And a kick away from the police job, he thought. But he didn’t say that. Instead they toasted with milk and mineral water.
“Now we’ll have coffee,” said Johansson with a Norrland accent. He leaned forward and looked at her with fake seriousness. “Boiled coffee.”
In the afternoon Johansson was visited by the head of the personnel bureau whom he would succeed in a little more than a month. It was an informal visit; the head of the personnel bureau didn’t really want anything in particular, just to complain in general terms and perhaps get a cup of coffee while he did so.
“Would you like a cookie with your coffee?” asked Johansson amiably, but he only shook his head. Tired, worn out, and kind, thought Johansson, and now they’re going to get rid of you.
“I need some advice,” the head of the personnel bureau said. “You’ve worked in Stockholm for many years. Do you know an officer named Koskinen?”
The one called Koskenkorva, thought Johansson, and nodded. “He’s drunk himself to death?” Johansson suggested sensitively.
“If only it were that good,” the head of the personnel bureau said with a loud moan. “No, he’s been appointed head of the command center, and now we’ve received six complaints of which one is anonymous, signed by a group of some type that calls itself the Still Functioning Uniformed Police in Stockholm. It’s twenty-two pages long and contains a detailed account of Chief Inspector Koskinen’s performance as on-duty commander at Norrmalm. If what’s there is true, it’s horrifying.”
“I’m sure it’s true,” said Johansson.
“At the same time the union at Norrmalm supports him wholeheartedly and his bosses have given him among the best evaluations I’ve ever seen during my years in this office.”
“Obviously,” said Johansson. “How else would they get rid of him?” That’s why they’re called traveling testimonials, he thought, but he didn’t say that.
“What advice do you have?” The head of the personnel office looked at him almost imploringly.
“None,” said Johansson cheerfully. “There is none. There isn’t meant to be.”
How naïve can you be? thought Johansson while he picked out shirts at the men’s department at NK. His impending trip demanded certain additions to his wardrobe, and besides, an old acquaintance who was head of security for the largest of the city’s three commercial banks had invited him to dinner that evening. But it wasn’t this business that occupied his thoughts. The Koskinen problem will solve itself according to classic Darwinist police principles, he thought. Either he drinks himself to death, puts a bullet in his head, or gets so bad that he quite simply can’t go on working. On the other hand, that he would flat out be fired was less likely. As a rule there was always some colleague in the vicinity who could pull the ass of someone like that out of the fire in a pinch, and if not, then it usually wasn’t very important. What might that be? What might happen here? thought Johansson while he hesitated between a dark blue shirt and one that was a somewhat lighter blue.
“I’ll take both,” said Johansson, and the sales clerk nodded officiously.
In the evening he had dinner with his acquaintance, an ex-police officer but nowadays head of security at the large bank. Now he was moving up, chief of staff and member of the company board, and needed a successor.
“I have an offer, Lars,” he said amiably while he twirled his wineglass between his fingers. “One of those that you can’t say no to.”
Johansson could.
“I’m a policeman,” said Johansson. “The reason that I became a policeman was that I dreamed of putting crooks in the can. What I’m doing now is something different, to be sure, but I know it’s only temporary.”
His acquaintance had looked surprised.
“Think it over,” he said.
Jarnebring had been up to his ears in work all morning-that was how he himself summarized the whole thing. First the customary morning prayers with his coworkers in the local detective unit where they had gone over the current cases in the precinct. After that he’d planned a special effort against car break-ins, which had recently increased substantially. He had arranged a lookout where his detectives could sit to avoid freezing, which was never good for the actual surveillance, and he had borrowed equipment from the narcotics squad: cameras, extra-powerful telescopes, and better communications equipment. Now the crooks would get it in the neck.
After a quick lunch in the building he turned off his phone and turned on the red “busy” lamp on the door. Now he was going to finish up the investigation of the cause of Krassner’s death. Suicide, thought Jarnebring emphatically, and called the forensic medicine office in Solna to hear how it had gone. It had gone very well, answered the responsible forensic doctor, who had already finished the autopsy early that morning.
There were no injuries to the body that appeared to have occurred in anything other than a natural manner.
“Natural manner?” said Jarnebring inquiringly.
“As in when you dive fifty yards straight down to the street,” answered the doctor and giggled.
He was from Yugoslavia; he had the nickname Esprit de Corpse and was known as something of a joker, as long as the joke wasn’t on him.
“The head crushed, thirty other fractures. We human beings cannot fly.”
How true, how true, thought Jarnebring and sighed silently.
“What do we do with the clothes?” asked Esprit. “I still have his shoes and clothes here.”
Lazy asses, thought Jarnebring; he was thinking of his colleagues on the technical squad.
“Didn’t the techs take them with them, when they took the prints?” he asked.
“They forgot the clothes,” said Esprit. “They got a call.”
“I’ll send a car,” said Jarnebring, and he started to put down the receiver.
“Excellent. You’ll get a preliminary statement. Suicide. We human beings cannot fly.”
“Thanks,” said Jarnebring, and hung up.
It was Oredsson and Stridh who got the task of fetching Krassner’s clothes and shoes at the forensic medicine office in Solna for removal to the head of the bureau at their own precinct. Stridh remained sitting in the car while Oredsson took care of the practical details. Actually he did offer, thought Stridh while observing the entrance to the forensic medicine office. Such is the way of all flesh, he thought gloomily. It was also Oredsson who took the elevator up to turn over the two bags to Jarnebring when they’d returned to the station. He offered, thought Stridh gloomily while he remained sitting in the car down in the garage, brooding.
Where have I seen him before? thought Jarnebring, looking at the husky young police officer standing in the door to his room. He was on the phone and waved him in with his free left hand.
“Can I call you back?” said Jarnebring and hung up.
“Yes?” he said and looked inquiringly at his visitor.
“It’s these clothes that you asked us to pick up at the forensic medicine office, chief. The guy who jumped from the student dormitory last Friday.”
“Put them on the chair there,” said Jarnebring and started dialing the number of the person he’d just been talking with.
“I was thinking about those shoes.” Oredsson held out the smaller bag.
“Yes?” said Jarnebring. A pair of strong, bootlike shoes in a transparent, sealed plastic bag.
“I don’t know,” his visitor said hesitantly, “but these aren’t normal shoes.”
“Not normal shoes?” Jarnebring put the receiver down on its cradle and leaned back in his chair while he inspected young Oredsson. “You mean that this is a pair of unusual shoes?”
“Yes. If you look at this magazine, chief.” His visitor held out a thick magazine with a colorful cover toward Jarnebring at the same moment as the phone rang again.