Free Falling, As If in a Dream Read online

  Six bulging binders on Åke Victor Gunnarsson, but nothing compared to the material that dealt with the so-called Kurd track, or PKK track, which evidently occupied almost two hundred police officers full-time during the first years of the Palme investigation.

  The idea that the PKK, Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, or Kurdistan Workers’ Party, could have murdered the prime minister seemed to have made a deep impression on the leadership during the first week of the investigation. The original material came from officers with the secret police who had reason to be interested in the organization in a completely different context. During the two preceding years, PKK had been behind a total of three murders and one attempted murder in Sweden and Denmark, crimes aimed at defectors from the organization, but apart from a certain superficial similarity in approach, it was almost a mystery why they also would have attacked the Swedish prime minister.

  PKK was known for murdering defectors and infiltrators in their own ranks. Not for attacking Western politicians and least of all the prime minister of Sweden, a politician and a country that was kindly disposed to the Kurdish liberation struggle and had offered political asylum to a large number of Kurdish refugees.

  During the latter part of July 1986 the investigation leadership decided that PKK “with high probability was behind the murder of the prime minister.” Several meetings were held on the topic, and in one of the many binders Mattei found detailed minutes from the investigation leadership’s own management team, in which their conviction was put on paper.

  During the following six months the Kurd track, or PKK track, would also constitute the so-called Main track. All according to the top boss’s own terminology, and for Lisa Mattei it was a mystery in a factual sense. Regardless, at that time, twenty years ago, all their resources had basically been directed at this track, and the whole thing ended with a real bang.

  Early on the morning of January 20, 1987, investigation leader Holmér conducted a major operation. Twenty-some Kurds were seized, several house searches were made, and many things were confiscated. Already after a few hours the prosecutors started releasing the majority of those whom the police had deprived of liberty, all the confiscations were revoked within a few days, and the two individuals who were arrested were released after a week.

  It was a scandal. Holmér was fired as investigation leader and resigned as police chief. The responsibility for the investigation was turned over to the prosecutor, and the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation was given the task of supplying him with the police officers needed to take care of the practical aspects. The Kurd track had suddenly simply ended. All that remained twenty years later were almost a hundred binders of papers plus a number of boxes that held things that were hard to stuff into binders.

  Sigh and moan, thought Mattei, even though she seldom thought that way.

  But there were other things too. All the crazy tips, for example. Another hundred binders and thousands of tips, mostly about particular perpetrators who could have murdered Olof Palme. This was also the essential reason that the investigation’s list of such persons—suspects of all kinds, provided on various grounds, pointed out with no grounds, the result of pure premonitions and vibrations in the informant’s head—amounted to almost ten thousand named individuals. In the majority of cases the reports went straight into the binder without the police showing the least interest in them.

  Let’s sincerely hope it’s not one of them, thought Mattei self-righteously.

  Remaining were all the tracks that had the good taste to fit into a smaller number of binders. Often one or two were enough for these tracks, and the maximum was five. It was also here that there seemed to be political, ideological, or more generally visible ambitions. Here were leads that concerned South Africa, the Iraq/Iran conflict alias the Iran/Iraq conflict, the “Middle East including Israel,” “India/Pakistan” alias the “Indian weapons affair” alias the “Bofors affair.”

  Here were other leads that dealt with various “terrorists” or “violent organizations” all the way from the Baader-Meinhof Gang, the Red Brigades, Black September, and Ustašha to the crew-cut talents in KSS, Keep Sweden Swedish, and the old disgruntled socialists who were said to form the backbone of We Who Built Sweden.

  Here too were organizations and individuals who should have known better or at least shown mercy to the victim. Government security agencies in the Balkans, in South Africa and various dictatorships and banana republics, as well as the USA’s own CIA. Military personnel and ordinary Swedish police officers, various intimates, acquaintances, and former work and party comrades. There was even a subfile that dealt with members of the victim’s own family.

  The family track, thought Lisa Mattei. For some reason she thought of her mother, who had worked as a police superintendent at the secret police for more than twenty years.

  Here there was literally something for everyone, and as far as the factual basis for the political speculations was concerned, Mattei believed it seemed consistent enough. Mysterious informants who claimed to have a secret past, various revelations in the media, former TV journalists with psychiatric diagnoses plus all the regular nutcases who figured in the public debate. Otherwise little or nothing.

  The most concrete contributions Mattei found were the travelogues that various Palme investigators had turned in over the years. Assuming that the clues led in the direction of warmer regions and the season was right, a number of leads had been investigated on-site.

  Unfortunately and in all cases without result, but at least the foreign colleagues seemed to have taken good care of their Swedish visitors.

  It’s always something, thought Lisa Mattei.

  Most of all, however, it was all about the “Palme assassin” Christer Pettersson. During two periods of several years combined, the investigation seemed to have been mainly about him. It began the summer of 1988 and ran through to the end of the following year, when he was freed by the Svea Court of Appeal. Then there was a period of relative calm lasting several years, up until 1993 when preparations were made for a petition for a new trial to rehear the acquittal decision.

