The Dying Detective

by Leif G. W. Persson

  ‘Bound to be,’ Johansson said. Or in an old cardboard box in the basement of police headquarters, he thought.

  ‘In case it’s any use to you, there’s a copy of the post-mortem report among these papers,’ Alf Hult said, tapping his skinny forefinger on the sheaf of papers he had put on Johansson’s coffee table.

  ‘It will all work out,’ Johansson said. It will all work out, he thought.

  67

  Wednesday evening, 4 August

  That evening, Johansson had dinner with Max. Italian, ordered from a nearby restaurant. Pia was out at an official bank dinner. It was the first time she had left him in the evening since he got out of hospital, and he more or less had to push her out of the door before she finally left.

  ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ Pia said when she was standing in the hall in her coat.

  ‘For God’s sake, dear,’ Johansson said. ‘Are you worried Max is going to mug me, or what?’

  So he ate dinner with his very own Little Evert. Venison stew and pasta, the healthy sort, which wasn’t half as nice as the sort he usually ate; with mineral water. While Max laid the table Johansson sat on a chair leafing through the newspaper and watching him work.

  ‘I want red wine,’ Johansson said, putting the evening paper down and nodding towards the wine rack. ‘Open something Italian. That one with the black label,’ he added, to be on the safe side, out of consideration for Max’s doubtless limited knowledge on the subject.

  ‘Of course, boss,’ Max said.

  After the end of the meal Max went and sat in the living room, where he turned the television on and watched a Spanish football match. Johansson lay down on the sofa in his study, with the firm intention of finishing the rest of the bottle that Max had opened for him.

  Let’s see, said the blind man, Johansson thought, picking up the latest bundle of papers his brother-in-law had left him.

  First, he read the post-mortem report. There was strong evidence to suggest suicide, and the only thing that had really caused the pathologist any trouble was the precise time of Vera Nilsson’s death.

  Hardly surprising, Johansson thought. The little bastard probably needed twenty-four hours to search her flat to make sure she hadn’t left any notes or papers that could mess things up for him.

  Then his faithful companion, his headache, made its presence felt, and he moved on to a more aimless leaf-through of old probate papers and excerpts from the population register. In the middle of everything he found the CV that Staffan Nilsson had fabricated when he applied for the job of running his aunt Margaretha Sagerlied’s foundation, having been forced to do so by its chairman, a lawyer with a fondness for formalities.

  At the top, the date when the document had been composed: ‘Stockholm, 15 April 1983’.

  Then the heading: ‘Curriculum Vitæ of Staffan Leander Nilsson, born 5 October 1960’. But no ID number, which was probably just as well, given what Johansson’s brother-in-law had said about the veracity of the document.

  At the bottom, the CV had been signed by Staffan Nilsson: ‘The undersigned hereby solemnly attests on his honour that the information provided above is in entire accordance with the truth.’ The signature was a little florid for a young man of twenty-two, and the concluding flourish certainly didn’t show any sign of a lack of self-confidence.

  Between the heading and the concluding signature was Staffan Nilsson’s summary of his life.

  His education started in 1967, at the Engelbrekt School on Valhallavägen in Stockholm, and, nine years later, in 1976, its opening stage concluded. He started high school that autumn, at Norra Real on Roslagsgatan in Stockholm. Both schools were located close to Birger Jarlsgatan, where he and his mother lived.

  He spent three years at high school, specializing in economics, and in the spring of 1979 Nilsson claimed to have graduated. In the autumn of the same year he started a degree course in economics at Uppsala University, where he spent two years before ‘taking a sabbatical to gain practical experience’ for a year, apparently at Ericsson’s headquarters in Stockholm. By the autumn of 1982 that particular experience was behind him, whereupon he embarked on a ‘sabbatical term of linguistic study’, which he spent in ‘England and France’. In January 1983 he returned to Sweden, where he intended to ‘conclude his studies towards his degree in economics at Uppsala University’.

  So much for the formal part, solemnly attested on his honour.

  The following section dealt with the various summer jobs and other employment he had had during the course of his studies.

