Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End: The Story of a Crime

by Leif G. W. Persson

  Jarnebring remembered him, with a wry smile besides, occupationally injured as he was.

  “The guy who was buck naked when he landed,” Jarnebring said, nodding.

  “I seem to recall that he had one sock on,” said Hultman. “He had those knee-length ones with garters. I seem to recall that he was some kind of executive.”

  Jarnebring nodded again. That was right. He too had made note of the garter.

  “All of his clothes peeled off on the way down from the draft.”

  “On that occasion it was a fall of six hundred yards,” said Hultman, “before all his clothes were pulled off. This time we’re talking about fifty yards. Fifty yards ought to be enough to pull off a shoe, shouldn’t it?”

  “I think so too,” said Jarnebring, nodding in agreement. “But how do we explain the difference in time? I’ve only seen the shoes in pictures, but they seem to be sturdy things, boots almost. Ought to fall just as fast as a body. If they hadn’t hit … Jarnebring was thinking out loud but Hultman was there first.

  “For example, a window ledge or something else on the way down,” Hultman concluded.

  “Not at all unlikely,” said Jarnebring.

  “Highly probable, if you ask me,” said Hultman.

  The third question mark remained. There were four witnesses to the occurrence itself; four known witnesses. First Vindel, then the three who had contacted the command center, and as far as the time was concerned they were of one voice and were quite certainly correct. About four minutes before eight in the evening Krassner had begun his fall, and scarcely four seconds later he hit the ground. Think if you were able to fall free for the time it took to run a hundred yards, thought Jarnebring. That would give the others something to chew on.

  In addition there was a fifth witness. A student from South Africa who was living on the same corridor as Krassner. Some time about six-thirty in the evening he had greeted Krassner as the latter was on his way out. They hadn’t spoken with each other, only said hello. Dressed in outdoor clothes, Krassner had then disappeared through the door to the elevators, while the student himself had gone into his room. Half an hour later—approximately—the witness had left the corridor. He was going to meet a girl at seven o’clock at a student restaurant that was in an adjacent building and he was leaving at the last moment.

  “Unfortunately I often arrive late, even if it’s someone I like,” he had added with an apologetic smile.

  Once out on the street he had almost run into Krassner, who was on his way into the building again. Dressed in the same outdoor clothes, according to the witness’s recollection. Krassner had said hello, shaken his head, and said something in English about a bad memory being good if you wanted to keep your legs in good shape. “A bad memory keeps your legs in good shape.”

  “He smiled at me and didn’t appear at all like he was going to rush up and take his own life,” the witness had concluded, and that observation was also his point.

  Jarnebring sighed. He goes out at six-thirty. Comes rushing back a half hour later, and less than an hour after that he decides to jump out the window. What is going on? thought Jarnebring, looking out his own window. At least it had stopped snowing, temperature several degrees above freezing, slushy and slippery. An impulse? “No, to hell with this. No more beers at the bar for me. High time I scurry home and jump out the window.” And he’d been happy too, if that black guy was to be believed, thought Jarnebring gloomily. What if I were to phone Lidman? He was a professor, after all, and had written some sort of dissertation about what went on in the heads of all do-it-yourselfers. Jarnebring had heard him give a lecture about his findings, and regardless of the subject he had never listened to such an elated lecturer. Lidman had bubbled with enthusiasm, and the pictures he had shown had been a bit much even for the hardened policemen who made up his audience.

  Jarnebring looked up Lidman’s number, phoned him, talked with him for close to half an hour, of which the last five minutes were spent getting him to stop, but when he was finally able to put down the receiver he was in almost as high spirits as Lidman himself. So it wasn’t any more difficult than that, thought Jarnebring contentedly. A rather classic behavior in someone who is just about to take his own life; the only thing that bothered him now was that that wretched Bäckström had come to the same conclusion as himself. Albeit in his own case it had been preceded by thorough and competent police work. How the hell can someone like that become a police officer? thought Jarnebring. Whatever, he thought. Now it was high time to drive home and meet the little lady and perhaps he ought to go by way of Åhléns department store and buy a pound of shrimp and some other foreplay goodies. Jarnebring looked like a badass, talked like a badass, and all too often behaved like a badass, but as a policeman he didn’t leave much to be desired. He was quick, shrewd, efficient, and had the predator’s nose for human weakness. When he left the Östermalm police quarters on Tulegatan, on the afternoon of Sunday, November 24, he was in a really good mood. Suicide, he thought, and just in time for Christmas he would cash out a well-earned mixed case from his old buddy Hultman.

