On Monday morning he had set up a meeting with his colleagues at the department in Malmö, but before they sat down at the conference table he had called his secretary in Stockholm. It had after all been two and a half days since he’d last had access to a secure telephone.
“Waltin wants you to call him,” said his secretary. “It’s about Citizen Kane,” she added. Where had she heard that name before? she thought.
Krassner, thought Berg, and much later, when he thought back to this incident, he recalled that he’d had an unpleasant foreboding about something even then. Unclear why, but real. He remembered that distinctly long afterward.
Waltin’s voice sounded utterly unconcerned. Almost as though he had nothing to do with the matter.
Of course Berg also thought about that. Both then and long afterward.
“How has it been going?” asked Berg.
“Just fine,” said Waltin. “It appears we’ve been worrying ourselves quite unnecessarily.” Not me but you, he thought, but he didn’t say that.
“What do you mean?” said Berg.
“I’ve just been looking through the results of his so-called intellectual efforts, and it seems to be pure rubbish.”
Despite the fact that he’d been sitting at his typewriter several hours a day for a month and a half, thought Berg, but he didn’t say that.
“Tell me,” said Berg.
“Fifty-some pages with highly confused notes. Some assorted texts, a few drafts of something that might possibly be a thriller, possibly a documentary history, but presumably something in between.”
“What’s it about?” asked Berg.
“I suggest that we take that up when we meet,” said Waltin, his voice sounding rather pleased. “Let me put it like this. Both you and I and many of us here in the building have probably indulged in the same line of reasoning.”
I see, thought Berg. So that’s the way it is. He’d already suspected as much.
“Has anything else happened?” he asked.
“He killed himself on Friday evening,” said Waltin, and judging by his tone of voice, he wasn’t one of the chief mourners.
“I’m coming up,” said Berg. “See to it that someone picks me up from the flight.”
One more scatterbrain, thought Waltin.
Berg and Waltin had spent the whole afternoon together, and when they went their separate ways neither of them was especially satisfied with the other, despite the fact that they both concealed it well.
There’s something careless about him, thought Berg. Something childish, something immature.
“We’ll lie low,” he said. “I’ll take this over starting now. I will of course keep you informed.”
Waltin shrugged his well-tailored shoulders. Berg might soon start working in the Kurd unit, thought Waltin. Along with both those other loonies.
“Fine with me,” he said. “Although you’re worrying yourself unnecessarily.”
First Waltin had described the work they’d done. It had actually gone completely according to plan, if you could believe him. The operative had made his way in, done what he was supposed to, and made his way out, observed by no one, and that was just what the whole thing was about. True, Göransson and Martinsson had messed up and lost track of Krassner, but luck had still been on their side. It was a fact that Krassner had taken his own life, and he’d done it under his own steam. Whether he’d been high and only wanted to try his new wings or had suffered a sudden insight into his lost life was beyond Waltin’s judgment. Regardless of which, the question was not their concern. Krassner was not a security matter anymore and had actually never been one. That was Waltin’s firm view.
“If we’re going to blame ourselves for anything, maybe it’s that, I guess. That we didn’t really see how crazy he was,” said Waltin, shrugging his shoulders. “The guy seems to have been completely confused. I suggest you look at his posthumous papers.” Waltin slid the bundle, including photographs, to Berg.
You can be quite sure that I will, thought Berg.
“Where are Göransson and Martinsson?” he asked.
“On an educational trip,” said Waltin, smiling wryly. “I thought it was safest to take them out of action.”
“How much do they know?” asked Berg.
“They don’t know about Krassner’s suicide,” answered Waltin. “They’ll no doubt find out about it sooner or later. They don’t even know that they managed to lose him. And of course they have no idea that I know what they’d been doing instead of being on the job.”
Berg contented himself with nodding.
“Eriksson?” he asked.
“Keeping an eye on the situation. I’d thought about bringing her in as soon as Stockholm has written up Krassner. I’ve told her to keep herself out of the loop.” You don’t need to worry about her, thought Waltin.
Berg nodded again.
Waltin and I, he thought. That’s two. Plus Göransson, Martinsson, and Eriksson, that makes five. And Waltin’s operative, whoever that might be, which incidentally was yet another question that could wait at least until he himself had found out the answer, which made six people altogether. And Forselius, he thought, and suddenly that was far too many. What is it those motorcycle hoods always say? he thought. That three can keep a secret if two are dead?
As soon as Waltin had left, Berg had gone out to his secretary and asked her to phone for a taxi. He’d already dismissed the thought of sitting there at work. Better to go home to his wife and the house in Bromma and think over the situation in peace and quiet. Perhaps try to sleep on the matter and in the best case dream positive dreams that Waltin was maybe right despite the carelessness that doubtless was the main ingredient of his boyish charm.
“Have we had any calls?” asked Berg, making an effort to smile at her cheerfully. A rock, he thought. A true rock.
“The prime minister’s special adviser wants you to contact him as soon as possible,” she said.
Eight, thought Berg gloomily.
[TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26]
Brooding all night, little sleep; but when he came to work early in the morning he had nonetheless gotten a few days’ respite. The special adviser had called-he’d thought they should meet but then other things had come up and he was sitting in political discussions that most likely would be long drawn out. So he’d spoken with the minister of justice, who by the way would be making contact with Berg directly during the day, and they had agreed to postpone the weekly meeting until Friday. A bad day in and of itself, but it would be just fine if he and Berg could meet a few hours before the meeting.
“An old friend called me over the weekend and told me,” said the special adviser.
Might his name possibly be Forselius? thought Berg, and I’ll be darned how communicative you’ve suddenly become.
“That’ll be just fine,” said Berg. “I can meet Friday morning at nine o’clock.”
“Great,” stated the special adviser. “And should anything happen you can reach me down at Harpsund.”
Berg promised to contact him at once if such were the case. Them up there and us down here, he thought as he put down the receiver.
Berg devoted the entire day to Krassner. True, at first he’d thought about whether he should turn the whole thing over to one of his more reliable coworkers, but after careful consideration-there was something in this story that didn’t feel quite right-he’d decided to do it himself. At least to start with, and until he could be completely certain that it wasn’t heading off in the wrong direction.
He started by looking at the pictures from the secret search of Krassner’s student apartment. In total there were just under a hundred pictures, enlarged and of excellent quality. A dozen of them showed various parts of the interior from various angles. Untidy and littered with a vengeance, much like the addicts’ pads he’d seen during his time as a young uniformed policeman out in the field, and the messy desk was scarcely evidence of uninterrupted work under harmonious conditions.