Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End Read online

  The film was over. The whiskey wasn’t, and there was more available if that had been the case, but Waltin didn’t feel like it. A really good red wine is better, thought Waltin. Softer, more balanced, and you didn’t lose your clarity in the same way regardless of the degree of intoxication, but just now he didn’t feel like wine either. The only thing he felt was a slight irritation. Waste of resources, thought Waltin. What was important now was to bring home little Jeanette and see to it that somewhat more essential things were accomplished. And at that moment the phone rang. Past ten, thought Waltin with surprise, for some reason it was that old bastard Forselius that he was picturing. However he might have gotten the number here, thought Waltin, picking up the receiver.

  “Yes,” said Waltin. “I’m listening.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Martinsson, turn off the engine,” said Göransson, sticking his rumpled head between the seats. “We can’t sit with the engine on, you know that well enough.”

  Hope your sleep was good, thought Martinsson, but before he had time to say anything really cutting on the same theme they called them on the radio.

  “Yes,” said Martinsson, turning off the engine. “We’re listening.”

  “You can call it a day, boys,” said the officer on the radio. “I was just speaking with the Alpha dog.”

  “Call it a day,” said Martinsson. This is God help me not true, he thought.

  “Yep. He wants you to call it off. Then he wants to meet you tomorrow, but he’ll be in touch early in the morning regarding the time.”

  Göransson had already reached out his hand and turned on the ignition, despite the fact that he hadn’t managed to crawl out between the seats.

  “Do you mind driving?” he asked.

  “Where are you calling from?” asked Waltin. Calm down, he thought.

  “From a pay phone down in the vestibule at … well, you know,” replied Assistant Detective Eriksson.

  “Okay,” said Waltin. “So do the following. Walk a little ways down toward town and take a taxi to my place, so we can talk in peace and quiet.”

  What the hell is going on? thought Waltin.

  While Waltin was waiting for little Jeanette he had taken the opportunity to freshen himself up. He had washed himself—hands, face, and armpits—brushed his teeth, and sprayed over any lingering scent of whiskey. Then he’d changed his shirt, to a loose and comfortable cream-colored linen with his monogram embroidered in blue silk on the breast pocket. And while he was polishing his feathers he had been thinking sharply the whole time.

  There was a significant risk that the shit would hit the fan, thought Waltin. In addition there were several things that didn’t add up. According to the conversation with Hedberg at approximately a quarter past eight, when he called from the apartment that Waltin had arranged for him, he was supposed to have carried out his assignment without complications, between seven and roughly a quarter to eight. Between thumb and index finger and it will work out, thought Waltin.

  . . .

  According to Göransson and Martinsson, a double misfortune that he must do something about at once, Krassner had walked through Forselius’s doorway on Sturegatan as early as twenty minutes to seven, and when they were sent home three and a half hours later he should still have been there.

  Truly very peculiar, thought Waltin, because according to the Stockholm police command center, Krassner had fallen out of a window from the sixteenth floor of the Rosehip student dormitory on Körsbärsvägen at five minutes to eight in the evening and approximately half a mile from the place where he was supposed to be sitting shooting the breeze with a confused old bastard from the days of the cold war. Moreover, the information as to time and place were certain, because he himself had checked them, obviously in a completely secure but devious way. Had he even been at Forselius’s at all? The simplest thing would no doubt be to ask directly, thought Waltin, but at the same time that could just as well wait. Having come that far in his thoughts he was interrupted by the discreet signal from the doorway telephone. Little Jeanette, thought Waltin, and he felt both exhilarated and capable of action.

  Good Lord, thought Jeanette confusedly as she looked around Waltin’s living room. How can a police officer afford such an apartment? Even if he is a superintendent?

  “How are you doing?” asked Waltin. He looked at her, smiling a little but with a touch of seriousness and with a sympathetic wrinkle in his forehead.

  “I’m okay,” said Jeanette, nodding. “I understood of course that he was crazy. And I’ve said that. But that he was crazy enough to jump out the window, that I didn’t believe.”

  “We’ll discuss that later,” said Waltin soothingly. “Would you like something to eat?”

  “No. I ate a while ago.”

  “Then perhaps I might offer you something to drink? A glass of wine, perhaps?” Waltin looked at her with the same slightly worried smile.

  “A glass of wine would be nice. If you’re having one too.”

  “We both probably need one,” said Waltin confidently. So that we can finally get to the point, you and I, he thought.

  A quarter of an hour later the pieces started falling into place. Little Jeanette sat curled up on his big sofa; she was already working on her second glass of wine. She seemed collected but at the same time vulnerable and a little dejected in a way that was both attractive and arousing.

  “If I’ve understood the matter correctly, you meet M’Boye at the student restaurant a little after seven. Then the two of you walk to a restaurant on Birger Jarlsgatan. Eat dinner for two hours and return to his apartment at the dormitory. You’re there at about nine-thirty.”

  Waltin looked at her with mildly inquisitive eyes. Whatever it was you had to do there, you little bitch, he thought.

