Bäckström hardly ever carried a service revolver. A man with a super-salami like him didn’t need a cock extension, and besides, the holster and handle chafed horribly, no matter whether you wore it under you left armpit or by your waist. What changed his mind had been the National Rapid-Response Unit’s attempt to kill him during a so-called raid some six months earlier. He had visited the parliament building to question a member of parliament who was deeply involved in the murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme. But instead he had been accused of trying to take the man hostage.
Bäckström was a blameless and irreproachable knight and had no intention of taking his weapon into the Swedish parliament, and he walked with his visor open, which was more than his opponents did. When they attacked him with bombs and grenades, he had only his bare hands to defend himself with.
When he was eventually permitted to leave Huddinge Hospital, he had immediately requested the return of the service revolver that his crafty opponents had taken off him while he was confined to his sickbed. He had also applied for permission to carry his weapon in his free time and had provided a well-composed justification for this.
All he had received was a firm rejection on the most peculiar formal grounds. In their assessment of the matter, his employers had discovered that Bäckström had never attended the annual shooting tests that were a requirement of bearing a service weapon, not since he had left his post at the National Murder Unit three years before. While he was there he had undergone the tests punctually every year, and the fact that it had actually been his old friend and colleague Detective Inspector Rogersson who took care of the practicalities for him was none of his employers’ business. It was between him and Rogersson, and as far as their so-called checks were concerned, he knew where they could shove them.
So Bäckström had to do his shooting again. He had passed with flying colors on only the third attempt, just before he moved to the Western District. His employers had nonetheless tried to delay things, and it wasn’t until he called in the Police Officers’ Association that they backed down. The notification that he was once again a full police citizen, with the right to bear arms and even to kill if the situation demanded it, had arrived the previous week, and Bäckström hadn’t delayed for a second. He had called at once and booked a time to collect his revolver, and now the time had come.
He had also made certain preparations. From a gun dealer he had bought a so-called ankle holster with his own money, the same sort his American colleague Popeye had worn in the classic old police film The French Connection. Then he got hold of a cool linen suit from his tailor, with a loose-fitting jacket and trousers with wide legs. Wearing shorts went against the whole idea of an ankle holster, and since the summer was expected to be warm and sunny, he didn’t want to have to walk around sweating unnecessarily.
Dressed in a well-cut yellow linen suit, his holster already in place below his left calf, he had shown up at the weapons department of the Western District.
‘Service revolver, a nine-millimeter Sig Sauer — standard magazine, fifteen rounds — one box of service ammunition, twenty rounds,’ the assistant said, lining up the items on the counter. ‘Sign here,’ he added, sliding over a receipt for him to sign.
‘Hang on, hang on,’ Bäckström said. ‘Twenty rounds? What sort of crap is that?’
‘Standard issue,’ the assistant said. ‘If you want more, I’ll need written authority from the head of police.’
‘Forget it,’ Bäckström said. ‘And you can keep this piece of crap,’ he said, handing back the holster. He tucked the pistol, magazine, and ammunition into his jacket pocket, since he had no intention of revealing where he was planning to carry his weapon.
That bastard Bäckström seems completely unstable, the assistant thought, as he watched the yellow linen suit leave. And he dresses like some fucking Mafioso. Maybe I should phone and warn the guys in the rapid-response unit, he thought.
Once he had closed the door of his office Bäckström did some practicing. He holstered his weapon, shook his trousers so that they hung loose, then quickly slid onto his right knee, pulling up the left trouser leg with his left hand as he pulled out his weapon with a well-judged movement of his right hand, aimed, and fired.
Suck on this, motherfucker, Bäckström thought.
Practice makes perfect, he thought, and repeated the process. Quickly down onto one knee, his confused opponents missing and firing over his head, Bäckström draws his weapon, takes careful aim, smiles his most crooked smile.
‘Come on, punk! Make my day, Toivonen,’ Bäckström snarled.
‘Christ, you scared me, Bäckström,’ Nadja Högberg said, coming into his room with her arms full of papers.
‘Just practicing,’ Bäckström said with a manly smile. ‘How can I help you, Nadja?’
‘The papers you wanted,’ Nadja said, putting the piles on his desk. ‘About the Ibrahim brothers and their cousin Hassan Talib. And I promised to remind you that we’re having a meeting of the team in a quarter of an hour.’
‘Right,’ Bäckström said. He slung his left foot onto the desk and holstered his pistol.
Nadja refrained from shaking her head until she closed the door on him. They’re like children, she thought.
Before Bäckström went off to the meeting he loaded a full magazine. Fifteen rounds, one in the chamber. The other four were in his right pocket just in case, and as soon as he got the chance he was going to buy a whole case to keep at home.
As he walked past Toivonen’s closed door he almost had to stop himself from tearing open the door and firing off a salvo into the bastard’s ceiling. Shooting him in the head would probably be going a bit far, but a few shots in the ceiling would at least be enough to make sure the bastard Finn shit himself, and that was no more than he deserved, Bäckström thought.
59.
‘Welcome, everyone,’ Bäckström said, marshaling his troops, smiling his warmest smile, and sitting down at the head of the table.
Still in a very good mood, and now armed as well. Secretly armed, Bäckström thought, seeing as none of his half-witted colleagues would be able to work out what he was carrying under his well-cut yellow trousers.
‘I thought we might start by throwing some ideas around,’ Bäckström said. So that it didn’t go to hell from the outset, he gave them a little clue to chew on.
‘Connections,’ Bäckström said. ‘Is there any connection between the murders of Karl Danielsson and Septimus Akofeli?’
‘Of course there is,’ Nadja Högberg said. ‘The murder of Karl Danielsson must have triggered the murder of Akofeli,’ she said.
Nods of agreement from the Anchor, the pretty little darkie, and the retarded folk dancer. More hesitant squirming from the team’s very own Woodentop.
‘You seem hesitant, Alm,’ Bäckström said. ‘I’m listening.’
Alm still had some difficulties with Seppo Laurén. He had actually admitted hitting Danielsson on two previous occasions. Then there was their shared background and the obvious violence of Danielsson’s murder.
‘The perpetrator more or less beat him to a pulp,’ Alm said. ‘Like he was trying to wipe out all traces of him. I think Seppo fits that picture very well, especially if he got the idea that Danielsson was responsible for the fact that his mom is in the hospital. A typical case of patricide, if you ask me.’