“Excuse me a moment, Inspector,” said the member of parliament, smiling wanly. “I’m afraid I have to wash my hands. I’ll be right back.”
“Sure,” said Bäckström. Before you wet your undies, he thought, and if he’d ever seen an interrogation victim who was soon going to be as docile as a sacrificial lamb, it was the Apostle of Aquavit.
Damn, he’s taking a long time, thought Bäckström as he looked at the clock ten minutes later. Wonder if the bastard shit his pants? Best to check, he thought. He got up and reached for the door to see where he’d gone.
Locked. What the hell is going on? thought Bäckström, trying the door one more time to be on the safe side. Still locked.
What the hell is happening? thought Bäckström again fifteen minutes later. Dead silence on the other side of the door. From time to time he was able to perceive extremely faint sounds, even though he stood with his ear pressed against the door, and there had been a lot of running around in the corridor when he arrived. Stealthy footsteps, something heavy being dragged along the floor. Now there’s some real shit going on, thought Bäckström, for suddenly it was so silent you could hear how silent it was. Damn it anyway, thought Bäckström. I should have brought little Sigge with me, he thought, feeling inside his jacket to be on the safe side. Empty. Who the hell would drag around a shoulder holster and a lot of scrap iron when you were only going to tongue-lash a dwarf? he thought.
That was also more or less the last thing he remembered when he finally awoke the following morning and gradually realized that he was still alive. Despite everything. Despite the Friends of Cunt, who evidently had tentacles that reached all the way to the top of police administration. Who evidently only needed to pick up the phone so the Lapp bastard up at the bureau could sic his own death patrol on Bäckström.
86
“How’s it going?” said Johansson as soon as Lewin came into his office.
“It’s rolling along slowly,” said Lewin, nodding inquisitively at Johansson’s visitor’s chair before he sat down.
“Is he alive?” asked Johansson.
“I think so,” Lewin replied. “I get that feeling, at least,” he added with a cautious throat clearing. “In any event we don’t have anything that indicates the opposite.”
“His sister then? Runs out to the bar all the time and drinks champagne with all the interest on her accounts.”
“She seems to live a very quiet life,” said Lewin, shaking his head. “Judging by the records from her home phone she seems to socialize mostly with an old co-worker and a few neighbors in the area where she lives. Plus she’s secretary of her condominium association. Not really any extensive socializing. She makes at most a few calls a day. I haven’t located any cell phone. She doesn’t have an account with any Swedish provider. But she does have a computer and an Internet account with Telia.”
“She probably has one of those prepaid cell phones, like all the other crooks. A leopard never changes its spots,” said Johansson as a police siren started sounding in the pocket of his jacket. “Excuse me,” he said, fishing out his red cell phone.
“Yes,” said Johansson as he always had the habit of doing when he answered the phone.
“You don’t say,” he continued. “Come here on the double so we can set out the shooting line.
“I see then,” said Johansson, nodding. “Now you’ll have to excuse me, Jan. I’ve got something else on the program, but I promise to be in touch.”
Wonder what’s happening? thought Lewin as he stepped out into the corridor from Johansson’s office and was almost run over by the head of the national SWAT force and two of his bald-headed co-workers, on their way in at a fast march.
“What’s happening?” said Johansson without nodding at his visitor’s chair. Full battle regalia and grim faces. What the hell is happening? he thought.
“We seem to have a hostage situation down at the Parliament Building,” said the SWAT chief. “At the office of the Christian Democrats. One perpetrator. Probably armed and dangerous.”
“Do we know who he is?” said Johansson.
“The boys who are at the scene say it’s Bäckström,” said the SWAT chief. “Bäckström from lost-and-found. That fat little bastard. He seems to have taken one individual hostage and barricaded himself in his office. It’s that Thulin. Do you know who I mean, Chief?”
“Bäckström, I know who that is,” said Johansson. “Thulin? Are we talking about that sanctimonious bastard who’s always on TV harping about all the wicked people he runs into all the time? Former prosecutor Alf Thulin?”
“Yes, boss. That Bäckström. Yes, boss. That Thulin. Yes, boss.”
“Go down and tell the little fatso to behave properly,” said Johansson and sighed.
87
She was a woman who seemed to live a quiet life. With one living relative. A brother who, according to what he reported to the Swedish authorities, had moved to Spain twenty-four years ago and was now living at a residential hotel in Sitges, south of Barcelona. He had kept that address for ten years or so, but when he last renewed his Swedish passport seven years ago he had apparently moved to 189 Calle Asunción, in Palma de Mallorca. Two Spanish addresses in twenty-four years. That was all.
I hope he’s still living there, thought Lewin, who had spent all of his adult life in the same apartment at Gärdet.
Then he filled out all the papers needed for Europol to request that the Spanish police make a discreet address check on him, in addition to searching for Kjell Göran Hedberg in all the other registries to which they had access. Obviously he had also put a check mark in the box that dealt with individuals with a “suspected connection to terrorism.”
That may put some urgency even into the Spanish colleagues, thought Jan Lewin, though he was normally not the least bit prejudiced. It’s nice that you don’t need to put things in envelopes and lick stamps anymore, he thought as he e-mailed his request to the officer at the national bureau who took care of the practical aspects and conveniently enough sat three doors down on the same corridor.
“Do you have a moment, boss?” asked Johansson’s secretary as she knocked lightly on his open door.
“Sit down, damn it,” Johansson hissed, waving toward the TV that was in one corner of the room.
SWAT team, Parliament Building, what’s happening? she thought.
“What is going on?” she asked.
“Bäckström,” said Johansson. “The little fathead has apparently gone completely crazy. Barricaded himself in the Christian Democrats’ office and has taken that pharisee Alf Thulin hostage. I’ve sent the boys from the SWAT team to talk some sense into the bastard.”
The SWAT team did as they had been taught to do when they were going to talk sense into someone like Bäckström. Someone who was suspected of being both armed and dangerous. In this case an extremely unusual police officer who unfortunately had access to the same service weapons as all his normal colleagues. The same Bäckström who regrettably-and literally-was standing in the way of the team’s response itself.
First the door fell on him when they broke it down. Then the shock grenade that they threw in exploded only a foot or two from his head. Then four of them threw themselves over him and put both hand and foot restraints on him. All within the course of about ten seconds. The response leader had of course timed the operation.
When Bäckström was carried out on a stretcher and lifted into the ambulance, he was both unconscious and equipped with the necessary shackles. Ready for further transport to the psychiatric ER at Huddinge hospital and accompanied to be on the safe side by an escort from the same SWAT force that had nearly killed him.