Berg was a man possessing great knowledge. Among other things he knew that beauty tends to dwell in the eye of the beholder, and because he was also firmly convinced that the Stockholm chief constable was the most moronic police officer he had ever met, he had contacted Waltin the very next day and asked him to make a careful survey of Christer Bülling, alias the Professor.
“Why is he called the Professor?” Berg had asked when he met Waltin a week later to go over the survey.
“According to one of his first-grade classmates, it’s because he was the only one wearing glasses. He was also supposed to have horribly protruding ears and generally appeared a bit dopey,” Waltin had explained. “Personally I thought it was due to his grades,” he had continued, “but according to one of the psychologists we have here at the firm, children are just not capable of irony in the same way as adults.”
“So he’s not exactly a genius,” Berg concluded.
“Not exactly,” Waltin had said, and sighed. “If you want I can pull his test results when he enlisted. According to the psychologist-”
“Forget about that,” Berg interrupted. “Do you have anything else?”
“Bülling was exempt from fieldwork rather early. It was the company’s in-house physician who recommended it. He’s said to suffer from agoraphobia and has difficulty meeting people in general. Extremely taciturn, almost autistic.”
“Not one to run around and talk a lot?” Berg asked.
“No,” Waltin said with conviction. “On the other hand he’s almost obsessed with reading a lot of papers. That certainly fits in with his diagnosis, according to the doctor. It’s supposed to relieve anxiety for people like him. At the planning group they are very satisfied with him. He gets extraordinary ratings.”
I can believe that, Berg thought, but he didn’t say that.
“Is this someone you’re thinking of recruiting?” Waltin asked.
“To the Kurd group, as head of investigation and analysis. What do you think of that?”
Waltin nodded approvingly.
“Kudo and Bülling.” Waltin savored the names. “They’re going to be a real radar unit. And besides, it’s a kind of radar we ordinary mortals lack.”
Kudo and Bülling were turning into a problem. The whole Kurdish effort, in fact, was undoubtedly getting out of control, thought Berg, because the two of them took themselves and their assignment so damn seriously. They knew nothing about the real reason the group where they were now working had been set up, and they lacked any qualification for figuring out, on their own, how matters really stood. The most recent meeting with the minister of justice might have gone badly. Also, it was, remarkably enough, the minister of justice who had made the unpleasant discovery in the papers that Berg should have read more carefully.
“I wonder about this secret monitoring,” said the minister.
“Yes,” said Berg, looking at him with a neutral expression.
“How is this really?” continued the minister. “I don’t find it in the legal text. Is it regulated in any of those secret statutes?”
“If it’s telephone wiretapping you mean,” said Berg, “then it’s regulated by a special-”
“No,” interrupted the minister and for once he sounded a bit irritated. “I don’t mean telephones. You don’t suppose they’re sitting in the same room talking to each other on the phone, do you? This must be some kind of concealed monitoring device. Right, like hiding a lot of microphones in the walls and ceiling and in furniture and God knows what.”
“I see,” said Berg vaguely. “The legal situation is a little unclear, if I may say so. What do you say, Gustav?”
Berg looked at the chief legal officer, who was looking down at his papers and didn’t seem particularly interested in delineating this particular legal situation.
“I think Gustav is the right man,” urged Berg. “How many of us are there who have had the privilege of holding both the scales of justice and the sword of power in our hands?” he continued ingratiatingly, with a friendly look at his interlocutor.
What the hell does that dreadful man mean? thought the chief legal officer, feeling a shudder pass through him. Is he trying to say something or what?
He really looks strange, thought Berg. He’s seemed odd for quite some time now. It may be high time for a new little check.
“Yes.” The chief legal office cleared his throat. “This is, as stated, an especially intricate question that the chief has brought up here, and in order to save time, I’d like to propose that we take this up after the meeting. I’m at your disposal as soon as the chief has time and so desires. But if I may say something very briefly”-he cleared his throat again before continuing-“then I’m without a doubt in total agreement with the chief that we’re faced with an especially complicated judicial matter.”
The minister of justice looked as happy as when his first-grade teacher had pasted a gold star in his arithmetic book.
“Yes, I suspected as much,” he said contentedly. “Now, where were we before I interrupted?”
He had been lucky, at any rate, thought Berg when he was sitting in relative security behind his desk. The prime minister’s special adviser had not been present. He had reported a scheduling conflict one hour before the meeting. This, by the way, had been happening more and more often during the past year. Not that I mind, thought Berg.
…
The day after the chief legal officer had been appointed, the supreme commander’s secretary had called and asked when he would have time to visit the tailor.
“Tailor?” asked the chief legal officer.
“To be measured for the chief legal officer’s uniform,” explained the secretary.
I don’t want a uniform, thought the chief legal officer with distaste, but before he managed to say so, the thought occurred to him that if the nation were to end up in a war, naval or otherwise, he would quite simply be compelled to wear a uniform. There were laws about that.
He had not dared say anything to his wife. They had met at an organization for liberal attorneys a few years earlier and married the following year; to have a general in the house was in all likelihood not at the top of her marital wish list. However, one evening after a nice dinner as they were sitting in the music room enjoying an excellent recording of Mahler’s second symphony, he had screwed up his courage and told her the whole dreadful story.
“Now, now, honey,” she said consolingly and patted him on the arm. “It’s not the end of the world, is it? Go upstairs and put it on, so I can see how you look. I promise not to start laughing.”
She hadn’t laughed. Instead there was a strange gleam in her eyes and she looked at him in a way she had never done before. That was how it had started.
The first time they played war. Because his mother-in-law was Norwegian and his wife spoke the language fluently, Sweden got to occupy Norway. It couldn’t be helped. At first he had the whole uniform on-well, not the shoes, of course, for he had kicked them off and that damn cap had tumbled off several times, but for the most part the whole uniform. It had been an exceptional experience. Then he had gone out on the balcony to collect himself and since he was there anyway, he had taken the opportunity to propose a toast to His Majesty the King, but then his wife came out and led him in again to continue negotiations for the occupation and to establish the final terms of peace, and then it had just gone on and on. Like in a dream, thought the chief legal officer. Up until now, thought the chief legal officer in distress. For now that horrid spy character Berg had evidently got on the trail of him and his wife.
“What do we do now?” said the chief legal officer, looking mournfully at his wife. How beautiful she is, he thought. But everything that has a beginning must also have an end, he thought.