The knowledge of Police Superintendent Johansson’s existence had quickly raised the temperature at the office and generated some extensive activity at the CIA’s unit at the embassy in Stockholm. When it then came to their knowledge that Johansson was evidently in the United States—true, for other reasons, which one might reasonably conclude had nothing whatsoever to do with the Buchanan Papers, as his business trip had been arranged several months before Krassner went over to Sweden—the tension had approached the boiling point.
It had not been reduced by the fact that there were two circumstances that were hard to reconcile. Johansson could not possibly have gotten hold of Krassner’s letter, but at the same time he was inexplicably interested in both Krassner and Weissman. Could it be that he had simply developed suspicions about Krassner’s suicide? They knew about his close friendship with the policeman who had investigated the case, as well as the fact that Johansson was a very competent police officer.
Regardless of the reason for his trip, the analysts’ wrinkled brows had not contributed a thing until Johansson suddenly knocked on the door of Weissman’s home and she herself a full day later had told the whole, improbable story about “a shoe with a heel with a hole in it.”
The jubilation at the bureau had known no bounds when Weissman, in her inimitable Swedish-influenced Minnesota accent, had again related Johansson’s story. Liska himself laughed until the tears ran. Despite thirty years in the business this was the absolute best story he’d heard up till now that he could never tell.
“Jesus, guys,” giggled Sarah, “you should have seen that big Swedish cop just sitting there on my sofa … so full of that country-boy confidence … the real McCoy of the North Pole.”
So as far as Krassner was concerned the matter seemed to be more or less clear, even quite clear. He had actually been murdered because he had most unfortunately been confronted with a Swedish secret police operative, after which the latter tried to save his own rear end. Something that apparently he had also succeeded in doing. Regrettably by taking with him the rather discreet and innocent message they were trying to send to the Swedish secret police to be forwarded on to the person that it ultimately concerned.
. . .
On the other hand, the murder of the Swedish prime minister was quite a different story. That they had let Krassner carry on at all depended on the fact that all along they had counted on his being caught in the net of the Swedish secret police, which in a certain way he had been. In that way, without unnecessary drama, a “friendly warning” could be sent to Pilgrim—they did have a history in common, after all—the significance of which was that perhaps they were not always unreservedly willing to accept his constant criticism on questions that naturally belonged to the sphere of the political interests of the United States.
Which was why they’d allowed the completely preposterous accusation of the murder of Raven to remain in the papers that Johansson was allowed to take home with him. They themselves knew better, and the only reason the FBI hadn’t arrested the perpetrator was that he was already dead, and that it might have disturbed an ongoing and considerably more important investigation of a Mafia family in Cleveland, which had had a conflict with one of Raven’s clients and solved it by shooting the client’s representative when the latter had become too troublesome.
They had sat for several hours before they had finally come to agreement and decided to place the Buchanan Papers in the files under the usual seventy-five-year secrecy rule and with a special notation that “they, in all probability, had no connection with the murder of the Swedish prime minister” but rather “that this, in all probability, was an action of an isolated madman. Conceivable murderers of the prime minister within the circle of Swedish secret police officers and intelligence agents who had knowledge of Krassner are thus lacking, as are conceivable motives. The case is hereby closed, and no further actions will be taken by the bureau.” Liska noted it all on the cover of the file folder before it was carried down to the archive.
After that the meeting had been concluded on a high note and the majority of the participants had gone out and had two or even more beers together.
CHAPTER XXIII
And that wasn’t the life that I had imagined
Stockholm, March 12
When, on his birthday, Johansson turned on the TV to look at the daily press conference about the latest police progress in the hunt for the murderer of the prime minister, he understood immediately by the body language of the chief constable as he took his place at the podium that great things were in the making.
“Yes,” said the chief constable, smiling his usual solemn smile. “Today I have the pleasure of reporting that we have taken a person into custody as a suspect in the murder of the prime minister. It will be requested later today that he be arrested. This is a man in his thirties with connection to a known extreme right-wing organization …”
And when Johansson suddenly caught sight of Bäckström, who was clearly about to burst with delight, at the outer edge of the TV screen, he understood both how it had gone and that it couldn’t possibly be true. So he turned off the TV and decided that it was high time that he took himself by the collar if he was going to straighten out the loneliness that was actually in process of leading him away from himself.
It doesn’t cost anything to ask, thought Johansson, and considering that it’s your own birthday and not even the kids have called to congratulate you, you really don’t have much to lose. So he took a taxi to the little post office on Körsbärsvägen, and as soon as he strode in he caught sight of her and she of him. In addition she looked happy when she did so, and she immediately stood up and went to the counter.
She is no doubt the most beautiful woman I’ve seen up to now, thought Johansson, and she still has no ring on her finger, and the worst that can happen is that she says no.
“Police superintendent,” she said, smiling. “Come, let’s go into my office so we can talk in peace and quiet.
“I was listening to the radio,” she continued. “Perhaps I should say congratulations. I heard that you’ve gotten hold of the man who did it.”
“Well,” said Johansson. “You never know.” And we can take that up later, he thought, for regardless of everything else that doesn’t concern me anymore. “I didn’t come here to talk about that,” he said, and for some strange reason he almost sounded as if he were still living up in that out-of-the-way spot in Ådalen where he’d grown up.
“Why’d you come here, then?” she asked, looking at him with her big dark eyes.
Sweet Jesus, thought Johansson, and despite the fact that he had after all made the occasional hazardous arrest in his day, this was almost too much.
“I thought about asking if I could invite you to dinner,” said Johansson. It’s my birthday, he thought, but naturally he didn’t say that. For you didn’t say such things.
And as soon as he saw the expression in her eyes he understood how she would answer.
“That would have been really nice,” she said, “but I already have other plans.” I’ve actually met a new guy, she thought, but naturally she didn’t say that. For you didn’t say such things.
“That’s too bad. Perhaps another time,” said Johansson, smiling. He felt as if someone were bracing himself against his rib cage, trying to tear his heart out of his body. Then he smiled and nodded and left the place, and considering that all he’d gotten was a no, and a very friendly no besides, he understood how little it took to do him in.
. . .
What a peculiar man, thought Pia Hedin, looking after him. And as different as they could be, despite the fact that they were both police officers. First that big burly Norrlander with his attentive eyes and his slow-moving manner, who never got in touch, even though she thought she’d given the clearest of signals that time they’d met more than three months ago. And then Claes, her new love, whom she’d met at the bar just a week ago when she was out with a girlfriend and had almost started to giv
e up hope of ever meeting a normal guy. Claes with his perfect exterior and his devastating charm and all that sensitivity deep down inside, which she already knew was there the first time they looked at each other.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Leif GW Persson has chronicled the political and social development of modern Swedish society in his award-winning novels for more than three decades. Born in Stockholm, Persson has served as an adviser to the Swedish Ministry of Justice and is Sweden’s most renowned psychological profiler. He is a professor at Sweden’s National Police Board and is considered the country’s foremost expert on crime.
Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End: The Story of a Crime Page 61
