The crime victim’s attorney then contacted both the security company and the Stockholm police to report that the thief had not left as empty-handed as they had asserted. Despite the sirens down on the street, the perpetrator had managed to take with him a small oil painting by Pieter Bruegel the Younger, which the owner of the apartment had hung in his guest toilet to annoy guests who weren’t as rich as he was.
The crime victim was a taciturn man, and neither his security company nor the police made a big deal of it. There was not a word in the newspapers, although the stolen painting had an insurance value of thirty million Swedish kronor. In the greatest possible silence an extensive investigation had begun. Even if clues were completely lacking and despite the fact that in principle the painting was unsellable.
Bäckström heard about it all as he sat in the break room. Personally he didn’t work with art thefts. No paintings, no antiques, not even a pitiful little silver candlestick was allowed to cross his desk for some reason. He had been assigned more substantial things, and since the first day he had been fully occupied with an Estonian freight truck found abandoned in a parking lot up at Norrtälje. Upon closer examination it proved to contain almost two hundred stolen bicycles.
“Here’s something for you to bite into, Bäckström,” said his immediate supervisor as he set the investigation file on his desk.
“What the hell should I do with this shit?” said Bäckström, glaring acidly at the multipage list of stolen goods.
“How about finding the owners?” said his boss with a sneering smile. “Welcome, by the way,” he added.
Now this is war, goddamn it, thought Bäckström, and how the hell do you go about telling two hundred bikes apart? Personally he didn’t know anyone who needed a bike. The only people who bike are homos, dykes, treehuggers, and anorexics. Even the Chinese drive cars nowadays, he thought.
Now it’s a matter of embracing the situation if you’re not going to starve to death, thought Bäckström, and after some pondering he remembered a female acquaintance he’d met on the Internet. She worked as a dental hygienist in Södertälje and surely needed a bicycle. She was a real barn owl who always ran around in home-sewn clothes and gave him a batik T-shirt she’d dyed herself back in the day. If she deals in that kind of shit she probably bicycles too, thought Bäckström. Sitting and rubbing herself on some old saddle, and what the hell did a horndog like that have to choose from? he thought.
A few things as it turned out, as soon as he got hold of her by phone. For one thing her new fiancé, who worked as district chief with the local police in Solna, had given her a car of her own. For another she already had a bicycle. Third, she thought it was a strange coincidence to say the least that Bäckström had a bike to sell. Almost new, and cheap besides. Fourth, she was seriously considering calling Bäckström’s boss and letting him know about this.
“What the hell do you mean by that?” asked Bäckström.
“My guy told me you got a job at the police lost-and-found warehouse,” she replied.
“Hello, little lady,” said Bäckström. “You don’t think I’m so fucking dense that I’m trying to foist a stolen bike off on you?” Now it’s a matter of damming the creek before the shit ends up in the river, he thought.
“Yes,” she said, “I think you really are that dense.” Then she just hung up.
Fucking cunt lips, and what the hell do I do now? thought Bäckström, but because he’d always had a lucky streak it worked out anyway. The very next evening he ran into an old acquaintance he’d gotten to know at his neighborhood restaurant: Gustaf G:son Henning, a very successful and respected art dealer who had offered Bäckström a thing or two over the years in exchange for simpler police confidences. Now seventy years old, slender and well-tailored with silver hair, a large apartment on Norr Mälarstrand, an office at Norrmalmstorg, he was a frequent guest on all the art and antique programs on TV. Among those who knew him he was called GeGurra, and the only mystery was that he would show up regularly at the humble greasy spoon on the wrong side of Kungsholmen that Bäckström frequented basically every day of the week.
When GeGurra was born his dear parents had christened him Juha Valentin. Juha after his maternal grandfather, who had Finnish Gypsies on his side of the family and had great success, as both a rag-and-bone merchant and a scrap metal collector. Valentin after his paternal grandfather, who had been active in the amusement industry and among many things owned a traveling carnival and two porno clubs in Bohuslän back when the industry was new and a real Wild West for anyone who could help themselves. Juha Valentin Andersson Snygg, a name with both ancestry and obligations, and absolutely inconceivable for the hopeful young man who saw a future in the somewhat more elegant trade in art and antiques.
As soon as Juha Valentin became an adult he changed his name. To be on the safe side both his first names and his surname, which he chose according to the snobbiest prejudices to be found in the industry he intended to make his own. He also made an exciting addition as an homage to the most stuck-up of them all. Juha Valentin Andersson Snygg had been transformed to Gustaf G:son Henning in the civil registry and to the public, and to GeGurra among near, dear, and regular acquaintances. Juha Valentin belonged to a time long since past.
It sometimes happened that Gustaf G:son was asked what G:son really stood for. Then he would smile sadly before he answered.
“After old uncle Gregor. Though he’s been dead for many years, as I’m sure you know.”
It was also quite true. His mother, Rosita, had a brother whose name was Gregor who had died under tragic circumstances back in the fifties. The distilling apparatus in his trailer exploded, but he never got that kind of follow-up question.
The day after the failed bicycle deal, GeGurra had again shown up in Bäckström’s life and in the usual way.
“Nice to see you, Inspector,” said GeGurra, patting Bäckström on the shoulder. “Here you stand, philosophizing by the worn-out old bar counter.”
“Really nice to see you, Henning,” said Bäckström, who could also be formal if required. Fucking good luck I haven’t ordered yet, he thought.
“Thank you, thank you. You’re much too kind,” GeGurra acknowledged. “Have you eaten, by the way?”
“Thanks for asking,” said Bäckström. “I was just thinking about having a small bite.” Birdseed and a glass of water, if it’s my own wallet that decides, he thought.
“You know what,” said GeGurra, “then I propose we take a carriage and drive down to the Theater Grill where we can converse in peace and quiet. And I’ll pick up the check.”
“I understand you’ve finally wound up at a well-laid table,” GeGurra observed fifteen minutes later, raising his glass. “Cheers, by the way.”
“Depends on what you mean by well-laid,” said Bäckström, shaking his head. Twenty minutes ago he’d been at the bar in his squalid regular place. Now he was sitting in the most isolated booth at one of the city’s deluxe restaurants. The personnel tied themselves in knots as soon as GeGurra appeared at the door. Large dry martini for GeGurra, malt whiskey and beer for Bäckström, each with a menu in hand. As soon as they sat their rear ends down and without Bäckström’s host needing to say a word about it.
“You don’t know anyone who needs a bicycle?” Bäckström added and sighed.
“In a rough game you should keep a good face,” GeGurra observed. “Ask me, a simple guppy who shares the aquarium with sharks, piranhas, and ordinary jellyfish. When I see you, dear Bäckström, I get a definite premonition that considerably better times are approaching.”
“You don’t say,” said Bäckström. You don’t say, he thought.