On Thursday morning Holt called Bäckström in to talk sense with him.
First she told him she had figured out what was going on with the revolver found behind a refrigerator out in Flemingsberg. That he got the registration number from the tech squad, that his colleagues had messed with him and given him the wrong year of manufacture, that he in turn had tried to fool Holt.
“You’ve tricked me, Bäckström,” Holt summarized.
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about. There must be some misunderstanding,” said Bäckström. What do you mean tricked? he thought. She was talking to him as if he were a young punk. What was she up to, really? Spying on him, apparently, not to mention those semi-criminal characters at the tech squad who had tried to swindle him.
“We’ve got to get some order in this now,” said Holt. “I was thinking about having an interview with your informant.”
“Forget it,” Bäckström snorted. “My informant is sacred to me, and this old man has demanded to remain anonymous. Besides, he’s not easy to get hold of.”
“And why is that?” asked Holt.
“Lives abroad,” said Bäckström curtly.
“I thought the art dealer Henning lived on Norr Mälarstrand,” said Holt with an innocent expression.
What the hell is going on? thought Bäckström. Can cell phones be tapped? Has she sicced SePo on me?
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Bäckström, shaking his head.
“Then it won’t do any harm if I talk with him,” said Holt.
“Listen, Holt, if you really are interested in cooperation, and I sure would be if I were you, I suggest you take care of your business and let me take care of mine. What do you think about taking a peek at this, for example,” said Bäckström, giving her the file he’d taken from the central archive.
“Where did you get this?” said Holt.
“Read it,” said Bäckström. There, you’ve got a little something good to suck on, you little sow, he thought.
“I see,” said Holt when she was through reading. “I still don’t understand.”
Holt must be stupid, thought Bäckström. Even for a hag, she must be uncommonly stupid.
“I’m in the process of refining a little profile of our perpetrator. Waltin, that is. I think, among other things, this may be interesting from the standpoint of motive.”
“From the standpoint of motive?”
“You betcha,” said Bäckström, nodding emphatically. “I think this may have been about something sexual.”
“Excuse me,” said Holt. “We’re talking about the assassination of Olof Palme?”
“We sure are,” said Bäckström with a shrewd expression.
“Explain,” said Holt. “Who is supposed to have been involved with whom?”
“I get the idea that Waltin and that socialist may have had the same interests. If I may say so.” She must be even denser than the densest hag, he thought.
“So why do you think that?” He must have a screw loose, she thought.
“It struck me that they were actually fucking alike. Those small, skinny upper-class types. Misty eyes. Moist lips. You know how they usually look. As if they’re licking their lips all the time. There are these kind of secret societies for leather boys. I think that’s where we should start rooting around. Both were lawyers, besides.”
“I’ll be in touch if there’s anything,” said Holt. I have to see to it that he gets some kind of help, she thought. Whoever it would be who could help someone like Bäckström.
“I’ve thought of one more thing,” said Bäckström.
“I’m listening,” said Holt.
“You know Wiijnbladh?” said Bäckström. “That crazy colleague who tried to poison his old lady a bunch of years ago. He and Waltin apparently were also involved.”
“They’re supposed to have had a relationship too, you’re saying?”
Holt is completely unbeatable, even if she is an old lady, thought Bäckström. A cabbage is a Nobel Prize winner compared with Holt.
“Forget it,” said Bäckström, shaking his head. Someone like Wiijnbladh has probably never screwed, he thought.
“There are other things,” he continued. “He is supposed to have helped Waltin on a few occasions. What that was he didn’t say, but it was apparently fucking secret. Supposedly got some distinction or medal from SePo as thanks for his help.”
“As stated,” said Holt, “I’ll be in touch if there is anything.” So Wiijnbladh is supposed to have helped Waltin, she thought.
As soon as Bäckström left, Holt called her acquaintance at the crime lab. She needed help from a weapons technician. Sensitive matter. On an informal basis. Just so you don’t get any ideas in your head, old man, she thought.
“You can’t be more specific?” he asked.
“I want you to look at a bullet for me,” said Holt. “Make a comparison with another bullet.”
“No problem.”
“See you in two hours,” said Holt.
Then she put the plastic bag with the bullet in her jacket pocket. She signed for an official vehicle, went past Lewin on the way, retrieved an old shooting report from the spring of 1983, and drove to Linköping.
“What do you want me to do with this?” her acquaintance asked two hours later.
“Compare it with the Palme bullet,” said Holt.
“Goodness,” he said, looking at her. Clearly surprised. “You’re aware that this is a completely different type of bullet,” he asked.
“Yes,” said Holt. “What’s the problem?”
“Several,” he said. “How much do you know about firearms? About modern revolvers, for example?”
“Educated layman,” said Holt. “Give me the essentials.” No long expositions, thanks, she thought.
“Okay,” he said.
Then he gave her the essentials. Without digressions. The bullet with which the prime minister had been shot was a .357 caliber Magnum. This meant that it had a diameter of 357 thousandths of an inch. The word “Magnum” meant that the bullet had an extra strong powder charge.
“That I already knew,” said Holt.
The bore in the barrel on a modern revolver has elevations and depressions—lands and grooves—that run in a spiral through the barrel. Either to the right or to the left. Figuratively speaking you might say that the bullet is screwed along through the bore and that the lands and grooves then leave tracks in it. The purpose of getting the bullet to rotate is to give it a straighter trajectory.
