“Do you remember what it looked like?” asked Johansson. “Was there anything besides the weapon in the photo?”
“Just the weapon,” said Wiijnbladh and sighed. “Photographed right from above against a white background where the usual measuring stick had been placed to show the size, and a tag with the serial number in the lower corner. I got the impression it had been taken by our colleagues at the tech squad at SePo. But naturally I didn’t ask.”
“What did you do next?” asked Johansson.
First Waltin checked that they actually had the weapon in question. They did. It was in a drawer in the weaponry library along with the bullet that had been used for the test firing plus a cartridge that had not been fired. Wiijnbladh gave him the revolver, the bullet, and the cartridge. Plus the report from the test firing.
“It was very important that all traces of the weapon disappear,” Wiijnbladh explained. “That’s why he wanted me to arrange a scrap certificate.”
“No one at the Defense Factories wondered?”
“They weren’t so careful at that time. Not like today,” Wiijnbladh explained. “I put together some loose gun parts from revolvers. A cylinder magazine, a sawed-off barrel where the serial number was filed off, and a loose butt, among other things. We have a lot of that lying around. Then I put it in a bag and pasted on a regular tag with the serial number of the weapon that Waltin had signed for.”
“Signed for, you say,” said Johansson.
“I was forced to have some kind of receipt,” said Wiijnbladh. “For my own account, that is.”
“And it was then that he gave you this affidavit,” said Johansson, pushing over one of the two papers he had found in Wiijnbladh’s desk drawer.
“Now I realize this is a forgery,” sighed Wiijnbladh, shaking his head. “This is terrible. But what should I believe? An affidavit written on SePo stationery. Signed and everything. I mean, what should I think? I even had to sign a special confidentiality agreement.”
What should he believe? The following week he received a medal besides and a thank-you note from SePo signed by bureau head Erik Berg. Delivered by Claes Waltin personally in connection with an invitation to a “more formal” dinner in his apartment on Norr Mälarstrand.
“The delivery itself happened before dinner,” Wiijnbladh explained. “Then the other guests came to the dinner itself. Although we didn’t talk about my distinction of course.”
“The other guests,” said Johansson, sending a glance in the direction of Holt. “So who were they?”
“An old friend of Claes, he’s dead now too, unfortunately, but I seem to recall that he was a very well-known business attorney when he was alive. Died only a couple years after Claes himself happened to drown. Then there was his old dad too. Very successful businessman at that time. Lived in Skåne, I seem to recall.”
Before Wiijnbladh left he had to sign yet another confidentiality agreement. Johansson kept the medal, receipt, and the thank-you note. Partly because he needed them to be able to write off all suspicions against Wiijnbladh, and he had no objections.
Before Lewin accompanied him back to the lost-and-found squad, Wiijnbladh asked Johansson one last question.
“I sincerely hope it’s not so bad that this has happened in connection with a new crime?”
“There’s nothing that indicates that,” said Johansson with a steady gaze and honest gray eyes. “It came up in connection with the inventory from Waltin’s estate and we wondered, naturally, because he didn’t have a license for it. By pure chance we found out some time ago that the weapon had originally been confiscated by our colleagues in Stockholm. The mills of justice grind slowly. Unfortunately,” added Johansson and sighed.
While you continue to defy all description, thought Anna Holt.
58
“So what do you think about this?” Johansson asked the following day when he and his immediate co-workers had gathered for counsel and the mandatory coffee.
“What do you think?” asked Holt.
“If we take this in order and start with the so-called receipt, then it’s a poor forgery and an even worse joke,” said Johansson, holding up the receipt for the revolver Waltin had given Wiijnbladh.
“According to the letterhead, the receipt comes from SePo’s tech squad,” he continued. “Signed by employee 4711, who unfortunately has an illegible signature. A good photocopier and a little imagination. Waltin seems to have had access to both.”
“The thank-you note from Erik Berg,” said Holt.
“Apart from the fact that such things don’t happen in the material world, the signature is decently composed. ‘To Detective Inspector Göran Wiijnbladh…I wish to express in this way our gratitude for your meritorious efforts for the preservation of the security of the realm…Stockholm, September 15, 1988. Erik Berg. Bureau Head. Secret Police.’ September 15, 1988, was a Sunday, by the way, but Berg worked all the time, so that’s not the end of the world,” said Johansson.
“The medal then,” said Mattei.
“Manufactured by Sporrong’s medal factory. It even says so on it. Copper plated. ‘To Detective Inspector Göran Wiijnbladh in gratitude for meritorious efforts for the security of the realm.’”
“Have you had our technicians look at what was confiscated?” asked Lewin.
“Not really. I’ve done it myself. Out of concern for the security of the realm,” said Johansson.
“So what do you think about this? Other than that our colleague Wiijnbladh is perhaps not God’s gift to forensic science? What do you think, Lisa?” asked Johansson, looking at Mattei.
According to Mattei there were a number of different explanations. These led in turn to several different conclusions that covered a very broad span of conceivable alternatives.
“Such as?” said Johansson.
That this whole story didn’t actually need to have anything to do with the murder of the prime minister.
“Seventy-five percent is actually only seventy-five percent, if we start with the bullet, for example,” said Mattei.
“That Waltin only wanted to get himself a revolver in the cheapest way,” said Johansson. “That he wanted to kill badgers and other vermin on his estate in Sörmland.”
“Well,” said Holt. “The second possibility is still that the revolver that Waltin acquired by trickery had been used to shoot Palme. Seventy-five percent is still three times greater than twenty-five, if I’ve understood this correctly.”
“Two and a half years after the prime minister had already been shot?” asked Lisa Mattei with an innocent expression. “Between March 1986 and September 1988 it’s supposed to have been at the tech squad in Stockholm.”
“In secure storage. In the lion’s own den,” said Lewin for some reason. “If this was the one that was used, it must have been liberated for the murder of Palme and then put back.”
“I’m an old man,” sighed Johansson. “Too old for scientific seminars. Give me the most probable explanation. What do you say, Anna?”
“The revolver is the murder weapon,” said Holt. “Waltin takes it from the tech squad before the murder. According to Wiijnbladh he would show up and visit him up at tech. That’s when he probably seizes the opportunity to take the revolver. Gives it to the perpetrator. The perpetrator gives it back to Waltin after the murder. Waltin replaces it in the tech squad. There can hardly be any safer storage. When the worst has settled down and he’s been fired, he fools Wiijnbladh into giving it to him. It is a trophy he wants to have, at any price.”
“Another possibility is that right or wrong, he gets the idea that this is the murder weapon and that he uses deception to get it to sell to a collector. Not as many twists and turns now, not as complicated,” Mattei objected. “Tallies well with Henning the art dealer’s story.”
“Now we’re there again,” sighed Johansson. “What do you think, Jan?”