Free Falling, As If in a Dream Read online

  “As they pass the intersection to Tunnelgatan, with only a few yards left to the stairs down to the subway, the perpetrator suddenly appears behind their backs. He raises his weapon, and with only a few inches between the mouth of the barrel and his victim he fires the first shot at Olof Palme. It hits him in the middle of his back, at the level of his shoulder blades, and the prime minister falls headlong onto the sidewalk. His wife sees him suddenly lying there, looks at him, the murderer fires his second shot at her just as she twists her body and sinks down to her knees beside her husband.

  “Now the time is twenty-one minutes and thirty seconds past eleven. Give or take ten seconds, for it will never be more precise than that, and in any event a fact of minor significance considering what just happened. The murderer observes the two on the sidewalk for a few seconds. Turns around and disappears into the darkness on Tunnelgatan.”

  And out of the story, thought Anna Holt. The only reasonable explanation must be that he followed them when they left the cinema. When they crossed Sveavägen at Adolf Fredriks Kyrkogata, the cross street before Tunnelgatan, he went on ahead of them, crossed the street, took a short cut ahead of them and waited at the next corner. It’s no more conspiratorial than that, she thought. Despite all the pages à la Jan Lewin with all conceivable conditions, reservations, and alternatives.

  Where does all this anxiety come from? she thought suddenly. A good-looking guy, slim, in good shape, true, over fifty, but he looks at least ten years younger, and when he’s with the rest of us he behaves completely normally. Polite, maybe a little too reserved, but completely normal in contrast to our beloved boss, the Genius from Näsåker, thought Anna Holt. An attractive man harboring very strong inner anxiety. Why is that? she thought.

  12

  Johansson returned to them after twenty minutes, and what he had really been doing was unclear. It couldn’t have been getting coffee, because his secretary had just brought it in. It was somewhat strange. As soon as Holt was done reading and pushed the papers aside, he suddenly came in and sat down, in just as good a mood as when he left them, judging by the expression on his face. I guess he can see around corners, she thought. From the couch in his office where he was probably lying down the whole time.

  “Okay,” said Johansson. “Thanks, Jan. A model of clarity,” he added. And way the hell too long, he thought.

  “I have a number of questions, so Lisa it would be good if you could take a few notes for us. And please pass the coffee around,” he continued, nodding at Holt. “Where was I now?”

  “You have some questions,” Holt reminded him. How can it be that I suddenly recognize myself? she thought.

  “Exactly,” said Johansson. “It’s the movie theater. When did he decide that, actually, and how many knew that he was going out to gad about town in the middle of the night on a Friday after payday, among all the drunks, glowworms, and common hoods? To me he seems almost a little suicidally inclined. What do you say, Lewin?”

  “Well,” said Lewin, squirming uncomfortably. “I’ve gotten an impression that his security awareness was significantly greater than has been generally thought, and according to the interviews this was decided very late. About eight o’clock in the evening. According to the interviews with his wife and son, that’s how it supposedly went in any event,” he said.

  “The colleagues at SePo then,” Johansson persisted. “Did he say anything to them?”

  “Not according to the interviews,” Lewin replied. “According to the interviews he states that he would spend the remainder of the day at his office and the evening at home in his residence together with his wife. Not a word about going to the movies or any other errands in town either for that matter.”

  “Were they asked that question?” said Johansson.

  “It doesn’t show up in the interviews,” said Lewin. “It may be because they’re in summary, of course, and no one thought to include it in the transcript.” I would have asked that question anyway, considering what happened, he thought, but of course he hadn’t. Not twenty years later and considering that his colleagues at that time hopefully thought like he did.

  “But that’s not the way it works if someone like him is going to the movies,” Johansson persisted. “Think about it now. He and his wife must have talked about it, don’t you think? I mean, someone like him must have had lots to do, and going to the movies isn’t something you think of right before it’s time to go, is it?”

  “I don’t really understand where you’re heading, boss,” said Holt. Maybe it’s your view of people, she thought. You and your own little world populated by drunks, glowworms, and common hoods.

  “What I mean is simply the following,” said Johansson. “Assume that he’d said something along those lines. That he and his wife perhaps wanted to take a short swing into town and see the family but that he wanted to be left in peace for once. Not have a lot of police officers from SePo staring over his shoulder. Now, if he’d said something like that, or only hinted at it or left the possibility open, is it likely, considering what happened, I mean, that the ones who had responsibility for him would mention that particular detail in an interview? Do you understand what I mean, Anna? That it wasn’t only drunks, glowworms, and common hoods that someone like him had reason to be worried about?”

  “You mean that someone at SePo would have let the cat out of the bag and it reached the wrong ears,” said Holt. Sometimes you’re a little creepy, she thought.

  “It wouldn’t have to come from there at all,” said Johansson, shrugging his shoulders. “He had lots of co-workers he talked with all the time. That special adviser he had as a henchman, for example, who sat in the same corridor in Rosenbad and was mostly occupied with various security issues. All his buddies at work. What are you and the little woman thinking about doing this weekend? We might see a movie. Maybe have a bite to eat in town. I see then. Well, you know how these things go,” said Johansson. “That’s how we humans are. We talk about things all the time. I never met Palme, but I get the idea that’s how he was when he was comfortable and feeling good. A cheerful companion who talked about this and that with people he trusted.”

