“What we should do is simply one thing,” said Waltin. “We should lie low.” And I’m going to lie between your legs, thought Waltin, but he didn’t say that, for she didn’t have anything to do with it.
[SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23]
When Waltin woke up early on Saturday morning, little Jeanette was lying next to him in bed. As a seducer he had been faced with considerably more difficult tasks. She had seemed almost compliant when he led her into his bedroom, and because it was the first time, he’d held back and contented himself with performing a couple of for the most part normal acts of intercourse. He had been just determined enough but not more, and when he woke up she was sleeping curled up in a fetal position with her head boring down into the pillow, holding yet another pillow pressed against her belly. Waltin had lain looking at her a while, and he was still very satisfied with what he saw. This can be completely perfect, he thought. All that was demanded now was precision, clarity, and a perfectly executed acclimatization, and because the conditions were good he could happily take the time such things took when they were worth the effort.
Then he went out to the kitchen and prepared breakfast, set the table over by the window with the view, and exerted himself both in how he did it and what he set out for them. When everything was ready he’d wakened her with a light kiss on the forehead, and now she was sitting across from him. In one of his altogether too large bathrobes, newly wakened, with tousled hair and a bare, unadorned face. And she looked both surprised and delighted when she understood that the cup in front of her contained neither coffee nor tea.
“Chocolate with whipped cream,” tittered little Jeanette. “God that’s good! I don’t think I’ve had that since I was a kid.”
Which is the very idea, thought Waltin, stroking her lightly across the back of her neck.
“I was thinking about inviting you to dinner this evening,” said Waltin, at the same time letting his thumb stop at the base of her neck. “I would have preferred to have spent the whole day with you,” he continued with the exactly right charm-filled apologetic smile, “but unfortunately there are certain practical matters that I must take care of before we can relax.”
Little Jeanette had nodded with a serious expression. Just like children always did when they understood that they’d become a part of something important.
“Now here’s what we’ll do,” said Waltin, lacing his powerful, suntanned fingers in hers, which were half their size. “I don’t want you to return to the student dormitory. On the other hand, I want you to keep track of that M’Boye so he doesn’t get you dragged into something. Can you phone him?”
“He was going to call me at home this morning,” said Jeanette. “He doesn’t have a phone of his own. Just the one that goes to their corridor.”
“Avoid that,” said Waltin. “Lie low. Keep track of M’Boye. See to it that he doesn’t start anything. Can you manage that?” Waltin smiled warmly and squeezed her hand.
Jeanette nodded.
“Good,” said Waltin. “Then I’ll find out what this sad story is really about.”
First he arranged a meeting with Hedberg in the small sleepover apartment at Gärdet that he’d loaned out to him. Hedberg seemed fresh and rested and offered fresh-brewed coffee. Waltin had decided to wait to discuss Krassner’s suicide.
“Tell me,” said Waltin, taking a sip of the hot coffee.
…
According to Hedberg there wasn’t much to tell. He had seen Krassner leave the student dormitory at six-thirty, and when he got the all-clear signal on the radio ten minutes later he had started to work. One hour later he was finished and then he’d taken his gear, left the place, driven home, called Waltin, and reported.
“A messy little student apartment; he didn’t have too many things. A few papers and those you have on film.”
Hedberg nodded toward the three rolls of film that were lying on the table.
“Well, what more was there?” said Hedberg, looking as though he was thinking deeply. “He’d hidden some marijuana cigarettes behind the medicine cabinet. He got to keep those.” Hedberg smiled wryly.
“What impression did you get of him?” asked Waltin. “As a person, I mean.”
“Impression,” said Hedberg. “Well, I guess I almost got the impression that the person living there was a little crazy. Looked like an ordinary junkie pad. Things tossed everywhere, sheets bunched up at the foot of the bed. Nothing that you would have appreciated,” said Hedberg, smiling faintly.
So there, thought Waltin who had difficulty with intimacies, even when they came from such a highly valued colleague as Hedberg.
“A little crazy, you say?”
“One of those paranoid junkie types,” said Hedberg, nodding. “That door alert, the piece of paper on the door frame, I found right away, for example.”
“And you put it back when you left,” said Waltin.
“All according to orders and established routines,” said Hedberg.
“No complications,” asked Waltin, lightly and just uninterested enough.
“So-so,” said Hedberg. “If I were to complain, there was actually someone left in the corridor after seven o’clock. Right after seven I heard someone going out through the door to the vestibule. Then there was someone who came in right after and turned and went out again. I got an impression that it was the same person and that he’d forgotten something that he came back and fetched.”
M’Boye, thought Waltin, who had Jeanette’s account fresh in his memory. Goes to show that blacks can never learn to tell time.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said. “It was one of those people who can’t keep track of time.”
“It’s not the end of the world,” said Hedberg. “I heard him and he didn’t see me, so I’ll give you that one.”
Okay then, thought Waltin. Then there’s just one problem remaining.
“A little problem has come up,” he said.
Hedberg contented himself with nodding.
“Krassner has taken his life.”
“Oh, lay off.” said Hedberg, surprised. “When?”
“Five minutes to eight yesterday evening,” said Waltin. “He did a double full gainer out the window at the student dormitory.”
Hedberg hadn’t been easy to convince, and his objections were both logical and completely understandable.
“I think this sounds strange,” said Hedberg. “It was almost twenty till eight when I left his corridor. That was just a quarter of an hour before he would have jumped out through the window.”
“Yes,” said Waltin. “There isn’t much time to play with.”
“Then he’s supposed to have written a suicide note as well? It can’t have been a very long epistle, otherwise we would have run into each other.”
“He might actually have written the letter before and had it with him,” said Waltin, who was thinking out loud.
Hedberg shook his head and still seemed to be full of doubt.
“I still think it sounds strange,” he said, also sounding like someone thinking out loud. “He must have left that meeting over on Sturegatan at least fifteen minutes before he jumped out through the window. And in that case he can hardly have done more than come in and left. His meeting, I mean. What kind of strange meeting was it?”
“Yes,” said Waltin. “There’s a lot here that’s strange.”
“Sure,” said Hedberg with emphasis. “And then if he was on his way back, how is it that the guys who were supposed to watch him didn’t make contact and warn me?”
Interesting question, thought Waltin.
“It’ll work out,” said Waltin, putting the rolls of film in his pocket. “I’ll be in touch when I know something.”
What is it that I’ve forgotten? he thought, getting up. Is there something I’ve forgotten?
“There was something else,” said Waltin. “Help me.”