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

by Leif G. W. Persson

  But not now. Definitely not now.

  “Why the hell should he fall out the window?” said the special adviser with irritation.

  “Oh well,” said Forselius, emptying his glass. “You don’t have any more, by the way?”

  He pointed toward the now-empty bottle of Frapin 1900.

  “Are you joking with me?” said the special adviser. “You bet your ass I have more. I have lots and lots. You don’t want to have whiskey, then?” he added, for he really had no desire to rummage around in his wine cellar in the middle of the night, with a lot of spiders and shit that he hated, and his housekeeper had let him know that she was going to slip away to visit her daughter as soon as she had set out the coffee and cognac and cleaned up in the kitchen.

  “Whiskey,” said Forselius with distaste. “I’ll give you a piece of good advice, young man. You should never pour malt on top of grapes.”

  What choice did he have? First he had to go down into the wine cellar and fetch the cognac. Then they played billiards the whole night, and Forselius mixed a highball of Frapin 1900 and soda pop, great connoisseur that he was. And when the special adviser woke the next day he was compelled to phone his secretary and say that he was poorly and had to stay home.

  “Poor thing,” she said with genuine sympathy. “Now you must promise me you’ll get better so we can see you on Monday.”

  Finally someone who understands, thought the special adviser, and then he took two headache pills and a large glass of water and went back to sleep again.

  Waltin had finally gotten over the apathy that had lately plagued him severely. He had quite simply decided to remove the fat red-haired sow from his awareness. Simply not worth the trouble, and as far as Hedberg was concerned he would surely be in touch when he finally returned to Europe. He usually did so, if for no other reason than that he needed money.

  Instead he resumed the training of little Jeanette, who had been so sadly neglected recently. They spent the weekend together down in Sörmland, where he saw to it that she had a number of new, mind-expanding experiences. When he drove her home he also assured himself that they’d left the fur coat he’d given her as a Christmas present behind—pure madness, really, when he thought about it, now it was in safe keeping, his keeping. High time to look around for something different and plan something new, Waltin thought as he left her off outside the doorway to her pathetic little apartment in that miserable suburb where she lived. There were any number of them out there, and in order to avoid future mistakes with types like that fat red-haired sow he also decided to confine his reconnaissance from now on to slightly better establishments. A little lower middle class, thought Waltin, for there is sure to be a lot of unredeemed longing there.

  Berg wanted to meet him on Monday; he had on his funeral face right from the start. First he informed him that they were up against a new parliamentary oversight of the entire operation, but that the social democrats in the government office also wanted to get rid of the external operation. He himself had understood this all along since he, unlike Berg, wasn’t an idiot, and this was the moment he’d been waiting for.

  “I was thinking about asking you to develop a preliminary study so we could start by jointly considering how we should organize it instead,” said Berg evasively.

  “I don’t understand why they have to be so impossible,” said Waltin innocently. “You don’t think this can have anything to do with that unfortunate story involving the Krassner person.”

  “I have a hard time seeing that,” said Berg, and just then the alarm bells started ringing in his head again. Faintly, true, but what should he do? He couldn’t of course just ask Waltin to shut his mouth and do as he was told.

  “I’ve actually gone through the matter one more time with Hedberg, whom we had as an operative, yes, you remember him,” said Waltin in a light and casual tone of voice. “And I’m completely convinced of the fact that there’s nothing in this affair we need to be ashamed of. Hedberg is probably without comparison the most competent person we have access to, isn’t he? I completely share your opinion of that man. He’s a rock.”

  Hedberg, thought Berg as the booming increased in his head; he’d probably sensed it the whole time, but he hadn’t thought of asking. Why must he always talk about the wrong things? thought Berg. Sometimes I get the idea he’s a complete idiot, he thought.

  “Krassner is history,” said Berg, making an effort to sound as though it really was that way, “so I don’t think we even need to think about that. Do you think you can get a preliminary study to the meeting with them next week?”

  “Of course, no problem at all,” said Waltin courteously, and then they moved on to talk about other things. Berg was almost preoccupied and looked as though he needed a long vacation, which suited Waltin just fine.

  When he came out of the police building after the meeting with Berg he was in such a good mood that, despite the cold, he decided to walk down to the city center, where he could meet completely normal people who wanted him to help them increase the security of their economic operation and were willing to pay for it. He hadn’t even left the block before one of the Stockholm Police Department’s riot-squad vans glided up alongside him. Next to the driver sat Berg’s retarded nephew, and the only reasonable interpretation of this was that he and his simian friends had been let off on all the complaints and had now gone back to duty. Young Berg sat with the window rolled down and his burly arm supported against the door frame, and the cold was unlikely to be the reason he was also wearing black leather gloves. And because Waltin was a civilized person he was finally compelled to say something.

  “Is there something I can help you gentlemen with?” said Waltin without slowing his pace.

  “Just checking that everything’s calm,” said Berg. “Trying to maintain general order and security.”

