MAJ SJÖWALL

AND PER WAHLÖÖ

The Locked Room

Translated from the Swedish by Paul Britten Austin

Copyright

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk

This ebook first published by Harper Perennial in 2009

This 4th Estate edition published in 2016

This translation first published by Random House Inc, New York, in 1973

Originally published in Sweden by P. A. Norstedt & Söners Forlag

Copyright text © Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö 1972

Copyright introduction © Michael Connelly 2007

Cover photograph © Shutterstock

PS Section © Richard Shephard 2007

PS™ is a trademark of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors' imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007439188

Ebook Edition © 1972 ISBN: 9780007323456

Version: 2016-03-30

From the reviews of the Martin Beck series:

‘First class’

Daily Telegraph

‘One of the most authentic, gripping and profound collections of police procedural ever accomplished’

MICHAEL CONNELLY

‘Hauntingly effective storytelling’

New York Times

‘There's just no question about it: the reigning King and Queen of mystery fiction are Maj Sjöwall and her husband Per Wahlöö’

The National Observer

‘Sjöwall/Wahlöö are the best writers of police procedural in the world’

Birmingham Post

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

About the Authors

Also by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

What I don't like about writing an introduction is that you can't give anything away. You can only tease. You can say to the reader that you are in for a great ride, a great set of characters and a great story but you can't really make your case. You don't want to ruin it for the reader, so you can't exactly say why. So an introduction is sort of a ‘trust me’ proposition. I am here to tell you that if you are about to hop aboard and ride this story, then you are in for a great ride. Trust me.

I first took this ride about thirty years ago. A child of the movies and television, I have come to most of the masters of crime fiction through the visual medium. I read Raymond Chandler, Ross MacDonald and Joseph Wambaugh after seeing their work on the screen first. In each case I found the written stories that spawned the screen stories to be much deeper, more detailed and more gripping as they took the reader to the place no movie or television show can go; inside a character's thoughts.

So too was the case with the work of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. The movie came first. My father and I both loved cop flicks. We went together often. One night in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, we went to see The Laughing Policeman with Walter Matthau and Bruce Dern. I didn't know it was based on a book until I saw the credits. I liked the movie, with the deeply brooding Detective Martin played by Matthau and the more reactive, loose cannon Detective Larsen played by Dern.

Not long after, I bought the book and quickly learned that the original story was not set in San Francisco, California, but in Stockholm, Sweden, and that the film's Detective Jake Martin was actually Detective Martin Beck in the book. No matter, I had invested. I read the book and there begun one of the best lessons a writer in waiting could ever have. In the next several years I moved from book to book in the Martin Beck series. I found it to be one of the most authentic, gripping and profound collection of police procedurals ever accomplished.

Sjöwall and Wahlöö set out to write a ten book, ten year glimpse of Swedish society, using the detective novel as the magnifying glass through which they would conduct their examination. They achieved their goal with great mastery. As a young reader with the intention/hope of writing crime novels someday, there were no better teachers when it came to showing how the detective story could rise above mere entertainment to the point of holding a mirror up to ourselves and the societies we build. Their work constantly reminds me of something the great writer Richard Price once said when questioned about his repeated forays into the realms of crime and detection. He said that he liked writing about detectives because when you circle around a murder long enough, you get to know a city. Long before he said that, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö knew it and practised it. The Martin Beck books tell us so much more than just how a crime is solved. Beautifully structured, textured and rendered, they tell us how a crime happens and how a city, country and society can often be complicit. They take us beneath the surface. They tell it like it is. Though the series now ages past thirty years, there is both a timeliness and time-lessness to the books that make them just as important now as the days they first came out of the bindery.

The Locked Room is flat out one of my favourites in the series. I am blown away by the authors' wonderful and original take on a standard mystery contraption – a locked room murder. I am in awe of the novel as a showcase of Martin Beck at his brooding best. The authors avoid the norms by weaving two seemingly separate investigations through the book; the story of a bank robbery gone bad and the story of Beck's investigation into what appears to be an unsolvable case, a man found shot to death in a room with the door and window locked. The case has been all but given up on until the detective returns to the job after recovering from wounds received in an earlier story. As he deals with his physical and mental recovery he works the locked room case over like a child works on a loose tooth with his tongue.

From the standpoint of a writer who has some experience attempting such things, there is no finer example of how to do it. Sjöwall and Wahlöö do it with completely convincing detail, humour and that most important ingredient; momentum. The book never lags. It never fails to keep the reader in his seat.

All the while the book carries the vivid imagery of Stockholm and its underbelly of crime that Beck traverses. I read this book long before I ever visited Stockholm but the sense of the city, its smells, its sounds, its hidden dangers and beauties are vibrantly alive. The city is as much a character in the book as any person who appears in its pages.

What's more, the book carries a dark irony: the idea of justice in which we are all guilty of something, and if we are not punished for the crimes we have committed then we are punished for those we have not. It is a daring proposition and one I have seen in a number of other books. But I have not seen it played out so well as in these pages.

As with the entire series of ten books, Martin Beck is the pole that holds the tent up in The Locked Room. His presence looms over every page whether he is actually on it or not. To me Beck is the original grinder, an empathist who takes it all in and grinds it constantly in his head. He grinds the case down to powder and only then does he see the solution. He operates with a certain melancholy that is just right. He is alone but not lonely. He is the thinking man's detective. The writer Joseph Wambaugh once said that the best crime stories are not about how a cop works on a case, but how a case works on a cop. Martin Beck is a most fitting example of the accuracy of this. And The Locked Room is a most fitting case for him to work and be worked upon.

Michael Connelly

1

The bells of St Maria struck two as she came out from the metro station on Wollmar Yxkullsgatan. Before hurrying on towards the Maria Square she halted and lit a cigarette.

The din of the church bells reverberated through the air, reminding her of the dreary Sundays of her childhood. She'd been born and grown up only a few blocks from the Church of St Maria, where she'd also been christened and confirmed – the latter almost twelve years ago. All she could remember about her confirmation classes was having asked the vicar what Strindberg had meant when he'd written of the ‘melancholy descant’ of the St Maria bells. But she couldn't recall his answer.

The sun was beating down on her back. After crossing St Paulsgatan she eased her pace, not wishing to break into a sweat. All of a sudden she realized how nervous she was and regretted not having taken a tranquillizer before leaving home.

