Another Time, Another Life by Leif G. W. Persson Read Free Book Online Page B

rest was pure routine. He made contact with the command center on the radio. They promised to send people—“on the double”—from the duty desk and the tech squad, as well as reinforcements from the uniformed police. A murder took precedence even over degenerate political demonstrations.
    On the other hand, the canine patrol that Jarnebring tried to requisition could not be mobilized. The four-legged colleagues that were on duty had been busy with other things between their jaws for the past few hours. On the other hand, taxi drivers would be questioned as to whether they’d had any interesting fares to and from the victim’s address.
    While they waited, Jarnebring and his female colleague did what they could. The first crime scene barriers were put in place. They searched within the building and out toward the street where the victim lived, the courtyard and back building as well. They checked interesting entryways in the vicinity and noted license numbers on all cars parked in the area, in case the perpetrator was in such a hurry that he had not managed to take the car in which he might have arrived. The growing crowd of curious people who had gathered down on the street were gradually questioned, and very soon the plan was to start knocking on doors in a more organized manner.
    Half an hour later Jarnebring and his colleague had done everything possible, and given the conditions no one could have done it better. But because neither the people from the duty desk nor tech had shown up yet, he already suspected whom he was waiting for, and that things would soon change.

2
Thursday evening, November 30–

The night of Friday, December 1, 1989
    Bäckström was short, fat, and crude whereas Wiijnbladh was short, slender, and dapper. Together they complemented each other splendidly and they were also happy working together. Bäckström thought that Wiijnbladh was a cowardly half-fairy—you didn’t even have to raise your voice, and he still did what he was told. Wiijnbladh in turn viewed Bäckström as mentally challenged and bad-tempered—a dream to work with for anyone who preferred having the situation under control himself. Because they were both solidly incompetent, no disputes arose on either factual or other professional grounds, and to sum up, they made a real radar unit.
    Bäckström was a detective inspector and normally worked on the homicide squad, but because he was a bachelor, had no children, and his finances were always shaky, he took every opportunity to sign up for a little extra duty. He was no numbskull either, so the thirtieth of November was a day he normally would have avoided, but because it was getting toward Christmas he had no choice. These were hard times, and they would not get better for a long while.
    It had turned out just as badly that night as he had feared. His colleagues in the uniformed police shoveled in piles of the worst kind of rowdies. Lots of snot-nosed youngsters who thought that rock throwing was a democratic right and began every attempt at conversation bythreatening to report the interrogator for assault and making reference to Daddy, who was either a senior physician at the psych clinic, a technical adviser at the Ministry of Justice, or an editorial writer at
Dagens Nyheter
.
    To begin with Bäckström had managed nicely—not so strange in itself, given his experience—but he had to work like a tightrope walker to keep out of the way, and he basically pulled out every trick he had in his considerable repertoire. First he locked himself in the john to leaf through both
Little Pravda
and
Excessen
in peace and quiet—the only place imaginable where a person could read such shit. Then he slipped down and took a nap for a while at registration, but when he came back to his office he was immediately forced to snatch up a dead telephone receiver and sit humming and nodding while a couple of half-apes from the riot squad stood in his doorway and more or less tried to stare