With the authorization from the highest level, Edklinth had been able to set up a legitimate operations department. He picked four colleagues, purposely selecting younger talent who had experience on the regular police force and were only recently recruited to S.I.S. Two had a background in the Fraud Division, one had been with the financial police, and one was from the Violent Crimes Division. They were summoned to Edklinth’s office and told of their assignment as well as the need for absolute secrecy. He made plain that the investigation was being carried out at the express order of the Prime Minister. Inspector Figuerola was named as their chief, and she directed the investigation with a force that matched her physical appearance.
But the investigation proceeded slowly. This was largely due to the fact that no-one was quite sure who or what should be investigated. On more than one occasion Edklinth and Figuerola considered bringing Martensson in for questioning. But they decided to wait. Arresting him would reveal the existence of the investigation.
Finally, on Tuesday, eleven days after the meeting with the Prime Minister, Figuerola came to Edklinth’s office.
“I think we’ve got something.”
“Sit down.”
“Evert Gullberg. One of our investigators had a talk with Marcus Erlander, who’s leading the investigation into Zalachenko’s murder. According to Erlander, S.I.S. contacted the Goteborg police just two hours after the murder and gave them information about Gullberg’s threatening letters.”
“That was fast.”
“A little too fast. S.I.S. faxed nine letters that Gullberg had supposedly written. There’s just one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“Two of the letters were sent to the justice department – to the Minister of Justice and to the Deputy Minister.”
“I know that.”
“Yes, but the letter to the Deputy Minister wasn’t logged in at the department until the following day. It arrived with a later delivery.”
Edklinth stared at Figuerola. He felt very much afraid that his suspicions were going to turn out to be justified. Figuerola went implacably on.
“So we have S.I.S. sending a fax of a threatening letter that hadn’t yet reached its addressee.”
“Good Lord,” Edklinth said.
“It was someone in Personal Protection who faxed them through.”
“Who?”
“I don’t think he’s involved in the case. The letters landed on his desk in the morning, and shortly after the murder he was told to get in touch with the Goteborg police.”
“Who gave him the instruction?”
“The chief of Secretariat’s assistant.”
“Good God, Monica. Do you know what this means? It means that S.I.S. was involved in Zalachenko’s murder.”
“Not necessarily. But it definitely does mean that some individuals within S.I.S. had knowledge of the murder before it was committed. The only question is: who?”
“The chief of Secretariat…”
“Yes. But I’m beginning to suspect that this Zalachenko club is out of house.”
“How do you mean?”
“Martensson. He was moved from Personal Protection and is working on his own. We’ve had him under surveillance round the clock for the past week. He hasn’t had contact with anyone within S.I.S. as far as we can tell. He gets calls on a mobile that we cannot monitor. We don’t know what number it is, but it’s not his normal mobile number. He did meet with the fair-haired man, but we haven’t been able to identify him.”
Edklinth frowned. At the same instant Anders Berglund knocked on the door. He was one of the new team, the officer who had worked with the financial police.
“I think I’ve found Evert Gullberg,” Berglund said.
“Come in,” Edklinth said.
Berglund put a dog-eared, black-and-white photograph on the desk. Edklinth and Figuerola looked at the picture, which showed a man that both of them immediately recognized. He was being led through a doorway by two broad-shouldered plain-clothes police officers. The legendary double agent Colonel Stig Wennerstrom.[7]
“This print comes from Ahlens&Akerlunds Publishers and was used in
“Yes…”
“Look at the man on the left behind Danielsson.”
They saw a tall man with a narrow moustache who was wearing a hat. He reminded Edklinth vaguely of the writer Dashiell Hammett.
“Compare his face with this passport photograph of Gullberg, taken when he was sixty-six.”
Edklinth frowned. “I wouldn’t be able to swear it’s the same person –”
“But it is,” Berglund said. “Turn the print over.”
On the reverse was a stamp saying that the picture belonged to Ahlens&Akerlunds Publishers and that the photographer’s name was Julius Estholm. The text was written in pencil.
“Evert Gullberg,” Figuerola said. “He was S.I.S.”
“No,” Berglund said. “Technically speaking, he wasn’t. At least not when this picture was taken.”
“Oh?”
“S.I.S. wasn’t established until four months later. In this photograph he was still with the Secret State Police.”
“Who’s H.W. Francke?” Figuerola said.
“Hans Wilhelm Francke,” Edklinth said. “Died in the early ’90s, but was assistant chief of the Secret State Police in the late ’50s and early ’60s. He was a bit of a legend, just like Otto Danielsson. I actually met him a couple of times.”
“Is that so?” Figuerola said.
“He left S.I.S. in the late ’60s. Francke and P.G. Vinge never saw eye to eye, and he was more or less forced to resign at the age of fifty or fifty-five. Then he opened his own shop.”
“His own
“He became a consultant in security for industry. He had an office on Stureplan, but he also gave lectures from time to time at S.I.S. training sessions. That’s where I met him.”
“What did Vinge and Francke quarrel about?”
“They were just very different. Francke was a bit of a cowboy who saw K.G.B. agents everywhere, and Vinge was a bureaucrat of the old school. Vinge was fired shortly thereafter. A bit ironic, that, because he thought Palme was working for the K.G.B.”
Figuerola looked at the photograph of Gullberg and Francke standing side by side.
“I think it’s time we had another talk with Justice,” Edklinth told her.
“
Edklinth shot her a glance.
“Not a word about the Zalachenko affair,” she said.
“So we’ve got a month before the next issue. Good to know. But we have to deal with Blomkvist. In the midst of all this mess he’s like a hand grenade with the pin pulled.”