Reaching the fountain in the middle of the square, she dipped her handkerchief in the cool water and, walking away, sat down on a bench in the shade of the trees. She took off her glasses and rubbed her face with the wet handkerchief, polished her glasses with the hem of her light-blue shirt, and put them on again. The large lenses reflected the light, concealing the upper half of her face. She took off her wide-rimmed blue denim hat, lifted up her straight blonde hair, so long it brushed against her shoulders, and wiped the nape of her neck. Then, putting on her hat, she pulled it down over her brow and sat quite still, her handkerchief crumpled up into a ball between her hands.

After a while she spread the handkerchief out beside her on the bench and wiped the palms of her hands on her jeans. She looked at her watch: half past two. A few minutes to calm down before she had to go.

When the clock struck 2.45 she opened the flap of the dark-green canvas shoulder bag that lay in her lap, picked up her handkerchief, which by now was completely dry, and without folding it slipped it into the bag. Then she got up, slung the leather strap of the bag over her right shoulder, and started walking.

Approaching Hornsgatan she grew less tense; everything, she persuaded herself, would work out fine.

It was Friday, the last day of June, and for many people the summer holidays had just begun. On Hornsgatan, both on the street itself and on the pavements, the traffic was lively. Emerging from the square, she turned off to the left and went into the shadow of the houses.

She hoped today had been a wise choice. She'd weighed the pros and cons and realized she might have to put off her project until next week. No harm in that, though she wasn't too keen on exposing herself to such mental stress.

She got there earlier than she'd planned and halted on the shady side of the street, observing the big window opposite her. Its shiny glass reflected the sunshine, and the heavy traffic partially blocked her view. But one thing she noticed. The curtains were drawn.

Pretending to be window shopping, she walked slowly up and down the pavement, and although there was a large clock hanging outside a watchmaker's shop nearby she kept looking at her watch. And all the while she kept an eye on the door on the other side of the street.

At 2.55 she walked over to the pedestrian crossing at the crossroads. Four minutes later she was standing outside the door of the bank.

Before pushing it open, she lifted the flap of her bag. Walking in, she let her gaze sweep over the office, a branch of one of Sweden's major banks. It was long and narrow; the front wall consisted of the door and the only window. To her right a counter ran all the way from the window to the short wall at the other end, and on her left four desks were fixed to the long wall. Beyond them were a low, round table and two stools upholstered in red-chequered material. Furthest away were some stairs, rather steep, disappearing below to what presumably was the bank's safe-deposit vault.

Only one customer had come in before her – a man. He was standing at the counter, stuffing banknotes and documents into his briefcase. Behind the counter two female cashiers were sitting. Further away a male cashier stood leafing through a card index.

Going up to one of the desks, she fished out a pen from the outer pocket of her bag, meanwhile watching out of the corner of her eye as the customer with the briefcase went out through the street door. Taking a deposit slip out of the holder, she began doodling on it. After a little while she saw the male cashier go over to the door and lock it. Then he bent down and flicked the hook holding open the inner door. As it swung closed with a hissing sound, he resumed his place behind the counter.

She took her handkerchief out of her bag. Holding it in her left hand and the deposit slip in her right, as she approached the counter, she pretended to blow her nose.

Then she stuffed the deposit slip into her bag, brought out an empty nylon shopping bag, and laid it on the counter. Clutching her pistol, she pointed it at the female cashier and, holding her handkerchief in front of her mouth, said: ‘This is a hold-up. The gun's loaded and if you make any trouble I'll shoot. Put all the money you've got into this bag.’

The woman behind the counter stared at her and, slowly taking the nylon bag, laid it down in front of her. The other woman stopped combing her hair. Her hands sank slowly. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but couldn't get a sound out. The man, who was still standing behind his desk, gave a violent start.

Instantly she pointed the pistol at him and yelled: ‘Stay where you are! And put your hands where I can see them.’

Impatiently waving the barrel of the pistol at the woman in front of her, who was obviously paralysed with fright, she went on: ‘Hurry up with the money! All of it!’

The cashier began stuffing wads of banknotes into the bag. When she'd finished, she laid it on the counter.

Suddenly the man at the desk said: ‘You'll never get away with this. The police will –’

‘Shut up!’ she screamed.

Then she threw her handkerchief into her open bag and grabbed the nylon shopping bag. It felt nice and heavy. Backing slowly towards the door, she pointed the pistol at each of the bank's employees in turn.

All of a sudden someone came running towards her from the stairway at the far end of the room: a tall, blond man in well-pressed pants and a blue blazer with shiny buttons and a big gold emblem stitched to the breast pocket.

A loud bang filled the room and went on thundering between the walls. As her arm jerked upward to the ceiling she saw the man in the blazer being flung backwards. His shoes were brand new and white, with thick, grooved, red rubber soles. Only as his head hit the stone floor with a horrible dull thud did she realize she'd shot him.

Dropping the pistol into her bag, she stared wild-eyed at the three horror-stricken people behind the counter. Then she rushed for the door. Fumbling with the lock, she had time to think before emerging into the street: ‘Calm now, I must walk perfectly calmly.’ But once out on the pavement, she started half-running towards the crossroads.

She didn't see the people around her – she was only aware of bumping against several of them and of the pistol shot which went on thundering in her ears.

She rounded the corner and started running, the shopping bag in her hand and the heavy satchel bumping against her hip. Jerking open the door of the building where she'd lived as a child, she took the old familiar way out into the courtyard, checked herself, and fell to a walk. Passing straight through the porch of a gazebo she came out into another back yard. She descended the steep stairway into a cellar and sat down on the bottom step.

She tried to cram the nylon bag down on top of the automatic in her shoulder bag, but there wasn't enough room. She took off her hat, glasses, and blonde wig, and stuffed them all into the shoulder bag. Her own hair was dark and short. She stood up, unbuttoned her shirt, took it off, and put that too into the bag. Under her shirt she was wearing a short-sleeved black cotton jumper. Slinging the shoulder bag over her left shoulder, she picked up the nylon shopping bag and went up the stairs to the yard again. She climbed over a couple of walls before at last finding herself in a street at the far end of the block.

Then she entered a small grocery, bought two litres of milk, put the cartons into a large paper bag, and laid her nylon shopping bag on top of them.

After which she walked down to Slussen and took the metro home.

2

Gunvald Larsson arrived at the scene of the crime in his own strictly private car. It was a red BMW, which is unusual in Sweden and in many people's eyes far too grand for a detective inspector, especially when he uses it on the job.

This beautiful Friday afternoon he'd just settled down behind the wheel to drive home, when Einar Rönn had come rushing out into the yard of police headquarters and dashed all his plans for a quiet evening at home in Bollmora. Einar Rönn too was a detective inspector in the National Murder Squad and very likely the only friend Gunvald Larsson had; so when he said he was sorry but Gunvald Larsson would have to sacrifice his free evening, he really meant it.

