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"Good Lord," Edklinth said.
"It was someone in Personal Protection who faxed them through."
"Who?"
"I don't think he's involved in the case. The letters landed on his desk in the morning, and shortly after the murder he was told to get in touch with the Goteborg police."
"Who gave him the instruction?"
"The chief of Secretariat's assistant."
"Good God, Monica. Do you know what this means? It means that SIS was involved in Zalachenko's murder."
"Not necessarily. But it definitely does mean that some individuals within SIS had knowledge of the murder before it was committed. The only question is: who?"
"The chief of Secretariat . . ."
"Yes. But I'm beginning to suspect that this Zalachenko club is out of house."
"How do you mean?"
"Martensson. He was moved from Personal Protection and is working on his own. We've had him under surveillance around the clock for the past week. He hasn't had contact with anyone within SIS as far as we can tell. He gets calls on a mobile that we cannot monitor. We don't know what number it is, but it's not his normal number. He did meet with the fair-haired man, but we haven't been able to identify him."
Edklinth frowned. At the same instant Anders Berglund knocked on the door. He was one of the new team, the officer who had worked with the financial police.
"I think I've found Evert Gullberg," Berglund said.
"Come in," Edklinth said.
Berglund put a dog-eared black-and-white photograph on the desk. Edklinth and Figuerola looked at the picture, which showed a man that both of them immediately recognized. He was being led through a doorway by two broad-shouldered plain-clothes police officers. The legendary double agent Colonel Stig Wennerstrom.*
"This print comes from Ahlen and Akerlund Publishers and was used in Se magazine in the spring of 1964. The photograph was taken in the course of the trial. Behind Wennerstrom you can see three people. On the right, Detective Superintendent Otto Danielsson, the policeman who arrested him."
"Yes . . ."
"Look at the man on the left behind Danielsson."
They saw a tall man with a narrow moustache who was wearing a hat. He reminded Edklinth vaguely of the writer Dashiell Hammett.
"Compare his face with this passport photograph of Gullberg, taken when he was sixty-six."
Edklinth frowned. "I wouldn't be able to swear it's the same person--"
"But it is," Berglund said. "Turn the print over."
On the reverse was a stamp saying that the picture belonged to Ahlen & Akerlund Publishers and that the photographer's name was Julius Estholm. The text was written in pencil: Stig Wennerstrom flanked by two police officers on his way into Stockholm district court. In the background O. Danielsson, E. Gullberg, and H. W. Francke.
"Evert Gullberg," Figuerola said. "He was SIS."
"No," Berglund said. "Technically speaking, he wasn't. At least not when this picture was taken."
"Oh?"
"SIS wasn't established until four months later. In this photograph he was still with the Security Police."
"Who's H. W. Francke?" Figuerola said.
"Hans Wilhelm Francke," Edklinth said. "Died in the early nineties, but was assistant chief of the Security Police in the late fifties and early sixties. He was a bit of a legend, just like Otto Danielsson. I actually met him a couple of times."
"Is that so?" Figuerola said.
"He left SIS in the late sixties. Francke and P. G. Vinge never saw eye to eye, and he was more or less forced to resign at the age of fifty or fifty-five. Then he opened his own shop."
"His own shop?"
"He became a consultant in security for industry. He had an office on Stureplan, but he also gave lectures from time to time at SIS training sessions. That's where I met him."
"What did Vinge and Francke quarrel about?"
"They were just very different. Francke was a bit of a cowboy who saw KGB agents everywhere, and Vinge was a bureaucrat of the old school. Vinge was fired shortly thereafter. A bit ironic, that, because he thought Palme was working for the KGB."
Figuerola looked at the photograph of Gullberg and Francke standing side by side.
"I think it's time we had another talk with Justice," Edklinth told her.
"Millennium came out today," Figuerola said.
Edklinth shot her a glance.
"Not a word about the Zalachenko affair," she said.
"So we've got a month before the next issue. Good to know. But we have to deal with Blomkvist. In the middle of all this mess he's like a hand grenade with the pin pulled."
CHAPTER 17
Wednesday, June 1
Blomkvist had no warning that someone was in the stairwell when he reached the landing outside his top-floor apartment at Bellmansgatan 1. It was 7:00 in the evening. He stopped short when he saw a woman with short blond curly hair sitting on the top step. He recognized her right away as Monica Figuerola of SIS from the passport photograph Karim had located.
"Hello, Blomkvist," she said cheerfully, closing the book she had been reading. Blomkvist looked at the book and saw that it was in English, on the idea of God in the ancient world. He studied his unexpected visitor as she stood up. She was wearing a short-sleeved summer dress and had laid a brick-red leather jacket over the top stair.
"We need to talk to you," she said.
She was tall, taller than he was, and that impression was magnified by the fact that she was standing two steps above him. He looked at her arms and then at her legs and saw that she was much more muscular than he was.
"You spend a couple of hours a week at the gym," he said.
She smiled and took out her ID.
"My name is--"
"Monica Figuerola, born in 1969, living on Pontonjargatan on Kungsholmen. You came from Borlange and you've worked with the Uppsala police. For three years you've been working in SIS, Constitutional Protection. You're an exercise fanatic and you were once a top-class athlete, almost made it onto the Swedish Olympic team. What do you want with me?"
She was surprised, but she quickly regained her composure.
"Fair enough," she said in a low voice. "You know who I am--so you don't have to be afraid of me."
"I don't?"
"There are some people who need to have a talk with you in peace and quiet. Since your apartment and mobile seem to be bugged and we have reason to be discreet, I've been sent to invite you."
"And why would I go anywhere with somebody who works for Sapo?"
She thought for a moment. "Well . . . you could just accept a friendly personal invitation, or if you prefer, I could handcuff you and take you with me." She smiled sweetly. "Look, Blomkvist. I understand that you don't have many reasons to trust anyone from SIS. But it's like this: not everyone who works there is your enemy, and my superiors really want to talk to you. So, which do you prefer? Handcuffed or voluntarily?"
"I've been handcuffed by the police once already this year. And that was enough. Where are we going?"
She had parked around the corner, down on Pryssgrand. When they were settled in her new Saab 9-5, she flipped open her mobile and pressed a speed-dial number.
"We'll be there in fifteen minutes."
She told Blomkvist to fasten his seat belt and drove over Slussen to Ostermalm and parked on a side street off Artillerigatan. She sat still for a moment and looked at him.
"This is a friendly invitation, Blomkvist. You're not risking anything."
Blomkvist said nothing. He was reserving judgement until he knew what this was all about. She punched in the code on the street door. They took the elevator to the fifth floor, to an apartment with the name Martinsson on the door.
"We've borrowed the place for tonight's meeting," she said, opening the door. "To your right, into the living room."
The first person Blomkvist saw was Torsten Edklinth, which was no surprise since Sapo was deeply involved in what had happened, and Edklinth wa
s Figuerola's boss. The fact that the director of Constitutional Protection had gone to the trouble of bringing him in said that somebody was nervous.
Then he saw a figure by the window. The minister of justice. That was a surprise.
Then he heard a sound to his right and saw the prime minister get up from an armchair. He hadn't for a moment expected that.