  [MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25]

  When Lars Martin Johansson’s secretary arrived at work at the National Police Board at eight o’clock on Monday morning her boss had already been sitting behind his desk for more than an hour, and he was in an excellent mood.

  “I have a statement here,” Johansson said, handing over a plastic folder with papers. “Three things: I want you to read it, see to it that it’s comprehensible, and print it out. Any questions?”

  His secretary took the papers, smiled coolly, and shook her head.

  “Personally I’m going to go swimming,” said Johansson cheerfully.

  He must have met someone new, thought his secretary.

  Johansson found running for exercise difficult. What bothered him was not the physical activity itself but simply the fact that he couldn’t think while he ran: a pure waste of time, in other words. On the other hand, he thought very well while walking—this applied to brisk walks as well—and he did his very best thinking while swimming. Besides, things were so practically arranged in the large police station on Kungsholmen that they had their own pool.

  Johansson was an excellent swimmer. He had learned it early in a simple and unsentimental way. The summer when he was five years old his oldest brother, who was fifteen, had taken little Lars Martin with him to the laundry pier down at the river, thrown him into the water, and from the pier given him the necessary instructions.

  “You shouldn’t flounder so damn much, try and swim like Tarzan.”

  Tarzan was the family’s elkhound and a past master of dog-paddling, clearly better than Johnny Weissmuller, and before the week was over, Lars Martin was swimming almost as well as the mutt.

  “I’ll be damned, you’re a real man of talent,” his big brother concluded proudly. “Now you’ll learn how to swim like people.”

  After an hour in the pool, plus five minutes in the shower and twenty in the sauna, an alert and rosy Lars Martin Johansson returned to his office. His good mood didn’t get any worse from the fact that his secretary had done exactly what he’d asked her to do.

  “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” said Johansson, “and you know what I mean. May I treat you to lunch as a thank-you?”

  He’s met someone new, thought his secretary, smiling and nodding.

  The lunch had been excellent; what else was to be expected on a day like this? Johansson had fried bacon with potato pancakes and uncooked lingonberries, and when he ordered a large glass of cold milk with his meal, his secretary looked at him almost lovingly. Discreetly, of course, but still; as usual, she pecked at her vegetables and boiled fish.

  “There has to be milk,” explained Johansson. “Although it’s important that it’s cold. I saw some lunatic on TV who maintained that it took away the vitamins in the lingonberries, but he’s got that turned around.”

  “I’ve decided,” she said. “I’m goin
g with you to the personnel bureau.”

  “Good,” said Johansson and raised his milk glass in a toast. “It’s a kick upward for me and I’ll see to it that there’ll be something for you too.”

  And a kick away from the police job, he thought. But he didn’t say that. Instead they toasted with milk and mineral water.

  “Now we’ll have coffee,” said Johansson with a Norrland accent. He leaned forward and looked at her with fake seriousness. “Boiled coffee.”

  In the afternoon Johansson was visited by the head of the personnel bureau whom he would succeed in a little more than a month. It was an informal visit; the head of the personnel bureau didn’t really want anything in particular, just to complain in general terms and perhaps get a cup of coffee while he did so.

  “Would you like a cookie with your coffee?” asked Johansson amiably, but he only shook his head. Tired, worn out, and kind, thought Johansson, and now they’re going to get rid of you.

  “I need some advice,” the head of the personnel bureau said. “You’ve worked in Stockholm for many years. Do you know an officer named Koskinen?”

