He Who Kills the Dragon

19.

One hour later Bäckström was sitting at the kitchen table in his cozy abode, and as he was sweating off the exertion he pulled out a paper and pen to get some order to his new life.

Let’s see now, Bäckström thought, wetting the pen with his tongue. First two days of fasting, he thought. Absolutely clean living down to the smallest detail: only vegetables, water, and other goodies. Then on to a more balanced dietary program for two days, and, if he had worked this out correctly, he should — according to the Bäckström method — be able to go on a real bender as early as Sunday. Great, I can manage that, Bäckström thought.

It had been somewhat sooner than that, since he had had a revelation as early as Friday evening.

First he had got in the shower, and dried himself carefully afterward, put on his bathrobe, sat down on the sofa, and watched the film the doctor had given him. He watched the whole film. Then he put on his tracksuit, walked halfway round Kungsholmen, and gulped down three low-alcohol beers as soon as he got back in through the door. It hadn’t helped. The eagle had once again flown into the power cables.

In a position like that he had had no option. He had taken one brown and one blue, collapsed like a clubbed seal, and somewhere round about then, between drowsiness and sleep, he had had a divine revelation.

It had been dark and rather foggy in his bedroom, however that could have happened, when suddenly a tall, thin old man in white clothes, with a beard down to his navel, had stepped forward to his bed, put his veined hand on his shoulder, and spoke to him.

‘My son,’ the old man said. ‘My son, are you listening to me?’

What do you mean — ‘Dad’? Bäckström had thought in confusion, since this was a skinny old man with a white beard. Nothing like the red-faced drunken skunk who had been a police sergeant in the Maria district, and who, according to his mad old mother, was the begetter of Bäckström himself.

Lord God, Bäckström thought, suddenly realizing what was going on. Lord God!

‘My son,’ the bearded man repeated. ‘Do you hear what I am saying?’

‘I’m listening, Father,’ Bäckström said.

‘The life you live is no longer whole, but split,’ the old man had rumbled. ‘You have wandered onto the wrong path, my son, you have been listening to false prophets.’

‘Sorry, Dad,’ Bäckström peeped.

‘Go in peace, my son,’ the old man said, patting him on the shoulder again. ‘Make sure you find the right path again. Become a whole person again.’

‘I promise, Father,’ Bäckström said, sitting up in bed and suddenly wide-awake.

The message he had received had been abundantly clear. He had showered once more, put on a pair of trousers, a clean shirt, and a jacket. When he stepped into the street he had raised his eyes to the boundless blue above his round head and thanked his Lord and Creator.

‘Thanks a lot, Dad,’ Bäckström said, and two minutes later he was sitting at his usual table in his favorite neighborhood bar.

‘Where the hell have you been, Bäckström?’ the woman behind the bar had said. She was Finnish and occasionally got a serious going-over in Bäckström’s sturdy Hästens bed, assuming there was nothing better on offer, of course.

‘Murder case,’ Bäckström said in a masculine and concise way. ‘I’ve been hard at it all week, but now I’ve got the pieces in place at last.’

‘Vojne, vojne. It’s a good thing they’ve got you, Bäckström. Sounds like you deserve a little treat,’ the woman had said with a maternal smile.

‘Goes without saying,’ Bäckström said. Then he had ordered a pint and a large chaser before eating.

Smoked sausage with beetroot and potato gratin. For safety’s sake he had backed this up with a couple side dishes of liver pâté and fried eggs. And he had gone on to celebrate the weekend in the traditional way, and by the time he took a taxi to work at nine on Monday morning he had already thrown the crazy doctor’s film in the bin. Besides, you had to look really carefully to see any resemblance at all between him and the bloke in the diaper.

‘False prophets,’ Bäckström said, and snorted.

‘Sorry?’ the taxi driver had said, looking at him in surprise.

‘Solna police station. I won’t mind if we actually get there sometime today,’ Bäckström said, back to being Bäckström again.