Free Falling, As If in a Dream

Esperanza was not just a boat. Esperanza was also an insurance policy that would protect him if something unwanted happened. Esperanza, which was strong enough, durable enough, to take him to the mainland on the Spanish, French, or African side. Or to Corsica where there were many like him, and at least one whom he trusted unconditionally. A constant reminder of the only mistake he had made in his life.

Only fools trusted in fate. Only fools put their lives in the hands of someone else. Personally he had always been his own master. Always capable of mastering any unexpected situation and quickly regaining control over his life. Paddle your own canoe; his father had taught him that. He had lived that way too. Until the day he trusted another person and made himself dependent on him. Actually put his life in his hands. The only mistake worth the name in his entire life.

Naturally he had corrected that. Decided to do it as soon as he sensed that the one he was dependent on was starting to descend into his own self-inflicted misery and could no longer be trusted. The eternal observation, which even the hoods in Hells Angels had the good sense to adopt as their rule of conduct. That three people might very well keep a secret if two of them were dead. For him it had been simpler than that, because there were only two of them to start with. Then he solved his problem. Regained his solitude, took back power over his life, and the worry that at first remained he handled by having Esperanza built. As an insurance policy against the undesired and as a constant reminder not to repeat his mistake.

He did not even need to plan his rehabilitation. He avoided planning. The more carefully you planned, the greater the chance that you would meet with the unexpected, the uncontrollable, which meant that all your plans were suddenly turned upside down. He had simply done what he had always done. Had the goal before his eyes, a simple framework for action as support, waited for the opportunity and seized it in flight.

That was his strength. Seizing opportunity in flight. That was what he had done that morning he’d seen him on the beach below the hotel. Seized the opportunity in flight, because he was all alone, not a person in the vicinity and no need to wait any longer. He stood up in the boat he’d rented. Waved to him, watched him swim toward the boat, grasped his hand, helped him up on deck. Then he won back his solitude, his freedom. Afterward he decided to build Esperanza and never soil her with the sort of thing he had just been forced to do.

Nowadays he didn’t even think about it. Not fifteen years later. Not now when everything was over and nothing else could happen to him. One time was no time for anyone who was his own master, and the other times when he had been alone from the start had never bothered him. He and Esperanza. A beautiful little boat, an insurance policy, a constant reminder.

62

Wednesday, September 19, three weeks remaining until October 10.

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

Their usual meeting was canceled on short notice. Johansson was otherwise engaged, and he let it be known by phone that he would be in touch as soon as he had time and no later than that afternoon. As far as the team’s continued work was concerned, he still wanted the name of the bastard. Preferably immediately and no later than the weekend.

Holt and Lewin would finish the survey of Waltin. They agreed that Lewin should run the desk work while Holt would take care of the field efforts. She knew she needed to get out and move around.

Before Mattei returned to the Palme investigation’s archive and the police track, she took care of Johansson’s request and did a search on the four members of the Friends of Cunt Society, founded in 1966, dissolved, finished, dormant five years later.

First she typed in the names and social security numbers of all four members. In alphabetical order by surname: attorney Sven Erik Sjöberg, deceased in December 1993 after a long illness. Former chief prosecutor Alf Thulin, now a member of parliament for the Christian Democrats, member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Administration of Justice and even mentioned in the media as a possible conservative minister of justice. Banker Theo Tischler, for many years now with a registered address in Luxembourg. Claes Waltin, former police chief superintendent with SePo, dead in a drowning accident on north Mallorca in the fall of 1992.

The rest was a matter of pushing the right keys on the computer, and a mere fifteen minutes later she sat with three hits on names and ten references to the investigation files that produced the hits.

Attorney Sven Erik Sjöberg had been interviewed on two occasions due to his possible connection to the “Indian weapons track” or the “Bofors affair.” He had been a Bofors attorney for many years, even served on the company’s board for a few years. He had not been able to contribute anything of substance to the investigation of the murder of Olof Palme. Besides, his personal opinion was that every such assertion-that the murder of the prime minister could have had anything whatsoever to do with the company’s sale of artillery to the Indian government-was “completely ridiculous.”

The deal stood on its own steady legs. The Bofors long-range 155 millimeter field howitzer was by far the best artillery piece on the market. It was no more complicated than that, and the Indians should simply be congratulated for making the best choice. If you wanted to inquire into things that concerned business secrets, military secrets, or secrets between two friendly nations, you would have to take that up with someone besides him. The Munitions Inspection Board, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Swedish and Indian governments.

That part of the matter had then been concluded by the national prosecutor, who at that point in time was the formal leader of the preliminary investigation into the murder of the prime minister.

In connection with the usual summer vacations in the prosecutor’s office, chief prosecutor Alf Thulin had substituted as one of the “Good Guys.” In part for the colleague who had been leader of the preliminary investigation in the Palme case during the summer of 1990. After that he had returned as an expert and technical adviser in one of the many review commissions set up by the government. In the minutes from a meeting of the commission, which for unclear reasons ended up in a binder in the Palme investigation, he had expressed his definite opinion on the Palme case. It was Christer Pettersson who murdered Olof Palme, and what the prosecutor’s office’s work now “concerned in all essentials” was trying to construct a petition for a new trial that the Supreme Court could accept.

Banker Theo Tischler ended up in the investigation due to three different tips that were turned in from the group of private investigators in the Palme murder. According to these tips he was supposed to have had close contacts with police chief Hans Holmér, even after Holmér had been fired as investigation leader. According to the same informant, Tischler was supposed to have offered several million to Holmér so he could continue working on the so-called Kurd track. That was what every thinking private investigator right from the beginning understood to be a red herring, set out by Holmér and his associates to protect the real perpetrator.

Tischler had been interviewed for informational purposes about this in the summer of 2000, over fourteen years after the murder. He had not minced words. He had never met Holmér, much less given him any money. On the other hand he had been asked to do so by a mutual acquaintance a year or two after the murder. After having talked with his own contacts “within the social democratic movement and close to the administration” he decided not to give a krona to Holmér and his allies. In conclusion he then congratulated the two interview leaders for the swiftness with which they seemed to be running this case.

“If I did business the same way you gentlemen run police work, I would have been in the poor house thirty years ago.”

The one interview leader regretted his attitude. Personally he and his colleagues were doing the best they could, and the mills of justice ground slowly as everyone knew.

“Sorry to hear that the bank manager has that attitude,” said the interview leader.

“I’m a private banker,” said Tischler “Not a fucking bank manager, for in that case I might just as well have applied for a job with the police.”

The only one of the four that Mattei couldn’t find on her computer was Claes Waltin, which made no great difference because Lewin found him anyway.

After that she returned to the police track. Mission: Find someone who knew Waltin. Find someone tall enough to tally with the witness statements. Find someone capable of shooting a prime minister in public, with scores of witnesses right in the vicinity. Find someone capable enough to escape unscathed.

However you find someone like that, thought Mattei, looking at the binders with all the police officers sitting in front of her on the desk. A total of a hundred police officers. Seventy of whom had been identified, questioned, investigated, ruled out. Another thirty whose identity was not certain, several of whom had probably never been policemen. Had only said they had been.

