“The perpetrator,” said Lewin. “On that point I have no doubt at all. Never had any.”
“Witness Two then,” said Holt. “Who is it she sees cross Malmskillnadsgatan and run down to David Bagares gata?”
“Someone other than the perpetrator,” Lewin observed. “Someone who’s a minute and a half behind the perpetrator in our timetable.”
“But wait now,” said Holt. “If he’s not the perpetrator, why is he behaving so strangely? According to Witness Two he was running as he passes her. You yourself write that it’s the same man who runs into Witness Three farther down on David Bagares gata.”
“Quite certainly so,” said Lewin, nodding. “In this area, if we’re talking about the blocks above the crime scene, around Malmskillnadsgatan, David Bagares gata, Regeringsgatan, the closest blocks in other words, there are, according to what we ourselves arrived at, more than a hundred persons who were moving about on the street at the time in question, that is, when Palme was shot. How many of them, considering the time and place, wanted to avoid having to talk with people like you and me at any price? Way too many, if you ask me. Let’s not forget that this was the classic red light district in Stockholm and that there were also lots of ordinary criminals and addicts hanging out there.”
“An alternative hood,” said Holt. “He may not have shot Palme, but he realized that something bad has happened on Tunnelgatan down by Sveavägen that he doesn’t want to be dragged into.”
“About like that.” Lewin nodded. “Perhaps you recall that in the interview with Witness Two she also says that not only was he running away-”
“I remember,” Holt interrupted. “She saw that he was pushing something down into a clutch bag that he was trying to stuff into the pocket of his coat.”
“Exactly,” said Lewin. “This made a deep impression on many investigators. In other words, it was thought that this might be a small weapon case or a weapon bag and that he was trying to hide his gun.”
“Sounds pretty likely,” said Holt.
“I don’t think so,” said Lewin.
“Why not?”
“Three reasons,” said Lewin. “First, we’re talking about a revolver. Almost fourteen inches long from the heel of the butt to the mouth of the barrel. One that scarcely fits in a coat pocket. Besides, if you put it in a rectangular case, then you need really large pockets, at a minimum.
“Second,” he continued, “for that very reason, bags or bag-like cases for revolvers in particular are extremely unusual. With pistols it’s a different story. There are small bags you can put them in. There were such bags for our service weapons at that time, our Walther pistols.”
“I remember,” said Holt. “I’ve used that kind of case myself.” Including at a royal banquet or two, she thought.
“I suspect why,” said Lewin. “Then I’m sure you also know that your weapon took up only half as much room as the revolver with a seven-inch barrel that was probably used to shoot Palme.”
I see what you’re thinking, thought Holt.
“And the third? Your third reason?”
“The time when he does it,” said Lewin. “If it’s the perpetrator she’s seen, he’s still only a hundred yards from the crime scene, and that’s hardly the moment to be putting your weapon in a bag. A bag that means he won’t have time to use the gun if he needs to and that what he has in his pocket becomes twice as bulky and even easier to find if he were to be stopped and searched. But I believe in the bag,” said Lewin. “That’s just the kind of observation that witnesses very seldom make up.”
“So what would he be doing with the bag?”
“To me it sounds like one of those small handbags that many addicts used to store their equipment in. Their needles-so as not to risk sticking themselves, which can easily happen if you just put them in your pocket-a bent spoon for mixing and heating, a candle stub, a plastic bottle of water to dilute the dope with, a box of matches or a cigarette lighter, perhaps even a stamp envelope with leftover dope. Well, you know what I mean.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Holt agreed. Someone who was hiding to shoot up at the absolute worst place in the city, she thought.
“You don’t think it could have been an accomplice?” she continued. “The man whom Witness Two saw when he ran across Malmskillnadsgatan? Someone waiting in the background to cover the shooter’s retreat, maybe?”
Lewin squirmed.
“I’ve had that thought,” he said. “But I still don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“If he’s further down on Tunnelgatan, in the background so to speak, then Witness One should have observed him as he was walking up Tunnelgatan. Though sure, this is maybe mostly a feeling I have, that he doesn’t have anything to do with the case. Someone who only ended up at the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s what I think.”
“Let’s go back to what you said about the times,” said Holt.
“Okay,” said Lewin.
“Another possibility naturally is that our first witness, Witness One in the chain, is considerably faster than you think,” Holt objected. “Maybe he only waits twenty seconds, not a minute, after he’s seen the perpetrator disappear up on Malmskillnadsgatan. Maybe he doesn’t need a minute to run up the stairs. Maybe he runs just as fast as the perpetrator. Maybe he’s up on Malmskillnadsgatan only one minute after the perpetrator. He’s twice as fast as you think, Jan.”
“In that case he’s showing a large measure of modesty in the interviews that were held with him,” Lewin observed. “But regardless of whether he was twice as fast, that doesn’t solve the problem either. He’s still half a minute too late up on Malmskillnadsgatan.
“For it to fit together in terms of time,” he went on, “he has to run after the perpetrator at full speed as soon as he sees him disappear up Malmskillnadsgatan. Not hesitate a second to be on the safe side. Run full speed down Tunnelgatan and up the stairs. Say he manages this in thirty seconds. Then his story at least nearly jibes with the observations that Witness Two claims to have made.”
“But not with his own testimony, because I’ve read that,” said Holt, shaking her head. “Apart from the fact that in that case it would have been a pure suicide attempt on his part.”
“No, he’s really not trying to play the hero when he’s questioned. He makes both a credible and a sympathetic impression on me,” said Lewin, nodding in agreement.
“So all we’ve managed to do so far is get rid of the entire chain of witnesses,” Holt concluded. “Without even needing to rely on the witness Madeleine Nilsson. She may still have passed by before the murder, and the man she met doesn’t need to have anything to do with the case.”
“Absolutely,” said Lewin. “On the other hand, I was skeptical of the reconstruction of the perpetrator’s escape route from the very beginning. I couldn’t get the times to agree, as you understand.”
“Did you talk with the other investigators about this?” Holt asked.
“No. I was too busy with other things. All the parking tickets and old suicides as you may recall,” said Lewin.
“You wrote a memo about the case only four weeks after the murder. You must have thought a great deal before that.”
“Approximately fourteen days before that,” said Lewin. “Madeleine Nilsson contacted me a week or two after the second interview with her. We met and talked. Then I sat down and tried to redo the reconstruction of the perpetrator’s escape route that our colleagues had made and that by then was already the established truth.”
“You held an interview with Nilsson,” Holt clarified.
“If you can call it an interview,” said Lewin, shrugging his shoulders. “She wanted to meet me, we met, had a cup of coffee, and talked about what had happened.”
“But why did she want to meet you?” asked Holt. This is getting stranger and stranger, she thought. Lewin of all people goes out for coffee in town with a known prostitute and drug addict.