He Who Kills the Dragon

10.

Bäckström had walked all the way home. All the way from the police station on Sundbybergsvägen in Solna to his home on Inedalsgatan on Kungsholmen. It was as if his feet and legs had suddenly taken on a life of their own, with his body and head merely tagging along. Entirely involuntarily, and when he shut the door behind him he had hardly any idea of what he had spent the past few hours doing. The inside of his sweaty head was completely blank. Had he met anyone? Had he spoken to anyone? Someone he knew and who had been able to see him in all his misery? Evidently he must have stopped and done some shopping somewhere, because he was carrying a bag full of bottles of mineral water and a plastic pack containing a mass of mysterious vegetables.

What the fuck is this? Bäckström thought, holding up the pack. Those little red things must be tomatoes. He recognized them, and he had even eaten one or two when he was a lad. All that green stuff must be lettuce? But all the other stuff? A mass of weird black-and-brown balls of varying sizes. Hare shit? Elk shit? And something that mostly looked like maggots but which must be something else, since they didn’t wriggle when he prodded them.

What the fuck is going on? Bäckström wondered as he headed toward the shower, dropping his clothes on the floor as he went.

To begin with, he had just stood in the shower for a quarter of an hour or so, letting the water run over his well-upholstered and harmoniously proportioned body. The same body that had always been his temple and which a crazy police doctor had now decided to lay to ruin.

Afterward he had carefully toweled himself, put on his dressing gown, and prepared a meal with the pack of vegetables and a bottle of mineral water. Just to make sure, he had first taken a quick look in the fridge to see if there wasn’t something nice that had survived the previous day’s food massacre when he had followed the doctor’s list and cleared out all the dangerous and unnecessary things that had been in there. Bäckström’s pantry and fridge had been sparklingly clean, and they were still sparklingly clean.

Bäckström had set about the pack of vegetables. He tried to disconnect both his brain and his taste buds as his jaw chewed and chewed, but even so, he had given up after just half the pack. The only edible bits were actually those little things that looked like maggots.

Bound to be maggots, Bäckström thought, as he put the remnants of his vegetable orgy in his empty fridge. If I’m lucky, they’re maggots, he thought. Then at least I’ve actually consumed a bit of protein over the past few days.

Then he had drunk the bottle of mineral water. One and a half liters. Down in one. That had to be a new world record, Bäckström thought, throwing the empty plastic bottle in the bin under the sink. What the fuck am I going to do now, since it’s only seven o’clock? he thought, checking his recently purchased Swiss watch.

There was no point looking for any hidden drink. He had got rid of that as well the previous evening, and on that point in particular the doctor had been absolutely immovable. No spirits, no wine, no beer. Nothing, in fact, that contained the merest whiff of alcohol, like cider, or ordinary juice that just happened to have started to ferment, or an old bottle of cough medicine that had evidently also fallen foul of the splendid doctor and his colleagues.

It had amounted to a fair bit, since Bäckström had been pretty well-off for some time now. Several unopened bottles of malt whiskey and vodka. An entirely untouched liter of French cognac. Almost a whole tray of Czech lager. Even more open bottles containing various quantities. Obviously not a single drop of wine, because only ass bandits and carpet munchers drank that. Certainly not Bäckström, who was a perfectly normal Swedish male in the prime of his life. As well as a legendary murder detective and the obvious answer to every woman’s secret dreams.

Bäckström had put all of it in a box and knocked on one of his neighbor’s doors. A serious alcoholic who used to be a boss at TV3 before he tumbled over the edge while they were recording a series of Survivor somewhere in the Philippines. He was given a golden handshake of several million kronor so that he could drink himself to death before he had time to write a book about his time on the channel and all the years before that when he had hopped between various companies within the same media empire. Considering the life he led these days, it looked as if his erstwhile employers were going to be proved right.

‘That’s a hell of a lot of goodies, Bäckström,’ the presumptive buyer said after a quick inspection of the box’s contents. ‘Are you moving, or what? Don’t tell me things are so bad that your liver’s packed up?’