  Such an industrious little bastard, Johansson thought as he began to read.

  At the age of sixteen, his first summer job had been as a ‘chef’s assistant’ at the Strand Hotel in Stockholm. The following summer he was a ‘waiter’ at the Mornington Hotel, and the two summers after that an ‘assistant receptionist’ at the same establishment. He passed his driving test in the autumn of 1979, and spent the summers of 1980 and 1981 working as an ‘executive assistant and acting restaurant manager’ of the restaurant at Skokloster Castle and Museum outside Sigtuna.

  Who’d have thought it? thought the former head of the National Crime Unit, Lars Martin Johansson, as he put down the mini-biography that Staffan Nilsson had himself compiled, two years and two months before Yasmine Ermegan was found raped, murdered and hidden in the reeds, just a couple of kilometres from his old workplace.

  68

  Thursday afternoon, 5 August

  Another day in Lars Martin Johansson’s new life. First, a glass of water to wash down the now vital medication that he laboriously picked out of the little red plastic box with his left hand. Then into the shower before he ate his healthy breakfast, consisting, as it did, mainly of yoghurt, fruit and muesli.

  Then he read the morning paper, lying on the sofa in his study, without a headache, even though he ploughed through the news, the finance section and the arts supplement. Feeling overconfident, he therefore embarked upon the sudoku, which had been part of his daily routine in his old life. Two minutes later, his headache was back.

  He tossed the newspaper aside and settled back on the sofa, trying to focus his gaze inward and regain a sense of calm. Deep breaths, trying not to think about anything at all, following all the advice in the little book about meditation and inner peace that his eldest grandchild had given him.

  How in the name of all that’s holy can you think of nothing? Johansson thought. It’s a contradiction in terms.

  ‘You’ve got a visitor,’ Matilda said. ‘It’s your best friend. You know, the alpha male.’

  The previous evening, Jarnebring had returned from his romantic holiday in Thailand – a thin, fit and suntanned Jarnebring, with a wolfish glint in his eyes, and no sign of a twenty-hour flight.

  ‘I’ve just spoken to the lad Evert sent you,’ Jarnebring said, nodding towards the closed door. ‘I presume he’s more pleasant than he looks.’

  ‘He’s a quite excellent young man,’ Johansson said. ‘He’s kind and pleasant, he isn’t stupid, and he does what I tell him.’ Unlike everyone else, he thought.

  ‘So how are you getting on?’ Jarnebring asked.

  ‘With what?’

  ‘With Yasmine,’ Jarnebring said.

  ‘Splendidly,’ Johansson said. ‘I’ve found the perpetrator, just as I promised you. He’s still alive, and all that remains to be done now is sorting out a few formalities.’

  ‘Because it’s you, I believe you,’ Jarnebring said. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘His name is Staffan Leander Nilsson, born on 5 October 1960. Single, no children, lives in Frösunda, out in Solna. I don’t have any information about his work, but I get the impression that he’s got a finger in all sorts of pies. A variety of activities, you might say.’

  ‘Stop fucking with me, Lars. You know very well what I mean. How did you find him?’

  ‘Internal detective work. It wasn’t even particularly hard. Just before I fell asleep last night I even got it into m
y head that that little fat nightmare Evert Bäckström would have found him if he’d received the same tip-off that I got three days ago.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Lars,’ Jarnebring said. ‘Think about what you’re saying. I mean, I was part of that investigation as well.’

  ‘And if you’d received the same tip-off, I’m convinced that you wouldn’t have needed more than two or three days.’

  ‘So what do we do now, then?’

  ‘Good question,’ Johansson said. ‘I was thinking of taking a look at the bastard. Getting hold of his DNA, which ought to be a formality, seeing as I know we’re going to get a match for him. But what do we do after that? Good question. The case is prescribed, after all, and, if I’ve understood correctly, that means that we’re simply supposed to forget he exists.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Lars,’ Jarnebring said. ‘You can’t mean that?’

  ‘No,’ Johansson said. One thing at a time, he thought.

  ‘So what do we do now?’

