‘What about his daughters? Didn’t he want to stay in touch with them?’
‘When my successor, which is how I usually think of her, when she told him to get lost, he tried to establish contact. But it never worked. He kept promising things, but nothing ever turned out the way he said. Just a load of empty promises, and lots of crying from two upset little girls. When they were older they tried to stay in touch with him. Of course, that didn’t work either. I don’t think either of them has seen anything of him in the past ten years. Tommy was a child. A child who drank. He never grew up.’
‘When did you last see him?’
‘I only saw him once unofficially after I left him in ’83. That was a few years later. He came to my work, to St Göran’s. He wanted to borrow money. I agreed. A few hundred kronor. Naturally, I never got it back.’
‘Apart from that, then?’ Johansson said. ‘With your solicitor? Or social services? You must have had some form of contact.’
‘Maybe half a dozen times in total over the years. I’ve only met him once when there were just the two of us, and that’s when he came to the hospital wanting to borrow money. And I was stupid enough to give it to him.’
‘I see,’ Johansson said. What a fucking arsehole, he thought.
‘I know what you’re after,’ Erika Brännström said. ‘But if you think Tommy had anything to do with Yasmine’s death, you’re on the wrong track completely. Tommy would never do anything like that. That’s just how it is. Tommy was interested in grown-up girls, in women, and they were far too interested in him. Little girls ought to be pretty and happy and not cause trouble. He could barely manage to read them bedtime stories.’
‘I believe you,’ Johansson said. ‘To change the subject: in June 1985, when Yasmine was murdered, what were you doing then?’
‘I’d finally got some time off to have a proper holiday, for the first time in several years. Margaretha was going to meet up with a friend and go and stay at her place in the country. As soon as my eldest broke up from school I took the girls and went to stay with my parents. We were there all summer. We didn’t get back until the middle of August, just in time for the start of term. My youngest, Jessica, was starting school that year.’
‘My colleagues never got in touch with you, wanting to talk to you?’
‘No, why would they want to do that? I know they spoke to Margaretha, because she told me. But why would they have wanted to talk to me?’
‘Yes, quite,’ Johansson said. ‘Yasmine,’ he said. ‘Tell me about her.’
Yasmine moved into the house at the top of the road in the spring after Erika had started working for Margaretha Sagerlied. Together with her father and his new partner. It wasn’t long before the little girl was visiting her employer.
‘She was pretty – really pretty – a charming little girl, lively, happy and very theatrical. Not a little spoiled, either. So it was love at first sight between her and Margaretha. There was nothing wrong with her father, either, if I can put it like that.’
‘What was he like?’
‘Big and strong, very fit. Dark. Very handsome. And he was a doctor as well. Margaretha was very taken with him. She invited him and his partner to several parties. She was a doctor, too. I know that, the first time I saw them together – Yasmine’s dad and his new partner – was at one of Margaretha’s parties. I remember thinking to myself, I wonder how long that’s going to last.’
‘You thought that?’
‘He was like a magnet. All the women, no matter what age they were, they all wanted to go over and talk to him.’
‘The fact that he was an immigrant, from Iran, that didn’t make any difference?’
‘No, Margaretha wasn’t like that at all. Quite the contrary. Nor were any of her friends. Yasmine’s dad looked like a taller, younger, more handsome version of the Shah. And who wouldn’t want to be Farah Diba? I don’t suppose I’d have turned him down either.’
‘No?’
‘No, but as he never asked, I didn’t have to worry about that. I don’t think he was the sort who socialized with servants. He was charming and polite, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t really spare much of a thought for people like me.’
‘Yasmine,’ Johansson said. ‘Did she ever meet your daughters?’
‘I did think about that,’ Erika said. ‘When it happened, I thought about it. They never actually met. They might have said hello to each other at some point, but they never played together. Considering what happened later, that was probably just as well. I didn’t have to answer a lot of difficult questions, if I can put it like that.’
