Birds and fish had done a thorough job by the time he finally floated to land. The Spanish police identified him with the help of the report of a missing guest that the hotel had already turned in the day after the staff in reception saw him walking down to the beach. Identification was made using his swimming trunks and the room key in the pocket.
In the forensic facility in Solna they had been more thorough. First the corpse’s teeth had been compared with Waltin’s dental records. Despite the fact that the corpse was missing the lower jaw, the upper jaw spoke volumes. Former chief superintendent Claes Waltin.
Because he was who he was they had not been content with this, but also put the latest technology to use. Secured both bone marrow and tooth pulp. Took blood samples from his father and compared the two DNA samples that had been produced. The likelihood that the remains belonged to someone other than Claes Waltin were less than one in a million. Assuming that Robert Waltin did not have an unknown son, who had happened to drown in Mallorca while Claes Waltin was there on vacation and simply disappeared.
They had also been content with this. Claes Waltin was declared dead. His father buried him about the same time as he appealed the will. One year later his father and only surviving relative became his heir, after the district court invalidated his will.
Probable death by drowning, according to both the Spanish forensic physician and his Swedish colleague. Neither of them found any injuries to the bones or other parts of the body that would indicate he had been shot, stabbed, or beaten to death with the classic blunt instrument.
On the other hand there was nothing to rule out that he might have been drowned, strangled, suffocated, poisoned, or for example gassed. He could even have been shot, stabbed, or killed with a blunt instrument assuming that the bullet, knife, or object had not left any traces on those parts of the body that had been found.
I’m afraid we won’t get any further than that, thought Jan Lewin and sighed.
To put at least some order into all these question marks he took out paper and pen and wrote a simple memorandum about the case that was casting a shadow over his life and preventing his two colleagues from engaging in more meaningful tasks. Unfortunately it was so bad that the most probable course of events was also the least desirable. The consequences were terrifying, which even someone like Lars Martin Johansson ought to understand.
Probability argued that Claes Waltin, sometime before the murder of Olof Palme, had come across a revolver from the tech squad. Sometime between the middle of April 1983, when the technical investigation of the murder-suicide in Spånga was finished, and the last day of February 1986, when the prime minister was shot.
Probably toward the end of that time period, thought Lewin. During the fall of 1985, maybe.
After that Waltin turned this weapon over to an unknown accomplice.
Probably in close or immediate connection with the murder, thought Lewin.
Probably Waltin also supplied bullets for the weapon. Special ammunition that could pierce through metal or, for example, a bulletproof vest. Not the target-shooting ammunition that the painter made use of when he took the life of his daughter, her boyfriend, and himself.
It was unclear where, when, and how Waltin acquired these special bullets. Sometime between the middle of April 1983 and the last day of February 1986. Probably right after he’d acquired the weapon, thought Lewin, and most likely he bought them in an ordinary gun shop. Showed his police ID, if they’d even asked. Paid in cash. Put the box of bullets in his pocket and left. A box of twenty, fifty, or a hundred bullets of the over six thousand similar ones that had been sold in Sweden in the years before the murder of the prime minister.
The perpetrator probably followed the prime minister from his residence in Old Town and just over two hours later seized the opportunity in flight at the corner of Sveavägen and Tunnelgatan.
After the murder he fled down Tunnelgatan, ran up the stairs to Malmskillnadsgatan, turned to the right, took the stairs down to Kungsgatan, walked Kungsgatan down to Stureplan, went down into the subway, and rode two stations up to Gärdet. The night of the murder he spent in one of SePo’s secure apartments, which Waltin loaned out to him. The same Waltin who happened to park illegally the next morning when he came to clean up after the perpetrator, thought Lewin.
The day after the murder the perpetrator had disappeared. It was unclear when, how, and to where.
At some point after the murder Waltin smuggled the weapon back to the tech squad. To the most secure storage place of them all, assuming you were unrestrained enough to even think of it. And he was, thought Lewin.
Two and a half years later, in the fall of 1988, he secured the weapon by trickery from Wiijnbladh and got him to remove all traces of it. At the last minute, because he’d already been fired, thought Lewin. A man completely without boundaries. A man who thought he could succeed in virtually everything. Who actually had done that, and never had any intention of giving up the decisive evidence that he had done it.
What do I do now? thought Lewin when he was done writing his memo. First I’ll talk with Anna and then she’ll have to try to have a serious talk with Johansson. Personally he didn’t even intend to try.
68
“Please sit down, Anna,” said Johansson, gesturing toward the visitor’s chair in front of his desk. “I’ve just read Lewin’s memo that you e-mailed over. A model of brevity. One never ceases to be amazed. Dear Jan seems to have had a complete change of personality. Clear and precise, right to the point. Suddenly, just like that.”
“So what do you think about what’s in it?” asked Holt.
“Interesting. Unfortunately unsubstantiated. In the current situation, exciting speculations. An obvious lead file,” said Johansson and nodded.
So it’s along those lines he intends to finish this, thought Anna Holt.
“If it’s an obvious lead file, then I suppose it should be on the Palme group’s desk,” said Holt.
“In the present situation I think it’s much too speculative for us to trouble them with this sort of thing,” said Johansson. “Besides, they’re fully occupied with other things, so I’ve understood from Flykt.”
“So what is it you’re missing?” asked Holt.
“If you give me a name of the bastard who did the shooting, then I promise that you’ll see some changes around here,” said Johansson. “Then I promise I’ll call in the police’s top five on the carpet, and it’s perhaps not mainly our colleague Flykt and his friends that I have in mind.”
“When you’ve got a name,” said Holt. “And if you don’t get one?”
“Then we’ll have to think this through one more time,” said Johansson. “At this stage we’re embracing every situation.”
Whatever that has to do with it, thought Holt.
“There’s another thing we have to talk about,” said Holt. “I’m afraid it’s a troublesome story.”
“You can talk about anything and everything with me,” said Johansson.
“It’s about Pia, your wife,” said Holt.
“About my life, you mean,” said Johansson, suddenly sounding serious. “What has she come up with this time?”
Holt recounted the conversation with Jeanette Eriksson, and that Johansson’s wife apparently had a relationship, an affair, or in any event a personal involvement with Claes Waltin during the spring of 1986.
“I already knew that,” said Johansson. “That too was a model of brevity,” he said and smiled. “Besides, it was several years before she got involved with the right man in her life.”