Leif Persson - He Who Kills the Dragon

‘Stop it, Frank!’ Sandra Kovac shouted. ‘Do you want to kill him?’ Then she had pushed her colleague aside. She sat on the small of Afsan’s back, twisted his hands behind his back, and cuffed them, first the right, then the left.

‘Fucking hell, you’re mad,’ she repeated.

‘The Arab bastard was trying to stab me,’ Motoele said, nodding toward the knife in the gutter on the other side of the street.

‘Get a grip on yourself, Frank,’ Kovac said. ‘He didn’t have a knife on him when you let loose on him.’

Frank Motoele didn’t seem to be listening. He had just shrugged, drawn his pistol, and vanished through Bäckström’s door.

Farshad had crumpled like an empty sack after the first shot. It had evidently hit his left leg, even though Bäckström would never have dreamed of even aiming at such a stupid place.

Bäckström had fired off a few more shots just to be on the safe side, rather randomly, then everything calmed down. Talib was lying motionless on his back, his eyes half open but the light had gone out of them; his jaw was no longer grinding; blood was dripping out of his ears and nose; and his legs were twitching weirdly. Bäckström leaned over and grabbed the black pistol that was tucked in Talib’s belt and tucked it into his own.

Then he went over to Farshad, who was lying whimpering on the floor, clutching his left leg with both hands. He was bleeding like a freshly stuck pig all over Bäckström’s expensive carpet, noisily lamenting his lot.

‘Okay, you’re going to shut up now, you fucking crybaby,’ Bäckström said, and because he was passing he took the chance to give him a hefty kick in the same leg that little Siggy had already had a go at.

Farshad’s eyes rolled back and he lost consciousness. Bäckström pocketed the bundle of notes and surveyed the situation. Finally a bit of peace and quiet, he thought, but at that moment the telephone rang.

‘Bäckström,’ Bäckström grunted as he looked at the destruction around him.

‘What’s the situation, Bäckström?’ a woman replied. ‘This is Kovac from surveillance,’ Sandra Kovac explained.

‘It’s okay,’ Bäckström said.

‘I’m standing in the stairwell outside your flat with some colleagues and was wondering if you felt like letting us in,’ Kovac said.

‘No morons from the rapid-response unit?’ Bäckström asked. He had no intention of making the same mistake twice.

‘Just perfectly ordinary fellow officers,’ Kovac reassured him.

‘Okay,’ Bäckström said. ‘Just give me a minute.’

Then he put the money away in his secret place. Poured himself a stiff whiskey. And stuck the Sig Sauer under his belt as well, even though it was starting to get a bit crowded there.

I think that’s everything, Bäckström thought, looking around at the destruction one last time. Just to make sure, he thought.

Then he opened the door and let them in, and went and sat on the sofa with a stiff drink. He poured another, just to be on the safe side. Where the hell is this force heading? he wondered. Here he was, in mortal danger for at least a quarter of an hour, until eventually he single-handedly managed to restore order and harmony around him. The best his employers could offer him was evidently five snotty-nosed kids who showed up when it was all done and dusted. Two women, two Negroes, and one poor sod who was evidently only a mulatto and probably got bullied by his colleagues. What the hell is happening to the Swedish Police? Bäckström thought.

When Peter Niemi arrived half an hour later he stopped in the doorway to take a deep sigh. This was once the scene of a crime, Niemi thought. In the formal sense, it was still a crime scene, he thought. Even though by that time it had been visited by fifty or so different people, from paramedics to police officers, who had probably moved anything that could be moved and put their fingerprints all over anything that couldn’t.

‘Okay,’ Niemi said. ‘I’ll have to ask everyone to leave the apartment so that my colleague and I can get to work.’

‘Forget it, Niemi,’ Bäckström said. ‘I live here.’

‘Bäckström, Bäckström,’ Niemi said. Must be in shock, he thought.

‘Here’s Talib’s pistol,’ Bäckström said, laying it on the tragic remains of what had once been a coffee table with a top made of Kolmården marble. ‘And here’s mine,’ he said.

‘What about the knife on the floor?’ Niemi said with a nod.

‘Belongs to Farshad Ibrahim,’ Bäckström said. ‘Feel free to take it away with you.’

‘Bullet holes,’ Niemi said.

‘Everything that happened, happened in here,’ Bäckström said. ‘The bastards must have picked the lock and were waiting in here for me when I got home. Then all hell broke loose,’ he said with a shrug. You can work the rest out for yourself, he thought.

‘Did anyone apart from you fire any shots, Bäckström?’ Chico Hernandez asked.

‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ Bäckström lied. ‘It all happened so damn quickly, and it got a bit muddled, if I can put it like that.

‘Now, you gentlemen will have to excuse me,’ he went on. ‘Make yourselves at home. I just need to take a little lie-down.’

Then he had gone into his bedroom and closed the door behind him. Niemi and Hernandez looked at each other and shrugged.

One hour later Bäckström got a visit from Anna Holt and his colleague Annika Carlsson.

‘How are you feeling, Bäckström?’ Holt asked.

‘On top form,’ Bäckström said, even though he had felt better. Besides, he felt peculiarly distant. It was as if none of this was really happening to him.

‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ Holt said. ‘A medical examination, debriefing, and I’ve booked a hotel room for you as well, by the way.’

‘Forget it,’ Bäckström said, shaking his head to underline the point.

‘Is it okay if I stay and keep an eye on you?’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘Then I can get the worst of the mess in the living room cleared up for you. I’ve spoken to Niemi and he’s okay with it,’ she cajoled.

‘If you like,’ Bäckström said, looking at her in surprise. An attack dyke offering to clean up for someone like me. Where the hell are we heading? he thought.

‘And I promise to sleep on the sofa,’ Annika Carlsson said with a smile.

‘Fine,’ Bäckström said. What the hell is she saying? he thought.

‘There must be at least fifty journalists out in the street,’ Holt said. ‘I imagine you won’t have anything against me putting some uniforms on the door?’

‘Absolutely fine,’ Bäckström said with a shrug.

‘We’ll talk tomorrow,’ Holt said. ‘Call me if you feel like it.’

Bäckström got into the shower. He stood there letting the water run over him. He dried himself, put on his dressing gown, took one brown and one blue from the pill bottles the police’s own Dr. Mengele had prescribed for him. Then he went to bed. He fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, and when he woke up it was to the smell of freshly brewed coffee and fresh rolls with cheese and butter.

‘Good morning, Bäckström,’ Annika Carlsson said with a broad smile. ‘Would you like breakfast in bed or in the kitchen?’

‘Kitchen,’ Bäckström said. Not worth taking any risks, he thought.

On Tuesday morning Anna Holt and Toivonen tried to get an overview of the situation.

Hassan Talib had undergone two operations during the night in the neurosurgical department at the Karolinska Hospital. Severe bleeding in the brain, and the doctors were fighting to save his life. He was now in intensive care.

Hassan Talib was two meters tall, one hundred and thirty kilos of muscle and bone, feared throughout Stockholm’s underworld and even among people who looked the same as him. He had tumbled backward and hit his head on a coffee table. If he had been an ordinary crook, in a film or on television, he would have shaken his head, got up, and made mincemeat of Bäckström. But because he belonged in the real world, it was unclear if he was going to survive.