafe.

“Yes,” nodded the special adviser while he poured more port both for himself and for his tablecloth. “Your old friend Buchanan shot him in the back out on Pontonjärsgatan on Kungsholmen.”

Forselius slid down a little in his chair, set aside his glass, and clasped his veined old man’s hands over his belly while he inspected his host.

“Congratulations,” he said, nodding with approval. “How did you get hold of Krassner’s manuscript?”

“How’d you get hold of it yourself?” countered the special adviser. Forselius slowly shook his head and tapped his broad forehead with his index finger.

“I haven’t seen a line,” he said. “Who do you take me for? I knew John. I was there, I can count. It’s no more difficult than that.”

Nice to hear, thought the special adviser. I still don’t need to worry about him.

“Tell me,” said Forselius with curiosity.

Then the special adviser told him everything, except how he’d gotten Krassner’s papers and who had given them to him. That was naturally the first thing that Forselius had asked.

“I understand that you don’t want to say how you got them, and I also understand that it’s not through the usual channels.”

The special adviser smiled and nodded in agreement. For then you wouldn’t have needed to ask, he thought.

“Do you believe them?”

The special adviser had thought a great deal about this but nonetheless took a good while to answer.

“I have confidence in the supplier,” he said. “I’ve thought a great deal about the delivery. Considering who the supplier is, I’m inclined to buy the delivery as well. Yes and yes.” The special adviser nodded with as much emphasis as someone like him might allow himself.

“Okay,” said Forselius, and then they moved into the library where the special adviser’s deaf housekeeper had set out coffee and cognac and lit a fire in the fireplace.

Then they talked business.

Forselius shared the special adviser’s evaluation. Within the secret police it was probably only the operative himself who knew what Krassner knew. And if he’d understood the contents of the papers he’d taken with him at all-the suicide he’d arranged unfortunately pointed in that direction-at the same time he ought to be the one with the greatest interest in keeping quiet.

“What do you think?” said the special adviser. “Should I try to find out who he is?”

Forselius shook his shoulders hesitantly.

“I think that wouldn’t be very wise,” he said. “Who wants to wake a sleeping bear? And what would we do with him without being dragged along ourselves?”

So right, so right, the adviser thought and internally he sighed deeply. For if you really thought about it, it was so bad that it was he and Forselius and a number of retarded secret policemen-one of whom was clearly more actively disturbed-who had ennobled Krassner from one ordinary loony in the pile to a person of great significance for the security of the realm.

Krassner’s material? Now that they both knew what was there, just how dangerous was it really?

“At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs they can certainly contain their laughter,” declared Forselius. “They’re no doubt working night and day to prepare the fifty-yard-line negotiations with the Russians.”

New boundaries were to be drawn in the Baltic. Arriving at the negotiating table with a fresh public questioning of Swedish neutrality policy would hardly contribute to their Russian counterparts’ willingness to compromise.

“What do you think if we burn the whole thing up ourselves?” asked the special adviser.

“What do you think your boss would think about that?” clucked Forselius.

“He would probably not be too happy,” said the special adviser, smiling wryly.

“And what do you think he would say when he found out about Krassner and his so-called suicide?” asked Forselius with a chuckle.

“Not happy, sad, and really, really tired,” said the special adviser, laughing till his fat belly jumped.

On that point they were in complete agreement. By itself they would certainly have been able to deal with Krassner’s material, leaving aside whether a competent editor had put order into the messy manuscript in the meantime and transformed it into a book with hard covers from a reputable publisher. They ought to have been able to manage that too with the usual juggling between denial, silence, and undermining the author, his morals and motives. A few bruises, a few scrapes, perhaps. But that could have worked out.

But not now. Definitely not now.

“Why the hell should he fall out the window?” said the special adviser with irritation.

“Oh well,” said Forselius, emptying his glass. “You don’t have any more, by the way?”

He pointed toward the now-empty bottle of Frapin 1900.

“Are you joking with me?” said the special adviser. “You bet your ass I have more. I have lots and lots. You don’t want to have whiskey, then?” he added, for he really had no desire to rummage around in his wine cellar in the middle of the night, with a lot of spiders and shit that he hated, and his housekeeper had let him know that she was going to slip away to visit her daughter as soon as she had set out the coffee and cognac and cleaned up in the kitchen.

“Whiskey,” said Forselius with distaste. “I’ll give you a piece of good advice, young man. You should never pour malt on top of grapes.”

What choice did he have? First he had to go down into the wine cellar and fetch the cognac. Then they played billiards the whole night, and Forselius mixed a highball of Frapin 1900 and soda pop, great connoisseur that he was. And when the special adviser woke the next day he was compelled to phone his secretary and say that he was poorly and had to stay home.

“Poor thing,” she said with genuine sympathy. “Now you must promise me you’ll get better so we can see you on Monday.”

Finally someone who understands, thought the special adviser, and then he took two headache pills and a large glass of water and went back to sleep again.

Waltin had finally gotten over the apathy that had lately plagued him severely. He had quite simply decided to remove the fat red-haired sow from his awareness. Simply not worth the trouble, and as far as Hedberg was concerned he would surely be in touch when he finally returned to Europe. He usually did so, if for no other reason than that he needed money.

