Axman sat down in the only armchair near the window that faced the garden and yard in Modin’s Stockholm apartment. They had just arrived from Grisslehamn.
Across from the armchair was a much used love seat and a brown coffee table. The table lamp was missing. It was broken. Modin had shoved it in a closet in the kitchen. He wasn’t good at such things. Monika used to take care of decorating their living quarters.
“Bergman’s on his way,” Modin said and put down his cell phone.
At that same moment, a text message arrived. He ignored it.
“Do you think we’re safe here?” Axman said.
“Safer than in Grisslehamn. And besides, we really need to take care of things. I have an idea but it’s not ready for presentation yet. Give me some more time to think.”
Modin went to the bookcase on the long wall of the small apartment and pulled out an old paperback.
“You remember this one?” he said, showing Axman the cover. “Sjöwall & Wahlöö’s Man on the Balcony. Still a good read. One of the first crime novels I ever read.”
“I liked The Fireman Who Vanished,” Axman said. “The best in the series. Did you know that the two authors were communists?”
“You mean Maj Sjöwall and her partner Per Wahlöö? Sure I did,”
Modin said. “What do you want me to say? Still good stuff. You always feel sorry for ordinary citizens in those books. That’s what makes them work.”
Modin put a CD in the stereo that was lodged between stacks of books in the bookcase. The small but expensive Bowers & Wilkins loudspeakers filled the room with “Carpet Crawlers” by Genesis.
“Remember this?” Modin said. “Genesis, they were commies too back then. There are not many people left that remember the world’s best rock band. Well, everyone knows their drummer, Phil Collins, and their singer Peter Gabriel. But their guitarist Steve Hackett and the keyboardist Tony Banks are not half as well known.”
“Don’t forget their bass player, Mike Rutherford,” Axman said. “Mike and the Mechanics. That was his band later on. “The Living Years,” you remember? What a team. They ought to have a museum devoted to them. Culture from the 1970s.” Axman shut his eyes and enjoyed the music. “This apartment has seen plenty of warm-ups. You remember when we used to go to the Cave Dart Club?”
“Or the Ritz Rock Club on Medborgarplatsen Square?” Modin said. As he plopped down on the divan in the corner of the room next to a large writing desk, he peeked at his cell phone. The text was still there, like a sleeping rattlesnake. He had no intention of letting it out of its cage.
This was Modin’s first apartment, and he had kept it all these years. It was about 360 square feet; the idea had been for his son to take it over one day. That wouldn’t happen.
The apartment was on the second floor of a building on the busy Götgatan Road in Söder, near Medborgarplatsen Square, with a French balcony facing the yard. When he moved in at age 18, a Swedish rock legend, the singer from the band Hep Stars, lived in the same building. Their breakthrough was the hit “Cadillac.” How very proud he had been to live in the same apartment building as a celebrity.
“Sometimes you wish you were 18 all over again, Axman. Don’t you feel like that? Everything was so incredibly simple. At least in hindsight. You just went downtown without any planning. Not like now when everything has to be planned in minute detail and coordinated with your job, gym sessions, and family. And nowadays everything you do has to be facebooked and twittered. The joy of life becomes diluted somehow. It was better in the old days, I’m telling you.”
“You were living here when Palme was murdered?”
“Yes, I was. Don’t remind me, please. I have a vague memory of watching it on TV as I woke up the day after, but nothing more than that. I can’t remember what I was doing the night he was killed. I suppose I was working,” Modin said as he smiled in Axman’s direction.
“You were, like, saving the nation. Sure you don’t remember?”
“Yeah, seriously. I really don’t remember what I was doing that night. Everybody else seems to, but I don’t. It’s strange.”
“I was at a party at the Royal Technical University,” Axman said. “Right in the middle of my studies there. We were told about the assassination at the party, but not many people reacted. We were all too drunk. Only when we went home and sobered up did the penny drop. This was the Prime Minister. Even though most people studying at the Technical University didn’t sympathize with Palme and his policies, he was still a human being, and our Prime Minister no less. He was assumed to work for the best for his country and had the right to live. It’s a disgrace the way he had to go, Modin. A real fucking disgrace.”
“I quite agree. Things were really screwed up back then. King Gustav III was murdered in a similar way back in the eighteenth century. Back then people may have thought it was okay to stop an autocrat in his tracks, but the 1980s happened to be democratic times. There are other ways of sidelining a prime minister who is well past his expiration date. We do have such things as general elections; the people have the power to change things. Or, at least, ought to have.”
“Sure you don’t remember?” Axman said again.
“I promise.” Modin raised his right hand. “Trust me.”
“Modin, I’ve been thinking about what you said about Special Ops and those who wanted us killed. These guys, whoever they were, must be subordinate to those who killed Olof Palme, don’t you think? This would mean that Chris Loklinth and his psychos at Special Ops are aware of that. He’s not stupid. But we know all too well that Special Ops are not going to stop them. So, they will be back.”
“What would you say if I told you that Special Ops was planning it all?”
“Are you serious?”
“Of course. Keeping information about the Olof Palme murder under wraps must be one of the things at the top of their agenda. They themselves are involved. They were then in 1986, and they still are today.”
“And you said you know nothing, Modin?”
“I said I don’t remember what I did that day, but I think Special Ops may have been involved. That is pure analysis, a personal hypothesis, nothing else.”
“Loklinth will act ruthlessly if he thinks we’re onto something. We know that from experience. Somebody has tried to kill you twice now, Modin. It has to stop. Who knows what happens the third time…”
Modin’s cell phone rang. He answered after three rings. The number was hidden.
“Anton, this is Chris. How are things? Did you get my text?” Chris Loklinth, the head of Military Intelligence Special Operations was on the other end of the line. Modin slid to his feet and walked over to the window, where he stood behind the curtain and looked out into the yard five floors down. The evening sun was shining in his eyes and he was sweating. Was Loklinth in the vicinity? Did he have the window under surveillance?
“What do you want? I’m busy.”
“I think we should meet. Are you available right now? I can see that you’re in town. At home on Götgatan?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’ll be over in ten minutes.”
“No, I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Modin said. “We can meet at Beckholmen in half an hour, at the Gustav V dock.”
“Okay. In thirty minutes then.”
Modin put his cell phone down onto the coffee table. He already regretted mentioning the location of the first attempt on his life. Was he crazy to go back there? He wiped the palms of his hands on his pants and remained standing. He felt nauseous. It was as if the wind had brought old, infected air from his former life as a servant in the interests of the state. He had lived under the happy misconception that it was over. Now Loklinth’s call had broken the spell.
The idiot he was, Modin had just put himself back into the dark corridors of his recurring nightmares.
“Who was it?”
“Loklinth.”
“Speak of the devil! What did he want?”
“Talk. It sounded important.”