Free Falling, As If in a Dream

In order to avoid the strong currents closest to land, the solitary man on board Esperanza passed the point at Formentor by a good margin. Continued a good cable’s length out in the deep channel, and now it was about time for him to decide. He could change course ninety degrees port toward Cala Sant Vicente on the north side of the island. It was twelve nautical miles, just over an hour’s run, and only a few hours ago that would have been the journey’s destination. With plenty of time and a breeze that cooled considerably better here, out on the open sea. But now it was too late, he thought. Then he entered the new course on his GPS. Two nautical miles north of the Citadel on Menorca and the destination straight ahead. Sixty nautical miles to Menorca, six hours’ run if the good weather held. And then what? he thought. Yet another day and night at sea.

42

Five weeks earlier, Wednesday, September 5.

Headquarters of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation on Kungsholmen in Stockholm

Two people were at the table in Johansson’s conference room: Jan Lewin and Lisa Mattei. Johansson himself had just let them know he had been delayed half an hour due to circumstances over which he had no control. His secretary served coffee and homemade apple cake as consolation. On the other hand where Holt had gone she didn’t know. Holt had not been in touch with Johansson’s secretary. Possibly she had called Johansson, or vice versa, and otherwise she hoped they would enjoy the cake.

It was not that Anna Holt had overslept. When Johansson called her an hour before the meeting and reported that he would be delayed half an hour she was already at her desk. That left at least an hour and a half at her disposal, and plenty of time for a visit to the tech squad in Stockholm to look into the tip about the revolver that Bäckström had given her. Question marks that it would be beneficial to straighten out for the meeting with Johansson and the others so they could finally draw a line through Bäckström and move on.

The head of the tech squad was a few years older than she was. Almost twenty years ago they had been co-workers at the detective squad in Stockholm. A good professional relationship, but nothing else.

“Just a quick question,” said Holt, sitting down in the chair in front of his desk.

“I can’t even offer you coffee?”

“Not even coffee,” said Holt, shaking her head. “This is about a weapons tip that came into the bureau from our colleague Bäckström,” she continued, for the sake of simplicity handing over the e-mail that Bäckström had sent her.

“Bäckström,” said her colleague and moaned. “What did we do to deserve this?”

“We’re in complete agreement there, but what I’m wondering about is simply whether you test fired the weapon in question and made a comparison with the bullets from the Palme murder?”

“No,” said the technician, shaking his head. “We’ve test fired it of course. On the other hand, we haven’t made a comparison with the Palme bullets, for reasons that are easy to see.”

“So why not?” said Holt.

“The weapon in question was manufactured in the fall of 1995. Nine years after the Palme murder. You can tell by the manufacturing number, by the way.”

“According to Bäckström’s e-mail it would have been manufactured ten years earlier. Fall of 1985,” Holt clarified. “It says so in your associate’s e-mail to him too.”

“Typo,” said her former colleague, smiling acidly. “I promise and assure you. The weapon in question was manufactured at Ruger’s factory in the U.S. in the fall of 1995. A good nine years after the murder of the prime minister. If it had been manufactured in 1985 we would have made a comparison. It’s pure routine these days. That stuff about only comparing the bullets to Smith & Wesson revolvers is history now. That’s a sad story, in itself.”

“Typo,” said Holt. “The thing about the general agent in Bremen in the former West Germany is also a typo? That’s what it says in the e-mail from your associate.”

“Childish of him,” said the head of tech and sighed. “He probably wants to mess with Bäckström as thanks for that container of old office furniture he sent us.”

“I’m listening,” said Holt.

Then the head of the tech squad recounted the story of the old office furniture and all the other peculiar inquiries from their colleague Bäckström they’d had since he started at property investigation. Earlier too, for that matter.

“You know how Bäckström is. If he’s suddenly interested in a.357 caliber Magnum revolver, it can only be the Palme weapon. Or more correctly stated, the reward for the Palme weapon that our good friend Bäckström hopes to share with the so-called anonymous informant. As a policeman of course he can’t get any money.”

“I think like you do,” said Holt.

“Sorry you were involved,” said the head of the tech squad. “I’ll have a talk with him.”

“Not for my sake,” said Holt. “But if you’re going to anyway, you can say hello and thank him.” So there, you little fatso, she thought.

When Lars Martin Johansson returned after forty-five minutes, not thirty as he’d told his secretary, all three of his co-workers were in place and though they’d been sitting a good while not much had been said. Everyone seemed to be doing something.

Holt made notes in a binder she had brought with her. Mattei was tapping off text messages on her cell phone. Lewin was leaning back without doing anything at all, but at the same time his thoughts seemed far away.

Maybe in Africa, thought Holt, sneaking a glance at him.

Johansson started talking before he entered the room.

“Here you sit,” he noted and sat down. “What do you think about starting, Anna?” he continued. “Give us the latest news about that wretched Bäckström so that we’ll have Lisa and Jan with us.”

Anna Holt gave a brief description of the tip from Bäckström. She handed out copies of his e-mail to her colleagues and told about her visit to the tech squad. A typical Bäckström, but it wasn’t his fault alone because their colleagues in Stockholm had evidently taken the opportunity to mess with him.

“In addition he gave us the name of a former colleague who is supposed to have had access to the weapon. I asked Lisa to check that, but he’s not included in the case files.”

“So what’s his name?” asked Jan Lewin, sighing just as wearily as his colleague at the tech squad had an hour before.

“His name is Claes Waltin. Or was, correctly stated. He was a former police superintendent with SePo. Resigned from the secret police in the summer of 1988 to go into private business. Died in a drowning accident on north Mallorca four years later. According to Bäckström’s anonymous informant, Waltin supposedly had access to the Palme weapon a month or so before he died,” Holt summarized.

“And he’s not in the case files,” Mattei interjected. “I’ve checked and checked again.”

“Strange,” said Lewin, shaking his head. “I’m sure he must be in the material. Assuming we’re talking about the same Waltin, of course,” he added in his meticulous way.

“Not on my lists,” Mattei persisted. “He’s not there. Why do you think that?”

“I put him in the investigation myself,” said Lewin. “So he should be there.”

“You don’t say,” said Johansson.

“You did,” said Holt at the same moment.

What is he saying? thought Mattei.

“I don’t know if you recall it,” said Lewin, “but at our first meeting three weeks ago I talked about all the parking tickets I had the pleasure of going through.”

“Tell us again,” said Johansson, lacing his fingers over his far from flat stomach and leaning back in the chair.

“The details I’ll have to come back to, but in broad strokes it went like this,” said Lewin, cautiously clearing his throat.

On the morning of Saturday the first of March, almost exactly ten hours after the murder, Police Superintendent Claes Waltin incurred a parking fine on Smedsbacksgatan up at Gärdet. The car was his own. A new five series BMW and not a common car among police officers. Lewin had sent a routine inquiry to the colleagues from SePo who had responsibility for the Palme investigation’s police track and received a written answer after about a month.

“I remember that distinctly. It felt a little strange to ask them the question considering who it concerned,” said Lewin. “Waltin was a high-ranking chief at the secret police. He was directly subordinate to the bureau director, Berg, who was in the investigation leadership and responsible for SePo’s cooperation in the Palme investigation.”

“I can imagine it must have felt strange,” said Johansson. “So what did they have to say?”

“I don’t remember the exact wording, but I got a written reply that basically said the vehicle had been used for an official duty concerning supervision of a person who was staying in the neighborhood at one of SePo’s so-called secure addresses.”

“That was generous of them,” said Johansson. “Personally I would have been content to say that it was an official matter. That thing about supervision of persons who are at secure addresses isn’t something you commit to paper.”

“It must be there in the material,” said Lewin, looking almost apologetically at Mattei. “A written request from me and a written reply from them. Must be there.”

“Perhaps you were sloppy with the registration, Jan,” said Johansson. “It can happen to the best of us.”

“Not me,” said Lewin, shaking his head.

“I’ll check again and see if I’ve missed it,” said Mattei.

“Do that,” said Johansson. “You, Lewin, go through your boxes and, you, Lisa, go through the rest. Then Anna, you’ll take care of the remainder of the Bäckström message so that I can finally get rid of him. That part about the weapon in question supposedly being used in a total of three murders and a suicide sounds undeniably hair-raising. If we don’t count the prime minister that still leaves two murder victims and one who’s taken his own life.”

“Sounds like a typical Bäckström, if you ask me,” said Holt.

“Or a typical murder-suicide, if you ask me,” said Johansson. “The classic case where dad, who’s a hunter and marksman, shoots his wife and only child and ends by shooting himself. Jealousy, alcohol, and misery. Much too common, unfortunately, but too common to be able to check.”

“Noted,” said Holt. Sounds like a typical Johansson, thought Holt. Whatever this has to do with an ordinary registration review, she thought.

After the meeting Johansson took Mattei aside.

“I have a little special assignment for you, Lisa,” said Johansson. “I’ve got the idea that it’s your department, if I may say so.”

“I’m listening, chief,” said Mattei. I have to call Johan, she thought.

“There is said to be a college at Oxford University called Mohdlinn College. Spelled ‘Magdalen’ without an ‘e’ at the end. Pronounced Mohdlinn.”

“That’s right,” said Mattei. “Said to be one of the oldest and finest. Founded in the Middle Ages. Named after Mary Magdalene, Mary from Magdala. Who according to the Bible is supposed to have washed Jesus’s feet on some occasion.” Yet another exploited sister, she thought.

“Exactly,” said Johansson with unexpected emphasis. “Then there was the rumor that they might have been involved too? Jesus and her, that is.”

“More than what I know,” said Mattei. Whatever this has to do with it, she thought.

“All the same,” said Johansson. “There’s another thing I’m thinking about.”

“I’m listening, chief,” said Mattei. Preferably today, she thought.

