After lunch Holt and Mattei took a flight to Kristianstad to hold an interview with Claes Waltin’s elderly father.
“I had a visit from Bäckström,” Holt reported. “He was sitting in my office when I came back after the meeting with Johansson.”
“That horrible little fatso,” said Mattei with feeling. “So what did he want?”
“Unclear requests,” said Holt. “On the other hand he did declare war against us.”
“In that case I’ll ask Johan to give him a thrashing.”
“Johan?”
“Johan,” nodded Mattei. For the rest of the trip she talked about Johan, and she would have been happy if the flight to Kristianstad had lasted even longer.
Little Lisa is in love, thought Holt with surprise as they got off the plane.
Large estate in Skåne. Whitewashed exposed-timber house, complete with thatched roof, pond, and lane of birches.
So there are people who live like this, thought Anna Holt as their airport taxi stopped on the gravel yard in front of the main building at the “Robertslust” estate.
“The Waltin family has lived here at Robertslust for generations,” their host explained when he’d led them into the “gentlemen’s room” and seen to it that the “ladies” got coffee. Large desk, crossed swords on the wall above, suite of furniture in worn velvet with crocheted antimacassars on the chair backs, old portraits in gold frames, and a hundred years later life still went on.
A really cozy old place, thought Holt.
“Is it named after director Waltin himself?” asked Mattei with a friendly, inquisitive smile.
“Not really,” snorted Robert Waltin. “It’s named after the family ancestor, my great-great-grandfather, estate owner Robert Waltin. Originally the family had the estate as a summer place.”
And you look like you’ve been here the whole time, thought Lisa Mattei. Mean old man, but far from harmless, she thought. Despite the skinny neck sticking up out of a frayed, oversized shirt collar. Certainly an expensive shirt from the days when Robert Waltin was in his prime. Those days were gone; now he seemed mostly interested in complaining about everything and everyone.
“The reason we’re here is that we want to ask a few questions about your son,” said Holt with a formal smile.
“It’s about time. I’ve never believed in that so-called drowning accident. Claes was completely healthy. Swam like a fish too. I taught him myself.”
Before he turned five and you left him to go to Skåne and marry your secretary, thought Holt.
“Taught him when he was just a little tyke and I was still living with that crazy woman who was his mother,” said papa Robert. “Then he used to come here in the summer and we sailed and swam quite a bit, he and I. He was murdered. Claes was murdered. I’ve thought so all along.”
“Why do you think that?” asked Holt.
“The socialists,” said the old man, looking at her slyly. “He knew something about them so they were forced to murder him. He worked with the secret police. He probably knew almost everything about their illegal deals with the Russians and Arabs. Why do you think they were forced to shoot that traitor Palme, by the way?”
“Tell us what you think, director Waltin.”
“Palme was a traitor. Spied for the Russians. It was no more complicated than that. Russian submarines had secret bases far inside our inner archipelago. It was a corrupt political leadership, in which the one at the top was simply a spy for the enemy. Who betrayed the class he came from besides.”
“What makes you think that Olof Palme was a spy for the Russians?” asked Holt. Keep out of the way, she thought.
“Every thinking person understood that,” said Robert Waltin. “Besides I got it confirmed early on, from a secure source. My own son. There were even papers about it with the secret police. Papers they were forced to destroy on direct orders from the highest political leadership. It’s a terrifying story of abuse of power and treason.”
Really, thought Holt, and now how do I get the old guy to change track?
“Really,” Holt concurred. “It would be of great help if you would tell us about your son.”
His dad was happy to do so. His son had been very talented. Had an easy time in school. Always best in the class. Good-looking besides. As soon as he was big enough he didn’t have a quiet moment, because of all the women running after him.
“They were crazy about him. But he handled it with good humor. Was always polite and charming to them.”
“But he never married,” Holt observed. “Never had a family and children of his own.”
“How would he have had time for that kind of thing,” his father tittered. “Besides, I warned him. I knew what I was talking about. I was married to his mother, after all.”
“The one who was killed in the subway?”
“Killed? She was drunk. She was drunk all the time. Had a couple bottles of port a day and stuffed herself with a lot of pills. She was drunk and she staggered over onto the rails, and there was no more to it than that.”
Had he and his son seen each other regularly?
In the summers, of course. At large family occasions on his side of the family, to which he didn’t need to invite his first wife. When their paths crossed, so to speak.
“We talked with another person, a colleague of ours,” said Holt, “who had met you at home with your son at a dinner in the late eighties. In his apartment on Norr Mälarstrand.”
“Was it that little policeman who helped Claes with some forgery that art Jew Henning palmed off on him?” the old man asked. “A wretched character who sat and apologized for his existence the whole time and could barely manage the silverware.”
“That may be right,” said Holt. And personally you’re not much better than Johansson when it comes down to it, she thought.
“I remember that,” said papa Waltin. “As soon as we were rid of that buffoon I asked Claes why in the name of God he associated with someone like that.”
“So why did he?”
“He seems to have been a useful idiot. Lucrative, too, according to Claes. Despite his deplorable appearance.”
“Did he explain why he thought that?” Holt persisted.
“He didn’t go into that,” said Robert Waltin, shaking his head. “As I remember it, my son said only that the most useful idiots were those who had no idea what they were helping out with. That this particular specimen had done both him and the nation a very great service.”
Wiijnbladh and one other guest. Did he recall who that other person had been?
“Yes, I remember him well,” said Robert Waltin. “It was one of Claes’s old classmates. He too became a very successful attorney. A business attorney for some of our most successful companies. Was even on the board at Bofors for several years. He died only a year or two after Claes. His name has slipped my memory, but I seem to recall I sent a card to the widow after the funeral. An excellent individual. They studied law together, as I said, and then they were members of the same society.”
Goodness, thought Holt.
“Society?” she said with an inquisitive smile.
“First they were in Conservative Law Students, but then there was some dispute with the board. This was at the time when the Bolsheviks were trying to take over our universities, so Claes and his good friend started their own society. Law Students for a Free Sweden, I think they called it.”
“Law Students for a Free Sweden?”
“Something like that,” said papa Waltin, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t remember exactly. There were a lot of organizations that my son was a member of at that time, in case you’re wondering.”
“Do you recall any others?” asked Holt innocently.
“None that I intend to talk with you ladies about,” said Robert Waltin.
On the other hand he was happy to talk about his son. A two-hour-long exposition on all his son’s good qualities and merits, which at last they were forced to put a stop to themselves because their taxi was waiting for them.
“I really must thank you, director Waltin,” said Holt, extending her hand in farewell.
“If there is anyone who deserves a thank-you it’s my son,” said Robert Waltin.
“I’ve understood that,” Holt agreed.
“Because he saw to it that traitor was shot,” hissed Robert Waltin, turning abruptly and disappearing into the house where the family had lived for five generations.
“So the old bastard maintains that his son is supposed to have been involved in murdering Palme,” said Johansson. “How does he know that?”
“Unclear,” said Holt. “More a feeling, if I understood it right. In any event, those were his parting words.”
“Feeling,” snorted Johansson, and it was then he decided it was time he talked with bureau head Berg’s old watchdog, Chief Inspector Persson. A real constable who had been involved back in the day.