If she’s married to one then it’s completely okay, thought Johansson, and I’ll reserve judgment on that thing about horses, but he didn’t say that.
“Do you recall what kind of problem there was with that letter?” asked Johansson.
Mrs. Carlander shook her head slowly.
“No,” she said hesitantly. “But if there were any I’m convinced the manager would have solved them for him.”
“You don’t recall her name?” asked Johansson.
“Name, name,” said Mrs. Carlander vaguely. “Her first name is Pia, that much I know. But what her last name is, I know that I know but sometimes I get those, well, it’s as if things just fall out of my memory. The other day I forgot the word for ‘navel.’ I was talking with one of my grandchildren on the phone and it was completely gone. She must have thought Grandma had gone crazy, poor thing.”
“It’ll be okay,” said Johansson confidently. “We police find out things like that.” Peppy Pia, he thought.
“I think so too,” said Mrs. Carlander with conviction. “I’m quite certain you are going to take notice of her, superintendent. She has that kind of appearance that you fellows take notice of, if I may say so.”
Time to say goodbye, thought Johansson and smiled in her direction.
“Yes, Mrs. Carlander, I must say thank you…”
“You won’t say what he’s done? Is it narcotics and those kinds of horrors?”
Johansson shook his head and smiled soothingly.
“No, not as far as we know,” he said. “He isn’t suspected of any crime.”
“No,” said Mrs. Carlander, and she didn’t sound entirely convinced.
“No,” repeated Johansson. “We’re just trying to find out who he was.”
Mrs. Carlander nodded again but she still didn’t seem entirely convinced.
Mrs. Carlander was completely correct. Pia had the kind of appearance that fellows take notice of: dark hair cut short, blue eyes, large breasts, and a narrow waist. Her last name was Hedin. There’s nothing wrong with her legs either, thought Johansson, but because they were standing on either side of the counter it wasn’t particularly easy to make sure of that.
Johansson had stated his name and given her his business card. He had also noted that she became more surprised when she looked at it than was warranted by his name and title alone. Then she smiled amiably at him and nodded inquiringly.
“What can I help you with?”
Johansson handed over the photo of Krassner.
“I understand you were speaking with this person about a month ago. He wanted help sending a letter.”
She took the photo in her hand and Johansson saw that she recognized the face in the picture. Then she smiled amiably again and nodded toward his business card, which she had placed on the counter.
“You don’t have an ID or anything,” she asked. “I don’t want to seem awkward, but we do have our rules as well.”
Careless of me, thought Johansson, and wondered how many courses in corporate security she’d gone to. He smiled apologetically and held out his police ID. In contrast to almost everyone else, she looked at it carefully. Then she smiled again and Johansson understood that Mrs. Carlander was a woman who knew men better than most women half her age.
“That’s right,” she said. “I recognize him and I was the one who helped him send the letter to you.”
What the hell is she saying? thought Johansson, and apparently Pia Hedin was just as observant as he was, for she just smiled and nodded toward the back of the post office.
“Perhaps we should sit down in my office,” she suggested. “So we can talk without being disturbed.”
Nice legs, thought Johansson as he followed her into her office, at least one consolation in this mess.
More than a month ago, Krassner had come into the post office on Körsbärsvägen and sent a letter to the Stockholm 4 post office on Folkungagatan on the south end, poste restante, for Police Superintendent Lars Martin Johansson. She had helped him herself but she didn’t go into the reasons why she’d done so.
“It was a rather strange request. We almost never get any poste restante here, and the ones we do get come as a rule from abroad. As you no doubt know, police superintendent…”
“Call me Lars,” said Johansson, and received a smile and a nod as a reward.
“When a poste restante is sent to one of our offices, it remains there for a month-thirty days, to be exact-and then it goes back to the sender. Provided that the addressee hasn’t picked it up, of course.”
If he had my address, thought Johansson, why in the name of heaven didn’t he send it directly home to me instead of to the post office-although he did send it to the post office I usually go to.
“I’m thinking,” said Johansson, smiling his most charming smile. “I had no idea that I’d received a letter poste restante.”
“I figured that out a little more than a week ago,” said Pia Hedin. “When we got it back here.”
Finally, thought Johansson. Soon the truth will emerge, but before that we’ll take everything in the right order. Calmly and methodically.
“There are naturally no obstacles to sending local mailings poste restante, but it’s not common. That I can guarantee. I recall that I offered to try to find out your address so that it would be sure to get through.”
“What did he say to that?” asked Johansson.
“He explained that you’d agreed to do it this way.”
I see, thought Johansson. He said that.
“Yes.” She nodded and smiled again. “It’s clear that I started a little at the addressee’s title, your title-it was actually a little bit exciting.”
“What did you think?” said Johansson. What a smile she has, he thought.
“That it was some kind of secret tip. I mean, he didn’t seem like he was on drugs or strange in any way. He even wanted to show his ID to me, but I said that wasn’t necessary. I understood of course that there was no dope in the letter. It was an ordinary letter. Not even especially thick, and of course I could feel that there was only paper in it. Yes. What did I think? I probably thought it was exciting. A little secret agent movie like that.”
She seems rather charmed, thought Johansson.
“Okay,” he said. “You wouldn’t be able to fetch it so I can look at it?”
“Won’t work.” She smiled and shook her head. “Unfortunately.”
What do you mean won’t work? thought Johansson.
“He had requested particular forwarding from here, so I’ve already sent it to that address. It actually left here yesterday.”
This is, so help me God, not true, thought Johansson, and he groaned internally.
“Why did he do that?” asked Johansson.
“I explained how it worked with poste restante and that the letter would come back here in about a month, and then he said that if he hadn’t picked it up within a week he wanted me to forward it to an address in the U.S. He explained that he was living at the student dormitory right across the street but that he was planning to go home in a month, approximately. He didn’t know exactly which day he would leave, and he didn’t want it to remain sitting here with us and he didn’t want it sent to the student dormitory because he was just living there temporarily. And because we don’t want a lot of letters sitting around here either, making a mess, I did as he requested, a little special service like that.” She smiled and nodded.
“Where have you sent it?” said Johansson.
“To the address in the U.S. that he gave me, and actually I thought that was a little strange too.”
“How so?”
“Well, as I said, he explained that he was only here temporarily and that he was living at the dormitory right across the street and that he would probably be going home in a month. So if we were to get the letter sent back, we could hold it here for a week and then forward it to him if he hadn’t picked it up by then.”