“You’ll have to excuse me,” said Bäckström curtly, “but I’m sitting here with-”
“Good Lord,” she whispered. “He’s the one who’s murdered him. I don’t know what to do.”
What the hell is she saying? thought Bäckström.
“Murdered who?” asked Bäckström.
“The prime minister,” she whispered.
She is, God help me, off her rocker, thought Bäckström, but then he suddenly thought about the dartboard, so he didn’t say that.
“Why do you think that?” he asked.
“Good Lord,” she said dejectedly. “He’s been planning to do it as long as I’ve known him.”
“Do you know if he has access to weapons?” Bäckström asked carefully.
“Weapons, he has lots of weapons,” she whispered.
This might be worth checking out, thought Bäckström, and since the after-hours unit mostly resembled the locked ward at a psychiatric hospital, he borrowed a service vehicle and drove to her place.
She lived in a messy little apartment on the south end, but he’d figured that out from the start. On the other hand, what she had to say didn’t sound so stupid. Her old boyfriend, the one with the dartboard, was evidently a mean devil when it came down to it, and he had evidently hated the prime minister and then some. She mostly whispered and sniffled and snuffled, but they always did that, so it was no surprise.
“You said that he had weapons,” Bäckström reminded her.
“Yes, he showed me one time.”
“What were they?” asked Bäckström. “Do you remember that?”
“It was one of those like they have in western movies. One of those cowboy pistols.”
What do you say? thought Bäckström, feeling the excitement rising, for before he’d left the after-hours unit he’d heard that one of the eyewitnesses from the crime scene had maintained that the perpetrator had fired a revolver.
“You mean a revolver,” said Bäckström.
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “A revolver, it was one of those.”
Doesn’t look good for the damn dart-thrower, thought Bäckström contentedly, for soon he would have a real pro breathing down his neck. Not good at all, he thought.
It had been the worst night in Chief Inspector Koskinen’s life. And it had all started so well. Despite the fact that it was Friday after payday, the streets had been quiet all evening. Severe cold and biting wind were always the best way to maintain general order and security on streets and squares, thought Koskinen, deciding that it was high time to say hello to a dear old friend that he kept in his locker.
Fortunately he’d had time to knock back a few good-sized stiff ones before the roof fell in. He’d just locked away his best friend and freshened himself up with some menthol lozenges when suddenly one of his operators came rushing in looking like seven years of famine.
“There you are. The devil himself has been let loose in the pit,” said the operator, staring at him.
“The pit” was the internal name for the Stockholm Police Department’s command center, and at first he hadn’t understood a thing, but looked around in the dressing room to see if he might discover something or someone.
What’s this about loose? thought Koskinen.
“They’ve shot the prime minister,” said his operator.
“What kind of nonsense is that?” said Koskinen. “It’s one of those fucking drills, don’t you understand?” I’ll have to take it up with the union again, he thought. Must be that lunatic who’s the head of operations.
His younger colleague just looked at him. Then he shook his head several times. Just stood there shaking his head while he looked at him.
“No, no, no,” he said. Then he turned on his heel and went back in to the command center.
The rest was an absolute nightmare. Like that time last summer when he’d gotten the D.T.’s and wrestled with a squid for several hours despite the fact that he was only lying there sleeping and had almost strangled himself with his own sheets. Although that time it had worked out. He’d taken leave for a few weeks and the doctor had prescribed something a little extra strong for him. This night was worse, for it would never come to an end.
First he ran out of throat lozenges, which wasn’t the end of the world since he had a cold anyway and it made sense to keep a little distance. But then he ran out of schnapps too, despite the fact that he’d stocked up extra since it was Friday. And then every single boss in the whole fucking district started barging in in the middle of the night, and what they all had in common was their demand to be immediately informed of the situation so that they then could devote themselves to being in the way. Situation here and situation there, and the only consolation was that the majority of them seemed to have celebrated so substantially that nobody noticed that he didn’t have any throat lozenges to offer. And say what you want to about the chief constable, he thought, he was actually the only person who hadn’t disturbed him. He hadn’t made any contact whatsoever.
“The situation is as follows,” said Koskinen for the fifty-eleventh time the same night. “The prime minister has been shot and the perpetrator has succeeded in fleeing the scene.”
But otherwise nothing was the same and least of all did it have anything in common with that incomprehensible drill that the chief constable had arranged. And only on Saturday afternoon did he finally get to drop into his bed.
…
The Stockholm chief constable’s leaving Chief Inspector Koskinen in peace was not due to the fact that he wasn’t interested in what had happened. He’d taken leave over the weekend and driven up to Dalarna with his mistress in order to ski in Vasaloppet, and considering the delicate nature of this he had carefully avoided informing anyone of his whereabouts.
He had quite simply no idea that the prime minister had been shot in his own backyard. It was the porter at the hotel who told him when he came down to breakfast in the morning. The chief constable had obviously packed himself, his ski equipment, and his mistress into his car and immediately set a course toward Stockholm.
He could always ski in Vasaloppet next year, but the assassination of a prime minister was a more unusual event, so it was crucial to seize the opportunity that the occasion offered. What a unique opportunity, he thought as he sat behind the steering wheel, to be able to test the new intellectual methods of investigation that he’d developed for the first time on a real case. This is almost too good to be true, he thought, and while he drove, his mistress took notes on his various thoughts, ideas, and plans. Quite in order, for she was of course a police officer too, of a rather simpler type, it was true, but nonetheless a police officer.
Even before they passed Sala on the way home she had written down thirty-five different tracks divided into the three main categories of main track, alternative main track, and secondary tracks. He’d decided to wait with the so-called dead-end track that his best friend had so meritoriously suggested to him. For one thing he still hadn’t got his promised memorandum on the matter, and also, naturally enough, he didn’t know how large a part of his investigation force he would need to keep occupied with other things while waiting until he needed them.
“May I ask something?” said his mistress.
“Of course, dear,” he said. She really sounds surly, he thought.
“It’s the main track. How do you know that?”
“Know what?” the chief constable countered patiently.
“That it’s the Kurds who shot him,” she said. “How do you know that?”
“Because it’s statistically the most probable,” said the chief constable.