What made Bäckström happy was that the traces on the bullets also agreed very well with revolvers that came from the third largest American manufacturer, Sturm, Ruger & Co. in Southport, Connecticut. Even the barrel length agreed with the weapons technicians’ conclusions to a fraction of an inch. If the barrel had been shorter than that the bullets should have “mushroomed up” in back, and they had not.
This is going like a fucking dance, thought Bäckström. If he’d only been able to run this from the very start, it would most likely have been settled right off.
One small question remained. How to connect-with sufficiently high probability-the two bullets from the crime scene to the revolver that was used to shoot the prime minister. The technical report that Bäckström found in his computer was from 1997, and the anonymous expert who wrote it was doubtful on that point. Both bullets were “in pretty poor condition.” They could be used for comparisons of various types of weapons and they had been good enough to rule out the hundreds of various weapons that had been test fired over the years. But this was not to say that they could be linked to the murder weapon with certainty in the event it was found.
What a fucking ditchdigger, thought Bäckström. Technology was advancing by giant leaps! He’d seen this with his own eyes, on his own TV, at home on his own couch. The hundreds of miracles that his associates on CSI delivered all the time just by tapping on their computers. If it didn’t work out some other way, it probably wouldn’t involve more than his taking the weapon with him and traveling over to the other real constables, on the other side of the water.
Las Vegas or Miami, thought Bäckström. That’s probably the big question.
35
After having freshened up his knowledge of the Palme investigation’s weapons track-most of it he already knew, and it was really no great art to figure out the rest-Bäckström proceeded to more active internal detection on his computer. The results had unfortunately been meager. He had found only two Magnum revolvers of the Ruger brand entered in the registry of stolen, missing, or sought-after items in his computer.
The first had been stolen in a break-in a few years earlier at the home of a Finn who lived outside Luleå and was evidently both a marksman and a hunter. During vacation “one or more unknown perpetrators had forced entry into the plaintiff’s residence, broken open his gun case, and taken three sporting guns, a combo gun, three shotguns, and a revolver.” None of the stolen weapons had been recovered.
The revolver was a Ruger caliber.357 Magnum, but that was also the only thing that tallied. It was blued with a short barrel and rubber-clad butt, and for once there was even a picture of it on the computer.
Lapp bastards and Finns, thought Bäckström. How the hell could you put weapons in the hands of such people? It was bad enough that they could go to the liquor store and buy all the booze they poured into themselves all the time.
The second case seemed to offer more hope. Two years earlier the Stockholm police had made a house search in an apartment in Flemingsberg. Living there was the girlfriend of a known thug who was suspected of an armored car robbery in Hägersten a few months earlier, and behind the refrigerator they found a Ruger brand Magnum revolver. It was a pure mystery, according to both the girlfriend and the suspected robber. Neither of them had seen it before, and the only explanation was probably that the previous occupant of the apartment had left it behind when he moved out. It would probably be simplest to ask him directly, but unfortunately they could not help out because they didn’t know what his name was or where he lived.
The technical investigation had not produced anything either. The weapon could not be linked to any crime, nor to the people living in the apartment. It was not reported as stolen and was not in the registry of legal weapons. The prosecutor had written off the case, the revolver had been confiscated and was now with the Stockholm police department’s tech squad, but more detailed information than that was not available on Bäckström’s computer.
Worth a try, thought Bäckström, and called the tech squad. He explained his business to his fellow officer who took the call, and asked him to immediately e-mail a picture of the weapon in question.
“Have you changed occupations, Bäckström?” asked his colleague, who sounded pretty reserved.
“What do you mean changed occupations?” said Bäckström. What the hell is the bastard yapping about? he thought.
“I thought you dealt with used office furniture.”
“Forget about that now,” said Bäckström. “Do as I say.”
“I promise to think about it,” his colleague replied, and then hung up without further ado.
While waiting for the colleague at the tech squad to be done thinking and finally get his ass in gear and send him the photo of the revolver, Bäckström engaged in his own musings.
Three murders and a suicide, thought Bäckström. Apparently as some kind of spring cleaning in the circles of greater and lesser riffraff. Perhaps more, even, he thought hopefully. The weapon had been knocking around for more than twenty years and could certainly have been used for one thing or another during that time. Perhaps by some secret organization of professional murderers? More or less like what went on with the Brazilian colleagues, who periodically did a vigorous weeding out in their own slum neighborhoods.
That part about the lion’s own den sounded interesting too. Didn’t all those camel riders, date stompers, and suicide bombers have a lion as a symbol for their secret society and terrorist activities? Hadn’t the victim rubbed elbows with a lot of hook noses from Arabia, and everyone knew how it usually ended when you associated with that sort? This may have limitless ramifications, thought Bäckström. He would beneficially continue pondering at home in his cozy lair that was only a convenient stone’s throw from his run-down office.
Still no e-mail from that fucking lazy ass at the tech squad, and because it would soon be three o’clock it was time for something better. Now if one of his so-called bosses was wondering about where he’d gone, he actually had a crime scene of his own he had to inspect. Furthermore it was in the vicinity of a real crown estate where fine people lived, even though apparently they made a habit of dining with that fool who was his so-called boss.
Duty calls, thought Bäckström. He entered code two, as in official business, on his phone and quickly and discreetly left the building for so-called external duty. On his way home he took the opportunity to go past the liquor store and replenish his supply of malt whiskey and shop for some mixed snacks at the nearby deli. Fifteen minutes later he was on his couch in front of the TV with a little highball within comfortable reach. After the first gulp the blessed malt had dispersed the Baltic haze.
Suddenly it came to him which of all his crazy colleagues used to brag that he knew that half-fairy who had evidently offered the most well-known murder weapon in crime history to his old acquaintance GeGurra.
It was that fucking Wiijnbladh, thought Bäckström, shaking his round head in amazement.
36
The following day Bäckström decided it was time to get cracking, which is why he started work in good time before lunch.
First he turned on the computer to go through his e-mail. Nothing from that lazy ass at the tech squad, even though the hottest lead in Swedish police history might very well be sitting at the tech squad getting cold.
How the hell can someone like that be a cop? thought Bäckström, sending yet another e-mail.
Then he called Johansson’s secretary and asked to speak with her boss.