“Yes, just the two of us. She worked at the post office. When she left work one evening I approached her. Told her who I was and asked if I could talk with her.
“It went fine. We sat at a café in the neighborhood and talked.”
“So how did she take it?” said Holt.
“She didn’t understand what I meant,” said Jeanette Eriksson. “She seemed almost shocked when I told her what he’d done to me. Actually asked if I was still in love with Claes. Thought that that’s what it was really about. After that not much was said. Not that we argued. We just went our separate ways. Since then I’ve never talked with her.”
“Do you know what her name is?” asked Holt.
“Yes,” said Jeanette Eriksson.
“So what’s her name?” said Holt.
“Now it gets a little complicated,” said Jeanette Eriksson. “I’m assuming it’s not for her sake that you’ve come here?”
“No,” said Holt. “I had no idea about this woman’s existence until you mentioned her.”
“May I ask a question myself?” said Jeanette Eriksson.
“Sure,” said Holt.
“You work at the national bureau, you said. Isn’t that where Lars Johansson is the boss? That big Norrlander who’s always on TV?”
“Yes,” said Holt.
“That’s what makes this a little strange,” said Jeanette Eriksson. “You see, he’s married to the woman I talked with. Then her name was Pia Hedin. Today her name is evidently Pia Hedin Johansson.”
“Are you sure of that?” said Holt.
“Quite sure,” said Jeanette Eriksson. “I saw them together at a party at SEB a few years later, when I started working here at the insurance company. Then they were newlyweds. Must have been sometime in the early nineties.”
“You’re quite sure?” asked Holt.
“Quite sure,” said Jeanette Eriksson. “She’s a very beautiful woman. Pia Hedin is not someone you forget or confuse with someone else.”
“I know,” said Holt. “I’ve met her.” What do I do now? she thought.
65
Despite his illness-after all he had suffered a serious stroke-Bäckström fought on and refused to let go of the case that had been his from the very start. Claes Waltin’s involvement in the murder of Olof Palme.
Murders were about two things. Money and sex. Bäckström knew this from his own rich personal experience. What remained was to find out which of these motives had led to the victim’s life being taken.
Right now there was much that argued that it was about sex. Both the perpetrator and the victim seemed to be literally bathing in money, which made it less likely that they were at each other’s throats for that reason. Waltin had been as rich as a mountain troll. Everyone knew that. The victim had concealed tens of millions in various secret accounts in Switzerland and other tax paradises. Bäckström knew that, as did everyone else in the know, who had it from reliable sources. Besides, you could read about it on the Internet nowadays. How the Swedish arms industry paid out hundreds of millions in bribes to the murder victim and his shady companions from the third world.
There was also a witness to the murder who made a deep impression on an analytically oriented police officer like Bäckström. A witness who all his moronic colleagues only shook their heads at. A witness who waited until the third interview to admit that he had seen how the perpetrator talked with the victim and his wife before he started shooting at them. Presumably when they tried to get away, considering that the shots hit them from behind.
Murder victims and murderers almost always knew each other. Bäckström knew that too based on his long, solid police practice. The same dealings, vices, and desires, when it came down to it. When a man like Bäckström got the opportunity to let all the skeletons out of their closets. When the truth was finally revealed.
Waltin had undeniably been an extremely perverse type. Bäckström’s meticulous survey left no room for doubt on that score. What remained was to link him with his victim, and there were already a number of circumstances that could hardly be owing to chance.
Both were multimillionaires, attorneys, had an upper-class background, had grown up in the same city. Surely socialized in the same circles. Ought to have, reasonably, considering all the rest. Besides the purely external likeness between them, that was almost striking. Short, delicate, skinny characters, with dark, dissolute eyes and moist lips.
I’ll be damned if they weren’t related to each other, thought Bäckström, experiencing a slight excitement.
It remained to verify this. To demonstrate beyond any reasonable human doubt. This would not be easy considering that his informant seemed to have abandoned him. First he had pursued GeGurra by phone and left a number of messages. His efforts were met by silence, and in that situation the only alternative was action. Bäckström watched for him outside his residence on Norr Mälarstrand. Saw when he arrived home. Rang at his door and of course covered the peephole while he did so.
At last the little coward cracked the door open carefully and asked what Bäckström wanted. Bäckström fixed his eyes on him and GeGurra unwillingly let him into the hall. Once inside he started by reminding GeGurra about an old common acquaintance, Juha Valentin Andersson Snygg, who despite his youth had a very extensive personal file in the police department’s central archive. Nowadays it was missing, however that might have happened, and who could a known, respected individual like art dealer Gustaf G:son Henning really trust? If he only thought about it the least little bit? For it was hardly Anna Holt and her bosom buddies, who didn’t even draw the line at secretly tapping other people’s phones. If GeGurra chose that sort ahead of Bäckström he was lost.
Of course he backed down. They all did when Bäckström started waltzing around them. Mostly to be nice and give GeGurra a chance to get his bearings, he also started off easy before things got serious.
“How did Waltin know Prime Minister Olof Palme?” said Bäckström, looking slyly at GeGurra.
“I had no idea he knew Olof Palme,” replied GeGurra, looking at Bäckström with surprise. “Where did you get that from?”
“Listen,” said Bäckström. “Just to save time. I’m asking the questions and you answer.”
“Sure,” said GeGurra, “but I’m really a bit surprised that-”
“Now I happen to know that Waltin talked a good deal about Palme,” Bäckström interrupted, examining his victim.
“Didn’t everyone?” said GeGurra. “Talk about Palme, I mean. At that time, at least.”
“Exactly,” said Bäckström. “Exactly, but now let’s forget about what everyone else said. I want to know what Waltin said.”
“I guess he said what all the others did. When they talked about Palme, I mean.”
“So what did they say?”
“That Palme was an underhanded type,” said GeGurra. “Yes, that he tried to socialize the country by stealth and let the government take over the companies with the help of those employee funds. At the same time as he personally took bribes from the defense industry so they could sell cannons to the Indians. It was the usual.”
“That he was a Russian spy?”
“Yes, sure. I actually remember that I asked Waltin about that. Considering that he worked at SePo, I thought he was the right man to ask.”
“So what did he say?”
“That he couldn’t answer that, as I surely understood. But at the same time I obviously got a definite impression of what he wanted to say.”
“What impression did you get?”
“That Palme was a spy for the Russians,” said GeGurra, looking at Bäckström with surprise. “Didn’t everyone know that? It was even hinted at more or less openly in the newspapers.”
“Of a more personal nature then? What did Waltin have to say about Palme that was of a more personal nature?”
“That was probably personal enough,” said GeGurra. “Saying that he took bribes from Bofors and was a spy for the Russians. I mean what do-”