Another Time, Another Life (21 page)

“You shouldn’t exaggerate the level of difficulty,” said Tischler. “Up to this point in the eighties the companies on the Swedish stock exchange have increased in value by almost a thousand percent. That’s what you would have earned if you had closed your eyes and thrown a dart at the stock exchange list. Personally I usually squint a little with one eye,” said Tischler, “so those companies that we’ve worked with here at the firm have doubtless improved on that.”

Why am I not a buddy of this man? thought Bäckström with genuine regret.

“Kjell was a rather frugal type, if I may say so,” Tischler continued, grinning. “When he came to me about ten years ago he had scraped together ten, twenty thousand that he had in a savings account—watch out for savings accounts, by the way, because they’re pure robbery. I loaned him some money and bought a few shares for him. Of course he had to leave those as security—and then I guess it has just rolled on from there. We have bank confidentiality at this place, but if you just pick up the papers from the prosecutor, I’ll tell my coworkers to give you a proper analysis of his finances.”

It would be better if you loaned me some money and gave me some good tips, thought Bäckström, and for a brief moment he even thought about asking Tischler flat out.

“That probably won’t be necessary,” he said instead. “It’s not that he’s suspected of anything.”

“It’s never a mistake to have a little money,” Tischler grunted, looking as though he knew what he was talking about. “You and I both know what women cost … and without knowing about it in detail—I haven’t seen this with my own eyes—then I imagine that if one were to prefer little boys in sailor suits that’s not free either.”

Fucking nice guy, thought Bäckström, who almost forgot to ask the customary routine question about Tischler’s alibi until Tischler himself reminded him.

“Well then,” said Tischler, looking at his watch. “It was nice to meet you, even if the reason is sad to say the least.… So if you don’t have anything else, I have a few things to take care of. There’s a lot of money out there that I have to place in the right hands,” said Tischler, winking.

A purely formal matter, and Bäckström truly hoped that Tischler would not take offense. What kind of alibi did he have for Thursday evening the thirtieth of November?

“That was when those damned hooligans tried to tear down the city,” Tischler declared. “I read about it in the newspapers the following day. I was in London the whole day. I flew home the morning after. If you speak with my secretary she can give you the details.”

At the meeting of the investigation group that afternoon Holt reported what she, Jarnebring, and the meritorious Gunsan had produced about
the victim Kjell Eriksson’s background. For the sake of simplicity Holt had compiled half a page with the most important information, which she handed out to all those present.

“Well then,” said Holt, looking around. “This is in brief what Gun, Bo, and I have been able to produce about Eriksson’s background. If anyone has any questions I will gladly answer them.”

No one had any particular questions, so Bäckström took over and started developing his homo lead, which had been confirmed for him by “two sources independent of each other,” namely Welander and Tischler, who were also the only acquaintances worth the name that Holt and her coworkers had managed to produce.

“To me this is fucking simple,” said Bäckström. “The guy was a closet fairy—there’s not the least doubt on that point. What we have to do is to find the little boyfriend he was drinking with that evening, before they started fighting with each other and his bum boy stuck the knife in him. Am I right or am I right?”

At first no one said anything. Not even Jarnebring, who only sighed and looked at the ceiling.

Finally Holt spoke up. Clearly no one else intended to do so, she thought.

“I don’t think it’s that simple,” she said.

“It doesn’t seem to have been that fucking simple,” snorted Bäckström. “I’m still waiting for you all to give me a name.”

“Do both of his buddies confirm that he had that disposition?” asked Jarnebring, who naturally enough had not read the as yet unwritten interview reports.

“Of course they do,” said Bäckström with a certain vehemence. “In the way those sort of people talk. Welander spoke in tongues, but
between the lines at least I understood what he was muttering about.” For some reason Bäckström glowered sourly at Alm at the far end of the table.

“And what does Tischler say?” asked Jarnebring.

“He talks almost like a normal person,” said Bäckström. “Sure enough he thought Eriksson was a queer, one of those secretive types that mostly stay in the closet.”

“And they themselves have alibis?” asked Jarnebring for some reason.

“Of course, and they’re chiseled in stone, so to me this whole thing is fucking simple and has been all along.” Bäckström glowered at Holt and Jarnebring in succession, and thus they were no further along on this particular Monday in the middle of December.

Soon it would be eleven whole days since the death and still no perpetrator. This is going down the toilet, Jarnebring thought gloomily. As far as he was concerned Bäckström could stick his so-called homo lead up his own fat ass. But you didn’t say that sort of thing. Not even to someone like Bäckström, not when there were other colleagues present. It was the sort of thing you said face-to-face to the person it concerned. At least Jarnebring would do it that way.

On Tuesday Jarnebring and Holt concluded their careful search of Eriksson’s residence. The results were thin, bordering on nil. In the desk in the office a telephone book had been found, including even the number for his old mother, although she had been dead for several years. Also Welander’s and Tischler’s numbers obviously, but otherwise basically nothing.

