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

by Leif G. W. Persson

  When Berg returned to work he’d decided something. Quite apart from what he’d just heard he had no intention of giving way to Waltin and his transparent attempts at extortion. It was sink or swim, thought Berg, and the advantage with people like him was that as a rule they swam and almost never sank, regardless of what happened. Waltin had to go and he knew exactly how he would get rid of him. So he called him up and reminded him of the financial data on the external operation that he wanted turned in. He also emphasized that he was especially interested in the economic aspect of the operation. The gold watch around Waltin’s wrist perhaps helped him keep the time, but for Berg it was an indication of where he should look for his opponent’s weaknesses.

  He let Persson sit in on the entire meeting to take notes, but above all because he had a salutary and subduing influence on Waltin, and Berg didn’t intend to listen to any more drivel about Hedberg this and Hedberg that.

  “So it would be good if we could get the economic figures by next week,” said Berg. “Then the auditors will have the time they require.”

  “Fine with me,” said Waltin, nodding and smiling.

  The gauntlet has been thrown, he thought, and personally he didn’t intend to pick it up. On the other hand, he intended to bring home Hedberg in order to get his help with weeding out the stacks of papers and securing the money that was flowing around in the system and that was rightly his and no one else’s.

  Johansson had spent the weekend thinking about what he should do with his life. He wasn’t exactly getting younger, and if life wasn’t going to slip through his fingers it was high time that he took hold of it. The slip of paper that Jarnebring had recommended had rather quickly been scribbled full and needed to be recopied. Jarnebring had also phoned and asked how he was doing.

  “How’s it going?” said Jarnebring. “I have a front seat that’s waiting for us both.”

  That time is probably past, I’m afraid, thought Johansson as he put down the receiver, and frankly he didn’t miss it anymore. There were other things that were more important, and as a first measure when he came to the board on Monday he requested a leave of absence starting March 1.

  The national commissioner contacted him by phone only an hour later. Might he possibly be able to speak with him?

  How do you reply to that? he thought, and when he was finally sitting there and saw that the fellow really appeared sincerely sorry about the fact that he risked losing him, he had almost regretted it.

  “I think it’s as though I’ve come to a halt,” said Johansson, putting on a little extra Norrland accent as he usually did as soon as the need arose. “So I’ve been thinking that it’s high time that I get more education. Was actually thinking about registering at the university and studying a little.”

  Peculiar thing about all these academics that ran the police, he thought as he was leaving an hour later. They got all excited as soon as someone like him so much as hinted at wanting a little education, and if Johansson hadn’t put his foot down he could certainly have taken half his salary with him to rest up at an institution of his own choosing with an ever-so-distant connection to the legal system. The national commissioner had for some reason recommended studying law, and Johansson had thanked him for the tip and promised to think about it. Whatever. His application would be granted and thus he’d set an end point for the professional misery that he’d landed in.

  It was no longer of vital importance to wine and dine the union. Much less raise Aunt Jenny’s glass in their company, he thought, and what he would like to do with them instead he didn’t need to think about either. He intended to clean off his desk, but first of all it was high time that he do penance considering the casual attitude he’d evinced when his predecessor in the position—now surely a happy man—asked him for help and advice with that wretched Koskinen.

  Officer Koskenkorva was now head of the Stockholm Police Department’s command center and living proof of the fact that traveling testimonials were an infallible means of moving up within the corps. Koskenkorva had barely had time to set his rear end in his chair and hide his namesake vodka in the clothes closet before it was time again. The pile of appeals, complaints, union opinions, and the usual collegial beefs that was heaped on Johansson’s desk was quite improbable considering that the person concerned never did a lick of work and to be on the safe side got drunk whenever he was supposed to do any.

  The operational head of the uniformed police in Stockholm, an old hooligan who was both efficient and completely to Johansson’s taste, had decided to carry out a large preparedness drill in order to find out what sort of people his personnel really were. A scenario had been outlined in which His Majesty had been subjected to an attack during a reception at the palace in Stockholm and the perpetrators succeeded in escaping from the crime scene and were now somewhere in the great cement city between the customs gates. The description of the wanted persons that would be sent out was both contradictory and highly believable, the vague description of their escape car and escape routes equally so, and altogether it looked to be an interesting test of what the police in the capital were actually capable of when what couldn’t happen had nonetheless happened. Because the operational head also knew what they were made of, he’d chosen to plan the entire drill for Monday morning.

  Koskenkorva had a central role in all this. Put simply he was the spider in the web if something were to really happen, and unfortunately he’d gotten wind of the whole affair. The misery had rolled along, the union had jumped onto the bandwagon, for this type of information might become a real murder weapon in the hands of the employers. And the introductory drizzle of objections had quickly turned into a hailstorm.

