“Eva-Lena,” interrupted Jarnebring. “Do you remember Eva-Lena?”
“Eva-Lena?” Johansson, who was of the opinion that the police profession should be practiced by men, because ninety-nine percent of the time it concerned other men, but of course he would not dream of uttering a word of that, rooted feverishly among his old police memories.
“Eva-Lena, that broad who became head of the narc squad, the first female detective chief inspector in Stockholm. In the whole country, I believe. A light-haired, thin gal, a bit too thin, perhaps, but still rather tasty, swore like a tugboat captain. You remember her, don’t you?”
Johansson suddenly remembered. He had been loaned out to narcotics from surveillance in an emergency and the first night he had missed a routine tailing. Muffed it, to put it simply, because the thief was cleverer than him, because his wife had just left him, because he hadn’t slept since it happened, and because his children used to phone every time he tried to sleep, and because they immediately started bawling before he had time to say anything, and because their mother managed to hang up before… All the same, he’d muffed it and the following morning he got his new boss’s view on the matter.
“How the hell do you explain this?” she began.
Personal problems, thought Johansson. He had learned at school that that’s what you should say, but as soon as he started working he realized that that was pure nonsense, so he didn’t say it.
“He was better than me,” said Johansson. One to nothing for me, he thought, for he had seen how surprised she was.
“He was better than you? But isn’t just about everyone? Isn’t that so? I’ve heard that you’re a fucking piece of trash. That’s what my boys say. Surveillance sent us a fucking piece of trash to yank our chains.”
And someone ought to wash your mouth out with soap, thought Johansson, but he didn’t say that either.
“Almost no one is better than me,” said Johansson with an obvious Norrland accent while at the same time looking her straight in the eyes. To her credit it should be said that she hadn’t backed down, just stared back, but she had still lost because she was the one who had said something first.
“Okay,” she said. “You’ll get another chance. See to it that you’re here at seven o’clock.”
Instead he’d gone to his chief, one of those old legends. Johansson had chosen the easy way out.
“She’s badmouthing us here at surveillance,” said Johansson. “She’s badmouthing us and you too, and I won’t put up with that.” He added a little extra Norrland drawl at the end.
“Damn sow,” said the chief, who was already red under the eyes. “Damn pushy dyke.” He started to dial the number of his best friend, who was an old wrestler just like him and the head of the entire detective department, “and you,” he nodded at Johansson, “stay with me, lad. It’s those damn socialist bastards,” he explained. “You’ve got to be a socialist bastard in order to arrive at something so stupid as recruiting old ladies to the police.” He chuckled, leaned back in his chair, and nodded at Johansson that he could leave. Lapp bastard, he thought affectionately as Johansson left.
…
“Her I do remember,” said Johansson. “She was good,” he continued, “really good, almost as good as you and me.”
So she tried to sound like you and me, and behave like you and me and all the other boys, and one day she was simply gone, he thought.
“What happened to her?” asked Johansson, despite the fact that he knew the answer.
Jarnebring shrugged his broad shoulders.
“She disappeared, she quit, nobody knows,” said Jarnebring.
How the hell can you recruit women to the police? he thought, but because Johansson was after all a superintendent and as such more than halfway into politics he didn’t say that.
“Skoal,” said Jarnebring, raising his glass. “Skoal to all the boys in surveillance and skoal to the good old days.”
Who poured more aquavit? thought Johansson, a little confused. Someone must have, for Aunt Jenny’s glasses were full to the brim.
“Gustav Adolf Nilsson,” said Jarnebring, smiling. They had taken a break in the middle of the entrée, Johansson was drinking wine while Jarnebring abstained to continue instead with beer, and a little extra on the side in Aunt Jenny’s glass, and the whole thing was just great. “Gustav Adolf Nilsson, born in thirty,” repeated Jarnebring.
“Your witness,” said Johansson. “The one with the mutt who got the shoe in the head,” he continued. Strange story, thought Johansson. Pure detective mystery.
“Vindel,” continued Jarnebring. “Do you remember him, almost ten years ago? When we were working on that robbery over at Odenplan and the double murder where I’ll be damned if it wasn’t our colleague at the secret police who was the perp. Do you remember?”
“Yes,” said Johansson. “I remember Vindel.” That other thing he’d tried to forget. “Was he the drunk who knew the victim?”
“Not today,” said Jarnebring. “The same Gustav Adolf Nilsson,” continued Jarnebring delightedly. “Alias Vindel. And both you and I are bigger drunks than he is today.”
“I would have thought he’d drunk himself to death a good while ago,” said Johansson with surprise. “The way he looked back then.”
“No way, José,” said Jarnebring, shaking his head delightedly. “Six months later he got an inheritance from his oldest sister, the only remaining relative. She had married a Pentecostalist who was a hardware wholesaler and twice her age. Vindel’s brother-in-law,” Jarnebring clarified, “but because he’d tricked Vindel out of half his parental home as soon as he’d sunk his claws into his sister, they didn’t exactly get together every day. Then the old bastard kicked the bucket, the Pentecostalist that is, and ten years later when it was time for the widow to go, she left the entire inheritance to Vindel. In spite of the fact that he hadn’t heard from her in twenty years. A case of bad conscience, I suppose, the old hag.”
“I’ll be damned,” said Johansson with genuine feeling behind his words.
“Sure,” said Jarnebring. “I thought I recognized him when we were over at his place, talking about his dead dog, but it was Hultman who connected the dots when we drove away from there.”
So Hultman was along, thought Johansson, but he didn’t say that.
“Not so strange,” continued Jarnebring, “for he looked like a damn athlete compared with when you and I saw him, and that must be almost ten years ago. Skinny, sinewy, Norrland athletic type, a real gray panther. Piles of dough from his sister and not a drop after the inheritance. He’s supposed to have said something to the effect that if you had as much money as he did you were simply obligated to quit drinking. He just went on the wagon and said farewell to all of his drinking buddies, from that day on. He’s still living in his old pad on Surbrunnsgatan, although now the building has been turned into condominiums, and then Vindel acquired the neighboring pad as well. Knocked out the wall and added on, treasurer of the association and loaded as a bank vault.”
“I’ll be damned,” said Johansson. “Vindel, that old lush.”
“Sure,” said Jarnebring. “I forgot to tell you that when you came up, ’cause all I was thinking about was that damn shoe. What a fucking story, pure detective mystery.” Jarnebring’s entire upper body was shaking with delight and because he was leaning forward over the table it could be felt in the whole place.
“Yes, I still don’t have the foggiest,” said Johansson. “As far as I know I’ve never met that Krassner.”