First she tried to sort them by height. That didn’t go very well. Information about their height was missing in the majority of cases. Besides, almost all policemen in that generation would have been tall enough to shoot the prime minister.

With the help of their age, height, other information about physical features, and from those investigations that left no room for any remaining suspicions, she had nonetheless been able to cross out fifty or so of the seventy known colleagues who had been singled out. True, it had taken her almost the entire day, but she did it for lack of anything better to do, and she had to start somewhere.

Ordinary policemen had the peculiarity that they preferred to associate with other policemen, thought Mattei. Waltin on the other hand had not been an ordinary policeman. Which is why Lisa called her mother and asked whether she would have lunch with her. She was happy to. She had actually intended to call her daughter and ask the same thing. She would explain why when they met.

To save time they met in the police building restaurant, where they found a sufficiently isolated table. As soon as they sat down Linda Mattei revealed her intentions.

“Are you pregnant?” said Linda Mattei to her only daughter, Lisa.

“But mother. Of course I’m not.”

“But you’ve met someone,” she continued.

“The answer is yes,” said Lisa Mattei. “What do you think about trading question for question?”

“Is he nice?”

“Yes again.”

“Does he have a name?”

“Yes again. Johan.”

“Johan?”

“Yes again. Johan Eriksson.”

“So what does he do?”

“Studies at the university, in cinema studies, sublets a studio on Söder. Works on the side as a guard.” I’m sure you’ve seen him, she thought.

“Lisa, Lisa,” said her mother, shaking her head. Then she leaned over and stroked her across the cheek.

“Now it’s my turn,” said Lisa Mattei. “I have the right to six questions, and you’ll get two free answers because I’m so nice and because you should calm down. Yes, you’ll get to meet him. Yes, he’s a little like Dad. Although twice as big. At least.”

“I will get to meet him?” Linda Mattei repeated.

“The answer is yes. Seven questions. My turn.”

“Okay. Ask away,” said Linda Mattei, shaking her head and smiling.

“Claes Waltin,” said Lisa Mattei. “Tell me what he was like as a person.”

“Why are you asking about him?”

“Pull yourself together, Mom,” said Lisa Mattei. “This is about work, and now I’m the one who’s asking the questions.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” said Linda Mattei, making a deprecating hand gesture.

Then she told her daughter what she knew about Claes Waltin.

Already the first week after he had started at SePo he tried to make a pass at her.

“He made a pass at you. So what did you say?”

“I told him to go to hell,” said Linda Mattei. “Then I basically didn’t see a trace of him for the rest of his time with us. I was glad. Anything else you’re wondering about?”

“What type was he?”

“Not my type anyway,” said Linda Mattei, curling her upper lip. “According to what was whispered in the corridors he was a real creep. But I’m sure you’ve already heard that?”

“Ad nauseam,” said Lisa. “What I’m wondering is whether he associated with other police officers. With regular colleagues.”

“I have a really hard time imagining that,” said Linda Mattei, shaking her head.

“Explain,” said Lisa Mattei.

Waltin despised regular police officers. Waltin was very stuck-up. Regular policemen were much too simple for him. He never said that. He had shown it clearly enough without having to say it.

“So he didn’t even have a humble confidant?”

“Humble confidant,” said Linda Mattei, looking at her daughter with surprise. “Someone like me, you mean?”

“Some male colleague. One of those strong, silent types.”

“I have a really hard time imagining that,” said Linda Mattei. “Do you mean he’s supposed to have been homosexual too?”

“Okay,” said Lisa Mattei and sighed. “What do you think about actually eating lunch?”

Before she went home, for lack of anything better to do, she printed out a computer list on Berg and his associates on the riot squad, the dozen uniformed police who most often appeared in the Palme investigation’s police track. Despite the fact that none of them seemed particularly credible as henchman for someone like Claes Waltin. Besides, half of them had alibis for the time when the prime minister was shot. Real alibis, not the kind they’d given each other or gotten from other officers.

63

The following day Mattei opened the binders that dealt with the thirty or so policemen who could not be identified with certainty. At the top of the first binder was a lead file where serious attempts at least had been made. At the top of the file, the anonymous letter that was the origin of the matter.

A handwritten letter, cheap lined paper, ballpoint pen. Surprisingly flowing handwriting. No misspellings. Basically correct punctuation. On the other hand no envelope, even though the envelope might often say more to people like her than the message that was inside. Especially if the sender pasted the stamp with the king upside down. Barely ten lines of text.

Dear uncle blue. Saw on TV the other night that there were a lot of cops in the air when Olle called it quits. I myself saw an old acquaintance at the Chinese restaurant on Drottninggatan at the corner by Adolf Fredriks Kyrkogata. A real SOB who worked at the bureau out in Solna in the seventies. Then he became a fine fellow and got to go to SePo. Think what can happen when the hasp isn’t closed. He was sitting there sucking on a glass of water when I came but I kept my cool and my mouth shut and that was probably luck because otherwise I’m sure my ass would have been kicked again. Mostly he looked at his watch and right before eleven he paid up and left. Maybe to guard Olle? Or else perhaps to come up with something else with Olle? Anonymous from personal experience.

If people could just give their names, Mattei was thinking as Holt entered the room.

“Everything okay, Lisa?” said Holt. “I saw on the voice mail that you were looking for me.”

“Yes,” said Mattei. “Berg and his associates,” said Mattei, giving her the plastic sleeve with the information she’d produced.

“What do you want me to do with these?”

“Ask Berg if he or any of his associates knew Waltin,” said Mattei. “Berg with the uniformed police that is. The one who’s the nephew of the old SePo boss,” she clarified.

“Do you think that’s wise?” said Holt, weighing the papers. “Considering Johansson.”

“You know Berg, don’t you? You’ve talked with him at least. I think he trusts you. I’m pretty sure he likes you. The question is free. Pull a Johansson on him.”

“A Johansson?”

“Yes, if you’d been Johansson and he’d been you. And was always getting himself worked up about something. What do you think he would have done?”

“I understand exactly,” said Holt and nodded. “I’ll pull a Johansson.”

Nice to have colleagues who understand, thought Mattei, whereupon she returned to her binder.

The first letter had come in to the Palme investigation about a month after the murder. Nothing in particular seemed to have happened. A special file had been opened and entered under what was already-even in the building-being called the police track. But there was nothing else.

Not until the second letter was received, which arrived a month later. Only a few days after the TV news program Rapport had aired a major feature on what the TV journalists were also now calling the police track. The letter was postmarked Stockholm, May 7, 1986. This time the envelope had been saved. Even examined for fingerprints, on both the letter and the envelope.

Dear uncle blue. I think uncle gets things a little slowly but I already knew that. Maybe ought to write direct to Rapport and tell about your dear colleague who was sitting in the bar and hoping for better times until he sneaked away and clinched the deal himself. If he really did it? What do you think yourselves? He is damned like the one who did it in any event but the witnesses must have seen wrong if it really is a cop they’ve seen. So of course it’s cool for the sonofabitch who worked at the bureau in Solna before he became a fine fellow and ended up at SePo. Guess I’ll have to call the complaint department on TV. Anonymous from personal experience.