In the desk and bookcase there were also twenty or so pages and scraps of paper with notes written in Eriksson’s finicky handwriting. Mostly he seemed to have devoted time to calculating how many kronor and öre he had earned on one stock trade or another. Why he did this was unclear. The same information would arrive with the sales note from his broker the next day.

Seems to have been extremely anxious, thought Holt. A very lonely person struggling all the time to have absolute control of those sorts of things over which control was possible, she thought.

In the desk they also found a photo album bound in a pair of simple green covers of stiff cardboard. It contained a total of twenty-one photos. Eriksson’s mother when she was young, middle-aged, and old. A picture of the house in Hjorthagen where they had lived when he was growing up. Mostly pictures of Eriksson himself. As a little baby who didn’t smile, from first grade in school, in the back row and at the far end, without a smile and with a shy look toward the camera, surrounded by happy classmates. Group photos and a portrait when he got his high school diploma, the same from his college graduation, in which
he actually smiled for the first time. A pasted-in official letter from the Central Bureau of Statistics, which stated that Eriksson, Kjell Göran, had been given a position as temporary assistant director at the agency. And basically that was all.

Poor thing, Holt thought gloomily. He doesn’t seem to have had it easy.

But there was one photo that stood out from the others. It was not even pasted into the album, just loosely inserted between two pages in the middle. It was a summer picture of three young men about twenty-five years of age and a little girl who seemed to be ten years old at the most. Green grass and glistening water in the background. The three men were in short-sleeved shirts, shorts, and sandals. Two of them smiled openly at the camera, one seemed more reserved. The pluckiest was the little girl. She had her hair put up in Pippi Longstocking braids and stuck her tongue out happily at the photographer.

Swedish archipelago, late sixties or early seventies, thought Holt. Welander, Tischler, and Eriksson, she thought, and was reasonably confident. The little girl held Tischler by the hand, and despite the differences in size and age there was a striking resemblance between them. Something in the posture itself, the self-assured expression in body and face.

That could hardly be his child, thought Holt. Probably a sibling, or half sibling perhaps, and in the back of her head she had a vague memory that Gunsan had said something about Theo Tischler having inherited not only the brokerage firm but also his view of marriage from his long-dead father.

On the back side someone had written in a childish handwriting, “The gang of four. Sten, Theo, Kjell, and me.”

“You know what we’re going to do now?” said Jarnebring as he sealed the door to Eriksson’s apartment.

“I’m listening,” said Holt, looking almost as plucky as the little girl in the photo.

“We’re going to go back to the office, unplug the phone, lock the door, and sit down in peace and quiet and try to work out what the hell this is really about.”

“Sounds good,” said Holt. “Only I get to make coffee first.”

First they discussed Bäckström’s so-called homo lead in detail. On that they had somewhat different ideas. Holt simply didn’t believe in it. She was convinced that the murder was not about sex at all, regardless of what orientation anyone wanted to ascribe to their victim. Jarnebring was in agreement with her “in principle,” while at the same time he had a hard time letting go of the idea that Eriksson could have been completely uninterested in sexual matters.

“Personally I have a very hard time understanding that,” said Jarnebring. Despite what that Polish woman said, he thought.

“I can very well imagine that,” said Holt cheerfully. “But if you disregard yourself—”

“Wait now,” said Jarnebring. “Don’t interrupt me. I’ll buy what you’re saying about Eriksson being a disagreeable bastard who was snooping around all the time to try to get power over people—you only have to listen to his coworkers—but the one thing doesn’t rule out the other, does it?”

“I don’t really know,” said Holt. “I guess I’m not particularly good at guys.”

“You’ll just have to work on that,” said Jarnebring unperturbed. “Where was I … yes … there’s something about the act itself that I have a hard time letting go of. It’s completely obvious that the person who stabbed Eriksson was someone he both knew and trusted. Or in any case was not the least bit afraid of. But that can hardly have been Welander, Tischler, or his cleaning woman. Who was it then? We haven’t found anyone.”

“Some neighbor that we’ve missed,” Holt suggested. “Some casual acquaintance that we’ve also missed.”

“It doesn’t appear to be so,” said Jarnebring, shaking himself uncomfortably. “Eriksson seems to have been one highly suspicious bastard, not to mention anxious as hell. Here he sits on the couch drinking a highball in peace and quiet while our perpetrator calmly and quietly stabs him from behind, and then he crawls around on the floor and
raises holy hell—if we’re to believe his neighbor—before he folds up and dies. Who the hell would he let get that close to him?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” said Holt, “but aren’t so-called gay murders usually dreadful stories? With a lot of aggravated assault, lots of emotions and hatred?”

“Yes,” said Jarnebring. “As a rule it’s like that but far from always. They’re just like all other stoned, jealous, crazy people. But it wasn’t like that here.”

“What do you mean?” asked Holt.