This is too much, thought Johansson. SePo? Scarcely believable even in his gloomiest moments when he was still a young radical and had drunk too much red wine. For a policeman, that is. The Russians? Possibly, for everything he’d heard and read couldn’t simply be nonsense? SePo and GRU. Impossible, thought Johansson. Not even the TV news editors would come up with something so preposterous.
“What do you think is going on?” demanded Johansson, looking challengingly at his younger colleague.
Krassner’s suicide and SePo’s interest in M’Boye had nothing to do with each other. It was a pure coincidence. Krassner had taken his own life. Beyond crazy, he drank and did drugs too. Plus there were all the other objective police circumstances that became known through the technical investigation and the forensic medical report. Not least the suicide note he’d left behind.
“A perfectly clear-as-a-bell suicide,” Wiklander declared. “You can think what you want about our colleagues at SePo, but that’s not in their repertoire. Besides, they would never carry it out that well if any of them got the idea to try.”
“Do you have any idea why SePo was so interested in M’Boye?” said Johansson.
“Well, black, South African, a student, young, radical, member of some local resistance movement, here on money from the union federation-that’s more than enough for them, I guess.”
Yes, thought Johansson. I’m sure it is. Typical Friday the thirteenth, and now it had started to snow too. As if the snow they’d already gotten wasn’t enough, even though it wasn’t yet Christmas.
Before Johansson left work he phoned a female colleague who worked at the foreign nationals unit in Stockholm. She was the same age as him, divorced like him, with children who would soon be adults just like his. He’d called her a few months ago on a similar errand.
“What do you think about that?” said Johansson with a touch more Norrland in his voice.
“Sure,” she said, and sounded clearly delighted, although with a Stockholm accent.
“Shall we say the restaurant at seven o’clock?” said Johansson.
“What do you think about at my place in an hour?” she said, and giggled. “Then we can eat dinner afterward? I think you get so tired from all that Italian food.”
Easy as pie, thought Johansson, suddenly feeling just as young as when he used to think like that.
[SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14-SUNDAY, DECEMBER 15]
Johansson had spent the weekend with his two children. They would be celebrating Christmas and New Year’s abroad with their mother and her new husband, “new” for the past ten years. This weekend offered the final chance to safeguard the remnants of tradition their present circumstances had left them. Apart from that they’d had a nice weekend. On Saturday they’d taken a walk in the city. True, it was cold, but with sparkling sun from a clear, pale-blue sky; his children had appreciated it in a way he hadn’t expected. It turns out that way, I guess, if you live in a big house in Vallentuna, thought Johansson.
Then they’d shopped for food in the Östermalm market, had lunch at McDonald’s on Nybrogatan, and bought a Christmas tree at Maria Square that they carried home to Wollmar Yxkullsgatan, where they decorated it with red glass balls and silver garlands. True, a small and rather sad-looking tree that was already shedding seriously, but it smelled like Christmas, in any case, and the youngsters were satisfied and happy. They’d made dinner together and his son had shown unexpected domestic talents while his daughter set and decorated the table. No Christmas food, for neither Johansson nor his children were especially fond of it. Good Swedish food, quite simply, which they all helped each other select and prepare. Favorites in reprise, Johansson had thought contentedly while he carefully turned the veal burgers in the frying pan and his son attacked the potatoes with the potato masher.
First a little Swedish smorgasbord with a discriminating selection of domestic classics: smoked eel, lightly salted lox, caviar, and a few well-chosen types of herring. Johansson had taken shots, one for each leg, from Aunt Jenny’s glass, and when he noticed that his son was glancing furtively at him as he raised the first glass he realized that sooner or later he would have to ask the question. The boy would, after all, soon turn seventeen.
“Would you like a half shot?” Johansson had asked. It is Christmas, he’d thought.
“No, good Lord,” his son had said with genuine feeling.
“You shouldn’t swear, you little bastard,” Johansson had said prudishly. “Though it’s good if you can leave the aquavit alone as long as possible,” he’d added paternally.
After the meal they’d exchanged Christmas presents in front of the tree and both his daughter’s and son’s eyes had twinkled. The decal-inscribed sweatshirts that he’d bought at the FBI had aroused especially great enthusiasm. Considerably more than the metal-studded leather jackets that for good money he’d dragged home from the suggested shop on Fifth Avenue in New York. He himself had received a Vikings’ greatest hits collection and a book that, judging by the back cover copy at least, ought to be completely readable. Plus a padded hunting vest with leather facing and large pockets, which was a present from both of them and had certainly dug deep holes in their collective capital.
“So dear old Dad can keep on exterminating all the animals in the forest,” said his daughter, smiling gently.
On Sunday the youngsters had slept the whole morning while Johansson idled around the apartment in last Christmas Eve’s dressing gown. He’d showered, had coffee, read the newspaper, and thought a bit about Krassner and the remarkable coincidence of his suicide and SePo’s interest in his neighbor from South Africa. But despite his own cherished rule that in situations like this you ought to hate chance, it must nevertheless still be a pure coincidence. The exception that proves the rule, he decided in order to finally get some quiet in his head, and because the youngsters had started to show signs of life he prepared a substantial American breakfast instead.
Pancakes with maple syrup and juniper-smoked bacon. His son had been just as delighted as his dad and loaded in double portions despite his sister’s vociferous warnings about cholesterol and being overweight and high blood pressure and sudden, premature death.
“I don’t understand how you can eat that kind of thing,” she’d said, stirring her breakfast yogurt. “It’s not enough that it tastes disgusting, it smells disgusting too, and it’s pure poison besides. Don’t you understand that you can die?”
“Although it is awfully good,” Johansson had said gently, stroking her on the cheek.
In the afternoon he’d sent them home to Vallentuna in a taxi, and because he’d gotten his statement of account from the bank for his stock sale the day before, he hadn’t even thought about what it cost for two teenagers to go home that way.
It’s clear they should have it good, thought Johansson. I have it good myself, and it will be theirs by and by anyway. Then he drew a hot bath, mixed a giant highball with a little gin and a lot of ice and Grappo, which he placed within comfortable reach before he himself stepped in to relax, not to wash himself, as it was best with hot water, an ice-cold drink, and plenty of time.
What a splendid weekend, thought Johansson contentedly. It had started well too. True, not with a great lifelong love, but shared urges were clearly good at putting temporary loneliness to flight. They hadn’t even gone to the restaurant afterward. A simple sandwich and a glass of wine at the kitchen table had been every bit as good as an Italian three-course dinner.