The Sword of Justice

by Leif G. W. Persson

  ‘Oh God,’ Anna Holt said, and looked as if she really meant it. ‘I’m about as enthusiastic about it as you are, but the decision has already been taken at the regional level, by our commanding officers, so, regardless of what I might think—’

  ‘What do you think of our colleague Andersson-Trygg?’ Bäckström interrupted.

  ‘So you could imagine doing without her services?’ Holt said with a faint smile.

  ‘Yes,’ Bäckström said.

  ‘That’s what we’ll do then,’ Anna Holt said. ‘I’d been thinking the same thing myself. You’re not all bad, Bäckström.’

  16

  On Thursday, 30 May it finally stopped raining. You could even see a tiny, pale, early summer sun peering out shyly behind the veils of cloud up in the sky. There was also supposed to be a big city up there, according to what Bäckström had learned in Sunday school as a small boy. But you couldn’t see that at the moment, of course. It was far too high up. His Sunday school teacher had told him that.

  The day had got off to a bad start – he had barely sat down behind his desk before his phone rang – but as soon as he heard who it was, things immediately took a turn for the better. Much better, and possibly even a sign that this wretched week was approaching its conclusion. It was his latest recruit, Sergeant Jenny Rogersson, who wanted a bit of help from her boss with her investigation into the alleged assault in the car park at Drottningholm Palace.

  ‘I think I could do with some good advice,’ she said. ‘So if you could spare five minutes, boss, I’d really appreciate it.’

  ‘Of course, Jenny,’ Bäckström said. ‘My door is always open to you, you know that.’ Not only my door, he thought as he hung up, then checked to make sure he hadn’t forgotten to fasten his flies.

  About a month earlier Bäckström had received a call from his old compadre and colleague Detective Inspector Jan Rogersson, from the murder squad at National Crime, who was calling on behalf of his daughter. Rogersson had heard a rumour that there might be a vacant post in Bäckström’s serious crime unit.

  ‘Where’s she working at the moment?’ Bäckström asked as a diversionary tactic. He had no intention of hiring any of Rogersson’s many offspring. He must have at least half a dozen, distributed among a similar number of feeble-minded mothers, and, according to the rumour mill, at least half of them had joined the police. They couldn’t be very bright, and were bound to be ugly as sin. They were probably the spitting image of their father, he thought.

  ‘She’s in crime prevention over on Södermalm,’ Rogersson said, ‘with those morons in their neatly pressed uniforms, and she’s had enough of all the pensioners and snotty little brats she has to pretend to be nice to all day long.’

  ‘I’m afraid there could be a problem,’ Bäckström said. ‘You know what it’s like if you want to hire someone. It’s not like it used to be, when you could—’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Bäckström,’ Rogersson interrupted. ‘It’s me you’re talking to. Rog, your best friend – your only friend, if we’re being honest, your only friend since we were at the Academy together.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I hear what you’re saying,’ Bäckström said. What did he mean, best friend? A proper bloke like him looked after himself, so what did he want friends for? Least of all in the world he lived in, where everyone was out to get you.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Okay, I promise I’ll talk to her.’ Didn’t the bastard ever give up? thought Bäckström.

  ‘Just fix it,’ Rogersson said. And with that he had hung up.

  A week later he had met her for the first time. She had come over to see him, and when she walked into his office she lit up the room with her smile as she held out her hand and introduced herself.

  ‘Jenny Rogersson,’ Jenny Rogersson said. ‘It’s good to meet Dad’s best friend at last.’

  ‘Please, take a seat,’ he said, pointing at his visitor’s chair. There’s no way you’re related to that hideous bastard, he thought. Must be candid camera, someone taking the piss, he thought.

  Now she was sitting there again, with her skirt halfway up her thighs, leaning forward slightly, with her long blond hair, her red lips, white teeth and the deep cleavage between her pendulous breasts. A whole box of delights within easy reach, and all he had to do was lean forward and grab hold of her.

  ‘What can I do for you, Jenny?’ Bäckström asked. He leaned back in his chair and gave her his Clint smile. Just a half-Clint to start with, so she didn’t do the splits there and then, he reasoned.

  Jenny had come for some advice about the assault case out at Drottningholm Palace. Unfortunately, the investigation seemed to have ground to a halt. An anonymous tip-off, a victim who refused point-blank to admit that anything had happened, and when she spoke to the National Forensics Lab the previous day she had been told that it would be at least a month before she’d get the DNA analysis back.

  ‘Whatever I want it for,’ she said with a resigned sigh. ‘Seeing as I haven’t even got a victim who’s prepared to talk to me.’

  ‘Write it off,’ Bäckström said. Do something worthwhile with your life, he thought.

  ‘That’s just what I was thinking,’ Jenny agreed. ‘Then I wondered about sending the whole case over to the Security Police, just so they know about it.’

  ‘To the Security Police?’ Bäckström said, struggling to conceal his surprise. ‘What for?’

