Another Time, Another Life (37 page)

“Those interviews with his buddies were really worthless,” Mattei
said. “That Bäckström doesn’t seem quite healthy. He’s trying to direct them the whole time, get them to confirm that Eriksson was homosexual. I don’t understand why he didn’t just question himself?”

Mrs. Westergren, in Mattei’s estimation, had made at least one interesting observation, namely that Eriksson had shown signs of increased alcohol intake during the months preceding his death. That was how she had expressed it: “increased alcohol intake.”

“Personally I hardly ever drink,” said Mattei, “but sometimes when I’m really wound up I have a small one when I come home, mostly to get my head to quiet down. I got the idea that Eriksson increased his alcohol intake because he was nervous about something and that this was happening during the autumn—the same autumn he was murdered.”

“Jarnebring and I thought so too,” said Holt. “Yes, that was the colleague I was working with at that time. The problem was that we couldn’t find anything. One idea we had was that it must have involved his business dealings, but they seemed to be going better than ever.”

“That was probably because you weren’t aware of Eriksson’s involvement in the occupation of the West German embassy,” said Mattei.

“No,” said Holt. “I only found that out today.” Typical for this place, she thought.

“What I was thinking,” said Mattei, as if she were working on it out loud, “is that if I had been involved in that incident, I would probably have been going out of my mind in the autumn of 1989.”

“What do you mean?” asked Holt. “Fourteen years later? Why then? Shouldn’t you have been used to the idea that you would get off?”

“East Germany,” said Mattei emphatically. “East Germany collapsed in November 1989. The Stasi, their secret police, collapsed. The Stasi’s archives were suddenly everyone’s property. Hordes of people like our esteemed boss Johansson poured in from the Western powers and started rooting through their papers. What I mean is simply that if I had been involved with West German terrorists in the mid-seventies, wouldn’t there be a high probability that my name was somewhere in the Stasi’s files? The Stasi and the Red Army Faction and the Baader-Meinhof gang and all the rest were buddies. They helped each other, it has been shown. It’s clear that the Stasi knew who the terrorists were.”

“It’s as plain as the nose on your face,” said Holt. “And if my name was Eriksson, Welander, Tischler, or Stein I would have been really nervous.” Not least if my name was Stein and someone like Eriksson knew something about me that he could exploit, thought Holt. And now you can shove it, old man, she thought, rerunning the conversation she’d had with her boss, the legendary Johansson, only a few hours before.

“That is a possible motive,” said Mattei thoughtfully. “A little speculative, perhaps, but completely possible. They needn’t have been in the Stasi archives—it would have been enough for them to believe that they might be there. For them to be nervous, I mean.”

“But they were there,” said Holt. “Both Johansson and Wiklander have confirmed that.”

“Of course,” Mattei objected, “but they didn’t need to know that for certain. If they simply believed it they would start getting worried.” Anna seems mainly practically oriented, she thought.

“How’s it going, gals?” Martinez asked, after suddenly materializing in the door to Holt’s office. “Now there are three of us, so it’s a girl party. All the boys have gone home to knock back a few beers and stare at the TV.”

“It’ll be ready soon,” said Holt. “Just wait till you hear—”

“Easy, easy,” said Martinez, raising her hand in a gesture meant to hold off further discussion. “I’m completely starved. I was thinking about ordering a little junk food, the sort of thing our male colleagues are always stuffing themselves with in all the detective movies. You know, hamburgers and hot dogs and doughnuts. What do you think?”

“Maybe not hot dogs,” said Mattei. “That’s pure poison. Can’t we have sushi instead? I’m trying to eat as little meat as possible. I can run down and get some sushi.”

“Sushi,” said Martinez. “Real detectives don’t eat sushi.”

“We do,” said Holt. “I want sushi too.”

“Okay then,” said Martinez, shrugging her shoulders. “I’ll get sushi.”

When Martinez returned half an hour later bringing sushi and mineral water, the three of them held their first war summit.

“I think you’re on the right track,” said Martinez after she had listened first to Holt and then to Mattei. “For one thing you’ve managed to connect Stein with Eriksson. For another you’ve produced a plausible motive for Stein to stick the kitchen knife in Eriksson. I hardly think Johansson is going to do the wave when he hears what you’ve come up with,” said Martinez, smiling broadly. “Do you want to know what I’ve been thinking?”