Then, without providing the source, he told about the deer enclosure in the park behind Magdalen College, that the number of deer in the enclosure should be the same as the number of members of the college. That when one of them died a deer was shot and was served at the memorial ceremony for the deceased.

“You know, one of those typical English gentlemen’s dinners,” Johansson clarified. “Venison steak with overcooked vegetables and brown gravy. Can you find out if this adds up?”

“Deer enclosure, number of deer in the park, if a deer is shot when one of the professors dies, what is served at the memorial dinner,” Mattei summarized. Yuck, what awful food, and what in the name of heaven does this have to do with the assassination of Olof Palme? she thought.

“Brilliant,” said Johansson, patting her kindly on the shoulder. That girl can go as far as she wants, and finally this is starting to resemble something, he thought.

43

When Anna Holt returned to her office she continued checking the information she’d received from Bäckström. First she tackled the various turns in the “Bäckström weapons track,” and after an hour’s general pondering and two brief phone calls, she was clear in detail about what had gone on.

First she talked with Bäckström’s immediate boss. She explained the situation and asked for his silence. Then by virtue of his rights as a superior he went into Bäckström’s computer and inspected what had gone in and out during the last few weeks.

Rather little that had to do with his job, as it appeared. On the other hand there were a number of contacts with the tech squad regarding a revolver. Two e-mails to Holt. Finally an e-mail that he had sent that same morning to a not unfamiliar art dealer. Incompletely deleted, as so often before. Brief and cryptic in content, but in any case not an official matter that belonged on Bäckström’s desk. After that he called Holt back and reported his findings.

I see, thought Anna Holt as she hung up. The little fatso has tricked me.

About this Bäckström of course had no idea. When on Monday the same week he returned to work after his well-earned weekend’s rest, he started the day by calling his old friend and benefactor Henning on his cell phone. There was a constant busy signal, and because Bäckström had a lot to do he sent an encouraging e-mail instead, which he then deleted and put straight into the wastebasket. Just a few encouraging, discreet lines, that the project was proceeding completely according to plan. Hardly informative for all his so-called colleagues whose only task evidently consisted of spying on him.

Then he devoted half an hour to general optimistic musings. The weapon he had basically already found, and what remained was to get a bit more meat on the bones as regards the probable perpetrator, former Police Superintendent Claes Waltin. Who by the way would have believed there was so much spine in that little half-fairy? Other than Bäckström, of course, thought Bäckström.

As an initial measure he called his relative at the police union who knew basically everything about all former and current members. Also about Police Superintendent Claes Waltin, even though he was not even a member.

“He was one of those stuck-up little attorneys who go around thinking he’s a cop. He was a member of the union for law graduates,” Bäckström’s cousin explained. “Us old comrades in the corps were probably not fine enough for an asshole like that.”

“What was he like as a person?” said Bäckström. Phenomenally good formulation, he thought. What was he like as a person? Suck on those words, he thought.

“As a person,” said Bäckström’s cousin. “That’s a strange question. The bastard is dead. There’s nothing about the dead that isn’t good. Haven’t you heard that? We hold strictly to that here at the association.”

“But what was he like? As a human being? While he was alive, I mean.” There it was again, thought Bäckström. Soon you’ll be giving courses to those vultures on TV. Must be all the good Czech beer, he thought. Just bitter enough but still softly rounded off.

“He’s supposed to have been fucking hard on the ladies. Really hard, if you know what I mean.”

“Leather and chains,” suggested Bäckström, who was not entirely unfamiliar with the subject.

“Leather and chains,” Bäckström’s cousin snorted. “That was only the first letter, if you ask me. That old ass whipper that they ran on TV, the one who’s supposed to have shaved the mouse off of five thousand women before he beat them up…”

“Yes?”

“He could have sung in the church’s boy choir, compared with Waltin.”

“Tell me,” said Bäckström.

His cousin was happy to. Over the years various members of the association, all on duty of course and in connection with so-called external surveillance, had made the most peculiar observations of former police superintendent Waltin. Peculiar places, contexts, and people.

“A lot of those clubs for sex and leather and homos and dykes and God knows what. Plus all the usual pickup spots where he basically seems to have camped out. Plus all the stories, of course. You haven’t heard what he’s supposed to have thought up with that crazy colleague Wiijnbladh’s wife? The poisoner, you know. By the way, aren’t you working at the same place nowadays?”

“What did he do with her?” interrupted Bäckström. I’m the one asking the questions here, he thought.

Quite a bit worth sucking on, thought Bäckström contentedly an hour later, when his relative unwillingly hung up the phone. Then Bäckström punched out for lunch, and by the second pilsner he got an idea that was well worth trying. One of those small hunches that are granted only to real policemen. But first of all it was time for a conversation with the old poisoner Wiijnbladh.

Wonder if they had a threesome, thought Bäckström. The leather boy, the poisoner, and that red-haired sow he never managed to kill. He should have chatted with Waltin and got a few tips, he thought.

I have to talk with Bäckström, thought Holt. But before that there were other things to deal with. So she went over to their own intelligence squad and asked them to produce a list of all murder-suicides during the period from the beginning of 1980 through the end of 1985. Hopefully nothing earlier; unlikely that it could be later, she thought.

“We don’t have a special code for what the criminologists call extended suicide,” said the analyst, shaking his head. “Besides, it’s going to take awhile because this information is so old.”

“Two murders and a subsequent suicide. Start with the police authority in Stockholm. The weapon must have been a revolver.”

“Still going to take awhile.”

“It’s the big boss who wants this information,” said Holt.

“I understand. I’ll call you on your cell when it’s done, and what I find I’ll send on GroupWise.”

“When can I have it?”

“Give me an hour, at least,” the analyst sighed.

Wiijnbladh had gotten up off the floor since the last time. Now he was sitting at his desk thumbing through a gigantic art encyclopedia. In general he looked like always. Wobbly, shaky, weary. Small and hollowed out, with a noticeable lack of both teeth and hair.

“So how’s life with you, Wiijnbladh?” Bäckström asked as he sat down. Wonder how much electricity would be saved in the building if you hooked a battery up to the son of a bitch? he thought.

“Alive, but not much more than that,” said Wiijnbladh in a faint voice.

“I think you look fucking frisky,” said Bäckström. You can easily make the finals in the world championships for shaking like a leaf, he thought.

“That’s nice of you, Bäckström.”

“It’s nothing,” said Bäckström. “By the way, I met an old acquaintance the other day. Known art dealer. He told me he sold a really fine painting to a former colleague a bunch of years ago. It was a Zorn, apparently. It struck me suddenly that I think you knew him. Police Superintendent Claes Waltin. Weren’t you and he old friends?”

“A close friend,” said Wiijnbladh, who already had something damp in the corner of his eye. “So sadly lost in a tragic accident. Great art collector. Had a most excellent collection of contemporary Swedish paintings.”

“But how did he have the money for that?” asked Bäckström. “I mean, on a regular police salary you don’t have the cash for a few Zorns, exactly.” At the most a porno photo or two that you can take with your official cell phone, he thought.

“Very well off, very well off,” said Wiijnbladh, twisting his skinny neck. “Very rich parents. Waltin must have been good for many millions in his prime.”

“You don’t say,” said Bäckström. “It was a common interest in art that brought you together?”

Or was it that red-haired sow you were married to, who introduced him as her cousin from the country? he thought.

“That and a lot of other things,” said Wiijnbladh, nodding mournfully.

“So what were those other things,” said Bäckström. Your old lady, he thought.

“The former police superintendent was a high-ranking chief in the closed operation, as I’m sure you know.”

“Yes,” said Bäckström with a bewildered expression. So what? SePo doesn’t investigate poisonings, he thought.

“On a few occasions I had the opportunity to help him and the closed operation in their important work,” said Wiijnbladh, who suddenly looked as proud as a person can who has almost no teeth of his own left.

Jeez Louise, thought Bäckström. Did you mix thallium into the beet soup at the Russian embassy or what?

“Sounds extremely exciting,” said Bäckström. “Do tell.”

“Can’t say anything,” said Wiijnbladh. “Secrecy. Security of the realm, as I’m sure you understand.”

“You can say something anyway,” Bäckström persisted. “Of course it will stay in this room.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Wiijnbladh plaintively. “Sorry, sorry, Bäckström, my lips are sealed by Swedish law. But I can say this much anyway, that I received a formal thanks from the highest leadership of SePo for my efforts. If you were to doubt what I’m saying, I mean.”

Wonder just what the poisoner Wiijnbladh could have helped leather boy Waltin with? thought Bäckström when he returned to his office. Other than the beet soup, of course. Just about time to go home, by the way, he thought. The time was approaching the magic stroke of three, and the day’s toil and moil had long been over for a simple wage slave in the service of the police administration.

After an hour Anna Holt got an answer from the bureau’s Central Intelligence Service. There was a case that tallied with her specification. A so-called extended suicide that occurred in Spånga on March 27, 1983. Less than three years before the murder of the prime minister.

The perpetrator was a painter. A widower, forty-five years old, hunter and sports shooter with a license for several weapons. He shot his sixteen-year-old daughter and her twenty-three-year-old boyfriend at home in his house in Spånga. After that he shot himself. The weapon had been confiscated. The crime was solved, but for natural reasons no indictment was ever brought.

Nothing more than that emerged from the information stored in the bureau’s computer system. The complete investigation would be found in the Stockholm police archives. The weapon ought to be at the tech squad in Stockholm. Because those kinds of weapons usually wound up there, according to the analyst who had searched out the report.

That can’t be right. Not if we confiscated the weapon in 1983. You can’t find fault with the little fatso’s imagination, thought Holt, looking at the clock. It’ll have to be tomorrow, she thought.

44

For the third time in a month Lewin pulled out his old boxes from the winter and spring of 1986. The same boxes that contained every random piece of evidence that might be-at best-of doubtful value to the police.

On Saturday the first of March at 9:15 a.m., Police Superintendent Claes Waltin got a parking ticket on Smedsbacksgatan up at Gärdet. The car was his own 1986 BMW 535.

