He Who Kills the Dragon

25.

One week later the Stockholm County police chief had called and asked if he could invite Holt for lunch. Preferably as soon as possible.

‘That sounds lovely,’ Anna Holt said. Because they were both on the board of the same network for female police officers, because they liked each other, respected each other, and because there wasn’t the slightest reason to say no.

‘That sounds lovely. When did you have in mind?’ Holt asked.

‘Can you do Friday next week?’ the county police chief had asked. ‘I thought we might eat in my office so we won’t have to deal with all those strange men.’

‘Sounds like an excellent idea,’ Holt agreed.

Fortunately someone who wasn’t the slightest bit like Johansson, she thought, as she hung up.

On Friday the next week she had been asked the same question.

‘Would you like to become police chief of the Western District? I’d be very happy if you said yes.’

‘Yes,’ Holt said, and nodded. ‘I’d love to.’

‘It’s a deal, then,’ said the county police chief, who didn’t seem the slightest bit surprised.

Anna Holt’s appointment had been made public at the start of January, and on Monday, March 3, she had started her new job. The mills of bureaucracy ground slowly. This time they had ground faster than they usually did.

Considering the job she had chosen, her honeymoon had lasted considerably longer than she had any right to expect. After six weeks as police chief of the Western District the county police chief had contacted her once more.

‘We have to meet, Anna,’ she said. ‘At once, ideally. I want to ask you for a favor.’

Why am I suddenly thinking that you sound almost like Johansson? Anna Holt wondered.

‘You wanted to ask me for a favor?’ Anna Holt said when she was sitting in the county police chief’s office a couple hours later.

‘Yes,’ she said, and looked as if she was getting ready to take the plunge.

‘Out with it, then,’ Holt said with a smile.

‘Evert Bäckström,’ the county police chief said.

‘Evert Bäckström,’ Anna Holt repeated, not even trying to conceal her astonishment.

‘Are we talking about the same Evert Bäckström who is currently with the Stockholm Police property tracing department? The Evert Bäckström, so to speak?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ the county police chief said with a smile. Well, she made a good attempt at smiling, at any rate. A smile that she had to struggle to achieve.

‘You have a vacant superintendent’s post in the Western District. I want us to put Bäckström in it,’ she clarified.

‘Considering that we know each other and that I respect you...’

‘The respect is mutual, you know,’ the county police chief interjected.

‘... I can only assume that you have very good reasons.’

‘I’ll say,’ the county police chief said with feeling. ‘If only you knew. To deal with the practical side first, I was thinking that we could put him there for the time being, on a temporary placement, which means that we’d avoid any formal difficulties and still have our hands free if it turns out that isn’t working. You don’t have to worry about that.’

‘Hang on,’ Holt said, holding up her hands in a blocking gesture. ‘Before we do anything, I think I’d like to hear your arguments.’ A month or so into this new job, Holt thought. Then suddenly Bäckström tumbles from the sky. Right into my arms. Like a fallen angel, or rather a middle-aged, broken-winged, and very fat cherub.

‘I’ve got several arguments if you can bear to hear them,’ the county police chief said, getting ready to take the plunge again. ‘If you can bear it?’

‘Yes. Of course. I’m listening,’ Holt said.

To start with, Bäckström had a senior post. After all, he had actually been a superintendent with the National Criminal Investigation Department’s own murder unit until his most senior boss had kicked him out and had him transferred back to Stockholm, where he had his basic post.

‘For reasons that I’ve never managed to get entirely clear,’ the county police chief said. ‘He isn’t a bad detective, after all. He’s solved a large number of serious crimes.’

‘Hmm,’ said Holt, who had worked with him. ‘He runs round like a herd of elephants, tearing up everything in his path. Once the dust has settled, his colleagues usually manage to find one or two interesting things. Apart from the way he goes about things, I might actually agree with you. Whenever Bäckström is around, things do at least seem to happen.’

‘Yes, the man seems to have an inexhaustible amount of energy,’ the county police chief said with a deep sigh.

‘Yes, it’s completely incomprehensible, considering the way he lives and the way he looks,’ Holt agreed.

‘His current posting in property was an unfortunate choice. It’s not that any of his bosses have come up with anything concrete against him. But there’s a huge amount of gossip. I don’t actually think enough has been done to try to help him. He’s been given work that doesn’t interest him. Bäckström feels that he’s been unfairly treated. Unfortunately there’s a degree of justification in that, and the Police Officers’ Association are on my back constantly. He also has excellent references. Outstanding references, actually.’

