‘Much too little,’ Bruun said apologetically. ‘Jan-Olov hasn’t really been himself. Do you think he’s getting sick?’
‘Hardly,’ said Hjelm. ‘But he’s brooding about something. And he doesn’t normally brood.’
‘No,’ Erik Bruun agreed, ‘he doesn’t.’
Jorge Chavez had grown tired of their empty chatter. He said: ‘You know about our interest in a man without a nose, at the very least.’
‘Of course,’ said Bruun.
‘Have you searched your memory?’
‘Wasn’t necessary. I remember it all.’
‘How unexpected,’ Chavez said frostily.
Erik Bruun laughed. ‘Soli, Soli,’ he said, as though he was talking to a disobedient but dear grandchild.
‘What do you remember, then?’ Chavez persisted.
‘There was really just one lead worthy of the name,’ Bruun said calmly. ‘It was 1981. The phenomenon of unregistered taxis had only just started to appear. An illegal driver called Olli Peltonen was sitting in a pub, reading the articles on the murder in Aftonbladet and shouting all about how he’d driven that body without a nose. A woman heard him and called the police. By the time we got there, he was gone, but the people from the neighbouring table told us who he was. It turned out that Peltonen had already gone underground as the head of Stockholm’s first illegal taxi ring. We showed his photo everywhere, but he stayed hidden.’
‘Why wasn’t there a word about this in your report?’
‘I put in a reference to the illegal taxi investigation,’ said Bruun. ‘I suppose it got lost when they transferred it all over to the new computer system. Unfortunately, the small print usually goes up in smoke. Especially with cases no one cares about.’
Erik Bruun paused and stared up at the ceiling. Finally a gesture which Hjelm recognised. Then he continued, his face still raised to the ceiling.
‘It was nearly twenty years ago. It’s strange what a memory for faces you develop as a detective. I saw Peltonen in the paper a while back. There was a taxi driver strike up at Arlanda, if you remember it. Quite an interesting event, societally speaking. A group of petty capitalists tied to the syndicalists launching a wildcat strike because the taxi ranks closest to the airport had been reserved for three big companies. Petty syndico-capitalists protesting against big capitalists. Might well be the tune of the future.’
‘And?’ Chavez said, sounding increasingly impatient.
‘One of them was Olli Peltonen. There was a picture of him kicking one of Taxi Stockholm’s cars. There was a name beneath the picture, but it wasn’t Olli Peltonen. Apparently he’s calling himself Henry Blom these days. He runs a little taxi firm with the confidence-inspiring name Hit Cab.’
‘And why didn’t you tell the police?’ asked Chavez.
Erik Bruun leaned forward and fixed his gaze on him.
‘I keep my distance these days,’ he said.
Hjelm could see that Chavez was reaching boiling point. Small smoke signals were rising from his ears. It would have been interesting to be able to interpret them.
‘He’s got one thing left, at least,’ said Hjelm.
‘What’s that?’ Chavez muttered.
‘The ability to rub people up the wrong way.’
Chavez mumbled something which, fortunately, was inaudible.
They were driving towards the Globe Arena. The enormous sphere was already towering up in the distance like a threatening ping-pong ball. ‘The Glob’. The great big lump of snot.
Hjelm was driving. Chavez was sulking next to him.
Soli, Soli, Hjelm thought, trying not to laugh.
They had managed to track down Hit Cab fairly quickly. It was run out of an office right next to the Globe. Hjelm called and Henry Blom had answered in shaky Swedish. Hjelm told him his name was Harrysson and that he was the chief accountant of ClamInvest AB, an organisation which made investments in the shellfish business. Harrysson claimed to be interested in using Hit Cab’s services on a regular basis. He asked whether Henry Blom would be in the office that day. He wouldn’t, but considering the potential size of the agreement, he would be willing to rearrange his schedule. Harrysson thought that sounded like a fantastic idea. He and his assistant (cue a grumpy look from Chavez) would stop by Hit Cab within the hour. Henry Blom gave Harrysson detailed directions and ended the call expectantly.
‘You’re a terrible human being,’ said Chavez.
‘Sometimes,’ said Hjelm.
And so Harrysson, chief accountant of ClamInvest, arrived along with his assistant at the Hit Cab office, right next to the World-Famous Glob.
Henry Blom was a bald man in his fifties who spoke terrible Swedish with a strong Finnish accent. He humbly greeted the two dignitaries, who sat down and were handed coffee by a girl who could hardly have been much out of high school. Henry Blom had already given the two dignitaries a couple of poorly assembled brochures when they suddenly held up their police IDs and said: ‘Olli Peltonen, I believe, the godfather of illegal taxis.’
He stared, fascinated, at the two men, who changed shape before his eyes.
‘I’m afraid we’ve got to destroy Hit Cab’s future,’ said Harrysson Hjelm. ‘Not just because you’ve been wanted for some time now in regard to illegal taxi rings, and not just because you started a business using a false name, but because you’re also employing girls who seem much too young to be employed.’
‘Child labour, that’s what they call it,’ said Assistant Chavez. ‘Really harsh sentences for that.’
‘But,’ Harrysson-also-known-as-Hjelm said, ‘there’s an alternative.’
Henry Blom or Olli Peltonen could sense that everything was about to come crashing down around him. It was clear that he had no escape plan.
‘What alternative?’ he stuttered.
‘You tell us about a man without a nose.’
With that, his mask finally came off. The man blinking profusely at them now was called Olli Peltonen and nothing else. Eventually he nodded, as though he had been gripped by an insight of some kind.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘And if I talk?’
‘We’ll think about that when it happens,’ Chavez answered tryingly. ‘Hopefully things will be looking much better by that point.’
‘What?’ said Peltonen.
‘You tell us, we look the other way.’
‘OK, OK. He was the one who got murdered, right?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Nineteen eighty… what was it… two?’
‘One,’ said Hjelm. ‘September 1981.’
‘I picked him up, that really is true. I remember him pretty well. It was horrible. He looked bloody awful. Weird injury.’
‘Where did you pick him up?’
‘Frihamnen. He must’ve arrived by boat.’
‘How did he get hold of you? You had no taxi sign?’
‘No. Unregistered taxis are taxis without signs.’
‘That’s what they call a euphemism. How did he get hold of you?’
‘I think I must’ve just been driving round down there. That’s how it still works, I think. I don’t know, I don’t have anything to do with that any more. You just ask people who look like they need a ride whether they need a ride.’
‘And when was this?’
‘I don’t remember the date.’
‘He was found on Sunday the sixth of September. It was a headline in the evening papers that Sunday so that must’ve been when you were sitting in the pub, shouting about how you’d driven him somewhere.’
‘Must’ve been the Friday then. Friday the fourth. In the evening. I mostly drove in the evenings, after seven.’
‘What else do you remember about him? How was he dressed? What impression did you have of him? What language was he speaking?’
‘He sat in the back. The only impression I had was that he didn’t have a nose – that pretty much takes the sting out of anything else. All he said was the address I should drive him to. Strong accent, I’m thinking. He was less Swedish than I am.’