After a week there was already a response from the tech squad. A number of fingerprints had been secured on the envelope. On the other hand none on the letter. Probably someone had wiped it off before it was put into the envelope. Of the prints that were found, one produced a result. A female drug addict with numerous convictions for narcotics crimes, theft, and fraud, Marja Ruotsalainen, born in 1959.

Maja Svensson, although in Finnish, thought Mattei. Sweet name, she thought.

Holt called Berg. Arranged a meeting at the same café as the first time. As soon as they sat down with their coffee cups, she pulled a Johansson.

“Claes Waltin,” said Holt. “Former police chief superintendent with SePo. Drowned on Mallorca fifteen years ago. Is that anyone you knew?”

“Claes Waltin,” said Berg, who had a hard time concealing his surprise. “Why are you asking?”

“You don’t want to know and I can’t say,” said Holt. You knew him, she thought.

“Okay by me,” said Berg, shrugging his shoulders. “Knew him is probably putting it too strongly. I met him twice. That was at the time when your boss was messing with me and my associates. Right after New Year’s, the same year Palme was shot. Sometime in January or February. We were back on duty, in any event.”

This time things had happened, thought Mattei. The case seemed to have wound up with one of those officers who would be described by all other completely normal colleagues as “a zealous bastard.” As soon as he found out that Marja Ruotsalainen’s fingerprints were on the envelope things had happened. He realized she didn’t work as a letter carrier as soon as he searched for her in the police registry.

In the summer of 1985 Ruotsalainen had been sentenced to two years and six months for felony narcotics crimes. A conviction that was never appealed and which she started serving at Hinseberg women’s prison the week after the conviction. Ruotsalainen was tired of sitting in jail on Polhemsgatan and longed for the relative freedom at the country’s only closed facility for women.

After six months she had been granted leave. She absconded and kept out of sight from the end of January until the middle of May, when she was arrested during a police raid on an illegal club in Hammarbyhamnen. She had been taken to the jail and had to go back to Hinseberg the following day. When the two anonymous letters had been placed in the mailbox she was on the run. Two days after the last one she was sitting in the jail on Kungsholmen.

Because the zealous colleague from SePo had the idea that it was a man who had written the two anonymous letters he searched for her male contacts in the police surveillance registries. Without success. Not because she lacked such contacts, but because none of those who were in the register could have sent the letter.

For lack of anything better he pulled out the papers from the police operation in Hammarbyhamnen during which she was arrested. Besides Ruotsalainen, who was wanted and immediately recognized by the Stockholm police detective squad who led the effort, another half a dozen individuals ended up in jail. One of them was a known criminal with twenty or more previous convictions for serious crimes, Jorma Kalevi Orjala, born in 1947, and at that point in time he was strangely enough neither on the run nor suspected of anything else. About the same time that Ruotsalainen took a seat in the jail’s blue Chevrolet to be transported to Hinseberg, Jorma Kalevi Orjala stepped out onto Kungsholmsgatan a free man.

The zealous colleague with SePo called the police inspector with the central detective squad who had led the raid against the club in Hammarbyhamnen. To save time and out of personal curiosity, because this was the first time he had crossed paths with one of the Stockholm police’s great legends, Bo Jarnebring.

He had two questions. Why had Orjala ended up in jail? Was Orjala involved with Marja Ruotsalainen? On the other hand he never asked the third question. One that with reasonable probability might have led to his solving the murder of the country’s prime minister barely four months after the event. The secrecy surrounding his work was so high that those ordinary questions, between fellow officers, were never asked.

Berg had met Waltin twice. The first time he had been alone. The second time four of his associates from the riot squad had been there.

A woman he knew had called him. She had been out with Waltin on one occasion. Then Waltin started pursuing her. Called her place of employment. The usual wordless panting. Sat in a car out on the street. Followed her. She called Berg to get help.

“I caught him in the act,” said Berg. “He was sitting in one of SePo’s service vehicles outside her workplace.”

“I told him to lay off,” he continued. “Unless he wanted a beating, of course.”

“So what did he say?” asked Holt.

“He did as I said,” said Berg, shrugging his broad shoulders. “Lucky for him, you know.”

I can very well imagine that, thought Holt and nodded.

“The second time,” she asked. “When you and your associates met him?”

The zealous colleague’s conversation with Jarnebring had gone wrong right from the start. If not, it is very possible that the third question would have been answered anyway.

“I see then,” said Jarnebring when he was asked the first one. “So which of my associates is it you’re going to grill this time?”

“I can’t go into that, as you understand,” answered the zealous colleague.

“Imagine that,” said Jarnebring. Then he replied to the two questions that were asked.

Orjala ended up in jail because Jarnebring always put people like Orjala in jail, as soon as he had the chance, and he got the chance because Orjala was in a place where there was both illegal serving of alcohol and illegal gambling. In addition Jarnebring had taken Orjala’s keys from him, squeezed his address out of him, and had gone there while Orjala was resting up in a cell at Kronoberg.

“I didn’t find anything in particular,” said Jarnebring. “Other than Marja’s bag and baggage. She was living with him while she was on the run. In principle I could have locked him up for protecting a criminal, but I guess I didn’t have the energy to write up that kind of shit.”

“Thanks for your help,” said the zealous colleague. “I’ll have to talk with Orjala.”

“I’m afraid you’re a little late,” said Jarnebring. “The fire department fished him out of the Karlberg Canal yesterday morning. We thought about celebrating with cake on our next coffee break.”

The second time was a few weeks later. Midmorning outside the police building on Kungsholmen. Waltin came walking up Kungsholmsgatan. They eased up alongside him. Waltin stopped them, got into the van, and told them to drive him down to Stureplan. If they didn’t have anything better to do, of course.

“He was cocky, that stuck-up little prick. But sure. We were going in that direction anyway, so he got to ride along.”

“Did anything in particular happen?” asked Holt.

“A sock in the jaw, you mean?” said Berg, smiling wryly. “No, nothing like that,” he said, shaking his head. “But he did say two things that were strange to say the least.”

“So what did he say?” said Holt.

“When we stopped for a red light up at Kungsgatan there was a very old lady with a walker crossing the street. The light happened to change but we stayed there so she could make her way across. Then Waltin leans over and says to the colleague who’s driving that he should step on the gas and turn that cunt of hers into a garage. That the old lady was only pretending.”

“Word for word.”

“Yes, something like…the old lady is only pretending. Step on it and turn that cunt of hers into a garage. He said something like that.”

“So what did you say?”

“I looked at him but didn’t say anything. We were pretty surprised, actually. I mean, what do you say to something like that? I’ve never heard anything like it from another officer. Even though I’ve heard most everything. But this was just a nice little old lady.”

“The other thing,” said Holt. “What was the other thing he said?”

“That was even more peculiar,” said Berg. “Although it took about six months before we understood it.”

According to the forensic physician, Orjala had been run over by a car, fell into the water, and drowned. Blood alcohol concentration over.03. Hit-and-run accident, otherwise nothing to discuss, according to the forensic physician.

