Another Time, Another Life: The Story of a Crime

by Leif Gw Persson

  Jarnebring was careful about where he set his feet, and he kept his fingers under control the whole time out of consideration for the crime technicians, but this didn’t prevent him from peeking under the bed, behind the shower curtain in the bathroom, and in the darkest corners of the clothes closet. He had found more than one perpetrator that way over the years.

  But not this time, this time it was empty.

  The rest was pure routine. He made contact with the command center on the radio. They promised to send people—“on the double”—from the duty desk and the tech squad, as well as reinforcements from the uniformed police. A murder took precedence even over degenerate political demonstrations.

  On the other hand, the canine patrol that Jarnebring tried to requisition could not be mobilized. The four-legged colleagues that were on duty had been busy with other things between their jaws for the past few hours. On the other hand, taxi drivers would be questioned as to whether they’d had any interesting fares to and from the victim’s address.

  While they waited, Jarnebring and his female colleague did what they could. The first crime scene barriers were put in place. They searched within the building and out toward the street where the victim lived, the courtyard and back building as well. They checked interesting entryways in the vicinity and noted license numbers on all cars parked in the area, in case the perpetrator was in such a hurry that he had not managed to take the car in which he might have arrived. The growing crowd of curious people who had gathered down on the street were gradually questioned, and very soon the plan was to start knocking on doors in a more organized manner.

  Half an hour later Jarnebring and his colleague had done everything possible, and given the conditions no one could have done it better. But because neither the people from the duty desk nor tech had shown up yet, he already suspected whom he was waiting for, and that things would soon change.

  2

  Thursday evening, November 30–

  The night of Friday, December 1, 1989

  Bäckström was short, fat, and crude whereas Wiijnbladh was short, slender, and dapper. Together they complemented each other splendidly and they were also happy working together. Bäckström thought that Wiijnbladh was a cowardly half-fairy—you didn’t even have to raise your voice, and he still did what he was told. Wiijnbladh in turn viewed Bäckström as mentally challenged and bad-tempered—a dream to work with for anyone who preferred having the situation under control himself. Because they were both solidly incompetent, no disputes arose on either factual or other professional grounds, and to sum up, they made a real radar unit.

  Bäckström was a detective inspector and normally worked on the homicide squad, but because he was a bachelor, had no children, and his finances were always shaky, he took every opportunity to sign up for a little extra duty. He was no numbskull either, so the thirtieth of November was a day he normally would have avoided, but because it was getting toward Christmas he had no choice. These were hard times, and they would not get better for a long while.

  It had turned out just as badly that night as he had feared. His colleagues in the uniformed police shoveled in piles of the worst kind of rowdies. Lots of snot-nosed youngsters who thought that rock throwing was a democratic right and began every attempt at conversation by threatening to report the interrogator for assault and making reference to Daddy, who was either a senior physician at the psych clinic, a technical adviser at the Ministry of Justice, or an editorial writer at Dagens Nyheter.

  To begin with Bäckström had managed nicely—not so strange in itself, given his experience—but he had to work like a tightrope walker to keep out of the way, and he basically pulled out every trick he had in his considerable repertoire. First he locked himself in the john to leaf through both Little Pravda and Excessen in peace and quiet—the only place imaginable where a person could read such shit. Then he slipped down and took a nap for a while at registration, but when he came back to his office he was immediately forced to snatch up a dead telephone receiver and sit humming and nodding while a couple of half-apes from the riot squad stood in his doorway and more or less tried to stare him out. He waved dismissively at them several times but they didn’t even react. How the hell did those guys get to be police officers?

  The chief inspector on duty arrived like a rescuing angel, surly as usual and a fundamentalist. He was a bastard of course, but in a crisis situation you couldn’t be too particular.

  “Stop your monkeyshines now, Bäckström,” said the boss. “I have a murder for you. Some wretch in an apartment on Rådmansgatan has checked out. We have a shortage of cars, so you’ll have to ride with tech. Luck of the draw. Let’s hope for our Lord’s sake the victim doesn’t have any relatives,” he said piously as he was leaving.

  Rådmansgatan. Sounds good, thought Bäckström. Not a high gook alert at that address, and if his luck held maybe it would prove to be something really juicy. Worthy of an old pro like himself.

  On the way out he took the opportunity to sneak into the break room and liberate the last Danish pastries. A whole bag, in fact. Who wanted to risk landing in a murder investigation on an empty stomach? Besides, there was plenty of time for a pot of fresh-brewed coffee with Wiijnbladh up at the tech squad while he explained to the miserable half-fairy what this was about before they began the evening’s exercises.

  Wiijnbladh was looking forward to a calm, quiet evening filled with edifying reading. True, there were demonstrations out in the city, and apparently an awful commotion, but a major advantage of even violent uprisings was that they seldom gave rise to a lot of forensic misery, the need for such disappearing naturally in the general confusion that prevailed in such contexts. In relatively undisturbed peace he would thus be able to go through old issues of the Annals of Forensic Science in hopes of finding some good hints for how, in a completely risk-free manner, he might be able to eliminate his wife. Some kind of poison, thought Wiijnbladh. Definitely not the usual messiness with blunt objects and firearms. He had seen more than enough of that at work. Some effective, discreet poison that he could sneak into her completely unnoticed, and that would preferably cause severe pain when it was too late to do anything about it. She so deserved that. And who of all his half-moronic, visually handicapped colleagues would be able to detect something like that? None of them, thought Wiijnbladh with emphasis, turning the page in his thick book just as his phone rang.

