“But he didn’t know that,” Holt objected. “They ought to have been down in City, and if you’re rational then you are.
“It was the other night,” Holt explained. “Suddenly I happened to think about what Mijailo Mijailovic did when he’d murdered Foreign Minister Anna Lindh.”
“Instead of heading down to City and risking running into all the officers there, he walked calmly and quietly down to Strandvägen and Östermalm,” said Johansson, nodding.
“There he took a taxi, which then took him all the way home to the southern suburbs where people like him usually live,” Holt observed. “He did the exact right thing. Regardless of how crazy he might have been.”
“I don’t believe in any taxi in this case,” said Johansson, shaking his head. “All the regular taxi drivers were checked, and if he’d taken an unlicensed cab the reward would surely have enticed the driver who picked him up.”
“I agree with you,” said Holt. “Besides, I think he returned to Östermalm or Gärdet because he left from there,” she said. “It’s worth trying in any case,” she added.
“Sure,” said Johansson and sighed. “Stockholm must be crawling with tips if you just go looking.”
What’s happening? thought Holt. What’s happened to Johansson?
“Lars,” said Holt. “I don’t recognize you. What happened to embracing the situation?”
“It’s actually your fault, Anna,” said Johansson, and suddenly he looked like usual again.
“Tell me,” said Holt.
“The witness Madeleine Nilsson,” said Johansson. “I got extremely depressed when I read what she said. It was during the first twenty-four hours in Sweden’s largest murder investigation that she said it, and today it is twenty-one years and six months since she said it. Naturally I can’t swear it was the perpetrator she saw, but in any case I wouldn’t have dismissed her like that prize fool of a fellow officer did. Assume that it turned out it was as she said?” Johansson gave Holt an assessing glance.
“I’m still listening.” Holt nodded.
“I won’t put on airs,” said Johansson, “but in that case I can promise you that Bo Jarnebring and I and all the other officers from that time, the ones who knew what they were doing, the ones who had done it all the times before, we would have rooted out the bastard.”
“I see what you mean,” said Holt.
“Damn that Lewin,” said Johansson with sudden vehemence as he stood up suddenly. “Diligent as hell, almost absurdly meticulous, and an excellent head on his shoulders. What use is it to him if he’s too cowardly to use it? Why the hell did someone like that become a cop?”
“Don’t get worked up, Lars,” said Holt. I understand what you mean. You’re not particularly like Jan Lewin, and it’s nice that he didn’t hear what you just said, she thought.
“I’ll try,” Johansson muttered. “See you on Wednesday. Then I want the name of the bastard.”
Police Superintendent Anna Holt, age forty-seven, devoted the weekend to physical exercise, and when she returned to her apartment on Sunday after a two-hour workout she faced the same alternative-free existence she had been lamenting all summer long. Is it my bathroom mirror there’s something wrong with? Is there something wrong with me? Or is there something wrong with guys? thought Holt.
The most startling thing that had happened while she was running like a rabbit in the terrain around the police academy was that her son, Nicke, age twenty-four, had left a message on her voice mail.
For the past week Nicke had been in the archipelago with “the greatest woman in the whole universe.” The life he was now living was “phat,” and to top it off the greatest woman in the universe also owned the “coolest” place in the whole Stockholm archipelago. “What do you mean pool? Ma! We’re talking pools here!”
Besides, her “pears,” her parents that is, had had the good taste to head into town almost as soon as their only daughter showed up with her new boyfriend. “Can’t describe it, really,” said Nicke.
Pears. Wonder if the girl has a name, thought Anna Holt, scrolling to the next message for the answer.
“Her name is Sara, by the way,” said Nicke, and that was that.
There is at least one person who seems to be happy, thought Holt, and without really understanding how it happened she phoned Jan Lewin at home and asked if he wanted to have dinner. Just a sudden impulse. A result of Johansson’s outburst or simply that she had nothing better going on?
“Have dinner,” said Lewin guardedly when he finally answered after the sixth ring.
“Dinner at my place,” said Holt. “So we can talk in peace and quiet,” she clarified. You know, dinner, that meal you eat before you go to bed, and if I said that I bet you’d die on the spot, she thought.
“Sounds nice,” said Lewin. “Do you want me to bring anything?”
“Just bring yourself. I have just about everything,” said Holt.
Because I do, she thought an hour later as she stood frying shrimp and scallops for the salad she intended to serve.
Wonder if she likes me? thought Jan Lewin as he exited the subway in Huvudsta.
“I’ve been thinking about one thing, Jan,” said Anna Holt three hours later. You won’t get a better chance than this, she thought. The first bottle of wine was lying in state in the garbage can out in the kitchen. The second was on the table between them, half empty. She had curled up on the couch, and Jan Lewin was sitting in her favorite chair and appeared both inexplicably calm and generally satisfied with existence.
“Well,” said Lewin.
Not the usual throat clearing, thought Holt. Only a faint smile and a curious expression in his eyes. He should take care of those eyes. If he could just remove the fear from them, I would throw myself flat on my back, she thought.
“All those details you’re so precise about,” said Holt. So now it’s finally said, she thought.
“You’re not the first to wonder,” said Lewin. No throat clearing now either, only the same faint smile. Same brown eyes, although without fear, without guardedness.
“Yes,” said Holt.
“A year ago I actually went to a psychiatrist,” said Lewin. “It was the first time in my life, but I was feeling so bad that I had no choice.”
“This stays between us,” said Holt.
“That doctor was an excellent person,” said Lewin. “A very insightful person, a kind person, and if nothing else I learned a good deal about myself. Among other things, about the carefulness. The anxiety-conditioned carefulness that annoys all the other officers.”
“Not me,” said Holt. “I’m not annoyed by it. But I have wondered about it.” Let me tell you, and it would be strange if I hadn’t, she thought.
“I know,” said Lewin seriously. “I know you don’t get annoyed.” Otherwise I wouldn’t have come here, he thought.
“So what causes it?” said Holt.
“Do you want the short or the long version?” asked Lewin.
“The long one,” said Holt. “If you don’t think it’s too trying, of course.”
“It’s trying,” said Lewin. “Both the short and the long versions, but I can talk about it. Though I never have before.” Never with another officer, he thought. “You’ll get the long version,” said Lewin.
Then he told her.
The summer that Jan Lewin turned seven and after he got his first bicycle, his father died of cancer. First he taught Jan how to ride, and when he finally could his father let go and died of cancer.
“It was as if the bottom went out of me in some strange way,” said Lewin. “Dad took all my security with him when he disappeared.”
Only Jan and his mother remained. No siblings. Only Jan and his mother, and because the bottom had fallen out for her too, her entire life revolved around Jan.
“It’s not easy having a mother who does everything for you. That’s probably the best way to get a guilty conscience about everything and everyone,” Lewin observed.