by Leif Persson
Which left transport for the trip down to Växjö, as well as while they were there. For some reason there were plenty of cars, and Bäckström laid claim to the three best. For himself he picked the largest four-wheel drive Volvo they had, with the biggest engine and so much extra equipment that the boys in the technical section must have been on a high when they fitted it out.
That’s pretty much it, Bäckström thought, ticking off his little list. All that remained was his own packing, but when he started thinking of that he suddenly began to feel uneasy. Drink wasn’t a problem. For once he had a hell of a lot of booze at home. One of his younger colleagues had been on a big shopping trip to Tallinn over the weekend and Bäckström had bought a considerable proportion of the booty: whisky, vodka and two crates of export-strength lager that was absolute dynamite.
But what the hell am I going to wear? In his mind’s eye he could see his broken washing machine, the overflowing linen basket and the piles of dirty laundry that had been growing in the bedroom and bathroom for almost a month now. Only that morning before he set off for work he had run into problems. Freshly showered and sparkling clean he had stood there, for once not the slightest bit hungover, and he’d had a devil of a job before finally sniffing his way to a shirt and a pair of underpants that wouldn’t make people think of a Danish cheese-shop if he had to talk to them. It’ll sort itself out, Bäckström thought, suddenly struck by a brilliant idea. First a quick detour past the shopping centre on Sankt Eriksgatan to get something nice and new. He wasn’t short of cash any more, and – on further reflection – he could simply take the dirty laundry from home with him and hand it in at the hotel down in Växjö. Brilliant, Bäckström thought. But first a bit of lunch, because it would be a serious dereliction of duty to embark upon a murder case with an empty stomach.
Bäckström had eaten a decent lunch at a Spanish restaurant in the vicinity, with a lot of tapas and other suitably summery delights. Because he had decided that his employers could foot the bill for this, he added a not entirely present informer to the receipt. This informant had had the good sense to drink two large glasses of beer. Bäckström himself, because he was on duty, had made do with a simple mineral water, and when he emerged, replete and fortified, on to the street again he felt better than he had in ages. The sun’s shining and life is looking up, he thought, setting off towards his own flat. He didn’t even need to take a taxi, because for the past few years he had lived in a nice little flat on Inedalsgatan, just a couple of minutes’ walk from police headquarters close to Kronoberg Park.
He had got the flat from an old colleague who had retired some years ago, someone he had got to know during his time in the violent crime division in Stockholm. His former colleague had moved out to his summer cottage, out in the archipelago, where he could drink himself to death in peace and quiet, doing a bit of fishing while he was at it. As a result, he no longer had any need of his flat in the city, and had transferred the contract to Bäckström.
Bäckström himself had sold his own flat to a younger colleague in regional crime who had been kicked out of his place because he’d had an affair with a uniformed officer, but because she was already married to a third colleague who worked in the rapid-response unit and could be a mean bastard at times couldn’t move in with her. So instead he had bought Bäckström’s flat. Cash, no tax, and an affordable price, in return for helping Bäckström move his things to his new place on Kungsholmen. Two rooms, kitchen and bathroom, on the second floor in a block tucked inside a courtyard. Reasonable rent, mostly elderly neighbours who never made any noise and had no idea that he was in the police, so things couldn’t be better.
The only problem was that he had to get hold of a woman who would do his cleaning and washing in return for a few good seeings-to in Bäckström’s sturdy pine bed from Ikea. Because right now it looked like shit, Bäckström thought as he packed his dirty washing in a suitably large sports bag for onward transportation to the Town Hotel in Växjö.
It would have been best if he could have taken his whole flat with him and handed it in at reception, he thought. What the hell, it’ll sort itself out. Bäckström fetched a cold beer from the fridge. Once he’d packed a second bag with everything else he needed, he was suddenly struck by a terrible thought. It was as if someone had grabbed him from behind by the collar and shaken him: in recent years, this had happened rather too often. What the hell am I going to do with Egon?
