“His name is Charlie,” Vindel explained with tears in his eyes. “He’s a Pomeranian, although I think there’s a little foxhound in him too. He turned thirteen last summer but he’s a frisky rascal.”
Vindel snuffled and fell silent while Stridh squeezed his shoulder. After that he began his initial questioning.
“Vindel” was not his real name. He was just called that. His name was Gustav Adolf Nilsson; he was born in 1930 and had come to Stockholm in 1973 to go to a retraining course at AMS-an unemployed construction worker from Norrland and that’s the way it remained, for he never got a new job.
“It was my buddies at the course,” Vindel explained. “You see, I was born and raised in those parts and we talked quite a lot about how it was at home. So then it became Vindel. As in the Vindel River, you know?”
Stridh nodded. He knew.
Vindel explained that he and Charlie lived nearby, two floors above the courtyard at Surbrunnsgatan 4. After they’d eaten their dinner and before it was time to watch the evening news on TV, they would take their usual evening walk. They always took the same route. First across Valhallavägen at the intersection with Surbrunnsgatan, then the walkway parallel to Valhallavägen down to Roslagstull, where they would turn and walk home again. If it was nice weather, however, they might walk farther.
On the slope below the Rosehip dormitory Charlie had one of his favorite trees, so that’s where they would take their first lengthy stop.
“It’s important that they have time to nose around properly,” Vindel explained. “For a dog that’s like reading the newspaper.”
Just as they were standing there and Charlie was reading his newspaper, Charlie had suddenly raised his head and looked straight up along the façade of the building. Suddenly Vindel was thrown backward with a powerful jerk of the leash.
“I was just about knocked to the ground. If Charlie hadn’t looked up and pulled me to the side, that damn thing would’ve hit me right in the skull and I wouldn’t be sitting here now.” Vindel nodded emphatically.
“Do you believe that he heard some sound that he reacted to?” Stridh made a mark in his notebook.
“Naw.” Vindel shook his head with even greater emphasis. “He’s completely deaf in both ears. It must have been that sixth sense they have. Certain Pomeranians have it. A sixth sense.”
Stridh nodded but said nothing.
If Charlie had had a sixth sense, it had in any case failed immediately afterward, when the victim’s downward-falling left shoe struck him in the neck and killed him on the spot.
“This is too terrible,” Vindel said, and he started snuffling again. “We’re standing there, Charlie and I, looking at the damn thing, and suddenly his shoe comes falling.”
“It came right after the body?” Stridh asked.
“Naw, not really. We stood there and watched. It took a good while.”
“A minute, two minutes?”
“Naw. Not a minute, it didn’t take that long, but it probably took ten, twenty seconds in all. It took that long.”
“Ten to twenty seconds, you say. You don’t think it could have been even shorter?”
“Well. I’m sure maybe it feels longer when you’re standing like that, but probably it took quite a few seconds.”
Vindel snuffled audibly and blew his nose in his hand.
…
While Stridh was talking with Vindel, Oredsson took the opportunity to use his blue eyes. He discovered the shoe immediately; it was lying only a few yards from the body and probably belonged to the victim, as he was missing a left shoe and the right shoe, which was still on his foot, was suspiciously like the one lying on the incline. For a moment he considered fetching a plastic bag from the car and placing the shoe in it, of course at the same spot and in the same position where it was now lying, but he abandoned that thought. In the course on criminal technology, nothing in particular had been said about the handling of shoes, but because he assumed that it should be handled like a clue in general, he let it lie where it was. There was nothing in either the weather conditions or the surrounding environment to justify a departure from the golden rule in the form of so-called special clue-securing measures.
So be it, thought Oredsson, and felt quite pleased with his decision. He would go with the golden rule about touching as few things as possible and leaving the search to the technicians.
Instead he proceeded to inspect the façade along an imagined vertical line from the place where the body had landed straight up the building. Somewhere on the fifteenth or sixteenth floor-the building foundation was on a slope, which made him uncertain how best to calculate-a window appeared to be standing open despite the cold. Approximately fifty yards’ vertical drop, thought Oredsson-who was the best shot in his class and a crackerjack at judging distance-which agreed rather well with the deplorable condition of the corpse. Oredsson looked at his watch. A good half hour had elapsed since the command center promised to send the after-hours unit and technician. What are they up to? thought Oredsson with irritation.
Bäckström was small, fat, and crude, while Wiijnbladh was small, slender, and dapper, and together they complemented each other splendidly. They were also happy working together. Bäckström thought that Wiijnbladh was a cowardly half fairy-you didn’t even need to raise your voice, he still did what he was told. Wiijnbladh, in turn, viewed Bäckström as mentally challenged and bad-tempered-a pure dream to work with for anyone who preferred having complete control of the situation. Because they were both solidly incompetent, no disagreements arose either on factual or other professional grounds, and to sum up, they made a real radar unit.
Exactly one hour after they received the assignment, they were on the walkway below the Rosehip, although in all fairness it should be noted that at this time of day it takes almost ten minutes to drive from the police station on Kungsholmen to the parking lot right in front of the intersection of Valhallavägen and Frejgatan, where they had chosen to position their car.
“What the hell is this?” said Bäckström, tugging crossly at the barricade tape in front of the corpse. “Have we landed in some damn war or what?” He fixed his eyes on both his uniformed colleagues.
“It’s a barricade tape,” Oredsson answered calmly. His blue and strangely pale eyes scrutinized Bäckström. He stood motionless with legs wide apart and with his burly arms hanging by his sides. “There’s a whole roll in the car if you need more.”
My God, what a sick bastard, thought Bäckström. That’s not a policeman; he looks like he’s acting in some old Nazi movie. What gives? Are they letting them into the corps nowadays? He decided to quickly change the subject.
“There was supposed to be a witness here. Where the hell has he taken off to?” He glared crossly at the two in uniform.
“I drove him home half an hour ago,” answered the older, considerably fatter clod, who was standing next to the younger Nazi type. “He was in a bit of shock and wanted to go home; I’ve already talked with him. I have the name and address if you want to question him again.”
“It’ll work out; it’ll work out,” said Wiijnbladh diplomatically. “Without getting ahead of ourselves, I think this looks suspiciously like a suicide. Did you gentlemen know, by the way, that there are twenty suicides for every murder in this city?”
Judging by the shaking of their heads, they didn’t seem to be aware of that fact, nor particularly interested in pursuing the matter further.
“There’s a window standing wide open on the fifteenth or possibly the sixteenth floor, depending on how you calculate.” Oredsson pointed up toward the façade of the building. “It’s been standing open since we got here. Despite the cold.”