He Who Kills the Dragon

87.

‘What have you been up to, Bäckström?’ Annika Carlsson asked when Bäckström returned to the office three hours later.

‘I’ve eaten a nutritious lunch and solved a double murder,’ Bäckström said. And bought some cough drops on the way, he thought.

‘What have you been up to, then?’ he asked.

‘I checked out what you asked me to,’ Annika said. ‘It seems to fit so far. I found the rental car you asked me to look for. Hired from the OK garage in Sundbyberg on Saturday, May seventeenth. Returned the next day.’

‘Really?’ Bäckström said. ‘So what’s the problem?’

‘Toivonen,’ Carlsson said. ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to talk to him.’

‘If he wants to talk to me, he knows how to find me,’ Bäckström said.

‘Some advice, Bäckström,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘If I were you, I’d go and talk to him, and keep a low profile when you do. I’ve seen him like this once before and it wasn’t pretty.’

‘Really?’ Bäckström said. So the fucking fox is throwing his weight around, he thought.

At least Toivonen wasn’t climbing the walls. On the contrary. When Bäckström came into his office he merely nodded amiably and asked him to sit down.

‘Good to see you, Bäckström,’ Toivonen said. ‘I’ve got some nice pictures I thought I might show you.’

What the hell is he sitting there saying? Bäckström thought.

‘I thought we could start with these,’ Toivonen said, handing over a bundle of surveillance pictures. ‘They’re from last Friday, when you were out on the town and met Tatiana Thorén. Before that I believe you had dinner with Juha Valentin Andersson-Snygg, or Gustaf Gustafsson Henning as he’s known these days. So I’m guessing he was responsible for the introductions.’

‘What the hell is this?’ Bäckström growled. ‘I’ve got an investigation that’s on its knees because I haven’t got enough bodies. And you waste surveillance staff harassing one of your own colleagues? I hope you’ve got a damn good explanation.’

‘You always have to exaggerate, Bäckström,’ Toivonen said. ‘We had surveillance following the Ibrahim brothers and Hassan Talib. They went off to Café Opera, and that’s where you and little Miss Thorén suddenly turn up in the story. Because Farshad seemed especially interested in you, we thought it might make sense to follow up that thread as well.’

‘I’ve never met the idiot. Not until he showed up in my flat and tried to kill me,’ Bäckström said.

‘Listen to what you’re saying,’ Toivonen said. ‘In part, I believe you. I think they turned up hoping to bribe you. Get hold of someone who could tell them what was going on in our armed robbery case. Presumably they were starting to feel the heat by then. Farshad’s a cunning bastard, and he clearly doesn’t lack money. And presumably Thorén got hold of the keys to your flat for them. You dropped your trousers pretty quickly, I gather.’

‘She didn’t get any keys from me.’

‘No,’ Toivonen said. ‘But as soon as you passed out she sorted out a copy. She’s a whore, by the way. One of the expensive ones.’

‘If you say so, Toivonen,’ Bäckström said, shrugging. ‘I didn’t have to pay a penny myself. How much did she charge you? Five hundred Finnish marks, or what?’

‘You can calm down, Bäckström,’ Toivonen said. ‘I’m not going to try to get you for breaking the law on the purchase of sexual services.

‘It’s worse than that, I’m afraid,’ Toivonen went on. ‘We took this set of pictures the same evening you had your little shooting frenzy at home in your flat. You’re sitting drinking in your local bar. Beer and a large whiskey before the food, more beer and a couple shots with the food, coffee and a large cognac after the food. A police officer, out in his free time, goes to a bar, gets intoxicated, carrying his service revolver. I understand precisely why you met our colleagues with a glass in your hand when you finally let them in. What do you think of the pictures, by the way? Damn good quality, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about,’ Bäckström said, holding up the first picture. ‘On this one I’m sitting with a glass of low-alcohol beer with a glass of apple juice alongside. You should try it, by the way.’

‘Sure,’ Toivonen said with a grin. ‘And then you had some extra water in a shot glass to go with your next low-alcohol beer. And you finished off with another apple juice. In a cognac glass this time. You’re very funny, Bäckström, and if it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve already got hold of a copy of your bill, I’d probably give up and try to move on.’

‘What’s your point?’ Bäckström said.

‘I have a little proposal,’ Toivonen said.

‘I’m listening,’ Bäckström said.

‘I don’t give a damn about our so-called colleagues over in internal investigations,’ Toivonen said. ‘I’m not the sort to snitch on a fellow officer. If someone becomes too much of a problem I usually grab him by the ears. We sort that kind of thing inside the station. That’s the way we’ve always done things out here in Solna.’

‘Your proposal,’ Bäckström said. ‘You were saying that you had a proposal.’

‘We have a growing number of colleagues who are starting to get fucking sick and tired of your comments in the media. We can probably put up with the rest of it if we have to. If you want to carry on taking a shit in the papers, I think you should change jobs. Maybe you could become a crime reporter, or replace that tired old professor on the National Police Board, that Persson bloke, the one who’s on Crimewatch, droning on every Thursday. If you keep your mouth shut, we’ll keep our mouths shut. But if you carry on shooting your mouth off, I’m afraid that both these pictures and the bar tab and all the other things that I and my colleagues have got in our bottom drawer will suddenly appear on the news desk of one of the really vicious newspapers. Wasn’t that one of the things you wanted, by the way? Greater openness toward the media from the police?’

‘I hear what you’re saying,’ Bäckström said.

‘Good,’ Toivonen said. ‘And since you’re not soft in the head, I presume we have an agreement. How are things going with your investigation, by the way?’

‘Fine,’ Bäckström said. ‘I anticipate that it’ll be all finished by Monday.’

‘I’m listening,’ Toivonen said.

‘We can take it then,’ Bäckström said, standing up.

‘I can hardly wait,’ Toivonen said with a grin.

See you at the press conference, Bäckström thought. He gave a curt nod and walked out.