“How’s it going?” said Johansson as soon as Lewin came into his office.
“It’s rolling along slowly,” said Lewin, nodding inquisitively at Johansson’s visitor’s chair before he sat down.
“Is he alive?” asked Johansson.
“I think so,” Lewin replied. “I get that feeling, at least,” he added with a cautious throat clearing. “In any event we don’t have anything that indicates the opposite.”
“His sister then? Runs out to the bar all the time and drinks champagne with all the interest on her accounts.”
“She seems to live a very quiet life,” said Lewin, shaking his head. “Judging by the records from her home phone she seems to socialize mostly with an old co-worker and a few neighbors in the area where she lives. Plus she’s secretary of her condominium association. Not really any extensive socializing. She makes at most a few calls a day. I haven’t located any cell phone. She doesn’t have an account with any Swedish provider. But she does have a computer and an Internet account with Telia.”
“She probably has one of those prepaid cell phones, like all the other crooks. A leopard never changes its spots,” said Johansson as a police siren started sounding in the pocket of his jacket. “Excuse me,” he said, fishing out his red cell phone.
“Yes,” said Johansson as he always had the habit of doing when he answered the phone.
“You don’t say,” he continued. “Come here on the double so we can set out the shooting line.
“I see then,” said Johansson, nodding. “Now you’ll have to excuse me, Jan. I’ve got something else on the program, but I promise to be in touch.”
Wonder what’s happening? thought Lewin as he stepped out into the corridor from Johansson’s office and was almost run over by the head of the national SWAT force and two of his bald-headed co-workers, on their way in at a fast march.
“What’s happening?” said Johansson without nodding at his visitor’s chair. Full battle regalia and grim faces. What the hell is happening? he thought.
“We seem to have a hostage situation down at the Parliament Building,” said the SWAT chief. “At the office of the Christian Democrats. One perpetrator. Probably armed and dangerous.”
“Do we know who he is?” said Johansson.
“The boys who are at the scene say it’s Bäckström,” said the SWAT chief. “Bäckström from lost-and-found. That fat little bastard. He seems to have taken one individual hostage and barricaded himself in his office. It’s that Thulin. Do you know who I mean, Chief?”
“Bäckström, I know who that is,” said Johansson. “Thulin? Are we talking about that sanctimonious bastard who’s always on TV harping about all the wicked people he runs into all the time? Former prosecutor Alf Thulin?”
“Yes, boss. That Bäckström. Yes, boss. That Thulin. Yes, boss.”
“Go down and tell the little fatso to behave properly,” said Johansson and sighed.