Leif Persson - He Who Kills the Dragon

Later that evening a tall, fair-haired man, who was obviously a policeman even though he was dressed in a leather jacket and ordinary blue jeans, had knocked at the door of the building where Jerzty was working. He had opened the door to him, since he was working in the entrance hall, nailing up new plasterboard while his workmates were having a late supper a couple floors up in the room where they had set up their makeshift kitchen. The fair-haired man gave him a friendly smile and held out a sinewy hand.

‘My name is Peter Niemi,’ Niemi said in English. ‘I am a police officer. Do you know where I can find Jerry Sarniecki?’

‘That’s me,’ Jerzty Sarniecki said, before continuing in Swedish. ‘I speak a little Swedish because I’ve worked over here for several years now.’

‘Then you’re in the same position as me,’ Niemi said with a broad smile. ‘Is there anywhere we could talk undisturbed? I’d like to ask you a few questions.’

Bäckström had walked all the way home. All the way from the police station on Sundbybergsvägen in Solna to his home on Inedalsgatan on Kungsholmen. It was as if his feet and legs had suddenly taken on a life of their own, with his body and head merely tagging along. Entirely involuntarily, and when he shut the door behind him he had hardly any idea of what he had spent the past few hours doing. The inside of his sweaty head was completely blank. Had he met anyone? Had he spoken to anyone? Someone he knew and who had been able to see him in all his misery? Evidently he must have stopped and done some shopping somewhere, because he was carrying a bag full of bottles of mineral water and a plastic pack containing a mass of mysterious vegetables.

What the fuck is this? Bäckström thought, holding up the pack. Those little red things must be tomatoes. He recognized them, and he had even eaten one or two when he was a lad. All that green stuff must be lettuce? But all the other stuff? A mass of weird black-and-brown balls of varying sizes. Hare shit? Elk shit? And something that mostly looked like maggots but which must be something else, since they didn’t wriggle when he prodded them.

What the fuck is going on? Bäckström wondered as he headed toward the shower, dropping his clothes on the floor as he went.

To begin with, he had just stood in the shower for a quarter of an hour or so, letting the water run over his well-upholstered and harmoniously proportioned body. The same body that had always been his temple and which a crazy police doctor had now decided to lay to ruin.

Afterward he had carefully toweled himself, put on his dressing gown, and prepared a meal with the pack of vegetables and a bottle of mineral water. Just to make sure, he had first taken a quick look in the fridge to see if there wasn’t something nice that had survived the previous day’s food massacre when he had followed the doctor’s list and cleared out all the dangerous and unnecessary things that had been in there. Bäckström’s pantry and fridge had been sparklingly clean, and they were still sparklingly clean.

Bäckström had set about the pack of vegetables. He tried to disconnect both his brain and his taste buds as his jaw chewed and chewed, but even so, he had given up after just half the pack. The only edible bits were actually those little things that looked like maggots.

Bound to be maggots, Bäckström thought, as he put the remnants of his vegetable orgy in his empty fridge. If I’m lucky, they’re maggots, he thought. Then at least I’ve actually consumed a bit of protein over the past few days.

Then he had drunk the bottle of mineral water. One and a half liters. Down in one. That had to be a new world record, Bäckström thought, throwing the empty plastic bottle in the bin under the sink. What the fuck am I going to do now, since it’s only seven o’clock? he thought, checking his recently purchased Swiss watch.

There was no point looking for any hidden drink. He had got rid of that as well the previous evening, and on that point in particular the doctor had been absolutely immovable. No spirits, no wine, no beer. Nothing, in fact, that contained the merest whiff of alcohol, like cider, or ordinary juice that just happened to have started to ferment, or an old bottle of cough medicine that had evidently also fallen foul of the splendid doctor and his colleagues.

It had amounted to a fair bit, since Bäckström had been pretty well-off for some time now. Several unopened bottles of malt whiskey and vodka. An entirely untouched liter of French cognac. Almost a whole tray of Czech lager. Even more open bottles containing various quantities. Obviously not a single drop of wine, because only ass bandits and carpet munchers drank that. Certainly not Bäckström, who was a perfectly normal Swedish male in the prime of his life. As well as a legendary murder detective and the obvious answer to every woman’s secret dreams.

Bäckström had put all of it in a box and knocked on one of his neighbor’s doors. A serious alcoholic who used to be a boss at TV3 before he tumbled over the edge while they were recording a series of Survivor somewhere in the Philippines. He was given a golden handshake of several million kronor so that he could drink himself to death before he had time to write a book about his time on the channel and all the years before that when he had hopped between various companies within the same media empire. Considering the life he led these days, it looked as if his erstwhile employers were going to be proved right.

‘That’s a hell of a lot of goodies, Bäckström,’ the presumptive buyer said after a quick inspection of the box’s contents. ‘Are you moving, or what? Don’t tell me things are so bad that your liver’s packed up?’

‘Not at all,’ Bäckström said, smiling amiably even though someone was trying to wrench his heart out of his body. ‘I’m going away on a long trip and it seemed a shame to offer those thieving bastards a load of drink as well when they break in. They pump enough crap into themselves as it is.’

‘That’s true enough, Bäckström,’ the former television executive said. ‘I’ll give you five thousand for the lot,’ he said, throwing out an arm in a gesture that was so generous that it almost made him topple over backward.

The poor sod must have double vision at this time of day, Bäckström thought, since he had estimated the value of the drink at about half of that. Well, at least he won’t have to get a taxi to go and get more drink for a few days, he thought.

‘Done,’ Bäckström said, holding out his hand as a sign that the deal was concluded.

He had been paid in cash. Not that he had any idea what he was going to use it for, since he no longer ate or drank and couldn’t be bothered to think about women.

In the absence of any better options, he had looked at the DVD that his ever-thoughtful doctor had given him as a sort of extra lifeline. A bit of help in his efforts to strive for a better life. The doctor knew from long, painful experience that people like Bäckström were the most difficult patients of all. Your average heavy drug user, forced to inject himself in his feet in a desperate effort to find a functioning vein, was actually nothing compared to a food-and-alcohol abuser like Bäckström. Bäckström and his ilk were practically incurable and it was all because they didn’t give a flying fuck about what they were doing. They just ate and ate and ate. And drank and drank and drank. And felt on top of the world.

In an American medical journal the doctor had happened upon an extremely interesting article about attempts in a private clinic in Arizona to use electroshock therapy on people like Bäckström. The doctor had applied for funding from the state authorities, had been given more than he had asked for, and had set off for the United States to spend several months studying how they managed to alter the behavior of people who were eating and drinking themselves to death.