The text was direct, yet it also had a literary touch, a poetic tone, and if the poet in him had been uppermost as he held the pen he still hadn’t forgotten what he wanted to get said. It was a short letter. Scarcely ten or so lines longer than the concluding portion that Krassner had quoted in the book he was writing and that someone else most probably had used as his final words.
Johansson translated the entire text into Swedish and wrote it down on a piece of paper. Then he read it and carefully pondered what was written there, and only after that did he draw his conclusions. The man didn’t want to be involved anymore, thought Johansson. For he had clearly been involved for some years at least, and it appeared to have been a rich life as well if you could really take him at his word.
Fionn,
I would be a scoundrel if I pretended that your generous offer didn’t make me both happy and moved, and a liar if I even suggested that those years that I’ve worked together with you-for a great and noble cause-haven’t also been the ones which have meant the most to me and my purely personal development. A few times it has even been so exciting and so critical that when the whole thing was finally done and I’d come out the other side, I’ve been a different person than when I went in. And at least once I’ve been granted the grace, while still young, to fall freely, like in a dream.
But everything has its time. My decision is irrevocable and is simply due to the fact that my task has also taken over my life and hasn’t left anything else behind. For that’s how it’s turned out. I have lived my life caught between the longing of summer and the cold of winter.
As a young man I used to think that when summer comes I would fall in love with someone, someone I would love a lot, and then, that’s when I would start living my life for real. But by the time I had accomplished all those things I had to do before, summer was already gone and all that remained was the winter cold. And that, that was not the life that I had hoped for.
Pilgrim
You can really accomplish a lot with small means, thought Johansson; specifically it was the altered paragraph division in the quotation that irritated him, even if it had improved the poetic substance.
The spy who gave notice, thought Johansson. For being a mere twenty-seven years old when he did that-Johansson had looked up the prime minister’s year of birth in one of his many reference books-he seemed truly sardonic. Buchanan could probably keep from laughing, and if he’d been the way Sarah had described him, Pilgrim’s eloquence had probably been wasted effort.
After that he gathered together Krassner’s papers and put them back in the bag. The rest that was there could well wait, because he was a policeman, not a historian. Perhaps they ought to be donated to the archives of the labor movement, thought Johansson. Or I could forget about the whole thing, have a tall highball, and call up some nice woman, for this of course wasn’t the life I had imagined either. Wonder if they’ve gone home at the foreign nationals unit? he thought, looking at his watch.
[TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, TO WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18]
It was the Defense College that acted as host for the conference where questions of total defense were to be discussed from and including luncheon on day one until and including luncheon on day two. An exclusive affair with only a dozen hand-picked delegates who ordinarily worked as high-level bosses within the media sector, industry, and the governmental administrative apparatus.
The first meetings had been held as early as the late 1940s; according to the official history it was then-prime minister Tage Erlander himself who had hatched the idea of gathering representatives of both private industry and the public sector under the aegis of the defense department for the purpose of strengthening the country’s defenses. Thus the new concept of “total defense”: a Europe crisscrossed by new borders, new alliances and power constellations, a cold war between East and West, a strongly questioned Swedish policy of neutrality. In that situation it seemed both logical and obvious that the country’s prime minister would decide to try to create peace in his own backyard at least.
This time they would be gathering at a comfortable and well-situated conference center in the archipelago south of Stockholm, and for some reason it was Wiklander who was to drive Johansson there.
He wants to talk about Krassner, thought Johansson, but because he himself didn’t intend to open that discussion, he sat in the backseat and read through his conference material. It was only when they’d started heading east at Järna, and there wasn’t much time left to play with, that Wiklander spoke up.
“There’s something I’ve been thinking about,” said Wiklander. “If you have time to listen, chief?”
“Of course,” said Johansson, making the effort to sound as though he really did.
“It struck me when we left each other yesterday. I don’t know if I’m on the wrong track, but your questions got me thinking. I suddenly got the idea that maybe the colleagues at SePo took the opportunity to do a little house search in that guy M’Boye’s room and that was why our colleague Eriksson had carted him away to the restaurant.”
“The same thought struck me,” said Johansson. “That was why I asked you.” Only a half lie, he thought.
“And while they’re doing that, that wretch takes the opportunity to jump out his window,” said Wiklander, his voice actually sounding rather gloomy.
“I’ve thought about that too,” said Johansson, trying to slip in a little extra authority in the service of the lie and of credibility. “They did their thing and Krassner did his and then they left without having any idea that Krassner had already jumped or was just about to jump out his window.”
“Can it really be that bad?” said Wiklander doubtfully. “I mean, they must have had people outside keeping an eye on the situation, don’t you think?”
“They must have been standing outside the entrance at the back in that case, while Krassner jumped out on the front side,” said Johansson, who had decided to preserve Wiklander’s misunderstanding.
“Yes. Well,” said Wiklander, but he didn’t sound especially convinced. “It doesn’t appear to have been very professional.”
“I think we’re in complete agreement about that,” said Johansson without needing to sound uncertain, “but personally I think they probably never did a house search.”
“You mean…” said Wiklander.
“That Eriksson and M’Boye went out and ate and that was all,” said Johansson.
“Hmm,” said Wiklander, nodding. “That’s sort of what I’ve been thinking. That it’s a coincidence, plain and simple.”
“And I also think that was why they wanted to check out the investigation of Krassner’s cause of death,” said Johansson. “To be sure that M’Boye didn’t have something to do with Krassner in some mysterious way.”
“Well,” said Wiklander, sounding considerably happier. “There’s probably no doubt he took his own life. There’s simply no other possibility.”
“No,” said Johansson. It’s nice to hear that you’ve arrived at that insight, he thought.
Johansson was the only police officer at the conference, and when he’d read through the list of participants a few days earlier he’d thought that by God this wasn’t cat shit they’d scraped together-with certain reservations about himself. The list contained two chief executives, a supreme court justice, six managing and deputy managing directors from industry, two editors in chief, plus a police superintendent who, to be on the safe side, had been propped up with the addition of “and head of the Swedish Bureau of Criminal Investigation.” All in suits and ties, of course, because it was only the Scots who made war in skirts.