  On the other side was a thin blue line: the personnel in the riot squad, of course. When Johansson thought about Berg’s horrible nephew, who had now gone back into active duty despite Johansson’s brave attempts to get him parked in a cell, where he naturally belonged, a shadow had fallen across his face. In addition there was the anonymous society called Still Functioning Uniformed Police in Stockholm, which had made contact with his predecessor when Koskenkorva’s appointment had been in the works during the fall. Finally, a number of individual voices had been raised that in sum said it was “high time for a little action.”

  One of the few who didn’t have anything to say about the matter was the Stockholm chief constable. He’s no doubt writing in his little blue book, thought Johansson, but merely as a matter of form he nonetheless called him up to hear what he thought. His voice sounded guarded, thought Johansson, like all aesthetes when their circles are disturbed by simple types like himself. It’s all the same, he thought, and then he briefly recounted his view of the matter.

  “I’ve already solved that question,” said the chief constable. “But thanks for your concern.”

  “Excuse me,” said Johansson. “I don’t really understand.”

  No, who would have thought that? thought the chief constable, sighing.

  “The drill you were wondering about,” said the chief constable, making an effort to speak slowly and clearly the way you would if you were speaking to a child. “I’ve had a simulation carried out instead,” he explained. “A kind of police war game, if you understand what I mean.”

  “Actually not,” said Johansson. “You wouldn’t be able to explain—”

  “Don’t worry yourself,” interrupted the chief constable. “And if you’ll excuse me I actually have other, more important matters on my agenda.”

  The bastard hung up, thought Johansson, looking with surprise at the receiver in his hand. He hung up right in my ear.

  The whole thing was really rather simple, and that kind of practical drill based on some sort of obsolete boot-camp model was not only violently overrated, costly, and risky, it also missed the essential, namely the honing of intellectual preparedness, while encouraging driving around street corners on two wheels with howling sirens and screeching tires.

  The chief constable had also tried
to explain that to the so-called operational head, but as usual the man had refused to listen. He’d let Grevlinge take charge and they would no doubt be able to find something for him, and if they didn’t then it was his bad luck. Västberga, thought the chief constable, and then he’d decided it was high time to have a look at them even though it was Monday morning and he really had more important things on the program, like his workout session and that course in creative writing he’d had his mistress order from the community college.

  Obviously he’d chosen an intellectual approach. The drill organizers had been allowed to borrow the police administration’s conference room, and by moving a few tables together in the middle of the room they had been able to set out the large general map of the police district that usually hung on the wall. The necessary written information with the applicable assumptions had been passed out to all the participants, and when the alarm was given it was only a matter of going to work.

  Chief Inspector Koskinen sat at a smaller table at one end of the room while the others walked around, moving the vehicles and other units as he directed and positioned and redirected, and at times it got rather hectic before the perpetrators could be arrested. Because everyone was in the same room they had also gotten by completely without radio communication. They talked and passed notes to each other, and it wasn’t more difficult than that, even if purely verbally and for the sake of realism they had of course used the usual hailing codes.

  “I would like to congratulate you on a well-performed job,” said the chief constable, nodding graciously at Koskinen. Good Lord, he looks completely worn out, he thought. Must have been tough.

  “Yes, it worked out,” puffed Koskinen. “Despite the fact that it was Monday morning when it happened. May I offer you a throat lozenge, by the way?”

  Koskinen was clearly a little under the weather—had a cold, he explained—and you realized that although the fellow reeked of menthol tablets, he’d nonetheless heeded the call to arms when the trumpets sounded. Which only showed that I was right the whole time when I refused to listen to all the whining about his appointment, thought the chief constable contentedly when he returned to his office. For that matter, high time to put on my running shoes. A sound mind in a sound body, thought the chief constable, and in the evening he thought seriously about drinking a few glasses of red wine while he tuned the strings of his inner lyre.

  CHAPTER XIX

  And all that remained was the cold of winter

  Stockholm in February

  Waltin was in the habit of keeping everything sensitive in his head. He’d learned that early on, and there would have to be compelling reasons to put something on paper within the operation where he worked. He had no great faith in auditors, either, and if you simply kept things orderly around you there was no reason to fear them. Nonetheless—and this he knew—people did make mistakes. This applied to him as well, and for that reason he was very careful about inspecting the papers that were to be turned over to Berg.

  The money didn’t worry him. Everything essential was already taken care of, and on that point he didn’t have the least concern. Certain withdrawals and transfers could, however, still be made, an invoice or two might be supplied with the right date and inserted into the bookkeeping, and if you minded the pennies the dollars tended to take care of themselves. Hedberg’s little foreign company in the security industry, the one that Waltin owned but with Hedberg’s name on all the files, would shortly receive a substantial replenishment of liquid assets.

