Peter Stjernström - The Best Book in the World

‘Is she out of her mind?’ exclaims Evita her hand on her forehead. ‘To ask to get the Nobel Prize is like pouring a bucket of shit over yourself in a public square. Nobody forgets such a faux pas, never ever.’

‘Actually, I don’t think she does get it,’ says Astra with a resigned sigh. ‘I’ve tried to tell her in a nice way, but it just doesn’t sink in. I’m going on holiday soon and must sort this out pretty quick. Have you any good ideas?’

‘Okay. Lets do it like this. I’ll write a very clear letter to Veronica and say that it would be a total disaster to even show yourself in Sweden if you ever want to get the Nobel Prize. I can ask the cultural attaché in Barcelona to deliver it to her in person. That ought to have an effect, I think. Then we’ll not run the risk of seeing Pablo at the book fair for at least the next two years…’

It wasn’t the first time this week that Detective Chief Inspector Håkan Rink had stood in front of the large noticeboard in the incident room. It was almost entirely covered with little bits of paper in various colours. Each colour represented a different type of ‘note’ as it is called in police jargon: crime scenes, clues, testimony and so on.

It was late evening and the team had gathered together to listen to an art historian tell them more about Salvador Dali’s driving forces. The crime scenes contained increasingly obvious signs that the serial killer was inspired by the surrealist twentieth-century painter.

‘Thank you for not going home to your dear families just this evening,’ Håkan Rink started off. ‘When we capture Serial Salvador, not only your own families will thank you – the whole country will show its gratitude. Sweden is cowering in terror. We see how the fear acquires new and nastier ways, such as bomb threats against museums with avant-garde exhibitions and the persecution of experimental authors and contemporary artists. Indeed, people vent their anger at culture in general as if it was culture that was to blame for how society has become harder. But I am still convinced that culture is a mirror of society – not the other way round. Let me welcome Alf Linde, one of Sweden’s foremost experts on the surrealist movement.’

The ten or so police officers in Rink’s team gave Linde a short but friendly round of applause. Linde was very old and looked as if he himself could have been around when the Dadaists were transformed into surrealists under the fanatical command of the author André Breton in the early 1920s. When he spoke, there was a quiver under his chin like that of a turkey.

‘Thank you, Håkan. Yes, in this case it does rather look as if the murderer is busy creating a reality mirror of art. Very strange. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time a murderer has copied an innocent artist. I am therefore also convinced that if you are ever to catch him you must become deeply familiar with Dali’s art. Understand it with your subconscious mind.’

The colleagues in the team nodded gravely at each other. That seemed sensible. They already know something about Dali, but definitely needed to learn more.

Now he must be concise, Titus thinks, and puts the brakes on his frenzy for a while. It would be a piece of cake to spew out thirty pages about Dali. His enormous waxed moustaches alone were worth a couple of pages. Did Serial Salvador have the same? No, that would be too simple.

Alf Linde handed out copies of a hand-written page and chuckled aloud to himself: ‘Here’s Dali in a nutshell; here’s Dali in a surrealist nutshell.’

Against the simple || For the compound

Against uniformity || For differentiation

Against equality || For rank

Against collectivism || For individualism

Against politics || For metaphysics

Against nature || For aesthetics

Against progress || For permanency

Against mechanisation || For dreams

Against youth || For mature Machiavellian fanaticism

Against spinach || For snails

Against film || For theatre

Against Buddha || For Marquis de Sade

Against the Orient || For the Occident

Against the sun || For the moon

Against revolution || For tradition

Against Michelangelo || For Raphael

Against Rembrandt || For Vermeer

Against primitive objects || For over-cultivated objects

Against philosophy || For religion

Against medicine || For magic

Against mountain regions || For coast

Against figments of the brain || For ghosts

Against women || For Gaia

Against men || For me

Against time || For soft clocks

Then Alf Linde talked for just over an hour about Dali and his art. Why he distanced himself from the other surrealists, how he became so extremely successful commercially, and how he eventually buried first his wife Gala and then himself in the cellar of his surrealist mansion in the middle of the Catalonian town of Figueres. It became a museum of his life’s work and one of the most remarkable tourist destinations in the world. Naturally with sky-high entrance fees.

‘In conclusion, I must tell you something about his inventions. Before Salvador Dali made his breakthrough as an artist, he sketched a number of innovations to earn his living. He carried out a bitter struggle and was regarded as an idiot by those to whom he tried to sell his ideas. Here are a few examples: dresses with false insertions around the hips and bosom to distract men’s erotic fantasies; false nails with mirrors; water-filled transparent mannequins with swimming goldfish inside to illustrate blood circulation; kaleidoscopic spectacles for motorists for when the surrounding landscape got too boring; tactile film where cinemagoers could touch the settings in the film. And so on, and so on. About one hundred of Dali’s inventions are well documented. What we can see today is that many of them have become reality in one way or another: the push-up bra; virtual reality spectacles; 4D cinemas, et cetera. Perhaps he wasn’t mad, just terribly before his time. But listen carefully now. The invention to which he devoted the greater part of his energy was the rotating pork sculpture. He bought large amounts of meat at the butcher’s and hung it on crutches that he placed on electric rotating tables. Nobody knows what he wanted to achieve with the rotating pork. What do you think? Was he as mad as a hatter, or was he simply a misunderstood inventor?’

Truth and knowledge were the keys to Håkan Rink’s leadership. No frenzy to find positive images à la sporting clubs. No group-dynamic exercises fashionable for team-think in the commercial sector.

His police colleagues looked at each other, suddenly struck by the insight. They must search for Serial Salvador among inventor circles. Go through rejected applications at the Patent Office. Investigate misunderstood entrepreneurs and devoted enthusiasts who have not been given their credit. Dig among people labelled with odd combinations of letters to find those that have lost their footing. That is where they would find him!

Håkan Rink smiled contentedly to himself. Yet again, his simple and direct methods had borne fruit.

This time it was the FFI Method: FACTS are the FATHER of IMAGINATION.

After the evening meeting, the chief inspector treated his colleagues to some sustaining night food at the police station.

Håkan Rink’s Quattro Stagione, the pizza with four ‘seasons’.

Pizza dough

½ packet of fresh yeast: crumble the yeast into a large bowl

Add 200 ml lukewarm water and dissolve the yeast in the water

Add 500 ml wheat flour

Add 3 tablespoons of olive oil