  ‘We make sure that it definitely is him,’ Johansson said. ‘Even I have been known to be wrong.’ But I’m not this time, he thought.

  ‘At the risk of being annoying, what do we do?’

  ‘I thought we might start by digging out the investigation into Staffan Nilsson’s mother’s death.’

  ‘I’ll talk to Herman,’ Jarnebring said. ‘He’ll—’

  ‘Without talking to Herman,’ Johansson interrupted. ‘From now on, we don’t talk to anyone but each other. You and me, no one else, and definitely no former colleagues.’

  ‘I understand,’ Jarnebring said. ‘You’ve heard what happened to Herman’s granddaughter?’

  ‘Yes,’ Johansson said. ‘Her dad, P-2, told me.’ The same Patrik Åkesson who probably saved my life, he thought.

  ‘So don’t worry,’ Johansson added. ‘There’s no way I’m going to let the bastard get away. The lawyers and the other well-meaning fools can shove the statute of limitations where the sun doesn’t shine.’

  ‘Good,’ Jarnebring said. ‘Give me Nilsson’s mother’s name and I’ll set to work.’

  ‘Everything you need is in that plastic sleeve there.’ Johansson pointed at his coffee table. ‘And because I trust you implicitly, I’ve even written down how I worked out what happened.’

  ‘Just out of curiosity,’ Jarnebring said, ‘who was your informant?’

  ‘You get everything but the name of my informant,’ Johansson said, with a stern expression. There have to be some limits, he thought.

  69

  Friday, 6 August

  While Johansson was sitting in the kitchen having his lunch, Jarnebring phoned him on his mobile.

  ‘All right?’ Jarnebring said.

  ‘Excellent,’ Johansson said, even though his head ached and the tightness in his chest was making it hard to take deep breaths. ‘I’m sitting here eating fried herring,’ he said. Fried Baltic herring with new potatoes. Sometimes, you just have to be grateful, he thought.

  ‘Don’t bother to save me any,’ Jarnebring said. He was a notorious meat-eater. ‘I’ve found that report.’

  ‘That was quick,’ Johansson said, barely able to conceal his surprise.

  ‘Had a stroke of luck. See you in half an hour.’

  As usual, Johansson was lying on his sofa when Jarnebring walked into his study, shut the door behind him, sat down and put a thin plastic folder on the coffee table.

  ‘The investigation into the death of Nilsson, Vera Sofia, born in 1921,’ Jarnebring said. ‘Conducted by the old crime section in Stockholm. Circumstances unclear, according to the initial report.’

  ‘Where did you find it?’ Johansson said, thinking that it had happened suspiciously quickly, bearing in mind their agreement not to involve any former colleagues in their endeavours.

  ‘I had a real stroke of luck, like I said. Do you remember that old medical officer, Lindgren? Tall, skinny, spoke in a whisper, could never look anyone in the eye, completely mad, if you ask me?’

  ‘No,’ Johansson said. ‘I don’t remember that one.’ They’re all mad, surely? he thought.

  ‘It suddenly occurred to me that his dissertation was about suicides. He kept nagging me when he was working on it, asking if I had any interesting cases for him.’

  ‘And?’ Johansson said. Get to the point, he thought.

  ‘Turns out that Vera Nilsson was one of the cases he looked at. He found her in one of the boxes they had at the forensic medical centre out in Solna.’

  ‘Excellent. So what do you make of Mrs Nilsson’s death, then?’

  ‘Suicide. I took a look at it while I had an expert in the vicinity – I had coffee with Lindgren. According to him, it was an obvious suicide, despite the absence of a note. Large quantities of sleeping pills and a serious amount of alcohol. Her heart gave out. Organ failure, all that. Read it for yourself,’ Jarnebring said, passing him the investigation.

  ‘My head hurts,’ Johansson said. ‘But I’m happy to listen.’ There was bound to be a letter, he thought. And her son had decided to keep it under wraps.

