Лейф Перссон - Another Time, Another Life

“No fish, please,” said Johansson, putting his head to one side and trying to look like a little boy from the great forests north of Näsåker in the province of Ångermanland.

“You can have grilled beef and boiled potatoes,” his wife declared from behind a menu. “Doesn’t that sound good?”

“What’s wrong with au gratin potatoes?” said Johansson, sounding whinier than he intended. Other than that they taste so much better? he thought.

“They’re bad for you,” said his wife. “And because I love you so much I want to protect you from dangerous things. We’re very much alike in that regard, you and me,” she declared without raising her eyes from the menu.

“Okay then,” said Johansson manfully. “Grilled beef, boiled potatoes, and a strong beer.”

“What’s wrong with light beer?” his wife objected. “Or plain water for that matter?”

“Don’t contradict me, woman,” said Johansson, “or I’ll order a shot of aquavit too.”

“All right then,” she said. “Personally, I think I’ll have fish. And a glass of white wine.”

“Fine by me,” said Johansson. “Have fish, dear.” You’re a woman, he thought.

When the three investigators returned to the police station, Martinez took her beer can trophy — now bearing Helena Stein’s fingerprints — and disappeared to the tech squad to arrange the remaining practical matters.

Mattei went back to her computer, and Holt sat down in the break room to have another cup of coffee while she pondered how she should proceed. At the same time her thoughts started wandering off again in a direction she didn’t like.

Assume that she’s the one who did it, thought Holt, who had suddenly started having doubts in a situation where she reasonably ought to have been strengthened in her spontaneous conviction. Then we’re going to crush her for the sake of someone like Eriksson. What was it he’d said, that doorman at Eriksson’s office that she and Jarnebring had talked to more than ten years ago? That Eriksson was both the absolute smallest person and the absolute biggest asshole he had ever met. From the little she’d seen of Helena Stein, she didn’t seem to match that description, thought Holt.

Boiled potatoes are actually not that bad, thought Johansson. Not if they are really fresh like the ones he’d just had. True, French new potatoes are not in a league with Swedish ones, but these were completely edible. What did you expect at this time of year, and what did the French know about potatoes anyway?

“There was something I was thinking about,” said Johansson’s wife, looking at him with her spirited dark eyes.

“I’m listening,” said Johansson. So you’ve finally woken up, he thought.

“Is there someone who works with you named Waltin?” she asked.

“Waltin,” said Johansson with surprise. “You mean Claes Waltin? A little dandy who used aftershave and pomade in his hair,” said Johansson. And a real little asshole if you ask me, he thought.

“He was some kind of police superintendent,” said Johansson’s wife.

“A deputy police superintendent,” said Johansson as he shook his head. “No, he’s not around anymore. He disappeared a long time ago. Why are you asking?”

“Nothing special,” said his wife, shaking her head. “I went out with him a few times, but that was long before we met.” So you don’t really need to look that way, she thought.

“No, he’s not around,” said Johansson. “He quit many years ago — I think it was in ’87 or ’88, a year or two after Palme was shot. Now I’m getting curious.” There’s something she’s holding back, he thought.

“Is he still working with the police?” his wife asked.

“No, not really,” said Johansson with surprise. “He’s dead.”

“He’s dead?” she said, suddenly looking rather strange. “What did he die of?”

“Yes,” said Johansson. “It was an odd little story. It happened several years after he quit the police force. I don’t know the details since I heard it only in passing, but it happened sometime in the early nineties — ’92, ’93 maybe — four or five years after he quit. They say he drowned on a vacation in Spain. Did you know him well?” Good old retroactive jealousy. Still, she couldn’t have known him that well if she didn’t even know he was dead, thought Johansson.

“Since you’re asking,” said Johansson’s wife. “I saw him four, five times actually. The first time I was out at a restaurant with a girlfriend. Then he called me and asked me to dinner at the same restaurant, and then I remember he got a little kiss in the doorway before we parted. He drove me home in a taxi. He was enormously attentive and polite. Not your typical Swedish man if I may say so. Well... we met a few more times — the last time was at his place. Then I stopped seeing him and he called me about ten times before he gave up.”

“So why did you stop seeing him?” asked Johansson, thinking, Something here doesn’t add up, without really knowing why.

“I found out he wasn’t a good person,” his wife answered, shrugging her shoulders. “So I told him I didn’t want to see him anymore and that was that.”

“So what was wrong with him?” asked Johansson. Apart from the fact that he looked and acted as if he had a spruce twig stuck up his ass, he thought.

“Forget about it now,” said his wife, shrugging her shoulders. You don’t want to know, she thought. “He just wasn’t my type,” she said. “Is that so strange?”

“No,” said Johansson. The same sort of thing has happened to me too, he thought. “That has actually happened to me too,” he said, smiling.

“He drowned, you say,” said his wife, suddenly looking extremely curious. “Are you absolutely sure?”

“Sweet Jesus,” said Johansson. “Either you explain or we change the subject, okay? According to what I heard, our former colleague Waltin is said to have drowned during a vacation in Spain. I heard it in passing. I didn’t know the guy. I hardly ever met him. And from the little I saw and heard I didn’t like him. Is that enough?”

“You don’t think he could have been murdered then?” asked Johansson’s wife, looking at him with curiosity.

“Murdered?” said Johansson with surprise. “Why in the name of God should he have been murdered?”

“Well,” said his wife, who didn’t appear particularly disheartened by Johansson’s reaction, “considering his old job and all that.”

Sigh, thought Johansson. It must be all those mysteries she reads, but naturally he couldn’t say that.

“The only motive I can think of is that he must have been careless about paying his tailoring bills, which really didn’t have anything to do with his job,” Johansson said, grinning.

“I know what you mean,” said Johansson’s wife, and she smiled too.

“And what’s that mean then?” said Johansson.

“That it’s high time we change the subject,” said Johansson’s wife.

She’s not only lovely to look at but also fun to talk with — she’s smart too, thought Johansson. As soon as they got home after their little Saturday excursion he called Wiklander and gave him yet another task: to find out what had really happened with former police superintendent Claes Waltin, since he was going to be talking with former colleague Persson about the other things Johansson had asked about.

“Waltin?” said Wiklander, sounding surprised. “That dandy who drowned on Mallorca a while back?”

“That’s the one,” said Johansson. “He quit us a few years after Palme and then he drowned during some vacation in Spain a few years later.”

“Sure, I can do that,” said Wiklander with surprise. “Do you think he has anything to do with this, Boss?”