When he got the ticket it had not been parked there very long. According to the meter maid Lewin spoke with, she and her associate followed a special Saturday routine. They made two rounds in the area. First they made note of illegally parked cars, and when they returned between fifteen minutes and half an hour later for the second round, cars were ticketed if they were still there. Simple and practical, considering the grace period of at least ten minutes this gave the owners.

Considering that Waltin was parked in a spot requiring a disability permit, it couldn’t have been there during the first round. Cars parked like that were ticketed immediately. Based on the address and the time of the ticket, it could hardly have been parked illegally before 8:45. All according to the meter maid, who was quite understanding.

Lewin bought her line of reasoning. It was logical and had the stamp of probability, and there was little that argued for this parking violation having the slightest relevance to a murder that had been committed ten hours earlier and several miles away. Nevertheless he had still sent a written inquiry on Monday, March 24, 1986, to his colleagues at SePo who were responsible for the police track.

The written response had not arrived for over a month. It was dated Tuesday, April 29, 1986, signed by an inspector with the secret police, brief in its wording and surrounded in certified secrecy. “The vehicle in question has been used on duty in the supervision of the object of protection who was staying at one of our addresses in the area.”

In all likelihood both of these letters should be in one of Mattei’s binders, Lewin thought.

“Have you found it?” asked Lewin an hour later when Mattei returned to their office with a sizeable bundle of computer lists under her arm.

“No,” said Mattei. “Neither your inquiry nor their answer. There aren’t even any notes in the ongoing registration.”

“So how do you interpret that?” asked Lewin. “I mean, you’re the one who’s the computer nerd among us ordinary mortals.”

“Nice of you,” said Mattei. “Because I have a hard time believing you’re the one who’s been careless, I also think they received your question. Then for some reason they didn’t register it. Sent a reply a month later with one of their own serial numbers, which to be sure is in their registry, but which refers to a completely different case and a completely different file.”

“So what is this about?”

“I’ve managed to trace that file. It’s in the case files and concerns an inquiry to Ryhov’s mental hospital about one of their patients who tipped off SePo about a police officer in Gothenburg who is supposed to have murdered Olof Palme. Moreover, that lead file was already written off in May 1986.”

“But-”

“It doesn’t have the slightest to do with your case,” Mattei interrupted. “If I were Johansson I’d say it’s one of the most phenomenally wacko tips I’ve seen.”

“Extremely peculiar,” said Lewin. “So what do you think happened?”

“I think that someone set aside your question to them without registering it. Then the same someone presumably waited a month and then sent a reply with a serial number that references something else. If you had received a reply without a serial number, I’m sure you would have reacted.”

“And the colleague at SePo who signed my answer? Inspector Jan Andersson. Could Waltin have persuaded him to do something like that?”

“Sounds highly unlikely that he would have succeeded in persuading someone to reply to a letter that doesn’t seem to exist and supply the response with a serial number that refers to a completely different matter besides.”

“Andersson, our colleague Jan Andersson. True, it’s been over twenty years, but-”

“Dead,” Mattei interrupted. “Died in 1991 of a stroke, and there doesn’t seem to have been anything strange about the death. Worked with SePo and in the Palme investigation. Moreover he was the one who took care of the kind of matters relating to your question.”

“This is getting stranger and stranger,” said Lewin. “What do you think about all of this?”

“At best what’s happened is that someone, in that case probably Waltin, committed at least two crimes to get out of a parking ticket.”

“And in the worst case?”

“In the worst case, it’s really bad,” said Mattei.

Lewin devoted the rest of the day to unpleasant musings. He did not like the fact that one and the same person showed up in several places in the same investigation without there being a common reason for him or her to do so. A natural, human explanation. Not the kind that had already started to torment him.

Mattei continued as if nothing had happened. As of twenty-four hours ago there were other things going on in her head, and work had to go on as pure routine. First she prepared a page of reminder notes about the mysterious parking ticket that would certainly interest her boss. Then she went to work on the strange special assignment he had given her. Sent a friendly e-mail to the administrative assistant at Magdalen College in Oxford from her private e-mail address, signed by Lisa Mattei, PhD at the University of Stockholm to be on the safe side. And that is really me, she thought.

An hour later she got an answer. Goodness, things are moving fast, she thought.

Dear Dr. Mattei,

Thank you for your kind e-mail. It’s a nice old tale, but I am afraid it’s not true, and there’s never been any actual evidence for it. I rather suspect that it’s a legend that’s been passed around by other colleges-and perhaps even colleagues. It’s true that our deer herd is occasionally culled. However, this has nothing to do…

Good or bad and what is he really looking for? thought Lisa Mattei, and because it was Lars Martin Johansson, and urgent as usual, she called him on his cell phone.

“Lisa Mattei,” said Mattei. “I have an answer to your questions, boss. I’m afraid the whole thing is a tall tale.”

“Brilliant,” said Johansson. “Come over at once, and I’ll tell Helena to put on the coffeepot.”

“Two minutes,” said Mattei. And I’ll tell Helena to put on the coffeepot, she thought, shaking her head.

Lars Martin Johansson was on his thinking couch and waved at the nearest chair.

“I’m listening,” he said.

Not the slightest sign of any coffeepot, fortunately, Mattei thought after a quick look around.

“According to the administrative assistant at Magdalen, a Mr. Edgar Smith-Hamilton, whose official title by the way is bursar, which means he’s in charge of the change purse so to speak, there are presently thirty-two deer in the park behind the college, and they’ve had approximately that many for a number of years. On the other hand the number of fellows is considerably greater than that. More than a hundred, if you include honorary fellows. The deer park is over three hundred years old, but there has never been any rule that the number of deer must tally with the number of fellows. In the old days it seems to have been the case that there were considerably more deer than fellows, but for the past fifty years it’s been the other way around.”

“Phenomenal,” said Johansson, glowing with delight. “Go on, Mattei. Go on.”

Nor was it the case that a deer was shot when a fellow had died. On the other hand a certain amount of shooting was done for reasons of game management, as a rule after rutting, which happened in October each year.

“Although you know about that sort of thing better than I do, boss,” said Mattei.

“Just a guess,” Johansson smiled. “Do continue.”

The part about the dinner didn’t add up either. Dinners in memory of deceased fellows were held twice a year. One in early summer and one in late autumn. To be sure, exceptions had occurred, but then it was for very esteemed members of the college. Most recently a deceased Nobel Prize winner had been honored with a dinner, a theme day with lectures and seminars to discuss his scientific work, plus a Festschrift from Oxford University Press.

“So what do they eat?” asked Johansson eagerly.

“As far as the menus are concerned it does happen that deer from the park may be served at college dinners, but it’s not a mandatory feature of the memorial dinners. Varied menu, in other words. Usual banquet food, as I understood it.”

“I’ll be damned,” said Johansson, sighing contentedly from the couch.

“You’re satisfied with the answers I got, boss?”

“Satisfied,” said Johansson. “Do we celebrate Christmas Eve on the twenty-fourth of December?”

“Yes, that was all I guess,” said Mattei, making an attempt to stand up.

“Just one more thing,” said Johansson, stopping her with a hand gesture. “How did these rumors arise?”

“From what I understood between the lines it was a story that was tended very carefully by those most closely affected. Well, not the deer, that is.”

“I’ll be damned again,” Johansson grunted.

Wonder if he’s checking information in some old interrogation or what, thought Mattei as she left. Johansson was still Johansson, despite his highly suspect view of women, she thought.

45

On Tuesday Inspector Evert Bäckström was engaged in archival research.

The Stockholm police department’s old central archive was in the basement of the big police building and it was there his sensitive nose had led him. Following a scent no stronger than a vague hunch. Impossible to be detected by all his nasally congested colleagues. Concealed from everyone except a seasoned old bloodhound like him.

Besides, he had good memories of this archive. When he had worked overtime at the after-hours unit in the eighties, it was here he would make his way for a moment of reflection and rest. It was necessary so as not to capsize in the tidal wave of common gangsters, lunatics, drunks, and glowworms that the half-apes in the uniformed police ladled in through the duty desk.

A memory from another time. Before computers took over the fine old handiwork. A time when all real constables sorted their thugs in neat hanging folders with cardboard tabs. Where every thug had at least one file, and where the most diligent would be rewarded within a short time with several. Arranged in endless rows by social security number. In different colors over time. Brown, blue, green, light red, red…and already by the change in color Bäckström understood early on what was about to happen.

The dear old central archive. The wellspring of police knowledge, where he himself had both slaked his thirst and refreshed his soul on numerous memorable occasions. This final safeguard and stronghold of knowledge, where literally everything you put your mitts on was collected and never discarded. Regardless of unverified suspicions, dismissal with prejudice, withdrawn indictments, verdicts of acquittal, and all the other nonsense that attorneys were involved in. The crook remained in the central archive. For all time. Once in, you never got out.

Of course he’d been right, he was always right. There he hung, dangling in his blue sixties file. Now I have you, you little leather boy, thought Bäckström, releasing Waltin from his hook.

A thin file with copies of old typewritten forms. Initial report, interview with the plaintiff, personal information about the suspect, interview with the suspect, summons to new interview with the plaintiff, dismissal with prejudice, no crime, and if it hadn’t been for the central archive, Claes Waltin would have been lost to worldly justice for all time.

The night between April thirtieth and the first of May 1968, the twenty-three-year-old law student Claes Waltin had, according to the report, shoved a wooden candlestick into the vagina of a twenty-five-year-old woman who was a doctoral candidate in Nordic languages and supported herself working as a substitute teacher at a high school in the southern suburbs. They had met earlier in the evening at the Hasselbacken restaurant on Djurgården in connection with the students’ traditional celebration of Walpurgis Eve.

Assuming that you believed her, the following was said to have happened.

