“I got the list from our CIS squad this morning,” said Lewin, sneaking a look at a small piece of paper. “But you seemed so occupied by your reading I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“More than a third have died,” Mattei summarized. “Instead of about seven percent, as in the normal population, I mean.”
“I wonder what the mortality rate is among our informants and witnesses,” sighed Lewin, as if he were thinking out loud.
The same as for those they singled out, thought Mattei.
“What do we do?” she asked.
Talk with Anna Holt about it. Look at the military and police track because they’d looked at all the rest anyway. Talk with Johansson. Explain to him that his idea of this variation of an internal investigation lacked any conceivable possibility of success. That it was simply too late. That it was time to wipe the slate clean. That what remained was simply the hope of some decisive lead.
“The one we’ll never get,” said Lewin, sipping his coffee. “Not a moment before the clock strikes twelve in any case,” he noted, shaking his head.
“Oh well,” objected Mattei. “There are still three years, six months, six days, and a little over six hours left,” she said, looking at her watch to be on the safe side.
“Three years, six months, six days, six hours…and thirty-two minutes…if mine is running right,” said Lewin, looking at his watch.
“Yes, and here we are, lazing around,” said Mattei. You’re overworked, she thought.
“I was thinking about continuing that over the weekend, lazing around, that is,” said Lewin.
Then they went their separate ways. Lewin walked to the subway to return to his apartment at Gärdet. He meant to shop on the way. Mattei didn’t have anything particular in mind, until she suddenly discovered that she was outside the entryway to her office in the big police building on Kungsholmen.
I guess you didn’t have anything better to do, she thought as she passed the guard in reception, held up her police badge, and drew her pass card through the card reader in the entry passage.
Exactly three years, six months, and six days left, she thought after a quick look at her watch six hours later.
Then she opened the end paper of the last of the thirty-one individual files that were in the three binders that contained the Palme investigation’s “military track.” The one that concerned a baron and captain who ended up last in the alphabetically ordered list of brethren because he was registered under “v” as in “von” and not under his real surname. He was fifty-five years old when the prime minister was assassinated, and in an opinion piece in Svenska Dagbladet a year before the murder he had criticized the murder victim because he had neglected Swedish defense and had been much too indulgent to the great neighbor in the east. An officer and a gentleman, as well as an aristocrat, politically incorrect, and, in the eyes of the Palme investigators, possibly a latter-day Anckarström.
Ay, ay, ay, now it’s really starting to heat up, thought Lisa Mattei. Then she had a serious attack of the giggles and was forced to hunt for a tissue to dry her tears and blow her nose.
31
Late on Friday afternoon-about the same time as Lewin and Mattei were taking their coffee break at a nearby Italian café-Superintendent Anna Holt looked in on her chief to report what she was up to. The secretary’s office was empty and the door to her boss’s office was wide open. Johansson was lying on his couch, reading a thick book with an English title Holt was not familiar with, by an author she did not recognize. He seemed to be in an excellent mood.
“Sit yourself down, Anna,” said Johansson, waving his thick book in the direction of the nearest armchair.
“Thanks,” said Anna.
“Well, well,” said Johansson, changing to a semi-reclined position. “Because Bäckström has stopped poisoning life for Helena I realize you’ve battered that little fatty. What can I do for you in return?”
“It would be good if I could return to my normal work assignments,” said Holt.
“Everything has its time, Anna,” said Johansson, making a deprecatory hand gesture. “Tell me. What kind of bullshit did he want to sell us this time?”
“He got a tip a few weeks ago. It was Friday the seventeenth of August. The day after all the articles reported that we’d started up the Palme investigation again.”
“Imagine that,” said Johansson.
“Yes,” said Holt. “I understand what you’re thinking. The tip comes from one of Bäckström’s own informants. This one seems to have turned in tips to Bäckström on a previous occasion and is according to him a very experienced and reliable individual.”
“You don’t say,” said Johansson. “So he wants to be anonymous of course.”
“Of course. Although Bäckström knows who he is. They seem to have known each other a long time, according to Bäckström, and he has no intention of giving out his name. Otherwise he sounds more or less as usual.”
“Well, perhaps he’s found his place in life. The police lost-and-found warehouse. If he didn’t steal so much I would’ve made a parking garage guard out of him,” said Johansson. “Did he have anything to offer?”
“It’s unclear,” said Holt. “I’m in the process of checking that part. But probably not.”
“Surprise, surprise,” said Johansson.
“Although he actually gave us a name,” said Holt.
“A name? What kind of name?”
“Of that bastard you’re always harping about,” said Holt, smiling for some reason.
“So what’s his name?” asked Johansson, sitting up on the couch, and now he was no longer smiling.
“Not a bad name, actually,” Holt teased. “We’ll really have to hope it doesn’t add up.”
Esperanza was not only beautiful to look at with her harmonious lines and well-balanced proportions. She was also well built, with keel stock, frame, and plating made of oak from the mainland where the oaks grow more slowly than here and give better timber. Built entirely of wood with blue-coated carvel-built planks, white-painted railing, and a teak deck. She was twenty-eight feet long and ten feet across. Softly rounded at the stern, slightly concave bows tapering toward the stern and room for a small cabin forward. The deck was a good size, with plenty of room for fishing tackle and diving equipment. She had a reliable engine too, a four-cylinder, two-hundred-horsepower Volvo Penta marine diesel, and a good-sized fuel tank.
A boat built for all types of weather and the vicissitudes of life. To moor in the sunshine on the smooth sea; to eat, drink, and socialize. To fish and dive from. To rest in or simply sit leaning back against the railing while you cooled your hands and arms in the reflecting water. But also strong and tenacious enough to make its way to the mainland on either the Spanish, French, or African side, as long as the winds kept below hurricane force. Or perhaps to Corsica, where the boat’s owner had at least one friend he trusted unconditionally, and where there were many like him. To Corsica, three hundred nautical miles and a thirty-hour run northeast of Puerto Pollensa, where he could find a refuge for the remainder of his life if he needed it.