For lack of a better idea the zealous colleague took a service vehicle and drove to Hinseberg to talk with Marja Ruotsalainen.

The meeting at Hinseberg between the zealous colleague and Marja had hardly been constructive. She only said a single sentence. Repeated it until the interview was ended and he drove home again.

“Go to hell, fucking pig. Go to hell, fucking pig. Go to hell, fucking pig…”

Zealous as he was, he also wrote a memorandum on the matter and put it in the file.

Zealous as he was he had also visited the Chinese restaurant, brought along pictures of both Orjala and Ruotsalainen and showed them to the personnel. No one remembered either of them. Nothing special had happened otherwise during the evening when the prime minister was murdered, only a few hundred yards from the restaurant. There had been few customers the whole evening. Fewer than they usually had on a Friday evening after payday.

“We dropped him off at Stureplan,” said Berg. “He was going to the bank, I seem to recall that he said.”

“What else did he say?” Holt repeated.

“That was what was so strange,” said Berg. “First he thanks us for the ride. Then he stuck his head in through the window on my side and said that I should take care of myself. Take care of yourself, Berg, he said. Watch out for all the eyes and ears that are on people like me, he said.”

“How did you interpret that?”

“We talked about it. First we thought this was his way of flexing his muscles for us. It was about six months later that we found out that SePo had been investigating us for several years. That was when we started going in and out with those police track investigators in the Palme murder. Then it was in the newspapers too.”

“He was trying to warn you?”

“Yes. I actually think so. A little strange, to say the least, considering who he was and considering his and my previous interactions.”

The zealous colleague had not given up. Based on the anonymous letters and with the help of Orjala’s personal file and his recorded contacts with the detective squad in Solna, he made a description of the unidentified officer that the anonymous letter-writer-probably Orjala-had pointed out. He sent the description to the secret police’s personnel department and got an answer one month later. The one who matched the description best was a previous employee with the secret police who had service code 4711. His employment had ended in 1982. Since then he had resided abroad. The customary internal controls had been carried out. There was nothing that argued that he would have been involved in the murder of the prime minister or even in Stockholm at the relevant point in time.

So the zealous colleague had given up and his top boss, bureau head Berg, wrote off the matter.

Forty-seven eleven, thought Mattei. Where have I heard that? Wasn’t that the awful perfume Dad used to give Mom when I was little? Kölnisch Wasser 4711, she thought. That’s what it was called.

“There was another thing I wanted to ask you about, Holt,” said Berg when they had finished their conversation and were standing by her car to say farewell.

“I’m listening,” said Holt. Suddenly he’s looking very strange, she thought.

“You are an exceptionally appetizing woman, Holt,” said Berg. “So I was wondering if I could invite you out some evening?”

Goodness, thought Holt.

“That would have been nice,” said Holt. “But the way it is now-”

“I understand,” Berg interrupted. “Say hi and congratulations to him from me.”

“Thanks,” said Anna Holt and smiled. An exceptionally appetizing woman, she thought.

64

By exploiting her informal contacts with SePo Anna Holt found a woman who was alleged to have been involved with Claes Waltin at the time of the Palme murder. Jeanette Eriksson, born in 1958, assistant detective with SePo.

A co-worker of Waltin’s thirteen years his junior who quit the police the year after the Palme murder to work as an investigator for an insurance company. She was still there, now head of the department, and she did not sound happy when Holt called her. The day after the meeting with Berg they met at Eriksson’s office.

“I don’t really want to talk about Claes Waltin,” said Jeanette Eriksson.

“Not even a little girl talk?” said Holt. “No tape recorder, no papers, no report. Just you and me, in confidence.”

“In that case then,” said Jeanette Eriksson, smiling despite herself.

Claes Waltin had been her boss at the secret police. In the fall of 1985 they had started a relationship. In March of 1986 she ended the relationship.

“Though by then he was already tired of me, for otherwise he probably wouldn’t have let me go. He already had another woman.”

“I know what you mean,” said Holt. “He seems to have been a full-fledged sadist according to people I’ve talked with.”

“That’s what was so strange,” said Jeanette Eriksson. “Because I don’t have that tendency at all. I’ve never been the least bit sadomasochistic. And yet I ended up with him. To start with I thought it was some kind of role-playing he was involved in, and when I understood how it really was it was too late to back out. He was horrible. Claes Waltin was a horrible person. If he was drinking he could be downright dangerous. There were several times I thought he was going to kill me. But I never had a single bruise that I could show to be believed.”

“You were involved with him for six months?”

“Involved? I was his prisoner for five months and eleven days,” said Jeanette Eriksson. “Before I could get myself free. I hated him. When I was finally rid of him I would sit outside his apartment and spy on him and wonder how I could get revenge on him.”

“But you never did anything,” said Holt.

“I did do one thing,” said Jeanette Eriksson. “When I realized he’d acquired a new woman. When I saw her together with him the second time in a week. Then I found out who she was so I could warn her.”

“You talked with her?” asked Holt.

“Yes, just the two of us. She worked at the post office. When she left work one evening I approached her. Told her who I was and asked if I could talk with her.

“It went fine. We sat at a café in the neighborhood and talked.”

“So how did she take it?” said Holt.

“She didn’t understand what I meant,” said Jeanette Eriksson. “She seemed almost shocked when I told her what he’d done to me. Actually asked if I was still in love with Claes. Thought that that’s what it was really about. After that not much was said. Not that we argued. We just went our separate ways. Since then I’ve never talked with her.”

“Do you know what her name is?” asked Holt.

“Yes,” said Jeanette Eriksson.

“So what’s her name?” said Holt.

“Now it gets a little complicated,” said Jeanette Eriksson. “I’m assuming it’s not for her sake that you’ve come here?”

“No,” said Holt. “I had no idea about this woman’s existence until you mentioned her.”

“May I ask a question myself?” said Jeanette Eriksson.

“Sure,” said Holt.

“You work at the national bureau, you said. Isn’t that where Lars Johansson is the boss? That big Norrlander who’s always on TV?”

“Yes,” said Holt.

“That’s what makes this a little strange,” said Jeanette Eriksson. “You see, he’s married to the woman I talked with. Then her name was Pia Hedin. Today her name is evidently Pia Hedin Johansson.”

“Are you sure of that?” said Holt.

“Quite sure,” said Jeanette Eriksson. “I saw them together at a party at SEB a few years later, when I started working here at the insurance company. Then they were newlyweds. Must have been sometime in the early nineties.”

“You’re quite sure?” asked Holt.

“Quite sure,” said Jeanette Eriksson. “She’s a very beautiful woman. Pia Hedin is not someone you forget or confuse with someone else.”

“I know,” said Holt. “I’ve met her.” What do I do now? she thought.

65

Despite his illness-after all he had suffered a serious stroke-Bäckström fought on and refused to let go of the case that had been his from the very start. Claes Waltin’s involvement in the murder of Olof Palme.

Murders were about two things. Money and sex. Bäckström knew this from his own rich personal experience. What remained was to find out which of these motives had led to the victim’s life being taken.

