Linda, As in the Linda Murder

61

Exactly one week after Queen Silvia’s name-day, on Friday 15 August, a bolt of lightning struck the head of Detective Superintendent Evert Bäckström of the murder squad of the National Crime Unit. At least that’s how he himself described it when he was telling his closest friend, Detective Inspector Jan Rogersson, about the undeserved nightmare that yet another crazy woman had landed him in.

‘It was as if a bolt of lightning struck me in the head,’ Bäckström said.

‘You always have to exaggerate, Bäckström,’ Rogersson objected. ‘Just tell me what really happened. You were drunk, weren’t you?’

It had begun the same way as usual, and very promisingly considering that it was the weekend and the overtime ceiling prevented him from even setting foot in his workplace before Monday morning. As soon as he had got rid of that little poof Olsson, he had left Växjö police station in his usual circumspect way and strolled slowly back to the hotel. Once he got up to his room he had undressed, put on a freshly laundered dressing-gown and opened the first chilled beer of the weekend, and when Rogersson eventually showed up, red-faced as a turkey ready for the chop, he was already on his third.

‘Friday at last,’ Rogersson said, easing the worst of the pressure straight from the can. ‘Any special plans for the weekend, Bäckström?’

‘You’ll have to manage on your own tonight, young man,’ said Bäckström, who had made use of the dead minutes between the second and third beers to call little Carin and ask her to dinner.

‘Female company,’ Rogersson said. In spite of everything, he wasn’t a bad detective.

‘First we’re going to have a bite to eat out in town, then I thought I might let the super-salami have a bit of a work-out,’ Bäckström said, emphasizing his point by taking a deep gulp of beer.

To start with everything went according to plan. Bäckström and his lady for the evening ate a reasonable dinner in a nearby place on Storgatan, and even managed a few drinks, although he was trying to hold back out of consideration for the finale to the evening. Eventually they ended up back at the hotel, and even though Carin for some reason kept saying that they should go to the bar she had finally accepted the offer of a little drink in his room. By this point the exact timings and other details weren’t entirely clear. Certainly not clear enough for him to sit and go through them later with a number of humourless so-called colleagues from the internal investigation unit.

‘There’s something I wanted to show you,’ Bäckström said, firing off his most charming smile before disappearing into the bathroom.

‘As long as it doesn’t take long,’ Carin said through the door as she sipped from her glass, suddenly seeming a bit stand-offish.

Quicker than Superman in his phone-box, Bäckström had carried out a similar manoeuvre in his bathroom. Fastening a towel round his waist, he stepped out in all his glory and let the towel fall, simultaneously pulling in his stomach and thrusting out his chest. Entirely unnecessarily, of course, but sometimes you had to make a bit of extra effort. ‘What do you think about this then, my dear?’ he said.

‘Have you gone mad? Put that nasty little thing away at once!’ Carin cried from her seat on the sofa. Then she grabbed her handbag and jacket and marched out, slamming the door behind her.

Women aren’t right in the head, Bäckström thought. What does she mean, little thing? What the hell’s the woman saying? He put on his clothes again and went down to the bar, but the only person there was Rogersson, sitting leering in a corner. In the absence of anything better to do, he stayed and squeezed in a couple more shorts. Then, when he finally returned to his room, he called her to wish her goodnight to show that he wasn’t the sort to hold a grudge, but before he had the chance to open his mouth she hung up on him. Evidently she disconnected the phone, because he didn’t get through to either her or her answering machine when he tried again. Just like that crazy bitch who lumbered me with little Egon.