“And what will happen to a peaceful work environment?” objected Berg. Dialectical, he thought. Wonder if he’s a communist? True, there was nothing in his papers, but his manner of reasoning was undeniably suspicious.
“Think about it,” said the special adviser with a dismissive shrug of his shoulders. And suddenly Berg’s inner alarm bells started ringing again.
On Friday Berg informed Waltin that Krassner was now a closed case, and despite the fact that this concerned what was fundamentally a serious story that might have ended considerably worse, Waltin was his usual irresponsible self. A well-tailored shrug of the shoulders, thought Berg, and if I don’t do something about that I may well have a new parliamentary oversight round my neck.
“What were you thinking about doing about that senile character with the cognac?” asked Waltin, who was not one to let things pass.
“I’m hard at work on it,” said Berg, who had already decided to change Forselius’s clearances and hadn’t the slightest intention of announcing it to anyone. Least of all Waltin.
“If you want you can send him an invoice,” said Waltin, smiling like a satisfied wolf. “He’s cost me almost a thousand man-hours.”
“Oh well,” said Berg, changing the subject. “It’ll work out.” And in the worst case I’m sure you can pawn your watch, he thought, but naturally he didn’t say that.
Instead he contented himself with giving a few general directives for the ongoing work: the survey of antidemocratic elements within the police and the military, the Kurds and other terrorist organizations, threats against the prime minister and other pillars of society-just to mention the general overview.
Knife ourselves in the back, gnomes and trolls, Krassner and other loonies-sounds like an excellent agenda, thought Waltin, but obviously he didn’t say that.
“Fine with me,” said Waltin. And he himself had more important things to get to work on.
On Saturday the prime minister’s special adviser met his old teacher and mentor, Professor Forselius, at the Turing Society’s annual Christmas dinner at an exclusive gentlemen’s club. An informal society, to be sure, but the guests were in tails and full academic regalia in memory of one of the greatest who had also lived his life between the promise of summer and the cold of winter and chosen to finish it by his own hand when the chill around him had become all too apparent.
The annual Christmas dinner was always enjoyed on the first Saturday in December, because it was preferable to be done in good time, and the ceremonies, the pace, and the majority of the members had been the same since the days of the cold war. First a simple buffet and a few shots of aquavit without preamble so that even the gout-afflicted professors could mingle easily with one another. Then a traditional, bourgeois dinner, which always ended with the carafe of port going clockwise around the table before they headed to one of the inner rooms for coffee and cognac.
Forselius had taken his old pupil aside and placed them both in chairs in the corner that he considered most suitable for informal conversations about such things as were included in the secrecy laws of the realm.
“Do you still have your professorship or do the socialists pay so damn little that you can’t afford to buy a new tuxedo?” grunted Forselius, nodding toward the wreaths of oak leaves around the special adviser’s black velvet collar.
“I still have the appointment and I have the salary to keep a horse, kind of you to ask,” said the special adviser. You’re your usual self, you old bastard, he thought with the warmth that naturally ensued from a fine dinner.
“You should watch out for those devils,” warned Forselius. “Next time it may be you who goes out on your ears through your window.”
“Those that I’ve spoken with maintain that he took his own life,” said the special adviser. And I promise to watch out as soon as we start the election campaign, he thought.
“Obviously,” snorted Forselius. “Is it the one with the gold watch who says that?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” said the special adviser, “but wasn’t it you who made contact with him?”
“With Berg, yes,” said Forselius. “Berg is a good fellow, a little stupid, it’s true, like all policemen, but simple and pleasant and good to deal with. Always does what you tell him.”
Give me a break, thought the special adviser, who belonged to a different generation than his mentor.
“What do you think I should have done, then?” he asked.
“Seen to it that the staff took care of it. That’s what we always did in my time. I’m sure you know what SePo thinks about people like you and your boss? He of all people ought to know that, shouldn’t he?”
Sometimes you’re awfully tedious, thought the special adviser, but he didn’t say that.
“Why in heaven’s name should SePo kill someone like Krassner?”
“Sometimes I actually worry about you,” said Forselius, looking sternly at his old pupil. “In order to get their mitts on his papers, of course.”
“His so-called papers contained mostly nonsense-only nonsense, actually.”
“So that’s what they say,” said Forselius. “And you, what would you say if you thought about it?”
That it was just nonsense, thought the special adviser, but he didn’t intend to enlighten Forselius about that in any case.
Waltin had chosen to spend this weekend on the estate he’d inherited from his father in Sörmland. True, his apartment on Norr Mälarstrand was very good for meeting his normal needs, and he had laid out a good deal of money both to soundproof it and install the technical equipment that he needed for his private documentation, but for the sensitive initial phase greater isolation than that was required.
Comfortable and off the main road. The fields and forests had long been rented out, and, considering the times, at a respectable price. The employees who had always been there had been laid off and moved, and nowadays there were no human eyes or ears in the vicinity that might see or hear things that didn’t concern them. No help to be had, in a nutshell, and his training of little Jeanette was going completely according to plan. Because she had no idea of the reality in which he lived, and that would soon become hers, she also seemed to perceive the whole thing as some type of sexual role play which enticed her more than it frightened her.
The previous weekend he’d actually already reached a breakthrough in their relationship. He complimented himself for the stroke of genius with the bag of candies: her all too ravenous appetite for salt licorice and gummi bears, the subsequent punishment, and the spontaneous opportunity that this in turn had given him to remove the annoying growth of hair between her legs with the help of a razor. Now she looked most attractive: small and slender with her thin, almost boyish body and her totally naked vagina. If only the hair on her head were allowed to grow a little, she could be almost perfect, with two small braided pigtails. Little Jeanette, age thirteen, thought Waltin with all the love and all the hope for the future of which only he was capable. Even the documentation of their budding relationship had succeeded beyond expectations. He already had enough video and audio sequences both to satisfy his own fantasies when he was alone and to nip possible attempts at rebellion in the bud. Everything indicated that Jeanette might become one of his most successful projects ever.
Why can’t he fuck like other people anymore? thought Assistant Detective Jeanette Eriksson, who this weekend was spending more time bent forward across his knees with her redder and redder backside straight up in the air than her lover, Police Superintendent Claes Waltin, was spending between her legs. She felt dejected and generally confused, and not even Krassner, who had after all been dead for more than fourteen days, was leaving her in peace. There was something that didn’t add up, and finally she plucked up her courage and asked him, if for nothing else than to get a little peace and quiet. In the best case to get him to think about something other than various ways of paddling her rear end.