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

by Leif G. W. Persson

  Rule number one, thought Johansson, leaning back in his desk chair. You have to like the situation. During his more than twenty years as a policeman he could not recall any situation that he disliked as intensely as the one in which he now found himself.

  Rule number two, thought Johansson. Don’t complicate things unnecessarily. He hadn’t encountered anything as complicated as Krassner’s so-called suicide, either. And what the hell do I say to Jarnie? he thought with a deep sigh. Quite apart from the fact that he’s my best friend, he’s going to think I’m not all there.

  Rule number three, thought Johansson. Hate chance. There at least it seems that you were quite right. He gave a wry smile toward Krassner’s pile of papers on his otherwise well-organized desk. And because that pile was now his own, he could start by finding out what it was really about. What was it he’d written in that letter that he’d probably never seriously believed Johansson would ever receive? So I can see to it that justice is served in my own country, thought Johansson.

  [MONDAY, DECEMBER 16]

  On Monday morning right before eight o’clock Johansson phoned his secretary and reported that he planned to sit at home and work during the day and that he preferred not to be disturbed.

  Unless all hell breaks loose, of course, although why would that happen? thought Johansson.

  “Yes, unless something totally new comes up,” he said.

  “But you’ll be in tomorrow?” asked his secretary.

  “Sure,” said Johansson. “I’m coming on Tuesday morning as usual.” Quit nagging, he thought.

  “And you haven’t forgotten that you’re going to a conference on total defense on Tuesday and Wednesday?” she continued.

  “No,” said Johansson, and finally he could put down the receiver.

  It took him a couple of hours to go through Krassner’s manuscript. If even a portion of what was written in it was true and could be substantiated, it would be tricky enough for the person it dealt with, but just now it wasn’t the actual contents of the papers that interested him. What started the police alarm bells ringing in his head was the extent, the volume, and above all else the structure of what Krassner had written, combined with the imagined contents of what he still hadn’t had time to write.

  What was there was just under one hundred fifty typewritten pages that dealt with the book’s protagonist, the prime minister, and regardless of whether what was written there was true or false—for that was a later, subsidiary question—it was a manuscript in sufficient condition that a professional editor could manage to make a book out of it. A book of roughly two hundred fifty to three hundred printed pages, assuming the author had been able to realize the ambitions that he had recorded in his table of contents and transform what remained to be done into written text.

  Even more interesting was what was still unwritten. What that would deal with was evident from a rather detailed outline, which seemed to assimilate all the chapters with headings and brief descriptions underneath, and last but not least from the frequent handwritten notations that Krassner had made in his manuscript. Thus, among what was missing were chapters that would deal with Swedish social democracy and the history of social democracy, previous social democratic leaders and their wheelings and dealings, Sweden’s role in the Second World War, the Swedish policy of neutrality, the security situation in northern Europe, and the threat from the great neighbor to the east.

  A background description, plain and simple, thought Johansson, and he also realized from the handwritten notes under the still-unwritten chapters that Krassner had intended to complete that part of the work in situ—that is, in Sweden. It stood there plainly in a number of places and in Krassner’s own, barely legible handwriting, “Sweden!” “to be written in Sweden,” “write in S.,” and there were also handwritten references to the places he would be seeking his material: “Labor Movement Archives,” “Social Democratic Archives,” “Parliamentary Protocols,” “Kungliga Biblioteket (Royal Library, Humlegarden),” and so on.

  Most interesting of all was the conclusion that followed from the fact that the manuscript on his desk, with the exception of about twenty pages, consisted of photocopies. There must be an original and possibly one or several copies somewhere else. Those pages that weren’t copies showed up more or less randomly in the running text; possibly it was as simple as that they’d just landed in the wrong pile when Krassner sorted them after copying.

  True, Johansson was not an author, but if he had been one and had flown four thousand miles to write an already-determined background description for a book that he, both mentally and in terms of content, surely thought he was already pretty much done with … if such had been the case, thought Johansson, then I would have so help me God brought along what I’d already written. In order to have a baseline when I was writing those final obvious sections that nonetheless needed to be there so that it would look one way and not another if you’d gotten it into your head to write a book.

  Hence the alarm bell that was ringing in his head. When his colleagues had done the house search at Krassner’s place right after he was supposed to have jumped out the window, it had simply and summarily been swept clean of the sort of things that ought to have been found there, namely Krassner’s collected working materials. What he’d brought with him from the States and what he’d gathered together during his six weeks in Sweden. True, he didn’t expect any great feats from Bäckström and Wiijnbladh—he was well acquainted with both of them and if he’d had any say neither of them would have been a police officer—but they weren’t completely blind. Besides, Jarnebring had been there and the only, obvious conclusion from the fact that he hadn’t found any papers either was that there weren’t any to find. And who in that case had cleared them away? For Johansson was completely convinced that they’d been there from the start.