Right now there was much that argued that it was about sex. Both the perpetrator and the victim seemed to be literally bathing in money, which made it less likely that they were at each other’s throats for that reason. Waltin had been as rich as a mountain troll. Everyone knew that. The victim had concealed tens of millions in various secret accounts in Switzerland and other tax paradises. Bäckström knew that, as did everyone else in the know, who had it from reliable sources. Besides, you could read about it on the Internet nowadays. How the Swedish arms industry paid out hundreds of millions in bribes to the murder victim and his shady companions from the third world.

There was also a witness to the murder who made a deep impression on an analytically oriented police officer like Bäckström. A witness who all his moronic colleagues only shook their heads at. A witness who waited until the third interview to admit that he had seen how the perpetrator talked with the victim and his wife before he started shooting at them. Presumably when they tried to get away, considering that the shots hit them from behind.

Murder victims and murderers almost always knew each other. Bäckström knew that too based on his long, solid police practice. The same dealings, vices, and desires, when it came down to it. When a man like Bäckström got the opportunity to let all the skeletons out of their closets. When the truth was finally revealed.

Waltin had undeniably been an extremely perverse type. Bäckström’s meticulous survey left no room for doubt on that score. What remained was to link him with his victim, and there were already a number of circumstances that could hardly be owing to chance.

Both were multimillionaires, attorneys, had an upper-class background, had grown up in the same city. Surely socialized in the same circles. Ought to have, reasonably, considering all the rest. Besides the purely external likeness between them, that was almost striking. Short, delicate, skinny characters, with dark, dissolute eyes and moist lips.

I’ll be damned if they weren’t related to each other, thought Bäckström, experiencing a slight excitement.

It remained to verify this. To demonstrate beyond any reasonable human doubt. This would not be easy considering that his informant seemed to have abandoned him. First he had pursued GeGurra by phone and left a number of messages. His efforts were met by silence, and in that situation the only alternative was action. Bäckström watched for him outside his residence on Norr Mälarstrand. Saw when he arrived home. Rang at his door and of course covered the peephole while he did so.

At last the little coward cracked the door open carefully and asked what Bäckström wanted. Bäckström fixed his eyes on him and GeGurra unwillingly let him into the hall. Once inside he started by reminding GeGurra about an old common acquaintance, Juha Valentin Andersson Snygg, who despite his youth had a very extensive personal file in the police department’s central archive. Nowadays it was missing, however that might have happened, and who could a known, respected individual like art dealer Gustaf G:son Henning really trust? If he only thought about it the least little bit? For it was hardly Anna Holt and her bosom buddies, who didn’t even draw the line at secretly tapping other people’s phones. If GeGurra chose that sort ahead of Bäckström he was lost.

Of course he backed down. They all did when Bäckström started waltzing around them. Mostly to be nice and give GeGurra a chance to get his bearings, he also started off easy before things got serious.

“How did Waltin know Prime Minister Olof Palme?” said Bäckström, looking slyly at GeGurra.

“I had no idea he knew Olof Palme,” replied GeGurra, looking at Bäckström with surprise. “Where did you get that from?”

“Listen,” said Bäckström. “Just to save time. I’m asking the questions and you answer.”

“Sure,” said GeGurra, “but I’m really a bit surprised that-”

“Now I happen to know that Waltin talked a good deal about Palme,” Bäckström interrupted, examining his victim.

“Didn’t everyone?” said GeGurra. “Talk about Palme, I mean. At that time, at least.”

“Exactly,” said Bäckström. “Exactly, but now let’s forget about what everyone else said. I want to know what Waltin said.”

“I guess he said what all the others did. When they talked about Palme, I mean.”

“So what did they say?”

“That Palme was an underhanded type,” said GeGurra. “Yes, that he tried to socialize the country by stealth and let the government take over the companies with the help of those employee funds. At the same time as he personally took bribes from the defense industry so they could sell cannons to the Indians. It was the usual.”

“That he was a Russian spy?”

“Yes, sure. I actually remember that I asked Waltin about that. Considering that he worked at SePo, I thought he was the right man to ask.”

“So what did he say?”

“That he couldn’t answer that, as I surely understood. But at the same time I obviously got a definite impression of what he wanted to say.”

“What impression did you get?”

“That Palme was a spy for the Russians,” said GeGurra, looking at Bäckström with surprise. “Didn’t everyone know that? It was even hinted at more or less openly in the newspapers.”

“Of a more personal nature then? What did Waltin have to say about Palme that was of a more personal nature?”

“That was probably personal enough,” said GeGurra. “Saying that he took bribes from Bofors and was a spy for the Russians. I mean what do-”

“We’re talking about sex,” Bäckström interrupted.

“Sex,” said GeGurra, looking at Bäckström, confused. “I really don’t understand what you mean. Waltin talked a great deal about sex. About his own efforts in that area. But never in connection with Palme.”

“But he must have known him,” Bäckström persisted. “It’s completely obvious that someone like Waltin must have known someone like Palme.”

“Why?” said GeGurra. “If you ask me I think they never met each other. Why would someone like Palme associate with someone like Waltin?”

“How did you know Palme yourself?” said Bäckström.

“You’re just going to have to give up, Bäckström,” said GeGurra, putting up both hands to be on the safe side. “I never met Olof Palme.”

“I think you should think about that,” said Bäckström with an ambiguous smile. “On a completely different matter.”

“Yes,” said GeGurra, sighing. “I’m listening.”

“Friends of Cunt. That perverse society Waltin was chairman of. Who were the other members?”

“Well, not Palme in any event,” said GeGurra. “As far as the age difference is concerned he could have been their father, but I strongly doubt he could have had such children. Even if he had been a spy for the Russians.”

“Names? Give me names,” said Bäckström.

“Okay then, Bäckström,” said GeGurra. “On one condition. That you leave me alone from here on.”

“The names?”

“There were apparently four members in this illustrious little group of friends. All were studying law at the University of Stockholm. This was sometime in the mid-sixties. For one there was Claes Waltin. Then there was someone who became a well-known business attorney but he died rather young. I think his last name was Sjöberg, Sven Sjöberg. Died sometime in the mid-nineties.”

“Waltin, Sjöberg…”

“Yes,” sighed GeGurra. “Then there was Theo Tischler. He’s a private banker and very-”

“I know who he is,” Bäckström interrupted. “We know each other.”

“I see,” said GeGurra, who had a hard time concealing his surprise.

“The fourth man,” said Bäckström. “Who was the fourth man?”

“Alf Thulin,” said GeGurra, sighing again. “Nowadays a member of parliament for the Christian Democrats, although to start with he was a prosecutor.”

Now this is starting to resemble something, thought Bäckström. A crazy SePo boss, a high-ranking prosecutor, a billionaire, and a so-called business attorney. Four pure sex lunatics. True, two were dead, but two were still alive and could be questioned. Now this is starting to resemble something, he thought again.

66

On Thursday the twentieth of September the coin dropped into the slot in Lisa Mattei’s head. Some gray cell up there had been holding back for more than a day, and as soon as she stopped thinking about it, suddenly the answer came.