Rönn drove to Hornsgatan in a police car. When he got there, several cars and some people from the South Precinct were already on the spot, and Gunvald Larsson was already inside the bank.

A little group of people had gathered outside the bank, and as Rönn crossed the pavement one of the uniformed constables who stood there glaring at the spectators came up to him and said: ‘I've a couple of witnesses here who said they heard the shot. What shall I do with them?’

‘Hold 'em a moment,’ Rönn said. ‘And try to disperse the others.’

The constable nodded and Rönn went on into the bank.

On the marble floor between the counter and the desks the dead man, his arms flung wide and his left knee bent, lay on his back. One trouser leg had slipped up, baring a chalk-white Orlon sock with a dark blue anchor on it and a deeply sunburned leg covered with gleaming blond hairs. The bullet had hit him right in the face, and blood and brain matter had exuded from the back of his head.

The staff of the bank were sitting together in the far corner of the room, and in front of them Gunvald Larsson half stood, half sat, one thigh across the edge of a desk. He was writing in a notebook while one of the women spoke in a shrill, indignant voice.

Seeing Rönn, Gunvald Larsson held up his right palm at the woman, who immediately broke off in the middle of a sentence. Gunvald Larsson got up, went behind the counter, and, notebook in hand, walked over to Rönn. With a nod at the man on the floor he said:

‘He doesn't look too good. If you stay here I can take the witnesses somewhere, maybe to the old police station on Rosenlundsgatan. Then you can work here undisturbed.’

Rönn nodded. ‘They say it was a girl who did it,’ he said. ‘And she got away with the cash. Did anyone see where she went?’

‘None of the bank staff at any rate,’ Gunvald Larsson said. ‘Apparently there was a guy standing outside who saw a car drive off, but he didn't see the number and wasn't too sure of the make, so that's not much to go on. I'll talk with him later.’

‘And who's this?’ asked Rönn with a curt nod at the dead man.

‘Some idiot wanting to play the hero. He tried to fling himself at the robber, and then of course, in sheer panic, she fired. He was one of the bank's customers and the staff knew him. He'd been in here going through his safe-deposit box and came up the stairway over there, right in the middle of it all.’ Gunvald Larsson consulted his notebook. ‘He was director of a gymnastics institute, and his name was Gårdon. With an “å”’.

‘I guess he thought he was Flash Gordon,’ Rönn said.

Gunvald Larsson threw him a questioning look.

Rönn blushed, and to change the subject said: ‘Well, I expect there are some photos of her in that thing.’ He pointed to the camera fixed beneath the ceiling.

‘If it's properly focused and also has some film in it,’ Gunvald Larsson said sceptically. ‘And if the cashier remembered to press the button.’

Nowadays most Swedish banks are equipped with cameras that shoot when the cashier on duty steps on a button on the floor. This was the only thing the staff had to do in the event of a holdup. With armed bank robberies becoming ever more frequent, banks had issued orders to their staff to hand over any money demanded of them and in general not to do anything to stop robbers or to prevent them getting away that might risk their own lives. This order did not, as one might be led to believe, derive from any humanitarian motives or any consideration for bank personnel. It was the fruit of experience. It is cheaper for banks and insurance companies to allow robbers to get away with their haul than to be obliged to pay out damages and maybe even support the victims' families for the rest of their lives – which can so easily be the case if someone gets injured or killed.

Now the police surgeon arrived, and Rönn went out to his car to fetch the murder kit. He used old-fashioned methods, not infrequently with success. Gunvald Larsson left for the old police station on Rosenlundsgatan, together with the staff of the bank and four other people who had identified themselves as witnesses.

He was lent an interrogation room, where he took off his suede jacket and hung it over the back of a chair before beginning the preliminary examinations. The first three statements given by the bank personnel were as good as identical; the four others diverged widely.

The first of these four witnesses was a forty-two-year-old man who, when the shot had gone off, had been standing in a doorway five yards from the bank. He'd seen a girl in a black hat and sunglasses hurry past, and when, according to his own statement, half a minute later, he'd looked down the street, he'd seen a green passenger car, probably an Opel, pull out from the kerb fifteen yards away. The car had disappeared quickly in the direction of Hornsplan, and he thought he'd seen the girl with the hat in the back seat. He hadn't caught the car's registration number but believed it to be an ‘AB’ plate.

The next witness, a woman, was a boutique owner. When she heard a shot she'd been standing in the open door of her shop, which shared a party wall with the bank. First she thought the sound had come from the pantry inside her boutique. Afraid that the gas stove had exploded, she dashed inside. Finding it hadn't, she returned to the door. Looking down the street, she'd seen a big blue car swing out into the traffic – tyres squealing. At the same instant a woman had come out of the bank and shouted that someone had been shot. She hadn't seen who had been sitting in the car or what its number was, but she thought it looked more or less like a taxi.

The third witness was a thirty-two-year-old metal worker. His account was more circumstantial. He hadn't heard the shot, or at least hadn't been aware of it. When the girl emerged from the bank he'd been walking along the pavement. She was in a hurry, and as she passed had pushed him aside. He hadn't seen her face but guessed her age to be about thirty. She was wearing blue trousers, a shirt, and a hat and was carrying a dark bag. He'd seen her go up to an ‘A’-reg car with two threes on its number plate. The car was a pale beige Renault 16. A thin man, who looked something between twenty and twenty-five, had been sitting at the wheel. He had long, lank, black hair and wore a short-sleeved cotton T-shirt. He was strikingly pale. Another man, who looked a little older, had stood on the pavement and opened the back door for the girl. After closing the door behind her, he sat down beside the driver in the front seat. This man was strongly built, about five foot ten, tall, and had ashen hair – fuzzy and very thick. He had a florid complexion and was dressed in black flares and a black shirt of some shiny material. The car had made a U-turn and disappeared in the direction of Slussen.

After this evidence Gunvald Larsson felt somewhat confused. Before calling in the last witness he carefully read through his notes.

This last witness turned out to be a fifty-year-old watchmaker who'd been sitting in his car right outside the bank, waiting for his wife who was in a shoe shop on the other side of the street. He'd had his window open and had heard the shot, but hadn't reacted since there's always so much noise on a busy street like Hornsgatan. It had been five past three when he'd seen the woman come out of the bank. He'd noticed her because she seemed to be in too much of a hurry to apologize for bumping into an elderly lady, and he'd thought it was typical of Stockholmers to be in such a rush and so unfriendly. He himself came from Södertälje. The woman was dressed in long trousers, and on her head she'd been wearing something reminiscent of a cowboy hat and had had a black shopping bag in her hand. She'd run to the crossroads and disappeared around the corner. No, she hadn't got into any car, nor had she halted on her way, but had gone straight on up to the corner and disappeared.