  The guys at SePo, thought Johansson, and, considering what had happened since, there were two alternatives that appeared more credible than any others. In the first case someone had taken the opportunity to do a so-called covert house search while Krassner was out running around town, on his own initiative or because someone had lured him away, and this someone had gathered up his papers and taken them along when they’d left the place. And so far all was well and good and most likely even legal. True, Johansson had no particular insights into the classified legislation that governed the more sensitive aspects of the work of the secret police, but the little he knew still suggested that that was how it had been.

  Then Krassner comes home right after seven, for Jarnebring himself had told him about that, which suggested strongly that it was probably true. And when he comes into his room and discovers that all his papers are gone, he becomes so depressed that he steals a few last farewell lines, from the protagonist in his work in progress, and jumps out the window. The same prime minister who, according to Krassner himself in several places in his manuscript, “makes me wanna puke” gets the honor of formulating his last words in life?

  Forget that, thought Johansson. Not Krassner, who has multiple copies of all the essentials in his safe-deposit box back home in Albany and most likely an original too that he’s tucked away somewhere else. Not Krassner, who has a loaded, unsecured automatic weapon in his bedroom in Albany. Not Krassner, who even in his youth was capable of beating up the woman in his life. Not SePo either, for that matter, for what would be the point of doing a covert house search if the person you did it to would discover it as soon as he came home? In that case there were other, considerably easier solutions. Concoct a suitable suspicion, arrest the piece of shit, and put him in jail while you go through his belongings in peace and quiet. Johansson himself had done that more than once, so here he had solid ground under his feet.

  But … what if despite everything there hadn’t been any papers? Perhaps he stored them some other place? What if the secret police had never done a covert house search? What if Krassner quite simply had taken his own life? If, if, if, thought Johansson with irritat
ion. Maybe a necessary prerequisite for getting any reasonable order into all of these reservations would be for him to go there and speak to the former neighbors. Forget that too, thought Johansson, for apart from everything else he simply didn’t have time.

  Instead he phoned Wiklander, who had already been there and was not completely incapable as a police officer.

  “I’m home,” said Johansson. “I want to talk with you. You’ll get a cup of coffee.”

  Fifteen minutes later he and Wiklander were sitting in Johansson’s living room, each with a mug of freshly brewed coffee. He had closed the door to his study.

  “There’s one thing I’m wondering about,” said Johansson, sniffing the steam rising up from the mug.

  Wiklander contented himself with nodding. What is it he knows that I don’t know? he thought.

  “That evening when Krassner jumped out the window,” Johansson continued, “how many of them were living on that corridor?”

  “Seven, including Krassner,” said Wiklander. “Normally there would have been eight but one seems to have moved home. There was some relative who had suffered an accident. His father, I think. Or maybe it was his mother?”

  “How many of them were at home?” said Johansson. “When he jumped, I mean.”

  “At home,” said Wiklander, looking as though he was thinking intently. “Krassner himself was out on the town of course. He came home around seven. That black guy must have run into him when he was on his way out. I have the idea that there’s something about that in the investigation. Yes. So there was him, the black guy, M’Boye, who was on his way to the restaurant to meet his girlfriend, our colleague Eriksson.” Wiklander smiled wryly.

  “The other five, then,” said Johansson.

  “Three of them seem to have gone home over the weekend. The students living there were mostly from the country,” said Wiklander, who himself was from Värmland and went home to his dear mother in Karlstad whenever he had the chance.

  “That leaves two,” said Johansson. “Were they at home?”

  “No,” said Wiklander. “They were supposed to have been … wait now, this is how it was. First they were going to go to some concert, but then they didn’t get any tickets, and then they had planned to start partying a little at home before they went out later … but then they got tickets anyway.…”

  “It wasn’t by any chance our colleague Eriksson who arranged that detail for them?”

  “Now that you mention it,” said Wiklander. “I recall that I thought that she must have worked pretty hard to weasel her way in. Although I doubt if she paid—it was probably the firm that did.”

  So it was empty in the corridor when Krassner died, thought Johansson. And it was our colleague Eriksson who saw to that. Nothing so complicated.

  “What’s the problem?” said Wiklander, looking tentatively at his boss. What is it he’s keeping to himself? he thought.

  “No problem at all,” said Johansson, smiling. “Now I have all the pieces in place, many thanks to you, by the way.”

  That leaves alternative two, thought Johansson when he’d let Wiklander out after the anticipated quarter hour of coffee-drinking and police chitchat about this and that. Alternative two was not a pleasant alternative. Lunch, thought Johansson, but first a refreshing walk so I can clean out the dross I have in my skull.

  The hills of the South End, the water and the city below, were cold and windy with snow in the air; but it could scarcely be more beautiful than this in a person’s life, thought Johansson. Krassner had had his papers at home, the guys at the secret police had made a covert house search. For reasons that Johansson didn’t understand they had taken his papers with them. Then Krassner is supposed to have written his suicide note, with words he’d borrowed from someone else—and on a completely new, unused typewriter ribbon, despite the fact that in all likelihood he already had the same text in his manuscript, all ready and written out, and despite the fact that in all likelihood he ought to have typed many thousand keystrokes during the time he’d been here. And no used typewriter ribbon in the wastebasket either, despite the fact that cleaning was hardly his strongest suit.

