According to Berg there was nothing to indicate that he had hidden away either documentation or material that he’d written himself. In any case not here in Sweden.
“The material you looked at seems to deal primarily with the party and its leadership. To me that sounds like a typical background description to something else. And a completely plausible reason to come here and get down to work.”
“You mean he ought to have more material at home in the U.S.,” asked Berg. Concerning your boss, he thought.
“Yes.”
“I am withholding judgment,” said Berg, “but if it is of the same quality as what we’ve found here, I still don’t think there’s any reason for us to worry.”
For you don’t really want me to ask the Germans to pose the question to our colleagues across the pond, he thought.
“And then I don’t understand the title of his book,” said the special adviser. “The spy who went over to the east?”
“I don’t either,” said Berg.
Nice to hear, thought the special adviser, for that was exactly the answer he wanted.
The ensuing weekly meeting went completely without friction, and the minister appeared mostly to be thinking about the approaching weekend. Berg had devoted most of the time to briefing them about two ongoing investigations of foreign embassies. One dealt with suspected refugee espionage and one with an unfortunately already completed case of industrial espionage in which the foreign office was resisting deportation. None of those present had any questions. On the other hand, the alarm bells in Berg’s head were still ringing.
It is as it is, thought Berg when he got into his car outside Rosenbad. It’s nice that the weekend’s almost here.
[THE FIRST WEEK IN DECEMBER]
So, what’s really going on? thought Assistant Detective Jeanette Eriksson as she settled down on her usual chair at work on Monday morning after having spent the weekend together with her new-and secret-boyfriend, Police Superintendent Waltin. For wasn’t that how she was expected to view him, despite the difference in age? Her rump was sore too, which was awkward because the seclusion of her own office was now only a memory. Moreover, the whole Krassner project was already history, of the type that could never be told and with the lid painstakingly screwed down by the highest boss himself. And everything had started so well just a week ago, or ten days, to be exact, thought Eriksson, who was still careful about time regardless of whether it concerned work or her private life. Or, as in this case, something that had started as the former and continued as the latter.
Krassner was definitely history and Daniel would soon be. The last time they’d spoken she’d told him a tall tale about her constantly ailing mother suddenly becoming so much worse that she was now compelled to go home to Norrland to help her dad take care of her and her younger siblings. Daniel’s sympathy as usual knew no bounds and she herself had felt even more reprehensible than usual. All that actually remained was Waltin, for it was he who now decided in detail how she should cover up after the assignment with Krassner, and it was he who now occupied her private life and clearly intended to do so in such a way that she didn’t have the least desire to talk about it with anyone. Like that bag of candy that he’d first given her and then taken back for reasons that would scarcely be publishable even in Aunt Malena’s little column in the big evening paper.
What is really going on? thought Assistant Detective Eriksson as she carefully adjusted her bottom to find the least painful position before she went to work on the day’s routine assignments.
On Tuesday, the third of December, the Stockholm police closed the investigation of John P. Krassner’s sudden death. His suicide was now explained beyond all reasonable doubt, there were even papers on the matter, and before the day was over Police Inspector Persson in his discreet way produced a copy of the entire investigation.
On the other hand, he had missed Krassner’s belongings, the few things he’d left behind, for the embassy had already sent those home to the United States. This clearly bothered Persson, who among other things asked for some invitation that was not found either in the confiscation record or on the list of things sent home, but Persson had not been the least bit concerned. You throw away that kind of shit as soon as you get it, don’t you? Persson thought, and he’d said so as well.
“You throw away that kind of shit as soon as you get it, don’t you?” said Persson.
Berg contented himself with nodding in agreement, but to be completely sure he also requested an expert opinion from one of the bureau’s psychiatric consultants. An extraordinarily competent doctor of the old school who had helped him on several previous occasions and who hadn’t disappointed him this time either. Clearly Krassner’s posthumous letter indicated that among other things he had a “strong depressive disposition” and that the “suicidal thoughts that had tormented him a long time” had finally acquired an “almost compulsory and occasionally hallucinatory character.”
Finally, thought Berg, and high time to place this sorrowful story with the other secret files.
The weekly meeting had a mixed agenda in which the prime minister’s somewhat eccentric awareness of security had once again been discussed.
“I took the matter up with him after our most recent government meeting, as I promised,” reported the minister of justice, nodding with poorly concealed pride.
“And what did he say?” asked the special adviser avidly from behind half-closed eyelids.
“He promised to think about it,” answered the minister.
“That is truly exceptional progress. I really must congratulate you,” said the special adviser, chuckling. “Then I won’t ruin the whole day for you gentlemen by relating what he said to me when I brought up the same question.”
And that was as far as they got.
After the meeting the prime minister’s special adviser took Berg aside to ask a simple, personal question.
“This Waltin,” he wondered. “This is a person that you trust unconditionally?”
I must do something about Forselius, Berg thought with sudden irritation. I can’t have it this way.
“I understand that you have spoken with Forselius,” said Berg.
The special adviser made a difficult-to-interpret gesture that clearly was to show he didn’t intend to say boo on that subject.
“Let me put it like this,” said Berg carefully. “I think it mostly concerns a lack of personal chemistry, and were I to give a direct answer to your question I can only say that up till now I haven’t had any concrete reason whatsoever to mistrust Police Superintendent Waltin.” Apart from his private, childish little antics, which there’s no reason to go into here, thought Berg.
This time the special adviser contented himself with a slightly dismissive gesture.
“And you are of course aware of the structural problem?”
“I’m not quite sure I understand what you mean,” said Berg, still careful.
The rest of the conversation proceeded on a so-called level of principle. That was, after all, what it was called when someone like the special adviser intended to tell someone like Berg off. According to the special adviser, Berg’s structural problem was a logical consequence of the manner in which he had built up the supervision of his operation. Who would supervise the final supervisor in the chain? Especially if he were as well concealed as Waltin with all his external functions?
“It’s an insoluble problem,” said Berg. Like the kind that you love to talk about, he thought.
Not insoluble at all, according to the special adviser from his elevated position. Instead, what it involved was simply adopting a dialectical attitude in his view of the organization and its operation. Building competition and oppositions into the structure was an excellent way to also check what the various parts of it were actually up to.