  He’s probably completely right, thought Mattei. However you confirm that twenty years later.

  “So you mean that such knowledge might have reached the wrong ears rather late, that it wasn’t particularly precise, and that the planning of the murder came after that,” said Mattei.

  “Exactly,” said Johansson. There’s no limit to how far that little string bean can go, he thought. She’s also female, so she’ll probably get a thirty percent discount in the bargain.

  “A slightly more spontaneous and modest conspiracy theory,” said Holt, who sounded saucier than she intended.

  “That’s what I’m saying,” said Johansson, who did not seem to have taken offense. “You should know, Anna, that I have nothing against conspiracy theories. The problem with most of them is only that they’re so over-the-top conspiratorial, not to mention completely flat-out wrong, which in turn stems from the fact that the people who think them up are seldom operating on all cylinders. A quite different point is that when someone like Palme is murdered—I’m not talking about celebrities like John Lennon—then the usual explanation is a conspiracy in his vicinity. It’s seldom anything remarkable. But even so it is a conspiracy, with more than one person involved who has special knowledge of their victim. The solitary madman is only the second most common explanation. True, it is almost as common, but if we take those two alternatives away then there’s almost nothing left. Not all conspiracies are crazy. There are plenty that are reasonable, logical, and completely rational, if it’s the execution we’re talking about.”

  “None of the witnesses who were questioned are said to have made any observations that indicate that the Palmes might have been under surveillance when they left their residence in the evening,” said Lewin. “During and after the cinema, on the other hand, there are several witnesses who observed at leas
t one mysterious man who was in the vicinity of the Grand cinema and the Palmes and may have followed them. But I understand what you mean, boss,” he added quickly. “Assuming that the surveillance was sufficiently competent, such a person might have avoided detection.”

  “Exactly.” Johansson emphasized with a satisfied nod. “A horrifying number of years ago when I was working as a detective down in Stockholm we had a saying—”

  “See but don’t be seen,” Holt interrupted, having also worked in the detective squad with the Stockholm police. With the legend Bo Jarnebring, Johansson’s best friend.

  “So you know that, Anna,” said Johansson. “Think about it,” he added suddenly. “There was another thing—”

  “But wait now,” said Holt. “Assume that it is as you say. Why didn’t he shoot them earlier in that case? In some dark alley in Old Town. Not on the subway, maybe, because there were lots of people and it would be basically impossible to escape from there.”

  “Maybe he never got an opportunity,” said Johansson. “It might have been that a patrol car glided by on a cross street and that was enough for him to change his mind. Or someone approached. Or he simply didn’t have time.”

  “I think he saw them by chance as they went into the theater, or perhaps even when they left,” said Holt.

  “Personally I don’t believe in chance.” Johansson shook his head. “That he would have seen them as they came out of the theater I don’t believe for an instant. A crazy hooligan who hates Palme beyond all reason and happens to be walking around with a loaded revolver in his coat pocket the size of a suckling pig. That just such a person would get such an opportunity? No, I don’t believe that.”

  “If he saw them before the movie started he would have had two hours to arrange that detail with the weapon,” Holt persevered, who didn’t intend to give in. “There are also several witness statements that can be interpreted in that direction—that at least one mysterious figure remained in the vicinity of the Grand cinema while the Palmes were sitting inside.”

  “Possibly,” said Johansson, shrugging. “Although I don’t think much of the mysterious man and those particular witnesses. Regardless of whether it was Christer Pettersson or any of his brothers in misfortune these people might have seen.”

  “Okay,” said Holt, raising her hands in a deprecating gesture. A final attempt, she thought.

  “Let’s assume it is as you say,” she continued. “A completely different and more competent person than someone like Christer Pettersson, not a solitary madman, that is, has found out that the victim and his wife will leave their residence to go to the movies…”

  “Yes, or out on the town in general terms,” Johansson interjected.

  “He follows them from their residence in Old Town, for various reasons doesn’t get the chance before they are inside the cinema, and there are lots of people there so he can’t do anything there. Instead he waits for them until they come out. Follows them, takes the opportunity to get ahead of them when they cross to the other side of Sveavägen, places himself in ambush and shoots them in the intersection at Tunnelgatan.”

  “Couldn’t have put it better myself,” said Johansson.

  “But why in the name of sense does he choose to do it in such a stupid place?”

  “Best place in the world if you ask me,” said Johansson. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be sitting here. The bastard went up in smoke.”

  “I hear what you’re saying,” said Holt. I wonder how many times our various colleagues have sat and bickered about this case? she thought.

  “Good,” said Johansson. “Which naturally leads us to the next question. Where did he go? I think we can all agree that he didn’t go up in smoke.”

  13

  The perpetrator had not “gone up in smoke.”