  “Yes,” said Jeanette, nodding. “And that was when we ran into the guys from Stockholm. They were done with Krassner’s room and were just leaving but Dan—M’Boye got angry and asked who they were and what they were doing there. I guess he didn’t realize that they were police. For a moment I was worried that he would attack them.” Jeanette nodded, mostly to herself, apparently, taking a gulp from her wineglass.

  “What did they say then?” asked Waltin. “The police,” he clarified.

  “Well, there was a rather heated discussion between them and M’Boye. They said that it was a suicide, that they were completely sure of that but they didn’t want to explain why and M’Boye refused to buy it.”

  “Do you know why?” asked Waltin. “Why didn’t he believe it?”

  “Presumably because they were policemen and because he doesn’t like the police,” said Jeanette, shrugging her shoulders. “Well, and because it was skewed from the start. One of the cops was actually not very nice. The other one was more normal. He was a technician. He even introduced himself.”

  “And you?” said Waltin.

  “No.” Jeanette shook her head. “I tried to keep myself in the background. I didn’t even need to say my name. They seemed to be in a big hurry to get out of there, actually.”

  “And neither of them recognized you,” asked Waltin.

  “No,” said Jeanette, and for some reason she smiled.

  “And you’re quite certain of that?”

  “Yes, quite certain. When they left I heard the one from the after-hours unit, he was the short fat one who was actually rather awful, he called me a typical student whore.”

  “Sad,” said Waltin without smiling. “Sad to have such officers. You don’t know their names?”

  “The short fat one never introduced himself, but the other one showed his ID.”

  “Do you remember his name?”

  “Yes, his name was Wiijnbladh. Detective inspector.”

  This isn’t true, thought Waltin delightedly. Wiijnbladh, that wretched little shit.

  “Is it anyone you know?” asked Jeanette.

  “No,” said Waltin, shaking his head. “It doesn’t ring any bells. Don’t believe I’ve even heard
the name.”

  It’s not anything I’m thinking about telling you, in any case, thought Waltin.

  “You know what,” he said. “This is a very sad story that we’ve landed in, because of a poor person who actually appears to have been seriously mentally ill, and if there’s anything I blame myself for, it’s probably that I didn’t listen carefully enough to what you said about how bad things were with Krassner.…”

  “I don’t think you should do that,” objected Jeanette. “Unfortunately I wasn’t especially clear, but …”

  Waltin shook his head negatively.

  “Jeanette,” said Waltin. “You and I are police officers. Our duty is to protect the security of the realm, and unfortunately it’s the case that most of what we encounter in our job is more or less crazy. But we’re not social workers, we aren’t doctors, and we’re definitely not spiritual advisers. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

  Clearly, thought Waltin, for she nodded in agreement and looked both serious and collected.

  “We won’t get involved in the investigation of Krassner’s suicide,” Waltin continued. “The Stockholm police can take care of that. That will take its own course, even if I will, naturally, see to it that we’re kept informed. But as far as we’re concerned I have a definite feeling that this entire sad story is over. And unfortunately, unfortunately it had a bad ending, but there’s nothing we can do about that. What you and I should do is the following.”

  She looked at him and nodded. Attentive, listening, willing to do what he said. Excellent, thought Waltin.

  “What we should do is simply one thing,” said Waltin. “We should lie low.” And I’m going to lie between your legs, thought Waltin, but he didn’t say that, for she didn’t have anything to do with it.

  [SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23]

  When Waltin woke up early on Saturday morning, little Jeanette was lying next to him in bed. As a seducer he had been faced with considerably more difficult tasks. She had seemed almost compliant when he led her into his bedroom, and because it was the first time, he’d held back and contented himself with performing a couple of for the most part normal acts of intercourse. He had been just determined enough but not more, and when he woke up she was sleeping curled up in a fetal position with her head boring down into the pillow, holding yet another pillow pressed against her belly. Waltin had lain looking at her a while, and he was still very satisfied with what he saw. This can be completely perfect, he thought. All that was demanded now was precision, clarity, and a perfectly executed acclimatization, and because the conditions were good he could happily take the time such things took when they were worth the effort.

  Then he went out to the kitchen and prepared breakfast, set the table over by the window with the view, and exerted himself both in how he did it and what he set out for them. When everything was ready he’d wakened her with a light kiss on the forehead, and now she was sitting across from him. In one of his altogether too large bathrobes, newly wakened, with tousled hair and a bare, unadorned face. And she looked both surprised and delighted when she understood that the cup in front of her contained neither coffee nor tea.

  “Chocolate with whipped cream,” tittered little Jeanette. “God that’s good! I don’t think I’ve had that since I was a kid.”

  Which is the very idea, thought Waltin, stroking her lightly across the back of her neck.

  “I was thinking about inviting you to dinner this evening,” said Waltin, at the same time letting his thumb stop at the base of her neck. “I would have preferred to have spent the whole day with you,” he continued with the exactly right charm-filled apologetic smile, “but unfortunately there are certain practical matters that I must take care of before we can relax.”

  Little Jeanette had nodded with a serious expression. Just like children always did when they understood that they’d become a part of something important.