Gunvald Larsson phoned in the description of the two men in the Renault, got up, gathered his papers, and looked at the clock. Six already.

Presumably he'd done a lot of work in vain. The presence of the various cars had long since been reported by the first officers to arrive on the scene. Besides which none of the witnesses had given a coherent overall picture. Everything had gone to hell, of course. As usual.

For a moment he wondered whether he ought to detain the last witness, but dropped the idea. Everyone appeared eager to get home as quickly as possible. To tell the truth, he was the most eager of all, though probably that was hoping too much. So he let all the witnesses go.

Putting on his jacket, he went back to the bank.

The remains of the courageous gymnastics teacher had been removed, and a young constable stepped out of his car and informed him politely that Detective Inspector Rönn was waiting for him in his office. Gunvald Larsson sighed and went over to his car.

3

He awoke astonished at being alive. This was nothing new. For exactly the last fifteen months he'd opened his eyes every day with the same confused question: How is it I'm alive?

Just before waking he'd had a dream. This too was fifteen months old. Though it shifted constantly, it always followed the same pattern. He was riding. A cold wind tearing at his hair, he was galloping, leaning forward. Then he was running along a station platform. In front of him he saw a man who'd just raised a gun. He knew who the man was and what was going to happen. The man was Charles J. Guiteau; the weapon was a marksman's pistol, a Hammerli International.

Just as the man fired he threw himself forward and stopped the bullet with his body. The shot hit him like a hammer, right in the middle of his chest. Obviously he had sacrificed himself; yet at the same moment he realized his action had been in vain. The President was already lying crumpled on the ground, the shiny top hat had toppled from his head and was rolling around in a semicircle.

As always, he'd woken up just as the bullet hit him. At first everything went black, a wave of scorching heat swept over his brain. Then he opened his eyes.

Martin Beck lay quietly in his bed, looking up at the ceiling. It was light in the room. He thought about his dream. It didn't seem particularly meaningful, at least not in this version. Besides which it was full of absurdities. The weapon for example; it ought to have been a revolver or possibly a derringer; and how could Garfield be lying there, fatally wounded, when it was he himself who demonstrably had stopped the bullet with his chest?

He had no idea what the murderer had looked like in reality. If ever he'd seen a photo of the man, the mental image had been wiped out long ago. Usually Guiteau had blue eyes, a blond moustache, and sleek hair, combed back; but today he'd mostly resembled an actor in some famous role. Immediately he realized which: John Carradine as the gambler in Stagecoach. The whole thing was amazingly romantic.

A bullet in your chest, however, can easily lose its poetic qualities. That much he knew from experience. If it perforates the right lung and then lodges near the spine, the effect is intermittently painful and in the long run very tedious.

But there was also much in his dream that agreed with his own reality. The marksman's pistol, for example. It had belonged to a dismissed police constable with blue eyes, a blond moustache, and hair combed diagonally back. They'd met on the roof of a house under a cold, dark, spring sky. No words had been exchanged. Only a pistol shot.

That evening he'd woken up in a bed in a room with white walls – more precisely in the thorax clinic of Karolinska Hospital. They'd told him there his life was in no danger. Even so, he'd asked himself how it was he was still alive.

Later they'd said the injury no longer constituted a threat to his life, but the bullet wasn't sitting too well. He'd grasped, though not appreciated, the finesse of that little ‘no longer’. The surgeons had examined the X-ray plates for weeks before removing the foreign object from his body. Then they'd said his injury definitely no longer constituted any danger to his life. On the contrary, he'd make a complete recovery – providing he took things very easy. But by that stage he'd stopped believing them.

All the same, he had taken things pretty easy. He'd had no choice.

Now they said he'd made a complete recovery. This time too, however, there was an addition: ‘Physically.’ Furthermore he shouldn't smoke. His windpipe had never been too good, and a shot through the lung hadn't improved matters. After it had healed, mysterious marks had appeared around the scars.

Martin Beck got up. He went through his living room out into the hallway and, picking up his newspaper, which lay on the doormat, went on into the kitchen, meanwhile running his eyes over the front-page headlines. Beautiful weather, and it would hold, according to the weatherman. Apart from that, everything seemed, as usual, to be taking a turn for the worse. Setting down the newspaper on the kitchen table, he took a yoghurt out of the fridge. It tasted as it usually did, not good and not exactly bad, just a trifle musty and artificial. The carton was probably too old. Probably it had already been old when he'd bought it – the days were long gone when a Stockholmer could buy anything fresh without having to make a particular effort or pay an outrageous price. Next stop was the bathroom. After washing and brushing his teeth he returned to the bedroom, made the bed, took off his pyjama trousers, and began to dress.

As he did so he looked listlessly around his flat. It was at the top of a building on Köpmangatan, in the Old City. Most Stockholmers would have called it a dream home. He'd been living here for more than three years, and could still remember how comfortable he'd been, right up to that spring day on that roof.

Nowadays he mostly felt shut in and lonely, even when someone dropped in on him. Presumably this was not the flat's fault. Often of late he'd caught himself feeling claustrophobic even when he was outdoors.

He felt a vague urge for a cigarette. True, the doctors had told him he must give it up; but he didn't care. A more crucial factor was the State Tobacco Company's discontinuance of his usual brand. Now there were no cardboard-filter cigarettes on the market at all. On two or three occasions he'd tried various other kinds, but hadn't been able to accustom himself to them. As he tied his tie he listlessly studied his ship models. There were three of them standing on a shelf over his bed, two completed and the third half-finished. It was more than eight years ago that he had started building them, but since that April day last year he hadn't even touched them.

Since then they had gathered a lot of dust. Several times his daughter had offered to do something about this, but he'd asked her to leave them alone.

It was 8.30 a.m., the third of July, 1972, a Monday. A date of especial importance. On this particular day he was going back to work.

He was still a policeman – more exactly, a detective chief inspector, head of the National Murder Squad.

Martin Beck put on his jacket and stuffed the newspaper in his pocket, intending to read it on the metro – just one little detail of the routine he was about to resume.