  The one called Koskenkorva, thought Johansson, and nodded. “He’s drunk himself to death?” Johansson suggested sensitively.

  “If only it were that good,” the head of the personnel bureau said with a loud moan. “No, he’s been appointed head of the command center, and now we’ve received six complaints of which one is anonymous, signed by a group of some type that calls itself the Still Functioning Uniformed Police in Stockholm. It’s twenty-two pages long and contains a detailed account of Chief Inspector Koskinen’s performance as on-duty commander at Norrmalm. If what’s there is true, it’s horrifying.”

  “I’m sure it’s true,” said Johansson.

  “At the same time the union at Norrmalm supports him wholeheartedly and his bosses have given him among the best evaluations I’ve ever seen during my years in this office.”

  “Obviously,” said Johansson. “How else would they get rid of him?” That’s why they’re called traveling testimonials, he thought, but he didn’t say that.

  “What advice do you have?” The head of the personnel office looked at him almost imploringly.

  “None,” said Johansson cheerfully. “There is none. There isn’t meant to be.”

  How naïve can you be? thought Johansson while he picked out shirts at the men’s department at NK. His impending trip demanded certain additions to his wardrobe, and besides, an old acquaintance who was head of security for the largest of the city’s three commercial banks had invited him to dinner that evening. But it wasn’t this business that occupied his thoughts. The Koskinen problem will solve itself according to classic Darwinist police principles, he thought. Either he drinks himself to death, puts a bullet in his head, or gets so bad that he quite simply can’t go on working. On the other hand, that he would flat out be fired was less likely. As a rule there was always some colleague in the vicinity who could pull the ass of someone like that out of the fire in a pinch, and if not, then it usually wasn’t very important. What might that be? What might happen here? thought Johansson while he hesitated between a dark blue shirt and one that was a somewhat lighter blue.

  “I’ll take both,” said Johansson, and the sales clerk nodded officiously.

  In the evening he had dinner with his acquaintance, an ex–police officer but nowadays head of security at the large bank. Now he was moving up, chief of staff and member of the company board, and needed a successor.

  “I have an offer, Lars,” he said amiably while he twirled his wineglass between his fingers. “One of those that you can’t say no to.”

  Johansson could.

  “I’m a policeman,” said Johansson. “The reason that I became a policeman was that I dreamed of putting crooks in the can. What I’m doing now is something different, to be sure, but I know it’s only temporary.”

  His acquaintance had looked surprised.

  “Think it over,” he said.

  Jarnebring had been up to his ears in work all morning—that was how he himself summarized the whole thing. First the customary morning prayers with his coworkers in the local detective unit where they had gone over the current cases in the precinct. After that he’d planned a special effort against car break-ins, which had recently increased substantially. He had arranged a lookout where his detectives could sit to avoid freezing, which was never good for the actual surveillance, and he had borrowed equipment from the narcotics squad: cameras, extra-powerful telescopes, and better communications equipment. Now the crooks would get it in the neck.

  After a quick lunch in the building he turned off his phone and turned on the red “busy” lamp on the door. Now he was going to finish up the investigation of the cause of Krassner’s death. Suicide, thought Jarnebring emphatically, and called the forensic medicine office in Solna to hear how it had gone. It had gone very well, answered the responsible forensic doctor, who had already finished the autopsy early that morning.

  There were no injuries to the body that appeared to have occurred in anything other than a natural manner.

  “Natural manner?” said Jarnebring inquiringly.

  “As in when you dive fifty yards straight down to the street,” answered the doctor and giggled.

  He was from Yugoslavia; he had the nickname Esprit de Corpse and was known as something of a joker, as long as the joke wasn’t on him.

  “The head crushed, thirty other fractures. We human beings cannot fly.”

  How true, how true, thought Jarnebring and sighed silently.

  “What do we do with the clothes?” asked Esprit. “I still have his shoes and clothes here.”

  Lazy asses, thought Jarnebring; he was thinking of his colleagues on the technical squad.

