“The attorney says it will be fine in half an hour, at her office,” the secretary reported.
“Thanks,” said Johansson, hanging up.
The office was on Sibyllegatan in Östermalm. A large, old-fashioned apartment with considerable space between the wall panels and the ceiling frieze. Painstakingly remodeled as a law office, which judging by the nameplate on the door she shared with three associates. A very stylish woman received him. She even managed to nod amiably and smile while being forced to mobilize all her strength to do so.
“Let me say one thing before we start,” said Johansson as soon as he sat down in the chair in front of her desk. “My visit with you here today has nothing whatsoever to do with that story we talked about the last time we met. So you can put your mind at rest.”
“So it shows that clearly,” said Helena Stein. Then she smiled again and this time it was for real.
“I need your help,” said Johansson.
“I’ll be happy to help you if I can,” said Helena Stein.
Then Johansson told her about his errand. Obviously without going into what it was really about. About why her cousin, the private banker Theo Tischler, decided not to give money to support Hans Holmér’s private investigation of the Kurds’ involvement in the murder of Olof Palme. Had Theo Tischler possibly consulted with her? A high-ranking member of the Social Democratic Party. A senior official with close ties to the government. It would be easy enough for someone like Stein to figure out what he was really looking for, thought Johansson as soon as he stopped talking.
“Holmér,” said Stein, shaking her head with surprise. “When would this have been?”
“In the spring of 1987,” said Johansson. A few months after he was fired, he thought.
“No,” said Helena Stein. “If Theo says that, then he remembers wrong. It was much later that he came to me and wanted to talk about it. Many years after Hans Holmér disappeared from the Palme investigation. In the spring of 1987 there was no reason to ask me for advice about such things. I was an ordinary, newly hatched attorney who was working at a law firm. I’ve heard gossip about that in the family, that Holmér wanted money from Theo, but that the whole thing ran into the sand like so many of Theo’s impulses and ideas.”
“Do you remember when that was? When he asked you for advice?”
“Much later,” said Stein. “Must have been in the late nineties. I was undersecretary, that I remember. At a guess, 1999. Just a year or so before you and I met, by the way.”
“I’ve forgotten that time,” said Johansson. “Tell me. What did your cousin want? What advice did you give him?”
“He and one of his many friends, a very remarkable man by the way and one of the richest in this country, much richer than Theo, had apparently decided to let so-called market forces work to try to put some order into the Palme investigation, given that our public judicial authorities had so sadly failed. Neither of them was a Social Democrat exactly, to put it mildly, but that thing with the murder of Palme, and perhaps even more the police fiasco, they both took very much to heart. So what do you do in the world where Theo and his good friend live? You invest a billion, buy up the best there is in individuals, equipment, knowledge, and contacts and set about solving the problem. It’s no more difficult than that.”
“This friend,” said Johansson. “Theo’s good friend. He doesn’t have a name?”
“Yes,” said Helena Stein. “I’m sure you’ve already figured out who I’m talking about. The problem is that he’s been dead for several years. Another problem is that I liked him very much. He was one of the most remarkable men I’ve ever met and in a positive sense. So I don’t know. I get the feeling I’ve gossiped enough about him already.”
“Jan Stenbeck,” said Johansson. Sweden’s answer to Howard Hughes, he thought.
“Jan Hugo,” said Helena Stein with a streak of melancholy in her cool smile. “Who else, by the way, in the Sweden we’re living in? But it was actually not the case that it was my advice he and Theo wanted. What could I have contributed where the murder of Olof Palme was concerned? In a purely factual sense, I mean.”
“So what did he want from you?” said Johansson.
“They wanted to make contact with my lover at the time. Or boyfriend, as someone like that is called nowadays, regardless of age and emotional heat.”
“So what did they want from him?” asked Johansson, who had already figured out his name.
“They wanted him to start working for them. Lead their private investigation. With basically unlimited resources, because he was the best they could possibly imagine.”
“But personally he preferred to remain in the vicinity of the prime minister,” said Johansson. So at least that got said, he thought.
“Yes, and because you know him I’m sure you can imagine how he formulated the matter.”
“No. Tell me,” said Johansson, sounding more amused than he intended.
“If I can be very brief, he wasn’t particularly happy about Theo. I want to think he said that if he did have the power that all ignoramuses ascribed to him, then for starters he wouldn’t have hesitated a minute to ensure that the authorities had my cousin Theo executed. With a dull, rusty broadax.”
“I’ve heard tell of that broadax,” said Johansson. “Just to see if I’ve understood this correctly. I already knew that Theo Tischler is your cousin. That you had a relationship with our own Richelieu was news to me. I didn’t know you knew Jan Stenbeck either.”
“People like us know one another. It’s no more complicated than that,” Helena Stein observed with a slight inclination of her slender neck.
“Though it never came to anything,” she continued, shaking her head. “He talked with Jan and told him that he should hang on to his money. That this particular investment was a complete waste. He obviously refused to speak with Theo. He had no problem talking with Jan Stenbeck. They’d probably known each other forever and had numerous interests in common, which weren’t limited to food and drink.”
“He dissuaded Stenbeck,” Johansson reminded her. “Why did he do that? Why was it a complete waste?”
“Because the murder of Olof Palme was already solved,” said Helena Stein. “He already knew who the perpetrators were and why they had the prime minister assassinated. Out of concern for Sweden’s interests it was best for all of us that we continue living in uncertainty.”
“Did he say that to you?” said Johansson with surprise. Wonder just what he’d been stuffing himself with that time? he thought.
“Not to me,” said Helena Stein, shaking her head. “He would never dream of doing that. On the other hand he said it to his good friend Jan. To my good friend too, for that matter. My very good friend, to be precise. He in turn told me only a month or so before he died. On the other hand what that would have been about in factual terms he didn’t know. So when he in turn talked with Theo back then, he just said that he was tired of the whole idea. Not a word about why.”
“No,” said Johansson. We didn’t have such luck, he thought.
“If it really is like that, what happened was probably best. That he didn’t talk with Theo, because then all the rest of us would have read about it in Expressen the following day, I mean. Theo is not exactly discreet. Or do you think I’m attaching too much significance to my personal experience?”
“Not really,” said Johansson with more emphasis than he intended, because his thoughts were already elsewhere. How do you go about holding an interview with a legendary Swedish multibillionaire who died five years ago? thought Lars Martin Johansson. Trying to question the special adviser was inconceivable. Regardless of whether he was alive or dead, and especially if there was anything to what Helena Stein had just said.