His home address in Palma did not seem to tally either. On Thursday the case had therefore been sent on to the colleagues in Palma with a request for help. Considering the sender, it crossed El Pastor’s desk right before he was to go home to prepare for the evening’s dinner with his delightful Swedish colleagues. Suddenly there he was, the man he had been looking for in vain for more than a week, and not because he’d asked the ones whose help he had requested but because they were asking him. As sometimes happens when the one hand isn’t clear about what the other hand is up to.
First El Pastor had given free rein to his Spanish temperament. Called his counterpart in Madrid and told him what he thought. Then he unleashed the remainder of his frustration on his incompetent co-workers.
As soon as he’d regained his balance he had Holt and Mattei picked up from their hotel, conveyed them to yet another seafood restaurant by the blue sea, and did not say a word about what had happened the whole evening. Why ruin an otherwise pleasant evening with that kind of thing? thought El Pastor, looking deep into Anna Holt’s eyes as he raised his glass. What an amazing woman, he thought. As beautiful as a young gypsy from Seville, in Bizet’s opera.
The following morning Hans and Hans drove back to the boarding house on Calle Asunción. Took the man in reception aside and in Holt’s and Mattei’s absence had a serious talk with him. It hadn’t helped. He still shook his head and refused to acknowledge any Kjell Göran Hedberg.
“Nada,” said Hans and Hans with a joint shrug of the shoulders when they returned to the office in the afternoon to give a report to the dark Swede.
“Nada,” Holt repeated with a faint smile just as her cell phone rang.
“Hi, Anna,” said Lewin. “How’s the weather?”
“Excellent,” Holt replied. “Are you thinking about packing your bathing trunks and coming down for the weekend?” You might be challenged to a duel by El Pastor, she thought.
“If it were only that good,” said Lewin and sighed. “We’ve found her number now. She has made only one call, as it appears. The fifteenth of August this year. Hedberg’s birthday, as I’m sure you recall, and you have all the information in your e-mail. The call went via a tower that’s a few miles from a town called Puerto Pollensa on north Mallorca, but I don’t know exactly where that town is located. Probably simplest if you ask one of our Spanish colleagues.”
“Can you wait a second, Jan?” said Holt, setting down her cell phone on her desk and turning around in the office where she was sitting. I knew it, she thought. I knew it. He’s been here the whole time.
“Puerto Pollensa,” said Holt. “Is that anywhere near here?”
“It’s sixty-five miles north. Takes about an hour, depending on the traffic,” answered Pedro Rovira, who spoke considerably better English than the other colleague, Pablo Ballester.
94
Bäckström had almost immediately seen about instilling some manners and style into his so-called support person Little Frippy. He was even getting sort of fond of the bastard, though he looked like a painful animal experiment and sounded like a bad book.
Reminds me a little of Egon, after all, thought Bäckström. Though not as taciturn, of course.
Egon was his dear goldfish, which an unusually malevolent colleague unfortunately had taken the opportunity to put to death when Bäckström was out in the countryside on a murder investigation. Then the colleague got rid of the body by flushing it down Bäckström’s toilet. Although that fate probably won’t befall Little Frippy, I hope, thought Bäckström. Because he-as stated-was starting to get attached to him.
After only a few days Little Frippy had asked Bäckström to stop calling him Little Frippy.
“Okay then,” said Bäckström. “If you’ll stop calling me Eve, I promise that your name will be Fridolin in the future.”
“I thought you were called Eve,” said Little Frippy with surprise. “Don’t all your buddies call you Eve?”
“I lied. I’ve never had any buddies,” said Bäckström. He shook his head and knocked back a little good malt.
“That’s sad,” said Fridolin, sipping his beer and sounding like he meant what he said.
“Do you want some good advice, Fridolin? From a wise man.”
Fridolin nodded.
“Whatever you do, don’t ever get yourself any buddies. You see, in this fucking world you can’t rely on a single fucking person.”
With that the ice had been broken, and together with his now faithful squire Bäckström discussed how they would get his message out to the general public, whom all the shady powers that be had kept in the dark for more than twenty years.
Fridolin got straight to the point and suggested that he should speak with the provincial police chief in Stockholm. He “had her ear” and was pretty sure he could arrange a meeting in which Bäckström could make a presentation about the truth behind the Palme murder.
Nice to hear it’s not a more vital body part, thought Bäckström.
“What’s the point of that?” he asked.
According to Fridolin it was well worth trying. There were three good reasons. People like Waltin and his companions were at the top of Ms. Police Chief’s own political agenda. Fridolin had-as stated-her ear, and besides it was an open secret that she was being considered as the next national police commissioner.
“Okay then,” said Bäckström. If it’s war, then so be it, he thought.
95
Puerto Pollensa on north Mallorca. They already knew this on Friday afternoon, and the fact that the cell tower that had finally conveyed the birthday call to Kjell Göran Hedberg was only a few miles from the place where former chief superintendent Claes Waltin had been found drowned fifteen years earlier had not surprised Anna Holt and Lisa Mattei in the least.
Nor El Pastor, as it appeared.
“I remember that a high-ranking colleague of yours from the Swedish secret police drowned up there many years ago,” he said for some reason when he, Holt, and Mattei were having lunch on Saturday.
“Yes,” said Holt. “Yes,” she repeated, with a broader than usual smile.
“I understand,” El Pastor replied, bowing his head slightly. “It’s very important to move ahead carefully,” he said. “I have a feeling he’s still there. Right in the vicinity, and soon we’ll arrest him.”
Though not on Sunday. Not on Monday and not on Tuesday. Even though the activity around them increased by a hundred percent and even though neither Holt nor Mattei understood a word of anything their Spanish colleagues said to one another.
“Patience.” El Pastor consoled them when he had them driven home that Tuesday evening. “Patience, my ladies.”
At six o’clock the next morning he called Holt at her hotel, and because she had long been prepared she was already wide awake when she answered on the second ring.
“We’ve found him,” said El Pastor. “Right now he’s at home asleep in his residence. If you want to be present at the arrest I can pick you up in fifteen minutes.”
“We’ll see you in reception,” said Holt, rushing to the shower.
Mattei was already waiting when Holt came down. At about the same time the police car braked outside the hotel entrance.
“Have you thought about one thing, Anna?” said Mattei, looking at her watch.
“What’s that?” said Holt, heading for the entrance.
“Today is Wednesday the tenth of October. Only eight weeks since we were rolling our eyes at Johansson and all his strange ideas.”
“No,” said Holt. “I hadn’t thought about that. Right now we have other things to think about.”