Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest, The - Stieg Larsson [37]
“The private investigators won this round. I can’t find Zalachenko in any public register, but a Karl Axel Bodin seems to have been born in 1942 in Uddevalla. His parents were Marianne and Georg Bodin. They died in an accident in 1946. Karl Axel Bodin was brought up by an uncle living in Norway. So there is no record of him until the ’70s, when he moved back to Sweden. Mikael Blomkvist’s story that he’s a G.R.U. agent who defected from the Soviet Union seems impossible to verify, but I’m inclined to think he’s right.”
“Alright. And what does that mean?”
“The obvious explanation is that he was given a false identity. It must have been done with the consent of the authorities.”
“You mean the Security Police, Säpo?”
“That’s what Blomkvist claims. But exactly how it was done I don’t know. It presupposes that his birth certificate and a number of other documents were falsified and then slipped into our public records. I don’t dare to comment on the legal ramifications of such an action. It probably depends on who made the decision. But for it to be legal, the decision would have to have been made at senior government level.”
Silence descended in Bublanski’s office as the four criminal inspectors considered these implications.
“O.K.,” said Bublanski. “The four of us are just dumb police officers. If people in government are mixed up in this, I don’t intend to interrogate them.”
“Hmm,” said Andersson, “this could lead to a constitutional crisis. In the United States you can cross-examine members of the government in a normal court of law. In Sweden you have to do it through a constitutional committee.”
“But we could ask the boss,” said Holmberg.
“Ask the boss?” said Bublanski.
“Thorbjörn Fälldin. He was Prime Minister at the time.”
“O.K., we’ll just cruise up to wherever he lives and ask the former Prime Minister if he faked identity documents for a defecting Russian spy. I don’t think so.”
“Fälldin lives in Ås, in Härnösand. I grew up a few miles from there. My father’s a member of the Centre Party and knows Fälldin well. I’ve met him several times, both as a kid and as an adult. He’s a very approachable person.”
Three inspectors gave Holmberg an astonished look.
“You know Fälldin?” Bublanski said dubiously.
Holmberg nodded. Bublanski pursed his lips.
“To tell the truth,” said Holmberg, “it would solve a number of issues if we could get the former Prime Minister to give us a statement – at least we’d know where we stand in all this. I could go up there and talk to him. If he won’t say anything, so be it. But if he does, we might save ourselves a lot of time.”
Bublanski weighed the suggestion. Then he shook his head. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that both Modig and Andersson were nodding thoughtfully.
“Holmberg … it’s nice of you to offer, but I think we’ll put that idea on the back burner for now. So, back to the case. Sonja.”
“According to Blomkvist, Zalachenko came here in 1976. As far as I can work out, there’s only one person he could have got that information from.”
“Gunnar Björck,” said Andersson.
“What has Björck told us?” Holmberg asked.
“Not much. He says it’s all classified and that he can’t discuss anything without permission from his superiors.”
“And who are his superiors?”
“He won’t say.”
“So what’s going to happen to him?”
“I arrested him for violation of the prostitution laws. We have excellent documentation in Dag Svensson’s notes. Ekström was most upset, but since I had already filed a report, he could get himself into trouble if he closes the preliminary investigation,” Andersson said.
“I see. Violation of the prostitution laws. That might result in a fine of ten times his daily income.”
“Probably. But we have him in the system and can call him in again for questioning.”
“But now we’re getting a little too close to poaching on Säpo’s preserves. That might cause a bit of turbulence.”
“The problem is that none of this could have happened if Säpo weren’t involved somehow. It’s possible that Zalachenko really was a Russian spy who defected and was granted political asylum.