  ‘Her son was the one who found her, our very own Staffan Leander Nilsson. He was questioned when the initial report was set up. Very briefly, by the first patrol on the scene. He said he’d tried to call his mother several times, and even rang at her door. No answer. So he got worried. He said they had pretty much daily contact and that he lived in the same building as her. Naturally, he had keys to her flat, so he let himself in. He found her dead on the sofa and called the police at once.’

  Remarkable, he thought. ‘Was that the only time he was questioned?’ Johannson asked.

  ‘No,’ Jarnebring said. ‘A week later, once Forensics had turned up and done their thing, he was called in for an interview, to establish what had happened, because Forensics reacted to the fact that the flat seemed to have been searched. They hadn’t come across anything properly suspicious, but enough for them to think it a bit odd.’

  ‘So what did little Staffan have to say about that?’

  ‘He said in the interview that his mother had been very depressed for the past year. Apparently, it started when she gave up work the previous summer. She started to drink heavily. According to her son, she could be seriously drunk several days a week and, on a number of occasions when that happened, she became extremely confused.’

  ‘Who’d have thought it?’ Johansson said.

  ‘Quite,’ Jarnebring agreed. ‘If she’d worked out that it was her son who raped and murdered little Yasmine, she can’t have been feeling great.’

  ‘No, hardly. Which of our colleagues in Crime was in charge of the investigation?’

  ‘Alm,’ Jarnebring said with a grin. ‘More commonly known in the violent crime unit as Woodentop. It was actually his boss, Fylking – you remember, Superintendent Pisshead – who dropped the investigation. No crime, according to Fylking, and, seeing as they were up to their eyes in the murder of our beloved prime minister, no one raised any objections. And, as I said, I’m inclined to share that opinion.’

  ‘Nothing else?’ Johansson asked, waving the papers he had been given in a desultory way.

  ‘There was an old friend of hers, used to work with her, who got in touch with the police. She’s the one who called a week or so after Vera Nilsson killed herself. Said she found it very hard to believe that Vera would have committed suicide. And she didn’t buy the idea that she’d started drinking like a fish. According to this friend, Vera had always been careful with alcohol. She wasn’t a teetotaller, by any means, but she was very moderate in her habits. She described her as cheerful and positive, pretty much the ideal workmate during the time they worked together.’

  ‘Did they still see each other, then? Before Vera Nilsson killed herself?’

  ‘Ongoing contact over many years. At work, of course, but also privately. Alm pushed her on that point, and she said that Vera Nilsson had seemed more worried than usual over the previous few months. She had even asked her why but got no real
explanation. Her friend said in the interview that she more or less assumed that it was something to do with Vera’s son. According to the friend, he’d always been idle and useless. A source of constant worry to his mother. The last time they spoke, again according to the friend, was on the phone a few weeks before Vera Nilsson died.’

  ‘I see.’ Johansson sighed.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ Jarnebring asked.

  ‘I need to think,’ Johansson said.

  ‘Lars, for God’s sake. Pull yourself together!’

  ‘Have you got any better suggestions, then?’

  ‘How about we stop beating around the bush? Get a DNA sample from the bastard and, if we get a match, we don’t have to do any more reading.’

  ‘I hear what you’re saying,’ Johansson said. ‘Let me think about what to do over the weekend.’

  ‘Okay,’ Jarnebring said. ‘If you change your mind in the meantime, just give me a call. And we’ll head out into the field, hit the streets, put our ears to the ground.’

  Need to think, Johansson thought. How the hell am I supposed to do that with a head that starts aching like a bastard the minute I try?

  70

  Saturday, 7 August

  After breakfast Pia went off into the country to pick mushrooms with her best friend.

  ‘Try not to get into any mischief, now, boys,’ Pia said, kissing her husband on the lips and giving Max a motherly hug.

  ‘We promise,’ Johansson said, already looking forward to a serious, old-fashioned long lunch with his very own little lad. Perhaps I should call Jarnebring, too? he thought.

  Jarnebring thought it sounded like an excellent idea. Such a good idea, in fact, that Max was welcome to go and pick him up from home. Two hours later, they were sitting in the car on the way to what Johansson usually called ‘his country inn’, which, very practically, happened to be located on the island of Djurgården in Stockholm.