Free Falling, As If in a Dream Read online

  “Yes, I’ve seen that,” said Holt, shaking her head. “Thanks for the ride,” she said, extending her hand and smiling.

  Because you really have, she thought a minute later as she was standing in the hall of her apartment. If she hadn’t counted wrong there were at least a score of leads in the Palme case files relating to him and his closest associates with the Stockholm police riot squad.

  This must be the best completely ordinary day in my life. Or in any event the best I can remember, thought former chief inspector Björn Söderström, sinking his teeth into one of his absolute favorites, an ample grilled entrecôte with garlic butter, served with root vegetables au gratin and a good Rioja to top it off. Raspberries, whipped cream, and vanilla ice cream for dessert. He declined the port wine, too sweet for his taste, but that wasn’t important, for half an later hour he was sitting in a comfortable armchair in his colleague Linda Mattei’s living room with coffee and an excellent cognac.

  Wonder where he went after that? thought Holt as she stepped out of the shower. First down to Kungsgatan, but then where? If he really was as skilled as Johansson seems to think, then he’d have to go to some secure location, she thought. Clean up, get rid of the clothes and all the annoying traces of gunpowder, hide his weapon. A secure location, because we all want to go to such a place whether we’re ordinary madmen or professional killers, she thought. An ordinary person or an ordinary madman would surely go home. But this kind of character? Where does he go? A hotel room, a temporary apartment? Best to ask Johansson, she thought, sneering at her own mirror image. Then she brushed her teeth and went to bed.

  “It was the worst day of my life,” Söderström sighed. “So I can tell you I remember it in detail.”

  “I wasn’t more than eleven when it happened,” said Lisa Mattei, “so I guess I mostly don’t remember anything. But I’ve understood from the papers that I’ve recently read that a lot of people asked how it happened that Palme didn’t have any security that evening.”

  “Well,” said Söderström, with an even deeper sigh, “I’ve asked myself that too a number of times. He’s probably the only one who can answer that. He was no easy security object, but he was one very talented and, for the most part, nice guy. The boys who took care of him, he almost always wanted the same officers, so that was Larsson of course, and Fasth. Sometimes Svanh and Gillberg and Kjellin, who had to step in when Larsson and Fasth couldn’t. The boys liked him, pure and simple. So I think I can say that none of them would have hesitated to take a bullet for his sake if it had turned out that way.” Söderström nodded solemnly, taking a very careful gulp considering the seriousness of the moment.

  “I understand that he was a troublesome surveillance object,” Mattei coaxed, setting her blond head at an angle to be on the safe side.

  “He had his ways, as I said,” said Söderström. “If he’d had his way I think he would have dropped us. He was very careful about his private life, if I may say so.”

  “That particular Friday—”

  “And that particular Friday,” Söderström continued without letting himself be interrupted, “he said to Larsson and Fasth that they could take off at lunchtime. He would stay at the office until late, and then he intended to go straight home to the residence in Old Town and have dinner with his wife. A calm evening at home in the bosom of the family, as they say. So they didn’t need to be worried about him. Although Larsson, he knew what to expect of the prime minister. He joked with him a little and said,…Can we really rely on that, boss?…or something like that…he said…Palme wasn’t the type to be offended by that sort of thing. As I said, he and the officers liked each other plain and simple. I can vouch for that.”

  “A calm evening at home,” Mattei clarified.

  “Yes, although when Larsson was joking with him then, the prime minister said he wasn’t planning any major undertakings in any event. That was exactly what he said. That in any event he wasn’t planning any major undertakings. He and the wife had talked about going to the movies, but there was definitely nothing decided, and they had also talked about seeing one of their sons over the weekend. That must have been Mårten, if I remember correctly, for the youngest one was in France when it happened, and where the other one was I don’t honestly remember. His son Mårten and his fiancée, that was it. But nothing definite there either.”

  “But he did say that perhaps he would go to the movies with his wife?”

  “To be exact he didn’t rule it out. But the likely thing was that he would sit at home all evening with his wife,” said Söderström, taking a more resolute gulp. “When he said that, Larsson joked with him and said that if the prime minister were to change his mind he had to promise to call us at once. So he promised that. He’d been in a good mood, he often was actually, and there was no threat that was current, but in any event he said that if he were to change his plans he would be in touch. He had a special number to our duty desk, as I’m sure you know. A number he could call anytime day or night if he needed to.”

  “But he never did,” said Lisa Mattei.

  “No,” said Söderström. “He didn’t. The movie came up at the last moment. I guess he thought it wasn’t worth the trouble. In that respect he was really not especially hard to deal with.”

  “But you know that at least there were such plans,” said Mattei.

  “Of course, Larsson called me right afterward and told me. Said what happened. That he and Fasth had been demobilized, so to speak, and that the security object would be at home during the evening. Possibly that he might go to the movies with his wife or see his son, but that nothing had been decided yet.”

  “What did you do then?” asked Mattei.

  “I went to bureau director Berg, my top boss,” said Söderström, “and told him what had been said. I think I can say that in a professional sense I wasn’t very happy about that sort of thing.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “If I’d been in charge, Palme would always have had security,” said Söderström.