Walking along Skeppsbron in the sunlight, he inhaled the polluted air. He felt old and hollow. But none of this could be seen in his appearance. On the contrary, he seemed healthy and vigorous, and his movements were swift and lithe. A tall, suntanned man with a strong jaw and calm, grey-blue eyes under a broad forehead, Martin Beck was forty-nine. Soon he'd be fifty. But most people thought he was younger.

4

The room in the South Police Headquarters on Västberga Avenue testified to the long residence of someone else as acting head of the Murder Squad. Though it was clean and tidy and someone had taken the trouble to place a vase of blue cornflowers and marguerites on his desk, everything vaguely suggested a lack of precision – superficial yet obvious, and in some way snug and homey. Especially in the desk drawers. Clearly, someone had just taken a lot of things out of them; but a good deal was still left. Old taxi receipts and cinema tickets for example, broken ball-point pens and empty sweet packets. In several of the pen trays were daisy chains of paper clips, rubber bands, lumps of sugar, and packets of saccharine tablets. Also, two packets of moist towelettes, one pack of Kleenex, three cartridge cases, and a broken Exacta watch. And a large number of slips of paper with scattered notes written in a clear, highly legible hand.

Martin Beck had gone around the station and said hello to people. Most, but by no means all, were old acquaintances. Now he was sitting at his desk, examining the watch, which appeared to be utterly useless. The crystal was misty on the inside, and when he shook it a gloomy, rustling noise came from within the watch-case, as if every one of its screws had come loose.

Lennart Kollberg knocked and entered. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Welcome.’

‘Thanks. Is this your watch?’

‘Yes,’ said Kollberg glumly. ‘I happened to put it in the washing machine. Forgot to empty my pockets.’ He looked about him and went on apologetically: ‘Actually I tried fixing it last Friday, but someone interrupted me. Well, you know how it is …’

Martin Beck nodded. Kollberg was the person he'd seen most of during his long convalescence, and there wasn't much new for them to tell one another. ‘How's the diet coming along?’

‘Fine,’ said Kollberg. ‘I was down a pound this morning, from sixteen stone four pounds to sixteen three.’

‘Then you've only put on a stone and a half since you began?’

‘A stone and a quarter,’ said Kollberg with a look of hurt pride. He shrugged and went on grumblingly: ‘It's bloody awful. The whole project flies in the face of nature. And Gun just laughs at me. Bodil too, for that matter. How are you, by the way?’

‘Fine.’

Kollberg frowned but said nothing. Instead he unzipped his briefcase and extracted a light red plastic folder. It seemed to contain a none-too-extensive report. Maybe thirty pages.

‘What's that?’

‘Let's call it a present.’

‘Who from?’

‘Me, for example. Although it's not, actually. It's from Gunvald Larsson and Rönn. They think it's terribly funny.’

Kollberg laid the file on the table. Then he said: ‘Unfortunately I have to go.’

‘What for?’

‘NPB.’

Which was the new National Police Board.

‘Why?’

‘These damn bank robbers.’

‘But there's a special squad for them.’

‘The special squad needs reinforcements. Last Friday some thick-headed twit got himself shot again.’

‘Yes, I've read about it.’

‘And so the State Police immediately decide to strengthen the special squad.’

‘With you?’

‘No,’ said Kollberg. ‘Actually, I think, with you. But this order came in last Friday, while I was still in charge here. So I made an independent decision.’

‘Namely?’

‘Namely to spare you that lunatic asylum, and move in myself to strengthen the special squad.’

‘Thanks.’ Martin Beck really meant what he'd said. To work in a special squad presumably implied a daily confrontation with, for example, the National Police Commissioner, at least two department heads, assorted superintendents, and other bom bastic amateurs. Kollberg had voluntarily taken these trials upon himself.

‘Well,’ Kollberg said, ‘in exchange I've got this.’ He put a thick index finger on the plastic file.

‘What's that?’

‘A case,’ said Kollberg. ‘Really a most interesting case, not like bank hold-ups and things. The only pity is …’

‘What?’

‘That you don't read detective stories.’

‘Why?’

‘Because if you did you might have appreciated it more. Rönn and Larsson think everyone reads detective stories. Actually it's their case, but just now they're so overloaded with misery that they're inviting applications for their little jobs, from anyone who wants one. It's something to think about. Just sit very still and think.’

‘Okay, I'll look it over,’ said Martin Beck dispassionately.

‘There's been no word about it in the papers. Aren't you curious?’

‘Sure. 'Bye then.’

‘See you,’ said Kollberg.

Outside the door he stopped and stood still a few seconds, frowning. Then he shook his head in a troubled way and walked over to the lift.

5

Martin Beck had said he was curious about the contents of the red file; but this was not really the truth. Actually it was of no interest to him whatever. Why, then, had he chosen to give an evasive and misleading answer to the question? To make Kollberg happy? Hardly. To deceive him? Even more far-fetched. For one thing, there was no reason to do so; and anyway it was impossible. They'd known one another far too well and for too many years. Besides which Kollberg was one of the least gullible men he'd ever met. Maybe to deceive himself? Even this thought was absurd.

Martin Beck went on chewing over this question as he completed his inspection of his office. When he'd finished with the drawers he passed on to the furniture, moved the chairs around, turned the desk to another angle, shoved the filing cabinet a few inches nearer to the door, unscrewed the office lamp and placed it on the right-hand corner of his desk. Obviously his deputy had preferred to have it on the left, or else it had just gotten that way. In little things Kollberg often acted haphazardly. But where important matters were concerned he was a perfectionist. For example, he'd waited till he was forty-two to get married, with the explicit motivation that he wanted a perfect wife. He'd waited for the right one.

Martin Beck, on the other hand, could look back at almost two decades of unsuccessful marriage, to a person who certainly didn't seem to have been the right one. Anyway he was divorced now; he supposed he must have lingered until it was too late.

Sometimes in the last six months he'd caught himself wondering if the divorce, all things considered, hadn't been a mistake. Maybe a nagging, boring wife was at least more exciting than no wife at all?

Well, that was of no consequence. He took the vase of flowers and carried it in to one of the secretaries. This seemed to cheer her. Martin Beck sat down at his desk and looked about him. Order had been restored.

Was it that he wanted to convince himself nothing had changed? A pointless question, and to forget it as soon as possible he pulled the red file towards him. The plastic was transparent, and he saw immediately that it concerned a murder. That was okay. Murder was part and parcel of his profession. But where had it happened? Bergsgatan 57. Almost on the very doorstep of the police headquarters.