  The call was from the duty desk where a murder had come in. At first—in a moment of terror—he got the idea that it had happened during the demonstrations and he would have to spend the night outside in a merciless November wind, but when he understood that the crime scene was indoors, in an apartment on Rådmansgatan, he heaved a quiet sigh of relief. Until that horrid fat slob Bäckström showed up. Waving a lot of sticky pastries squished down in a sack, more or less forcing him to brew fresh coffee while they “talked over the strategy.”

  What did he have to say to such a person? But then again, what choice did he have? A man of peace like him, an educated man like him, now being sent out into the cold by a stern fate with this police department Neanderthal who had already managed to consume two pastries before the coffee was even ready.

  Poor man, thought Wiijnbladh, and it was the murder victim and not himself he had in mind. Let’s hope he doesn’t have any family.

  So it had started as it always did when he and Bäckström had to march out to the field.

  “Maybe we’d better get moving,” said Wiijnbladh, glancing nervously at his watch.

  Bäckström didn’t even answer. How could he with his mouth full of Danish pastries? He simply shook his head and waved his fleshy, hot doglike fingers dismissively.

  “I heard it was Jarnebring who responded to the alarm,” Wiijnbladh said carefully. “So maybe it’s best—”

  “That fucking idiot,” said Bäckström, but evidently that remark made an impression, for as soon as he’d finished chewing he got up and started buttoning up his coat around his f
at stomach. Then he just nodded and finally they were on their way.

  Jarnebring was standing in the entryway to welcome them when they arrived at the murder scene. He looked like a wolf. A big, hungry wolf, with eyes narrow as loopholes, deep-seated eyes set wide apart among the sharp angles of his lean face. He had shoulder blades like guitar cases and arms that started at the wrists and only ended where his thick neck started. He was also dressed in a mid-length black leather jacket, worn blue jeans, and heavy boots. And as far as Wiijnbladh was concerned, he might just as well have worn a black hood and carried a scythe over his shoulder.

  “Did you crawl here?” he asked courteously, looking at the watch that fit tightly around his bony wrist, and Wiijnbladh felt the cold fingers of death groping for his heart.

  “Nice to see you, Jarnebring,” said Wiijnbladh as he tried hard to smile amiably and hold his voice in check. “The traffic is awful, as you know.” Whatever you do, do not look him in the eyes, he thought; he had learned that at a course on how forensic technicians could avoid being bitten by mad dogs.

  “How’s the door knocking going?” asked Bäckström. “If you take care of that, Jarnebring, then Wiijnbladh and I will see to putting some order into the investigation.” And then he only nodded curtly and continued up the stairs.

  Say what you will about Bäckström, thought Wiijnbladh with sudden warmth, falling in behind his fat back before the grim reaper could get hold of him.

  Jarnebring did not say anything, didn’t move, didn’t even blink. He shrugged his shoulders and nodded at his female colleague. Poor bastard, he thought, and it was not Bäckström or Wiijnbladh that he was thinking about.

  Jarnebring and his new, and temporary, female colleague—and that was how he viewed her without the question even being discussed—devoted the majority of the evening of the thirtieth of November to knocking on doors, which had always been their intention, in fact, regardless of what Bäckström thought about it. They spoke with almost all the victim’s neighbors, a total of about twenty people in the building facing the street and ten or so in the back building. Almost everyone who lived there was at home. They were mostly older people, many of them living alone, and with a few exceptions they had been sitting in front of the TV at the time their neighbor was murdered.

  When the police rang their doorbells they were without exception friendly and obliging, and in a number of cases truly exerted themselves to answer the police officers’ questions. In a practical sense the door-to-door inquiries went easily and smoothly, but in a factual sense it was an unmitigated catastrophe. No one had seen anything, no one had heard anything, no one knew the victim, the majority did not even seem aware of his existence. The one who seemed to know him best, his closest neighbor Mrs. Westergren, who had called the police, had for the most part only said hello to him on those occasions when they met in the stairwell.

  Jarnebring and his female colleague started with her, and Jarnebring suggested that perhaps his partner ought to lead the questioning. The witness was extremely agitated and he had an idea that a woman—despite the fact that she was half the age of the witness—might perhaps make the witness feel more comfortable. Which proved to be true. His younger colleague handled the questioning in an exemplary fashion and Jarnebring just sat there and listened. It felt unusual, but not at all unpleasant. The new generation is taking over, Jarnebring thought philosophically, and concentrated instead on appearing as secure and confidence inspiring as possible.

  First they talked about the witness herself, Mrs. Westergren. Then about the victim, her closest neighbor Kjell Göran Eriksson, who had just turned forty-five at the time of his demise, according to the information that Jarnebring had received from the duty desk a while earlier. Only after that did his colleague bring up the events that had led Mrs. Westergren to call the emergency number. The entire conversation was conducted in a careful, systematic, professional manner and the results were as thin as gruel.

