“So what happened then?” he repeated.
Persson had maneuvered closer to the wreckage to be able to see better. Stayed there a few minutes to check the situation while it finished burning.
“As I’m lying there looking, the bastard suddenly pops up right by the side of my boat. Sooty and burned, and gasping like a fish. Bleeding like hell. But he was alive. Strangely enough.
“‘Help me, help me,’ he said, extending his hand toward me. ‘Sure,’ I said and handed him my fist. Then I took a piece of pipe I had in my tackle box, to kill off the rougher morsels you can get down there, in case you’re wondering, and then I banged him on the head a few times. I guess that was all. He sank like a stone, and I sent the piece of pipe along as a reminder.”
“And then,” said Johansson.
“Then I took the boat back to the hotel. I was staying in a little pension across from the charter pier where he had his boat. Checked out. Got in the car to go to his house up in the mountains and do a little discreet house search.”
“So did you find anything?” said Johansson.
“No,” said Persson. “There wasn’t time. The area was already crawling with Spanish officers, so I continued straight to the airport in Palma and took the flight home. Landed at Skavsta just a few hours ago. But if you ask me I think he basically just had a bed to sleep in. Hedberg was not as careless as Waltin, so I don’t think we need to worry about that detail.”
“So you were down there at the same time as Holt and Mattei,” said Johansson.
“I was actually there first, if you want to quibble. A fucking piece of luck it was, by the way. If I hadn’t been there he would have gotten away from us. If we’d missed him now, we never would have seen a trace of him again.”
“What makes you think that?” said Johansson. What the hell is he sitting there saying? he thought.
“He was warned by one of your so-called colleagues,” said Persson, shrugging his shoulders. “What do you say to a piece of perch, by the way?”
In the deep channel outside Cap de Formentor on north Mallorca in the morning the day before
Finally it had happened anyway. What he thought would never happen. Instead of sheering ninety degrees port and setting course toward the woman in the big house down by the beach in Cala Sant Vicente, he continued right out into the deep channel. Entered a new course on his GPS navigator at the same time as he congratulated himself that Esperanza always had her fuel tanks filled. Enough diesel to take him three hundred nautical miles to Corsica, where there were many like him and at least one he trusted unconditionally. Who could give him a refuge for the remainder of his life.
Not like the woman, who said she was from the U.S. and was renting the large house on the beach in Cala Sant Vicente. Who talked about her wealthy husband whom she never saw. Who was twenty years younger than him, with her long dark hair, her white teeth, her large, pendulous breasts and the promise in her eyes. The one who had approached him only a week ago when he was scrubbing the deck on Esperanza to make her fine before autumn, when the vacation season was now finally over. The one who asked him if he spoke English, if he knew any good places where she could dive. If perhaps he, or someone else, could help her?
The woman who could actually dive as well as he could and who had shown that the very first time she went with him out to sea. The woman he was supposed to have picked up at the large house in less than an hour. The woman who must have betrayed him, despite the promise in her eyes. Because there was no other explanation. Because Ignacio Ballester had come to see him early in the morning. Told him what his nephew had said and chose to warn him instead of betraying him.
He only had time to take with him the essentials and the small bag that was always packed. Completely sufficient, because there was nothing in that cottage that could say anything about him or the life he had lived since that Friday evening at the intersection of Tunnelgatan and Sveavägen more than twenty years ago. He had left his car because it was safest that way, and what would he do with it now? Ignacio drove him down to the harbor and Esperanza. Shook his hand and wished him luck at sea. There was no alternative, and that was why Esperanza was berthed there. A beautiful little boat, but also an insurance policy and a constant reminder.
Security, freedom, and at a low price. Simply yet another day and night at sea.
99
Grilled perch, butter and lemon, boiled potatoes, beer and a cold shot of aquavit. It couldn’t have been better in all its simplicity, but despite that Johansson had problems with his appetite.
“Which one of my people was it who warned him?” asked Johansson as soon as he’d taken the first bite.
“You must have asked the Spanish colleagues to assign some local talent to protect the little ladies you sent down. One of them happened to be the nephew of the man who owned the shipyard where Hedberg built his boat. He suddenly realized that your co-workers were searching for one of his uncle’s old customers. Called his uncle and let his mouth run. Then his uncle went to Hedberg and warned him. It’s not the first time this sort of thing has happened, but I guess I don’t need to tell you that.”
“No,” said Johansson. “You don’t need to.”
“You’re eating poorly, Lars,” said Persson. “Why aren’t you eating? Here I’ve been standing at the stove and exerting myself.”
“What the hell do you want?” said Johansson. “It never occurred to you that I’ll take you up to Stockholm and put you in jail?”
“No, never,” said Persson with a smile. “For what, if I may ask?”
“For what you just told me,” said Johansson.
“No,” said Persson, shaking his head. “That thought has never occurred to me. And if you do that anyway, I will have no idea what you’re talking about. That’s one of the advantages of sitting in a sauna when you’re going to talk about such things. Not a lot of clothes where people can hide microphones and other garbage. Cheers, by the way.”
“Cheers,” said Johansson, emptying his full shot glass.
“Although I have every sympathy that you’re a little moved,” said Persson. “Who wouldn’t be after such a cock-and-bull story. But as soon as you get a little perspective on it you’re going to thank me.”
“Thank you,” said Johansson. “For what? Because you killed Hedberg?”
“Because I solved a problem for us. For you and me and everyone else like you and me. For my only friend, Erik, not least. If it hadn’t been for his sake I might even have let the bastard live.”