“I knew that too,” said Holt.
Different makes of revolvers have different such characteristics as a rule. A different number of lands and grooves with varying land width, groove direction, and groove gradient, where the latter determines how many revolutions around its own axis the bullet rotates over a given distance.
“I have spotty knowledge about this,” said Holt.
“You see,” he said. “Now we’re starting to get close.”
The bullet with which the prime minister had been shot had right-rotating lands with a width of about 2.8 millimeters and a groove gradient of about five degrees.
“I didn’t know that,” said Holt. “So what’s the problem?”
The problem with the bullet she had brought with her was that it was of a different type than the bullet Palme had been shot with. Bullets were made of lead as a rule. Both Holt’s bullet and the Palme bullet were lead bullets, and so far no problem.
“Lead is soft, as you know,” he explained. “In order to protect the bullets from deformation and increase their penetration force when they hit the target, they are usually supplied with a protective coating of harder material. What’s called a mantle.”
“Of copper,” said Holt.
“As a rule of copper or various copper alloys. Your bullet, for example, has a pure copper mantle. Harder than lead, to be sure, but far from as hard as the mantle on the bullets from Sveavägen. You see, it’s made of an alloy of copper and zinc. It’s very hard. Called tombak, by the way.”
“The problems,” Holt reminded him.
“The traces from the same barrel can vary, depending on the bullet. Your bullet has a softer coating. The traces from the barrel may be clearer than on the bullet with a harder coating. Traces that are not deposited on a harder bullet are perhaps deposited on your bullet, because it’s softer.”
“How do we solve this?” asked Holt.
“Give me the revolver, then I’ll do a new test firing with a bullet similar to the one used on Sveavägen.”
“There we have another problem,” said Holt.
Without going into details, she told him that the only thing she had was the bullet she had just given him. Plus a report from the test firing done in the spring of 1983.
“Here’s the report,” said Holt, handing it over.
“The weapon type agrees. So far there’s no problem.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Holt.
“We work with what we have,” said her acquaintance, nodding encouragingly. “I’ll just retrieve the bullets from Sveavägen so we have something to compare to.”
Retrieve the bullets from Sveavägen. Now this is finally starting to resemble something, thought Anna Holt.
In other respects what happened next was not particularly like what you might see in crime shows on TV about life on an American tech squad. He sat there at his comparison microscope, looked, adjusted knobs, hummed, and made notes. It took more than half an hour. Almost a whole episode of CSI.
“Okay,” he said, straightening up and nodding at her.
“Shoot,” said Holt. She pointed at him with her right index finger, curled it and fired, formed her lips to an O and blew away the gunpowder smoke.
“All the traces that are on the Palme bullet are on your bullet,” he said. “This argues for the fact that they come from the same weapon. But,” he continued, “in addition there are traces on your bullet that aren’t on the Palme bullet.”
Typical, thought Holt.
“So how do we explain those?” she asked.
“Because your bullet was fired three years before the bullets from Sveavägen, we can rule out that the traces originate from additional use of the weapon. The explanation is probably that the mantle on your bullet is softer.”
“The probability that they come from the same weapon,” asked Holt.
“What I said on the phone about ninety percent you can forget as long as we can’t compare the same type of bullet. Seventy-five, maybe even eighty percent probability.”
“What do you think personally?” she asked.
“I think they come from the same weapon,” he said, looking at her seriously. “But I wouldn’t swear to that in court. There I would say that with a probability of seventy-five percent they come from the same weapon, and that sort of thing isn’t enough for a guilty verdict. Which despite everything we probably should be happy about.”
“Even though all the traces that are on the Palme bullet are on my bullet,” said Holt. Coward, she thought.
“The problem with those traces is that they are mostly so-called general characteristics,” he said. “The kind that go with the type of weapon. As far as the characteristics of a particular weapon are concerned, through use, damage, and so forth on just that weapon, then it’s not as clear. There are some like that, but none that are simple and unambiguous. On a completely different matter, by the way,” he continued. “What do you think about staying and having dinner?”
“It’ll have to be another time, unfortunately,” said Holt. “What do you think about—”
“I know,” he interrupted. He smiled and put his right index finger to his mouth. “Just don’t forget about dinner.”
As soon as she was in the car she called Jan Lewin on her cell.
“I’ll be at work in two hours,” said Holt. “You and me and Lisa have to meet.”
“So it’s that bad,” said Lewin and sighed.
“With seventy-five percent probability,” Holt replied.
Then she called her boss, Lars Martin Johansson, but although it was said that he could see around corners, he only sounded like the Genius from Näsåker.
“I hear what you’re saying, Holt,” Johansson muttered. “But you don’t believe in all seriousness that little dandy Waltin shot Olof Palme?”
“Have you been listening to what I said?”
“How could I have avoided it?” said Johansson. “You’ve been talking nonstop for half an hour. My office,” he continued, “as soon as you get back. Bring the other two with you too.”
“I’ll need a good hour,” said Holt. “It’s a hundred miles.”
“One more thing,” said Johansson, who didn’t seem to be listening.
“Yes?”
“Drive carefully,” said Johansson.
“That was nice of you, Lars,” said Holt.
“Considering that you must have the bullet in your pocket,” said Johansson. Then he hung up.