The Dying Detective

by Leif G. W. Persson

  Nor could he just sweep the whole thing under the carpet and move on. The fact that evil emerged victorious on so many occasions was bad enough, but letting it get away with such an easy victory as this was unthinkable. Not this time, because it was he who bore the ultimate responsibility – and if he was to be able to get on with his life, he needed to be able to do so at peace with himself and his conscience.

  That left talking to the bastard and getting him to realize what was best for him, Lars Martin Johansson thought.

  After breakfast he called his eldest brother to ask for his help with a number of practical details. Recently, Evert’s concerns about his welfare had become more and more time-consuming, and it had taken him more than five minutes before he was able to get to the point.

  ‘I need to ask for your help,’ Johansson said. ‘There’s a bastard I need to lay a trap for.’

  ‘Then you’ve come to the right man,’ Evert grunted. ‘How much money are we talking about?’

  ‘None at all,’ Johansson said. ‘This is worse than that.’ You haven’t changed, he thought.

  ‘You don’t want to tell me about it?’

  ‘No, maybe later. Once it’s all over.’ Assuming everything goes the way I hope, he thought.

  ‘I’d like to borrow your office,’ Johansson went on. ‘It’s all about making a credible impression,’ he explained. So he doesn’t suspect anything and run for the hills, he thought.

  ‘You don’t even have to ask,’ Evert said. ‘After all, it’s your office as well. Have a word with Mats, our number-cruncher.’

  ‘Thanks, brother,’ Johansson said.

  Then Lars spoke to Mats. Mats Eriksson was half Johansson’s age, had an MBA and was deputy MD of the group of companies owned by the Johanssons. Mats was responsible for the details, Evert for the big ideas which brought in the big money, and Lars sat on the board as a representative of both his own interests and those of the rest of the family.

  ‘It’s to do with an invitation to invest in a property venture in Thailand. Hotel, time-share apartments, houses, associated services. All the usual. I’ll courier the project proposal to you, and I want you to arrange a meeting on behalf of Johansson Holding Ltd with the company in charge of the project.’

  ‘What’s it called, then?’

  ‘Leander Thai Invest Ltd. The man in charge is called Staffan Nilsson, and he’s the person I want to meet.’

  ‘Staffan Nilsson,’ Mats said. ‘Hang on, are we talking about Staffan Leander Nilsson?’

  ‘Yes,’ Johansson said. ‘And it’s vital that I get to see him in person.’

  ‘Does Evert know about this?’

  ‘Yes,’ Johansson said. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because I know who Staffan Nilsson is,’ Mats said.

  ‘So do I. You don’t think I’m stupid, do you? I need a plausible reason to meet the man. Do you think you can arrange that for me?’

  ‘In that case, I understand. Do you want me to be there?’

  ‘Yes, definitely,’ Johansson said. ‘But I don’t want you to say a word about me and, specifically, nothing about my background, just that one of the proprietors will sit in on the meeting.’

  ‘Then I’ll check my diary,’ Mats said. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Johansson said. ‘I want to meet him tomorrow, or the day after at the latest. I want you to be there, but you don’t have to worry about my schedule. I can do either day.’

  ‘I’ll sort it out. I’ll call as soon as it’s arranged.’

  ‘One more thing,’ Johansson said, as a thought struck him. ‘It’s important that we host the meeting. In our office. No lunch, none of that nonsense. And I want him to come on his own, too.’

  ‘I don’t think we’ll have any trouble with that part,’ Mats Eriksson said. ‘Staffan Nilsson is the sort who has his office in his pocket, and his colleagues are easily counted. I’d never dream of offering a man like him lunch, so you don’t have to worry. Coffee and mineral water will be more than good enough.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Johansson said. Cocky little sod, he thought.

  Half an hour later Mats Eriksson called back.

  ‘It’s all arranged: a meeting here in the office on Friday at 1 p.m. If that’s okay for you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Johansson said. ‘See you the day after tomorrow.’ Back on the road again, he thought, and suddenly his headache was gone.