‘Not at all,’ Bäckström said, smiling amiably even though someone was trying to wrench his heart out of his body. ‘I’m going away on a long trip and it seemed a shame to offer those thieving bastards a load of drink as well when they break in. They pump enough crap into themselves as it is.’

‘That’s true enough, Bäckström,’ the former television executive said. ‘I’ll give you five thousand for the lot,’ he said, throwing out an arm in a gesture that was so generous that it almost made him topple over backward.

The poor sod must have double vision at this time of day, Bäckström thought, since he had estimated the value of the drink at about half of that. Well, at least he won’t have to get a taxi to go and get more drink for a few days, he thought.

‘Done,’ Bäckström said, holding out his hand as a sign that the deal was concluded.

He had been paid in cash. Not that he had any idea what he was going to use it for, since he no longer ate or drank and couldn’t be bothered to think about women.

In the absence of any better options, he had looked at the DVD that his ever-thoughtful doctor had given him as a sort of extra lifeline. A bit of help in his efforts to strive for a better life. The doctor knew from long, painful experience that people like Bäckström were the most difficult patients of all. Your average heavy drug user, forced to inject himself in his feet in a desperate effort to find a functioning vein, was actually nothing compared to a food-and-alcohol abuser like Bäckström. Bäckström and his ilk were practically incurable and it was all because they didn’t give a flying fuck about what they were doing. They just ate and ate and ate. And drank and drank and drank. And felt on top of the world.

In an American medical journal the doctor had happened upon an extremely interesting article about attempts in a private clinic in Arizona to use electroshock therapy on people like Bäckström. The doctor had applied for funding from the state authorities, had been given more than he had asked for, and had set off for the United States to spend several months studying how they managed to alter the behavior of people who were eating and drinking themselves to death.

It had been extremely interesting, and when he came home he brought with him a load of visual material. Including the DVD that he had shown Bäckström and told him to take home with him.

Bäckström had put the disc in the DVD player. He had taken three deep breaths, his heart thudding like a jackhammer in his chest, then had pressed play. He had already seen it once, of course, and if it got too bad he could always cover his eyes. Just like the time when he was four and his crazy dad, a sergeant in the Maria district of central Stockholm, had dragged him along to a matinee at one of the cinemas near their home on Södermalm, and the big bad wolf had spent a whole hour hunting and trying to eat the three little pigs. Little Evert had howled like a banshee the whole time, and it wasn’t until he wet himself that he was released from his torment.

‘This little crybaby will never make a decent officer,’ his dad had said when he returned his only begotten son to his gentle mother and her tender ministrations — hot chocolate with whipped cream and freshly baked cinnamon buns.

And now it was time. A thirty-minute report from a rehabilitation clinic in the Southwest for patients suffering from relatively mild strokes and blockages in their hearts and brains, where they were going to be brought back to life.

Most of them were very similar to Bäckström. Apart from the fact that they needed walkers to get around and had drooling mouths, dead eyes, and slurred speech. One of them — who was so like Bäckström that they could have been identical twins — was heading away from the camera when his already low-slung trousers slid down to his ankles to reveal the huge blue diaper that he was wearing underneath. Then he had turned to face the camera, smiling happily with wet lips, grabbed the diaper, and summarized what had happened to him.

‘No panties,’ the patient slurred, then the soft voice of the narrator took over and talked about this particular patient, who was apparently only forty-five in spite of the way he looked. He had abused high-cholesterol food for many years and had also drunk large quantities of beer and bourbon, out of some absurd notion that the latter counteracted the effects of the former. The patient had suffered a relatively benign stroke a couple months ago. That was the way it was, but Bäckström already had his eyes closed and had a good deal of trouble locating the off switch.

After that he had quickly pulled on an old tracksuit bearing the force’s logo. He had been given it when he attended a course together with all the Neanderthals because some bright spark in management had decided that they needed to learn to cooperate in case something really serious happened.

Who the fuck would turn to people like them? Bäckström thought, as he tied the laces on his freshly bought sneakers with some difficulty, fully intending to walk right round Kungsholmen.

