“If there is no other solution,” said Berg, holding his palms out at an angle. “I’m assuming it’s one of our own that will take care of it.”
“Yes,” said Waltin. “I think we arrest him, and then the narcotics investigators can handle the rest without revealing the sender. I have an old contact I can discuss it with.”
Then he’d spoken with Göransson and Martinsson. No problems whatsoever, since they would only be doing what he told them. Post themselves outside the student dormitory, and if Krassner came out before nineteen hundred hours on Friday evening they were to follow him and see to it that he made his way to old man Forselius. Watch him while he was there and warn if anything went awry. And when everything was over and Krassner was on his way home, they could call it a day.
If he didn’t come out they were to go up and arrest him. Take him to the police station on Kungsholmen and put him in jail, suspected of narcotics offenses or, alternatively, aggravated narcotics offenses. As little paperwork as possible and a quick turnover to the guys on the narc squad, and they definitely didn’t need to think about a search of the premises, for others would take care of that.
“Are we clear with one another?” asked Waltin.
“Sure,” said Martinsson, surreptitiously flexing his biceps in the mirror behind Waltin’s back.
Göransson had been content to nod, but on the other hand he’d been around considerably longer than Martinsson.
Can’t forget to take care of Forselius’s letter, thought Waltin.
…
True, Waltin hadn’t said very much to Assistant Detective Jeanette Eriksson, but because she was twenty-seven years old and far from being a numbskull she could figure out the rest herself.
Clearly there’s going to be a search of the premises, she thought. The kind that doesn’t usually get talked about. But then she hadn’t thought about it any further, for she had other things to think about that she felt were more urgent and more worrisome. The tickets that she’d arranged for the pop concert on Friday evening had been the least of her problems and easy enough to take care of. It was actually Waltin who’d arranged the tickets, but it was her idea.
She and Daniel had been sitting in the kitchen, drinking coffee, when Tobbe and Patrik had come in to keep them company. They’d known each other since high school and played in the same band, which was several years before they’d managed to end up in the same student corridor. Now they were sour as vinegar, for despite the fact that they’d taken turns standing in line for hours, they hadn’t gotten hold of any tickets to the concert by their favorite band next Friday. She’d never heard of this band, but she grasped the opportunity in flight.
“I’m sure I can arrange that,” she said, nodding at them.
“Forget it,” said Tobbe, shaking his head and swilling a few generous gulps from the bottle of strong beer he had with him.
“For real?” asked Patrik doubtfully.
“I have an ex who works for a record company,” Jeanette lied. “He always used to be able to arrange tickets.”
Krassner himself was a considerably greater problem. One day when she was sitting in the common kitchen, reading, Krassner had suddenly come in and sat down right across from her. And despite the fact that he was smiling at her, she understood at once that it wasn’t going to be especially pleasant.
“What’s that you’re reading?” he said, grasping the cover of her book.
“It is a book about criminality,” Jeanette said in her best schoolbook English, at the same time trying to appear appropriately offended by his pushiness.
“Criminology is a required subject at the Swedish police academy,” said Krassner, and it was more of a statement than a question.
Watch out, you little shit, thought Assistant Detective Eriksson while trying to appear only seventeen years old.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t believe so, but they have it at the university in Stockholm. I’m in my second year.”
Krassner sneered like someone who knew better than to let himself be fooled by someone like her.
“You mostly sit out here in the kitchen,” he said.
“It’s so Daniel and I will be able to study better,” Jeanette said innocently. “I hope it doesn’t disturb you?”
Krassner shook his head, got up, stood in the doorway, and looked at her with his unpleasantly insinuating smile.
“Take care, officer,” he said. Turned around and disappeared into his room.
Jeanette had not replied. Only looked at him surprised, like someone who didn’t understand. What was he driving at? she wondered. Does he know something? Scarcely possible-in fact, highly improbable. Does he suspect something? Surely, for he’s that type. What does he want? He wants to test me, she thought.
“He seems completely screwy. I promise you, the man’s not healthy, you can see it in his eyes,” Eriksson summarized when she met Waltin that same evening.
“He can’t know anything,” said Waltin.
“No,” said Jeanette, “but I think that’s completely uninteresting to him.”
“You don’t look like a typical police officer, exactly,” said Waltin, smiling paternally. “He’s trying to test you.”
“Sure. He’s trying to test me, despite the fact that I look like I do. That says a great deal about him, doesn’t it?”
“You have to sit in the kitchen? There’s no other option?”
“No.” Jeanette shook her head. “Not if I’m going to be able to pass his door and try to hear what he’s up to.”
“It’ll be over soon,” said Waltin and smiled consolingly with all his white teeth. “And there isn’t anyone else who could manage it better than you.”
Then there’s one more reason to sit in the kitchen, thought Assistant Detective Eriksson, but you certainly don’t want to hear about that, and because it will soon be over I guess I’ll have to live with it.
The essential reason that she always sat in the kitchen was Daniel, or M’Boye, as she called him when she was talking with Waltin and her colleagues. Regardless of the fact that it would soon be over, she and Daniel were in their sixth week now, and he was a completely normal young man to whom she at most had given a light kiss and an occasional hug, in spite of the fact that they had gotten together more than twenty times and spent numerous hours in his room, where they had been occupied with everything between heaven and earth except what they ought to have been devoting themselves to.
He must think I’m completely nutty, thought Eriksson. Good thing he’s the way he is.
Daniel was not only big, strong, handsome, and talented. He was also both kind and well brought up, and as soon as he understood that Jeanette was not the usual “Swedish girl” he had also mobilized an attentive and patient side of his personality. Regardless of that, to put it simply, Assistant Detective Eriksson had still had to work like a beaver to avoid making use of that part of the body that Daniel-in a Freudian moment when even he had lost his footing-called her “little beaver.” Jeanette didn’t like what she was doing. She was exploiting a decent person who liked her. When the air in Daniel’s room got thick as mayonnaise, she used to rescue herself by fleeing out to the student corridor’s common kitchen. Her pretexts for doing so were no longer even far-fetched, they were worse than that, but fortunately it would all soon be over. Then she would disappear from his life, he would go home to South Africa and continue to live his life, and hopefully the marks that she left would not be all that deep.
…
Forselius had not phoned Waltin until late Thursday evening, and when he’d finally done so Waltin had already started planning his alternative in detail. Berg had called him that afternoon and at that time he’d said that it was probably leaning toward being a narcotics arrest in any event because Forselius had not been heard from. Berg seemed to have reconciled himself to the thought. “Yes, yes,” he had declared simply, “perhaps it’s just as well.”