Лейф Перссон - Another Time, Another Life

“Yes, Engel was of the opinion that the victim was homosexual,” said Wiijnbladh.

“Imagine that,” said Bäckström. “The same thought struck me when I saw the crime scene and the way he lived.”

“Although his younger colleague, the woman who did the autopsy, thought that it was hard to find any physical signs of it,” said Wiijnbladh. Best to say what’s right, he thought.

“So I’ve heard,” said Bäckström. “As for how things really stand, our local policeman will surely figure it out.”

“I’m listening,” said Jarnebring, who had toyed with the same thought himself.

“My gut feeling tells me we have an ordinary homo murder here,” said Bäckström.

It’s nice that you’re starting to sound like yourself again, thought Jarnebring.

“I’m still listening,” said Jarnebring.

“Single man, forty-five years old, no children, not a woman as far as the eye can see. Lives like a queer, eats like a queer, drinks like a queer, dresses like a queer. By the way, did you see those berets on the hat rack out in the hall? A whole bunch of fairy caps. He sits on the little couch with his boyfriend and has a few drinks and then they have a falling out and the little fiancé fetches his knife and sneaks up from behind and sticks it in. Then the perpetrator waltzes off to the kitchen, throws the knife in the sink, and hops into the bathroom where he throws up.”

“Did he throw up in the bathroom?” said Jarnebring, looking questioningly at Wiijnbladh.

“We have secured a vomit-soiled hand towel,” said Wiijnbladh evasively. “It has gone to the lab for analysis.”

“Depends on what you mean by ‘we,’ ” said Bäckström.

“I see,” said Jarnebring. There was actually a lot in what the fat little toad was saying, he thought. Eriksson did not exactly seem to have been a normal man, not like Jarnebring and the other guys on the squad. “You’re the boss,” said Jarnebring. “How do you want us to proceed?”

“Let’s do this,” said Bäckström, leaning on his elbows, balancing forward on his seat. For a moment he almost looked like a bulldog, thought Jarnebring.

“I think we’ll hold off on his social circle,” said Bäckström. “We have to try to get more meat on the bones first. It’s meaningless to go after types like this if you don’t have anything substantial to beat them up with.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself, thought Jarnebring.

“You guys from tech done with the crime scene?” asked Bäckström, looking inquisitively at Wiijnbladh.

“Yes,” said Wiijnbladh. “We’ve been done since Saturday.” What is he looking for now? he thought.

“You seem to be a whiz at finding things, Jarnebring,” said Bäckström. “Take Holt with you and turn his pad inside out. Who was Eriksson, who did he get together with, and which of them stabbed him to death? It’s high time we find that out, and since we haven’t gotten anything for free, it’s probably best to start at his home.”

“Sure,” said Jarnebring. Just what I would have done myself, he thought.

“And in the meantime, we should see if the rest of us can’t produce something more about his so-called orientation.” Bäckström grinned and wiggled his fat little finger meaningfully. “You can bet your sweet ass that if we still had our old fag files we would have cleared this up already.”

“Talk with the parliamentary ombudsman,” said Jarnebring. “He’s the one who told us to toss them.”

“I should damn well think so,” said Bäckström. “Typical gay lawyers. If it had been me I’d have carried them down to the basement without letting on. Fifty years of police work gets sent to the dump because the fairies don’t want us to keep tabs on them.”

“You’re preaching to the choir,” said Jarnebring abruptly, making a move to get up. “If that’s everything... who has the keys to Eriksson’s pad?”

“You must have them, Wiijnbladh,” said Bäckström innocently. Which is why I gave them to you before the meeting, he thought with delight. So that you could give them to Jarnebring. He was already done with what he had to do, at Eriksson’s home at least.

“Okay then,” said Jarnebring, taking the extended keys from Wiijnbladh, nodding curtly, and leaving the room along with his new colleague Holt.

“Have you ever done a proper house search?” Jarnebring asked when he and Holt were on the scene in the hall of Eriksson’s apartment.

Holt shook her head.

“I’ve been around and helped out a few times but...” She shook her head again. “Nothing like this, no.”

“The whole thing is simple as hell,” said Jarnebring, “and there’s only one important part. It’s going to take time, because if we don’t do this properly we might just as well forget about it. When you and I leave here, there shouldn’t be a dead louse we haven’t found and checked.”

“I see what you mean,” said Holt, smiling.

“I’ll show you what I mean,” said Jarnebring. “Come here.” He went ahead of her to the door to the living room and pointed at the draperies over the two windows facing the street.

“You see those curtains?” said Jarnebring.

“Yes,” said Holt, nodding.

“Any idiot can peek behind the curtains and feel with his hand that there isn’t something stuffed into a fold. We’ll do that too, so don’t misunderstand me... but in contrast to all the lazy asses, of which there are thirteen to the dozen, you and I are also going to unscrew the knobs on the curtain rods and look to see if anything was stuffed inside. They’re hollow. See what I mean?”

“I see what you mean,” said Holt, nodding.

“Everything we need is in my bag,” said Jarnebring, tilting his head toward the large gym bag he had set down on the floor. “Drawings of the apartment with all the measurements indicated, flashlight, mirrors, folding rule so we can measure that the space we’re checking matches the drawing, carpet hammer for tapping out hollow places, jigsaw, regular saw, and everything else we need to peek behind something. Feel free to tear off wallpaper if you think we need to, but make sure you have plastic gloves on, and if you find anything interesting, yell at me first before we even poke at it. Everything of interest we gather up on the table in the living room, write down where it comes from, take it along to the office, and later on we’ll go through it in peace and quiet. Always allow for a margin of error. Better to be safe than sorry and have left anything behind. Report forms and bags and sacks are in the bag. Any questions?” Jarnebring looked at his new colleague and nodded.

“Strategy,” said Holt. “Where do I start?”

“I’ll start here at the outside door,” said Jarnebring. “I’ll take the coat closet, guest toilet, the hall, and the living room, in that order. You start in the bedroom, then take the bathroom, and when you’re done there it’ll be time for coffee. Then we take the kitchen and finally the office. I’m thinking that’s our best bet because he seems to have his papers in there.”

“And everything that can tell us something about Eriksson, who he was, how he lived, and who he associated with is of interest. Notes, notebooks, loose slips of paper, diaries, old calendars, photo albums, videos, books in his bookcase, the color of his socks,” Holt summarized.

“That’s not enough, Holt,” said Jarnebring, trying out his wolf grin. “When we leave here we’ll know how he thought. So help me God, we will have peeked into his head.”

“I see what you mean,” said Holt, and then they went to work.

Jarnebring and Holt had a late lunch at a nearby snack bar. Jarnebring was done with the coat closet, the hall, the guest toilet, and the living room minus the large bookcase, and he hadn’t even found a dead louse. Why would he have? The order was pedantic, everything was in its right place, and in the victim’s clothing in the coat closet he had found only an invitation to a gallery opening and a three-week-old, neatly folded receipt from the book department at NK.