  “Feels reassuring to hear that we’re on the same side,” said Waltin, congratulating himself for his imperturbability.

  “Makes us happy too,” said Berg, suddenly sounding as sullen as a child. “We haven’t always had that impression.”

  It was then that Waltin got his idea. A pure impulse, for how in the name of heaven could psychopaths be able to injure him, and it was high time he made that clear to them.

  Waltin just stopped, and because the driver hadn’t managed to put on the brakes he was forced to back up a yard before Berg again had eye contact with Waltin.

  “It’s probably not me you should be worried about,” said Waltin lightly, glancing at his watch. “And if you gentlemen are going downtown anyway you can drive me to Norrmalmstorg,” he said. And you should certainly be careful about playing poker, thought Waltin when he saw the surprised shift in Berg’s expression. Of course he also waited until the driver jumped out and held open the door for him. It’s not just your uncle who can shut things down, thought Waltin as he climbed into the van.

  When Berg arrived at the weekly meeting the special adviser wasn’t there. Berg glanced inquiringly at his empty seat as he sat down, and the minister of justice nodded with a worried expression.

  “Unfortunately he had to run off,” said the minister. “It was a close friend of his who passed away. He sends greetings, by the way, and regrets that he couldn’t be here.”

  Close friend of his, thought Berg, astonished. Wonder what such a person is made of? But naturally he hadn’t said that. Saying such a thing would probably be the last thing he’d do, he thought.

  First he took up the ongoing survey of extreme right-wing elements within the police; he started by recounting the disturbing observations that Waltin had reported to him the day before.

  “We unfortunately have encountered certain problems with our data collection,” said Berg cryptically.

  “Is it the computers that are causing trouble again?” asked the minister without the slightest hidden motive.

  “If it were only that good,” said Berg, shaking his head. “No, unfortunately it’s worse than that, I’m afraid.”


  And when he’d said A he might just as well say B, he thought.

  “A couple of our field agents, infiltrators, as certain people say, have expressed concern that they might be at risk of being unveiled, so we’ve been compelled to bring them home to the building and break off,” said Berg. “We must find some way to regroup before we can continue.”

  “Good Lord,” said the minister with genuine concern. “There isn’t any risk that something will happen to them, is there?”

  What would that be? thought Berg. We’re living in Sweden, after all, and it’s policemen we’re talking about. Both my own men and the ones they’re spying on.

  “It probably needn’t turn out that badly,” said Berg soothingly.

  “Nice to hear,” said the minister, appearing sincerely relieved.

  Under the “remaining questions” point, and before they departed, Berg only let it be known that they were in the process of putting together the requested preliminary study about the external operation, giving it the highest priority, and that he counted on being able to submit it at the next meeting. The minister of justice seemed almost embarrassed as he said that, and the chief legal officer suddenly excused himself and took off.

  “I believe perhaps our friend from the Cabinet Office expressed himself less well than he might have the last time we met,” said the minister, clearing his throat and casting a meaningful glance at the relevant person’s empty chair.

  “Far be it from me to question either your viewpoints or your motives,” said Berg courteously. For I’m not that stupid, he thought.

  “I haven’t thought that, either,” said the minister cordially, “but I have tried to speak with our mutual friend in order to get him to understand that this is such a complicated affair: It really is something that bears thinking about in peace and quiet. It’s not something you should be rash about, I mean.”

  The minister leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Without being indiscreet,” he continued, “it was actually he who asked me for advice on a related matter, and so I also took the opportunity to say what I thought about this.”

  I see, thought Berg. So that’s how it went.

  “And I actually succeeded in convincing him,” said the minister contentedly.

  “Nice to hear,” said Berg, despite the fact that the only thing he was really hearing were the alarm bells ringing in his own head.

  “It will have to take the time it takes,” declared the minister with a confirming nod. “For me it will be just fine if we can clear this up sometime during the spring.”

  What is it they’re really up to? thought Berg as he stepped out through the doors to Rosenbad. At an internal seminar they’d had at work, the lecturer had described something that was evidently called Anderson’s Confusion Strategy, after the American psychologist who had invented this method, which was dubious, to say the least. Evidently what the whole thing amounted to was that you continually sent contradictory messages to the person you were out to get, while at the same time oscillating between cordiality and threats. According to the lecturer, in a normal case it only required a rather small dose of this before the object was ready for both the pillbox and the straitjacket.

  That can’t be what he’s up to, thought Berg, and the one he was thinking about was the prime minister’s special adviser. Although it’s clear. He’s certainly capable of most anything, thought Berg.

  It was Forselius’s Polish cleaning woman who had found her employer. He was lying dead right inside his own front door when she opened it, and as she had studied medicine at the university in Lodz before she finally succeeded in getting from there to Sweden and the Swedish social home service, she had no problem at all with that. Forselius was dead; everything indicated that he had died rather recently and that he had probably suffered a stroke. In addition, as usual he was wearing his stained dressing gown and reeked of cognac.