For many years SePo made use of four-digit codes to protect their co-workers’ identities from the outside world. Their names would remain secret, and even when they testified in court they did so using their numerical code.

One of all the thousands of police officers who worked with the secret police during the past thirty years apparently had code 4711 until the early eighties. The person whom SePo’s personnel department checked and removed from the investigation when their zealous colleague asked a question arising from an anonymous tip, employee 4711. Who had already quit in 1982, moved abroad, and for various unexplained reasons was not of interest in connection with the investigation’s police track.

The coin dropped into the slot in Mattei’s head and she suddenly recalled where she had most recently seen the same four-digit code. Not on the bottles of German eau de cologne her father bought as presents for her mother when Mattei was a little girl and long before a Swedish prime minister was shot in the street. Much later. Only a week ago. On a paper from the secret police tech squad, where an employee with an illegible signature and his four-digit service code, 4711, acknowledged receipt of the revolver that Detective Inspector Göran Wiijnbladh had given to Claes Waltin.

The same paper about which almost everything suggested that Claes Waltin had forged it. A chance coincidence, without the least relevance for their investigation? Or an unrestrained Claes Waltin, who could not resist the temptation to send a secret message that would never be discovered?

Johansson’s third rule in a murder investigation, thought Mattei. Learn to hate the chance coincidence. Besides, it was time for another conversation with dear Mom, who had worked at SePo for over twenty years.

“Why do you want to know that?” asked Linda Mattei, giving her daughter a searching look. It was their second lunch together in a week and this time at a restaurant a good distance from the building. What is she up to? she thought, feeling slightly uneasy.

“I can’t say,” said Lisa, shaking her head.

“You’ve worked with us,” said Linda Mattei. “For several years. You know what rules apply. What questions can be asked.”

“Sure,” said Lisa Mattei, shrugging her shoulders. “A simple rule. Someone like me may not ask any questions the moment I’m no longer working there, and someone like you may not answer questions because you’re working there.”

“Okay then. So why are you asking?”

“Because you’re my mother,” said Lisa Mattei. “What did you think?”

“If the person who had that identity code quit twenty-five years ago, I don’t think it will be very easy to find out who he was,” said Linda Mattei. “You have a code as long as you’re working there. When you quit, the code becomes inactive for a number of years. Then someone else might get it. When sufficient time has passed so that no misunderstandings can arise. Just like when you change telephone numbers. And the only reason I’m saying this is because you already know it.”

“Of course,” said Lisa Mattei. “But I would like to know the name of the colleague who had that code up until 1982, when he quit. For reasons I can’t go into, I cannot address a direct question to SePo.”

“Your boss can,” said Linda Mattei.

“Maybe he doesn’t want to,” said Lisa Mattei.

“Have you asked him?”

“No,” said Lisa Mattei.

“Then do that,” said Linda Mattei. “I can’t answer. If it’s any consolation, no one else can either. This is not information that we keep for twenty-five years.”

If we’re going to put any order into this a miracle will probably be required, thought Lisa Mattei when she returned to her binders after lunch. Only fifteen minutes later she experienced it. Or at least the hope of a miracle.

Feeling at loose ends, she did a search on Marja Ruotsalainen. Born in 1959 and almost fifty years old, if she was still alive. Heavy drug abuser since her teens. Criminal. Prostitute. Sentenced to several prison terms. Half of her life in foster homes, youth detention centers, institutions, and prisons, when at the age of twenty-seven she showed up in the papers of the Palme investigation. How great was the chance that she was alive today? Zero or one percent, thought Lisa Mattei while she entered Marja’s social security number on her computer.

Marja Ruotsalainen. Forty-eight. Single. No children. Disability pension. No notations in the police registry in the past fifteen years. Living in Tyresö, a few miles southeast of Stockholm.

She’s alive. A miracle, thought Lisa Mattei, shaking her head. Wonder if it would be possible to talk with her? she thought. The time before it hadn’t gone so well, when the zealous colleague had visited her while she was incarcerated at Hinseberg.

67

Lewin read the two investigations into cause of death with regard to former chief superintendent Claes Waltin. One that the Spanish police had done at the scene on Mallorca in October 1992. One supplementary investigation that the Swedish police carried out as soon as his remains arrived back in Sweden in mid-November the same year.

Birds and fish had done a thorough job by the time he finally floated to land. The Spanish police identified him with the help of the report of a missing guest that the hotel had already turned in the day after the staff in reception saw him walking down to the beach. Identification was made using his swimming trunks and the room key in the pocket.

In the forensic facility in Solna they had been more thorough. First the corpse’s teeth had been compared with Waltin’s dental records. Despite the fact that the corpse was missing the lower jaw, the upper jaw spoke volumes. Former chief superintendent Claes Waltin.

Because he was who he was they had not been content with this, but also put the latest technology to use. Secured both bone marrow and tooth pulp. Took blood samples from his father and compared the two DNA samples that had been produced. The likelihood that the remains belonged to someone other than Claes Waltin were less than one in a million. Assuming that Robert Waltin did not have an unknown son, who had happened to drown in Mallorca while Claes Waltin was there on vacation and simply disappeared.

They had also been content with this. Claes Waltin was declared dead. His father buried him about the same time as he appealed the will. One year later his father and only surviving relative became his heir, after the district court invalidated his will.

Probable death by drowning, according to both the Spanish forensic physician and his Swedish colleague. Neither of them found any injuries to the bones or other parts of the body that would indicate he had been shot, stabbed, or beaten to death with the classic blunt instrument.

On the other hand there was nothing to rule out that he might have been drowned, strangled, suffocated, poisoned, or for example gassed. He could even have been shot, stabbed, or killed with a blunt instrument assuming that the bullet, knife, or object had not left any traces on those parts of the body that had been found.

I’m afraid we won’t get any further than that, thought Jan Lewin and sighed.

To put at least some order into all these question marks he took out paper and pen and wrote a simple memorandum about the case that was casting a shadow over his life and preventing his two colleagues from engaging in more meaningful tasks. Unfortunately it was so bad that the most probable course of events was also the least desirable. The consequences were terrifying, which even someone like Lars Martin Johansson ought to understand.

Probability argued that Claes Waltin, sometime before the murder of Olof Palme, had come across a revolver from the tech squad. Sometime between the middle of April 1983, when the technical investigation of the murder-suicide in Spånga was finished, and the last day of February 1986, when the prime minister was shot.

Probably toward the end of that time period, thought Lewin. During the fall of 1985, maybe.

After that Waltin turned this weapon over to an unknown accomplice.

Probably in close or immediate connection with the murder, thought Lewin.

Probably Waltin also supplied bullets for the weapon. Special ammunition that could pierce through metal or, for example, a bulletproof vest. Not the target-shooting ammunition that the painter made use of when he took the life of his daughter, her boyfriend, and himself.

It was unclear where, when, and how Waltin acquired these special bullets. Sometime between the middle of April 1983 and the last day of February 1986. Probably right after he’d acquired the weapon, thought Lewin, and most likely he bought them in an ordinary gun shop. Showed his police ID, if they’d even asked. Paid in cash. Put the box of bullets in his pocket and left. A box of twenty, fifty, or a hundred bullets of the over six thousand similar ones that had been sold in Sweden in the years before the murder of the prime minister.

