Ewert Grens’s pursuit of Göransson’s role in concealing the undercover operation

Ewert Grens’s pursuit of Chief Superintendent Göransson begins with a breach in the ordinary chain of police work: the unanswered Västmannagatan 79 case is not simply stalled but entangled with a protected undercover operation. Göransson is Grens’s immediate superior and also Erik Wilson’s line manager, a position that gives him knowledge of the work withheld from Grens. The relationship consequently shifts from professional hierarchy to confrontation over who knew the truth, who controlled the records, and why the official investigation had been left without answers.

Authority and the concealed operation

Göransson’s institutional position connects the two strands that Grens has been trying to reconcile. He oversees both Grens’s and Wilson’s workloads, while Wilson serves as Piet Hoffmann’s handler. The later account of the informant system makes that chain concrete: a handler records an informant’s work in a logbook, and the logbook is kept in a safe by the CHIS controller, Göransson. His authority is therefore more than a title. It places him between the undercover operation and the police investigation that cannot openly explain its gaps.

The recording Grens listens to supplies a further link. At a meeting at Rosenbad, the national police commissioner says that Paula has no time for Västmannagatan; Göransson’s voice responds that Paula has dealt with similar cases before. Grens then sketches a table with five people: a likely state secretary from the Ministry of Justice, the person calling himself Paula, Paula’s handler, the country’s most senior police officer, and Göransson. The recording does not make every participant’s identity explicit, but Grens recognizes the significance of Göransson’s place in the arrangement. As the manager responsible for both himself and Wilson, Göransson must have known why the murder investigation was receiving no answers.

The secret operation had a material life beyond those meeting-room references. Hoffmann entered Aspsås prison for the first time after having studied its buildings from the church tower and learned about staff and prisoners in Block G. After ten days, he had spent twenty-three hours a day alone in a small cell. Once in the unit, he used his knowledge of the other prisoners and the material prepared for his cover identity to establish himself, while members of Wojtek helped arrange criminal-record and prison documents. These details show the scale of the undercover performance whose existence Grens is uncovering; they do not, by themselves, establish that Göransson directed Hoffmann’s prison movements.

The recording and Grens’s realization

The discovery does not bring Grens relief. After listening to the meeting, he drinks coffee that is still too hot and tries to steady himself before returning to the recording. He draws the five figures at the table, then understands that the person responsible for his workload and Wilson’s had known why the Västmannagatan case remained unanswered. The insight changes the meaning of the stalled investigation: its silence is connected to a decision made above Grens, not merely to a lack of progress within his own team.

Göransson’s place in the recording also sharpens the conflict between official duty and private knowledge. Grens has treated the case as an investigation requiring answers; now the institution around him has become part of what must be investigated. His anger is visible in the vandalized blotter and in his repeated recognition that he has been made a useful idiot. The language marks a reversal of position: the experienced investigator discovers that he has been kept working inside a version of events designed by people with more authority than he has.

The logbook and direct confrontation

Grens approaches Göransson with a specific object in mind. He knows that Wilson was Hoffmann’s handler and that the handler’s logbook should record the informant’s work. Since the CHIS controller is responsible for keeping it, Grens goes to Göransson and asks to see it. Göransson says he does not understand, but Grens has arrived with a precise account of the document’s chain of custody rather than a general accusation.

The meeting takes place exactly half an hour after their conversation. Göransson’s office is considerably larger than Grens’s, and Grens notices that his superior is nervous despite trying to conceal it. Göransson says that there is only one copy of the logbook, that it is in his safe, and that only he knows the code. He adds that the restriction exists to prevent unauthorized people from seeing it. The safe makes the imbalance tangible: the record Grens needs is close at hand, but access depends on the very man whose knowledge he is questioning.

Grens does not stop at the logbook. He asks for the secret intelligence report about what actually happened at Västmannagatan 79. The exchange returns the confrontation to the original wound in the case: the difference between the account available to investigators and the events concealed behind the undercover operation. Göransson whispers, then looks at the colleague he has never liked. The scene leaves the demand for the report at the center of the dispute; the evidence presented here does not establish that Grens obtains it in this exchange.

Conflicting accounts and consequences

Göransson’s later response to the lethal shooting at Aspsås further complicates his position. He says that, had he known what he knows now, he would not have ordered the sniper to fire and Hoffmann would never have died. Yet he also tells himself that he did not participate and had jumped ship. His account presents withdrawal as a boundary between himself and the operation, while the recording and the reporting structure show that he had been positioned close to its management. The contrast does not prove every detail of his involvement, but it leaves his claim of distance under pressure.

After the shooting, Mariana Hermansson leaves Grens’s office carrying a file connected with the reports required after a lethal incident at Aspsås. Göransson knows what she and Grens have been doing, and later sees Sven Sundkvist heading to Grens’s office with files of his own. Grens is visibly enraged; Sven, who knows him well, recognizes that his anger and grief are his to confront. For Göransson, these ordinary movements through the police building occur in the shadow of the records he controls and the knowledge he has withheld.

The relationship ends this portion of the story not in reconciliation but in an investigative contest over evidence. Grens has identified Göransson’s supervisory role, heard him on the Rosenbad recording, learned where the informant logbook is kept, and demanded the report on Västmannagatan. Göransson retains formal authority and control of the safe, but Grens no longer treats that authority as a reason to defer. The former superior-subordinate relationship has become a test of whether the institution will disclose what its own chain of command has kept hidden.