  ‘Well, considering the special regulations that apply to us here in the Western District. With the Security Police wanting copies of everything that happens in the district that might have any connection to the court, to the king and his family. The usual security precautions, I suppose. Both Drottningholm and Haga are in our district, of course, and, if I’ve read the regulations correctly, the Security Police want to hear about any case that has a geographic link or any other connection to the head of state and his family. Even if it’s just a bicycle getting stolen out near Drottningholm, they want to know about it.’

  ‘Yes, I don’t suppose they’ve got anything better to do,’ Bäckström said, then gave a deep sigh. Bloody pansies, tiptoeing about. Although the king seemed to be a real man. No shadow over him. Completely normal, to judge by everything he’d read in the papers over the past year.

  ‘Okay,’ Jenny said with another smile. ‘Glad we agree, boss. That we think the same, I mean.’

  If only you knew, Bäckström thought.

  ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’ he asked, nodding his head heavily in a very masculine way.

  ‘Mainly just a question out of curiosity, really. If you promise that it’ll stay between us?’

  ‘I’m listening,’ Bäckström said. He leaned forward, rested his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers.

  ‘I was thinking about the Anchor, our colleague Annika Carlsson,’ she said, also leaning forward, and lowering her voice. ‘She’s not … that way inclined, if I can put it like that?’ Jenny used her left hand to indicate what she meant.

  ‘Has she tried to hit on you?’ Bäckström asked. Attack dyke flying low, he thought.

  ‘I think so,’ Jenny said with yet another smile. ‘Not that I mind at all, but I’m straight. Really straight.’

  ‘Good to hear,’ Bäckström said, smiling back. A full Clint this time, seeing as it was perfectly obvious that it would soon be time to get the super-salami out.

  17

  It was Friday before he heard the chimes of freedom ring out, faintly to start with, but stronger and stronger as the day wore on, and, as usual, he had spent the day at a conference. It was vital not to get too set in your ways as a boss, to make sure you were always developing if you wanted to be an aware and fully functional police officer, a public servant worthy of the title, and he himself never missed an opportunity to point out this self-evident fact to his colleagues.

  Even within the organization to which he belonged it had become obvious that this lay right at the heart of fighting crime. Conferences and
other forms of in-house training were without a shadow of a doubt the fastest growing area of activity within the police. The thirst for knowledge within the force appeared to be almost unquenchable, and Bäckström himself was keen to set a shining example to those around him.

  One contributing factor to this was that he was extremely picky when it came to choosing which of all these courses and conferences he would attend. This itself was far from a simple task, given that the choice on offer was practically infinite and covered all manner of subjects and areas of competency. He himself preferred Friday courses which took place outside the everyday police environment, which of course could have a stultifying effect on both discussion and thought. Preferably, they should also take place within walking distance of his apartment on Kungsholmen.

  They mustn’t start too early, nor finish too late in the day, because this would have an adverse effect on both his preparations in advance of the learning opportunity and his need to evaluate the process he had just partaken of afterwards. It was also particularly important that the whole thing concluded with participants being given the opportunity to socialize and air the ideas that had been raised during the day. Working in small groups, on the other hand, particularly when you had to solve and give presentations about a number of written tasks, was an abomination that could seriously impede the participants’ creativity in more than one way.

  In light of these important considerations, that day’s conference looked singularly promising. A large conference hotel in the city centre, within comfortable walking distance from his home – and it was glorious early summer weather as well – where the whole affair kicked off with coffee and socializing at nine o’clock in the morning and concluded with a general discussion that was expected to end at three o’clock in the afternoon, so participants who’d travelled a long way wouldn’t have to worry about not getting home to their loved ones until the middle of the night.

  Even the subject for the day was interesting – Truth, Lies and Body Language – seeing as it was aimed at detectives from the crime-solving units, and especially those who worked as lead interviewers in cases of serious violent crime.

  Like a hand in a glove, Bäckström thought happily as he stepped into the foyer of the big conference room at quarter past nine, in time to prepare himself for the pursuit of knowledge with a cup of strong coffee and a couple of Danish pastries.

  The opening talk had been given by a professor of forensic psychology, who had arranged the whole conference and who also happened to have written a thesis with the same title.

  The professor opened his presentation by going straight to the heart of his argument, specifically that, when it came to telling the difference between truth and lies, body language was far more useful than the purely verbal messages that the person being questioned gave out. With the aid of his computer, PowerPoint, various charts, images, short video clips and a ceaseless torrent of words, the lecturer went on to demonstrate what he meant for the best part of an hour.

  People who entirely avoided eye-contact and preferred to stare down at their own laps were therefore just as suspicious as those who looked their interviewer straight in the eye and began each reply by nodding and smiling, regardless of whether they were sitting stock still or trying to wear out the seat and back of their chair.

  There’s not much wrong with a pair of flickering brown eyes and two little feet tapping at the floor like drumsticks either, Bäckström thought, making himself more comfortable in his chair.

  After this introductory declaration of intent, the professor had really gone for it, all the way from test subjects with ordinary facial expressions and spasms to some who seemed completely catatonic, and most of the time he concentrated on physical signs and the gestures contained within them. People clearing their throats and humming as they tugged at their ear lobes, rubbed their noses, massaged their foreheads or scratched their heads.

