He had spoke to one of his older colleagues who knew Grimaldi and had received a broad smile and a wink in response.
‘I saw him a couple weeks ago when I took my wife to that new pizza place up in Frösunda, the one everyone says belongs to him even though he’s not on any of the official papers. It didn’t look like there was anything wrong with his appetite, if you know what I mean.’
‘What do you mean?’ Alm asked.
‘Well, he was sat there holding hands with a blonde, and if I say she was half his age I wouldn’t be exaggerating much.’
We who built Sweden, Alm thought. Wasn’t that what those old boys who threatened to bomb the government called themselves? If you could do that, presumably you could beat to death an old friend no matter what the crime statistics have to say about it, he thought.
What complicated the equation was the murder of Akofeli, hence the need for paper and pen.
One of Danielsson’s old friends beats him to death. Takes the case with all the money. Even Roly Stålhammar couldn’t be ruled out of this, with his shaky alibi. It all hung on a witness who hated him and who would doubtless have sworn the exact opposite if he knew the way things really were. Anything in his eagerness to get rid of a noisy neighbor.
Nor could they rule out the possibility that there had been more than one perpetrator. That Kalle Danielsson had acted as a black-market banker for Grimaldi, for instance. That he hadn’t played it straight. That Grimaldi and his pal Halfy Söderman had paid a home visit, beaten him to death, and taken the briefcase containing all the money.
If only it weren’t for Akofeli.
Akofeli finds Danielsson murdered. His old friends, who beat him to death, missed the briefcase with the money. They work it out, go back, discover that Akofeli took the case, go round to his, kill him, dump the body in Ulvsundasjön.
Are you kidding? Alm thought, aiming the remark at himself. Then he drew a thick black line through this latest hypothesis.
Akofeli kills Danielsson and takes the case with the money. Danielsson’s old friends find this out, go round to Akofeli’s, kill him, reclaim the case, and dump the body.
Why? Alm thought. Why would Akofeli kill Danielsson? And how the hell would his old friends find out that it was Akofeli who killed him?
The plot thickens, Alm thought, with a deep sigh, drawing another thick black line over the paper.
Then he had gone home to his beloved wife. Lamb chops with garlic butter, salad, and baked potatoes. Since it was almost the weekend, or Thursday at least, they had celebrated quietly by sharing a bottle of wine.
44.
While his simpler foot soldiers had doubtless been running round like headless chickens in Hasselstigen and out in Rinkeby, Bäckström had spent his time on slightly more demanding mental activities together with his only colleague worthy of the title, Nadja Högberg, doctor of mathematics and physics. Like him, she was also a connoisseur of fine vodka. A worthy conversational partner in a world where he was otherwise surrounded by nothing but idiots, and this was in spite of the fact that she was a woman, Bäckström thought.
When Bäckström returned to the police station after a nutritious and well-balanced meal, Nadja had knocked on his door and asked if she could come in to go through the contents of Danielsson’s pocket diary. She had the original in a plastic evidence bag, but to save time she had given him a computer printout containing all the notes in his diary, arranged in date order.
‘His notes are both concise and cryptic,’ Nadja summarized. ‘During the period from January first this year to May fourteenth, a total of nineteen and a half weeks, he made a total of one hundred and thirty-one different entries. Less than one a day on average.’
‘I’m listening,’ Bäckström said, putting down the sheets she had given him, folding his hands on his stomach, and leaning back in his chair. She’s got a smart head on her shoulders, this woman, he thought.
‘The first note appears on the first day of the year, New Year’s Day, Tuesday, January first, and it reads, and I quote: “gentleman’s dinner with the boys, Mario,” end quotes. An early dinner, it looks like, since the diary indicates that it was supposed to start at two o’clock in the afternoon.’
‘Perhaps they didn’t want to take any chances.’ Bäckström grinned.
‘That must be why. They were sharp,’ Nadja agreed. ‘The penultimate note is from the same day he died, Wednesday, May fourteenth. “14.30, Bank.” And that’s also the only note during the whole period where he mentions going to the bank.’
‘Considering the size of his withdrawals, presumably he had no need to keep going every day,’ Bäckström said.
‘The most common entry,’ Nadja went on, ‘appears thirty-seven times. Practically every Wednesday and Sunday between January and May he wrote “Solvalla” or “Valla” or “Races.” I’m guessing that they all refer to the same thing, going to Solvalla racecourse to gamble, and he went practically every time there was any racing there. The last note in the diary is also from the day he died: “17.00, Valla.” He hadn’t made any entries for the coming days, weeks, or months. Seems to live day to day.’
‘No other racecourses apart from Solvalla?’ That fits in well with what we already know, Bäckström thought.
‘Not that he’s made a note of, anyway,’ Nadja said, shaking her head.
‘Now, who the hell would bother going all the way to Jägersro just to collect a few betting slips?’ Bäckström said.
‘Sixty-four notes of a miscellaneous nature. One visit to the bank, like I said, two doctor’s appointments, and a couple similar entries, then the rest are almost exclusively the names of his old friends. Roly, Gunnar, Jonte, Mario, Halfy, and so on. One, two, or more of them at a time. Several times a week.’
‘A comprehensive social life.’ Bäckström laughed. ‘Anything of interest to us, then?’
‘Anything of interest to us, then?’ he repeated.
‘I think so,’ Nadja said. ‘Thirty entries in total.’
Now she’s got that look again, Bäckström thought. This Russian’s as sharp as a fucking razor blade, he thought.
‘I’m still listening.’
‘Five of them recur at the end of each month. The days vary a bit, but it’s always the last week of the month, and it’s the same entry each time: “R ten thousand.” ’
‘What’s your interpretation?’
‘That someone with a first or last name starting with R receives ten thousand each month from Danielsson.’
‘A lover,’ Bäckström said, suddenly remembering the condoms and Viagra they had found in his flat. But remember, some of us get to fuck without paying, he thought self-consciously, even though it was far from true.
‘That’s what I think too,’ Nadja said with a smile. ‘With that in mind, I think R is the first letter of her first name.’
‘But you have no idea who she might be?’ Bäckström said.
‘I’m working on it. Only just started,’ Nadja said, smiling.
‘Okay,’ Bäckström said, grinning happily. So I daresay I’ll have the woman’s name later today, he thought.
‘Then there’s an entry from Friday, April fourth: “SL twenty thousand.” ’
‘SL,’ Bäckström said, shaking his head. ‘If he was buying monthly tickets from Stockholm Local Transport for twenty thousand, he’d have had enough for all his friends and neighbors as well.’
‘Someone with the initials SL received twenty thousand on Friday, February eighth. I’m working on that too,’ Nadja said.
Good to hear that someone’s doing some work, Bäckström thought. He himself had been struggling under a completely unreasonable amount of work for almost a fortnight now.