He Who Kills the Dragon

62.

Before he went home for the day Bäckström looked into Toivonen’s office to tell him about what Mrs. Andersson had seen. The poor Finnish bastard probably needs all the help he can get, Bäckström thought. Besides, he had his old supervisory role to consider.

Toivonen had been strangely uninterested.

‘Yesterday’s news,’ Toivonen said. ‘But thanks anyway.’

‘Just let me know if you need any help,’ Bäckström said, giving him one of his most good-natured smiles. ‘I heard over lunch that you’ve got a hundred people working on this, but that you’re not making much progress.’

‘People talk a lot of crap,’ Toivonen said. ‘We’re doing okay, so don’t you worry about the Ibrahim brothers and their little cousin. How are you getting on yourself?’

‘Give me a week,’ Bäckström said.

‘I look forward to it,’ Toivonen said. ‘Who knows? Maybe they’ll give you a medal, Bäckström.’

I wonder what the fat little bastard really wanted? Toivonen thought, when Bäckström had left. I must have a chat with Linda Martinez, he thought.

If you give a bastard Finn your little finger he usually tries to take your whole arm, Bäckström thought, as he left Toivonen’s office. But not this time. I wonder what he’s really up to? he thought.

In spite of all of Toivonen’s informants, in spite of Bäckström’s witness in Hasselstigen, Nadja Högberg hadn’t been able to let go of Karl Danielsson’s pocket diary. Besides, she had had an idea.

You don’t only give money to people, Nadja thought. You pay for goods and services as well. Almost always without paying any attention at all to who produced or provided them.

It’s worth a try, Nadja thought. Just to be on the safe side she knocked on Bäckström’s door, in case he was still playing cops and robbers with himself. Empty, and his phone was switched off, as usual.

I’ll have to try to talk to him first thing tomorrow, Nadja thought. It’ll have to be the first thing I do when he shows up, she thought.

In actual fact it would be almost a week before she had the chance. That evening things would take place in Evert Bäckström’s home — in his cozy abode on Kungsholmen — that would shake the whole nation and put Detective Superintendent Bäckström’s name on the lips of every man and every woman, and that would almost cost Chief Superintendent Toivonen his life, because, even though he was in perfect shape, he came close to having both a stroke and a heart attack simultaneously.