Лейф Перссон - Another Time, Another Life

What happened to those eight hours of sleep? thought Holt.

“Sleep well?” asked Holt neutrally as she poured a cup of coffee for herself. “By the way, would you like coffee?”

“Sorry, sorry,” said Martinez, actually looking a bit guilty. “I’m weak, so it was the bar as usual.”

“Was it any good?” asked Holt, handing her a coffee cup.

“It was shiiiit,” Martinez moaned. “Eight beers and no hunks.”

“I spoke with Johansson,” said Holt. “It’s okay for us to get Stein’s prints. Can you arrange it?”

Martinez nodded and already seemed considerably more alert.

“I could do that in my sleep,” she said. “Easy as pie. But you and Mattei have to help me with the practical stuff in the event we’ve got a moving target.”

“No problem,” said Holt. It will be nice to get outside, she thought. It’s the first real spring day too, sun, blue sky, at least fifty degrees out.

Johansson and his wife did not have the same biological clock. This was a mild understatement because he seldom got out of bed later than six o’clock, yet his wife could spend the day there if she had the choice, and in any case she was scarcely approachable before ten on a Saturday morning such as this one.

So he had managed to shower, have breakfast, and read two morning papers in peace and quiet before he tiptoed into their bedroom at nine-thirty. The only thing he saw was a lump under the blanket, a black tuft of hair sticking up under the pillow, which for some reason was covering the face of the person lying there, and a rather small, naked foot sticking out down below.

“Are you asleep, darling?” said Johansson, who didn’t always act like the police officer he was.

“Hmmnuu,” moaned his wife.

“I’ve made breakfast for you,” said Johansson. “Fried ham and pancakes.”

“What?” said his wife, suddenly sounding wide awake.

“April Fool,” said Johansson. “If you move over a little then there’ll be room for me, too,” he said. She’s fallen asleep again, he thought in amazement. This can’t be true.

“Pia... honey,” said Johansson. “It’s amazing weather. What do you think about a long walk on Djurgården?”

“Not right now,” his wife moaned.

They’re like children, Johansson thought affectionately, making room by her side.

First Martinez stopped by their tech squad and organized a beer can, specially emptied for the purpose, which she stored in a sealed plastic bag. Then she made a prank call to Stein at home on a prepaid cell phone that couldn’t be traced, and as soon as Stein answered she excused herself, saying it was a wrong number, ended the call, and took Holt and Mattei with her down to the garage.

“We’ll take my vehicle so we don’t stick out unnecessarily,” said Martinez, opening the door to the driver’s seat of an unbelievably crappy, small, older-model Japanese car of a make unknown to Holt. “Get a move on, ladies, we’re in a hurry,” said Martinez, waving them impatiently into the car.

“Isn’t it best if I drive?” said Holt doubtfully. Eight beers, she remembered.

“Fine with me,” said Martinez, shrugging her shoulders. “You’ll have to sit in back, Lisa,” she decided, giving Mattei a critical glance. “Damn, don’t you look tidy,” she said disapprovingly, shaking her head.

“Excuse me,” said Mattei, guiltily.

“It’s okay,” said Martinez to smooth things over. “No one’s going to believe you’re a cop anyway, and if you have to get out and move around I have some things in the trunk you can borrow.”

Johansson gradually breathed some life into his wife, saw to it that she got a cup of coffee and a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, and then led her out into the beautiful spring weather. They walked down to Slussen and took the ferry over to Djurgården. Johansson stood in the front and let the sea breeze caress his Norrland cheeks while he hummed an old popular song from Jussi Björling’s repertoire. Then they strolled all the way down Djurgården, continued back along Strandvägen, Nybrokajen, and Skeppsbron, and when they got back to Slussen a few hours later, Johansson was in a terrific mood and suggested a late lunch at the Gondola.

“Awesome,” said his wife, who was influenced by the many young coworkers at the bank where she worked. “I’m dying of hunger.”

And I am a fortunate man, Johansson thought, who had already decided to have both an appetizer and an entrée, since he must have burned tons of calories while he and his wife made their way around half the inner city at a brisk pace.

At the same time Martinez was carrying out her mission with all the accuracy that made her famous, and right before the eyes of Holt and Mattei.

Helena Stein lived on Kommendörsgatan in Östermalm, at the end where it met Karlaplan. When Martinez saw that Stein’s car was parked outside the building where she lived she quickly decided how to proceed.

“Stop here,” she said to Holt. “Then drive down a bit, but stay close enough so you can keep an eye on the outside entrance. I’ll try to get it over with so we don’t have to waste half the day.”

“It’s cool,” said Holt. I was working as a detective before you started at the police academy. Who do you take me for? she thought.

Martinez walked down the street, and as she passed Stein’s car two things happened so fast that neither Holt nor Mattei had time to understand what had taken place.

Suddenly the beer can was on the roof of Stein’s car, and the car alarm was going off.

A minute later a woman in her forties came out of the building. It was apparent that the car alarm had brought her out. After looking up and down the street, she caught sight of the beer can on the roof of her car, shook her head, turned off the electronic alarm, and carefully lifted the beer can off the roof with an ungloved right hand.

“Record time,” said Martinez contentedly from the backseat into which she had crawled half a minute earlier.

Helena Stein, thought Holt. It was a strange feeling seeing her with her own eyes. She was a trim, good-looking woman, forty-two years old, Holt’s own age, and just like Holt she looked younger than she was. Her thick red hair was pinned up in a bun at her neck, and she might have been planning to spend the day outside, because she was dressed in jeans, sturdy walking shoes, a checked shirt, and a jacket that she must have draped over her shoulders when the car alarm lured her out onto the street. She wore good-looking, expensive, discreet clothing, the kind that Holt could only dream of owning. Clearly she was a conscientious citizen too, for instead of simply tossing the beer can away in the gutter she placed it in a trash can at the crosswalk more than twenty yards farther down the street. Then she went back with quick steps and disappeared into the building where she lived. I hope I’m wrong, Holt thought suddenly, and the thought was so unpleasant that she immediately dismissed it. Pull yourself together, Anna, she thought.

“Okay,” said Martinez, “drive around and pick me up at the next intersection, and I’ll bring home the bait.”

She patted Holt on the shoulder before she got out of the car, stopped at the crosswalk, and then, after a quick glance in each direction for cars that weren’t there, crossed the street and disappeared around the corner out of their field of vision.

“Linda is just unbelievable.” Mattei sighed. “She could get a job as a witch.”

Johansson did not get an appetizer, and it was his wife, Pia, who explained why he couldn’t.

“I don’t care how many calories you’ve walked off. It’s completely meaningless if you’re going to stuff yourself with caviar and potato pancakes.”