  Then he put all of Staffan Nilsson’s colourful brochures in an envelope and called Max in.

  ‘Something I can do for you, boss?’ Max asked.

  ‘I was going to ask you to take these papers and drop them off at Evert’s office here in Stockholm. It’s on Karlavägen—’

  ‘I know where it is,’ Max said. ‘In Östermalm, where all the rich people live.’

  88

  Thursday, 19 August

  When he woke up that morning the tightness in his chest was bearable, and he didn’t have a headache. As he leaned over the washbasin and rinsed his face, it occurred to him that it was high time he had a shave. You look a bloody mess, Johansson thought with a grimace as he looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. But he didn’t feel like doing it just then.

  When he sat down in the kitchen to have breakfast, Matilda made the same observation.

  ‘Are you planning on growing a full beard, boss?’ Matilda said.

  ‘Disguise,’ Johansson said, having just been struck by an idea that may not entirely have been an excuse for his lethargy in the face of his condition and his crumbling body.

  ‘Disguise?’

  ‘Secret mission,’ he explained. ‘Seeing as I shall soon be embarking upon a secret mission, I thought I should change my appearance.’ Not such a silly idea, he thought, considering all the times he’d appeared on television before he retired. And considering the fact that Staffan Nilsson seemed to be an alert individual, and no doubt particularly alert when it came to people like Johansson. And, not least, considering the fact that, back in the days when they worked in Surveillance for the Stockholm Police, he and Jarnebring used to disguise themselves as taxi-drivers, road workers and hotdog sellers.

  ‘I can sort that out for you,’ Matilda said. ‘I can disguise you so that not even your best friend would recognize you. All you need is a pair of sunglasses, the right clothes and a load of oil in your hair.’

  ‘No tattoos,’ Johansson said. Best to make that point very clear, he thought.

  ‘Not even a tiny ring in your ear?’ she said with a smile. ‘Don’t worry, boss.’

  Must be forty years ago now, Johansson thought. Back then, he had been a hotdog seller outside Johanneshov ice-hockey stadium, when he and Jarnebring were on the trail of a notorious flasher who had evidently chosen to combine his interest in hockey with his inner compulsion to wave his willy about.

  Jarnebring was ruled out of being a hotdog seller. Even then, he looked so terrifying that no one would have dared approach his stand, let alone ask for extra mustard and ketchup.

  But it hadn’t been a problem for Johansson at all.

  ‘Can I have some extra mustard?’ asked the willy-waver, moments before Jarnebring appeared behind him and grabbed him in a headlock.

  ‘Where do you want it?’ Jarnebring asked.

  Then they cuffed him, called for a patrol car to cart him off to jail and spent the rest of the evening watching Brynäs walking all over Djurgården down on the ice.

  Memories, Johansson thought. At least I’ve still got some of my memories left, he thought.

  ‘Hello there, boss!’ Matilda said. ‘Hello! Earth calling . . .’

  ‘Sorry,’ Johansson said. ‘I was miles away.’

  Then he went to see his physiotherapist. Not a place for any more thoughts or memories. Just physical effort: new, enforced routines, a daily and bitter reminder of a life lost. After that he went for a walk with Max. Neither of them said anything at all, because neither of them felt any need to do so. Calmer now, he thought, taking deep breaths as he
walked.

  Then he had lunch. He held back from his two glasses of red wine, so he could save them for dinner with Pia. And Max, of course, who nowadays functioned as the child of the house, even though he looked the way he did and – unlike ordinary children, and everyone else, come to that – moved without making any sound at all.

  While Johansson was lying on the sofa in his study, thinking about how best to make Staffan Nilsson an offer he couldn’t refuse, his phone rang. An unexpected call, with a surprising message.

  ‘Hello, boss,’ said Superintendent Hermansson from Regional Crime in Stockholm. ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you, boss?’

  ‘No,’ Johansson said.

  ‘And I hope all’s well with you, boss?’

  ‘Muddling on,’ Johansson said. Get to the point, you sycophantic bastard, he thought.