  “Didn’t the techs take them with them, when they took the prints?” he asked.

  “They forgot the clothes,” said Esprit. “They got a call.”

  “I’ll send a car,” said Jarnebring, and he started to put down the receiver.

  “Excellent. You’ll get a preliminary statement. Suicide. We human beings cannot fly.”

  “Thanks,” said Jarnebring, and hung up.

  It was Oredsson and Stridh who got the task of fetching Krassner’s clothes and shoes at the forensic medicine office in Solna for removal to the head of the bureau at their own precinct. Stridh remained sitting in the car while Oredsson took care of the practical details. Actually he did offer, thought Stridh while observing the entrance to the forensic medicine office. Such is the way of all flesh, he thought gloomily. It was also Oredsson who took the elevator up to turn over the two bags to Jarnebring when they’d returned to the station. He offered, thought Stridh gloomily while he remained sitting in the car down in the garage, brooding.

  Where have I seen him before? thought Jarnebring, looking at the husky young police officer standing in the door to his room. He was on the phone and waved him in with his free left hand.

  “Can I call you back?” said Jarnebring and hung up.

  “Yes?” he said and looked inquiringly at his visitor.

  “It’s these clothes that you asked us to pick up at the forensic medicine office, chief. The guy who jumped from the student dormitory last Friday.”

  “Put them on the chair there,” said Jarnebring and started dialing the number of the person he’d just been talking with.

  “I was thinking about those shoes.” Oredsson held out the smaller bag.

  “Yes?” said Jarnebring. A pair of strong, bootlike shoes in a transparent, sealed plastic bag.

  “I don’t know,” his visitor said hesitantly, “but these aren’t normal shoes.”

  “Not normal shoes?” Jarnebring put the receiver down on its cradle and leaned back in his chair while he inspected young Oredsson. “You mean that this is a pair of unusual shoes?”

  “Yes. If you look at this magazine, chief.” His visitor held out a thick magazine with a colorful cover toward Jarnebring at the same momen
t as the phone rang again.

  “Put it on the chair,” said Jarnebring and took the receiver. “Jarnebring,” he answered curtly and waved out Oredsson with a left hand that brooked no contradictions. The people they let in these days, he thought, irritated.

  “The police superintendent is out and about,” answered Johansson’s secretary with her usual cool voice. “He had some urgent business he had to take care of. No, he’s not coming back today. He can be reached tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. Yes, I promise to tell him that you called.” She put back the receiver and made a note on a message pad. “Detective Chief Inspector Bo Jarnebring phoned. He wants you to call him back as soon as possible. Important, and you have the number.” She looked at the clock, 3:33, and wrote the time and date on the slip of paper. Jarnebring, she thought. How could he have become a chief inspector?

  Jarnebring’s face was slightly red around the cheeks and earlobes. This was due to the fact that he was very surprised, and he was almost never surprised. He was often furious, but he regarded surprise as a form of enjoyment for children and intellectuals. On the table before him sat a transparent plastic bag with the seal torn open; in it was a strong, bootlike right shoe. To the side of the bag was a left shoe and closest to him on top of the desk was an open illustrated magazine which actually ought not to be found in a police station. In addition, a key that looked as though it went to a safe-deposit box or a safe, along with a small slip of paper containing two lines of handwritten text. Jarnebring stared at the slip of paper. What the hell is this? he thought. It must be some bastard who’s fooling with me. With us, he corrected himself.

  [TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26]

  Johansson woke up late. At the time he was rolling up the window shade in his bedroom he would usually already be on his way to work. Outside a pale morning sun was shining against a blue sky and the thermometer on the windowsill showed a few degrees above freezing. Excellent, thought Johansson, and high time to start living like a human being. First shower, then breakfast and morning paper, and after that an invigorating walk to the office. The same office that allowed you to succeed even if you did a good job, like himself, for example. Bureau head, he thought contentedly. If I start acting willful, I’ll get traveling testimonials and become chief of the national police by summer.