Waltin had gone home with her to her residence on Södermalm. There he had first assaulted her sexually by forcing her to have anal intercourse. Then he bound her, put a muzzle on her, and inserted the candlestick into her genital area. When he was done with that he left.

An hour later the woman suffered severe bleeding, called for an ambulance herself, and was taken to the Söder hospital. There she remained for over a week. A female social worker visited her, got her to talk, and saw to it that she filed a police report.

A forensic examination had been made and damage to the entry to her vagina, vaginal walls, and portio vaginalis had been observed. In conclusion the forensic doctor observed in his statement: “that the observed injuries appear to have arisen through physical impact from a hard, oblong object inserted into the vagina”; “that the insertion of this object probably required considerable force”; “that the injuries do not contradict the description the patient has given”; “that at the same time it may have arisen in some other way through comparable physical impact”; “that it cannot be ruled out either that they are self-inflicted.”

Not until a few weeks later was the young Waltin called for an interview with the police. He denied any form of assault against the plaintiff. They had met at the Hasselbacken restaurant, he had gone home with her, and it was on her own suggestion that they had had normal intercourse in which moreover she had taken the initiative.

An hour or so later he left her and walked home to his student apartment on Östermalm, because he would be getting up early the next morning. He had promised to visit his mother, who was sickly and needed regular checking by her only son.

In conclusion he also said that he was shocked and shaken by the horrible accusations he was being subjected to. He could never even imagine doing something like that and did not understand why the plaintiff said what she had.

A week later the plaintiff had been called to another interview. She never appeared. Instead she called the police and said that she wanted to withdraw her report. She never provided any more detailed explanation for this turnabout. A month later the prosecutor had written off the report. “The reported incident is not to be considered a crime.”

Typical police chief candidate, thought Bäckström, rolling up the file and putting it in his jacket pocket. Much simpler than wasting your precious time at that copy machine that never worked. Gold, Bäckström, he thought, patting his jacket pocket as he came out onto the street again, and because it was both simplest and safest he went straight home.

For lunch he took a few things out of his own refrigerator, where these days there were a number of delicacies, had a cold pilsner, even allowed himself a little drop of liquor. Then he lay down on the couch so he could think in peace and quiet about an ordinary leather boy’s motives for murdering a prime minister.

It must have been something sexual, thought Bäckström. The same motive, although a different modus operandi, so to speak. What remained was to link Waltin to his latest known victim. Perhaps they belonged to the same secret society of leather boys? Was it an ordinary little internal settling of accounts because they had a falling out over some little ass-whipping subject? It was about time that inspector Bäckström started smoothing out the perpetrator profile, he thought.

In the midst of these pleasant musings he must have fallen asleep, because when he woke up it was time for dinner.

One thing I know that never dies, and that is the reputation of a dead man, thought Bäckström when a while later he was walking at a slow pace to his usual place. That was straight talk. Not that liberal drivel about never speaking ill of the dead. It’s enough if it’s true, damn it, he thought.

46

For the second day in a row Anna Holt called her old colleague from the bureau who was now head of the tech squad.

“It’s me again, Holt,” said Anna Holt. “At the risk of being tedious, do you have two minutes?”

Holt was not the least bit tedious. She could call every day if she wanted. What could he help her with?

“This is about another revolver. The murder weapon in a murder-suicide that happened on March 27, 1983. A man who shot his daughter and her fiancé before he shot himself. Happened out in Spånga. The revolver was confiscated and is said to have ended up with you. You couldn’t pull out a more detailed description of it, could you? It doesn’t appear in the extract I got from our own CIS.”

“Sure,” said the head of the tech squad. “You don’t have a number on the case?”

“Of course,” said Holt. “I’ll e-mail it.”

“Just give me an hour,” said her old colleague.

What am I really up to? thought Holt as she hung up.

This time it had taken only forty-five minutes. The weapon she was wondering about ended up at the tech squad the day after the murder/suicide. It had been test fired and compared with the bullets the forensic doctor had plucked out of the three victims. The results confirmed what had already been figured out. The murder weapon.

“Also a Ruger.357 caliber Magnum. The same as that revolver Bäckström was raving about. Although a somewhat older model.”

“Would it be possible to take a look at it?” asked Holt.

“Unfortunately not,” replied the head of the tech squad. “It’s not here anymore.”

“So where is it?”

“Nowhere, I’m afraid. According to our papers, it was here until October 1988. Then it was turned over, along with twenty or so other weapons, to the Swedish Defense Factories for scrapping. There are papers on that too.”

“Scrapping,” said Holt. “I thought you kept all the weapons you got in?”

Far from it, according to her colleague. They kept those weapons that were interesting from an investigative standpoint. Besides that they kept those that were interesting for ballistic comparisons in general.

“As you perhaps know we have a little weapons library up here at the squad. Over twelve hundred weapons, actually. Various types of weapons. Different brands in various calibers and models.”

“So which ones do you send to scrap?”

Those that were in poor shape. Assuming they wouldn’t be needed for any crime investigation.

“Mostly old rejects, actually. Sawed-off shotguns, drilled-out starter guns, all sorts of home-made contraptions. On the other hand, if we have several copies of the same weapon in good condition we usually don’t scrap them. We apportion those out to colleagues around the country. Most tech squads have their own weapons libraries, and in Stockholm we confiscate more weapons than any other police authority in the country.”

“So this one was in poor condition then,” asked Holt.

“Ought to have been, answer yes. Although in itself it sounds a bit strange considering that the person who used it was evidently a marksman and had a license for it. They’re usually very careful about their weapons. To say the least, if you understand what I mean.”

“You test fired it,” said Holt. “Are the bullets from the test firing still around?”

“Nope. I checked that. Probably due to the fact that we had a solved case right from the start. By now it would have almost turned twenty-five, so they probably threw it out in a spring cleaning. The copy of the report from the test firing should still be around, on the other hand.”

Starts to sound more and more like a typical Bäckström, thought Holt.

“A completely different matter,” said her old colleague. “Just a question out of curiosity. What I’m wondering-”

“I know exactly what you’re wondering,” Holt interrupted. “Before you ask, I wish I knew what this was about. I don’t have a clue. Let me put it like this. I was given the task of following up a tip.”

“I didn’t think police superintendents dealt with such things.”

“Neither did I,” said Holt. Wonder if I can quote you, she thought.

What am I really up to? thought Holt as she hung up.

If there’s something you’re brooding about, something that bothers you, something that worries you, then you have to talk about it. Share with someone you trust. Over and over again his female psychiatrist had repeated this. Like a mantra. If there’s something that…It’ll have to be Anna, thought Lewin.

“There’s something that’s bothering me,” said Jan Lewin with a cautious throat clearing and an apologetic smile.

“Then you should talk about it. You know that perfectly well,” said Holt, smiling at him.

“I thought so,” said Jan Lewin. Then he told the-to say the least-strange story about Waltin’s parking ticket.

“I understand exactly,” said Holt. “I have something that’s bothering me too.”

“I’m listening,” said Jan Lewin.

“So what do you think about this?” said Anna Holt. Then she told the hopefully not-so-strange story about the scrapped Magnum revolver.

“I know what those marksmen types are like,” said Holt with unexpected emphasis. “I was married to one myself. They spend more time tinkering with their weapons than playing with their children.”

“I get the idea that your ex-husband, our esteemed colleague with the uniformed police, is one of the agency’s more distinguished marksmen,” said Lewin.

“Exactly,” said Holt. “Although there are more reasons than that, which we can talk about some other time. But you have to admit the whole thing is a bit mysterious.”

“There must be an investigation,” said Lewin, whose thoughts seemed elsewhere.

“Certainly,” said Holt. “How are we helped by a lot of papers?”

“This was 1983,” said Lewin, shaking his head. “It was another time then. When you were done with a major investigation, you would pack it up in a box and carry it down to the archive. It wasn’t just papers that ended up in those boxes. It could be anything imaginable, like the victim’s old diaries, photographs, threatening letters from the perpetrator, even the sort of thing the tech squad wanted to get rid of.”

“You don’t say,” said Holt. “Personally I was a trainee with the uniformed police at that time, and it was papers that all the older officers warned me about. Whatever you do, see to it that you don’t stir up a lot of papers you will have to fill out.”

“I’ll find the investigation,” said Lewin, nodding and getting out of his chair. “As long as it’s still there, I’ll find it.”

Of course he found it. It was there among all the papers. A bullet from a revolver that apparently had been scrapped twenty years ago. Shining like a gold nugget in a little plastic bag from the tech squad.

47

The box with the investigation was in a basement storeroom in the building where the old homicide squad in Stockholm had its offices during the eighties. Lewin himself had been in the building for a number of years and this was not the first time he’d gone down to the squad’s basement storeroom to put away papers or search for them.

He had no recollection of the double murder from 1983. It had been much too simple a case for him and his associates at the first squad. Not even a murder investigation. Cleared up from the start. If it had been a murder investigation, he would have remembered it, even though during his almost thirty years as a murder investigator he had been involved in more than a hundred.

At the top of the box was a plastic sleeve with a number of newspaper clippings from the day after the murder. “Tragic Double Murder,” “Family Tragedy,” “Three Dead in Family Drama in Spånga.” Toned-down descriptions of how a middle-aged man shot his teenage daughter and her boyfriend and then took his own life. Nothing about his motives. A family tragedy, quite simply.

In the binder with the preliminary investigation was the answer.

The perpetrator was a painting contractor. Together with a partner he ran a small painting company with five employees, with an office and workshop in Vällingby. Three years previously he had become a widower. After a long illness his wife had died of cancer. Remaining were the husband and a then thirteen-year-old daughter who soon after her mother’s death began to have problems. Skipped school, ended up in bad company, started using drugs, was taken to a treatment center several times. That was how she met her boyfriend, seven years older, who was a known petty criminal and drug addict and already had several short prison terms on his record.

