“But that sounds just great,” answered Wiijnbladh with genuine warmth in his voice. “My good men, let’s take a look at the corpse. Maybe if we’re lucky he has something in his pockets. Hurry down and get my camera.” Wiijnbladh nodded encouragingly toward Oredsson. “It’s in the backseat. Bring the bag from the trunk too.”
Oredsson nodded without answering. In due course we’ll take care of your type, he thought, but for the time being I’m only a simple soldier and it’s a matter of placing yourself in the ranks without being noticed. But in due course…
Something doesn’t add up, thought Johansson. He had talked about Italian food, about a recent long trip to Southeast Asia, and in answer to a direct question, he had told her about his growing up in Norrland. He had done so in a quiet and humorous way, and for anyone who could read between the lines it was obvious that Lars Martin Johansson was educated, talented, and pleasant, successful, with money in the bank, and-most important of all-unmarried and unattached as well as highly capable in the purely physical relations between man and woman.
His dinner guest seemed both pleased and interested, the signals she gave were clear enough, but still something didn’t add up. She had responded by sharing her own background: daughter of an attorney in Östersund, mother a housewife, one older and one younger sister, studied law in Uppsala, practiced for a time with the prosecutor’s office, became interested in police work and applied to police chief training. For anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear with it was quite obvious that she was beautiful and educated, talented and pleasant, and certainly a very agreeable partner in the purely physical relations between woman and man.
You’ve got a guy, thought Johansson, and the reason you don’t want to talk about it is that you’re a bit too well-brought-up, a bit too conventional, and a bit too inclined to bet on the sure thing. You could imagine a discreet affair, but if you should venture beyond that, you’d first want to be sure you were going to get more out of it in the end than you already have.
Johansson could certainly imagine a discreet affair-he had even carried out one or two-but when it concerned female police officers there were obvious complications. Almost all female police officers went out with male police officers, and because there were ten men to every woman within the corps, the pressure from the demand side was both huge and insatiable. Johansson’s oldest brother was a property owner and car dealer. He was rich, shrewd, uneducated, and crude and could see right through both friends and foes. Once Johansson had teased him about his beautiful blonde secretary. Well? What was the real story?
“Let me give you some good advice.” His older brother looked at him seriously. “You should never shit where you eat.”
High time for a so-called table-turning, thought Johansson. Such a tactic might work even on hardened criminals, so there was really no reason why it shouldn’t work on a female interim police superintendent from Sundsvall as well.
“A completely different matter,” said Johansson with a relaxed smile. “How’s it going with your guy nowadays? I haven’t seen him for a long time.”
She took it well. Concealed her surprise nicely, with the help of the wineglass. Looked at him and smiled with a little worried wrinkle on her forehead.
“I’m sure things are going well with him. I didn’t know that you knew each other.”
“Did he get that job he applied for?” countered Johansson, who wanted to quickly feel solid ground under his feet.
“Do you mean as assistant county police chief?” No more wrinkle.
Johansson nodded.
“He started last summer. He’s as happy as a fish in water. I don’t know if that’s due to the distance between Växjö and Sundsvall… I can’t really say that it has exactly contributed to developing our relationship, but perhaps that was the idea.” Now she smiled again.
“We don’t know each other that well.” Johansson raised his glass. How can you stay with that idiot? he thought.
…
On the walkway below the dormitory Bäckström and Wiijnbladh speedily and vigorously began their investigation of the cause of death. First Wiijnbladh flashed off a few photos toward the dead body and as soon as he lowered the camera and started mumbling something inaudibly into a little pocket tape recorder, Bäckström started rooting through the corpse’s clothing. This was quickly done. The body was dressed in a pair of blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and over that a dark-gray V-neck pullover, on the right foot a sock and a powerful bootlike shoe, on the left foot only a sock. In the right side pocket of the jeans Bäckström found a wallet. He looked through the contents while he smacked his lips with delight.
“Come here, boys, and see.” Bäckström waved toward Stridh and Oredsson. “I believe we have an investigative breakthrough in the making.”
Bäckström held up a plastic ID card with photo.
“John P. Krassner… b period… that probably means ‘borned’… July fifteen one thousand nine hundred fifty-three,” Bäckström read in bad English. John P. Krassner, born July 15, 1953, he translated with satisfaction. “Obviously some damn American who decided to close up shop. Some damn professional student who lost his way in all those books.”
Stridh and Oredsson contented themselves with nodding neutrally, but Bäckström didn’t give up. He leaned forward and held up the ID card against the head of the body. Clearly it was the head that had taken the first impact against the ground. It appeared to have been crushed diagonally from above, from the crown toward the chin; face and hair were covered with dried blood, the face pressed together and the facial features impossible to make out. Bäckström grinned delightedly.
“What do you say, boys? I’d say they’re as alike as two peas.”
Stridh made a grimace of displeasure but said nothing. Oredsson stared at Bäckström without changing expression. Swine, he thought.
“Okay.” Bäckström straightened up and looked at his watch. Already 9:30, he thought. Now it was crucial to put the machinery in motion. “If you boys see to it that we get the corpse on its way to the coroner’s office, then Wiijnbladh and I will take a look at that apartment.”
“What do we do with the shoe?” wondered Oredsson.
“Put it in a bag and send it with the body,” Wiijnbladh said before Bäckström had time to say anything and create unnecessary problems. “And since you’ll be talking with the dispatcher anyway… see to it that they send someone here from the street department who’ll clean up.”
“Exactly,” Bäckström agreed. “It looks like hell. And you”-he looked at Oredsson-“don’t forget to take that fucking barricade with you.”
“Sure,” Oredsson said, and nodded. One day I’m going to get you in town for drunkenness, he thought. And when you start messing around and whining that you’re a policeman I’ll stuff a whole roll of tape up your rear end. “Goes without saying.” Oredsson smiled, and nodded at Bäckström, “Remove the barricade. I got it, sir.”
That guy is not all there, thought Bäckström. God help you if you were an average citizen and met up with that idiot.
According to the bulletin board in the lobby, the room behind the open window was on the sixteenth floor: one of eight student rooms along the same corridor and with a common kitchen. In spite of the fact that it was Friday evening, the command center managed to get hold of the building superintendent, who was sitting in his little office in an adjacent building only a hundred yards from there. He sighed-it wasn’t the first time something like this had happened-and promised to show up in a jiffy. Five minutes later he was opening the corridor door to the area where the room was. He pointed at the door in question and gave the key to Wiijnbladh.