Лейф Перссон - Another Time, Another Life

“Bäckström is a known douche bag,” said Jarnebring. “Let me know if he messes with you and I’ll slap him around.”

“No need to worry,” she said, smiling wanly. “I can do that myself.”

Strange gal, thought Jarnebring. Where the hell is the police department headed?

“So you can then,” said Jarnebring, “in a pinch?”

“Yes,” she said, nodding with her gaze directed straight ahead and her hands steady on the wheel. “I can. In a pinch.”

When she dropped him off outside his door and before he had even managed to think up a suitable farewell line, she simply drove away.

“See you first thing tomorrow morning,” she said and smiled. “Sleep tight now.”

Jarnebring watched the car as it disappeared down the street. Anna Holt, he thought, Inspector Anna Holt. Strange he hadn’t run into her before. After all, he’d been a policeman his entire adult life.

Bäckström had surprised Wiijnbladh. He had offered to stay behind and make sure the crime scene was locked and sealed before they drove away.

“Aren’t you going to ride with me?” asked Wiijnbladh.

“No,” said Bäckström, smiling mysteriously. “I’ve got a little something going if you know what I mean. And you have to drop off what we’ve confiscated up at tech. So I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“That’s nice of you,” said Wiijnbladh. What if I was to sleep at the office? he thought, but obviously he didn’t say that to Bäckström.

Finally alone, thought Bäckström, and as soon as the little half-fairy Wiijnbladh disappeared out through the door with his bag and baggage Bäckström locked himself in and searched through the corpse’s clothes closet. The bastard had cases of expensive alcohol. Bäckström thought about calling a taxi, but at the same time a real pro took no unnecessary risks. Who knew, there might still be some reporter outside on the street. Whatever. There would be other occasions to return for more bottles — rather that than the goods ending up in the general inheritance fund for any relatives the victim appeared not to have had. The bastard.

Good thing he had brought his winter coat. The be-all and end-all of crime scene investigation gear, thought Bäckström with delight, an ample coat with deep pockets. He put some well-chosen bottles in the pockets and then locked up from the outside with the victim’s keys, pasted sealing tape on the door, and took off.

When he got home he sat down on the couch in front of the TV and inspected the goods he’d brought with him. Then he pondered how to set up the investigation so that he could mess with Jarnebring and that skinny police dummy he’d had with him.

“Cheers,” said Bäckström, raising his glass of malt whiskey toward the blurred mirror image of himself in the dark TV screen. True, he didn’t have any expensive furniture like the corpse, and it was high time that he brought home a whore who liked to clean and could get laid for clearing away the worst of it, but all in all he had it good enough. We’re drinking the same alcohol, the corpse and I, thought Bäckström and sneered. Although I’m alive while he’s dead. So he poured another ample shot before taking a pee, and just as he swallowed the last swig he saw the light. Suddenly he understood exactly the way things were, clear as water, the motive, the whole nine yards. Lit up like a plain under a flaming sky he saw the truth spread out before his eyes. Hell, thought Bäckström with delight. This is going to be fun.

Jarnebring’s day had not started out well, but it got much better as it went on. At the end of the day things got a little shaky again, and if he hadn’t pulled himself together as evening approached and showed some determination the day might have ended really badly. But there was finally a good end to it and a very promising weekend lay ahead. The reasons for this were complicated but were in all essentials connected with his love life, and personally he preferred not to think about it, much less talk about it.

For almost four years Jarnebring had been engaged. His fiancée worked as a uniformed police officer at Norrmalm. She was beautiful to look at, fun to be with, had considerable household talents, and led an orderly life. Besides, she was very much in love with Jarnebring, and so far all was well and good. The problem was the engagement, and time’s more and more rapid flight, drawing him into some kind of strange union that he couldn’t seem to get a handle on.

To start with, everything had been peace and harmony. Jarnebring moved in with his sweetheart. He had been extraordinarily well taken care of and seen their engagement as an omen of an imminently approaching marriage, eternal future harmony, and peaceful domestic happiness. Then he put on ten pounds, the ring on his left hand suddenly felt irritatingly tight, and their relationship started to flounder.

Unfortunately he had also discovered new sides to his “girlfriend,” such as the fact that it annoyed her when he called her his “girlfriend” instead of his “fiancée.” If that was how things stood for him, she had said, if he saw their engagement as just a ploy to gain time, he might just as well “come out with it immediately” so she’d have the opportunity to arrange something else instead. So he’d moved back home again, they had reconciled, he’d moved back in, moved home, and so on as time literally rushed onward. At the moment he was living at home, but their plans were no more definite, and personally he would have preferred not to think about the future. But on this particular morning he had no choice, as soon as he opened the refrigerator door at a quarter past six in the morning.

Jarnebring never slept more than five or six hours even when he’d partied. When he got out of bed he was always alert and rested, but above all hungry and in need of an ample breakfast. Even as he was standing in the shower he had unpleasant premonitions, and when he looked in his refrigerator those premonitions were confirmed.

It did not look good. Yesterday’s roll lay collapsed in a bag — who could be so dense as to put bread in the fridge? — in the company of a wedge of cheese, a trickle of apple juice, and a very tired, soggy tomato that had clearly given its all. The only consolation in this wretched state of affairs was an almost full carton of eggs. When he saw the miserable prospects for a dizzyingly brief moment he considered calling his girlfriend despite everything — she lived on the way to work after all — but then he steeled himself, pushed that thought aside, and made the best of the situation.

As a policeman I have to approve of the situation, thought Jarnebring, without really feeling convinced of that. They’re not like we are, and the ones he had in mind were the great human collective among which his fiancée could also be counted. They’re like children, damn it, he thought with irritation as he put the pan on the stove and poured in enough water for both coffee and the eggs.

Half an hour later he was on the subway en route to work after a breakfast of instant coffee without milk, half a glass of juice, almost an entire tomato, yesterday’s roll with a few shavings of cheese and five soft-boiled eggs. He was prey to conflicting emotions, only partly connected to his first meal of the day.

When he arrived Holt was already in place behind her desk, and evidently she had been sitting there a good while because she had managed to do searches on the victim, his neighbors, and the cars that had been parked on the street.

“Haven’t come up with anything, unfortunately,” said Holt, shaking her head.

“Hell,” said Jarnebring. “Have you been sitting here all night?” He nodded toward the thick bundles of computer printouts on her desk.