“I understand that you don’t want to say how you got them, and I also understand that it’s not through the usual channels.”
The special adviser smiled and nodded in agreement. For then you wouldn’t have needed to ask, he thought.
“Do you believe them?”
The special adviser had thought a great deal about this but nonetheless took a good while to answer.
“I have confidence in the supplier,” he said. “I’ve thought a great deal about the delivery. Considering who the supplier is, I’m inclined to buy the delivery as well. Yes and yes.” The special adviser nodded with as much emphasis as someone like him might allow himself.
“Okay,” said Forselius, and then they moved into the library where the special adviser’s deaf housekeeper had set out coffee and cognac and lit a fire in the fireplace.
Then they talked business.
Forselius shared the special adviser’s evaluation. Within the secret police it was probably only the operative himself who knew what Krassner knew. And if he’d understood the contents of the papers he’d taken with him at all-the suicide he’d arranged unfortunately pointed in that direction-at the same time he ought to be the one with the greatest interest in keeping quiet.
“What do you think?” said the special adviser. “Should I try to find out who he is?”
Forselius shook his shoulders hesitantly.
“I think that wouldn’t be very wise,” he said. “Who wants to wake a sleeping bear? And what would we do with him without being dragged along ourselves?”
So right, so right, the adviser thought and internally he sighed deeply. For if you really thought about it, it was so bad that it was he and Forselius and a number of retarded secret policemen-one of whom was clearly more actively disturbed-who had ennobled Krassner from one ordinary loony in the pile to a person of great significance for the security of the realm.
Krassner’s material? Now that they both knew what was there, just how dangerous was it really?
“At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs they can certainly contain their laughter,” declared Forselius. “They’re no doubt working night and day to prepare the fifty-yard-line negotiations with the Russians.”
New boundaries were to be drawn in the Baltic. Arriving at the negotiating table with a fresh public questioning of Swedish neutrality policy would hardly contribute to their Russian counterparts’ willingness to compromise.
“What do you think if we burn the whole thing up ourselves?” asked the special adviser.
“What do you think your boss would think about that?” clucked Forselius.
“He would probably not be too happy,” said the special adviser, smiling wryly.
“And what do you think he would say when he found out about Krassner and his so-called suicide?” asked Forselius with a chuckle.
“Not happy, sad, and really, really tired,” said the special adviser, laughing till his fat belly jumped.
On that point they were in complete agreement. By itself they would certainly have been able to deal with Krassner’s material, leaving aside whether a competent editor had put order into the messy manuscript in the meantime and transformed it into a book with hard covers from a reputable publisher. They ought to have been able to manage that too with the usual juggling between denial, silence, and undermining the author, his morals and motives. A few bruises, a few scrapes, perhaps. But that could have worked out.
But not now. Definitely not now.
“Why the hell should he fall out the window?” said the special adviser with irritation.
“Oh well,” said Forselius, emptying his glass. “You don’t have any more, by the way?”
He pointed toward the now-empty bottle of Frapin 1900.
“Are you joking with me?” said the special adviser. “You bet your ass I have more. I have lots and lots. You don’t want to have whiskey, then?” he added, for he really had no desire to rummage around in his wine cellar in the middle of the night, with a lot of spiders and shit that he hated, and his housekeeper had let him know that she was going to slip away to visit her daughter as soon as she had set out the coffee and cognac and cleaned up in the kitchen.
“Whiskey,” said Forselius with distaste. “I’ll give you a piece of good advice, young man. You should never pour malt on top of grapes.”
What choice did he have? First he had to go down into the wine cellar and fetch the cognac. Then they played billiards the whole night, and Forselius mixed a highball of Frapin 1900 and soda pop, great connoisseur that he was. And when the special adviser woke the next day he was compelled to phone his secretary and say that he was poorly and had to stay home.
“Poor thing,” she said with genuine sympathy. “Now you must promise me you’ll get better so we can see you on Monday.”
Finally someone who understands, thought the special adviser, and then he took two headache pills and a large glass of water and went back to sleep again.
Waltin had finally gotten over the apathy that had lately plagued him severely. He had quite simply decided to remove the fat red-haired sow from his awareness. Simply not worth the trouble, and as far as Hedberg was concerned he would surely be in touch when he finally returned to Europe. He usually did so, if for no other reason than that he needed money.
Instead he resumed the training of little Jeanette, who had been so sadly neglected recently. They spent the weekend together down in Sörmland, where he saw to it that she had a number of new, mind-expanding experiences. When he drove her home he also assured himself that they’d left the fur coat he’d given her as a Christmas present behind-pure madness, really, when he thought about it, now it was in safe keeping, his keeping. High time to look around for something different and plan something new, Waltin thought as he left her off outside the doorway to her pathetic little apartment in that miserable suburb where she lived. There were any number of them out there, and in order to avoid future mistakes with types like that fat red-haired sow he also decided to confine his reconnaissance from now on to slightly better establishments. A little lower middle class, thought Waltin, for there is sure to be a lot of unredeemed longing there.
Berg wanted to meet him on Monday; he had on his funeral face right from the start. First he informed him that they were up against a new parliamentary oversight of the entire operation, but that the social democrats in the government office also wanted to get rid of the external operation. He himself had understood this all along since he, unlike Berg, wasn’t an idiot, and this was the moment he’d been waiting for.
“I was thinking about asking you to develop a preliminary study so we could start by jointly considering how we should organize it instead,” said Berg evasively.
“I don’t understand why they have to be so impossible,” said Waltin innocently. “You don’t think this can have anything to do with that unfortunate story involving the Krassner person.”
“I have a hard time seeing that,” said Berg, and just then the alarm bells started ringing in his head again. Faintly, true, but what should he do? He couldn’t of course just ask Waltin to shut his mouth and do as he was told.
“I’ve actually gone through the matter one more time with Hedberg, whom we had as an operative, yes, you remember him,” said Waltin in a light and casual tone of voice. “And I’m completely convinced of the fact that there’s nothing in this affair we need to be ashamed of. Hedberg is probably without comparison the most competent person we have access to, isn’t he? I completely share your opinion of that man. He’s a rock.”
Hedberg, thought Berg as the booming increased in his head; he’d probably sensed it the whole time, but he hadn’t thought of asking. Why must he always talk about the wrong things? thought Berg. Sometimes I get the idea he’s a complete idiot, he thought.