‘Yes, dear God,’ Johansson said. ‘What sort of person could do something like that to a little girl?’
‘I thought people like you knew that?’ Erika said in surprise. ‘Isn’t it your job to know that sort of thing?’
‘Yes,’ Johansson said. ‘But understanding it is a different matter.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Erika said. ‘That’s why there’s no reason for you to worry about Karolina and Jessica’s father.’
At some point during the autumn of 1985 Margaretha Sagerlied decided to sell the house in Äppelviken and move away.
‘I have an idea it was sold in the spring of 1986,’ Johansson said. ‘About nine months after the murder. Do you know why she wanted to move, all of a sudden?’ She’s like she was before, now, he thought: wary. Very obviously wary.
‘I’m not sure you could call it sudden. It was almost a year later, after all.’
‘Well,’ Johansson said. ‘You don’t sell a house like that overnight. And I believe the estate agents started showing people round in the autumn.’
‘I don’t think it’s odd at all,’ Erika Brännström said. ‘She’d talked about it for a while, saying the house was too big for her, that she was getting old, that she wanted to move into the city and was thinking of buying a small apartment in Östermalm so she could be close to everything.’
‘The house was too big?’ The house that was her museum, Johansson thought. A memorial to her life. Not a chance.
‘Yes, she’d talked about it for quite a while. She definitely had.’
‘What about what happened to Yasmine? You don’t think that could have influenced her? After all, she used to go and play round there. Considering what happened, those can’t have been particularly pleasant memories.’ Why are you lying to me? he thought.
‘No,’ Erika Brännström said, shaking her head. ‘I can see what you mean, but that certainly wasn’t something she ever mentioned.’
‘You helped her to move, if I’ve understood correctly, cleaning up afterwards, and so on?’
‘Yes,’ Erika said. ‘She’d bought an apartment in Östermalm, on Riddargatan. I helped her to move in there.’
‘What about after that?’ Johansson said.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Did you stay in touch with her? Presumably, she wanted you to carry on helping her?’
‘No,’ Erika said. ‘One of the reasons she wanted to move somewhere smaller was that she didn’t want to rely on anyone. And then she got ill. Cancer. She was sick for quite a while before she died, just a couple of years or so after she moved. We spoke on the phone a few times, but that was all.’
‘Did she call you, or did you call her?’ Why are you lying? Who are you trying to protect?
‘A bit of both. I called her, she called me.’
‘On a different subject,’ Johansson said. ‘Her social circle. If I’ve understood correctly, she mainly spent time with people of her own age. People from the same sort of background as her.’
‘Yes,’ Erika said. ‘With the exception of one or two neighbours, like Axel and his wife, and Yasmine’s father and his partner. Children of old friends. Adults, of course, but still around thirty or forty, something like that. The youngest ones, anyway.’
‘A direct question,’ Johansson said. ‘Was there any particular male acquaintance who was close to her? Around thirty ye
ars old, or thereabouts? Anyone she used to see regularly?’
‘How do you mean? If she was seeing a younger man?’
‘No, not like that. Someone she knew well, who helped her, maybe. A relative, an acquaintance, the son of one of her friends.’ Why are you pretending to be more stupid than you are? he thought.
‘No.’ Erika Brännström shook her head. ‘There was no one like that. If there had been, I’d have known about it.’
‘Of course.’ Johansson smiled. ‘What about your girls? I understand that things have gone well for them.’ More a statement than a question this time.
‘Yes,’ their mother said. ‘Things have gone well for them. They’re both married, with jobs and children of their own. How do you know that? Both my sons-in-law are perfectly normal, decent guys, in case you were wondering.’
‘Naturally,’ Johansson said. ‘Given that their wives had a mum like you, I mean.’
‘Well. It wasn’t always easy,’ Erika said.
‘I can imagine. Okay, then. Is there anything else we ought to talk about? Nothing you can think of?’ I’m giving you another chance, Johansson thought. Take it, for God’s sake, woman, so I don’t have to hurt you when there’s really no need.