It appeared from the technical investigation at the father’s house in Spånga that she and her boyfriend were evidently there to steal when the father suddenly came home and surprised them. In the hall by the front door there were a couple of paper bags. In the bags were, among other things, the mother’s jewelry box, a pair of silver candlesticks, a few of the father’s shooting trophies, a new toaster, and a couple of small paintings. In the stairway up to the second floor someone had dropped a TV and a video player. Farther down the hall, at the foot of the stairs, the boyfriend was lying flat on his face, shot through the head with one shot. The bullet was in the wall halfway up the stairs.

The technician in charge was an older colleague whom Lewin remembered well. A very meticulous man, known as a real nitpicker. With the help of various clues he had given a highly probable picture of the course of events.

The father comes home. Hears someone rummaging around on the second floor. Sneaks down into the basement. Retrieves his revolver from the gun case. Sneaks back up to the hall. The boyfriend is on his way down from the second floor, carrying the TV and the VCR from the father’s bedroom. Tumult.

Most likely the boyfriend threw the TV and VCR at the father. When he tried to force his way past him in the hall, the father shot him in the head from a distance of about three feet. Basically, the boyfriend was killed instantly.

The daughter comes running from the kitchen on the first floor. Throws herself at her father, hitting out like a fury. The father drags her into the living room. Bloody tracks from his shoes, the boyfriend’s blood. Throws her on the couch. Tries to hold her down. Another shot goes off. A contact shot that hits the daughter level with her left breast, passes through the heart and out, ends up in the back support of the couch. The daughter expires within the course of a minute or two in the arms of her father. Evidently he has squeezed her so hard that she had cracks and breaks in several ribs.

Then the father goes out into the kitchen, blood dripping from his shirt. The daughter’s blood. Sits down on the floor with his back against the refrigerator and shoots himself through the head. Entry hole through the palate in the upper jaw. Exit hole in the back of the head. The bullet stops in the refrigerator door. The father dies instantly.

An elderly female neighbor in the house next door helped the police with the time-related course of events. The first shot. A woman who screams. The next shot, a minute or so after the first one. The neighbor who calls the police emergency number. The call that is taken at 14:25. Then the third shot. Five minutes after the second one. Only seconds before the first patrol car turns onto the street and stops fifty yards from the house.

The three dead who will soon have company of twenty or so police officers from the uniformed police, the detective bureau, and the tech squad. “Three Dead in Family Drama in Spånga.”

Lewin’s old colleague from the tech squad was named Bergholm. He had already retired by the late eighties but was still alive, hale and hearty. He lived on Hantverkargatan, a few blocks from the police building, and Lewin had run into him only a month earlier. Treated him to a cup of coffee and talked about old times.

A meticulous man, known as a real nitpicker, and when he was done with his investigation in Spånga he sent the crime scene report over to the homicide squad to be forwarded to the prosecutor. He had also sent along the report of the test firing, a photograph of one of the comparison bullets where the barrel grooves were marked with arrows. Along with a little plastic bag with one of the two bullets he had used for the comparison.

For the three bullets from the crime scene he had sent along three photos where he marked the grooves from the barrel with arrows the same way as on the photo on the comparison bullet. The three bullets from the scene of the crime, on the other hand, were still at the tech squad. The one he sent he had fired himself. One of two and a confirmation to the prosecutor that he had done his job.

Bergholm had also enclosed a handwritten message. If the prosecutor wanted he was welcome to keep the bullet. He had one in reserve for himself. If not, the prosecutor could send it back to the tech squad. If he had any questions it was okay to call.

A meticulous man, known as a real nitpicker, thought Jan Lewin.

The prosecutor, on the other hand, seemed to have been like everyone else, and the bullet had ended up in the box with everything else that was no longer needed.

Which perhaps was just as well, thought Lewin. He sighed and put the plastic bag with the bullet in his jacket pocket.

Then he sealed the box with tape and attached a handwritten note to it. At the top the date and time. Then a brief explanatory text. “Time as above the undersigned has gone through hereby stored preliminary investigation material. Removed certain materials from the tech squad in Stockholm to head of NBCI for further examination.” Then he signed with his name and title. Detective Inspector Jan Lewin, Homicide Squad, National Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Finally he paper-clipped his business card on the cover of the box.

Jan Lewin too was a meticulous man and known as “a real accountant type.”

“This isn’t the least bit like the bullet Palme was shot with,” Anna Holt observed with disappointment when an hour later she was sitting with the plastic bag in hand, inspecting Lewin’s find.

“A different type of ammunition,” said Lewin, who was well-informed as of a few hours ago with the help of Bergholm’s old report. “This seems to be the type of bullet that competitive shooters prefer,” he explained. “It gives clearer target markings. That’s why it’s completely flat in front. It punches a round hole in the target. If several hit close to one another, it’s a lot simpler to see how many hits there are than if you shot with a regular bullet that tapers in front.”

“Not the same ammunition,” said Holt. “Not one of those metal-breakers that killed Palme?”

“No,” said Lewin. “At the crime scene investigation in the house in Spånga an unopened and an opened box were found with the same ammunition you have in your hand. It was in the perpetrator’s gun case in the basement. In the revolver that he used were three empty casings and three unfired bullets. Six shots, full magazine, same type of ammunition as in the boxes. Our colleague Bergholm used two of the three unfired bullets in the magazine when he test fired to get his basis for comparison. Better one bullet too many than one too few,” Lewin observed.

“A bullet of a completely different type than the murder bullet that was fired with a revolver that went to the scrap yard almost twenty years ago,” Holt observed. “What is it that makes me think this is more about Bäckström than about the murder of Olof Palme?”

“I hope it will be possible to find that out,” said Lewin, shrugging his shoulders.

“You or me?” said Holt, smiling at him and rocking the chair she was sitting on.

“You,” said Lewin, smiling back. “Definitely not me. You’re the one who started it, Anna.”

“Okay then,” said Anna. What do I do now? she thought.

“I completely understand that I’m going to drive you crazy soon,” said Holt when for the third time in three days she called the head of the tech squad with the Stockholm police.

“Not at all, Holt,” he answered. “The fact is I was just thinking about you. Why doesn’t she ever call, I was thinking.”

“This time I’m afraid I’m forced to come over.”

“Then you have to promise to have coffee with me.”

“I promise,” said Holt.

Three calls in three days. That was bad enough, so Holt suggested they have coffee in his office. Besides asking for his silence.

“Then you’ve come to the right place, Holt,” said her old colleague. “As I’m sure you recall, I’m the strong, silent type.”

“I know,” said Holt. “Why do you think you’re the one I’m talking to?” I don’t suppose he’s trying to make a pass at me, she thought.

“There are a few things I hope you can help me with,” she continued.

“I’m listening.”

“For one thing, if there are any papers on the scrapping of this revolver that I’ve been nagging you about. If so I want a copy of them.”

“There was a special form. You can get a copy of our copy. Anything else?”

“If there are any other traces of the weapon up here at the squad. It was test fired here in April 1983. I already have access to the report. I would still like to have a copy of the copy that must be in your files.”

“Sure. No problem. As I already said, someone apparently cleaned out those old bullets, but the report should be here. May take awhile to find the right binder, but that shouldn’t be any problem.”

“I don’t understand a thing, I’ll be damned,” said the head of the tech squad half an hour later when they finally found the right binder. “Seems like someone cleaned out the shooting report too.”

“You’re sure this is the right binder?” asked Holt.

“Sure,” he said, turning to the first page. “Here you have the list of all the reports that should be in this binder. Here you have the registration number on the revolver you’re searching for, date of the test firing in April 1983, and then colleague Bergholm’s signature farthest out in the margin. The report should also be here but it’s not. What I can give you is the copy of our request for scrapping. That exists. I’ve seen it myself. When you visited me the first time.”

According to the copy of the request for scrapping, in October 1988 the tech squad with the police in Stockholm had sent a total of twenty-one weapons for scrapping to the Defense Factories in Eskilstuna. Stapled together with the squad’s request was a confirmation from the Defense Factories in Eskilstuna that the task was carried out.

Judging by the list of weapons it was also about scrap. Sawed-off shotguns, old hunting rifles, a drilled-out starter gun, a home-constructed revolver, a butcher’s mask, a nail gun. Possibly with one exception. A Ruger brand revolver, manufactured in 1980 judging by the serial number.

This is getting stranger and stranger, thought Holt when she saw the name of the colleague who had apparently sent off the tech squad’s request.

Before Lewin went home for the day he returned to the homicide squad’s old basement storeroom. This time he took the whole box with him. He returned to his office and locked it in his cupboard. He had not left the slightest trace behind him even though he was known for being extremely meticulous and very formal.

48

On Thursday morning Holt called Bäckström in to talk sense with him.

First she told him she had figured out what was going on with the revolver found behind a refrigerator out in Flemingsberg. That he got the registration number from the tech squad, that his colleagues had messed with him and given him the wrong year of manufacture, that he in turn had tried to fool Holt.

“You’ve tricked me, Bäckström,” Holt summarized.

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about. There must be some misunderstanding,” said Bäckström. What do you mean tricked? he thought. She was talking to him as if he were a young punk. What was she up to, really? Spying on him, apparently, not to mention those semi-criminal characters at the tech squad who had tried to swindle him.

“We’ve got to get some order in this now,” said Holt. “I was thinking about having an interview with your informant.”

“Forget it,” Bäckström snorted. “My informant is sacred to me, and this old man has demanded to remain anonymous. Besides, he’s not easy to get hold of.”

“And why is that?” asked Holt.

“Lives abroad,” said Bäckström curtly.

“I thought the art dealer Henning lived on Norr Mälarstrand,” said Holt with an innocent expression.

What the hell is going on? thought Bäckström. Can cell phones be tapped? Has she sicced SePo on me?

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Bäckström, shaking his head.

“Then it won’t do any harm if I talk with him,” said Holt.