  ‘We’ve got a complication,’ Hermansson said. ‘I’m afraid I need those files about Yasmine that we lent you, boss.’

  ‘What for?’ Johansson asked. ‘I’ve only just got them.’ Something must have happened, he thought. Something that wasn’t only dependent upon Hermansson’s desire to satisfy his and his son-in-law’s curiosity.

  It was a complicated business, according to Hermansson. The member of the National Police Board in charge of research had been in touch. Evidently, a renowned group of researchers from Northwestern University outside Chicago in the USA had contacted him: they were planning to conduct a large comparative international study of violent sexual attacks against children and, consequently, wanted access to the police investigation into the murder of Yasmine Ermegan, among others.

  ‘Apparently, it’s part of a UN project dealing with trafficking,’ Hermansson said. ‘You know, when they sell women as sex slaves, sometimes even children.’

  ‘I hear what you’re saying,’ Johansson said. ‘But what does that have to do with Yasmine?’

  ‘Looks like they’ve been given a grant to expand the project to look into paedophiles who have killed young children as well. The investigation’s going to cover both Europe and the USA.’

  Who’d have thought it? thought Johansson, who had learned to hate not only coincidence but also other mysteriously synchronous occurrences.

  ‘So, if you don’t mind, I thought I’d call in and pick up those boxes containing the investigation,’ Hermansson said. ‘I certainly don’t want to put you to any bother. The simplest solution is probably if I just call in with my son-in-law.’

  How thoughtful of you, Johansson thought. ‘I’m afraid I’m busy this evening,’ Johansson said. ‘So it would have to be tomorrow.’

  ‘That’ll be fine, absolutely fine,’ Hermansson said. For some reason, he seemed unable to conceal his relief.

  ‘Give me a call tomorrow morning,’ Johansson said.

  The moment he put the phone down, he realized what was going on. You’ve started to lose your edge, he thought. How had his best friend described her? A young, attractive blonde? A young, attractive blonde who was only nineteen years old that summer twenty-five years ago when Yasmine Ermegan was raped and murdered.

  89

  Thursday evening, 19 August

  It hadn’t been particularly difficult to find out her home address; it was in the phone directory. And Matilda was still there, so he got her to make a nuisance call so as not to alarm her unnecessarily.

  ‘She’s at home,’ Matilda said. ‘Sounded like my sister usually sounds when she’s trying to put the kids to bed before settling down in front of the telly.’

  ‘Max,’ Johansson said, ‘you and I are going out.’ He nodded towards Max, who was leaning against the windowsill with a blank expression on his face and one of the sports drinks he seemed unable to live without in his hand.

  He nodded back, then went out.

  ‘What shall I tell Pia?’ Matilda said, for some reason glancing at the stove.

  ‘Dinner will have to wait,’ Johansson said. ‘I’ll be home in a couple of hours. You know what?’ he added, looking at Matilda. ‘Why don’t you stay and eat with us, then you and Pia can have a bit of wine before Max and I get back?’

  ‘Waiting for the boys,’ Matilda said tartly. ‘Where have I heard that before? Sure, boss.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Johansson said. ‘Waiting for the boys.’ Waiting for the boys, he thought. The simple and obvious act that was supposed to have enslaved the women of the Western world since the Stone Age, but because he himself had grown up on a farm in northern Ångermanland in the forties and fifties, he had never really understood what all those bourgeois women were going on about. Elna wouldn’t have done either, he thought. His beloved mother had her hands full all the time, and never spent a minute waiting for anyone. Least of all any of the men she was surrounded by.

  Karolinska Hospital had opened in 1940, but the doctors’ residences were only built in the early fifties: three large villas for the hospital’s senior consultants and professors who preferred to live close to their work, a dozen terraced houses for the junior doctors who hadn’t yet reached the pinnacle of their careers. All constructed according to a typically English design, with solid workmanship, of bricks and mortar, with generous gardens and areas of greenery, and quietly tucked away between Solna cemetery to the north and the sprawling hospital to the south.

