He Who Kills the Dragon

13.

Detective Inspector Lars Alm, sixty, had worked in the crime unit of the Solna Police for about ten years. During the years before he arrived there he had first worked in the old violent crime section in police headquarters on Kungsholmen in Stockholm, and then had moved on to the investigative unit covering the city center itself. Then he had moved out to Solna. He had got divorced and remarried, and he and his new wife, a nurse at the Karolinska Institute, had a nice apartment in the center of Solna. Alm could walk to work in two minutes, so it didn’t matter to him if it was snowing or raining cats and dogs.

That was one good reason to move to the Solna force, but there were several others. Alm was burned-out. His years in violent crime in Stockholm had taken their toll. Solna ought to be a bit better, he had reasoned. He could finally escape the waves rippling out from the weekend’s nightlife that would wash over his desk every Monday without fail. But his hopes had been dashed on that score. Ideally he would have liked to take early retirement, but after looking at the numbers he had decided to try to hold out until he was sixty-five. A nurse didn’t earn much, and neither of them wanted to starve when they got old.

He had tried to organize things as best he could. He had avoided the violent crime unit, the surveillance unit, drugs, and robbery. He had taken over the simpler things like petty crime, crimes that affected ordinary people, break-ins to homes and vehicles, the less serious cases of abuse, fights, criminal damage. Personally, he thought he had succeeded pretty well, and he used to keep an eye on the number of cases expected of him. Tried to slot himself somewhere into the average range for people like him.

On Monday, May 12, a tornado had swept through the Western District. Two as yet unknown individuals had robbed a security van out at Bromma Airport. They had shot and killed one of the guards and came close to killing his partner. Aggravated theft, murder, and attempted murder. Just a few hours later the minister for justice had appeared on every television news program. Their new boss, police chief Anna Holt, had no cause for complacency. One month into the job and this happens.

He had survived the first wave. Even though the head of the crime unit, Superintendent Toivonen, had moved a lot of officers in from other departments and responsibilities, he had spared Alm. But on Thursday morning Alm had been dragged in as well. Toivonen had stormed into his office and explained that it was all hands on deck.

‘Someone’s beaten an old drunk to death up by Råsundavägen,’ Toivonen said. ‘The sort of case any normal officer would clear up before lunch, but considering all the shit that’s hit us, I’m going to have to give it to Bäckström.’

‘What did you have in mind for me, then?’ Alm said, realizing that this wasn’t up for discussion.

‘Make sure that little fat nightmare doesn’t miss an open goal,’ Toivonen said, before walking out abruptly.

So that was how things stood. After a gap of more than ten years, Alm had another murder round his neck, and because he was more than aware of who Evert Bäckström was, he’d certainly had better days.

Alm knew Bäckström from long ago. Toward the end of the eighties they had both worked on the murder squad in the old violent crime section in Stockholm. A few years later Bäckström had suddenly got a job with the murder unit of the National Crime Division. Completely incomprehensible. Someone high up in National Crime must have had a stroke or been bribed by the head of crime in Stockholm. Alm and all his more sensible colleagues had taken the ferry to Åland and spent twenty-four hours celebrating. Fifteen years later vengeance had struck with full force.

In his hour of need he had talked to Annika Carlsson. She was a woman, and she was generally very competent. He had offered to put together a profile of the victim, his social life, and what he was doing during the hours before he died. As long as he could sit in his office and didn’t have to see Bäckström more than was strictly necessary.

‘Sounds like an excellent suggestion,’ Annika Carlsson said with a nod. ‘So what’s he like? I’ve heard all the usual stories about Bäckström, but I’d never met him before this morning. And that was only in passing, when he came down to look at the crime scene.’

‘If you’d met him properly you’d remember it,’ Alm said with a sigh.

‘Is he as crazy as everyone says? A lot of those stories have to be urban myths.’

‘He’s worse,’ Alm said. ‘He’s much worse. Every time I turn on the news and see that an officer has been shot, I pray to God that it’s Bäckström. If we have to suffer something as awful as that, why not start with Bäckström and spare all the normal, decent officers? It never helps,’ Alm said, shaking his head. ‘That fat little idiot is immortal. He’s entered into some sort of pact with Beelzebub. The rest of us are stuck with him to atone for our sins, and I don’t understand what on earth we could have done to deserve him.’

‘I understand what you mean,’ Annika Carlsson said, nodding thoughtfully. Well, this is going to be fun. If it comes to it, I suppose I can always drag him down to the garage and break his arms, she thought.

Alm had got off to a flying start with his profile of the murder victim, Karl Danielsson. As soon as people who knew the victim heard rumors of his unexpected demise, the news had spread like wildfire, and they had contacted the police. For once, the police hotline had worked, the tip-offs had come streaming in, and by the time Alm went home on the evening of the first day, he knew that he had a good grasp of the situation.

He had names and full details of about ten people in the victim’s closest circle of acquaintances. All of them men, and without knowing for certain, Alm had got the impression that they all shared the same great interest in life as their murdered ‘friend’ and ‘comrade-in-arms.’ He had spoken to several of them over the phone. From them he had obtained the names of other friends of the victim who hadn’t yet been in touch, and he had already interviewed a couple of them. As Alm walked home at seven o’clock that evening, to a meal of stuffed cabbage leaves and lingonberry sauce with his wife, he was as happy as he could be, considering he was being forced to have anything at all to do with Detective Superintendent Evert Bäckström.

If only Bäckström could do his civic duty and drop down dead, there’d be nothing to worry about with this investigation, Alm thought.