Johansson returned to the interview room in less than two hours. This time he apparently intended to stay, because he was carrying a chair that he could sit on.
“The head of NBCI is entering the room,” said Holt. “We interrupt the interview at—”
“Turn off that piece of shit,” said Johansson, waving toward the tape recorder. “Now we have to have a serious talk, you and me, Göran,” he said, nodding at Wiijnbladh. “You have nothing to worry about,” he added. “So you can be completely calm. But first we’ll have coffee,” said Johansson, looking at Holt for some reason. “Black or with milk, Göran?”
“With cream, if there is any,” Wiijnbladh stammered.
That man defies all description, thought Anna Holt. Wiijnbladh did not seem the least bit calm. Despite Johansson’s assurances, she thought.
Then she got the coffee. What choice did she really have? And saw to it that Wiijnbladh got cream in his, and listened to Johansson while he talked to Wiijnbladh as if he were talking to a child.
“As perhaps you know, I was operations head of the secret police for a number of years,” said Johansson, nodding at Wiijnbladh.
“Yes, that was before the boss…before you became head of the bureau,” Wiijnbladh concurred.
“So what I’m saying to you now is in strictest confidence,” said Johansson. “Before we leave I also want you to sign a confidentiality agreement. The usual, you know, on nondisclosure.”
“Of course,” said Wiijnbladh.
While the maid fetched coffee, the boys had apparently dispensed with formalities, thought Holt.
“As I’ve understood it, it happened in the following way,” said Johansson in a leisurely manner, pretending to read from his papers.
Waltin had tricked Wiijnbladh. Abused his confidence. Blatantly exploited him.
“Let’s get some order into the details,” said Johansson. “What went on when the revolver was turned over?”
First Waltin had called him on the phone. At work. He remembered that distinctly. He needed to see Wiijnbladh immediately. It was a matter of the utmost importance. Wiijnbladh could not talk about it with anyone. He was not to contact Waltin. The matter was so sensitive that Waltin was forced to work outside the police building for a while. For that reason he could not be reached.
“I knew from before that he was head of the so-called external operation, so I assumed he was working on reorganizing that,” Wiijnbladh clarified.
“So it was Waltin who came to see you?”
“He came up on the weekend. It was sometime in the middle of September. I was on after-hours duty, and he asked me to call as soon as I was alone at the squad so we could talk in private. So when my associates, who were on duty with me, had to leave the building I called him. On the secret number he gave me. I think it was a Sunday. Sometime in the middle of September. We had a suspected death out in Midsommarkransen. It turned out to be a suicide.”
“And then he came over to see you?” asked Johansson.
“He came like a shot,” Wiijnbladh confirmed.
Wonder how he pulls it off? thought Holt with reluctant admiration.
Once up at the tech squad Waltin explained his business. The secret police needed to take possession of a certain weapon from the tech squad. Why he could not say, other than that it concerned a story of the utmost importance for the security of the realm.
“He had a complete description of the weapon with him. Serial number and everything. And a photo too.”
“Do you remember what it looked like?” asked Johansson. “Was there anything besides the weapon in the photo?”
“Just the weapon,” said Wiijnbladh and sighed. “Photographed right from above against a white background where the usual measuring stick had been placed to show the size, and a tag with the serial number in the lower corner. I got the impression it had been taken by our colleagues at the tech squad at SePo. But naturally I didn’t ask.”
“What did you do next?” asked Johansson.
First Waltin checked that they actually had the weapon in question. They did. It was in a drawer in the weaponry library along with the bullet that had been used for the test firing plus a cartridge that had not been fired. Wiijnbladh gave him the revolver, the bullet, and the cartridge. Plus the report from the test firing.
“It was very important that all traces of the weapon disappear,” Wiijnbladh explained. “That’s why he wanted me to arrange a scrap certificate.”
“No one at the Defense Factories wondered?”
“They weren’t so careful at that time. Not like today,” Wiijnbladh explained. “I put together some loose gun parts from revolvers. A cylinder magazine, a sawed-off barrel where the serial number was filed off, and a loose butt, among other things. We have a lot of that lying around. Then I put it in a bag and pasted on a regular tag with the serial number of the weapon that Waltin had signed for.”
“Signed for, you say,” said Johansson.
“I was forced to have some kind of receipt,” said Wiijnbladh. “For my own account, that is.”
“And it was then that he gave you this affidavit,” said Johansson, pushing over one of the two papers he had found in Wiijnbladh’s desk drawer.
“Now I realize this is a forgery,” sighed Wiijnbladh, shaking his head. “This is terrible. But what should I believe? An affidavit written on SePo stationery. Signed and everything. I mean, what should I think? I even had to sign a special confidentiality agreement.”
What should he believe? The following week he received a medal besides and a thank-you note from SePo signed by bureau head Erik Berg. Delivered by Claes Waltin personally in connection with an invitation to a “more formal” dinner in his apartment on Norr Mälarstrand.
“The delivery itself happened before dinner,” Wiijnbladh explained. “Then the other guests came to the dinner itself. Although we didn’t talk about my distinction of course.”
“The other guests,” said Johansson, sending a glance in the direction of Holt. “So who were they?”
“An old friend of Claes, he’s dead now too, unfortunately, but I seem to recall that he was a very well-known business attorney when he was alive. Died only a couple years after Claes himself happened to drown. Then there was his old dad too. Very successful businessman at that time. Lived in Skåne, I seem to recall.”
Before Wiijnbladh left he had to sign yet another confidentiality agreement. Johansson kept the medal, receipt, and the thank-you note. Partly because he needed them to be able to write off all suspicions against Wiijnbladh, and he had no objections.
Before Lewin accompanied him back to the lost-and-found squad, Wiijnbladh asked Johansson one last question.
“I sincerely hope it’s not so bad that this has happened in connection with a new crime?”
“There’s nothing that indicates that,” said Johansson with a steady gaze and honest gray eyes. “It came up in connection with the inventory from Waltin’s estate and we wondered, naturally, because he didn’t have a license for it. By pure chance we found out some time ago that the weapon had originally been confiscated by our colleagues in Stockholm. The mills of justice grind slowly. Unfortunately,” added Johansson and sighed.
While you continue to defy all description, thought Anna Holt.