‘No,’ Erika Brännström said. ‘Well, I’ve got an awful lot of laundry to do.’
He waited until they were standing in the little hallway and she was about to open the door for him. Then he put his hand in his jacket pocket and pulled out the little plastic bag containing the hairgrip. He held it up towards her. Even though he was practically forcing it upon her, she didn’t take it.
‘Actually, yes,’ Johansson said. ‘There was one more thing. You don’t recognize this?’
‘No,’ Erika Brännström said. ‘I can see that it’s a hairgrip, but it didn’t belong to either of my girls.’
‘You’re sure about that?’ Johansson said.
‘Yes, quite sure. I don’t want to seem like I’m trying to get rid of you, but I’ve—’
‘Think about it,’ Johansson said. ‘You’ve got my number. Think about it. Call me if you change your mind.’ He nodded to her.
Scared now, scared eyes; she hadn’t snapped at him, hadn’t got angry the way she would have been if what he had just said were wrong and nothing but an unfair accusation. I wonder where you found it? Johansson thought as he stood in the lift on his way downstairs. Must have been about the same time you noticed that a sheet and pillowcase were missing, possibly also a pillow, he thought. Some time in early autumn, 1985, when you did a thorough clean of the house after the holidays.
51
Wednesday, 28 July
More or less at the same time that Johansson’s best friend was putting on his bathing trunks and going for a late-evening swim in the Indian Ocean, Johansson was lying on the floor of his study, having almost knocked himself out. But before that, quite a bit had happened.
When Matilda served him his morning coffee, she asked if she could speak to him in private.
‘There’s something I need to talk to you about,’ she said. ‘If that’s okay.’
‘Go for it,’ Johansson said, smiling obligingly. Well aware of what was coming.
‘When I got home yesterday evening I found six thousand-kronor notes in my jacket pocket. I don’t suppose you know anything about that?’
‘No,’ Johansson said, shaking his head. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I’m serious,’ Matilda said. ‘I can’t accept money from our patients. Not as gifts, or loans. So that’s why—’
‘Stop going on,’ Johansson interrupted. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.’
‘We’ll have to talk about it later, then.’
‘I’m afraid I’m unlikely to know any more about it then,’ Johansson said with a cryptic smile.
‘I’ll be talking to Pia about it, just so you know.’
‘I think you should definitely do that. But I’m afraid she probably won’t know any more than me.’ Women, he thought. ‘Now you’ll have to excuse me,’ he said. ‘I need a bit of peace and quiet before you start carting me round to see all the white coats.’
‘Yes, we’re seeing your cardiologist today as well,’ Matilda said. ‘Before we go to see the physiotherapist.’
‘My cardiologist,’ Johansson said. ‘What an honour. My own neurologist, my own cardiologist, my own physiotherapist, and my own babysitter.’ All he was really missing was a life of his own, he thought.
First, the appointment with Johansson’s cardiologist, a small, fit man in his fifties with a bald head and alert brown eyes. The same expression in his eyes as the squirrels of his childhood before he squeezed the trigger and extinguished the light in their heads. His cardiologist also had the good judgement not to keep twitching his head the whole time. He simply sat there, smiling amiably, as he listened to Johansson’s chest, lungs and heart, examined the results of his ECG, and just looked at him in a more general sense.
‘It’s like this,’ Johansson said, thinking that it was just as well to have it over with. ‘I’ve worked as a police officer all my life. I’m used to hearing things straight, and I’m sick of all the bullshit from you and your colleagues. I want to know how I am, and the reason I want to know is because I think I’m in a pretty wretched state. I’m not one for complaining, either. So just tell it to me straight out.’
‘Okay,’ his cardiologist said. ‘Your heart has taken a serious battering over a lot of years,’ he said. ‘Your readings are poor. What worries me most is your blood pressure. We’ve got to get that down. Medication will help, but you have to lose weight, get more exercise and take things much easier. You’ve got to stop getting stressed, stop worrying and stop getting excited. Is that plain enough?’
