Лейф Перссон - Another Time, Another Life

“This stays completely between us, right?” the doorman asked, drawing his fingers through his thin hair.

Jarnebring nodded, Holt nodded, and the doorman took a deep, contemplative drag before he nodded too.

“What Eriksson was like as a person,” said their source. “Well... I don’t really know how I should put it.”

“Try,” said Jarnebring, smiling his famous wolf grin.

“You meet a lot of people over the years. I’ve worked at this place for almost thirty years now... and...” The doorman smiled wryly, shook his head, and tapped the ash off his cigarette, while both Jarnebring and Holt waited in silence. Oh well, thought Jarnebring while in his mind he watched the line running out from the reel.

“Kjell Eriksson,” said the doorman. “What was he like as a person? If I put it like this... Kjell Eriksson was probably the absolute smallest person I’ve met here — and the absolute biggest asshole.” He nodded with emphasis and looked at them, evidently delighted now. “That man was one exceptionally large asshole.”

“I’m interpreting this as meaning it wasn’t you who killed him,” said Jarnebring, grinning cheerfully.

“Oh no,” said the doorman, shaking his head. “Why would I do that? A child could see that someone was going to do it sooner or later, and the only thing that’s a little mysterious is why it took so long. He must have worked with us for ten years at least. Talk about living on borrowed time. Well, damn...” Eriksson’s former coworker looked at them with eyes shining with delight.

“What was it with him?” Holt asked.

Lazy-ass, wheeler-dealer, chicken, ass licker, stuck-up, bully, gossip, backbiter, thief, and just a bastard in general; he even had bad breath. But he did not seem to have had any other faults. Not that the doorman could think of now in any case.

“Sounds like a nice guy,” said Jarnebring.

“Eriksson was a bad person,” said his former coworker seriously. “But he was no ordinary idiot. He was a shrewd bastard.”

Bäckström had held a press conference up at homicide. Not especially well attended, half a dozen journalists from the newspapers as well as some from radio, but none of the TV channels had done him the honor. That was a shame, because those few times he had appeared on screen it had immediately resulted in a number of odd jobs when he was at the bar showing the flag. Lazy and incompetent, thought Bäckström. They get to report the weather on the screen for a week, and then they think they are the weather.

He had not had much to say himself. Of course the investigators were covering a lot of ground without preconceived notions at the same time as a number of promising leads were being followed up, and conclusive evidence had of course been secured. If he were to say something off the record, it would only be that he was personally convinced that this would be cleared up soon.

“Can you tell us how he was murdered?” asked an older female reporter who was sitting in front.

“Not at the present time,” Bäckström said heavily. “This is the sort of thing I want to be able to confront the perpetrator with.”

“Do you know anything about the motive?” asked a middle-aged male journalist who was sitting farthest down by the door.

“I have my own definite ideas about that,” said Bäckström. “But even at this point it is too early to say anything.”

“Have I understood you correctly if I say that it’s exactly as usual at this point. That you’re fumbling around in total darkness?” A younger talent with an irritating smile who had not sat down but instead stood leaning against the wall moping.

Bäckström looked at him sourly.

“No comment,” said Bäckström. “We’ll leave it at that.” Fucking asshole, he thought. Those bastards ought to be boiled for glue.

“I don’t know about you, ladies and gentlemen,” he continued, “but personally I have a great deal of work to get down to, so if you have no more questions, then...” Bäckström had already stood up, nodded heavily at them all. None of them had any objections.

While Bäckström was holding his press conference, his colleague Alm was organizing the incoming tips.

As soon as the media had informed that Great Detective — the General Public — that citizen Eriksson had been murdered, ordinary people would start calling the police like crazy, because they always did, despite the fact that they almost never had anything sensible to say.

“Keep that in mind as you’re sitting there by the phone,” said Alm, nodding at his younger colleague with the uniformed police who had been given this responsible task. “Whatever you do, don’t start arguing with them, because you’ll never be finished. It’s only a lot of bag ladies and drunks and other riffraff.”

“Doesn’t anyone ever call with something important to say?” the borrowed police constable asked, looking at Alm with youthful seriousness.

“Not that I can recall,” said Alm. “It has never happened to me in my twenty years at homicide, so just keep it short so they don’t get a lot of ideas in their little heads. And as far as the two of you are concerned, you should complete the door-knocking from yesterday.” Alm nodded, looking like a general, at the two remaining younger colleagues from the uniformed police. Just as well to explain this so they won’t sit here moping, he thought.

“Yes, I’m wondering—” said one of them.

“Talk with Gunsan and you’ll get a list of names,” Alm interrupted.

“... if there’s anything in particular we should be bearing in mind?” the second one continued.

Who are they recruiting nowadays? Alm thought sourly, staring at them.

“Bearing in mind,” said Alm. “You can find the way to Rådmansgatan, can’t you?”

“I didn’t mean that,” the one who had asked the question persisted. “Is there anything special we should remember to ask them? When we knock on doors, that is.”

“Ask them if they’ve seen or heard anything,” said Alm. “Is that so hard to understand?”

Apparently not when it came down to it, for all three had immediately left his office.

Well now, thought Alm, leaning back in his chair and looking at the clock. Suppose one were to take the opportunity to get the trip to the liquor store over with before lunch, to avoid getting varicose veins by standing around half the afternoon along with all the welfare recipients who don’t have anything better to do.

As soon as Bäckström got rid of the journalistic mob he snuck out to a discreet lunch place in City where he met his own reporter from the major evening tabloid. He was a relatively normal character, considering his chosen profession, and he always entertained on the newspaper’s dime. After a few beers and a generous portion of roast pork with potatoes and lingonberries, Bäckström recovered his good mood and, as a thank-you for the meal, lifted the veil of police secrecy a bit.

“Just between the two of us, I’d say he was stabbed to death,” Bäckström said, nodding confidentially at his host.

“It wasn’t a pretty sight,” the reporter said expectantly.

An overturned coffee table, a little blood, and a stiff — that wasn’t such a big deal. He had seen considerably worse himself, though he couldn’t say that of course. You have to give the audience what it demands, thought Bäckström.

“Let me put it this way,” said Bäckström. “It didn’t look like your house or mine.” Which was completely true, he thought.

“A knife, you said,” the reporter said greedily. “So it was a real slaughterhouse then? Was it a big knife?”