“But this is terrible, Eve,” said a shaken Fridolin when he finished reading half an hour later. “This is even worse than that movie by Oliver Stone about the assassination of Kennedy. We have to see to it immediately that you get security protection, so they don’t-”
“Calm down, Little Frippy,” said Bäckström, raising his hand like a traffic cop. “We shouldn’t get ourselves excited unnecessarily and just rush off. Get me a beer from the fridge, then I’ll explain how we should set the whole thing up. Get one for yourself too, if you want,” he added, because he felt that he was starting to return to his old friendly, generous self.
Wednesday, October 10. Outside Cap de Formentor in Canal de Menorca
“O blessedness to be young in morning light at sea,” thinks the young count Malte Moritz von Putbus on his journey to the West Indies with the three-masted barque Speranza. We are traveling in a novel by Sven Delblanc, and the journey takes place the same year Gustav III was murdered at the Opera masquerade in Stockholm. The protagonist of the book is Malte Moritz, called Mignon by his friends. Young, idealistic, yearning for freedom, and still he has not discovered that Speranza carries a load of slaves. Much less has he given a thought to the fact that a hard fate can also put the freest man in fetters or completely destroy him. What the solitary man on board Esperanza thinks and feels more than two hundred years later we do not know. There is little to suggest that he is much like Malte Moritz as an individual, but seen from a distance, and in the morning light at sea, there is still much to suggest that he, at least at this moment, thinks and feels the same way. The calm breathing of the sea, the rustling of the waves against the stern, the sun smoke that encompasses him, the salt-drenched breeze that cools body and head. Then the rudder, controlled by his will and resting in his hands. At any time at all he can change course or completely redirect it. Security, freedom, “O blessedness…”
90
Ten days earlier, Monday, October 1.
Headquarters of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation on Kungsholmen in Stockholm
On Monday the first of October, Anna Holt and Lisa Mattei traveled to Mallorca to try to find Kjell Göran Hedberg, and Lars Martin Johansson showed a new side of himself. And did so in a wordy, roundabout way.
During the time Lars Martin Johansson had been a detective in the field he had also-quite literally-put his mitts on numerous murderers and violent criminals. The majority by sending letters or calling them and asking them to appear at the police station for a little talk. A few scattered times he and his associate Jarnebring had made home visits without asking for permission first. Normally he and his best friend were enough, and during his entire active duty neither of them ever needed to reach for his service weapon. One time, “means one time,” Johansson clarified, there was a “crazy Yugoslav” who had “behaved a little stupidly” and started wrestling with Jarnebring, who in turn solved the problem with the classic police chokehold, “you know the one that was prohibited thirty years ago,” while Johansson put the handcuffs on him.
“He was mostly sorry, the wretch,” said Johansson. “Who wouldn’t be if you killed your best friend because you got everything turned around?”
It had always been like that. It was still that way, in all essentials, and it would be in the future as well if Johansson had his way. Every drawn service weapon, every siren turned on, all harsh words, even every hasty, unplanned movement, was nothing other than an expression of police shortcomings that fortunately and almost never belonged to reality. Possibly with one exception. A former colleague whose name was Kjell Göran Hedberg.
“So be careful, ladies, and call home if anything happens,” said Johansson.
“Above all,” he said, raising an extra warning finger, “don’t come up with any risky moves. Hedberg is a malignant bastard. If he shows up and starts making a fuss, shoot him.”
“Are you saying we should take our service weapons along?” said Holt.
“You can always arrange that on-site,” said Johansson, shrugging his shoulders. “You can’t drag along that kind of shit on an airplane, especially these days when you can’t even take a bottle of aftershave or a can of liverwurst. It’s probably better if you fix that when you get there. I’ve already notified them about that, by the way.”
Then he gave them a real bear hug. Put his arms around their shoulders and squeezed. The right one around Mattei and the left around Holt, and no particular ulterior motives were involved.
Lewin would stay in Stockholm to put order into all the papers. What Johansson would do was less clear. Look after his own business, presumably, and in other words everything was exactly as usual.
“He’s actually kind of sweet,” said Mattei as soon as their plane lifted off from Arlanda. “Johansson, that is.”
“Oh well,” said Holt. “Not only.”
“He smells good too,” said Mattei, who didn’t seem to be listening. “He smells like safety in some way. Clean clothes, aftershave-he smells like a real old-fashioned guy in fact.”
“Lisa,” said Holt, looking at her.
“Yes?”
“Give it up now,” said Holt.
“Okay,” said Mattei, taking out her pocket computer. If you’re going to be that way, she thought.
91
Their Spanish guardian angel, El Pastor, was obviously a man who took his assignment with the greatest seriousness. As soon as their plane landed and taxied up to the gate, he was standing there, right outside the door to the plane, and when he caught sight of Holt and Mattei he nodded to them and took them aside to the little electric airport vehicle that was waiting.
A tall, skinny man in his sixties with jet-black hair, friendly, watchful eyes, and not the least like the Fernandel character who haunted Holt’s fantasies. A few feet behind him stood his two assistants, half his age, who would apparently take care of the practicalities. They were several inches shorter, considerably broader, with narrow, expressionless eyes and hands crossed over their jeans-clad crotches.
Not like Hans and Fritz-the Katzenjammer Kids-more like Hans and Hans, and the only thing missing was the writing on their foreheads that clearly stated what they did, so you didn’t confuse them with a couple of professional Mediterranean hit men.
Holt and Mattei did not see any trace of Spanish indifference either. Fifteen minutes later they were already in an unmarked police car en route from the airport to their hotel in central Palma.
“I assume that first you’ll want to check in,” said El Pastor, smiling courteously.
“Then I thought I would suggest a visit to my office where we can discuss your needs. After that, a simple dinner at a nearby restaurant that I often frequent myself, and where quite excellent seafood is served. Assuming you ladies don’t have other wishes, of course?”
Holt immediately accepted the terms. Find Hedberg, she thought. Work on your tan along the way. That’s how it will be.