“Yes,” said Holt.

“Yes,” said Mattei.

“All right then,” said Martinez. “I’ve been looking through the technical reports. But you should know I did it without even glancing at Stein. It was before I knew about that conference where she ran into Eriksson. But while I was waiting for all the rice balls you just stuffed yourselves with I happened to keep thinking about her.”

“Yeah,” said Holt.

“Yeah,” echoed Mattei.

“We have to be able to place her in Eriksson’s apartment,” said Martinez. “I think there are two good chances. For one thing there are a few prints that were picked up but couldn’t be identified. A few of them could be the perpetrator’s. They belong to the same person, and both are sort of semi-good if I can put it that way. One is on the kitchen counter and the other on the inside of the cupboard door under the sink where he kept the wastebasket.”

“Sounds good enough,” said Holt. You can’t have everything, she thought, and before her she saw the bloodied Sabatier brand kitchen knife.

“The other thing I was thinking about was that hand towel,” said Martinez. “That’s good too. If the perpetrator threw up in it, it should still be possible to lift DNA from it, because that hasn’t been done. It wasn’t done at the time.”

Helena Stein’s vomit on Eriksson’s hand towel, thought Holt, and suddenly it became so tangible as they sat talking that she felt slightly nauseous.

“Assuming that the hand towel has been preserved in a freezer as it should have been, it’s worth a try,” Martinez said.

“Both the fingerprints and the hand towel are probably down at the tech squad in Stockholm,” said Mattei.

“Then we’ll have to bring them here so our own technicians can look at them,” said Martinez. “Who’ll call Johansson and ask for permission?”

“I can do that,” said Holt, feeling instantly more energetic.

“I guess it will have to be tomorrow anyway,” said Mattei hesitantly. “It’s almost ten o’clock.”

“Sure,” said Holt. “Personally, I was thinking about going home to see the sandman.”

“Me too,” said Mattei. “I got up at six this morning. Fridays are my jogging day.”

“If we were real detectives we would go down to the bar and knock back eight beers, do a little arm wrestling, and bring home a real hunk,” said Martinez. “Either of you ladies in the mood for that?”

Holt and Mattei shook their heads.

“Typical girls,” Martinez sighed. “Shall I take this to mean that we continue to be useful idiots and meet here first thing tomorrow at eight o’clock? Before you fall asleep you can ponder a practical problem, by the way.”

“Which is?” said Holt.

“How we get hold of Helena Stein’s fingerprints and DNA without Johansson having a hissy fit,” said Martinez.

“You look tired,” said Johansson’s wife.

“I am tired,” said Johansson. “There’s a little too much going on at work right now.”

“Anything you want to talk about?” said his wife, who seemed both energetic and suddenly curious.

Peppy Pia, thought Johansson, smiling unwillingly.

“Do you want me in jail?” he asked.

“Let’s assume,” said his wife as she served herself the last drops from the bottle of red wine, “let’s assume that you told me about your job the way I tell you about everything that happens at my job—the sort of ordinary, harmless stuff you tell each other when you live together—about what so and so said and did and what you’re up to right now—what would happen then? Could you end up in jail?”

“Without a doubt,” said Johansson. Which would have been completely justified considering the rules that applied to him and the papers he’d signed, he thought.

“That doesn’t make sense,” said his wife, shaking her head with astonishment.

“Actually, it’s better that way,” said Johansson, who had already started to feel a little happier. I’m going to forget about that damned Holt, he thought. Your own wife is better looking, smarter, and funnier, he told himself, so stop feeling sorry for yourself because one of your coworkers doesn’t unreservedly agree with you all the time. “It’s a little
hard to talk about,” Johansson continued, clearing his throat. “But let me put it like this: There are even situations where I could end up in jail just for answering yes to the question you just asked.”

“That still doesn’t make sense,” said Johansson’s wife. “That’s crazy. Do you get any financial compensation for that? Special bonus for marital silence?”