  The petition was submitted in December 1997, and in May of the following year a unanimous Supreme Court rejected it. Three years ago Pettersson himself had departed earthly life, and regardless of what he might have had to bring to the investigation, he took it with him to the grave.

  The Palme investigation’s material had been packed up in boxes for years. For several years before that, a dozen investigators in the group were primarily occupied with completely different tasks. Once a week they would meet, have coffee, and talk about their case. About things that had happened before, about old colleagues who had died or retired, about Christer Pettersson, who was still the most common topic of conversation at the table.

  And soon they’ll all be dead, thought Mattei, who was only eleven years old at the time when Sweden’s prime minister was murdered.

  9

  Despite all that had happened on Thursday, Johansson was still looking forward to a quiet weekend. His exemplary clear and unqualified denial on all the major TV stations ought to have made some impression even on the nitwits working at the country’s largest newspaper.

  His message seemed to have taken hold in the other media. They’d stopped calling to ask about the Palme investigation anyway. Not so at Dagens Nyheter. On Friday morning his digestion was already disturbed at breakfast by a long editorial with the thought-provoking title “Police Force in Decline.” Obviously unsigned, as usual when things were really bad.

  Must be one of those angry women who work there, thought Johansson.

  If matters were as the head of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation maintained—previous experience had taught the writer that nothing someone like Johansson said should ever be taken for granted, least of all when it concerned the assassination of Olof Palme—the situation was obviously even worse than the newspaper had feared.

  The Palme investigation had si
mply been closed down in secret, even though it concerned perhaps the most important event in postwar Sweden. The case files were packed up in boxes in silence, and the investigators assigned to solve the case had been working on completely different matters. Highly placed prosecutors and police officers had apparently intended to hide this police fiasco in their own basement.

  Soon the murder of Olof Palme would pass the statute of limitations. After that the case files would be classified as secret for many years. On that point DN had no doubts whatsoever. The only obvious, definitive conclusion was that it was high time for the government to appoint a new review commission with representatives from all parties in parliament and citizens who had the confidence of the general public. The choice of a chairperson was also a given according to the newspaper, namely the chancellor of justice who, according to Johansson and his colleagues, had made a name for himself by his constant lamentations over the police department’s deficient diligence, sense of order, and morals.

  A fate worse than death, thought Lars Martin Johansson, and he was thinking about himself, not the prime minister who was the victim of an unsolved murder that disturbed Johansson’s sense of order.

  When he arrived at work it was time for the next variation on the same theme. According to his secretary, Chief Inspector Flykt “insisted” he had to see his boss immediately.

  “Okay,” he said. “You can send the SOB in.”

  Chief Inspector Flykt did not seem happy. He was even noticeably nervous, his face flushed beneath the otherwise becoming suntan.

  “Sit yourself down, Flykt,” Johansson grunted, nodding curtly at his visitor’s chair. Comfortably curled up in his own chair, his hands clasped over his belly, wearing a heavy facial expression. Stop behaving like a fucking first-time offender, he thought.

  “What can I help you with?”

  Problems, according to Flykt. Two different problems, although there was a connection between them of course.

  “I’m listening,” said Johansson, picking at his left nostril with his large right thumb in search of unbecoming strands of hair.

  The people at Dagens Nyheter were obviously refusing to give up. Despite the boss’s exemplary clarifying denials, they were still lurking in the bushes. Flykt had personally noticed clear signs.

  “Of course,” said Johansson. “What did you expect? We’ll just have to live with it. Rooting out who let their mouths run loose is out of the question. I guess you know that as well as I do?”

  Obviously not. Flykt knew that too, but the situation was both worrisome and—

  “Forget about DN now,” interrupted Johansson. “They’ll get tired of this as soon as they find some other place to spread their usual dung. What was the other thing?”

  “The other thing?” said Flykt with surprise.

  “You had two problems,” Johansson clarified. “What’s the other one? The one that was supposed to be tied up with the first one? That’s what you said a minute ago if I remember correctly.”

  Of course, of course, and the boss would have to be patient with him if he seemed a little confused. The thing was that for the past twenty-four hours he and his colleagues had been subjected to a veritable bombardment from the various informants and private detectives who had made up their primary workload since the Supreme Court had rejected the petition for a new trial against Pettersson.

  In later years most of them seemed to have calmed down, but Johansson had managed to bring them back to life again.

  “Yes, that is, not you, boss, but that unfortunate article in DN,” said Flykt. “Right should be right,” he added for some reason.

  “The usual bag ladies who send dog shit and old bullet casings they maintain they’ve secured at the crime scene,” said Johansson, grinning.

  “Yes,” said Flykt. “And all the messages of course.”

