Leif Persson - He Who Kills the Dragon

They had eaten cured elk snout, salmon and egg pastries, lamb with boiled turnips. They had drunk beer and vodka and sung ‘Rose of Kotka’ with the first, second, and third drinks.

‘Kotkan Ruusu,’ Sommarlund said with a dreamy look in his eyes. Must have been one hell of a woman, he thought.

Bäckström had taken the bull by the horns and gone to see one of the most eager of his new female admirers, one who had also attached photographs of herself when she e-mailed him. Well worth a special trip, to judge by the pictures, and since she lived in the center of the city, he could always walk out if she had passed her sell-by date.

Maybe they weren’t taken recently, Bäckström thought an hour later, but there was nothing wrong with her enthusiasm. The super-salami had done its usual thorough job, and when he climbed out of the taxi outside his door, the sun had already risen in yet another cloud-free sky. Bäckström walked up to the second floor, seeing as one of his lazy neighbors had evidently forgotten to send the elevator back down, and just as he was standing in the stairwell, fumbling with his keys, he heard the sound of padding footsteps on the stairs above him.

Earlier that day one of their witnesses had got in touch with Detective Inspector Annika Carlsson.

‘Lawman,’ Lawman said. ‘I don’t know if you remember me. I’m the one who works for Green Carriers. Used to work with Akofeli.’

‘I remember. How can I help you?’ Annika Carlsson asked. I wonder if they’ve sorted out those bikes on the pavement like I told them? she wondered.

‘I want to add something to my statement,’ Lawman said.

‘Where are you?’ Annika Carlsson said. She preferred to talk where she could see the other person.

‘Not far away at all,’ Lawman said. ‘I’ve actually just delivered a package to your police station. To that trigger-happy Bäckström. One of our crazy clients wanted to send him a gift voucher. All a bit dodgy, if you ask me as a lawyer, but...’

‘I’ll come down and get you,’ Annika Carlsson said, and five minutes later Lawman was sitting in her office.

The previous day a thought had struck Lawman. Something he had forgotten to tell Annika Carlsson and her colleague when they spoke at his workplace.

‘You remember that Akofeli asked me about the right of self-defense? How far you could go and so on?’

‘I remember,’ Annika said. She had already pulled out his statement.

‘There was something I forgot to tell you,’ Lawman said. ‘It completely slipped my mind.’

‘What’s that?’ Annika asked.

‘He asked me to give him an example of the sort of violence that would justify self-defense. I remember mentioning abuse in all its forms, right up to attempted murder. I also said something about jus necessitatis, the right to help someone else.’

‘I know,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘What was it you forgot to say?’

‘Mister Seven, Septimus, actually asked a concrete question as well. More or less in passing, I thought, considering the context.’

‘What did he ask?’

‘He wanted to know about rape,’ Lawman said. ‘If someone was trying to rape you. Did you have the same right to defend yourself as you did with attempted murder?’

‘And what did you make of that, then?’ Annika Carlsson asked.

‘I was pretty blunt,’ Lawman said. ‘I asked him if one of our weird clients had tried it on with him.’

‘What did he say to that?’

‘He just shrugged,’ Lawman said. ‘Didn’t want to talk about it.’

Denial, Annika Carlsson thought. Just as she had learned in that course on sexual attacks back in the autumn. The denial of the victim, she thought. But seeing as Bäckström had evidently finished for the day, she had no one to talk to.

I’ll tell him when I look in on him first thing tomorrow morning, she thought.

Footsteps on Bäckström’s staircase. Little Siggy locked up by the lazy pricks in forensics, so all that was left was another Bäckström one-two, he thought. He walked forward, raised his left hand, and put the right one inside his jacket.

‘Stand absolutely still or I’ll blow your head off,’ Bäckström said.

‘Take it easy, for fuck’s sake,’ the paperboy said, waving Bäckström’s own copy of Svenska Dagbladet at him just to make sure.

The paperboy, Bäckström thought, taking the newspaper.

‘Why don’t you take the elevator?’ Bäckström said. ‘Instead of creeping around on the stairs scaring the shit out of people?’

‘I didn’t think you were the type to scare easily, Superintendent,’ the paperboy said with a grin. ‘Nice work, by the way. Saw you on TV the other night.’

‘The elevator,’ Bäckström repeated.

‘Right,’ the paperboy said. ‘I do what everyone does. Everyone delivering papers, that is. Take the elevator to the top floor, then come down the stairs.’

‘Why don’t you take the elevator back down?’ Bäckström said. ‘That would save you having to walk.’

‘Takes too long,’ the paperboy said. ‘Think about it. Jumping in and out of the elevator, going down one floor at a time. You wouldn’t get your paper before the evening.’

When Bäckström walked into his own hallway and closed the door behind him he was suddenly struck by a bolt of lightning, lighting up the whole inside of his round head.

Akofeli, Bäckström thought. Number one Hasselstigen, a five-story building with a lift. Why the hell didn’t you take the elevator up? he thought.

‘Fresh rolls, peaceful intent, interesting news,’ Annika Carlsson said, waving the bag from the bakery.

‘Come in,’ Bäckström grunted. He hadn’t had much sleep, since he had spent a couple hours deep in thought before he finally fainted away in his own bed.

‘What time is it, anyway?’

‘Ten o’clock,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘I took it for granted that you were out carousing all night with one of your many female admirers, so I didn’t come round too early.’

‘Kind of you,’ Bäckström said with a wry smile. Open to all comers, he thought. But really quite nice.

‘So if you get in the shower, nice Auntie Annika will get breakfast for you.’

‘Pancakes, bacon?’ Bäckström suggested.

‘Out of the question,’ Annika said, and snorted.

‘What do you think, Bäckström?’ Annika asked half an hour later when she had told him what Lawman had told her.

‘Think about what?’ Bäckström said. His mind was on other things.

‘Do you think Kalle Danielsson might have tried to force him to have sex with him? Seems to fit the profile of that sort of perpetrator. Slightly older, alcoholic, mostly male social circle, clearly sexually active, seeing how he had Viagra and condoms in his flat. A young man like Akofeli, black, half his size. Probably quite appealing to someone like Danielsson when he’d had a few and his inhibitions started to wobble.’

‘No chance,’ Bäckström said, shaking his head. ‘Danielsson wasn’t the type.’

‘What do you mean, not the type?’ Annika said.

‘The type to fuck people in the ass,’ Bäckström said.

‘What do you mean?’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘Even someone like you would have a go if you got the chance.’

‘Male ass,’ Bäckström clarified. Open to all comers, he thought.

‘If you say so,’ Annika Carlsson said, with a nonchalant shrug.

‘Listen to this instead,’ Bäckström said. ‘Last night when I got home I suddenly realized what it is that doesn’t make sense about Akofeli. You know, the thing I’ve been worrying about.’

‘Okay, okay,’ Annika Carlsson said a quarter of an hour later. ‘So he took the stairs instead of the elevator. What’s the problem? Maybe he wanted some extra exercise. I do a lot of step exercises myself. It’s very good for you, you know.’