“I think it’s completely okay if I argue with you,” said Johansson, smiling contentedly. “Just as long as I don’t do it over something that happened at work. Try to imagine the opposite. That we sat here and I babbled about everything to do with my job and it was completely okay for me to do that. That could have terrible consequences. For you personally.”

“Tell me,” said his wife, putting her head to one side with her right hand as support. “Give me an example,” she said, twirling her wineglass.

“You can’t get around me that easily,” said Johansson, smiling. “But okay then—I’ll try to describe what I mean. It’s true that I’m tired. I’m worried too—and I think you’ve already figured out that it has to do with work—so I don’t need to answer either yes or no to that. But if I were to be more specific, it would have consequences for a number of individuals, one of whom might also be you.”

“Enemy agents would carry me off and torture me to get me to tell what you said and then they would murder me,” said his wife, sounding almost expectant as she said it.

“Definitely not,” said Johansson, “but regardless of whether what I told you was true or false—I don’t know myself, because that’s what I’m in the process of finding out and that’s what’s worrying me. But regardless, if I told you, it would completely change the way you saw certain individuals.”

“So it’s someone I know about,” said Johansson’s wife, looking slyly at Johansson. “It’s some celebrity then. Some politician of course. It can’t very well be Carola or Björn Borg.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Johansson with a deprecating smile.

“In a way that’s too bad,” she continued. “Someone like you should really have some kind of use for someone like me.”

“I do,” said Johansson.

“In your work I mean,” his wife clarified. “As you’ve certainly already noticed, I would be a very astute detective.”

“Although perhaps a little too eager for discussions,” said Johansson. Be careful not to say “loose-lipped,” he cautioned himself.

“But that would suit you perfectly,” said his wife, looking at him expectantly.

“What do you mean?” said Johansson.

“You’re not exactly talkative,” his wife declared. “In the beginning you were—the first years—but then you got more and more silent, and since you started this new job, well, mute is maybe a harsh word, but you’re
almost
mute then.…”

“I’ll try to pull myself together,” said Johansson. Almost mute—that doesn’t sound good, he thought.

“Good,” she said, leaning forward and taking his hand. “Start by telling me who this famous politician is.”

“Okay then,” said Johansson, throwing out his hands. “If you make coffee, get me a cognac … fluff up the pillows on the couch, and massage my neck while I watch the news on Channel 4, then I promise to tell you who this is about and what it’s about.”

“Are you sure?” said his wife, looking at him. “Do we have a deal here?”

“Definitely,” said Johansson. “You arrange coffee, cognac, neck massage, and pillow fluffing, and I’ll tell you who it’s about.”

“Okay,” said his wife, “but I want a down payment before I go along with the deal.”

“Dost Akbar,” said Johansson as he lowered his voice and leaned across the kitchen table, “member of a secret society known as the Gang of Four.”

“Nice try,” said Johansson’s wife, “but no deal. I’ve read
The Sign of the Four
by Conan Doyle too.”

“Maybe you should become a police officer anyway,” said Johansson. “I know—apply to the police academy. You’re never too old to apply to the police academy.” Wasn’t that what they said in those recruiting ads he used to see in the newspapers?

“I’m just fine at the bank. I had enough of the public sector when I worked at the post office,” she said curtly, shaking her head. “I’ll make
coffee, you fluff up the pillows, you can get your cognac yourself—have I mentioned you’re drinking too much cognac, by the way?”

“Eat too much, drink too much, exercise too little, talk too little—yeah, that sounds familiar.” Johansson nodded in confirmation. I’ll have to do something about that, by the way, he thought. What if he were to start on Monday, it being the first Monday of a new month? Maybe that would be a good day, because starting over the weekend was inconceivable.

“Good,” said his wife. “Then I won’t nag you. Now let’s celebrate the weekend, and if we have to watch TV then I want the remote control.”

“No flipping,” said Johansson. Don’t eat, don’t drink, don’t flip between channels.

“Exactly,” said his wife, nodding.

“Heavens,” said Johansson contentedly, letting his Norrland dialect break through as he said it. Now let’s observe the Sabbath. Just like a typical weekend evening in the log cabin without liquor, food, and TV, he thought.

“Try and talk to me instead,” said Johansson’s wife, looking at him urgently. “You won’t die from it—I promise.”