Soderstedt instantly switched from the verbose and voluble to the terse and concise. Hjelm had the feeling that the abrupt change was something deeply anchored in Soderstedt’s character. In the latter approach there was an answer, a solution, and he wanted to present it as clearly and distinctly as possible. In the former approach, there was no answer, no solution; there the “truth” trickled through the cracks between the words, in the ghastly connections. That was how society was, this postindustrial society at least, in the eyes of the eloquent Finnish buffoon.
“The Carlberger conglomerate,” he said. “At the center is the Spiran financial firm. Surrounding Spiran are ever weaker, concentric circles formed by increasingly inaccessible subsidiaries, and subsidiaries of subsidiaries. In less than an hour I discovered one connection, and with professional help”-Soderstedt gestured toward Pettersson and Floren-“I’m sure more will come to light. My connection has to do with Strand-Julen, who was part owner in one of the affiliates of a Carlberger subsidiary, Alruna Holding AB.”
He fell silent.
Nobody could tell whether he was finished. But he was looking slightly burned out, so Hultin said, “Okay, we thank Soderstedt for an unusually inspired report. Chavez?”
Chavez chuckled. “I’ll be brief. Carlberger was a member of three boards of directors concurrently with Daggfeldt and Strand-Julen. Our three victims were members of the same board at Ericsson in 1986-87; Sydbanken in 1989-91; and MEMAB in 1990. That’s the connection between our three stiffs as regards boards.”
“What’s MEMAB?” asked Holm.
“No idea,” said Chavez.
“I can tell you,” said Tanja Floren, speaking in a deep alto voice. “What’s your guess?”
“A financial company,” said a very weary Finn.
“That’s right,” said Floren.
13
As far as Paul Hjelm was concerned, his work now entered an entirely new phase. After standing on the front lines, he had now been pushed to the very back of the pack. The investigation was progressing along two flanks: the Russian mafia lead, via Norlander and Nyberg; and the business angle, via Soderstedt, Chavez, Pettersson, and Floren. Holm was carrying on intensive interviews with the relatives and friends of the departed magnates, leaving the secondary interviews to the foot soldiers in NCP and the Stockholm police force.
And Hjelm was spending his days leafing through the pages of the golf association’s guest books.
The phone number for the purported pimp with the fitting name of Johan Stake had been disconnected without any forwarding number. And a return visit to Timmermansgatan, together with innumerable phone calls, revealed that the young male prostitute, Jorgen Linden, had fled the scene.
The autopsy performed by Medical Examiner Qvarfordt on Nils-Emil Carlberger produced nothing other than signs of an incipient brain tumor. Nor had Svenhagen’s crime techs turned up any solid leads. Once again the perp had left no evidence behind-except the damned bullet in the wall.
Hjelm was making his way backward through the golf association’s guest books. The hours dragged along. Among the signatures written in varying degrees of legibility, he soon learned to recognize Daggfeldt’s meticulous handwriting, Strand-Julen’s expansive scrawl, and Carlberger’s backward slant. They appeared frequently in the books but never anywhere near each other. Hjelm had made his way back to 1990 and was getting ready to accept that none of the three corpses had ever played golf with any of the others, when he suddenly saw the meticulous squiggles right next to the scrawl. After a moment he discovered nearby the backward slant.
Daggfeldt, Strand-Julen, and Carlberger had actually once played golf together, just the three of them. That opened up interesting prospects. Hjelm checked with Chavez; apparently the joint golf game had taken place immediately following a MEMAB board meeting on September 7, 1990. It was, oddly, the only golf game that the lodge brothers Daggfeldt and Strand-Julen had ever played together. They had both belonged to the inner circle of the Order of Skidbladnir; they had been members of the same eight boards of directors since the late seventies; and they had belonged to the same golf association. Yet they had played golf together only once. And on that one occasion the third golf partner had been the third murder victim.
It was extremely puzzling.
“Three men play a round of golf in the fall of 1990,” said Hjelm aloud. “It’s the only time they ever play together. Several years later, all three of them end up on ice, put there by the same perp, within a week’s time. What does it mean?”
Chavez continued to type on the computer. “What?” was his inspired reply.
“I’m not going to repeat myself. Your subconscious heard me.”
Chavez stopped typing and turned to look at him.
“It doesn’t mean shit. Maybe just the fact that there are close ties between all sectors of the business world.”
“Or that somebody doesn’t like golf.”
“That’s it,” said Chavez calmly and went back to typing. “The whole mystery is solved. Some golf hater stood there brooding outside Kevinge Golf Course on a fall day in 1990, caught sight of the three arrogant upper-class gentlemen who were boasting about themselves on the fairway, and decided, ‘I’m going to kill those fuckers, those three right there, in one fell swoop.’ He waited several long years before he decided to act. But then he moved quickly.”
“A caddy, perhaps?”
“I was joking,” said Chavez.
“I realize that,” said Hjelm. “But if we make a few changes in your story, it sounds more serious. The three men show up right after a tedious board meeting. They’ve had time to relax and chat a bit on the cab ride over, maybe had a few whiskeys in the bar, and all the usual business bullshit comes pouring out of them. They’re fucking awful. Even the flowers wilt as they pass by. Their tongues are so loose, they flap. Okay? So maybe the caddy is a little late to arrive and starts off by making some mistake, who knows, but they start in on him, badgering him, or her for that matter, and laughing good-naturedly. Then for the rest of the game they treat him like shit, inescapable but revolting. It’s possible that sexual harassment takes place. They casually force him or her so far down that it takes several years for the caddy to recover and start fresh.
“Maybe their behavior was some sort of-what’s it called?-catalyst that ignited a bigger reaction already in process. Maybe this caddy had previously spent a few years in a mental hospital or something like that. And then he was let out with the rest of the lunatics during the general wave of cutbacks and release legislation. Finally he’s got hold of his life and figured out what triggered his persecution mania. Okay? He’s beyond desperate, everything seems clear, and then he takes them out, one by one, simply, quickly, elegantly. Sweet revenge.”
“Very imaginative,” said Chavez. He had stopped typing. “And not without a certain interest.”
“I’m going to make a call,” said Hjelm, and quickly punched in the number.
“But if you’re right, then the killing is over now. And it doesn’t explain the Russian bullet. Plus it eliminates the whole financial angle.”
“Hello, this is Paul Hjelm from the NCP. Who am I speaking to?”
“Axel Widstrand,” said the voice on the phone. “Secretary of the Stockholm Golf Association. Are you the one who took all of our guest books? Lena doesn’t have the authority to release them. Are you going to be done with them soon?”
“
“I’d like to have those books back.”
“Three of your members have been murdered in less than a week, and you want to have the books back? What
