Johansson was bewildered and felt a growing irritation. First he’d tried to create some order in his head by seeing to it that he was fully occupied. Until lunch he had quickly and efficiently cleared away all old annoyances and the usual trifles, which could just as well have remained dormant for good, and after lunch he had started to inspect an old proposal for reorganization of the operation at the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, which even the person who had proposed it didn’t have the energy to care about anymore… and then he called Jarnebring.
“Okay,” said Jarnebring. “Come over and we’ll talk.”
Jarnebring had told him about the message from the embassy, but that didn’t seem to make an impression on his best friend. Nor did the fact that in his investigation he had decided not to mention the obnoxious little scrap of paper and the shoe with the hollow heel. Johansson hadn’t even heard that, it seemed.
“Okay,” said Jarnebring, with a slight resignation in his voice. “How can I help you?”
“You had a photo of Krassner,” said Johansson. “Could I borrow it?”
Jarnebring grinned and shrugged his shoulders.
“Who were you thinking of questioning?”
Johansson also shrugged his shoulders.
“I’ve been going over this in my head until I’m about to go crazy. I wasn’t thinking of questioning anyone.”
“Just snooping around a little?”
Johansson smiled reluctantly and Jarnebring chuckled.
“Put your ear to the rails?”
“More or less,” said Johansson.
“I think you’re barking up the wrong tree,” said Jarnebring. “You’re that type, but okay. Anything else I can help you with?”
“The letter,” said Johansson. “Think I could borrow that letter he wrote?”
“I meant to put the original in his file, of course, but if you can get by with a copy? Sure,” said Jarnebring.
“A copy would work fine,” said Johansson.
Jarnebring grinned and nodded; apparently he was psychic, for both Krassner’s photo and a photocopy of his letter were already in the plastic folder that he took out and handed over to Johansson.
“Anything else you need?” asked Jarnebring, leaning back in his desk chair with his fingers clasped behind his head.
“No, such as?”
Jarnebring shook his head, acting concerned.
“I’m worried about you, Lars,” he said. “Not because you’re getting unnecessarily worked up over this lunatic-you’ve always been the type, so that doesn’t worry me-but you do seem a bit rusty. What do you think about these?”
Jarnebring took a different plastic folder out of his desk drawer and handed it to Johansson. In it were ten or so photos of men approximately Krassner’s age and appearance.
Johansson smiled unwillingly.
“I wasn’t thinking about questioning anyone,” he said. “That’s your job.”
“No, certainly,” said Jarnebring, “but suppose you change your mind and get it into your head to do it anyway. Would be sad if the person you’re talking with didn’t have any pictures to choose from.” He sighed. “You’re worrying yourself unnecessarily,” he continued. “I want the photo array back, by the way.”
“Of course,” said Johansson. “There was one more thing.” A thought had just occurred to him. “That ink cartridge for the typewriter, do you still have it?”
“It’s one of those plastic cartridges,” said Jarnebring, “for a Panasonic brand electric typewriter. The only thing it was used for was to write out that letter you got a copy of. I’ve checked the cartridge against the letter myself. I can assure you, Lars, that every single damn stroke on the ink cartridge, every single correction which has been made on the correction tape, I’ve checked off on the letter.”
Jarnebring looked expectantly at Johansson, who made a deprecating gesture with his hands.
“I’ll pull back,” said Johansson. “Sweet Jesus,” he said and smiled wryly. “I’m crawling in the dust.”
Jarnebring appeared not to have heard the last. “True, I’m only a simple police inspector,” he said, “and if it hadn’t been for one colleague who insisted that we Indian-wrestle, there wouldn’t have been any need for me even to warm this chair.”
Johansson smiled and nodded. The reason for Jarnebring’s sudden promotion was already part of police history as recounted among those who could trust each other.
“One thing I learned early on,” continued Jarnebring, and it sounded as if he was thinking out loud. “This was even before you and I ran into each other.”
Johansson nodded. “Go on.”
“Well,” said Jarnebring. “If you must do something that takes a little time, then see to it for Christ’s sake that you do it properly, otherwise you might as well not bother at all. It took me a good hour to check off the letter against the ink cartridge and correction tape.”
“Quickly done at that,” said Johansson approvingly.
“Sure,” said Jarnebring, grinning broadly. “Which actually might have been due to the fact that old man Rosengren helped me.”
Seated in his car down in the parking garage, Johansson took the plastic folder with the letter and the photo of Krassner out of his briefcase. On the back of the photo Jarnebring had attached the irritating little scrap of paper with a paper clip. It was wrapped in plastic but Johansson could still see that it was the original.
Bo, he thought.
[FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29]
Now the shit has hit the fan in earnest, thought Bäckström, when the chief of homicide’s secretary buzzed him on his intercom and said that the chief wanted to see him immediately. That damn sow, thought Bäckström. She’s knifed me in the back and what the hell am I going to come up with now?
The day before he’d set up a meeting with the crime victim on Karlavägen. They were to meet at her home and Bäckström had set the time at six o’clock in the evening. A quick questioning, a little heartwarming idle chatter, and then straight to the little red beet. So I can treat you to a trip you’ve never made before, thought Bäckström contentedly.
When he actually got there and rang her doorbell, no one opened. Bäckström rang and rang and finally he peeked through the mail slot to see if anything had happened. The only thing that happened was that her neighbor stuck his ugly snout out of the door and asked if there was anything he could help him with. Sour, skinny, bald old bastard, Bäckström diagnosed, while he considered whether he should stick his badge right in his kisser or simply request that he go to hell. But before he managed to do either, the old bastard had shrieked at him to get away from there or else he would call the police.
Because he didn’t have any desire to stand in the stairwell negotiating with one of those Nazis from the uniformed police-for some reason he’d started thinking about that idiot Oredsson-he had carried out an orderly retreat and trotted down to a nearby Chinese restaurant, where he placed himself in the bar to be able to think better. In the ball, thought Bäckström, grinning.
“Rarge beer, rarge stlong beer,” he said to the saffron monkey in the bar, but the humorless bastard didn’t even crack a smile.
After a few more beers he trotted out and scouted around her building a little. The lights were off in all the windows.