  Something must have gone completely to hell, thought Johansson while a cold hand brushed against his heart. He considered it out of the question that a Swedish secret police officer would have murdered Krassner in cold blood and feigned a suicide. That just doesn’t happen, thought Johansson. We’re talking about Sweden, for God’s sake. And considering who Krassner was out to get in his book, and if it was really SePo that grabbed his papers, it was a complete mystery why his manuscript wasn’t already in circulation as a best-selling news item in all of the media, thought Johansson with a certain heat. There must be another explanation, and the only one he himself could imagine was that one or more of the operatives who carried out the operation itself had made such an awful mess of things that a feigned suicide was the only solution at hand.

  That would explain the silence in the media. It wasn’t out of solicitude for the person that Krassner was out to get in his book, it was about their own rear ends. That would also explain the considerable dexterity required to transform the murder of Krassner into a suicide. Wonder who their chief operative was, thought Johansson. Jeanette Eriksson was out of the question. This he realized from the pictures he’d seen—and besides, she had an alibi. M’Boye. Think how strange it can get, thought Johansson with a wry smile. Besides, she was completely the wrong type.

  What do I do now? thought Johansson and sighed. If I talk about what I believe, everyone, including my best friend, will think I’ve gone completely screwy. There’s no one I can ask, and if I trot over to SePo and do so anyway, I’ll be sitting in the parking bureau in Västberga the next day. And I don’t have the least legal basis for even the tiniest bit of surveillance, despite the fact that I’m still the head of the country’s most powerful detective organization. At least on paper.

  All I have are my own papers, thought Johansson. For they’re mine and mine alone.

  Plus I’m hungry, he thought. Really hungry, the way you get when you’ve already done a whole day’s work in the morning and you still haven’t gotten a bite to put in your stomach. I can take care of that, in any case, thought Johansson, setting a course toward his beloved neighborhood restaurant, where excellent lunches were served even on a normal Monday a week before Christmas.

  After lunch Johansson returned to his office, set Krassner’s manuscript and other notes to one side, and instead went through the remaining files. That was how he found the letter that Pilgrim had written to Fionn in April 1955, or more correctly stated, a copy of that letter.

  It was a very old copy, certainly not much younger than the letter, on thin, shiny, yellowed photo paper. It was taken with a copying machine from the time when you took a picture with a regular camera firmly mounted onto a copying table, processed the film, and copied the pictures at the desired size.

  It was with a number of other, similar copies in an old red cardboard binder that had a white label pasted in the upper-right-hand corner. The label had three lines. On the first someone had written the owner’s name with ink and nib in a neat, old-fashioned handwriting: “Col. John C. Buchanan.” On the line below and in the same handwriting, what was intended to be stored in it: “private notes, letters, etc.” Damp stains that had dried at various times were on the cover, rings from glasses—probably whiskey, thought Johansson with a grin, visualizing the pyramid of bottles in the colonel’s basement.

  Pilgrim’s letter to Fionn was handwritten in ink with a fountain pen, the handwriting expressive and aggressively slanted forward, yet completely legible; there was no location and no date. The paper was unlined and folded horizontally in two places with the same distance between the folds, the paper quality unknown but judging by the folds probably high. There was a notation written in ink on the letter in a neat, old-fashioned handwriting, and this with a steel nib as well: “April 1955, exact date unknown, arrived during my visit to
G.” The colonel, thought Johansson, without knowing why; despite the fact that the lack of an envelope bothered him, he also had an idea that Pilgrim had sent the letter to Fionn’s home address.

  The text was direct, yet it also had a literary touch, a poetic tone, and if the poet in him had been uppermost as he held the pen he still hadn’t forgotten what he wanted to get said. It was a short letter. Scarcely ten or so lines longer than the concluding portion that Krassner had quoted in the book he was writing and that someone else most probably had used as his final words.

  Johansson translated the entire text into Swedish and wrote it down on a piece of paper. Then he read it and carefully pondered what was written there, and only after that did he draw his conclusions. The man didn’t want to be involved anymore, thought Johansson. For he had clearly been involved for some years at least, and it appeared to have been a rich life as well if you could really take him at his word.

  Fionn,

  I would be a scoundrel if I pretended that your generous offer didn’t make me both happy and moved, and a liar if I even suggested that those years that I’ve worked together with you—for a great and noble cause—haven’t also been the ones which have meant the most to me and my purely personal development. A few times it has even been so exciting and so critical that when the whole thing was finally done and I’d come out the other side, I’ve been a different person than when I went in. And at least once I’ve been granted the grace, while still young, to fall freely, like in a dream.