“What did you do then?” repeated Johansson.
“I didn’t get aroused, if that’s what you’re thinking,” said Pia, looking acidly at him. “I was scared shitless, jumped out of bed, and started pulling on my clothes. Then he started wrestling with me.”
“So how did it end?” said Johansson.
“Really amazing,” said Pia. “It was only then that I understood the benefit of growing up with two older brothers who were constantly fighting with me,” she said.
“Explain,” said Johansson.
“I kneed him,” said Pia. “A perfect knee right in his crotch. Just like my brothers had taught me. He fell down on the floor and just moaned. I grabbed my clothes, picked up my handbag, took the coat from out in the hall, and ran down the stairs and out on the street. It was then I discovered I’d forgotten my shoes. My new black high-heeled shoes. Expensive, super-nice-looking, Italian. Do you know who I got them from, by the way?”
“From Claes Waltin,” said Johansson.
“Yes,” said Pia. “The third time we met. I didn’t have any idea he knew what my shoe size was. Fit perfectly. Really expensive.”
“And then? What happened then?”
“Nothing,” said Pia. “I never saw him again. No calls. Nothing. Although I miss my shoes,” she said, shaking her head. “And I regret I didn’t take those pictures with me, so I could have destroyed them. Someone like him shouldn’t have pictures like that.”
“I’m sure he had more,” said Johansson. Wherever they’ve ended up, he thought.
When they went to bed he had a hard time falling asleep for once. He pulled her next to him. A little spoon against a big ladle, who didn’t even need to pull in his belly anymore when he slept with his woman. Even though he put his arm around her he had a hard time falling asleep. What kind of arm could protect her if what he believed about Waltin was true? If it became obvious to everyone else? If the media found out about it? The story about the police chief who had a wife who had been involved with the man who was behind the murder of the prime minister. Even better, who had been involved with him at the point in time when he had just murdered the prime minister.
So that’s an interview you can just forget, Holt, thought Lars Martin Johansson, and then he finally fell asleep.
70
“I have to talk with you, boss,” said Mattei as she stood in the doorway to Johansson’s office.
“It can’t wait until Monday?” said Johansson. “I have a lot of things to do. Have to pick up my wife. We’re going away this weekend.”
“I’m afraid it’s important,” said Mattei.
“What’s more important than my wife?” said Johansson.
“Nothing, I’m sure,” said Mattei. “It’s just that I think I’ve found the bastard who did it.” The one the boss is harping about all the time, she thought.
“Close the door,” said Johansson. “Sit down.”
“4711,” said Johansson five minutes later when Mattei was through talking. “Wasn’t that some kind of mysterious German perfume?”
“That was why I happened to think of it,” said Mattei. “That was when I remembered the service code on the so-called receipt that Waltin gave to Wiijnbladh.”
“Although you don’t know what his name is,” said Johansson.
“Someone must have known. Someone at SePo must have known. Considering the answer from their personnel department that was in the file. I asked Linda, my mother that is, but she didn’t want to talk about it. She thought it could be hard to produce. So long afterward, that is.”
“Do you have any description of that mysterious perfume man?” said Johansson.
“The anonymous informant provided a description. The informant, who I think was Orjala, Jorma Kalevi Orjala. A known thug at that time who was run over in a hit-and-run accident involving an unknown perpetrator, and found drowned in the Karlberg Canal only a few months after the Palme murder. Doesn’t seem as though Orjala liked our colleague from SePo, but maybe we shouldn’t worry about that.”
“What should we worry about then?” interrupted Johansson.
“He says that the person he saw at that Chinese restaurant on Drottninggatan the same evening that Palme was murdered had worked at the bureau in Solna, but that he had quit a number of years before and started at SePo instead. He is supposed to have left there in 1982 according to what SePo itself says in its response to the officer who had the question about the anonymous tip.”
“Hell,” said Johansson, sitting straight up in his chair. “Hell’s bells. Why didn’t I think of that? How could I have forgotten that bastard?”
“Excuse me,” said Mattei.
“Hell,” Johansson repeated. “It’s Kjell Göran Hedberg you’re talking about, of course.”
North Mallorca, fall of 1992
First he intended to clean up after himself. As soon as he got rid of the body he intended to clean up after himself. Starting with his hotel room. Get his keys. Take the plane to Stockholm. Clean up his apartment on Norr Mälarstrand and his big house in the country. In the best case he could get back anything that rightfully belonged to him.
There was never time for any cleanup. As so often before when he planned things, the unexpected upset his calculations.
When he showed up at the hotel the next morning the police had already been there. A regular marked car was parked by the hotel entrance. Two uniformed Spanish officers standing in reception, talking with the staff. The main key that was in his pocket, that he’d had to pay so dearly for, could no longer be used. He got rid of it. Threw it in the water when he turned in the boat he had rented. Traveling to Sweden was out of the question.
What remained was the hope that there wasn’t anything to clean up. He laid low. Changed residence, waited, hid for months like a rabbit in its new hole. It was also then that he decided to have Esperanza built. As an extra insurance policy he could use to protect himself against the unexpected.
But nothing had happened. There hadn’t been anything he needed to clean up. If there had been he would have noticed it. Then things would have happened. All that had happened was that year was added to year, and soon it would be over for good, and worldly justice could no longer reach him. He had never had any reason to trouble himself about divine justice. On the contrary, it seemed to have been on his side all along, if you wanted to believe in such things.
Esperanza was no longer simply a boat, an insurance policy, and a reminder. It had also become a contribution to his livelihood, and it was Ignacio Ballester who had suggested it. Why not earn some extra money from all the charter tourists? Everyone who wanted to swim, fish, and dive. He knew the area, he knew the waters. He was an experienced sailor too, good diver, and capable fisherman. What would be simpler than putting out his card among all the others on the bulletin board down by the charter pier in Puerto Pollensa? Day tours, swimming, fishing, diving. Easy money and no tax authorities to torment anyone smart enough to give out only a cell phone number on the printed card.