“Listen, Holt, if you really are interested in cooperation, and I sure would be if I were you, I suggest you take care of your business and let me take care of mine. What do you think about taking a peek at this, for example,” said Bäckström, giving her the file he’d taken from the central archive.

“Where did you get this?” said Holt.

“Read it,” said Bäckström. There, you’ve got a little something good to suck on, you little sow, he thought.

“I see,” said Holt when she was through reading. “I still don’t understand.”

Holt must be stupid, thought Bäckström. Even for a hag, she must be uncommonly stupid.

“I’m in the process of refining a little profile of our perpetrator. Waltin, that is. I think, among other things, this may be interesting from the standpoint of motive.”

“From the standpoint of motive?”

“You betcha,” said Bäckström, nodding emphatically. “I think this may have been about something sexual.”

“Excuse me,” said Holt. “We’re talking about the assassination of Olof Palme?”

“We sure are,” said Bäckström with a shrewd expression.

“Explain,” said Holt. “Who is supposed to have been involved with whom?”

“I get the idea that Waltin and that socialist may have had the same interests. If I may say so.” She must be even denser than the densest hag, he thought.

“So why do you think that?” He must have a screw loose, she thought.

“It struck me that they were actually fucking alike. Those small, skinny upper-class types. Misty eyes. Moist lips. You know how they usually look. As if they’re licking their lips all the time. There are these kind of secret societies for leather boys. I think that’s where we should start rooting around. Both were lawyers, besides.”

“I’ll be in touch if there’s anything,” said Holt. I have to see to it that he gets some kind of help, she thought. Whoever it would be who could help someone like Bäckström.

“I’ve thought of one more thing,” said Bäckström.

“I’m listening,” said Holt.

“You know Wiijnbladh?” said Bäckström. “That crazy colleague who tried to poison his old lady a bunch of years ago. He and Waltin apparently were also involved.”

“They’re supposed to have had a relationship too, you’re saying?”

Holt is completely unbeatable, even if she is an old lady, thought Bäckström. A cabbage is a Nobel Prize winner compared with Holt.

“Forget it,” said Bäckström, shaking his head. Someone like Wiijnbladh has probably never screwed, he thought.

“There are other things,” he continued. “He is supposed to have helped Waltin on a few occasions. What that was he didn’t say, but it was apparently fucking secret. Supposedly got some distinction or medal from SePo as thanks for his help.”

“As stated,” said Holt, “I’ll be in touch if there is anything.” So Wiijnbladh is supposed to have helped Waltin, she thought.

As soon as Bäckström left, Holt called her acquaintance at the crime lab. She needed help from a weapons technician. Sensitive matter. On an informal basis. Just so you don’t get any ideas in your head, old man, she thought.

“You can’t be more specific?” he asked.

“I want you to look at a bullet for me,” said Holt. “Make a comparison with another bullet.”

“No problem.”

“See you in two hours,” said Holt.

Then she put the plastic bag with the bullet in her jacket pocket. She signed for an official vehicle, went past Lewin on the way, retrieved an old shooting report from the spring of 1983, and drove to Linköping.

“What do you want me to do with this?” her acquaintance asked two hours later.

“Compare it with the Palme bullet,” said Holt.

“Goodness,” he said, looking at her. Clearly surprised. “You’re aware that this is a completely different type of bullet,” he asked.

“Yes,” said Holt. “What’s the problem?”

“Several,” he said. “How much do you know about firearms? About modern revolvers, for example?”

“Educated layman,” said Holt. “Give me the essentials.” No long expositions, thanks, she thought.

“Okay,” he said.

Then he gave her the essentials. Without digressions. The bullet with which the prime minister had been shot was a.357 caliber Magnum. This meant that it had a diameter of 357 thousandths of an inch. The word “Magnum” meant that the bullet had an extra strong powder charge.

“That I already knew,” said Holt.

The bore in the barrel on a modern revolver has elevations and depressions-lands and grooves-that run in a spiral through the barrel. Either to the right or to the left. Figuratively speaking you might say that the bullet is screwed along through the bore and that the lands and grooves then leave tracks in it. The purpose of getting the bullet to rotate is to give it a straighter trajectory.

“I knew that too,” said Holt.

Different makes of revolvers have different such characteristics as a rule. A different number of lands and grooves with varying land width, groove direction, and groove gradient, where the latter determines how many revolutions around its own axis the bullet rotates over a given distance.

“I have spotty knowledge about this,” said Holt.

“You see,” he said. “Now we’re starting to get close.”

The bullet with which the prime minister had been shot had right-rotating lands with a width of about 2.8 millimeters and a groove gradient of about five degrees.

“I didn’t know that,” said Holt. “So what’s the problem?”

The problem with the bullet she had brought with her was that it was of a different type than the bullet Palme had been shot with. Bullets were made of lead as a rule. Both Holt’s bullet and the Palme bullet were lead bullets, and so far no problem.

“Lead is soft, as you know,” he explained. “In order to protect the bullets from deformation and increase their penetration force when they hit the target, they are usually supplied with a protective coating of harder material. What’s called a mantle.”

“Of copper,” said Holt.

“As a rule of copper or various copper alloys. Your bullet, for example, has a pure copper mantle. Harder than lead, to be sure, but far from as hard as the mantle on the bullets from Sveavägen. You see, it’s made of an alloy of copper and zinc. It’s very hard. Called tombak, by the way.”

“The problems,” Holt reminded him.

“The traces from the same barrel can vary, depending on the bullet. Your bullet has a softer coating. The traces from the barrel may be clearer than on the bullet with a harder coating. Traces that are not deposited on a harder bullet are perhaps deposited on your bullet, because it’s softer.”

“How do we solve this?” asked Holt.

“Give me the revolver, then I’ll do a new test firing with a bullet similar to the one used on Sveavägen.”

“There we have another problem,” said Holt.

Without going into details, she told him that the only thing she had was the bullet she had just given him. Plus a report from the test firing done in the spring of 1983.

“Here’s the report,” said Holt, handing it over.

“The weapon type agrees. So far there’s no problem.”

“So what do we do now?” asked Holt.

“We work with what we have,” said her acquaintance, nodding encouragingly. “I’ll just retrieve the bullets from Sveavägen so we have something to compare to.”

Retrieve the bullets from Sveavägen. Now this is finally starting to resemble something, thought Anna Holt.

In other respects what happened next was not particularly like what you might see in crime shows on TV about life on an American tech squad. He sat there at his comparison microscope, looked, adjusted knobs, hummed, and made notes. It took more than half an hour. Almost a whole episode of CSI.

“Okay,” he said, straightening up and nodding at her.

“Shoot,” said Holt. She pointed at him with her right index finger, curled it and fired, formed her lips to an O and blew away the gunpowder smoke.

“All the traces that are on the Palme bullet are on your bullet,” he said. “This argues for the fact that they come from the same weapon. But,” he continued, “in addition there are traces on your bullet that aren’t on the Palme bullet.”

Typical, thought Holt.

“So how do we explain those?” she asked.

“Because your bullet was fired three years before the bullets from Sveavägen, we can rule out that the traces originate from additional use of the weapon. The explanation is probably that the mantle on your bullet is softer.”

“The probability that they come from the same weapon,” asked Holt.

“What I said on the phone about ninety percent you can forget as long as we can’t compare the same type of bullet. Seventy-five, maybe even eighty percent probability.”

“What do you think personally?” she asked.

“I think they come from the same weapon,” he said, looking at her seriously. “But I wouldn’t swear to that in court. There I would say that with a probability of seventy-five percent they come from the same weapon, and that sort of thing isn’t enough for a guilty verdict. Which despite everything we probably should be happy about.”

“Even though all the traces that are on the Palme bullet are on my bullet,” said Holt. Coward, she thought.

“The problem with those traces is that they are mostly so-called general characteristics,” he said. “The kind that go with the type of weapon. As far as the characteristics of a particular weapon are concerned, through use, damage, and so forth on just that weapon, then it’s not as clear. There are some like that, but none that are simple and unambiguous. On a completely different matter, by the way,” he continued. “What do you think about staying and having dinner?”

“It’ll have to be another time, unfortunately,” said Holt. “What do you think about-”

“I know,” he interrupted. He smiled and put his right index finger to his mouth. “Just don’t forget about dinner.”

As soon as she was in the car she called Jan Lewin on her cell.

“I’ll be at work in two hours,” said Holt. “You and me and Lisa have to meet.”

“So it’s that bad,” said Lewin and sighed.

“With seventy-five percent probability,” Holt replied.

Then she called her boss, Lars Martin Johansson, but although it was said that he could see around corners, he only sounded like the Genius from Näsåker.

“I hear what you’re saying, Holt,” Johansson muttered. “But you don’t believe in all seriousness that little dandy Waltin shot Olof Palme?”

“Have you been listening to what I said?”

“How could I have avoided it?” said Johansson. “You’ve been talking nonstop for half an hour. My office,” he continued, “as soon as you get back. Bring the other two with you too.”

“I’ll need a good hour,” said Holt. “It’s a hundred miles.”

“One more thing,” said Johansson, who didn’t seem to be listening.

“Yes?”

“Drive carefully,” said Johansson.

“That was nice of you, Lars,” said Holt.

“Considering that you must have the bullet in your pocket,” said Johansson. Then he hung up.

49

GeGurra is a real player, thought Bäckström, who was on his way to a late Thursday lunch at the Opera bar to which his benefactor had invited him. GeGurra always treated and he always treated generously. He was definitely a real player who sprinkled his manna over all the first-rate people in his vicinity. Like Bäckström, for example.

Something of an operator besides, thought Bäckström. With his silver-white hair, his shiny Italian suits. Never made a show of himself. He was simply there like an old-school mafioso. Not someone with a mouth that ran ahead of his brain, creating problems for himself and for others. A player and an operator, he thought.