Egon was named after the retired colleague who had sorted the flat for him, but otherwise they weren’t terribly similar, because Bäckström’s Egon was a goldfish of the most common variety whereas the man whose name he bore was an almost seventy-year-old former police officer.
Bäckström had been given Egon and his aquarium by a woman he had met six months ago. He had replied to a contact advert he had seen on the internet. What had prompted him to reply was partly the advertiser’s description of herself, but mainly the way she signed off: uniform a plus. Bäckström might have been careful to avoid wearing a uniform since he became big enough in the force to defend himself, but who cared about details like that?
To start with it had worked very well. Her description of herself as a liberated and broad-minded woman hadn’t been entirely without foundation. Not to start with, only after a while, when she turned out to be remarkably similar to all the other whining women who had passed through his life. And things had turned out the way they usually did, with the exception of Egon, because he was still there. Things had now got so bad that Bäckström had started to feel attached to him.
The emotional breakthrough in Egon and Bäckström’s relationship had happened a couple of months before, when Bäckström had been forced to go off into the country for a week on a murder case, and consequently had no opportunity to feed a goldfish each day.
First he had called the woman who had lumbered him with his little swimming dilemma, but she had just shouted at him and hung up. Oh well, if it works, it works, Bäckström thought, and in spite of the warning on the side of the container he had tipped half a pot of food into the aquarium before he set off. That’s the advantage of having a goldfish, he thought as he sat in the car on the way to the murder investigation. You can’t flush a dog down the lavatory if it croaks, and he could probably get a few hundred for the aquarium if he put an advert online.
When he returned ten days later it turned out that Egon was still alive. Admittedly, he had seemed considerably brighter before Bäckström had set off, and he had spent a few days swimming at an odd angle, but after that he had been his usual self again.
Bäckström was impressed and had even mentioned Egon in the staffroom at work – ‘an unusually tenacious little bastard’ – and that was more or less when he started to get attached to him. Sometimes he even found himself sitting there in the evenings, sipping a well-earned drink after a long, trying day at work, just looking at him. Watching how Egon swam back and forth and up and down, apparently not the slightest bit bothered that there were no little fishy ladies in the vicinity. You’ve got it worked out, lad, Bäckström would think. Compared to all the useless nature documentaries on television, Egon was a clear winner.
I’ll just have to make sure the case doesn’t take too long, Bäckström thought, feeling slightly guilty as he measured out a hefty dose of food with his thumb and tipped it into his silent little friend’s aquarium. And if things looked likely to drag on, he’d simply have to call work and ask one of his colleagues to take over the daily routine.
‘Take care, lad,’ Bäckström said. ‘Daddy’s got to go away and do some work. See you soon.’
Quarter of an hour later he was sitting in the car on the way to Växjö together with two of his colleagues from the murder squad.
5
TWO OF THE younger talents in the unit, Detective Inspectors Erik Knutsson and Peter Thorén weren’t particularly bright sparks but at least they usually did what Bäckström told them. At work they were known as Hans and Fritz, after the old
cartoon characters, and apart from the fact that Hans was fair and Fritz had dark hair they were easily mixed up. They almost always appeared together, they talked more or less incessantly over each other, and if you closed your eyes it was actually impossible to work out which of them was speaking.
Knutsson was driving while Thorén sat alongside reading out loud from a tourist guide to Växjö that he had downloaded from the internet. Bäckström himself had spread out across the back seat in order to be able to think about the case in peace and quiet, accompanied by another cold beer.
‘Sorry, Bäckström,’ Thorén said. ‘Växjö’s not on the coast. It’s about a hundred kilometres from the Baltic. It’s got a cathedral, a county governor and a university. You must be thinking of Västervik. Or Kalmar, maybe. Kalmar and Västervik are both on the coast. In Småland. You know, Astrid Lindgren and all that. Looks like there are about seventy-five thousand people in the town. In Växjö, I mean. How many available women does that work out at? Any idea, Erik?’
