kind of world are you living in?”
“Oops,” said Chavez. “Breach of confidentiality.”
Hjelm took the noon edition of
“ ‘The Power Murderer’?” Chavez held up the tabloid by one corner, as if it had been steeped in day-old vomit. “Newborn yet already baptized.”
“Might as well start using the name. Everybody else is going to,” said Hjelm grimly, and went back to his phone call.
“Just answer the question.”
“Caddies?” the secretary of the Stockholm Golf Association echoed on the other end of the line. “Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
“It’s rare that anyone would use a caddy for an ordinary round of golf. But it does happen.”
“How do the players get hold of one?”
“We usually provide them. But you have to make the request in advance.”
“So if three men are going to play a round of golf, then you find a caddy for them. Is that right?”
“As I said: if they make the request in advance. It takes a few hours to set it up. And in the case you mentioned, there would be
Hjelm suddenly had an idea. It was a long shot, but he had to try.
“Is Lena a caddy?”
“Lena Hansson? She used to be. But now she works inside.”
“Was she active as a caddy in September 1990?”
Axel Widstrand, secretary of the Stockholm Golf Association, was silent for a moment. Hjelm could hear a murmuring, as if the man had covered the receiver and was talking to somebody nearby.
“Yes, she was. She didn’t stop until last season.”
“If you’ve got her there on your lap, could you ask her if she remembers caddying for Kuno Daggfeldt, Bernhard Strand-Julen, and Nils-Emil Carlberger when they played a round on the afternoon of September 7, 1990?”
“I must say that I don’t appreciate your attempt at a joke. If that’s what it was.”
“Ask her.”
Again a muted murmuring on the line.
“No,” said Widstrand.
“Her memory is that good?”
“Is there anything else?”
“Is there any marking in the guest books that would indicate whether the players used a caddy?”
“No. The players sign their names, and that’s all. Is there anything else?”
“Not at the moment,” said Hjelm, hanging up the phone and writing the name Lena Hansson in his notebook.
For future use.
The theory about a lone, persecuted caddy vanished as quickly as it had appeared. It was rare to use a caddy at all, and if the men, contrary to custom, had decided to do so, then there would have been three caddies, not just one. He drew a line through Lena Hansson’s name. If the murders stopped, he would return to the idea.
“Listen to this,” said Chavez, deeply immersed in the evening paper, which was no longer published in the evening. “ ‘There should be no doubt whatsoever that we’re dealing with the first real terrorist action to occur in Sweden in a very long time. Not even during the heyday of the Red Army Faction did we see anything like this. Now top Swedish businessmen are being executed one after the other by this “Power Murderer.” We may be facing the worst crime ever to take place in Sweden. The only thing we know for sure is that the police are clueless.’ Which is their way of saying,” Chavez added, as he put down the paper, “that since they’re not being told anything, there’s nothing to know.”
“They forgot to mention the West German ambassador,” said Hjelm. “But you’re too young to remember all that.”
Jorge Chavez stared at Hjelm. “Paul. If you persist in concocting old-fashioned intrigues and fiddling around with equally old-fashioned detective work-meaning if you refuse to accept that this has to do with moving money via global computer networks and professional hit men, probably hired via the same computer networks-then you need to find out more about the people involved. Instead of relying on cliches about business bullshit and flowers that wilt as the potentates pass by. This is about real individuals, after all, not cartoon characters.”
“A very touching speech. What sort of suggestions are you hiding behind your concern for the lost honor of these gentlemen?”
“You don’t know enough about them. Go see Kerstin. Borrow her tapes. Learn about them.”
Chavez returned to the computer screen. For a moment Hjelm watched him working diligently. He saw the new breed of policeman, and for the first time he realized what a gulf existed between him and his officemate; it really had nothing to do with their backgrounds. Chavez, computer literate, international, rational, without prejudices, able to maintain a certain distance, enthusiastic. If it was true that Hjelm was looking at the future of the police force, then it was not exactly a bad thing. When he thought it was possible that there might be a certain lack of heart and soul, he realized at the same instant that he was once again working from a cliche. For a moment he thought that his whole world consisted of nothing else. What the hell could he say about his own heart and soul? He felt old. What he saw in front of him was quite simply a man who was a better police officer than he was. With black hair and a Spanish surname.
One of his tasks was to purge Grundstrom from his thoughts.
He went down the hall to the bathroom. He had a zit on his cheek. He tried squeezing it but nothing came out. Instead, the skin around it split and began to flake off. He put a little water on his finger and dabbed the flakes of skin away. Then he went back out to the corridor, walked past his office, and stopped outside room 303. He knocked and went in.
Gunnar Nyberg was tapping away on the computer keyboard, a woolly mammoth jabbing at a spaceship. The giant of a man looked as if he’d landed on the wrong planet.
Kerstin Holm was wearing a headset and typing on a small laptop. She turned off the Walkman lying next to her computer and turned to face Hjelm. Nyberg kept on typing, slowly, doggedly, reluctantly-but with great tenacity. Hjelm thought he was witnessing a basic personality trait.
“A visitor,” said Holm. “How unusual.”
“What’s that?” asked Hjelm, pointing at her laptop.
“Haven’t you ever seen one of these?” she asked in surprise, seeing his expression darken. Then she gave him a slightly ironic smile. He’d never thought of her as beautiful before.
“I brought in my own,” she said. “It’s faster.”
For three more seconds he thought how beautiful she was: the loose-fitting black clothes, the tousled brown hair, her alert eyes an even darker brown, the charming wrinkles that she didn’t try to hide, the perpetually ironic smile, the textbook-pure Goteborg accent. Then he blinked all these thoughts away. “I’d like to listen to your tapes,” he said.
“Is there anything in particular you want to hear?”
“Not really. I want to see if I can get to know them better. Avoid cliches, if that’s possible.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” said Holm, pointing to a skyscraper of cassette tapes in front of her. “Maybe a lot of cliches actually apply.”
“What’s your own opinion?”
“We can talk about that afterward,” she said, pushing the unsteady tower of tapes across the desk.
The tapes weren’t labeled, so Hjelm chose one at random and stuck it into his newly purchased Walkman.
Kerstin Holm’s voice said, “All right. Interview on April 3 with Willy Eriksson, born William Carlberger, 8-14-63. So you’re the son of Nils-Emil and Carlotta Carlberger?”
“Yes. Although her last name is now Eriksson. Carla Eriksson. That was her maiden name.”