A little like himself, actually. Most recently last week he had given a whole fifty-kronor bill to an unusually hopeless hag so that she could take a taxi to the subway for further transport to her wretched Tatar thermos in the southern suburbs. So that she would not lie in Bäckström’s Hästens bed and make a mess of his existence. There was also all the advice and good deeds he had portioned out. Completely free of charge and even to complete vegetables like Anna Holt.

A bit like you, Bäckström, thought Bäckström. A player and an operator.

“How’s the pea soup at this joint?” asked Bäckström as soon as he sat down and knocked back a little Thursday dram to prepare the way for his lunch.

“The best in town,” said GeGurra. “Homemade with extra pork and sausage. Real meat sausage and that old-fashioned fat pork, you know. You get it in slices, of course, thick slices. On a separate plate on the side.”

“Then it’ll be pea soup,” Bäckström decided.

“Do you want a warm punch with it?”

“A regular shot and a pilsner is fine,” said Bäckström. Warm punch? Does he think I’m a faggot, or what?

“Personally I’ll have the grilled flounder. And a mineral water,” said GeGurra, nodding in confirmation to the white-clad waiter.

Fish, thought Bäckström. Are we homos, or what?

Nice place, thought Bäckström. It was basically empty as soon as the lunch rush was over and ideal for confidential conversations.

“How’s it going?” asked GeGurra, leaning forward.

“It’s rolling along. At a rapid pace, actually,” he added so that GeGurra wouldn’t get any ideas under his white hair.

“Starting to get the hang of that character Waltin,” Bäckström continued, and then in brief strokes he recounted his finds down in the central archive.

“I almost suspected as much. Sometimes he expressed himself in a peculiar way, to say the least.” GeGurra sighed.

“I get the idea this may have been something sexual,” said Bäckström. Ask the woman with the candlestick, he thought.

“Sexual? Now I don’t understand.”

“Possible motives,” Bäckström clarified, and then he also expanded on this line of reasoning.

“I won’t get mixed up in that part,” said GeGurra, shaking all his white hair almost deprecatingly. “How’s it going with the weapon?”

Won’t get mixed up with it, thought Bäckström. Who the hell does he think he is?

“Fifty million,” said Bäckström, rubbing his index finger against his thumb. “The weapon is ten mill. In itself nothing to scoff at, but now we’re talking fifty. If I find the weapon, then I find the murderer. There are more involved in this business than Waltin,” said Bäckström, letting GeGurra have a taste of his heavy police gaze.

“You think you can find the weapon and you can also solve the murder?”

“You betcha,” said Bäckström. “I have good leads on the weapon, and I’ve already found two of those involved. There are more, if you ask me.”

“I’m assuming that I can be anonymous,” said GeGurra. “I have to be kept out of it, as you understand. This sort of thing is not good for business.”

“Of course,” said Bäckström. And that part about fifty-fifty you can just forget, he thought.

A player and an operator, thought Bäckström as he sat in the taxi on his way back to work. Although not like me, he thought. A little too gay and a little too nervous when push comes to shove.

Thursday pea soup with extra pork and sausage, plenty of mustard, a couple shots and a large pilsner to get the system going. A few pancakes with whipped cream and jam on top and a real marvel for the little craw that was already rumbling like a blast furnace as he sank down behind his desk. Perhaps I ought to open the door so all the little thing finders out in the corridor get a chance to enjoy a really good lunch, thought Bäckström, who felt that a major fart was on its way.

He test fired carefully but it wouldn’t come out until his own little half-boss suddenly knocked and came into his office. Now, you little binder carrier, thought Bäckström. Giving him the evil eye, he sank down in the chair, eased up on his left buttock, and tightened his well-trained diaphragm. A sizeable barrel and not an ordinary lousy six pack like all the gym queers.

A completely formidable and juicy one. One of Bäckström’s best ever. A real orchestra finale. First a couple of noisy blasts with ass bassoon, a several-seconds-long solo on bowel trumpet, then a few concluding toots on anal flute.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” asked Bäckström, flexing lightly with both cheeks. There, you got a little something good to suck on, he thought. The little bastard looked ready to faint, and apparently he wanted to deliver a letter.

“Set it with the rest of the mildew,” said Bäckström, pointing at his overflowing desk. “I’ll get to it when I have time.” Damn what a hurry he was in, he thought.

The letter was from the Stockholm police department’s own female police chief. Just as skinny as that attack dyke Holt. Just as crazy as Holt, and certainly a sister in the same association of fairy and dyke constables.

Bäckström had received a summons to a gender sensitivity course that would start on Monday morning at nine o’clock and last the whole week. Police officials of the highest rank had noticed that Bäckström apparently lacked this mandatory feature in police training and intended to remedy the matter immediately. Accommodations were at some camp up in Roslagen. Not a request, but an order.

Now damn it this is war, thought Bäckström, tensing all his muscles from his navel on down.

50

After an hour and a half Johansson called on Holt’s cell.

“I’m sitting in a line of cars up on Essingeleden,” Holt explained. “See you in fifteen.”

“I thought there were blue lights on that car,” Johansson whined.

Most often cheerful, far too often furious. Surly sometimes, never whiny. Johansson must be worried about something, thought Holt with surprise.

If that’s the way it was, there was no trace of it twenty minutes later as she stepped into his conference room. He was entertaining himself with Lewin and Mattei, and there were only happy faces around the table.

“Coffee,” said Johansson, nodding at the tray. “I remember those times I was out in the field and drove like a car thief. Then I would always be in the mood for coffee afterward.”

“I thought it was Jarnebring who always drove,” said Holt.

“Bragging,” said Johansson. “Can you give us a quick summary, Anna?”

Curious twists of fortune with a parking ticket. A scrapped revolver and a vanished firing report. Seventy-five percent probability that they had found something that would trigger an earthquake, and not just in the neighborhood where they were sitting. It was high time to turn this over to the chief prosecutor in Stockholm and the murder investigation that the government had appointed.

“One can certainly get the impression that Waltin ran around and cleaned up after himself, and with that this is not our area any longer,” Holt concluded, supporting herself on the table and jutting her jaw for emphasis.

“We’ll get to that later,” said Johansson. “Now we’ll play devil’s advocate for a while. You start, Lisa.”

That Waltin was involved was still far from proven, according to Mattei. On the other hand it was quite certain that he had died fifteen years ago. In a drowning accident on Mallorca. Dead for a long time, and the worst conceivable alternative for anyone who was searching for a perpetrator in a murder investigation.

That he would have shot the prime minister seemed completely unlikely. In any event, the witnesses’ descriptions of the perpetrator did not match Waltin.

“Five foot nine. Barely taller than the victim. Slender and delicately built. Doesn’t match,” said Mattei. “Not with the witnesses and even less with the shot angle that the technicians describe. That points with high probability to a perpetrator who is at least six feet tall. Probably taller.”

But there certainly were some strange circumstances. That was not to say that Waltin had to be behind them. Previous experience showed that even police officers who did not have the slightest thing to hide could clean away papers and technical evidence. Through ordinary carelessness, if nothing else?

“I think nonetheless that the vicissitudes of this parking ticket do point in a definite direction,” Holt argued.

“Sure,” said Mattei. “Or else there’s just some kind of silly human explanation. Like that married man who preferred to remain in jail suspected of having killed his wife than admit that he was with her girlfriend when someone else murdered his wife.”

“I’ve actually had one just like that,” Johansson observed.

A series of strange circumstances. Particulars that didn’t even work as indices. Much less a chain of indices that could link Waltin to the vanished weapon, and the vanished weapon to a perpetrator who could be linked to Waltin, in order to finally link them both to the murder of a Swedish prime minister.

“Seventy-five percent probability that our bullet comes from the murder weapon. That’s what the whole thing boils down to,” said Mattei. “That’s not enough in court. Far from it,” she added.

“Take this about the weapon,” she continued. “A fundamental thought in the whole line of reasoning seems to be that someone, probably Waltin, is supposed to have come across a revolver from the tech squad in Stockholm. How could he do that? A high-ranking police chief at the secret police who was also an attorney. Who would someone like that have contact with at the tech squad at the Stockholm police?” Mattei looked questioningly at Holt.

“Wiijnbladh,” said Holt. “It’s alleged that Waltin knew our colleague Wiijnbladh, who was then working at the tech squad, and that he possibly could have come across the weapon through him.”

“Excuse me,” said Johansson. “Are we talking about that nutcase who tried to poison his wife?”

“Yes,” said Holt.

“So how do we know that?” asked Johansson.

“According to Bäckström,” said Holt and sighed.

“Perhaps we ought to attach Bäckström to our little group,” said Johansson. “I’m listening,” he said, nodding encouragingly.

“Sounds like Bäckström,” Johansson observed five minutes later. “I’m really looking forward to seeing that medal that Wiijnbladh is supposed to have got from Waltin.”

“Some form of distinction in any event,” said Holt. “Whatever. What do we do?”

“We’re going to do the following,” said Johansson. He held up his right hand and ticked off the points with his fingers.

“First, we’ll make a compilation of what we know about former colleague Waltin. Without waking any bears among his former co-workers.

“Second,” he continued, “we’ll interview Bäckström’s informant, Wiijnbladh, and Bäckström himself, and we’ll do it in that order.”

“Then we turn it over to the Palme group,” said Holt, who did not intend to give up. Not this time.

“If we have something to turn over, then we’ll do that,” said Johansson. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, he thought.

Before they went their separate ways Johansson confiscated the bullet that Holt quite correctly had in the pocket of her jacket.

Who knows what he’s planning to do with it, she thought.

51

Mattei had been forced to cancel a romantic weekend cruise to Riga to devote herself to the Palme investigation’s police track. Even though Johan was seven years younger than she was, he handled his disappointment like a real man. He could imagine some very different cruise destinations if she were to have a few hours extra.

Now it’s time to read thoroughly, thought Mattei, pushing aside thoughts of anything else. To really be sure that Waltin was not included in the material. At the same time find a conceivable contact for him. If he really was involved, he could not have shot the prime minister in any event. If he had an accomplice there was also a decent chance this man had the same background as Waltin.

