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Everything had started perfectly too. He had run into a younger officer from the bureau in Farsta who wanted to get onto the homicide squad at any price and had also gotten the idea that Bäckström was the right man to arrange the matter. Two paltry beers he’d paid for, that stingy bastard, so he could forget that business with homicide. Then he’d encountered a fat Finnish woman he’d screwed last summer. She was working as a bedpan changer at Sabbatsberg hospital and lived in a filthy three-room apartment far out in hell somewhere in the southern suburbs. Single mother of course; he could still feel the LEGO pieces crunching under the soles of his feet when he slipped out the following morning. She clearly also had a faulty memory, for despite the previous visit, he had succeeded in borrowing a twenty from her. He also got a wet kiss on the cheek, but now even she had taken off. The only people remaining in the almost empty place were a bunch of drunks plus a worn-down hag who’d fallen asleep on a couch.

What a fucking society, what fucking people, and what a fucking life they’re living, thought Bäckström. The only thing you could hope for was a really juicy murder so you got something substantial to bite into.

[SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23]

Police Inspector Bo Jarnebring of the Stockholm Police Department’s central surveillance squad was not one to work on a Saturday if he had the choice, but for the past fourteen days such an option had been considerably reduced: He’d started a new job as chief inspector and head of the local detective unit with the Östermalm police. It was a temporary appointment, to be sure, and, he hoped, only for a short time, but everyone around him had nonetheless been greatly surprised. Jarnebring was generally known as the direct opposite of a careerist; he always spit upward and seldom missed an opportunity to chew out both bosses and semi-bosses. In addition, his work as a detective was perhaps the most important part of his identity. He had worked with the central surveillance squad for more than fifteen years, and he held an unquestioned conviction that, as far as his life as a policeman was concerned, he couldn’t imagine anything better than to live and die that way.

A month ago he and a number of colleagues within the surveillance operation had taken the Finland ferry to Helsinki for a work conference. These meetings had long been a tradition and a necessary, recurring element of the planning that must take place, even within so-called surveillance, all the bohemian and impressionistic aspects of the occupation aside.

As always, it had been pleasant. Nothing but known quantities and guys you could trust. In the morning criminals old and new had been discussed, the usual heroic stories had been told, after which the proceedings were interrupted for a generously ample lunch, something which of course had been taken into account when the afternoon program had been determined. Among the invitees was the head of the detective unit of the Östermalm police, who would recount a few varied experiences from the local surveillance operation. He was a white man, a funny S.O.B., and despite the fact that he had departed from the true doctrine he was still an old detective in heart and soul. As the first item on the program after lunch he was absolutely perfect. He was a very entertaining lecturer, and afterward you could never remember a word he’d said. What the whole thing was about was actually something else: getting to meet friends and colleagues under somewhat more easygoing conditions, and perhaps having the opportunity during the evening to discuss something other than old crooks.

This time, unfortunately, things had really gone south. In the wee hours the elite few who were still standing on two feet had gathered in the conference leaders’ cabin for a last round, and to make a long and nowadays thoroughly hushed-up story short, Jarnebring had torn the Achilles tendon of the chief of the Östermalm police detective unit. For the latter was not only an entertaining lecturer; he was also known as a strongman and past master at both arm-wrestling and Indian wrestling. Jarnebring was the last one standing, the same Jarnebring who twenty-five years earlier used to run the second leg of the short relay in the Finnish Games and had made it a habit never to give up.

The official version was somewhat different: During the day’s concluding remarks, one of the lecturers unfortunately happened to twist his ankle when he stood to summarize the discussion up at the blackboard. Everyone had of course been completely sober, but because the rough sea had been annoying at times, misfortune nonetheless managed to rear its ugly head. A typical injury in the line of duty, therefore, which was some consolation at least if you were forced to go around in a cast for a few months.

Jarnebring was a man who lived by simple and obvious rules. Discretion was a matter of honor. If you got involved in something, you made a point of cleaning up after yourself, and when it really counted was when your buddies were involved. Therefore, for the past fourteen days, he had been filling in as head of the local detective unit with the Östermalm police and that was that.

Unfortunately, however, this had affected his life. His most recent girlfriend, who worked as a uniformed police officer at Norrmalm, had left early in the morning on a sudden call to duty, so he could forget that type of activity. Exercising was not an option either, for you did that sort of thing while on duty, and as an old elite athlete he knew the value of holding yourself to a carefully determined exercise schedule. Paying a call on his plaster-casted colleague in misfortune was also out of the question. He had taken his wife along and gone to a health resort in Värmland in order to rehabilitate himself in earnest, at the department’s expense.

After he showered, had breakfast, and leafed through the morning paper, it was still only nine o’clock, and ahead of him stretched an entirely free day, long as a marathon and hardly enticing for an old sprinter like Jarnebring. At that point he decided to call his best friend and former colleague, Police Superintendent Lars Martin Johansson, at the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation. This decision had demanded a good deal of inner persuasion, for the last time they had met there had been a serious falling-out. Over a trifle, at that, a Yugoslav thug whom Jarnebring and his colleagues, with considerable effort and slightly unconventional methods, had finally succeeded in placing in the criminal detention center where he ought to have been from the very beginning. No big deal in itself, but Johansson, who had shown disturbing signs of wavering conviction since he’d left the field campaign against criminality to take it easy behind a series of ever-larger desks, had gone completely crazy, bawled him out, and marched off in the middle of a nice dinner.

One time doesn’t count, and I’m not one to dwell on the past, thought Jarnebring generously while he dialed his old friend and colleague’s home number. But no one answered, and before Jarnebring realized it, he was suddenly striding through the doors to the reception area at the Östermalm police station on Tulegatan. He nodded toward the officer in uniform who was sitting behind the counter and in turn nodded back.

“How’s it going?” asked Jarnebring. “Anything happened?”

The officer shook his head while he checked off his list. “A few car prowls, fistfights, and property damage at some bar over on Birger Jarlsgatan, an executive on Karlavägen who beat up his wife, although homicide should have taken care of that of course, yes.” He leafed through his papers. “Then we have a suicide too. Some crazy American who jumped from that student dormitory up on Valhallavägen.”

“American, from the U.S.?”

The officer in uniform nodded in confirmation.

“American citizen. Born in ’53, I believe. The papers are in your box. I got them from the after-hours unit this morning.”