Instead he resumed the training of little Jeanette, who had been so sadly neglected recently. They spent the weekend together down in Sörmland, where he saw to it that she had a number of new, mind-expanding experiences. When he drove her home he also assured himself that they’d left the fur coat he’d given her as a Christmas present behind-pure madness, really, when he thought about it, now it was in safe keeping, his keeping. High time to look around for something different and plan something new, Waltin thought as he left her off outside the doorway to her pathetic little apartment in that miserable suburb where she lived. There were any number of them out there, and in order to avoid future mistakes with types like that fat red-haired sow he also decided to confine his reconnaissance from now on to slightly better establishments. A little lower middle class, thought Waltin, for there is sure to be a lot of unredeemed longing there.

Berg wanted to meet him on Monday; he had on his funeral face right from the start. First he informed him that they were up against a new parliamentary oversight of the entire operation, but that the social democrats in the government office also wanted to get rid of the external operation. He himself had understood this all along since he, unlike Berg, wasn’t an idiot, and this was the moment he’d been waiting for.

“I was thinking about asking you to develop a preliminary study so we could start by jointly considering how we should organize it instead,” said Berg evasively.

“I don’t understand why they have to be so impossible,” said Waltin innocently. “You don’t think this can have anything to do with that unfortunate story involving the Krassner person.”

“I have a hard time seeing that,” said Berg, and just then the alarm bells started ringing in his head again. Faintly, true, but what should he do? He couldn’t of course just ask Waltin to shut his mouth and do as he was told.

“I’ve actually gone through the matter one more time with Hedberg, whom we had as an operative, yes, you remember him,” said Waltin in a light and casual tone of voice. “And I’m completely convinced of the fact that there’s nothing in this affair we need to be ashamed of. Hedberg is probably without comparison the most competent person we have access to, isn’t he? I completely share your opinion of that man. He’s a rock.”

Hedberg, thought Berg as the booming increased in his head; he’d probably sensed it the whole time, but he hadn’t thought of asking. Why must he always talk about the wrong things? thought Berg. Sometimes I get the idea he’s a complete idiot, he thought.

“Krassner is history,” said Berg, making an effort to sound as though it really was that way, “so I don’t think we even need to think about that. Do you think you can get a preliminary study to the meeting with them next week?”

“Of course, no problem at all,” said Waltin courteously, and then they moved on to talk about other things. Berg was almost preoccupied and looked as though he needed a long vacation, which suited Waltin just fine.

When he came out of the police building after the meeting with Berg he was in such a good mood that, despite the cold, he decided to walk down to the city center, where he could meet completely normal people who wanted him to help them increase the security of their economic operation and were willing to pay for it. He hadn’t even left the block before one of the Stockholm Police Department’s riot-squad vans glided up alongside him. Next to the driver sat Berg’s retarded nephew, and the only reasonable interpretation of this was that he and his simian friends had been let off on all the complaints and had now gone back to duty. Young Berg sat with the window rolled down and his burly arm supported against the door frame, and the cold was unlikely to be the reason he was also wearing black leather gloves. And because Waltin was a civilized person he was finally compelled to say something.

“Is there something I can help you gentlemen with?” said Waltin without slowing his pace.

“Just checking that everything’s calm,” said Berg. “Trying to maintain general order and security.”

“Feels reassuring to hear that we’re on the same side,” said Waltin, congratulating himself for his imperturbability.

“Makes us happy too,” said Berg, suddenly sounding as sullen as a child. “We haven’t always had that impression.”

It was then that Waltin got his idea. A pure impulse, for how in the name of heaven could psychopaths be able to injure him, and it was high time he made that clear to them.

Waltin just stopped, and because the driver hadn’t managed to put on the brakes he was forced to back up a yard before Berg again had eye contact with Waltin.

“It’s probably not me you should be worried about,” said Waltin lightly, glancing at his watch. “And if you gentlemen are going downtown anyway you can drive me to Norrmalmstorg,” he said. And you should certainly be careful about playing poker, thought Waltin when he saw the surprised shift in Berg’s expression. Of course he also waited until the driver jumped out and held open the door for him. It’s not just your uncle who can shut things down, thought Waltin as he climbed into the van.

When Berg arrived at the weekly meeting the special adviser wasn’t there. Berg glanced inquiringly at his empty seat as he sat down, and the minister of justice nodded with a worried expression.

“Unfortunately he had to run off,” said the minister. “It was a close friend of his who passed away. He sends greetings, by the way, and regrets that he couldn’t be here.”

Close friend of his, thought Berg, astonished. Wonder what such a person is made of? But naturally he hadn’t said that. Saying such a thing would probably be the last thing he’d do, he thought.

First he took up the ongoing survey of extreme right-wing elements within the police; he started by recounting the disturbing observations that Waltin had reported to him the day before.

“We unfortunately have encountered certain problems with our data collection,” said Berg cryptically.

“Is it the computers that are causing trouble again?” asked the minister without the slightest hidden motive.

