“How do we solve this?” asked Holt.
“Give me the revolver, then I’ll do a new test firing with a bullet similar to the one used on Sveavägen.”
“There we have another problem,” said Holt.
Without going into details, she told him that the only thing she had was the bullet she had just given him. Plus a report from the test firing done in the spring of 1983.
“Here’s the report,” said Holt, handing it over.
“The weapon type agrees. So far there’s no problem.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Holt.
“We work with what we have,” said her acquaintance, nodding encouragingly. “I’ll just retrieve the bullets from Sveavägen so we have something to compare to.”
Retrieve the bullets from Sveavägen. Now this is finally starting to resemble something, thought Anna Holt.
In other respects what happened next was not particularly like what you might see in crime shows on TV about life on an American tech squad. He sat there at his comparison microscope, looked, adjusted knobs, hummed, and made notes. It took more than half an hour. Almost a whole episode of CSI.
“Okay,” he said, straightening up and nodding at her.
“Shoot,” said Holt. She pointed at him with her right index finger, curled it and fired, formed her lips to an O and blew away the gunpowder smoke.
“All the traces that are on the Palme bullet are on your bullet,” he said. “This argues for the fact that they come from the same weapon. But,” he continued, “in addition there are traces on your bullet that aren’t on the Palme bullet.”
Typical, thought Holt.
“So how do we explain those?” she asked.
“Because your bullet was fired three years before the bullets from Sveavägen, we can rule out that the traces originate from additional use of the weapon. The explanation is probably that the mantle on your bullet is softer.”
“The probability that they come from the same weapon,” asked Holt.
“What I said on the phone about ninety percent you can forget as long as we can’t compare the same type of bullet. Seventy-five, maybe even eighty percent probability.”
“What do you think personally?” she asked.
“I think they come from the same weapon,” he said, looking at her seriously. “But I wouldn’t swear to that in court. There I would say that with a probability of seventy-five percent they come from the same weapon, and that sort of thing isn’t enough for a guilty verdict. Which despite everything we probably should be happy about.”
“Even though all the traces that are on the Palme bullet are on my bullet,” said Holt. Coward, she thought.
“The problem with those traces is that they are mostly so-called general characteristics,” he said. “The kind that go with the type of weapon. As far as the characteristics of a particular weapon are concerned, through use, damage, and so forth on just that weapon, then it’s not as clear. There are some like that, but none that are simple and unambiguous. On a completely different matter, by the way,” he continued. “What do you think about staying and having dinner?”
“It’ll have to be another time, unfortunately,” said Holt. “What do you think about-”
“I know,” he interrupted. He smiled and put his right index finger to his mouth. “Just don’t forget about dinner.”
As soon as she was in the car she called Jan Lewin on her cell.
“I’ll be at work in two hours,” said Holt. “You and me and Lisa have to meet.”
“So it’s that bad,” said Lewin and sighed.
“With seventy-five percent probability,” Holt replied.
Then she called her boss, Lars Martin Johansson, but although it was said that he could see around corners, he only sounded like the Genius from Näsåker.
“I hear what you’re saying, Holt,” Johansson muttered. “But you don’t believe in all seriousness that little dandy Waltin shot Olof Palme?”
“Have you been listening to what I said?”
“How could I have avoided it?” said Johansson. “You’ve been talking nonstop for half an hour. My office,” he continued, “as soon as you get back. Bring the other two with you too.”
“I’ll need a good hour,” said Holt. “It’s a hundred miles.”
“One more thing,” said Johansson, who didn’t seem to be listening.
“Yes?”
“Drive carefully,” said Johansson.
“That was nice of you, Lars,” said Holt.
“Considering that you must have the bullet in your pocket,” said Johansson. Then he hung up.
49
GeGurra is a real player, thought Bäckström, who was on his way to a late Thursday lunch at the Opera bar to which his benefactor had invited him. GeGurra always treated and he always treated generously. He was definitely a real player who sprinkled his manna over all the first-rate people in his vicinity. Like Bäckström, for example.
Something of an operator besides, thought Bäckström. With his silver-white hair, his shiny Italian suits. Never made a show of himself. He was simply there like an old-school mafioso. Not someone with a mouth that ran ahead of his brain, creating problems for himself and for others. A player and an operator, he thought.
A little like himself, actually. Most recently last week he had given a whole fifty-kronor bill to an unusually hopeless hag so that she could take a taxi to the subway for further transport to her wretched Tatar thermos in the southern suburbs. So that she would not lie in Bäckström’s Hästens bed and make a mess of his existence. There was also all the advice and good deeds he had portioned out. Completely free of charge and even to complete vegetables like Anna Holt.
A bit like you, Bäckström, thought Bäckström. A player and an operator.
“How’s the pea soup at this joint?” asked Bäckström as soon as he sat down and knocked back a little Thursday dram to prepare the way for his lunch.
“The best in town,” said GeGurra. “Homemade with extra pork and sausage. Real meat sausage and that old-fashioned fat pork, you know. You get it in slices, of course, thick slices. On a separate plate on the side.”
“Then it’ll be pea soup,” Bäckström decided.
“Do you want a warm punch with it?”
“A regular shot and a pilsner is fine,” said Bäckström. Warm punch? Does he think I’m a faggot, or what?
“Personally I’ll have the grilled flounder. And a mineral water,” said GeGurra, nodding in confirmation to the white-clad waiter.
Fish, thought Bäckström. Are we homos, or what?
Nice place, thought Bäckström. It was basically empty as soon as the lunch rush was over and ideal for confidential conversations.
“How’s it going?” asked GeGurra, leaning forward.
“It’s rolling along. At a rapid pace, actually,” he added so that GeGurra wouldn’t get any ideas under his white hair.
“Starting to get the hang of that character Waltin,” Bäckström continued, and then in brief strokes he recounted his finds down in the central archive.
“I almost suspected as much. Sometimes he expressed himself in a peculiar way, to say the least.” GeGurra sighed.
“I get the idea this may have been something sexual,” said Bäckström. Ask the woman with the candlestick, he thought.
“Sexual? Now I don’t understand.”
“Possible motives,” Bäckström clarified, and then he also expanded on this line of reasoning.
“I won’t get mixed up in that part,” said GeGurra, shaking all his white hair almost deprecatingly. “How’s it going with the weapon?”
Won’t get mixed up with it, thought Bäckström. Who the hell does he think he is?
“Fifty million,” said Bäckström, rubbing his index finger against his thumb. “The weapon is ten mill. In itself nothing to scoff at, but now we’re talking fifty. If I find the weapon, then I find the murderer. There are more involved in this business than Waltin,” said Bäckström, letting GeGurra have a taste of his heavy police gaze.