The perpetrator probably followed the prime minister from his residence in Old Town and just over two hours later seized the opportunity in flight at the corner of Sveavägen and Tunnelgatan.

After the murder he fled down Tunnelgatan, ran up the stairs to Malmskillnadsgatan, turned to the right, took the stairs down to Kungsgatan, walked Kungsgatan down to Stureplan, went down into the subway, and rode two stations up to Gärdet. The night of the murder he spent in one of SePo’s secure apartments, which Waltin loaned out to him. The same Waltin who happened to park illegally the next morning when he came to clean up after the perpetrator, thought Lewin.

The day after the murder the perpetrator had disappeared. It was unclear when, how, and to where.

At some point after the murder Waltin smuggled the weapon back to the tech squad. To the most secure storage place of them all, assuming you were unrestrained enough to even think of it. And he was, thought Lewin.

Two and a half years later, in the fall of 1988, he secured the weapon by trickery from Wiijnbladh and got him to remove all traces of it. At the last minute, because he’d already been fired, thought Lewin. A man completely without boundaries. A man who thought he could succeed in virtually everything. Who actually had done that, and never had any intention of giving up the decisive evidence that he had done it.

What do I do now? thought Lewin when he was done writing his memo. First I’ll talk with Anna and then she’ll have to try to have a serious talk with Johansson. Personally he didn’t even intend to try.

68

“Please sit down, Anna,” said Johansson, gesturing toward the visitor’s chair in front of his desk. “I’ve just read Lewin’s memo that you e-mailed over. A model of brevity. One never ceases to be amazed. Dear Jan seems to have had a complete change of personality. Clear and precise, right to the point. Suddenly, just like that.”

“So what do you think about what’s in it?” asked Holt.

“Interesting. Unfortunately unsubstantiated. In the current situation, exciting speculations. An obvious lead file,” said Johansson and nodded.

So it’s along those lines he intends to finish this, thought Anna Holt.

“If it’s an obvious lead file, then I suppose it should be on the Palme group’s desk,” said Holt.

“In the present situation I think it’s much too speculative for us to trouble them with this sort of thing,” said Johansson. “Besides, they’re fully occupied with other things, so I’ve understood from Flykt.”

“So what is it you’re missing?” asked Holt.

“If you give me a name of the bastard who did the shooting, then I promise that you’ll see some changes around here,” said Johansson. “Then I promise I’ll call in the police’s top five on the carpet, and it’s perhaps not mainly our colleague Flykt and his friends that I have in mind.”

“When you’ve got a name,” said Holt. “And if you don’t get one?”

“Then we’ll have to think this through one more time,” said Johansson. “At this stage we’re embracing every situation.”

Whatever that has to do with it, thought Holt.

“There’s another thing we have to talk about,” said Holt. “I’m afraid it’s a troublesome story.”

“You can talk about anything and everything with me,” said Johansson.

“It’s about Pia, your wife,” said Holt.

“About my life, you mean,” said Johansson, suddenly sounding serious. “What has she come up with this time?”

Holt recounted the conversation with Jeanette Eriksson, and that Johansson’s wife apparently had a relationship, an affair, or in any event a personal involvement with Claes Waltin during the spring of 1986.

“I already knew that,” said Johansson. “That too was a model of brevity,” he said and smiled. “Besides, it was several years before she got involved with the right man in her life.”

“How did you find out?” asked Holt.

“She told me about it,” said Johansson. “That she’d seen Waltin a few times during the spring of 1986. The first time when Pia and a girlfriend of hers were out at a bar to meet guys. Although I had no idea that former colleague Eriksson supposedly warned her. Retroactive jealousy isn’t something I engage in,” said Johansson, shrugging his shoulders.

“So you’ve never been worried,” said Holt. “Considering Waltin and what he might have got up to with your wife.”

“About Pia?” said Johansson, shaking his head. “What would a fool like Waltin have been able to do to her? I’m sure you must understand, Anna? You’ve met Pia, haven’t you?”

“Do you have anything against me talking with Pia? Considering where we’re at, I’m afraid we probably have to.”

“Sure,” said Johansson. “Only I get to talk with her first. I can’t imagine she would have anything against it. For informational purposes,” he added, nodding toward Holt.

“Of course,” said Holt. “She’s not suspected of anything.”

“Nice to hear,” said Johansson. “Sometimes she can be a little adventurous for my taste. Not that strange, really. She’s a lot younger than I am,” he said and sighed.

69

In the evening Johansson talked with his wife, Pia. It was not something he was happy about doing. True, retroactive jealousy was not something that usually tormented him-he had put that behind him back when he was a teenager-but if he could have chosen he obviously would have preferred that the woman who was his wife had never met someone like Claes Waltin. Regardless of whether he seemed completely different to her from the person Johansson was convinced he had always been.

If it hadn’t been for Waltin, it could have been a perfect evening. Pia got home before him, prepared a simple dinner that went well with mineral water, so that the evening could be devoted to talking and being together, perhaps with each of them reading a good book in their respective corners of the big couch with their legs intertwined. Instead he was forced to talk with her about the time, over twenty years ago, when she had been involved with Claes Waltin.

“What did you think of the curry?” said Pia, looking at him.

“Phenomenal,” said Johansson. “Although there is something I have to talk with you about.”

“Sounds serious,” said Pia. “What have I done now?”

“Claes Waltin,” said Johansson.

“I knew it,” said Pia triumphantly. “I knew it.”

“Knew what?”

“That he was the one who murdered Palme,” said Pia. “Have you forgotten that? I said that to you at least ten years ago, but you refused to listen to me.”

“I recall that you were harping on about it seven years ago,” said Johansson. “I also remember that we agreed at that time not to talk about it anymore.”

“So why are you asking now?” said Pia with inexorable logic.

Sigh, thought Johansson.

So she told him about the time she met Claes Waltin. The first time she was at a bar with a girlfriend soon after the Palme assassination. She remembered it because that was more or less the only thing people were talking about at that time. She and her girlfriend, for example, who even considered canceling their long-planned trip to the bar. They decided not to and instead she met Claes Waltin.

Claes Waltin was good-looking, funny, charming, nice, single, and seemed completely normal in all other respects. All she desired that evening, because both she and her girlfriend had really gone out to meet a nice guy.

“He invited me to dinner,” said Pia. “It was on Saturday, the same week. We went out and ate. Then we went to his place.”

“I see,” said Johansson. Why in the name of God didn’t I let Anna take care of this? he thought.

“You’re wondering whether I slept with him,” said Pia, looking expectantly at Johansson.

“Did you?” said Johansson. Where does she get all this from? he thought.

“Actually not,” said Pia. “I was even surprised that he didn’t take the opportunity. He showed me all his paintings. He had a really amazing apartment. On Norr Mälarstrand, with a view of the water. I asked him how a policeman could have earned that much money, and he told me he’d inherited from his mother. She died in an accident.”