  “Now here’s what we’ll do,” said Waltin, lacing his powerful, suntanned fingers in hers, which were half their size. “I don’t want you to return to the student dormitory. On the other hand, I want you to keep track of that M’Boye so he doesn’t get you dragged into something. Can you phone him?”

  “He was going to call me at home this morning,” said Jeanette. “He doesn’t have a phone of his own. Just the one that goes to their corridor.”

  “Avoid that,” said Waltin. “Lie low. Keep track of M’Boye. See to it that he doesn’t start anything. Can you manage that?” Waltin smiled warmly and squeezed her hand.

  Jeanette nodded.

  “Good,” said Waltin. “Then I’ll find out what this sad story is really about.”

  First he arranged a meeting with Hedberg in the small sleepover apartment at Gärdet that he’d loaned out to him. Hedberg seemed fresh and rested and offered fresh-brewed coffee. Waltin had decided to wait to discuss Krassner’s suicide.

  “Tell me,” said Waltin, taking a sip of the hot coffee.

  . . .

  According to Hedberg there wasn’t much to tell. He had seen Krassner leave the student dormitory at six-thirty, and when he got the all-clear signal on the radio ten minutes later he had started to work. One hour later he was finished and then he’d taken his gear, left the place, driven home, called Waltin, and reported.

  “A messy little student apartment; he didn’t have too many things. A few papers and those you have on film.”

  Hedberg nodded toward the three rolls of film that were lying on the table.

  “Well, what more was there?” said Hedberg, looking as though he was thinking deeply. “He’d hidden some marijuana cigarettes behind the medicine cabinet. He got to keep those.” Hedberg smiled wryly.

  “What impression did you get of him?” asked Waltin. “As a person, I mean.”

  “Impression,” said Hedberg. “Well, I guess I almost got the impression that the person living there was a little crazy. Looked like an ordinary junkie pad. Things tossed everywhere, sheets bunched up at the foot of the bed. Nothing that you would have appreciated,” said Hedberg, smiling faintly.

  So there, thought Waltin who had difficulty with intimacies, even when they came from such a highly valued colleague as Hedberg.

  “A little crazy, you say?”

  “One of those paranoid junkie types,” said Hedberg, nodding. “That door alert, the piece of paper on the door frame, I found right away, for example.”

  “And you put it back when you left,” said Waltin.

  “All according to orders and established routines,” said Hedberg.

  “No complications,” asked Waltin, lightly and just uninterested enough.

  “So-so,” said Hedberg. “If I were to complain, there was actually someone left in the corridor after seven o’clock. Right after seven I heard someone going out through the door to the vestibule. Then there was someone who came in right after and turned and went out again. I got an impression that it was the same person and that he’d forgotten something that he came back and fetched.”

  M’Boye, thought Waltin, who had Jeanette’s account fresh in his memory. Goes to show that blacks can never learn to tell time.

  “I’m sorry about that,” he said. “It was one of those people who can’t keep track of time.”

  “It’s not the end of the world,” said Hedberg. “I heard him and he didn’t see me, so I’ll give you that one.”

  Okay then, thought Waltin. Then there’s just one problem remaining.

  “A little problem has come up,” he said.

  Hedberg contented himself with nodding.

  “Krassner has taken his life.”

  “Oh, lay off.” said Hedberg, surprised. “When?”

  “Five minutes to eight yesterday evening,” said Waltin. “He did a double full gainer out the window at the student dormitory.”

  Hedberg hadn’t been easy to convince, and his objections were both logical and completely understandable.

  “I think this sounds strange,” said Hedberg. “It was almost twenty till e
ight when I left his corridor. That was just a quarter of an hour before he would have jumped out through the window.”

  “Yes,” said Waltin. “There isn’t much time to play with.”

  “Then he’s supposed to have written a suicide note as well? It can’t have been a very long epistle, otherwise we would have run into each other.”

  “He might actually have written the letter before and had it with him,” said Waltin, who was thinking out loud.

  Hedberg shook his head and still seemed to be full of doubt.

  “I still think it sounds strange,” he said, also sounding like someone thinking out loud. “He must have left that meeting over on Sturegatan at least fifteen minutes before he jumped out through the window. And in that case he can hardly have done more than come in and left. His meeting, I mean. What kind of strange meeting was it?”

  “Yes,” said Waltin. “There’s a lot here that’s strange.”

  “Sure,” said Hedberg with emphasis. “And then if he was on his way back, how is it that the guys who were supposed to watch him didn’t make contact and warn me?”

  Interesting question, thought Waltin.

  “It’ll work out,” said Waltin, putting the rolls of film in his pocket. “I’ll be in touch when I know something.”

  What is it that I’ve forgotten? he thought, getting up. Is there something I’ve forgotten?

  “There was something else,” said Waltin. “Help me.”

  “You mean that letter?” asked Hedberg. “The letter about the meeting?”

  “Exactly,” said Waltin, “Krassner’s invitation to the meeting with Forselius. Did you find it?”

  “No,” said Hedberg. “It wasn’t left behind in his room, in any case. Of that I’m quite certain. Neither a letter nor an envelope.”