  His cleaning woman had dialed the telephone number she was supposed to dial if something happened and almost immediately a number of people had arrived. All of them men, all of them both friendly and taciturn, and one of them certainly also a doctor.

  So it figured that he’d been some sort of high-ranking spy, she thought, but with her background this wasn’t something you talked about. Then one of them had driven her home, told her she shouldn’t worry, that she would be off work the rest of the week, that she would nonetheless get her pay as usual, that she wasn’t to talk with anyone about what had happened, and that he or one of his colleagues would get back to her if there was anything more.

  That suited her fine. Forselius had been more troublesome than all the others she cleaned for combined. She’d gone to the day care and fetched her little boy and then they’d played the whole afternoon in a park that was in the vicinity of their apartment.

  The special adviser arrived right after the people from the military intelligence department but a good while before the bunglers from the secret police, who, unfortunately, had to take care of the formalities.

  They’d known each other for more than twenty years, but when he looked at the old man there on his own hallway rug he was forced to ask himself what he really felt. Sorrow? Regret? Worry? Nothing in particular?

  “Do you have any idea what he died of?” he said to his own doctor, who was kneeling over the body.

  “You mean what he didn’t die of,” said the doctor, smiling wryly and shaking his head. “Well,” he continued, sighing dejectedly. “That will no doubt be seen in the autopsy, but if you want a preliminary guess I believe he had a massive cerebral hemorrhage. He was actually almost eighty, even if he refused to realize that.”

  A shame about a brain like that, thought the special adviser.

  When they went through the contents of Forselius’s wallet, a sturdy, old-fashioned affair of brown leather that he always carried in his back pocket, they found a folded-up envelope with a handwritten text in Forselius’s handwriting: “In the event of my death.” In the envelope was a slip of paper with another brief, handwritten message, “You should die when it’s the most fun, JF,” and judging by the usual forensic indications he might very well have written that a half-century ago when he was sitting in the secret building on Karlaplan, breaking codes.

  I’ll be damned, thought the special adviser. I miss him already.

  CHAPTER XVII

  And all that remained was the cold of winter

  Mallorca in February

  Hedberg had returned from the humid heat on Java to his little house on northern Mallorca where he’d been living in forced exile for almost the past decade. When he landed at the airport in Palma he’d been met by a cooling, early summer wind—it was almost seventy degrees even though it was only the first week in February—so in any event he couldn’t complain about the weather. He picked up his car from long-term parking where he’d left it a good month earlier and then drove home to the house in the mountains north of Alcudia. There were worse days than this, he thought.

  Not all his days had been good. Considering that he hadn’t even been called for questioning, much less indicted or convicted, he’d nonetheless been subjected to a shocking assault on his rights. Naturally he’d been allowed to retain his job, but all the whispering in the corridors, the sudden silence when he came into the break room, colleagues who openly avoided him, all this had nonetheless made it impossible for him. Besides, he didn’t feel at home behind a desk. And all just because he’d tried to protect himself against a small-time gangster and a bum who tried to extort him for money that was rightfully his.

  When he got the invitation to come over to the external operation and work for Waltin it almost felt like a liberation. There had been plenty of money too, a few times there had actually been quite a lot, and he liked Waltin. He was a talented guy with a lot of charm and quite a few interesting ideas. Besides, Hedberg knew that he could trust Waltin, almost as if they’d been brothers and grown up together, despite the fact that they really didn’t see each other
all that often.

  So he’d been all the more surprised when he went through the papers that he’d taken from that American journalist and at first had intended to get rid of in some secure way. Not that his English was like Waltin’s, but in any case he knew enough to understand most of what was there, and for a while he’d even gotten the idea that Waltin had duped him.

  But the more he thought about it, the more unbelievable it seemed. It was probably no more complicated than that Berg and those social democrats in the new government that he worked for were in league with each other and that Waltin had been duped just as much as himself. Berg with his sanctimonious exterior and his well-oiled mouth was naturally the one they’d turned to in order to remove the embarrassing files the American was sitting on. Documents that showed what every thinking person ought to have been able to figure out on their own: that the country was being run by a traitor and a Russian spy. True, Hedberg hadn’t been aware that in addition he’d managed to worm his way in with the CIA in his youth, but considering all the other things he’d done, such as have his best friend murdered, for example, that had hardly come as a surprise. Nor that he got away with it that time either. Of course people like that always get away with it.

  Waltin was probably as fundamentally duped as he was, and considering what had happened it was just as well. How would he have been able to discuss this with Waltin? It would have been the same as signing your own life sentence. If only he’d been certain that he could trust Waltin completely, then he wouldn’t have hesitated a moment to tell him the whole thing. The problem was that during his entire life he hadn’t met a single person who had shown themselves to be completely reliable when it really counted. So it was also wisest to keep quiet about what he knew. At least until he could be sure that not only Krassner but the whole affair really was dead and buried.