The sort of references you get when your bosses want to get rid of you, Holt thought. How on earth had that happened? she thought, but contented herself with a nod.

‘Anna,’ the county police chief said, with another sigh. ‘I have a feeling that you’re the only person who can handle him. And if you fail, I promise to take him back. Maybe even sack him, although that would have the union demanding my head on a platter.’

‘I’m still listening,’ Holt said.

‘Over the past six months he’s been going round saying that he’s uncovered a secret cabal that was involved in Palme’s murder. And I was stupid enough to let him present a report about it. I can assure you, Anna...’

‘I know,’ Anna Holt said. ‘I’ve heard him myself.’

‘Obviously it’s ridiculous, especially when you consider that one of the people he identifies as being part of the cabal suddenly got in touch with me and asked me to help him. Help Bäckström, I mean. A senior member of parliament. He reckons Bäckström’s the victim of official maltreatment. Several times over, no less.’

‘You want to give Bäckström something else to think about?’ Holt said.

‘Exactly,’ the county police chief said. ‘Serious violent crimes seem to be the only thing in his head anyway. And we’re not exactly short of those in the Western District.’

‘Okay,’ Anna Holt said. ‘I promise to try my best, but before I make a decision I want to talk to the person who would be his immediate superior and hear what he thinks about it. I owe him that much.’

‘Go ahead, Anna,’ the county police chief said. ‘Just so you know, I’ve got my fingers crossed.’

‘Bäckström?’ said Superintendent Toivonen, head of the crime unit in the Western District. ‘We’re talking about Evert Bäckström? About him working under me?’

‘Yes,’ Holt said. Toivonen, she thought. A legend within the Stockholm Police. Toivonen, who never backed away, never wasted time on pleasantries. Who always said what he thought and felt.

‘Yes,’ Holt repeated. ‘I can understand that you might feel a certain reluctance.’

‘Fine,’ Toivonen said, shrugging. ‘I have no problem with Bäckström. If he starts causing trouble, he’s the one who’s going to have a problem.’

‘Fine?’ Holt repeated. What’s he saying? she thought.

‘Completely fine,’ Toivonen said with a nod. ‘When’s he coming?’

At last, Toivonen thought, as he left his boss. It had taken twenty-five years, but now at last it was time. Even though he had almost given up hope of ever having the chance to get even for all their past dealings. Just you wait, you fat little bastard, damn you, Toivonen thought, and the subject of his anger was his new colleague, Detective Superintendent Evert Bäckström.

Toivonen hadn’t been up-front with his boss, Anna Holt. More than twenty-five years ago, when he was a young trainee officer — a ‘fox,’ as they were known in those days, and still are to officers of Toivonen’s generation — he had done three months’ work experience on the violent crime unit in central Stockholm. His supervisor had been Detective Inspector Evert Bäckström.

Instead of trying to teach the ‘fucking fox’ anything about detection work, Bäckström had made him into his personal slave. In spite of Toivonen’s proud background, generations of peasants and warriors from Karelia, Bäckström had treated him as a Russian serf. Used him to sort the chaos on Bäckström’s desk, empty his wastepaper bin, make coffee, buy pastries, drive Bäckström around the city in a police car on mysterious errands that seldom seemed to have anything to do with work, stopping to buy hot dogs and mash for him whenever he got hungry. And he had had to pay with his meager trainee’s wages, since Bäckström had always left his wallet in his office. Once, when they had been detailed to help guard an embassy, Bäckström had even made him polish his shoes for him and, when they got there, had presented him to the security staff as ‘my own fucking fox, a bastard Finn, you know.’

Toivonen had been Swedish wrestling champion on several occasions, Greco-Roman as well as freestyle, and he could easily have broken every bone in Bäckström’s body without even taking his hands out of his pockets. The thought was constantly there in the back of his mind, but because he had decided to become a police officer, a proper police officer, unlike his supervisor, he had gritted his teeth and resisted the urge. Generations of Karelian peasants and warriors had been adding bark to their bread since time immemorial. Twenty-five years later things were looking brighter. Considerably brighter.

That night Toivonen had had the most delightful dream. First he had softened up the fat little bastard with a standard Lindén hold, then tried both full and half nelsons, plus a few other tricks that used to get you disqualified in the days when he was active. Now that Bäckström was warmed up, he had gone on to a series of flying mares in quick succession. He had concluded with a scissors hold around his fat little neck. And there he lay, twenty-five years later, lilac blue in the face and flailing with his fat little hands while Toivonen panted with satisfaction and squeezed just a bit tighter.