Usually he would have said it was no concern of his, or of his department, but of the Stockholm Criminal Investigation Department. For a second he felt tempted to pick up the phone, call up someone on Kungsholmen, and ask what all this was actually about. Or quite simply to stuff it all into an envelope and return it to its sender. He felt an urge to be rigid and formal – an urge so strong that he had to exert all his strength to suppress it. He looked at the clock in order to distract himself. Lunchtime already. But he wasn't hungry.

Martin Beck got up, went out into the men's room, and drank a mug of lukewarm water.

Coming back he noticed the air in his office was warm and foetid. Yet he did not take off his jacket or even loosen his collar. He sat down, took out the papers, and started to read.

Twenty-eight years as a policeman had taught him a lot of things, among them the art of reading reports and rapidly sifting through repetitions and trivialities – the capacity to discern a pattern, if any existed.

It took him less than an hour to read conscientiously through the document. Most of it was ill-written, some was downright incomprehensible, and some sections were formulated particularly badly. He immediately recognized the author. Einar Rönn, a policeman who, stylistically speaking, seemed to take after that comrade in officialdom who in his celebrated traffic regulations had declared, among much else, that darkness falls when the streetlights are lit.

Martin Beck leafed through the papers once again, stopping here and there to check certain details. Then he laid down the report, put his elbows on the desk and his forehead into the palms of his hands. Frowning, he thought through the apparent course of events.

The story fell into two parts. The first part was mundane and repulsive.

Fifteen days ago, viz., on Sunday, 18th June, a tenant at Bergsgatan 57 on Kungsholmen had called the police. The conversation had been registered at 2.19 p.m., but not until two hours later had a patrol car with two officers arrived at the place. At most the house on Bergsgatan was no more than nine minutes' walk from the Stockholm Police Headquarters; but the delay was easily explained. The capital was suffering from an atrocious shortage of policemen; besides which it was the summer holidays, and a Sunday to boot. Moreover, nothing had indicated that the call was particularly urgent. Two constables, Karl Kristiansson and Kenneth Kvastmo, had entered the building and talked to the caller, a woman living two flights up in the part of the house facing the street. She had told them that for several days now she'd been irritated by an unpleasant smell in the stairwell and expressed a suspicion that all might not be as it should.

Both officers had instantly noticed the odour. Kvastmo had defined it as arising from putrefaction; according to his own way of putting it, it was strongly reminiscent of the stench of rotten meat. A closer sniff – Kvastmo's again – had led the men to the door of a first-floor flat. According to available information, it was the door of a one-room flat, inhabited for some time by a man of about sixty-five, whose name might be Karl Edvin Svärd. The name had been found on a handwritten piece of cardboard under the doorbell. As it might be supposed that the smell arose from the body of a suicide, or of someone who had died from natural causes, or of a dog – still according to Kvastmo – or possibly of some sick or helpless person, they had decided to break in. The bell seemed to be out of order, but no amount of banging on the door had evoked any reaction. All their attempts to contact a caretaker or representative of the landlord or anyone else holding master keys had been unsuccessful.

The policemen therefore requested permission to break into the flat and received orders to do so. A locksmith had been called, causing yet another half-hour's delay.

On his arrival the locksmith had found that the door was equipped with a jemmy-proof lock and that there was no letter box. The lock was then drilled out with the aid of a special tool, but even this had not made it possible to open the door.

Kristiansson and Kvastmo, whose time had now been taken up by this case far beyond their normal working hours, asked for new instructions and were ordered to open the door by force. To their question whether someone from the Criminal Investigation Department ought not to attend, they received the laconic answer that no more personnel were available. By now the locksmith, feeling he had done his job, had left.

By 7.00 p.m. Kvastmo and Kristiansson had opened the door by breaking the pins of the hinges on the outside. In spite of this a new difficulty had arisen; for the door was then found to be fitted with two strong metal bolts and also with a so-called fox-lock, a sort of iron beam sunk in the doorposts. After a further hour's work the policemen had been able to make their way into the flat, where they were met by stifling heat and the overwhelming stench of corpse.

In the room, which faced the street, they found a dead man. The body was lying on its back, about three yards from the window overlooking Bergsgatan, beside a turned-on electric radiator – it was the heat from this, in conjunction with the prevailing heat wave, that had caused the corpse to swell up to at least twice its normal volume. The body was in a state of intense putrefaction, and there was an abundance of maggots.

The window facing the street was locked from the inside, and the blind had been pulled down. The flat's other window, in the kitchenette, looked out over the courtyard. It was stuck fast with window tapes and appeared not to have been opened for a long while. The furniture was sparse and the fittings plain. The flat was in a bad state of disrepair as regards the ceiling, floor, walls, wallpaper, and paint. Only a few utensils were to be found in the kitchenette and living room.

An official document they had found suggested that the deceased was the sixty-two-year-old Karl Edvin Svärd, a warehouseman who had been pensioned off before reaching retirement age, some six years back.

After the flat had been inspected by a detective sergeant called Gustavsson, the body was taken to the State Institute for Forensic Medicine for a routine post-mortem.

The case had been preliminarily assessed as suicide; alternatively, death from starvation, illness, or other natural causes was suspected.

Martin Beck groped in his jacket pocket for some non-existent Florida cigarettes.

Nothing had been mentioned about Svärd in the newspapers. The story was far too banal. Stockholm has one of the highest suicide rates in the world – something everyone carefully avoids talking about or which, when put on the spot, they attempt to conceal by means of variously manipulated and untruthful statistics. The most usual explanation is the simplest: All other countries cheat much more with their statistics. For some years now, however, not even members of the government had dared to say this aloud or in public, perhaps from the feeling that, in spite of everything, people tend to rely more on the evidence of their own eyes than on political explanations. And if, after all, this should turn out not to be so, it only made the matter still more embarrassing. For the fact of the matter is that the so-called Welfare State abounds with sick, poor, and lonely people, living at best on dog food, who are left uncared for until they waste away and die in their rat-hole tenements. No, this was nothing for the public. Hardly even for the police.

But that wasn't all. There was a sequel to the story of this premature pensioner, Karl Edvin Svärd.

6

Martin Beck had been in his profession long enough to know that if something in a report appears incomprehensible it's because in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred someone has been careless, made a mistake, is guilty of a slip of the pen, has overlooked the crux of the matter, or lacked the ability to make himself understood.

The second part of the tale of the man who had died in the flat on Bergsgatan seemed shadowy, to say the least. At first, matters had followed their usual course. On Sunday evening the body had been taken away and put in the morgue. The next day the flat had been disinfected, something that was certainly needed, and Kristiansson and Kvastmo had presented their report on the case.

