Linda, As in the Linda Murder

51 Stockholm, Tuesday 5 August

Johansson changed into a linen suit and a dark blue cotton shirt, with his tie in the top jacket pocket for the time being, then took a taxi to the airport, where he caught the mid-afternoon plane from Sundsvall to Stockholm. His driver from the Security Police picked him up and drove him straight to the palatial home of the special adviser in Djursholm.

‘Welcome to my humble abode!’ the special adviser said, throwing his arms out in welcome as soon as Johansson stepped through the front door. ‘I hope you don’t mind sitting inside.’

‘The cooler the better,’ Johansson said, even though he was a devoted sauna enthusiast. So this is where you live, he thought as he glanced discreetly at the intricate pattern of the parquet floor, the dark wood panelling and the ornate plasterwork on the ceiling high above, careful not to miss a single Persian carpet, Dutch oil painting or Venetian chandelier on the way.

To begin with they settled down in the library to deal with practical matters, so that they could dine in peace and quiet. Everything was sorted out within ten minutes.

‘When can you start?’ the special adviser asked.

‘On Monday,’ Johansson said.

‘That sounds quite splendid,’ the special adviser said, his round face beaming like the sun. ‘Well, at last we can get to more important matters. I haven’t eaten a bite since lunchtime.’

‘You have a very beautiful home,’ Johansson commented as they were walking to the dining room. ‘Was it your parents’?’

‘Are you crazy, Johansson? I come from extremely humble circumstances,’ the special adviser declared. ‘I’m an old Söder lad, born and bred on the hills of Södermalm. I bought this place from a poor chap for whom things weren’t going too well.’

‘But things seem to be going quite well for you,’ Johansson said.

‘Quite splendidly,’ the special adviser agreed happily. ‘And richly deserved, if you ask me.’

It being the middle of the week, the special adviser hoped that his guest would excuse the fact that he was being fobbed off with such a simple meal. But of course they both earned their daily bread working for a left-wing government, so simple customs ought perhaps to be the order of the day, notwithstanding the fact that there was every reason to celebrate Johansson’s impending appointment, and perhaps no less reason for his employers to celebrate their wisdom in choosing Lars Martin Johansson.

‘I’m afraid you’ll just have to make do with my way of doing things,’ the special adviser said with a sigh. ‘Make the best of things, basically. Isn’t that what you policemen usually say?’

In the world that the special adviser had lived in for almost his entire adult life, the most important thing was to meet other people halfway, and for both parties to be equally content as they carried on along their chosen path. Taking this existential motto as his basis, Johansson’s host hoped that he had found a solution which his guest might appreciate, and ought certainly to be able to reconcile himself with.

‘I’ve heard that you come from a family of old foresters up in Norrland, so what could be more fitting than to start with a variation on the age-old Swedish schnapps table,’ he declared, gesturing towards a corner of the dining room in which an aged housekeeper was standing, dressed in a stiff black dress and white apron, with a carafe of schnapps already in her hand.

‘Well,’ Johansson said. ‘My mother’s family were more like crofters, whereas my father’s...’

‘Now then, my dear Lars Martin,’ the special adviser interrupted. ‘Don’t let’s allow false modesty to cloud our gaze and muddy the otherwise so clear prospects. Let us instead hasten to the buffet to partake of a couple of sturdy drinks and swathe our ravaged souls in the silken and velvet mantle that we so richly deserve.’

‘Sounds good,’ Johansson said.

Different sorts of sturgeon, the special adviser explained when, after the prefatory drink, consumed as they stood to attention, they finally sat down at the table laden with dishes and filled glasses. Poached sturgeon, cold braised sturgeon, fried sturgeon, smoked sturgeon, cured sturgeon, salted sturgeon, and sturgeon caviar with potato blinis were indicated by instructive gestures with his fork.