  When it came to the sort of body language that could give you away and reveal your evil deeds, not even someone in a state of total paralysis would have survived a scientific examination by the professor. A slight tremor of the eyelid was grounds enough for serious suspicion, and an enlarged pupil a complete catastrophe for your credibility.

  There were also interesting connections between the test subjects’ verbal utterances and their body language. People who began practically everything they said with phrases like ‘to be honest’, ‘really’, ‘with my hand on my heart’ and ‘just between us’, while simultaneously tugging at their ear lobes and rubbing their noses with their index fingers, counted among the most unambiguous liars. In the professor’s world, this ‘combined behaviour’ was as good as a full confession.

  If we can actually believe what you’re saying, Bäckström thought. Their lecturer was himself making a singularly suspect impression. He was a thin, moth-eaten character in creased jeans and an ill-fitting jacket who spent a lot of time moving his thick glasses between his nose and his hairline, when he wasn’t tugging his ear lobes or rubbing his nose with his index finger.

  The little poof’s making a hell of a racket with all that throat clearing and humming, Bäckström thought. If you were in my custody, I’d give your face a good scrub with carbolic soap, then chuck you in a cell.

  After a five-minute pause for people to stretch their legs, it was time for the concluding question-and-answer session, and once the participants had returned twenty minutes later the great silence had descended.

  ‘No questions?’ their lecturer repeated for the third time as he gazed out at his audience.

  ‘From the list of participants, I noted that I have the pleasure of having some of the country’s most experienced interviewers here today. Among others, I saw that Superintendent Evert Bäckström is here.’ The professor nodded amiably at Bäckström, who was sitting right at the back of the room.

  Wonder who the others could be? Bäckström thought, simply nodding back. What the hell’s happened to lunch? He wasn’t alone in wondering, to judge by the expressions on the other participants’ faces.

  ‘It would be interesting if you could share your experiences – from the field, I mean – when it comes to body language as a way of differentiating between truth and lies.’

  ‘Well, it isn’t always easy,’ Bäckström said, nodding deeply. ‘So on that point we’re in complete agreement. But I daresay I’ve learned one or two things over the years. Things that show they’re lying, I mean.’ He nodded again. Even more deeply this time, to underline the importance of what he’d just said.

  ‘Any tips? Could you give us any tips, Superintendent?’

  ‘Well, I use a form of body language that’s completely infallible. Absolute proof that they’re sitting there lying, I mean.’

  ‘That’s extremely interesting,’ the professor said, looking at Bäckström almost greedily. ‘I don’t suppose we could—’

  ‘By all means,’ Bäckström interrupted, raising his hand to make a point. ‘On one condition, however: that it goes no further than this room.’

  The professor nodded eagerly and from the silence in the room, he wasn’t alone.

  ‘Their noses,’ Bäckström said, pointing at his own to avoid any misunderstanding. ‘Their noses grow when they’re lying.’

  ‘Their noses? Like Pinocchio? Pinocchio’s nose grew when he told lies.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Bäckström said emphatically. ‘It’s rock solid. The only sure sign we have, if you ask me. You must have thought about it yourself?’

  ‘I’m afraid—’

  ‘Their noses get longer when they tell lies,’ Bäckström interrupted again. ‘I’ve seen it many times, with my own eyes. I remember one interview in particular, a man who’d beaten his beloved wife to death and buried her in an old fertilizer bag as a final farewell. I suppose he wanted to save on funeral costs. Either way, he told so many damn lies that I remember thinking that it was lucky he didn’t have a cold, or he’d have needed a sheet to blow his nose.’

&nb
sp; ‘You’re making fun of me, Bäckström,’ the professor said, looking affronted. ‘You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know how you can think that,’ Bäckström replied, shaking his head. ‘Take a look at my nose if you don’t believe me. It hasn’t grown a millimetre since I answered your question.’

  That gave the stupid little poof something to think about, Bäckström thought as he stepped out on to the street and set off towards his lunch. Pinocchio, that was his name, the little faggot in the old story, the one whose nose grew whenever he told a lie. Peter Pan must have been the other one. The one with wings sticking out of his back.

  18

  After that, he spent the afternoon in the usual way. First, a restorative lunch, then an appointment with his Polish masseuse, Little Miss Friday, whom he had first encountered by chance some months earlier. The building where she conducted her activities happened to be in the same block that he lived in, and when he noticed the red-haired bombshell unlocking the door and going inside the premises twice in the same week, he had quickly worked out what was going on.

  Bäckström was a cautious general and, obviously, he had conducted the necessary checks. After a bunch of moronic politicians, aided and abetted by all the other old women – those in trousers as well as skirts – had criminalized the only true love to be found in a wretched world and a wretched epoch, a love where those involved paid their dues at the outset, and in hard cash, he had spoken to an old friend who worked in the City Police’s prostitution unit. Within the force, he was known as Dirty Pelle, and he was certainly the right man to approach when Bäckström wanted to make sure his prospective masseuse wasn’t on their list of prostitutes. And that her premises weren’t on a list of suspect addresses and kept under regular observation.