It remained to find him, thought Mattei.

Anna Holt, Lisa Mattei, and Jan Lewin started their survey of Claes Waltin first thing on Friday morning. Their quarry had been dead for fifteen years, but that was not an insurmountable obstacle for people like them and the bureau’s intelligence service. By Friday afternoon they had already put together a binder to add to the thousand that existed in the investigation.

Claes Adolf Waltin was born on April 20, 1945, and had died in a drowning accident on north Mallorca at the age of forty-seven, on October 17, 1992. He was born and raised on Östermalm in Stockholm. The only child of estate manager Claes Robert Waltin, born in 1919, and his wife, Aino Elisabeth, née Carlberg, who was four years younger. His parents divorced in 1952. His mother died in an accident in 1969. The father was still alive. Remarried to a woman ten years younger and living on an estate outside Kristianstad in Skåne.

Strange, thought Jan Lewin. What kind of parents name their son Adolf right before the end of the war in 1945?

“Did you know that Waltin was christened Adolf as a middle name?” said Lewin to Mattei, who was sitting on the other side of the table browsing through a sizeable pile of papers. “What kind of parents christen their son Adolf when he’s born on the twentieth of April 1945? That’s only a week or so before the end of the Second World War.”

“Hitler’s birthday,” said Mattei. “His dad and mom probably wanted to give him a model in life. They were probably Nazis.”

“Hitler’s birthday?”

“Adolf Hitler was also born on April 20, in 1889. In the village of Braunau in Austria,” said Mattei. In contrast to General Maternity Hospital in Stockholm, and for God’s sake don’t drag in a Nazi track as thanks for the help, she thought.

“Strange,” said Lewin, shaking his head. “Very strange.”

Sigh, thought Lisa Mattei.

Mattei had not found either Waltin or Wiijnbladh in the part of the Palme investigation’s material that dealt with the police track. No signs either to indicate that they should have been found there but had been cleaned out. However you find that sort of thing, she thought.

For lack of anything better to do she also searched for Detective Inspector Evert Bäckström. Considering the life he had lived he ought to be first-rate material for the same track. But there were no traces of Bäckström. Other than under the second lead file and then in the role of interview leader. One of the Good Guys. However that might be, thought Mattei.

Waltin does not seem to have been a nice, decent guy, thought Anna Holt after she reread the old investigation that Bäckström had given her. The complaint written off as not a crime, according to the decision by the prosecutor. She had not succeeded in finding more of the same or that he had ever been charged with anything whatsoever. Waltin did not appear in the police department registry. Not even for a simple speeding infraction.

Mysterious, thought Anna Holt. The types that had that disposition tended to leave tracks behind them.

Claes Waltin had graduated in 1964 and completed his military service with the Norrland Dragoons in Umeå. In the fall of 1965 he began his legal studies at the University of Stockholm and allowed himself plenty of time. It took eight years for him to earn his law degree with mediocre grades. After that he applied to police chief training. Finished that in the appointed time, and in 1975 he was hired by the Stockholm police department’s legal department as an assistant commissioner.

Two years later he changed jobs and started with the secret police. First as police superintendent, up until 1985 when he was promoted to chief superintendent and the second-in-command to SePo’s operations head, the legendary Berg.

Three years later he suddenly resigned. Another four years later he was dead. At the age of only forty-seven, and completely healthy as it appeared, he suddenly drowned during a vacation on Mallorca.

On Mallorca of all places, thought Holt.

Johansson seemed to have devoted himself to something other than Claes Waltin. On Friday afternoon he had been at a meeting in Rosenbad, and after the meeting he ran into the special adviser, who quickly took him aside and into his office.

“Nice to see you, Lars Martin,” said the special adviser, looking as if he really meant it. “By the way, I read your e-mail.”

“About the deer at Magdalen College. Thanks for the last time, by the way,” said Johansson.

“Life has taught me at least one thing,” the special adviser observed. “Not only about the deer at Magdalen,” he added.

“So what’s that?”

“That even wise people like you often confuse the truth with what you think you know,” said the special adviser, winking at his visitor. “Have you thought about that, Lars Martin?” he continued. “How often does the truth appear with a mask on her face and in clothing that she has not even borrowed but simply stolen from someone else entirely?”

“I thought it was the lie that wore a mask,” said Johansson.

“The truth, too,” said the special adviser, nodding seriously. “Not only do they share a room with each other; they share a bed in a lifelong relationship where the one’s existence is a prerequisite for the other’s survival.”

“You’re in one of your philosophical moods, I’m hearing.” Is he trying to say something or is he just a bad loser? thought Johansson.

“Speaking of the truth,” said the special adviser. “Do you have any desire to come to the Turing Society for our next seminar? As chairman of the society it would please me greatly to have such a wise and well-informed guest as you.”

“What were you planning to talk about?”

“About the murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme,” said the special adviser.

Claes Waltin had drowned during a vacation on Mallorca in October 1992. He was staying at north Mallorca’s best hotel. He had stayed at the same place at the same time for a number of years. A week in October at the Hotel Formentor was his recurring fall vacation.

Every morning he would go down to the beach for a morning dip. At the hotel’s private beach. Secluded from the hoi polloi and public view. The water was still about fifty degrees so there was nothing strange about that. For someone like Waltin and if you weren’t a Spaniard, that is. Then it was far too cold. Besides he was up far too early in the morning. At the Hotel Formentor all the normal guests were asleep at that time of day. Hence Waltin could always swim alone.

At eight in the morning, this unchristian time of day for any civilized Spaniard, he passed the reception desk. Equipped with a bathrobe and towel and quite clearly en route to his daily morning dip, according to the two employees in reception that the Spanish police had talked with. Señor Waltin had been exactly as usual. A friendly greeting to the male reception clerk, for his female associate the smile and compliment she always got, regardless of who she was. Everything had been exactly as usual on that morning, the last known observation of Claes Waltin while he was alive.

Fourteen days later he was found. What was left of the former chief superintendent was washed up on the beach a few miles from the hotel. Natural death by drowning, according to the Spanish police investigation. They had not found any simple, unambiguous signs of murder or suicide in any event. What thus remained was natural death by drowning.

The Swedish secret police had made their own investigation. The drowning of a former high-ranking boss at a luxury hotel in southern Europe was not something that was taken lightly. Least of all as the medical examination Waltin had undergone only a month before showed that he was in excellent health. Apart from rather high liver function values he seemed to have been in the best condition, but despite this the Swedish investigators had still come to the same conclusion as their Spanish colleagues.

A purely accidental occurrence. Nothing the least bit peculiar about it, and it was only when his will was opened that things got strange. Really, really strange.

At four in the afternoon Lewin started looking at the clock and fidgeting. At first Mattei ignored him, but finally she showed mercy. Personally she intended to work the whole evening, and because she knew the considerate, loyal Lewin, she made his anguish brief.

“Before you go home, Jan,” said Mattei. “I looked into that thing about Adolf for you.”

“Adolf?”

“Claes Adolf Waltin,” Mattei clarified. “His father, Robert, was evidently an organized Nazi during the war. Participated as a volunteer on the German side. From 1942 until the end of the war he was part of the Viking Battalion. That was an SS battalion made up of volunteers from Scandinavia. Swedes, Danes, Norwegians.”

“How do you know that?” asked Lewin, looking at her doubtfully.

“Found it on the Internet,” said Mattei. “He’s included in Hermansson’s dissertation on the Swedish volunteers in the Viking Battalion. Was decorated with the Iron Cross on three occasions. Advanced from regular soldier to lieutenant. Known right-wing extremist and nationalist far into the seventies. Disappears from the Swedish national movement about the same time his son started as a police officer.”

“Peculiar, extremely peculiar,” said Lewin, shaking his head.

Claes Waltin appeared never to have had any financial difficulties. A millionaire at the age of twenty-four since he inherited from his mother. A multimillionaire when he died and left behind the most peculiar will Holt had ever read. As an investigator with the police she had read a number over the years, but nothing even in the neighborhood of former chief superintendent Claes Waltin’s last will and testament.

Either he was off his rocker or else it was worse than that, thought Holt.

The will had been in Waltin’s safe deposit box at SEB. It was handwritten, and according to the police department’s graphology expert Waltin was the one who wrote it.

All the money that Waltin left, and this was several million, was to start a foundation that would support research on hypochondriac complaints among women. This in memory of his mother, and the foundation would also bear her name. A long name: The Foundation for Research into Hypochondria in Memory of My Mother Aino Waltin and All Other Hypochondriacal Old Hags Who Have Ruined the Lives of Their Children.

What a little mama’s boy, thought Holt.

Then it quickly got even worse, venturing far beyond the boundaries that normally applied when a will was prepared. The deceased had attached a long statement of cause that was to be incorporated into the statutes of the foundation according to the “donor’s last will and testament.”

“During my entire childhood my mother, Aino Waltin, was dying of most of the diseases known to medical science. Despite this she never honored her repeated promises of her imminent demise. Because it would not have been possible for me to sue her for ordinary refusal to deliver according to civil law, I finally saw myself compelled to put her to death myself by pushing her off the platform at the Östermalm subway station when she was on her way to one of her daily doctor’s appointments.”

No ordinary mama’s boy, thought Holt.

The will had of course been contested by the closest survivor, Waltin’s father. The district court took his side and found that the will should be invalidated because the testator was obviously not of sound mind when the will was written.

What remained was the peculiar fact that Lewin’s mother had happened to fall down in front of a subway train at the Östermalm subway station, was run over, and died immediately. A pure accident, according to the police, probably brought about by one of her recurring dizzy spells, which one of her many doctors had reported. Dead by accident in June 1969. Her only son and heir was twenty-four years old, a law student at the University of Stockholm, and for him life went on.

There were many accidents in that family, thought Holt.