‘Yes,’ Johansson said. ‘Should I be taking care of any practical arrangements, just in case?’
‘If you do as I tell you, you can probably wait a while before drawing up a new will.’
‘Good,’ Johansson said. Make the best of things, he thought. Make the best of what you’ve got when you haven’t got any choice.
After his exercise session his physiotherapist got the same question.
‘Look at this arm,’ Johansson said.
Then he raised his right arm in front of him, opened and closed his hand, stretched his right forefinger out.
‘Elk-hunting season starts in a month,’ Johansson went on. ‘I’ve hunted elk since I was a small boy. Will I ever be able to hunt again with this arm? Hold a rifle with it? Will I be able to pull the trigger with my right forefinger? Right now, I have hardly any feeling in my fingers, and I can’t even hold up my newspaper in the morning.’
‘It’s going to take time,’ she said.
‘What does that mean?’ Johansson said. ‘A year? Five years? Never?’
‘It’s impossible to say but, like I’ve said to you before, you mustn’t think like that, because—’
‘Thank you,’ Johansson interrupted. ‘Let me tell you, I’m seriously fed up with everyone telling me how to think.’ And not think, he thought.
What’s the point of a life that consists merely of counting down the days to the end? Johansson thought as he sat in the car on the way home. What sort of life is that?
‘You’ll have to excuse me if I’m nagging,’ Matilda said. ‘But it’s about that money.’
‘Yes, you really are fucking nagging,’ Johansson replied. ‘And I’m feeling really shit, so if you could shut up, I’d be grateful if you’d just drive me home. Otherwise, we can stop here and I’ll call a taxi.’
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.’
Now you’ve made someone else unhappy, Johansson thought.
‘What’s the point of a life that consists merely of counting down the days to the end? What sort of fucking life is that?’
‘You’ll get better,’ Matilda said. And patted him on the arm. ‘You’ll soon be back to normal. I promise.’
He ate his lunch alone, half lying on the sofa. He couldn’t even think of sitting on a chair at the same table as his babysitter. No wine, either. He just shook his head when she asked.
His head ached and his chest felt tight. I can’t do this, Johansson thought, and got up from the sofa to go to the bathroom to swallow one of the little white pills that could take him away from everything. He’d taken only a couple of steps when the floor suddenly lurched, his legs gave way beneath him and the walls started to spin. He flailed with his right arm in a vain attempt to find something to hold on to, then fell flat on his side as everything went black in front of his eyes.
‘Lie still,’ Matilda said, kneeling beside him. How did she get here? he thought.
‘Can you hear me? Can you move your legs? Try to flex your feet. I’m going to call for help,’ she said.
‘Like hell you are,’ Johansson said. ‘Help me up on to the sofa instead.’
‘You need to lie still.’ Matilda held her left hand to his chest as she pulled out her mobile with her right hand. ‘I’m calling Pia,’ she said. ‘Just take it easy.’
‘Like fuck you are,’ Johansson said. Then he pushed her away with his left arm. ‘If you call her I’ll kill you.’
She didn’t say anything, just shook her head and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.
It took him over five minutes to heave himself up on to the sofa. A sofa that was only a few metres away. When he finally got there, the door flew open and his eldest brother marched in.
‘Lunch at Gondolen. Pia called. What the hell is going on?’ Evert asked. He wasn’t prone to using extraneous words when time was short.
‘There’s not a damn thing going on,’ Johansson said. ‘I fell over, that’s all.’
‘Don’t talk crap,’ Evert said, and at that moment Matilda came back into the room.
‘I think he got up too quickly, his blood pressure dropped and he got dizzy and fell. I don’t think he—’
‘If you could just shut up and leave so I can have a quiet word with my brother,’ Evert said, gesturing in her direction with his hand.
The Dying Detective Page 19