‘Is it too much to hope that we might hear something about the case?’ Knutsson asked crossly. ‘Probably a couple of thousand, at least,’ he added, sounding much happier all of a sudden.
‘Our colleagues in Växjö are going to fax the details through as soon as they’ve put something together,’ Bäckström said, nodding towards the instrument panel between the seats.
‘They must know something by now,’ Knutsson persisted.
Moan, moan, moan, Bäckström thought with a sigh.
‘This morning they found a young woman murdered in her flat. Strangled. If you can believe what the local sheriffs say, it seems to have been about sex. Perpetrator unknown, and all that. If we’re lucky, they’re wrong and we can go and pick up her boyfriend straight away.’
‘And that’s all we know?’ Knutsson said sceptically. ‘So did she have a boyfriend, then?’
‘Doesn’t look like it,’ Bäckström said hesitantly. ‘There’s also a minor complication. She’s one of our own.’
‘What?’ Knutsson exclaimed. ‘A police officer?’
‘That’s bad,’ Thorén said. ‘A police officer. That doesn’t happen every day. Not if it’s a sex crime, I mean.’
‘Almost a police officer,’ Bäckström clarified. ‘She was training in Växjö. Was due to finish next year. Looks like she was spending the summer working in Växjö police station. Behind the reception desk.’
‘What the hell’s going on?’ Knutsson wondered, shaking his head. ‘What sort of moron kills a trainee police officer for sex?’
‘If it’s someone she knows, there’s a fair chance it’s another officer,’ Bäckström said. ‘Mind you, it might not be as bad as that,’ he added when he saw the hostile look in Knutsson’s eyes in the rear-view mirror.
‘Looking on the bright side, it ought to be easier than your average prostitute murder,’ Thorén said encouragingly. ‘I mean, at least we won’t have to deal with all the weird clients and criminal contacts and all that.’
That’s hardly likely to be the big problem this time, lad, so you can forget about that, Bäckström thought. ‘Let’s hope so,’ he said. ‘Let’s hope so.’
They were just passing Norrköping when their colleagues down in Växjö sent the fax, but considering what they sent they might as well not have bothered. First a map of Växjö with the scene of the murder marked by a circle, and the way to the hotel marked with arrows. Completely unnecessary, since Thorén had already found the same map on the internet and the first thing Knutsson had done was type in the address of the hotel on the car’s sat-nav.
Then came a short message from the head of the local investigating team, welcoming them and informing them that the investigation had started and was being conducted according to routine, that further information would follow as soon as he had anything to send, and that the first meeting of the team was due to take place at nine o’clock the following morning in the police station in Växjö.
‘DS Bengt Olsson from regional crime in Växjö is evidently going to head up the preliminary investigation,’ said Thorén, who was sitting closest to the fax machine and had both hands free. ‘Anyone you know, Bäckström?’
‘I’ve met him,’ Bäckström said, swallowing the last drops from the can. Slightly retarded, so things couldn’t be better, he thought. At least not for him, seeing as he had already worked out how he was going to manage this.
‘So what’s he like?’ Knutsson asked.
‘He’s the sympathetic type,’ Bäckström said.
‘Does he know anything about murder, then?’ Knutsson persisted.
‘I doubt it,’ Bäckström said. ‘But I dare say he’s been on lots of courses about violence against women and children and incest and debriefing and all that sort of thing.’
‘But he must have led at least one murder investigation?’ Thorén suggested.
‘A few years ago he made a big deal out of the ritual killing of a young immigrant girl that was supposed to have taken place in Småland some years back. He had some crazy informant who claimed she was there at the time.’
‘So what happened?’ Knutsson asked. ‘It was all fine. They sent the case up to us and we wrapped it up the following day. Then we sent them a letter explaining that the murder in question never actually took place. We thanked them for their concern and asked them to get back in touch if they had any more old ghost stories in their files.’
‘I think I remember that,’ Thorén said. ‘It was before my time, but isn’t he the one, Bengt Olsson, I mean, who’s known as the Ritual Killer detective among our older colleagues?’