The autopsy on the corpse had taken place on Tuesday, and the police department responsible had received the verdict the following day. Post-mortems on old corpses are no fun, least of all when the person in question is known in advance to have taken his own life or died of natural causes. If, furthermore, the person in question enjoyed no very eminent status in society –if for instance he had been a prematurely pensioned warehouseman – then the whole thing loses its last vestiges of any interest whatever.

The post-mortem report was signed by a person Martin Beck had never heard of, presumably a temp. The text was exceedingly scientific and abstruse. This, perhaps, was why the matter had been treated rather dozily. As far as he could see, the documents had not even reached Einar Rönn at the Murder Squad until a week later. Only there had it aroused the attention to which it was entitled.

Martin Beck pulled the telephone towards him to make his first duty call in a long time. He picked up the receiver, laid his right hand on the dial, and then just went on sitting. He'd forgotten the number of the State Institute for Forensic Medicine and had to look it up.

The pathologist seemed surprised. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Of course I remember. That report was sent in two weeks ago.’

‘I know.’

‘Is something unclear?’

He thought she sounded slightly hurt.

‘Just a few things I don't understand. According to your report, the person in question committed suicide.’

‘Of course.’

‘How?’

‘Have I really expressed myself so badly?’

‘Oh no, not at all.’

‘What is it you don't understand, then?’

‘Quite a bit, to be honest; but that, of course, is due to my own ignorance.’

‘You mean of terminology?’

‘Among other things.’

‘If one lacks medical knowledge,’ she said consolingly, ‘one always has to expect certain difficulties of that type.’ Her voice was light and clear. On the young side, certainly.

For a while Martin Beck sat silent. At this point he ought to have said: ‘My dear young lady, this report isn't meant for pathologists but for quite another kind of person. Since it's been requested by the Metropolitan Police it ought to be written in terms that even a police sergeant, for example, could understand.’ But he didn't. Why?

His thoughts were interrupted by the doctor, who said: ‘Hello, are you there?’

‘Yes, I'm here.’

‘Is there something particular you want to ask about?’

‘Yes. Firstly I'd like to know your grounds for assuming suicide.’

When she answered her voice had changed, had acquired an undertone of surprise. ‘My dear Commissioner, we got this corpse from the police. Before carrying out a post-mortem I was personally in telephone contact with the police officer I assumed was responsible for the investigation. He said it was a routine job. There was only one question he wanted answered.’

‘What was that?’

‘Whether the person concerned had committed suicide.’

Irritated, Martin Beck rubbed his knuckles against his chest. The spot where the bullet had gone through him still hurt at times. He'd been told it was psychosomatic, that it would pass as soon as his unconscious had relinquished its grip on the past. Just now, it was the present that, in high degree, was irritating him. And that was something in which his unconscious could hardly have any interest.

An elementary mistake had been made. Naturally, the postmortem ought to have been done without any hints from the police. To present the forensic experts with the suspected cause of death was little short of breach of duty, especially if, as in this case, the pathologist was young and inexperienced.

‘Do you know the officer's name?’

‘Detective Sergeant Aldor Gustavsson. I got the impression he was in charge of the case. He seemed to be experienced and to know what he was about.’

Martin Beck knew nothing about Detective Sergeant Aldor Gustavsson or his possible qualifications. He said: ‘So the police gave you certain instructions?’

‘One could put it like that, yes! In any case the police made it quite clear that it was a question of suspected suicide.’

‘I see.’

‘Suicide means, as you perhaps know, that someone has killed himself.’

Beck did not reply to this. Instead he said: ‘Was the autopsy difficult?’

‘Not really. Apart from the extensive organic changes. That always puts a somewhat different complexion on our work.’

He wondered how many autopsies she had carried out, but he refrained from comment. ‘Did it take long?’

‘Not at all. Since it was a question of suicide or acute illness I began by opening up the thorax.’

‘Why?’

‘The deceased was an elderly man.’

‘Why did you assume death to have been sudden?’

‘This police officer gave me to understand it was.’

‘In what way?’

‘By going straight to the point, I seem to remember.’

‘What did he say?’

‘“Either the old boy's taken his own life or else had a heart attack.” Something along those lines.’

Another false conclusion crying aloud to heaven! There was nothing to suggest that Svärd, before dying, might not have lain there paralysed or helpless for several days.

‘So you opened his chest.’

‘Yes, and the question was answered almost immediately. No doubt which alternative was correct.’

‘Suicide?’

‘Of course.’

‘By?’

‘He had shot himself through the heart. The bullet was still lodged in the thorax.’

‘Had the bullet hit the heart?’

‘Come very close, anyway. The main injury was to the aorta.’ She paused briefly, then added a trifle acidly: ‘Do I express myself comprehensibly?’

‘Sure.’ Martin Beck formulated his next question carefully. ‘Have you an extensive experience of bullet wounds?’

‘Enough, I reckon. Anyway this case presents hardly any complications.’ How many autopsies might she have carried out on victims of bullet wounds in her life? Three? Two? Or maybe only one?

The doctor, intuiting perhaps his unvoiced doubts, explained: ‘I worked in Jordan during the civil war, two years ago. No shortage of bullet wounds there.’

‘But presumably not so many suicides.’

‘No, not quite.’

‘Well, it just so happens,’ Martin Beck said, ‘that few suicide cases aim at their hearts. Most shoot themselves through the mouth, some through the temple.’

‘That may be. But this guy was far from being my first. When I was doing psychology I was taught that suicides – especially the romantics among them – have a deep-rooted instinct to aim at their hearts. Apparently it's a widespread tendency.’

‘How long do you think Svärd could have survived with this bullet wound?’

‘Not long. One minute, maybe two or three. The internal haemorrhage was extensive. At a guess, I'd say a minute. But the margins are still very small. Does it matter?’

‘Maybe not. But there's something else that interests me. You examined the remains on twentieth June?’

‘Yes, that's correct.’

‘How long do you think the man had been dead by then?’

‘Mmm …’

‘On this point your report is vague.’

‘As a matter of fact it's not easy to say. Maybe a more experienced pathologist than myself could have given you a more exact answer.’

‘But what do you think?’

‘At least two months, but …’

‘But?’

‘But it depends what things were like at the scene of death. Warmth and damp air make a big difference. It could be less, for example, if the body was exposed to great heat. On the other hand, if disintegration was extensive, I mean …’

‘And the actual entrance wound?’

‘This business of the disintegration of the tissues makes that a difficult question, too.’

‘Was the gun fired in contact with the body?’

‘Not in my view. But I could be wrong, I must stress that.’

‘What is your view, then?’

‘That he shot himself the other way. After all, there are two classic ways, aren't there?’