  “Berg then? How did he react?”

  “He wasn’t happy either,” said Söderström. “He was extremely concerned about Palme’s…well, that bohemian side of his. He said actually that he would call his contact at Rosenbad—that was Nilsson, the special adviser on security issues; if I’m not misinformed he’s still there—and ask one more time if we couldn’t get somewhat clearer instructions. If there was a change in plans Berg promised to contact me immediately so I could reorganize.”

  “So what happened then?” said Mattei.

  “He never called,” said Söderström, shaking his head.

  “Berg never called?”

  “No,” said Söderström, who suddenly looked rather moved. “He never called. Right before twelve o’clock, about midnight that is, the officer who was on duty with us called and told me what had happened. That was the absolute worst moment of my entire life.”

  Right before Holt fell asleep, in the brief moments between trance and sleep, she thought of it. Suddenly wide awake, she sat bolt upright in bed. It’s clear—that’s the way he did it, she thought.

  20

  On Friday Holt had e-mailed Lars Martin Johansson and attached the interviews with witness Madeleine Nilsson, Lewin’s memo, and a written summary of the same matter. Where did the murderer go after he shot Palme?

  She had not heard a peep from Johansson. After the weekend she ran into him by chance in the police station dining room, quickly led them both to the most remote table, and without any frills asked what he thought about what she’d written.

  Considering what he’d said earlier, Johansson appeared strangely uninterested. He’d read the material from Holt. The interview with Madeleine Nilsson was new to him. What could he do about it more than twenty years too late? In principle he agreed with her of course. But what could he do about it more than twenty years too late?

  “I also noted,” said Johansson, “that you think our perpetrator went down to S
tureplan on Kungsgatan and took the subway east. To the fine neighborhoods of Östermalm and Gärdet, to which regular hoods like Christer Pettersson would never dream of going.”

  “More or less,” said Holt.

  Considering the story up till then, if he had been following his victim, he could not set out in a car of his own. It didn’t seem likely that he had an accomplice who picked him up either, considering that the whole thing happened before the age of cell phones. He had to manage by himself, and because he was logical and rational, he headed in the wrong direction. The right direction for him but wrong for everyone who was searching for him. He avoided the blocks around City that would be crawling with police officers right after the murder, both down in the subway and up on the street.

  “The problem was that they weren’t doing that,” said Johansson, sighing. “The few who were there were running around like decapitated chickens up around Malmskillnadsgatan.”

  “But he didn’t know that,” Holt objected. “They ought to have been down in City, and if you’re rational then you are.

  “It was the other night,” Holt explained. “Suddenly I happened to think about what Mijailo Mijailovic did when he’d murdered Foreign Minister Anna Lindh.”

  “Instead of heading down to City and risking running into all the officers there, he walked calmly and quietly down to Strandvägen and Östermalm,” said Johansson, nodding.

  “There he took a taxi, which then took him all the way home to the southern suburbs where people like him usually live,” Holt observed. “He did the exact right thing. Regardless of how crazy he might have been.”

  “I don’t believe in any taxi in this case,” said Johansson, shaking his head. “All the regular taxi drivers were checked, and if he’d taken an unlicensed cab the reward would surely have enticed the driver who picked him up.”

  “I agree with you,” said Holt. “Besides, I think he returned to Östermalm or Gärdet because he left from there,” she said. “It’s worth trying in any case,” she added.

  “Sure,” said Johansson and sighed. “Stockholm must be crawling with tips if you just go looking.”

  What’s happening? thought Holt. What’s happened to Johansson?

  “Lars,” said Holt. “I don’t recognize you. What happened to embracing the situation?”

  “It’s actually your fault, Anna,” said Johansson, and suddenly he looked like usual again.

  “Tell me,” said Holt.

  “The witness Madeleine Nilsson,” said Johansson. “I got extremely depressed when I read what she said. It was during the first twenty-four hours in Sweden’s largest murder investigation that she said it, and today it is twenty-one years and six months since she said it. Naturally I can’t swear it was the perpetrator she saw, but in any case I wouldn’t have dismissed her like that prize fool of a fellow officer did. Assume that it turned out it was as she said?” Johansson gave Holt an assessing glance.

  “I’m still listening.” Holt nodded.

  “I won’t put on airs,” said Johansson, “but in that case I can promise you that Bo Jarnebring and I and all the other officers from that time, the ones who knew what they were doing, the ones who had done it all the times before, we would have rooted out the bastard.”

  “I see what you mean,” said Holt.

  “Damn that Lewin,” said Johansson with sudden vehemence as he stood up suddenly. “Diligent as hell, almost absurdly meticulous, and an excellent head on his shoulders. What use is it to him if he’s too cowardly to use it? Why the hell did someone like that become a cop?”

  “Don’t get worked up, Lars,” said Holt. I understand what you mean. You’re not particularly like Jan Lewin, and it’s nice that he didn’t hear what you just said, she thought.

  “I’ll try,” Johansson muttered. “See you on Wednesday. Then I want the name of the bastard.”