‘That’s him,’ Bäckström said. ‘That’s his speciality. Ghosts and creepy old blokes and incense and sharpened canine teeth, capes and so on, then a nice debriefing before the officer staggers home from work.’ What do you mean, older colleagues? he thought. Fucking age-fascists.
‘What on earth’s happening to the force? Where are we heading?’ Thorén moaned.
‘I thought I just said that,’ Bäckström said. ‘So if you two gentlemen would be so kind as to shut up for a while, I’ll try to rest my weary head.’ Off he goes as well, he thought. Two idiots sitting in the front of the car.
The rest of the journey passed in relative silence. No more faxed messages. Knutsson and Thorén had carried on chatting to each other but at lower volume and without trying to draw Bäckström into the conversation. When they reached the Town Hotel in Växjö it was five o’clock in the afternoon, and because Bäckström was still feeling a little drowsy he decided to stretch out on his bed for a couple of hours before they met for dinner. Besides, their other colleagues hadn’t shown up yet.
He had been smart and called the hotel before they arrived so they could sneak straight up to their rooms without having to fight their way through the vultures from the fourth estate who had already started to gather in the lobby. He had also taken the opportunity to share out some work. After all, he was in charge. He told Knutsson to get in touch with the local force and pass on a message that he was otherwise engaged at the moment but would contact them as soon as possible, and would be there for the big meeting the following morning. Thorén had promised to organize Bäckström’s laundry, and would then take a trip out to the scene of the crime. He himself intended to take a well-deserved little nap.
‘After all, I’ve been on the go since first thing this morning,’ he said, already stretched out across the bed in his room. ‘And don’t forget to book a discreet table down in the restaurant for eight o’clock.’ At last, he thought when Thorén closed the door behind them. Then he adjusted the pillow and fell asleep more or less instantly.
6
HALF AN HOUR before dinner they all met in Bäckström’s room to catch up. Entirely natural, seeing as he was in charge, and if they met anywhere other than in the boss’s room there would be mutinous talk. Bäckström knew this of old, from both sides, having been both captain and crew member during his years in violent crime. But so far everythin
g seemed calm. All of his team had turned up. Alert and happy and almost a bit expectant, as if this were just some ordinary conference trip to Finland rather than a murder investigation.
First into Bäckström’s room was his old colleague, Detective Inspector Jan Rogersson, whom Bäckström had known ever since his days on the old violent crime division in Stockholm. He had travelled down alone and taken a detour via the police station in Nyköping to hand back some case notes on an investigation that had gone reassuringly cold. The victim’s widow had finally turned up her toes and stopped writing to complain to the judicial ombudsman. Rogersson had turned up at the hotel in Växjö a couple of hours after Bäckström. A good bloke, in Bäckström’s opinion, and practically the only one of the people he worked with that he could bear to spend time with outside work.
Bäckström felt alert and in the best of moods, freshly woken and freshly showered as he was, and he and Rogersson had taken the chance to down a couple of lagers and a bracing chaser or two before the others trooped in and disturbed the peace. Knutsson and Thorén arrived together, naturally. Knutsson had been at the police station, where he had met their new colleagues and been given a mass of documents. Thorén had handed in Bäckström’s dirty laundry and visited the crime scene, and neither of them was offered either beer or anything stronger when they turned up. On the contrary, as soon as they knocked on the door Bäckström had tucked away both bottles and glasses before opening up. They could do their drinking in their own time, he thought.
Last to arrive was Detective Superintendent Jan Lewin, who had driven down with their civilian assistant, Eva Svanström. It was a bit odd, because they had set off from Stockholm together before all the others and goodness knows how it could take seven hours to drive four hundred kilometres, but they all knew the answer so no one asked straight out.
‘Hope you had a good drive,’ Bäckström said with an innocent expression, looking at the only woman in the group. Alert, rosy and recently fucked, he thought. But far too skinny for his taste, so he might as well keep his mouth shut and let them get on with it.
