29
Over coffee they finally got to the point, and it was his host who raised the issue. For whatever reason, thought Johansson.
During his vacation, of which he had spent a week at Magdalen to ponder the larger questions in peace and quiet, the special adviser had understood, from the Swedish newspapers he’d still been reading, that his guest had apparently breathed new life into the old investigation of the assassination of his first boss, Prime Minister Olof Palme. Why, on the other hand, he hadn’t understood. According to his firm opinion it was Christer Pettersson who had murdered Palme. Pettersson was now dead. In any event it was much too late in the day, time to wipe the slate clean, forget the whole thing and move on.
“Let bygones be bygones,” he summarized.
According to Johansson a person should be very careful about believing everything that appeared in the newspaper. What he’d done was simply assign a few co-workers to look over the indexing of the material. That was all, and it was high time, by the way, that it was done.
“You don’t think it was Christer Pettersson who did it?” his host interrupted.
“Because it’s you who’s asking,” said Johansson, “no. I never have.”
“But why in the name of God then,” objected his host. “Lisbeth actually singles him out.”
“Even the best can make a mistake,” said Johansson.
“You’ll have to excuse me but the logic of what you’re saying-”
“He doesn’t feel right,” interrupted Johansson, indicating by rubbing his right index finger against his right thumb. “If you want details I can ask one of my co-workers to give you a presentation.”
“To me he feels quite right,” said the special adviser. “Unfortunately,” he added.
According to Johansson’s host, Christer Pettersson was a step in a logical progression. A woeful progression to be sure, but nonetheless a logical one. First there was an eccentric aristocrat, with certain radical ideas for the time, who murdered Gustav III at an opera masquerade for the upper classes. Then a middle-class child who had gone wrong in life and grew up to be a drug-addled hooligan who shot his own prime minister on the street. In the midst of all the ordinary citizens. Now most recently a crazy Serb had cut down the country’s foreign minister in the most bestial way when she was shopping for clothes at the city’s largest department store among all the other prosperous middle-class female shoppers.
“What should we expect next time, Johansson?” asked his guest with a sorrowful expression. “The old orangutan from the Rue de Morgue? Or perhaps the swamp adder in Conan Doyle’s story about the speckled band?”
“More of the opera masquerade, if you ask me,” said Johansson. “There’s no time for monkeys or adders. They’re too unpredictable.”
“Yet another solitary madman, if you ask me,” said the special adviser. “Even solitary madmen can change the world, unfortunately. They do it all the time, actually.”
Because they were still on the subject Johansson had a question of his own. More precisely, one of his many co-workers had a question for his host, and he had actually promised to ask him.
“She knows we know each other,” Johansson explained. “She worked with me at SePo.”
“Of course,” said the special adviser. Johansson was free to ask him about everything. In contrast to all his colleagues, who he was now much too old and tired to bear talking with.
The prime minister’s plans to go to the movies that evening more than twenty years ago. Just how known were they at his office in Rosenbad?
“I’ve already been asked that question,” said the special adviser, smiling.
“I know,” said Johansson. “I’ve read the interview. I also know that you spoke with Berg about the matter in the afternoon of the same day Palme was shot. Not much was said.”
“How would that look, Johansson? If someone like me exchanged confidences with people like that? It’s bad enough that they exchange confidences with each other, and I’m actually a little surprised that Berg, who was a relatively well-organized person for being a policeman, had the poor judgment to submit a memo about our secret conversation into the investigation. And what is it that suddenly causes me to sense the sweet odor of a so-called conspiracy in the vicinity of the victim?”
“We’re that way, us cops,” said Johansson. “We wonder about strange coincidences, write little notes to each other.”
“Yes, I’ve realized that. Personally I keep such things in my head. My own head.”
“Tell me about it,” said Johansson. “You knew the victim. Personally I never met him. What was he like? As a person?”
A talented person. At the same time a person of feeling. An impulsive person. In a good mood a very charming, entertaining, and considerate person. In a bad mood he was a different person, and in the worst case his own enemy.
“I’ve understood that he was very talented,” said Johansson.
“Oh well,” said the special adviser. “He had that quick, superficial, intuitive gift. Verbal, educated, the right background. He had all that in abundance. Although the really difficult questions he preferred to avoid. The questions that don’t have any definite answers. Or, in the best case, several answers, none of which is clearly better than the others. The kinds of questions that I, and you too, Johansson, are drawn to. Like the moth that’s drawn to the kerosene lamp. Although what you want to know is actually something else,” he added.
“What do you mean by that?” said Johansson.
“You’re wondering if he had the habit of running around among his co-workers, asking them what movies he should see?”
“Did he do that?”
“When he was in the mood. As I already suggested. When Olof was happy and suddenly stood there in the doorway to your office and just wanted to talk a little, then you were happy too. Genuine happiness and not so strange perhaps considering who he was and considering who you were. One time he even asked me if I could recommend a film.”
“So what did you say?” said Johansson.
“That I never went to the movies,” said the special adviser. “That I thought it was an overrated diversion. The temple of the fearful. Wasn’t that what Harry Martinson said? Besides, I thought it was inappropriate for purely security reasons for him to do that. If it really was absolutely necessary for him, I assumed he would inform those responsible for his security in good time. The secret police, myself, all the others affected.”
“So what did he say?” asked Johansson.
“That I was a real cheerful little fellow,” said the special adviser. “He was in a good mood that day.”
“The day he was murdered then,” said Johansson.
“The only time he asked me for movie advice I’ve just mentioned to you. That was long before he died. Then I think he never returned to the question. I know I would recommend the occasional ethnic restaurant to him. Sure. Could he have asked someone else? Perhaps. I don’t know. I didn’t even know that he had such plans the day he was murdered. I remember that Berg was nagging about that when we talked on the phone in the afternoon.”
“But you didn’t talk with the prime minister about it?”
“No,” said the special adviser. “It never happened, but considering what did happen perhaps I ought to have done that.”
Suddenly he’s as clear as crystal, thought Johansson. Not a trace of all the wine he’s poured into himself. Suddenly a completely different person.
During the remainder of the evening the special adviser quickly recovered his usual amiable self-given that he was in the mood-and, just as expected, the dinner degenerated in the pleasant manner that bourgeois dinners supposedly never deviated from in the good old days.
First they played billiards. The evening’s host insisted. He demanded to teach Johansson how you played billiards. If Johansson refused, it wasn’t the first time the issue had come up, the alternative was that Johansson teach him how to shoot a pistol and on the police department’s own firing range besides.