Free Falling, As If in a Dream

So the boat was called Esperanza. That means “hope” in Spanish. Hope for a successful future or in any case a future over which you yourself have control. Esperanza was given her name fourteen years earlier. It was the boat’s owner, skipper, and only crew member who had christened her, and considering what was about to happen to him and his craft, he could not have chosen a worse name.

98

There wasn’t that much to tell, according to Persson. Twelve hours earlier, at eight o’clock local time on north Mallorca, which by the way was the same time as here at home, he had solved the problem of Kjell Göran Hedberg by blowing him and his boat into the air.

“Approximately fifteen nautical miles outside the harbor in Puerto Pollensa, if you know where that is.”

“I know where that is,” said Johansson. “That’s about where Claes Waltin happened to drown.” Is he joking? he thought.

“Oh well,” said Persson. “It was Hedberg who drowned him. Although it was a good ways farther into the bay.”

“How long have you known where he was?” said Johansson.

“Since I did the house search at Waltin’s home and realized who he’d been involved with. For quite a few years after Hedberg had to quit us, Waltin used him as an external operator.”

“I’ve realized that,” said Johansson. “I also think I’ve realized why Hedberg was forced to kill him.”

“Waltin was going downhill,” said Persson and nodded. “He was drinking too much, talking too much, associating with the wrong people. Waltin was a security risk, and Hedberg did not intend to serve a life sentence because of him.”

“I hear what you’re saying,” said Johansson. “So how long has Hedberg been on north Mallorca?”

Basically the last twenty years, according to Persson. Most recently he’d been living in a little house up in the mountains north of Pollensa. A gatekeeper’s cottage he got to live in for free, in exchange for guarding a house for a wealthy English couple who had a large estate in the vicinity and were almost never there. He also had a car that he leased. A small fishing boat that he owned and had built in the spring of 1993. A boat that he took tourists out in. To swim, sunbathe, fish, and dive.

“So how did you find him?”

No great art, according to Persson. Not considering all the traces of Hedberg he’d found in the house search at Waltin’s. When he went down to Mallorca ten days ago he already knew everything he needed to know. About his boat, for example.

“As soon as I found out he had a butane tank on the boat, I decided what I would do. The bastard had installed one of those stainless steel gas grills up on deck, and those crazy Spaniards placed the butane tank under the deck and ran a fucking lot of cables back and forth. Couldn’t be better.”

“Explain it in layman’s terms,” said Johansson. He had never unscrewed the detonator from a rusty four-hundred-pound mine, he thought. He didn’t even know if you dared lick the snot from your upper lip while you were doing it.

He had arranged the practical details late in the evening before the morning when it happened. Right before he called Johansson at home and invited him to dinner, by the way. He made sure that Hedberg was at a safe distance. Used ordinary dynamite from Nitro Nobel. Three pitiful small charges, and he needed to use only a couple of ounces of this classic Swedish product. One hollow charge under the deck to split the butane tank open. Two on the gas lines that were run inside the cabin bulkhead. He was done in half an hour. He even had time to relieve pressure on the lines from the tank.

“Butane is odorless, as you know,” said Persson, indicating a toast with his beer can.

“So when he started the engine up it exploded,” said Johansson.

“Who the hell do you take me for, Johansson?” said Persson. “I’m not a fucking mass murderer. First I made sure he was out in open water so there were no innocent people in the vicinity. I followed him in my own boat.”

To ensure this humanitarian aspect, Persson made use of a regular cell phone as the trigger mechanism. It was a prepaid cell he had bought on Mallorca. Paid cash and it couldn’t be traced. With a pre-set delay besides.

“As I’m sure you understand I was fucking tired of that bastard considering all the grief he’s caused in the past thirty years. You know that better than anyone, by the way. So I decided to send a final greeting to mess with him.”

Once Hedberg was out in open water Persson first called him on his own cell phone. As soon as Hedberg picked it up and answered, he called the cell phone that triggered the explosives a few seconds later.

“How did you get the number to his cell phone?” said Johansson.

“Already had it,” said Persson. “It was the cell phone he used for running his boat charters. An ordinary Nokia. With the same old signal they all have, which means you start reaching in your pocket as soon as anyone in the area gets a call.”

“So did he answer?” asked Johansson.

“Sure,” said Persson. “I was in my boat a short distance away looking at him through the binoculars. Although he didn’t answer by name.”

“So what did he say?”

“Sí,” said Persson and chuckled.

“And you,” said Johansson. “What did you say?”

At first he thought about sending him one last greeting from his colleagues, but after closer thought he refrained.

“Who the hell wants to be a colleague of someone like that? So instead I asked him to say hello to the audience. ‘Say hello to the audience, Hedberg,’ I said. You should have seen how fucking surprised he was. Especially when another phone started ringing with the same ringtone as soon as I started talking to him. I even had time to wave at the bastard.

“Yes, and so then the boat blew up. First three short cracks when the charges went, and then a big fucking ball of fire when the butane burned off. I saw the bastard as he flew away. At least thirty feet up in the air. Saw one of his legs fly off in a different direction. If you ask me, I think it was the stainless steel cover on the grill that took off and sawed off his stump. His boat went straight down. It was fifteen hundred feet deep in the channel.”

“I see, I see,” said Johansson. “So what did you do then? Flew home to Sweden to have grilled perch with an old colleague?”

“No, the hell I did,” said Persson. “It’s not over yet. More is coming. Do you want another beer, by the way?”

“Thanks, this is fine,” said Johansson. “I have some left,” he explained, showing the can so as not to be impolite.

“So what happened then?” he repeated.

Persson had maneuvered closer to the wreckage to be able to see better. Stayed there a few minutes to check the situation while it finished burning.

“As I’m lying there looking, the bastard suddenly pops up right by the side of my boat. Sooty and burned, and gasping like a fish. Bleeding like hell. But he was alive. Strangely enough.

“‘Help me, help me,’ he said, extending his hand toward me. ‘Sure,’ I said and handed him my fist. Then I took a piece of pipe I had in my tackle box, to kill off the rougher morsels you can get down there, in case you’re wondering, and then I banged him on the head a few times. I guess that was all. He sank like a stone, and I sent the piece of pipe along as a reminder.”

“And then,” said Johansson.

“Then I took the boat back to the hotel. I was staying in a little pension across from the charter pier where he had his boat. Checked out. Got in the car to go to his house up in the mountains and do a little discreet house search.”

“So did you find anything?” said Johansson.

“No,” said Persson. “There wasn’t time. The area was already crawling with Spanish officers, so I continued straight to the airport in Palma and took the flight home. Landed at Skavsta just a few hours ago. But if you ask me I think he basically just had a bed to sleep in. Hedberg was not as careless as Waltin, so I don’t think we need to worry about that detail.”

“So you were down there at the same time as Holt and Mattei,” said Johansson.

“I was actually there first, if you want to quibble. A fucking piece of luck it was, by the way. If I hadn’t been there he would have gotten away from us. If we’d missed him now, we never would have seen a trace of him again.”

“What makes you think that?” said Johansson. What the hell is he sitting there saying? he thought.

“He was warned by one of your so-called colleagues,” said Persson, shrugging his shoulders. “What do you say to a piece of perch, by the way?”