  He had “half run,” “trotted,” “lumbered,” or “jogged” down Tunnelgatan in the direction of the stairs up to Malmskillnadsgatan. The word choice varied in the different witness statements, but the majority were at least in agreement on the essentials. In total there were almost thirty witnesses who had seen him, the entire act, parts of it, or what happened right afterward.

  How the perpetrator runs down Tunnelgatan. On the left side of the street, seen from Sveavägen. How he runs “straddle legged” between the sidewalk and street. How he puts the weapon into the right pocket of his jacket, or coat, as he runs.

  Nor did he have any choice. On the right side are construction site trailers, so he can’t get out there. There’s no use thinking about running out on Sveavägen because there are swarms of people and cars and there’s no place to go. Down on Tunnelgatan, apparently deserted, and in any event no one who can threaten him, into the darkness, up the stairs and away. He already knows all this, and he also knows that as an escape route it can’t be better.

  “How long does it take, Lewin,” asked Johansson, “running at a leisurely pace down Tunnelgatan from the crime scene and up the stairs to Malmskillnadsgatan? At a leisurely pace?”

  “You have that on page seventeen in my memo, boss,” said Lewin, starting to leaf through the pages.

  “Refresh my poor memory,” said Johansson. Preferably today, he thought.

  It was a full sixty yards from the crime scene over to the stairs. Then fifty yards on the stairs up to Malmskillnadsgatan. A total of more than a hundred yards with a change in elevation of more than forty-five feet. At an easy running pace, according to the reconstructions that had been done, it would take between fifty and sixty seconds.

  For someone like me, assuming I dash for all I’m worth, thought Johansson, who preferred to walk when he went out to get some exercise.

  “And if you’re running for all you’re worth?”

  “Max thirty seconds for a person in good shape,” said Lewin. “According to our witnesses he ran rather slowly at first, but how fast he was running when he got to the stairs we know less about. There we have only one witness, and his testimony is not completely unambiguous. There’s also some uncertainty about how much the witnesses actually might have seen. Other than that he was running up the stairs, for on that point at least our main witnesses seem rather sure.”

  “Perhaps I should add,” said Lewin after a careful glance at his boss, “that we have no technical observations. True, there were patches of snow and ice on the sidewalk, the curb, and the street, but no footprints or other clues were secured that might give us an estimate of his stride.”

  “No, that wasn’t done,” said Johansson, leaning back and clasping his hands over his stomach.

  “Admittedly the head of the tech squad and a couple of his co-workers were on the scene about an hour after the murder, but considering the situation that then prevailed at the crime scene it was decided not to carry out any such measures. They were judged to be futile.

  “So they went home instead. To the little woman and a warm house, because it was Friday night after all,” Johansson observed. Damn lazy asses, he thought.

  “Yes, unfortunately they did,” said Lewin. “The thing about him running straddle-legged, trotting a little, there are three different witnesses who describe it that way.”

  “Yes,” said Johansson.

  “I think he did that to keep from slipping,” said Lewin. “But we haven’t secured any clues to confirm that.”

  It was completely incomprehensible, he thought. Just leaving a crime scene unattended like that. But who was he to criticize his colleagues in the tech squad, considering that he’d been lying in his own bed at home and as usual hadn’t been able to fall asleep until two o’clock in the morning. He had been awakened before six the next morning when his immediate supervisor called and reported that the prime minister had been murdered the evening before, and now it was a matter of embracing the situation and reporting immediately for duty.

  “So what happens next?” asked Johansson.

  According to Lewin the following happened.

  The perpetrator ran diagonally across Brunkebergsåsen with
a few dodges along the way to mislead anyone following.

  “This was the initial understanding among the police about the perpetrator’s escape route,” said Lewin. “This was decided on rather early. After having shot the prime minister, he runs down Tunnelgatan, up the stairs to Malmskillnadsgatan, continues straight ahead across Malmskillnadsgatan, and on down David Bagares gata. After about a hundred yards on David Bagares gata he veers off to the left onto Regeringsgatan and thus disappears in a northerly direction. Where he goes then is less clear, but according to the prevailing understanding he must have veered off to the right after another hundred yards of double time on Regeringsgatan and taken Snickarbacken down to Smala gränd. After that he emerged on Birger Jarlsgatan at the corner by the park, Humlegården that is. It’s about five hundred yards from the crime scene, and at the pace he’s moving he ought to have managed it in about three minutes.”

  “So how do we know that?”

  “We have five different witnesses,” said Lewin. “In a kind of chain of witnesses, if you like, although the various links are a little iffy. Whatever, that’s the escape route that was already decided on within a week, and that’s also the one the officers who did the crime analysis and perpetrator’s profile seem to have accepted. The alternatives are countless of course within five hundred yards from the crime scene. But…” Lewin shrugged his shoulders.

  A chain of witnesses with five links, and just like all other chains it was as strong as the weakest link.

  First there were a number of witnesses who had seen him disappear down Tunnelgatan. All were touchingly in agreement about this, and that escape route was also the only one imaginable, considering how it looked at the scene. After only forty yards he disappeared from their field of vision and all that was left is the chain with five links.