“If it were only that good,” said Berg, shaking his head. “No, unfortunately it’s worse than that, I’m afraid.”

And when he’d said A he might just as well say B, he thought.

“A couple of our field agents, infiltrators, as certain people say, have expressed concern that they might be at risk of being unveiled, so we’ve been compelled to bring them home to the building and break off,” said Berg. “We must find some way to regroup before we can continue.”

“Good Lord,” said the minister with genuine concern. “There isn’t any risk that something will happen to them, is there?”

What would that be? thought Berg. We’re living in Sweden, after all, and it’s policemen we’re talking about. Both my own men and the ones they’re spying on.

“It probably needn’t turn out that badly,” said Berg soothingly.

“Nice to hear,” said the minister, appearing sincerely relieved.

Under the “remaining questions” point, and before they departed, Berg only let it be known that they were in the process of putting together the requested preliminary study about the external operation, giving it the highest priority, and that he counted on being able to submit it at the next meeting. The minister of justice seemed almost embarrassed as he said that, and the chief legal officer suddenly excused himself and took off.

“I believe perhaps our friend from the Cabinet Office expressed himself less well than he might have the last time we met,” said the minister, clearing his throat and casting a meaningful glance at the relevant person’s empty chair.

“Far be it from me to question either your viewpoints or your motives,” said Berg courteously. For I’m not that stupid, he thought.

“I haven’t thought that, either,” said the minister cordially, “but I have tried to speak with our mutual friend in order to get him to understand that this is such a complicated affair: It really is something that bears thinking about in peace and quiet. It’s not something you should be rash about, I mean.”

The minister leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Without being indiscreet,” he continued, “it was actually he who asked me for advice on a related matter, and so I also took the opportunity to say what I thought about this.”

I see, thought Berg. So that’s how it went.

“And I actually succeeded in convincing him,” said the minister contentedly.

“Nice to hear,” said Berg, despite the fact that the only thing he was really hearing were the alarm bells ringing in his own head.

“It will have to take the time it takes,” declared the minister with a confirming nod. “For me it will be just fine if we can clear this up sometime during the spring.”

What is it they’re really up to? thought Berg as he stepped out through the doors to Rosenbad. At an internal seminar they’d had at work, the lecturer had described something that was evidently called Anderson’s Confusion Strategy, after the American psychologist who had invented this method, which was dubious, to say the least. Evidently what the whole thing amounted to was that you continually sent contradictory messages to the person you were out to get, while at the same time oscillating between cordiality and threats. According to the lecturer, in a normal case it only required a rather small dose of this before the object was ready for both the pillbox and the straitjacket.

That can’t be what he’s up to, thought Berg, and the one he was thinking about was the prime minister’s special adviser. Although it’s clear. He’s certainly capable of most anything, thought Berg.

It was Forselius’s Polish cleaning woman who had found her employer. He was lying dead right inside his own front door when she opened it, and as she had studied medicine at the university in Lodz before she finally succeeded in getting from there to Sweden and the Swedish social home service, she had no problem at all with that. Forselius was dead; everything indicated that he had died rather recently and that he had probably suffered a stroke. In addition, as usual he was wearing his stained dressing gown and reeked of cognac.

His cleaning woman had dialed the telephone number she was supposed to dial if something happened and almost immediately a number of people had arrived. All of them men, all of them both friendly and taciturn, and one of them certainly also a doctor.

So it figured that he’d been some sort of high-ranking spy, she thought, but with her background this wasn’t something you talked about. Then one of them had driven her home, told her she shouldn’t worry, that she would be off work the rest of the week, that she would nonetheless get her pay as usual, that she wasn’t to talk with anyone about what had happened, and that he or one of his colleagues would get back to her if there was anything more.

That suited her fine. Forselius had been more troublesome than all the others she cleaned for combined. She’d gone to the day care and fetched her little boy and then they’d played the whole afternoon in a park that was in the vicinity of their apartment.

The special adviser arrived right after the people from the military intelligence department but a good while before the bunglers from the secret police, who, unfortunately, had to take care of the formalities.

They’d known each other for more than twenty years, but when he looked at the old man there on his own hallway rug he was forced to ask himself what he really felt. Sorrow? Regret? Worry? Nothing in particular?

“Do you have any idea what he died of?” he said to his own doctor, who was kneeling over the body.

“You mean what he didn’t die of,” said the doctor, smiling wryly and shaking his head. “Well,” he continued, sighing dejectedly. “That will no doubt be seen in the autopsy, but if you want a preliminary guess I believe he had a massive cerebral hemorrhage. He was actually almost eighty, even if he refused to realize that.”

A shame about a brain like that, thought the special adviser.

When they went through the contents of Forselius’s wallet, a sturdy, old-fashioned affair of brown leather that he always carried in his back pocket, they found a folded-up envelope with a handwritten text in Forselius’s handwriting: “In the event of my death.” In the envelope was a slip of paper with another brief, handwritten message, “You should die when it’s the most fun, JF,” and judging by the usual forensic indications he might very well have written that a half-century ago when he was sitting in the secret building on Karlaplan, breaking codes.

I’ll be damned, thought the special adviser. I miss him already.