Persson had done his military service in the navy. After the mandatory ten months he had remained as an NCO for another few years before he mustered out and applied to the police. He was still a policeman, even though he was now a retiree.
“A cop is not something you become,” said Persson. “It’s something you are.”
“If you’re a real constable, yes,” agreed Johansson. “Otherwise who the hell knows. Were you on a submarine when you were in the navy?”
“No,” said Persson. “Why do you think that?”
“The orderliness of your stuff,” said Johansson. “If you leave your jacket lying out on a sub, your bunkmate has to sleep on the floor. According to what I’ve heard at least.”
“Yes,” said Persson. “Pretty damned cramped, and that was probably reason enough for someone like me. Although I’ve been on board a few times. Had a tough time even then wriggling down through the tower. I’ve never been claustrophobic, but who chooses to live in a pair of tight shoes? I mostly stayed on land. Worked as an explosives technician out at the Berga naval base, taking care of the old mines that floated up after the war. In the late fifties and early sixties it might happen a few times a month that we had to go out to rescue some poor wretch who got the wrong catch in his net.”
“Then it was crucial to have order around you,” Johansson observed.
“I’d say so,” Persson agreed. “If you went half a turn too far with the screwdriver, that might be the last thing you did. And if you had the wrong tools with you, it wasn’t the time for trial and error.”
“I can imagine that,” said Johansson.
“You learn,” said Persson, shrugging his shoulders. “Actually it’s not any harder than fixing a block in the drain. It’s in your fingers, once you’ve learned. It’s the consequences that are a little different, if I may put it that way. The last fifty years I’ve mostly dealt with drains and electrical lines, to hold down the household budget, and I’m not one to complain. Besides, workmen make a terrible mess. They lie too. Never come when they promise. How the hell would that work if you have an old German mine tapping against the shell of your boat? Cheers, by the way!”
“Cheers,” said Johansson.
After the food they loosened their belts and sat in the living room to have coffee and talk about what real police officers always talked about. About other real police officers, about those who never should have been police officers, and about hooliganism in general.
“I ran into Jarnebring down in Solna center a month or so ago. Asked him to say hi to you, by the way. He was his usual self, even though he’s become a dad late in life.”
“Jarnebring is Jarnebring,” said Johansson with feeling. “Although maybe a little too much revolves around his little boy.”
“It’s easy for it to get that way,” sighed Persson. “That’s one of the reasons I decided never to have any of my own.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Johansson.
“You get attached to them,” said Persson. “You never started a new brood either?”
“No, it didn’t turn out that way,” said Johansson. “The first two are grown now. I’m a grandfather twice over. It’s a lot easier if you ask me.”
“Yes, you see,” said Persson, “I’ve always thought the business of raising kids was overrated. Most kids are completely incomprehensible. Speaking of overrated, by the way, how’s life at the bureau? Can’t be too much fun to wind up at that place if you’ve had the privilege of working at Sec.”
“Five years at Sec was enough,” said Johansson, shrugging his shoulders.
“Erik was there for twenty-five,” Persson observed. “Till the cancer took him. For me he could just as well have stayed there for good.”
“Though you quit before he did,” said Johansson.
“Yes,” said Persson. “The year before. But then he was already sick and I couldn’t really take seeing what was happening to him. Not every day, at least. But we had regular contact all the way to the end. We saw each other several times a week, actually. And I probably phoned him every day.
“Are you getting Palme straightened out, by the way? It’s about time,” his host continued, looking at Johansson inquisitively.
“Why do you ask that?” said Johansson.
“Saw something in the newspapers a month or so ago,” said Persson.
“The newspapers,” snorted Johansson. “The Palme investigation doesn’t look too lively, if you ask me.”
“I guess it never has,” said Persson. “That case was already on its back the first day.”
“Though there is one thing I’ve been thinking about,” said Johansson.
“You know what, Johansson,” said Persson, raising his cognac glass. “I almost suspected as much.”
“Waltin,” said Johansson. “What do you think about Waltin?”
“Waltin,” Persson repeated, looking at Johansson and shaking his head. “Now I’m almost getting worried about you.”
“Why is that?” asked Johansson.
Waltin was a dandy, conceited, incompetent. He was also cowardly. Someone like that never could have shot Palme. Besides, he didn’t match the description of the perpetrator. Anyone at all but not Waltin, and not to salvage his reputation. Waltin was certainly capable of coming up with almost anything that had to do with financial irregularities and everything else under the sun where he could make a pile at no risk to himself. At the secret police there had also been a lot of whispering in the corridors about Waltin’s interest in women and the peculiar expressions this allegedly could take.
“Sure,” said Persson. “I’m sure he beat up a lady or two. Several, even. He was the type who did that sort of thing. Did he shoot Palme? Never in my life. Why not? He wasn’t the type. He was completely the wrong type for that sort of thing,” said Persson.
“He doesn’t need to have shot him,” Johansson objected. “That’s not what I’m saying, and so far we’re in agreement. That doesn’t rule out that he might have been involved in some other way.”
“Now I’m almost getting a little worried about you, Lars,” said Persson, shaking his head. “Is he supposed to have been part of a conspiracy, do you mean?”
“For example,” said Johansson.
“He was too cowardly for that,” said Persson. “Besides, he was too lazy to bother planning. Waltin was the type who took the easy way out. Preferably along with others who traveled the same way. Fine folk, with a silver spoon in their mouth since they opened their eyes. Who could that little snob have known who could have done something like that for him?”
“Don’t know,” said Johansson. “Do you have any suggestions?”
“If it’s other police officers you mean, then you’re out on a limb,” said Persson. “None of us would have managed that sort of thing or even picked up someone like Waltin with tongs. Not us. Besides, there’s something you should know. The colleagues who worked for the bodyguards at that time, they actually liked Olof Palme. I don’t think they had any intention of voting for him. But they liked him as a person. Even though he could be pretty troublesome as a surveillance object.”
“So who do you think shot Palme?” asked Johansson.
“Someone like Christer Pettersson,” said Persson. “Some crazy, violence-prone devil who didn’t care about the consequences. Took the chance when he got it. Someone a little more orderly than Pettersson, perhaps. There must be thousands of people like that. All the idiots with a closet full of firearms that we policemen gave them a license for.”
“I hear what you’re saying,” said Johansson.
“Nice to hear,” said Persson. “Do you want a good piece of advice along with it?”
“Advice from a wise man is always welcome,” said Johansson.
“It’s enough if you listen to an old man who’s been around even longer than you,” said Persson as he served them the last drops from the bottle of cognac Johansson had brought along.