  According to Flykt the switchboard had been pretty much jammed. In addition letters were pouring in, and officers careless enough to give out their cell phone numbers were being texted. The mailroom had called to complain. With loads of parcels coming in, their bomb and shit indicators were on overdrive. The internal security department had already issued ten reports related to threats against the officials who were forced to take care of the misery.

  “You’ll have to excuse me,” said Johansson. “But I still don’t understand the problem.” Throw away the shit and blame the post office if worse comes to worst, he thought.

  Flykt’s problem was very simple. He lacked the manpower to record, register, evaluate, and analyze this new flood of tips. Normally there were twelve investigators including Flykt, as well as his secretary and another half-time assistant. Right now there were fewer than that. Half of the force was on vacation or had comp time off. Two were at a course in Canada. Three were in the Canary Islands to help with the identification of the Swedish victims of a big hotel fire that had happened ten days earlier. Remaining were Flykt himself, his secretary, and a female colleague who was on half-time sick leave for mental burnout.

  “Suggestions?” said Johansson, leaning forward and training his eyes on Flykt. “How do you want me to help you?” Whine, whine, whine, he thought.

  Flykt took a run at it. Just a random idea. Could Holt, Lewin, and Mattei possibly take care of the registration until his own personnel returned to the building and could take over?

  “Absolutely not,” said Johansson. “How would that look? They’re doing an administrative overview of your procedures for data handling. How could they get involved in your investigative work? That woman at the prosecutor’s office wouldn’t be happy if she could hear you now, Yngve.”

  “You have no other suggestions, boss?”

  “Throw the shit away,” said Johansson. “Blame it on the post office if anyone complains.”

  The rest of Johansson’s day passed in a relatively normal, dignified manner.

  Right before he was to go home Mattei requested admittance, and because Johansson was lying on his office couch and had already started thinking about what he would have for dinner, he was basically his usual contented self when his secretary sent her in.

  “Sit yourself down, Lisa,” said Johansson, indicating the nearest chair with his arm. “How are things going for you anyway?”

  “You mean with the administrative overview of the Palme material,” said Mattei.

  “Exactly,” said Johansson. “Have you found the bastard who did it yet?” Clever girl, he thought. A little like Nancy Drew.

  No. Mattei had not found the perpetrator. On the other hand she had a reasonable understanding of why no one else had either. Besides, she was basically done now with what the case files contained.

  “In general terms,” Mattei clarified. “The direction and structure itself, if I may say so.”

  “So you say,” said Johansson. You little string bean, he thought.

  “I thought about trying out an idea on you, boss.”

  “Shoot,” said Johansson.

  “I was thinking about proposing a small sociological investigation,” said Mattei.

  True, Johansson had nodded, but Mattei noted the faint shift in his gray eyes.

  A small sociological investigation in which she simply interviewed the officers who for all those years had been involved in the hunt for Palme’s murderer. Those who were still alive and could be talked with. She would simply ask them about who they thought had done it and why the investigation went the way it did.

  “You don’t think this is waking a sleeping bear?” Johansson objected, suddenly recalling the morning’s editorial.

  On the contrary, Mattei responded. If the assignment really consisted of creating better procedures for processing this gigantic amount of material, then that necessarily required some kind of overarching assessment of it. Who would be better suited to express an opinion on the matter than the ones who’d been doing the job all these years?

  “I see what you mean,” said Johansson with a drawl.

  “Personally
I’d be flattered if I were in their shoes,” she added.

  Not you, he thought. Not me either. But almost all the others.

  “Sounds good,” said Johansson. “I’ll buy it. Say the word if you need help with anything practical.”

  10

  Johansson’s first week after vacation ended just as well as it had begun, and he decided to forget all the nonsense in between. On Friday evening he procured leave from socializing with his wife to have dinner instead with his best friend, now working at the county investigation bureau in Stockholm as acting head of investigations, Chief Inspector Bo Jarnebring. The Greatest of the Old Owls.

  “That works perfectly,” said Pia. “I have to check in on Dad if we’re going away for the weekend. Say hi to Bo and don’t drink too much.”

  “I promise,” Johansson lied.

  Johansson and Jarnebring met at the “usual place.” The Italian restaurant five minutes’ walk from his apartment that had been his favorite place for over twenty years. He was a frequent guest, a generous guest, an honored guest, but also one who had left his mark. For several years now he could have his favorite aquavit from his own crystal shot glass, of which he’d brought over a dozen. And enjoy various Italian variations on old Swedish classics like anchovy hash, potato pancakes, and grilled herring besides.

  “You look fit, Lars. I think you may have lost a few pounds,” said Jarnebring, as soon as they’d dispensed with the introductory greetings and sat down at the usual table in a secluded corner where, according to established police custom, they could talk in peace and keep an eye on anyone coming and going.

  “Depends on what you mean by a few,” said Johansson with poorly concealed pride. “According to the bathroom scale we’re talking double digits.”

  “You’re not sick, are you? I got a little worried when I read the paper the other day and saw you’d appointed a new Palme investigation. Thought you had a little touch of Alzheimer’s.”