Two hours later he was back, and just as he was putting the key in the lock he had a revelation.

I’ve worked it out, Bäckström thought. That bright spark in the white coat had got it all wrong, and if there was any justice in the world he ought to hang himself with his own intestines. Only drink, no grub. Then his blood vessels would get rinsed through like a mountain stream in spring, he thought. You didn’t have to be a doctor to work that out. Every single intelligent person knew perfectly well that alcohol was the best solvent that had ever been discovered.

No sooner said than done, and two minutes later he was knocking on his neighbor’s door, the former television executive.

‘I thought you were going on holiday, Bäckström,’ his neighbor slurred as he gestured defensively with a glass of Bäckström’s excellent malt whiskey.

‘I’ve had to postpone it for a few days,’ Bäckström lied, ‘so I was wondering if I could buy back some of the drink I sold you the other day. One bottle will do fine. Ideally some malt whiskey, if you’ve got any left,’ he said, glancing at the glass in the man’s hand.

‘You can’t go back on a deal,’ the television executive slurred, shaking his head. ‘You don’t get back what you’ve sold.’ And he had abruptly shut the door and turned the safety lock.

Bäckström had tried to make him see sense through his mail slot but only succeeded in getting his neighbor to slam the internal door as well.

At that point even Bäckström had been forced to give up. He had lumbered back to his own apartment. Showered once more, brushed his teeth, and took three of the pills that the crazy doctor had prescribed for him, one brown, one blue, and one pink. Then he had crept into bed. Turning out the light, with no intention of writing a farewell letter, he fell asleep as if someone had whacked him over the head with a saucepan lid.

When Bäckström woke up it was four o’clock in the morning. A merciless sun was shining in the clear blue sky, and he felt even more wretched than he had when he’d gone to bed the previous evening.

Bäckström had made some black coffee and drank three cups in quick succession, standing in the kitchen. He gulped down what remained of the vegetables and polished off another bottle of mineral water. Then he had set out and walked all the way to the Solna police station.

The same hellish weather as the day before, and the fact that the temperature wasn’t registering as more than twenty must be because it was still the middle of the night. He staggered into work just after six o’clock. Dizzy with tiredness and mad from the lack of sleep and food. Alone in the entire building, since all his lazy and incompetent colleagues were at home snoring in their beds.

I’ve got to find somewhere to sleep, Bäckström thought. In his aimless wandering he finally found his way down to the garage in the basement.

‘God, you look wide awake, Bäckström,’ the garage attendant said, clearly already at his post, as he rubbed his fingers on his overalls and held out a greasy palm.

‘Murder investigation,’ Bäckström snarled. ‘Haven’t had a wink of sleep in days.’

‘No problem, Bäckström,’ the garage attendant said. ‘You can borrow the mobile cabin I put together for the drug surveillance squad last winter.’

Then he had opened the doors to a perfectly ordinary blue transit van, and inside was everything that a man in Bäckström’s situation required. Among other things, a proper bed.

Two hours later he started to stir because he could smell freshly brewed coffee in his nostrils. As well as something else that had to be a hallucination. The smell of fresh rolls with cheese and butter.

‘Sorry to have to disturb you, Bäckström,’ the garage attendant said, as he put a large tray down on the floor and sat down on the chair opposite the bed, ‘but those eager little buggers in surveillance are saying they need their van. Apparently they’re going to sit and stare at some old junkies out in Rissne. I’ve brought you some coffee and some rolls in case you’re hungry.’

Two large cups of coffee with lots of milk, two cheese rolls, all without his even realizing how it had happened. Then he had thanked his savior, perilously close to giving him a hug but coming to his senses just in time, and making do with a manly handshake and a slap on the back.

Then he had gone down to the gym and showered, put on a fresh Hawaiian shirt that he kept in his office, and by half past nine in the morning Superintendent Bäckström was sitting behind his desk in the crime division of the Solna police station. For the first time in two days he felt somewhere close to half human.