  Police Superintendent Anna Holt, age forty-seven, devoted the weekend to physical exercise, and when she returned to her apartment on Sunday after a two-hour workout she faced the same alternative-free existence she had been lamenting all summer long. Is it my bathroom mirror there’s something wrong with? Is there something wrong with me? Or is there something wrong with guys? thought Holt.

  The most startling thing that had happened while she was running like a rabbit in the terrain around the police academy was that her son, Nicke, age twenty-four, had left a message on her voice mail.

  For the past week Nicke had been in the archipelago with “the greatest woman in the whole universe.” The life he was now living was “phat,” and to top it off the greatest woman in the universe also owned the “coolest” place in the whole Stockholm archipelago. “What do you mean pool? Ma! We’re talking pools here!”

  Besides, her “pears,” her parents that is, had had the good taste to head into town almost as soon as their only daughter showed up with her new boyfriend. “Can’t describe it, really,” said Nicke.

  Pears. Wonder if the girl has a name, thought Anna Holt, scrolling to the next message for the answer.

  “Her name is Sara, by the way,” said Nicke, and that was that.

  There is at least one person who seems to be happy, thought Holt, and without really understanding how it happened she phoned Jan Lewin at home and asked if he wanted to have dinner. Just a sudden impulse. A result of Johansson’s outburst or simply that she had nothing better going on?

  “Have dinner,” said Lewin guardedly when he finally answered after the sixth ring.

  “Dinner at my place,” said Holt. “So we can talk in peace and quiet,” she clarified. You know, dinner, that meal you eat before you go to bed, and if I said that I bet you’d die on the spot, she thought.

  “Sounds nice,” said Lewin. “Do you want me to bring anything?”

  “Just bring yourself. I have just about everything,” said Holt.

  Because I do, she thought an hour later as she stood frying shrimp and scallops for the salad she intended to serve.

  Wonder if she likes me? thought Jan Lewin as he exited the subway in Huvudsta.

  “I’ve been thinking about one thing, Jan,” said Anna Holt three hours later. You won’t get a better chance than this, she thought. The first bottle of wine was lying in state in the garbage can out in the kitchen. The second was on the table between them, half empty. She had curled up on the couch, and Jan Lewin was sitting in her favorite chair and appeared both inexplicably calm and generally satisfied with existence.

  “Well,” said Lewin.

  Not the usual throat clearing, thought Holt. Only a faint smile and a curious expression in his eyes. He should take care of those eyes. If he could just remove the fear from them, I would throw myself flat on my back, she thought.

  “All those details you’re so precise about,” said Holt. So now it’s finally said, she thought.

  “You’re not the first to wonder,” said Lewin. No throat clearing now either, only the same faint smile. Same brown eyes, although without fear, without guardedness.

  “Yes,” said Holt.

  “A year ago I actually went to a psychiatrist,” said Lewin. “It was the first time in my life, but I was feeling so bad that I had no choice.”

  “This stays between us,” said Holt.

  “That doctor was an excellent person,” said Lewin. “A very insightful person, a kind person, and if nothing else I learned a good deal about myself. Among other things, about the carefulness. The anxiety-conditioned carefulness that annoys all the other officers.”

  “Not me,” said Holt. “I’m not annoyed by it. But I have wondered about it.” Let me tell you, and it would be strange if I hadn’t, she thought.

  “I know,” said Lewin seriously. “I know you don’t get annoyed.” Otherwise I wouldn’t have come here, he thought.

  “So what causes it?” said Holt.

  “Do you want the short or the long version?” asked Lewin.

  “The long one,” said Holt. “If you don’t think it’s too trying, of course.�
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  “It’s trying,” said Lewin. “Both the short and the long versions, but I can talk about it. Though I never have before.” Never with another officer, he thought. “You’ll get the long version,” said Lewin.

  Then he told her.

  The summer that Jan Lewin turned seven and after he got his first bicycle, his father died of cancer. First he taught Jan how to ride, and when he finally could his father let go and died of cancer.

  “It was as if the bottom went out of me in some strange way,” said Lewin. “Dad took all my security with him when he disappeared.”

  Only Jan and his mother remained. No siblings. Only Jan and his mother, and because the bottom had fallen out for her too, her entire life revolved around Jan.

  “It’s not easy having a mother who does everything for you. That’s probably the best way to get a guilty conscience about everything and everyone,” Lewin observed.

  Most likely that was also why he mostly felt relieved when she too died of cancer. Yes, it really was that way. He was mostly relieved. The bad conscience about her death had only come later.

  Jan Lewin was twenty, just starting at the police academy, and Holt thought it was time for her first question. Why did he choose to become a police officer?

  “I’m not sure,” said Lewin. His father had a cousin who’d been a policeman. Not a replacement father figure, definitely not, but he’d been in touch on a regular basis, and he’d been there the times when he was really needed. He was a nice guy, Lewin summarized.

  But most of all he talked himself red in the face about how Jan should become a policeman. It was the obvious occupation for every decent, honorable fellow who cared about right and justice and other people. Decent, honorable people who didn’t wish anyone anything bad. Such as himself, or like Jan’s mother, father, and Jan. Added to that, there was the camaraderie. Police officers always stood up for one another. Just like all those near and dear in a big, happy family.