“How did you find out?” asked Holt.
“She told me about it,” said Johansson. “That she’d seen Waltin a few times during the spring of 1986. The first time when Pia and a girlfriend of hers were out at a bar to meet guys. Although I had no idea that former colleague Eriksson supposedly warned her. Retroactive jealousy isn’t something I engage in,” said Johansson, shrugging his shoulders.
“So you’ve never been worried,” said Holt. “Considering Waltin and what he might have got up to with your wife.”
“About Pia?” said Johansson, shaking his head. “What would a fool like Waltin have been able to do to her? I’m sure you must understand, Anna? You’ve met Pia, haven’t you?”
“Do you have anything against me talking with Pia? Considering where we’re at, I’m afraid we probably have to.”
“Sure,” said Johansson. “Only I get to talk with her first. I can’t imagine she would have anything against it. For informational purposes,” he added, nodding toward Holt.
“Of course,” said Holt. “She’s not suspected of anything.”
“Nice to hear,” said Johansson. “Sometimes she can be a little adventurous for my taste. Not that strange, really. She’s a lot younger than I am,” he said and sighed.
69
In the evening Johansson talked with his wife, Pia. It was not something he was happy about doing. True, retroactive jealousy was not something that usually tormented him-he had put that behind him back when he was a teenager-but if he could have chosen he obviously would have preferred that the woman who was his wife had never met someone like Claes Waltin. Regardless of whether he seemed completely different to her from the person Johansson was convinced he had always been.
If it hadn’t been for Waltin, it could have been a perfect evening. Pia got home before him, prepared a simple dinner that went well with mineral water, so that the evening could be devoted to talking and being together, perhaps with each of them reading a good book in their respective corners of the big couch with their legs intertwined. Instead he was forced to talk with her about the time, over twenty years ago, when she had been involved with Claes Waltin.
“What did you think of the curry?” said Pia, looking at him.
“Phenomenal,” said Johansson. “Although there is something I have to talk with you about.”
“Sounds serious,” said Pia. “What have I done now?”
“Claes Waltin,” said Johansson.
“I knew it,” said Pia triumphantly. “I knew it.”
“Knew what?”
“That he was the one who murdered Palme,” said Pia. “Have you forgotten that? I said that to you at least ten years ago, but you refused to listen to me.”
“I recall that you were harping on about it seven years ago,” said Johansson. “I also remember that we agreed at that time not to talk about it anymore.”
“So why are you asking now?” said Pia with inexorable logic.
Sigh, thought Johansson.
So she told him about the time she met Claes Waltin. The first time she was at a bar with a girlfriend soon after the Palme assassination. She remembered it because that was more or less the only thing people were talking about at that time. She and her girlfriend, for example, who even considered canceling their long-planned trip to the bar. They decided not to and instead she met Claes Waltin.
Claes Waltin was good-looking, funny, charming, nice, single, and seemed completely normal in all other respects. All she desired that evening, because both she and her girlfriend had really gone out to meet a nice guy.
“He invited me to dinner,” said Pia. “It was on Saturday, the same week. We went out and ate. Then we went to his place.”
“I see,” said Johansson. Why in the name of God didn’t I let Anna take care of this? he thought.
“You’re wondering whether I slept with him,” said Pia, looking expectantly at Johansson.
“Did you?” said Johansson. Where does she get all this from? he thought.
“Actually not,” said Pia. “I was even surprised that he didn’t take the opportunity. He showed me all his paintings. He had a really amazing apartment. On Norr Mälarstrand, with a view of the water. I asked him how a policeman could have earned that much money, and he told me he’d inherited from his mother. She died in an accident.”
I see, so that’s how it was, thought Johansson.
“And then?” he asked.
“Next time I did sleep with him,” said Pia. “At my place, actually. That time we had also been to the restaurant first. It was also just a few days before you showed up at my job and asked if I wanted to have dinner with you. I’m sure you remember that. When I explained that I was already occupied you looked like a little boy who’d sold the butter and lost all the money. At that moment I was on the verge of changing my mind.”
Close doesn’t shoot any hares, thought Johansson.
“And then?” he asked.
“If it’s the sex you’re wondering about then there was nothing special about it. Regular, normal first-time sex. Two times, if you’re wondering. I realized it wasn’t the first time he’d slept with a woman. It wasn’t the first time for me either, and you know that too.”
“That’s not what I was asking,” said Johansson. “I was wondering-”
“Although then a very strange thing happened,” Pia interrupted. “I don’t think I’ve told you this.”
Jeanette Eriksson, thought Johansson.
“Do tell,” he said.
A few days later a young woman had come up to her as she left work and asked to speak with her.
“Young, cute girl,” said Pia. “Jeanette, Jeanette Eriksson I think her name was. Said that she was a police officer, and at first I didn’t believe her because she looked like she was still in high school, but then she took out her ID and showed me. She wanted to talk about Claes. Said that it was important. We went and sat down at a café in the vicinity.”
“So what did she want?”
“What she told me was awful. It was about what Claes supposedly subjected her to. That he was a sadist. That he almost killed her. I didn’t believe her, actually. That wasn’t the Claes Waltin I knew. I told her that too. Asked flat out whether she was jealous of me. The mood got very strange. Not much was said after that.”
“So what did you do then?”
“Thought a good deal,” said Pia. “At first I thought about asking Claes flat out. But that didn’t happen. It felt strange, considering that we really didn’t know each other very well. But I had a hard time letting go of it, so the next time we met, I think it was only a few days after I talked with that Jeanette, we also went back to my place. Don’t know why. Maybe because I wanted to feel safer.”
“So how was it,” said Johansson. “Typical second-time sex?”
“Better,” said Pia, looking at him seriously. “A lot freer, not as nervous. Although before he left he said something that I thought was a little strange.”
“I’m listening,” said Johansson.
“When he was about to go and was in the vestibule he put his hand on my neck, pretty heavy-handed, actually, and then he said that next time we got together we should go to his place. Fuck for real. Something like that, he said, and there was something in his manner that got me thinking about what Jeanette had told me.”
“But you went home with him next time anyway,” said Johansson.
“Yes,” said Pia, smiling as she said it. “I did. And when I was in his bed and he went to the bathroom, I couldn’t restrain myself. I peeked in his nightstand.”
“Yes? And-”
“It was then that I found the pictures he’d taken of Jeanette,” said Pia seriously. “They were not amusing pictures. They were horrible.”
“What did you do then?”
“I went completely cold. Especially as he was suddenly standing in the doorway, just looking at me. He didn’t say anything. He just stood there staring at me. Looked completely strange, actually.”