“What did he conclude?” said Mattei.
“That Hedberg was an evil psychopath with almost unlimited self-confidence. Someone who saw himself as an Übermensch. Totally incapable of deeper, emotional attachments to other people. With a very great, purely physical capacity besides.”
“Everyone has their weak points. Even someone like that,” said Holt.
“I think so too,” said Johansson. “Hedberg had at least one, if you ask me.”
“What was that?” said Holt.
“He was crazy for women,” said Johansson. “That sort of thing costs. Sooner or later,” he said.
“So this is the bastard we’re looking for,” said Anna Holt, when Johansson was finished half an hour later.
“I think so,” said Johansson, while smiling and nodding at Lisa Mattei.
“What do you want us to do with him?” said Holt.
“Find him,” said Johansson. “So I can boil him for glue.” At long last, it was high time, and not an hour to lose, he thought.
“One more thing,” said Holt.
“Yes?”
“Pictures of Hedberg. Do we have any good pictures of him?”
“Who do you take me for, Anna?” said Johansson. “I’m hoping that CIS e-mailed a whole photo album to you an hour ago. Thirty pictures of Hedberg, half a dozen of his parents, and about as many of his sister.”
“Thanks,” said Holt.
“You know what they say, Anna,” said Johansson. “A picture says more than a thousand words.”
There was a total of thirty-one pictures of Kjell Göran Hedberg, twenty-five of which had evidently been taken without his knowledge sometime in the late seventies or early eighties. They were typical police surveillance photos taken outdoors by means of a motor camera and telephoto lens. Hedberg going into a bar in the company of an unknown woman. Hedberg coming out of his residence. Hedberg getting into his car. Hedberg getting out of the same car in the police building garage. A 1977 Mercedes, Hedberg wearing a jacket with wide lapels, pants without cuffs but with flared legs, a white shirt with a long collar. A wide tie. A Hedberg of his time.
The photographer was naturally unidentified. Johansson and Jarnebring, in their futile pursuit of a colleague they suspected of a crime that would get him life imprisonment? Or a worried Erik Berg, who wanted to keep an eye on a conceivable security risk in his immediate vicinity?
Holt was captivated by one of them. An ordinary passport photo taken in the spring of 1982 when Hedberg was going to renew his police ID from the secret police, but instead decided to resign only a month later.
Kjell Göran Hedberg: somewhat thin face, regular features, straight nose, pronounced chin and jawline, short dark hair, dark and deeply inset eyes. Eyes that said nothing whatsoever either to the photographer or to a possible observer; eyes that appeared unaware of, or rather completely uninterested in the fact that they had just been photographed: unrevealing, sufficient unto themselves.
He looks good, thought Holt. You could clearly see that, and she would have thought that even if he’d tried to conceal his face by pretending to blow his nose. As on the evening of February 28, 1986, when he encountered Madeleine Nilsson on the stairs from Malmskillnadsgatan down to Kungsgatan.
73
After the meeting Lisa Mattei stayed behind while Holt and Lewin returned to what they were doing. There was not an hour to lose and everything essential remained to be done.
“You wanted to talk with me,” said Johansson.
“The search,” said Mattei, handing her boss a plastic sleeve containing ten pages.
“The search?”
“The search you asked me to do, boss. On that little society of law students,” she clarified.
“Oh, that,” said Johansson. “Well?”
“All of them were in the Palme registry. Sjöberg, Thulin, and Tischler. Although not Waltin, of course, but we found him ourselves.”
“A leopard never changes its spots,” Johansson observed for some reason as he weighed the plastic sleeve in his hand.
“Would you like a quick summary, boss?”
“Gladly,” said Johansson. Anything that will save time, as long as it doesn’t have to do with the case, he thought.
Sjöberg was interviewed for informational purposes because of the so-called Indian arms affair. He had nothing to add and was eliminated from the investigation early on. Besides, he had been dead for almost fifteen years.
“So we don’t need that one,” said Johansson and nodded.
“Thulin was there as one of the Good Guys. Substituted as prosecutor in the investigation on a couple of occasions. Served as an expert in one of the review commissions and as a political appointee on another.”
“I know,” said Johansson. “I’ve met him. I recall that he sat there the whole time harping on about Christer Pettersson. Real stuck-up little toad. Very stupid. It’s a big, fucking mystery.”
“What do you mean, boss?”
“How any woman would want to be involved with someone like that,” Johansson clarified. “He seems to have won that fucking trophy they awarded to each other.”
“That particular aspect doesn’t appear in my papers,” said Mattei. You too, my Johansson, she thought.
“Bragging, if you ask me,” said Johansson. “We can forget Thulin. Next.”
“Tischler,” said Mattei. “At least three tips have come in about him, from the circle of so-called private investigators who allege he was involved in some way in a larger conspiracy to murder Olof Palme.”
“How so? Involved?” That windbag, he thought. If it had only been that good.
“There are assertions that he supposedly offered the first investigation leader, Hans Holmér, a lot of money to follow up his Kurd track,” Mattei explained. “Not because he believed in it, but rather to set up a little smoke screen to protect the real perpetrators.”
“Forget it,” said Johansson. “If Tischler had been part of a conspiracy, he and everyone else involved would have been in jail within twenty-four hours. You couldn’t find a better guarantee for that than mister private banker’s own mouth. Besides, did he ever give any money to Holmér?”
“No. According to what Tischler himself says, that came from information he received from individuals he knew. Within the social democratic movement. Besides, he’s said to have spoken with individuals close to the government. All would have advised him against it. The Kurds had nothing to do with the murder.”
“Did he mention any names?” said Johansson for some reason. “Of the people he talked to, I mean.”
“No,” said Mattei, shaking her head. “Individuals within the Social Democratic Party. Individuals close to the Social Democratic administration. Considering the time frame, it must have been during Ingvar Carlsson’s stint as prime minister.”
“But no names,” said Johansson, nodding thoughtfully. “No names.” Although personally I could think of at least one, he thought.
“Waltin,” said Johansson. “He’s the one this is about. Sjöberg, Thulin, and Tischler I think we can forget.”
“I think like you do, boss,” said Mattei and nodded. “It’s a bit odd, at the same time, that all four would still be in the investigation.”
“It’s a small country,” said Johansson. “Much too small,” he repeated. Not least for someone like our murder victim, he thought.
“One more thing,” said Johansson, just as Mattei was about to leave.
“Yes,” she said and stopped.
“That thing with Hedberg,” said Johansson. “You should get a big gold star for that. What bothers me is that I didn’t think of him myself. I should have, you see, and that bothers me.”