  Mrs. Westergren herself was sixty-five years old and recently retired from a job as an official at a bank in Stockholm. She lived alone, had no children, and had moved into the building after her divorce some ten years earlier.

  “My ex-husband and I had a house out in Bromma,” she explained. “When we separated and sold the house, I bought this apartment. It’s a condominium.”

  Then she told what little she knew about Eriksson. He had moved into the building a few years later, and that was when she had her only long conversation with him. She had knocked on his door to welcome him, and he had invited her in for a cup of coffee.

  “I was on the association’s board, after all, the condo association that is, and I thought that it was appropriate. Yes … and then he was my closest neighbor too.”

  But there had not been much more.

  “He introduced himself of course, but I already knew what his name was. I’d seen it on the paperwork when he bought the apartment. Yes … then he said that he worked at the Central Bureau of Statistics. With labor market statistics, as I recall. But he didn’t actually say much more than that. He seemed rather reserved. Yes, not disagreeable or anything, not really, but far from talkative.”

  He must have riled up someone in any event, thought Jarnebring, but of course he didn’t say that.

  What was he like as a person?

  “As a neighbor he was almost ideal, I guess, if you appreciate peace and quiet. He never made any fuss. He never went to the association meetings or anything. I don’t think he knew anyone here in the building.”

  Did he have any friends that Mrs. Westergren had noticed?

  “No women in any event. I don’t believe I ever saw him with a woman during all the years he lived here. Sometimes I saw that he had visitors, but it was always men his own age. There were some that I’ve seen on at least a few occasions. But it really didn’t happen very often that I saw him having visitors. The last time must have been several months ago. Yes … and this evening then … a few hours ago.” Mrs. Westergren had become noticeably paler.

  What was it that made her call the police?

  “I heard that he had a visitor. I had just come in the door. I’d been out shopping. It must have been some time around seven. I was standing in the hallway hanging up my coat when I heard someone ringing his doorbell. Yes … he opened the door and said something and then the door was closed.”

  Had the visitor said anything? Did she have any idea who the visitor was?

  She did not. The murder victim’s mysterious visitor had not only been unseen but unheard as well. The witness herself had not thought any more about it. Besides, why should she? Her neighbor had a visit from someone that he knew, and, true, it wasn’t common, but it was no more than that. She had gone out into the kitchen, made a cup of tea and a warm sandwich, which she brought into the living room. She’d had her sandwich, finished her tea, and then read a magazine she had bought when she was out shopping. She preferred reading, you see, and she almost never watched TV.

  “It must have been about then that it started … right before eight o’clock. I remember that I was looking at the clock, because at first I had the idea that it was his TV that I was hearing. But of course it wasn’t that.… I realized that. I heard how he was screaming … how he bellowed right out … Then I heard thumps from the furniture as if someone was falling or as if … Yes, as if he was fighting with someone then … Yes, my neighbor, I mean. It was only him that I heard. Not the other one … although they must have been fighting. What is it the lawyers always say—it’s in the nature of things—although that was what was so strange.” Mrs. Westergren shook her head.

  What was it that had been strange?

  What was so strange was that he had not sounded afraid. Angry, furious, crazy with rage, but not afraid. Their witness had become noticeably paler as she spoke, but at the same time it was very clear that she was truly exerting herself to remember what she had heard.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Not afraid, he sounded more l
ike he was angry … or furious … He just bellowed in rage … although I didn’t hear what he was screaming.”

  “And you’re certain that it was your neighbor you heard? Not the one who was visiting him?”

  “Yes. It was Eriksson who screamed. He sounded completely insane actually. The other one I didn’t hear. He was quiet, I guess.”

  But it was only when the neighbor’s bellowing had ceased that she had phoned the police. By then she had heard him moaning loudly, and it sounded as though he was crawling around on the floor in the apartment. It was then that she made her first call to the police.

  “It never stopped. It felt like an eternity. It sounded as if he was dying in there … and he was too.

  “You never came,” she said, and for some reason it was Jarnebring and not his colleague she was looking at when she said that.

  Had she noticed anything else? Anything about Eriksson that struck her? Some observation that she had made? Any speculations she’d had?

  Anything at all, thought Jarnebring. Give us anything at all because we’re not picky. Just give us a little piece of thread that we can start pulling on.

  “No,” said Mrs. Westergren, suddenly looking guarded. “Like what?”

  She’s hiding something, thought Jarnebring, feeling the familiar scent in his nostrils, but before he managed to ask the question, his colleague got there first.

  “Let me put it like this, Mrs. Westergren,” she said with a friendly smile. “In my job the people we encounter are rarely completely black or completely white … in a moral sense that is. It’s more complicated than that. I’m thinking about what you’ve told me and my colleague. Everything you’ve said indicates that it was someone who knew Eriksson who attacked him. Why? Eriksson doesn’t appear to have associated with any crazy people. What was it about Eriksson that might provoke someone he knew to the degree that he—”