  Because he was forced to do what he was doing, he’d taken the opportunity to amuse himself royally while he did it. He’d sorted and turned in the material in the most confusing way, attached hard-to-read handwritten scraps of paper with questions and opinions on everything between heaven and earth, which was innocent enough and totally uninteresting if it was really him that they were after. The auditors might as well have to earn their keep while they were at it.

  . . .

  Berg never ceased to surprise him. Waltin had been completely convinced that the coward would roll over when he tossed Hedberg out on the table. But he hadn’t. Instead Berg had obviously thrown a wrench into his plans, even if he’d needed that fat-ass Persson in order to put up real resistance. Inspected closely, his own cards weren’t especially good, either. What could he say? That he had reason to suspect that his own operative had killed Krassner and feigned his suicide? In which case, why had he kept quiet about the matter for more than two months? Not good, not good at all.

  But apart from his mounting irritation at a totally incompetent boss, there was nothing to suggest that if everyone just sat quietly in the boat, things would go wrong. As it was now, they were in the process of dismantling a perfectly functioning organization simply because some social democrats in the government office building wanted to be ornery with them. This was pure madness, and even wanting to discuss the matter at all showed how weak you were. He’d spoken with Hedberg on the telephone several times but he seemed almost evasive. Did he suspect anything? Did he have any clue that Waltin was trying to lure him home to Sweden in order to lock him up in prison? Hedberg was far from being a genius, but he was sufficiently intelligent for the kind of thing Waltin usually used him for. He was a calm, likable person, and above all else he was reliable. In addition, considering their history together, he was the very last person Waltin wanted to quarrel with. Anyone at all, but not Hedberg.

  Finally he’d been forced to take the bull by the horns and explain to Hedberg that he now so help me God had to come home to Sweden to help clean up. There were things that Waltin didn’t understand and that Hedberg might possibly help him with. The sort of things that you couldn’t discuss on the telephone, for they both knew that so-called secure lines only existed in the believer’s imagination. And perhaps if he now distrusted Waltin, he ought to take a look at the amounts that had flowed into the company’s account recently. Money that Waltin had turned over to Hedberg with full confidence and that he would naturally never be able to demand back if Hedberg turned difficult. Clearly he’d bought that argument, for the last Saturday in February he’d suddenly phoned from Arlanda on Waltin’s secret number to report that he was on the scene.

  Waltin had put him up in the apartment at Gärdet where he’d lived when he’d come over most recently to help with Krassner. Not to remind him in any way, but simply because that was the most secure he had to offer at the moment. It was at the disposal of the external operation and only he knew about it. Berg obviously had no inkling about it, and it was a so-called secure address. It was not a place where people from the open operation might come rushing in at any moment. Besides, it was a nice place to stay. Waltin himself had made use of it on a few occasions, and if it was good enough for him with his demands for seclusion and comfort, then it was more than good enough for Hedberg.

  When they met, Hedberg said little, as usual, but there must have been something more that was weighing on him because he started by saying that he could only stay until next Saturday. Partly because he’d been planning to return to Java for a long time, partly because he had to see to getting his boat in the water.

  “Fine with me,” said Waltin good-humoredly. “Then we’ll just scrape together as much as we have time and energy for.”

  During the work-filled days that followed they also started to find each other again. Hedberg softened, and Waltin started to regain his confidence. On Thursday, when they were done for the most part with what they needed to do, Waltin treated him to a nice dinner at an out-of-the-way place, and when they were sitting with their coffee Hedberg opened up.

  “At first I thought you intended to set me up,” he said suddenly, looking at Waltin.

  “Oh well,” said Waltin, making an effort to sound both relaxed and sufficiently uninterested. “If anything it’s probably the case that you know considerably more about this than I do. The only thing I’ve understood is that wham-bam Berg has my head on a platter.”

  “Yes,�
�� said Hedberg, smiling wanly. “I got that. And I certainly think you understand that I’m not the type to set you up.”

  No, thought Waltin with feeling, for in that case you’d no doubt dream up something considerably worse.

  “Sometimes it’s best not to know something,” said Hedberg cryptically.

  You’re telling me, thought Waltin.

  Then Hedberg sat quietly for almost a minute while he twirled his spoon in his coffee cup, and that must have been when he decided, for he’d spilled everything that up till that moment Waltin had been forced to figure out for himself.

  “There wasn’t anything really wrong with that American,” said Hedberg, for some reason choosing not to refer to him by name. “It was those fucking social democrats that were after him to protect that traitor they had as a boss.” He didn’t go into how he now knew that. “He’d managed to worm his way in with the CIA and sold them out too. To the Russians, of course, since they were the ones he was working for the whole time. Ever since he was a little snot-nosed kid,” clarified Hedberg.

  “I guess I’ve suspected a thing or two over the years,” said Waltin, sighing. Would have been fun to read those papers you took with you, he thought.