  Naturally, she lived in one of the terraced houses – in keeping with the times, and doubtless with her finances and everything else that dictated the terms of lives such as hers, Johansson thought.

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ he said, smiling at Max. ‘I’m just going to see a little lady.’

  ‘Watch your back, boss,’ Max said, smiling back.

  ‘Johansson,’ Ulrika Stenholm said with obvious surprise when she opened the door. ‘What are you doing here? I don’t usually see patients at home.’

  ‘I’m not here as a patient. We can do this inside, or we can sit and talk in my car,’ he said, gesturing towards the big, black Audi where a motionless Max sat behind the tinted glass.

  ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘I haven’t put the boys to bed yet,’ she explained. ‘Has something happened?’

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ Johansson said. ‘You know better than I do.’

  Five minutes later she had moved her two boys out into the kitchen. Five and six years old, by the looks of it, and just as blond as their mother. She had to bribe them with ice-cream and computer games before she got them to settle down.

  Bookshelves from floor to ceiling, worn but high-quality carpets on the floor, prints by Peter Dahl on the walls, a sofa, an armchair with a foot rest, a coffee table, a large grand piano and a music centre that took up half the room. All of it expensive when it was bought, but many years had passed since then – she had probably inherited it from her parents. Except the Dahls, Johansson thought. Judging by their subject matter, they weren’t the sort of thing that a man of the Church of the older generation would have hung on his walls. Still less given to his daughter, he thought.

  ‘Has something happened?’ Ulrika Stenholm asked as she sat down on the sofa opposite him. ‘Can I get you anything, by the way?’ she added. ‘A cup of coffee, perhaps?’ She was anxious: so anxious that she didn’t have time to tilt her narrow, pale-skinned neck.

  ‘No,’ Johansson said. ‘I don’t want anything. But I would like you to tell me about your relationship with Yasmine’s father. I suggest that you start with the weekend twenty-five years ago when his daughter was murdered, while you were out in the archipelago fucking each other’s brains out.’

  As soon as he said that the white flame that had been burning brightly in his head was turned down and he could suddenly breathe properly again. And at that moment Ulrika Stenholm clapped her hands to her face and burst into tears.

  Typical, Johansson thought. Exactly the sort of thing people like him were incapable of steeling themselves against.

  ‘Sorry,’ Ulrika Stenholm said. ‘Sorry, but I never actually thought you’d find him. The man who murdered Yasmine, I mean.�
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  ‘Tell me,’ Johansson said. ‘And stop snivelling,’ he added, handing over the paper napkin that he, with the same degree of forethought as his little helper, had put in his pocket before he left home.

  Ulrika Stenholm had graduated from the New Elementary School in Bromma in 1984. She was eighteen years old, had excellent grades, and consequently had no problem getting in to read medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. After her first year she got a summer job at a private medical laboratory owned by Joseph Ermegan and his uncle. The same Joseph Ermegan who would soon change his name to Joseph Simon and move to the USA because his daughter had been murdered.

  He had been her tutor on her course in medical chemistry. She worshipped him, as did all the other female students. After the end of the course he asked if she would be interested in a summer job. Naturally, she said yes, and slept with him on the second day at her new place of work.

  ‘He was the love of my life,’ Ulrika Stenholm said as she dried her tears. ‘My only love, actually.’

  ‘What happened next?’ Johansson asked.

  Then her life had been struck by lightning. It had been blasted into pieces so small that they couldn’t even be gathered together, taking with them any idea of staying with the man she was with at the time, the great, all-encompassing love of her life. But she also had a boyfriend with whom she had just moved in. He was a schoolfriend, two years older than her, also planning to become a doctor. He was doing his national service that summer, the way all medical students had to in those days, just in case the worst happened and the Russians invaded. All the male medical students’ female colleagues were left to fend for themselves.

  ‘He’s the father of my boys,’ she said, craning her long, thin neck and nodding towards the closed door to the kitchen, where the children were. ‘We got married three years later. But it was actually fifteen years before I got pregnant. Three years after that we were divorced. I just couldn’t bear to carry on pretending.’