‘Only second-hand car salesmen eat Russian caviar,’ he declared as he shovelled a prodigious quantity of sturgeon caviar into his maw. ‘Normal people eat sturgeon caviar.’

‘The vodka was quite excellent,’ Johansson said, turning the tall crystal glass in his right hand with the mien of a connoisseur. But you’re wrong about my brother, because he prefers whitefish roe even though he does sell cars, he thought.

‘It’s superb, isn’t it?’ his host sighed contentedly. ‘I took the opportunity to grab a few bottles when I was visiting Putin last week.’

The dinner progressed simply. The special adviser and his guest made the best of things, as faithful public servants should, while the chilly star of necessity shimmered from the crystal chandelier high above their bowed heads. The sturgeon had been followed by stuffed quail with a lukewarm timbale of root vegetables and then a simple slice of goat’s cheese from the Camargue, before a lemon and lime sorbet cleansed the palate in advance of the concluding coffee, cognac and chocolate truffles. Each course was accompanied by wines which the special adviser had himself selected from his extensive cellars: a red Bourgogne from the fine year 1985, then a potent fortified red from the Loire with no given vintage.

‘Wine is without doubt a drink that is best produced in France,’ the special adviser declared with satisfaction, sticking his long nose deep into his glass.

‘My wife and I drink a lot of Italian wine,’ Johansson said.

The special adviser squirmed in his chair. ‘If you’ll accept a piece of friendly advice, Lars, I think you perhaps ought to avoid taking that sort of risk. Considering your health, if nothing else,’ he said.

‘So, how is Nylander?’ Johansson asked once they had returned to the library to conclude the meal with a double espresso and some of the special adviser’s 1990 Frapin.

‘Better than he has been for a long time,’ the special adviser said. ‘His own room, three meals a day, little red, green and blue pills, and someone to talk to.’

‘Is he in a private home?’ Johansson asked carefully.

‘A private home?’ the special adviser snorted. ‘There have to be some limits! First he tries to transform the police force in our relatively respectable banana monarchy into the sort of thing one can scarcely find in a common banana republic. Then he locks himself inside his office and refuses to come out, so that that poor football player in our already hard-pressed government is forced to ask his own little private army to blow off half the front of the building before they can drag him away to the tender mercies of a secure psychiatric ward. That sort of thing doesn’t come cheap.’

‘Ulleråker?’ Johansson hazarded.

‘Precisely,’ the special adviser said emphatically. ‘And not a day too soon, if you ask me.’

‘So what happened, exactly?’ Johansson asked curiously.

‘That’s not entirely clear,’ the special adviser said, shrugging his bottle-shaped shoulders. ‘It’s supposed to have started with him taking a shot at the mirror in his private bathroom.’

‘Imagine, the peculiar things people come up with,’ Johansson said, nodding phlegmatically in the typical Norrland way.

‘Maybe he got his chin caught in that curved bit round the trigger when he was cleaning his gun,’ the special adviser speculated.

‘The trigger guard, you mean?’ Johansson said.

‘Whatever,’ the special adviser said with a dismissive hand gesture. ‘I’m just trying to give him the benefit of the doubt,’ he muttered.

After another hour of small talk, and a couple more glasses of the special adviser’s admittedly remarkable cognac, Johansson’s host had suggested that they play a game of billiards before addressing a light supper. But Johansson had heard terrible horror-stories about precisely that, and he declined the offer.

‘I don’t play billiards,’ he said, shaking his head apologetically. ‘If you like, I could teach you,’ the special adviser said, looking at him hopefully.

‘By all means, but I’m afraid it will have to be another time,’ Johansson said. ‘I really should think about going.’

Then Johansson thanked his host for the splendid dinner, ordered a taxi, and went home to his and his wife’s apartment on Wollmar Yxkullsgatan, empty for the summer. And pretty much as soon as he got into bed, he fell asleep.

That one doesn’t seem particularly sane either, he just had time to think before Morpheus took him into his welcome embrace.