The former chief inspector with the secret police bodyguard squad, Björn Söderström, had not felt better in a long time, and considering that it actually should have been a completely ordinary day, this was completely incomprehensible. First an unexpected invitation to dinner at home with a still very elegant woman he had known for almost thirty years and who had been a real bombshell when she started with the police.
Then there was the eighteen-year-old malt whiskey that she offered almost as soon as he stepped inside the door. Things having come that far, the whole thing appeared to be signed, sealed, and delivered. If it hadn’t been for her daughter, of course. She seemed both quick-witted and well brought up, but nonetheless her appearance was a surprise because her mother had not said a word about her when she had called and invited him a few hours earlier.
“Cheers and welcome, Björn,” said Linda Mattei, raising her glass. What one won’t do for one’s only child, she thought.
“I’m the one who should thank you,” said Söderström. “It’s not every day an old bachelor like me gets an invitation like this.” The daughter is certainly here only as a cover, he thought hopefully.
“Nice to see you, Björn,” Lisa Mattei concurred. “I don’t know if you remember, but we are actually former colleagues too.”
“Of course I remember,” said Söderström heartily. “You were one of those youngsters who came over with Johansson when he became operations head with us. It was you and Holt and a few others, if I remember correctly. Now he’s put you on Palme, if I understand things right. I saw something in the newspaper the other day.”
“He’s asked us to look over the registration of the material,” said Lisa Mattei.
“It’s about time that something happens,” Söderström said. “I can promise you, Lisa, that you’ve ended up with the right man, because what I don’t know about Olof Palme isn’t worth knowing.”
What do you say if you’re a girl and just had a shot of aquavit? thought Lisa Mattei. Nothing, she thought.
You smile shyly and nod.
It’s already ten, thought Anna Holt, looking at her watch. Time to go home and get your beauty sleep, she decided. Then she walked down the stairs from Malmskillnadsgatan to Tunnelgatan and out onto Sveavägen. Taxis went by there all the time, and considering the sparse traffic she ought to be home in her apartment on Jungfrudansen in Solna, brushing her teeth, in twenty minutes, she thought.
It had gone faster than that. Holt hardly managed to set foot on the sidewalk down on Sveavägen-two yards from the place where a Swedish prime minister, just shot in the back, had fallen headlong onto the street-before a patrol car from the police in West Stockholm braked and stopped alongside her. The older officer who sat next to the driver rolled down the window and nodded toward the backseat.
“If you’re going home, superintendent, it’s fine to ride with us,” he said.
“Nice of you,” said Holt. She opened the door to the backseat and sat behind the driver. It’s a small world, she thought, because she recognized the older officer almost immediately.
“We’re going back to the police station,” he explained. “Coming from an appointment down at Grand Hôtel, and you live up on Jungfrudansen if I remember correctly.”
They had not driven more than fifty yards from the country’s most famous crime scene of all time before he started talking.
“I was there,” he said. “I was working at the Södermalm riot squad, and we were the second patrol at the scene. According to one of all those know-it-all chief inspectors, we were supposed to have been getting out of the bus three minutes after he was shot. The victim, Palme that is, was still on the scene, and at first I didn’t understand who it was, but I could see it was bad. People were screaming and pointing, so me and the other three officers ran down Tunnelgatan and up the stairs, and there was another couple standing and waving, pointing down to David Bagares gata. I ran so hard I could taste blood in my mouth, and you should know, Holt, at that time I didn’t look the way I do today.”
Then more police streamed in. The Norrmalm riot squad, several patrol cars, at least two detective units and one from narcotics.
“After ten minutes there were at least twenty of us searching the blocks around Malmskillnadsgatan. We tried to bring a little order into the general chaos. What were we doing there? ’Cause the man who shot Palme must have been halfway to the moon by then.”
“I thought Christer Pettersson lived a good ways north of the city,” said Holt.
“Pettersson,” said the officer, shaking his head. “If only it had been that good. No, this was probably a guy of a completely different caliber, if you ask me.”
“So you say,” said Holt. Seems like Johansson has his own little fan club, she thought.
Former chief inspector Björn Söderström had not felt better in a long time. First this unexpected invitation from a very elegant former colleague who had the good taste besides to invite her young daughter. Also a former colleague, but above all a very delightful young woman. Then the malt whiskey, and all the good food. Food that an old bachelor like himself was certainly not treated to every day. First he ate pickled herring with chopped egg, dill, brown butter, and potato. A cold beer and an even colder shot of aquavit. The steaming carafe on the table promised more if he desired.
“Well, this I have to say,” said Söderström, raising his glass. “This sort of thing doesn’t happen every day for an old bachelor like me. You ladies ought to know that.”
“It was really nice that you could tear yourself away, Björn,” said Lisa Mattei with a well-mannered smile. The way to a man’s brain goes through his stomach, she thought. Just like all other animals.
“Cheers, Björn,” said her mother, raising her glass to the topmost button of the cleavage that had made her famous in the corps forty years ago. What one won’t do for one’s own daughter, she thought.
Fifteen minutes later Holt’s colleagues let her off outside the building where she lived. Her older colleague, who had been there when Palme was killed, followed her to the entryway.
“The corps has probably never taken as many lumps as after the assassination of Palme. The Swedish police department’s own Poltava,” he summarized as he held open the door for her. “Imagine all the misery we would have avoided if the regular old colleagues from homicide had been in charge of it. Ask me about it. I don’t know how many years those crazies on TV went on and on about the police track and alleged that it was me and the colleagues in the riot squad who were behind the murder of the prime minister.”
“Yes, I’ve seen that,” said Holt, shaking her head. “Thanks for the ride,” she said, extending her hand and smiling.
Because you really have, she thought a minute later as she was standing in the hall of her apartment. If she hadn’t counted wrong there were at least a score of leads in the Palme case files relating to him and his closest associates with the Stockholm police riot squad.
This must be the best completely ordinary day in my life. Or in any event the best I can remember, thought former chief inspector Björn Söderström, sinking his teeth into one of his absolute favorites, an ample grilled entrecôte with garlic butter, served with root vegetables au gratin and a good Rioja to top it off. Raspberries, whipped cream, and vanilla ice cream for dessert. He declined the port wine, too sweet for his taste, but that wasn’t important, for half an later hour he was sitting in a comfortable armchair in his colleague Linda Mattei’s living room with coffee and an excellent cognac.
Wonder where he went after that? thought Holt as she stepped out of the shower. First down to Kungsgatan, but then where? If he really was as skilled as Johansson seems to think, then he’d have to go to some secure location, she thought. Clean up, get rid of the clothes and all the annoying traces of gunpowder, hide his weapon. A secure location, because we all want to go to such a place whether we’re ordinary madmen or professional killers, she thought. An ordinary person or an ordinary madman would surely go home. But this kind of character? Where does he go? A hotel room, a temporary apartment? Best to ask Johansson, she thought, sneering at her own mirror image. Then she brushed her teeth and went to bed.