I see, so that’s how it was, thought Johansson.

“And then?” he asked.

“Next time I did sleep with him,” said Pia. “At my place, actually. That time we had also been to the restaurant first. It was also just a few days before you showed up at my job and asked if I wanted to have dinner with you. I’m sure you remember that. When I explained that I was already occupied you looked like a little boy who’d sold the butter and lost all the money. At that moment I was on the verge of changing my mind.”

Close doesn’t shoot any hares, thought Johansson.

“And then?” he asked.

“If it’s the sex you’re wondering about then there was nothing special about it. Regular, normal first-time sex. Two times, if you’re wondering. I realized it wasn’t the first time he’d slept with a woman. It wasn’t the first time for me either, and you know that too.”

“That’s not what I was asking,” said Johansson. “I was wondering-”

“Although then a very strange thing happened,” Pia interrupted. “I don’t think I’ve told you this.”

Jeanette Eriksson, thought Johansson.

“Do tell,” he said.

A few days later a young woman had come up to her as she left work and asked to speak with her.

“Young, cute girl,” said Pia. “Jeanette, Jeanette Eriksson I think her name was. Said that she was a police officer, and at first I didn’t believe her because she looked like she was still in high school, but then she took out her ID and showed me. She wanted to talk about Claes. Said that it was important. We went and sat down at a café in the vicinity.”

“So what did she want?”

“What she told me was awful. It was about what Claes supposedly subjected her to. That he was a sadist. That he almost killed her. I didn’t believe her, actually. That wasn’t the Claes Waltin I knew. I told her that too. Asked flat out whether she was jealous of me. The mood got very strange. Not much was said after that.”

“So what did you do then?”

“Thought a good deal,” said Pia. “At first I thought about asking Claes flat out. But that didn’t happen. It felt strange, considering that we really didn’t know each other very well. But I had a hard time letting go of it, so the next time we met, I think it was only a few days after I talked with that Jeanette, we also went back to my place. Don’t know why. Maybe because I wanted to feel safer.”

“So how was it,” said Johansson. “Typical second-time sex?”

“Better,” said Pia, looking at him seriously. “A lot freer, not as nervous. Although before he left he said something that I thought was a little strange.”

“I’m listening,” said Johansson.

“When he was about to go and was in the vestibule he put his hand on my neck, pretty heavy-handed, actually, and then he said that next time we got together we should go to his place. Fuck for real. Something like that, he said, and there was something in his manner that got me thinking about what Jeanette had told me.”

“But you went home with him next time anyway,” said Johansson.

“Yes,” said Pia, smiling as she said it. “I did. And when I was in his bed and he went to the bathroom, I couldn’t restrain myself. I peeked in his nightstand.”

“Yes? And-”

“It was then that I found the pictures he’d taken of Jeanette,” said Pia seriously. “They were not amusing pictures. They were horrible.”

“What did you do then?”

“I went completely cold. Especially as he was suddenly standing in the doorway, just looking at me. He didn’t say anything. He just stood there staring at me. Looked completely strange, actually.”

“What did you do then?” repeated Johansson.

“I didn’t get aroused, if that’s what you’re thinking,” said Pia, looking acidly at him. “I was scared shitless, jumped out of bed, and started pulling on my clothes. Then he started wrestling with me.”

“So how did it end?” said Johansson.

“Really amazing,” said Pia. “It was only then that I understood the benefit of growing up with two older brothers who were constantly fighting with me,” she said.

“Explain,” said Johansson.

“I kneed him,” said Pia. “A perfect knee right in his crotch. Just like my brothers had taught me. He fell down on the floor and just moaned. I grabbed my clothes, picked up my handbag, took the coat from out in the hall, and ran down the stairs and out on the street. It was then I discovered I’d forgotten my shoes. My new black high-heeled shoes. Expensive, super-nice-looking, Italian. Do you know who I got them from, by the way?”

“From Claes Waltin,” said Johansson.

“Yes,” said Pia. “The third time we met. I didn’t have any idea he knew what my shoe size was. Fit perfectly. Really expensive.”

“And then? What happened then?”

“Nothing,” said Pia. “I never saw him again. No calls. Nothing. Although I miss my shoes,” she said, shaking her head. “And I regret I didn’t take those pictures with me, so I could have destroyed them. Someone like him shouldn’t have pictures like that.”

“I’m sure he had more,” said Johansson. Wherever they’ve ended up, he thought.

When they went to bed he had a hard time falling asleep for once. He pulled her next to him. A little spoon against a big ladle, who didn’t even need to pull in his belly anymore when he slept with his woman. Even though he put his arm around her he had a hard time falling asleep. What kind of arm could protect her if what he believed about Waltin was true? If it became obvious to everyone else? If the media found out about it? The story about the police chief who had a wife who had been involved with the man who was behind the murder of the prime minister. Even better, who had been involved with him at the point in time when he had just murdered the prime minister.

So that’s an interview you can just forget, Holt, thought Lars Martin Johansson, and then he finally fell asleep.

70

“I have to talk with you, boss,” said Mattei as she stood in the doorway to Johansson’s office.

“It can’t wait until Monday?” said Johansson. “I have a lot of things to do. Have to pick up my wife. We’re going away this weekend.”

“I’m afraid it’s important,” said Mattei.

“What’s more important than my wife?” said Johansson.

“Nothing, I’m sure,” said Mattei. “It’s just that I think I’ve found the bastard who did it.” The one the boss is harping about all the time, she thought.

“Close the door,” said Johansson. “Sit down.”

“4711,” said Johansson five minutes later when Mattei was through talking. “Wasn’t that some kind of mysterious German perfume?”

“That was why I happened to think of it,” said Mattei. “That was when I remembered the service code on the so-called receipt that Waltin gave to Wiijnbladh.”

“Although you don’t know what his name is,” said Johansson.

“Someone must have known. Someone at SePo must have known. Considering the answer from their personnel department that was in the file. I asked Linda, my mother that is, but she didn’t want to talk about it. She thought it could be hard to produce. So long afterward, that is.”

“Do you have any description of that mysterious perfume man?” said Johansson.

“The anonymous informant provided a description. The informant, who I think was Orjala, Jorma Kalevi Orjala. A known thug at that time who was run over in a hit-and-run accident involving an unknown perpetrator, and found drowned in the Karlberg Canal only a few months after the Palme murder. Doesn’t seem as though Orjala liked our colleague from SePo, but maybe we shouldn’t worry about that.”

“What should we worry about then?” interrupted Johansson.

“He says that the person he saw at that Chinese restaurant on Drottninggatan the same evening that Palme was murdered had worked at the bureau in Solna, but that he had quit a number of years before and started at SePo instead. He is supposed to have left there in 1982 according to what SePo itself says in its response to the officer who had the question about the anonymous tip.”

“Hell,” said Johansson, sitting straight up in his chair. “Hell’s bells. Why didn’t I think of that? How could I have forgotten that bastard?”

“Excuse me,” said Mattei.

“Hell,” Johansson repeated. “It’s Kjell Göran Hedberg you’re talking about, of course.”