‘Indeed,’ said Martin Beck. ‘That's correct.’

‘Either one presses the barrel against one's body and fires, or else one holds one's arm with the pistol or whatever it is stretched right out, with the weapon reversed. In which case I suppose one has to pull the trigger with one's thumb.’

‘Precisely And so that's what you think happened?’

‘Yes. But with every reservation imaginable. It's really very hard to be sure a gun was pressed against a body which had changed so.’

‘I get you.’

‘Then it's only me who doesn't understand a thing,’ the girl said lightly. ‘Why are you asking all these questions? Is it so important which way he shot himself?’

‘Yes, it seems so. Svärd was found dead at home in his flat, with all the windows and doors closed from inside. He was lying beside an electric radiator.’

‘That could explain the advanced putrefaction,’ she said. ‘In that case a month could be enough.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. And that could also explain why it's hard to find any powder burns from a point-blank shot.’

‘I see,’ said Martin Beck. ‘Thanks for your help.’

‘Oh, that's nothing. If there's anything else I can explain, please call back.’

‘Good-bye.’ He put down the receiver. She was an old hand at explanations. Soon there'd only be one thing left to explain. But that was still more bewildering. Svärd could not possibly have committed suicide. To shoot yourself without a gun – that's not easy.

And in the flat on Bergsgatan there'd been no weapon.

7

Martin Beck went on with his phoning. He tried to get hold of the original radio patrol that had been summoned to Bergsgatan, but neither of the two officers, it seemed, were on duty. After some calling around it transpired that one was on holiday and the other absent from duty to give evidence in a district court case. Gunvald Larsson was busy with meetings, and Einar Rönn had gone out on a call.

It was a long while before Martin Beck succeeded in contacting the detective sergeant who had finally sent the case on to Homicide. This hadn't happened till Monday the 26th, and Martin Beck found it imperative to ask him a question: ‘Is it true the autopsy report came in as early as that Wednesday?’

The man's voice wavered noticeably as he answered: ‘I can't really say for sure. Anyhow I didn't read it personally until that Friday.’

Martin Beck said nothing. He waited for some kind of explanation. It came:

‘In this precinct we're hardly up to half strength. There wasn't a chance of clearing up any but the most urgent matters. The papers just pile up on us. It's getting worse every day.’

‘So – no one had looked at the autopsy report before that?’

‘Yes, our commissioner here. And on Friday morning he asked me who'd taken care of the gun.’

‘What gun?’

‘The one Svärd had shot himself with. I knew nothing about any gun, but I assumed one of the officers who'd taken the call had found it.’

‘I have their report in front of me,’ Martin Beck said. ‘If there'd been a firearm in the flat there should be some mention of it.’

‘I can't see how this radio patrol could have made any mistake,’ the man said, at once on the defensive. He was disposed to defend his men, and it wasn't hard to see why. During the past year criticism of the regular police had been growing steadily. Relations with the public were worse than ever before and the burden of work had almost doubled. As a consequence, any number of policemen had simply given up. Unfortunately they were generally the best. In spite of massive unemployment in Sweden it was impossible to get new men, and the recruiting base was getting smaller than ever. Those policemen who stayed felt an even stronger need to stick together.

‘Maybe not,’ Martin Beck said.

‘Those guys did exactly what they should have done. After they'd let themselves in and found the dead man, they called in one of their superiors.’

‘This Gustavsson guy?’

‘Exactly A man from the Criminal Investigation Division. Apart from the actual finding of the corpse it was his business to draw conclusions and report observations. And I assumed they'd shown him the gun and he'd taken care of it.’

‘And then not even bothered to report it?’

‘Such things can happen,’ the policeman said dryly.

‘Well, it appears now there was no weapon inside the room.’

‘No. But I didn't find that out till Monday, a week ago, when I was speaking to Kristiansson and Kvastmo. Whereupon I immediately sent the documents over to Kungsholmsgatan.’

The Kungsholmen police station and the CID offices were in the same block. Martin Beck took the liberty of saying: ‘Well, that wasn't very far, anyway.’

‘We've made no mistakes,’ the man said.

‘Actually I'm more interested in what happened to Svärd than in who might have made a mistake,’ Martin Beck said.

‘Well, if a mistake's been made, it hasn't been by the Metropolitan Police, anyway.’

This retort was insinuating, to say the least. Martin Beck found it best to terminate the conversation. ‘Thanks for your help,’ he said. ‘Good-bye.’

The next man on the line was Detective Sergeant Gustavsson, who seemed to be in an incredible rush. ‘Oh that,’ he said. ‘Well, I don't understand it at all. But I assume things like that do happen.’

‘What things?’

‘Inexplicable things, puzzles to which there's quite simply no solution. So one sees at once one might as well give up.’

‘Be so kind as to come over here,’ Beck said.

‘Now? To Västberga?’

‘That's it.’

‘Unfortunately that's impossible.’

‘I think not.’ Martin Beck looked at his watch. ‘Let's say half past three.’

‘But it's simply impossible …’

‘Half past three,’ Martin Beck said, and put down the phone. Getting up from his chair he started pacing his room, his hands clasped behind his back.

This opening skirmish said volumes about the trend during the last five years. More and more often one was obliged to initiate an investigation by trying to sort out what the police had been up to. Not infrequently this proved harder than clearing up the actual case.

Aldor Gustavsson made his entrance at 4.05. The name hadn't meant a thing to Martin Beck, but as soon as he saw the man he recognized him. A skinny guy, aged about thirty, dark-haired, with a tough, nonchalant air. Martin Beck recalled having seen him now and then in the orderly room of the Stockholm CID as well as in other less prominent contexts.

‘Please sit down.’

Gustavsson sat down in the best chair, crossed his legs, and took out a cigar. He lit it and said: ‘Crazy story, this, eh? What did you want to know?’

For a while Martin Beck sat quietly, rolling his ball-point pen between his fingers. Then he said: ‘At what time did you get to Bergsgatan?’

‘Some time in the evening. About ten.’

‘What did it look like then?’

‘Bloody horrible. Full of big white maggots. Smelled to high heaven. One of the constables had thrown up in the lobby.’

‘Where were the officers?’

‘One was on guard outside the door. The other was sitting in the car.’

‘Had they guarded the door the whole time?’

‘Yeah, at least according to their own account.’

‘And what did you do?’

‘I went right in and took a peek. It looked bloody awful, like I said before. But it could have been something for CID, one never knows.’

‘But you drew another conclusion?’

‘Sure. After all, it was as clear as daylight. The door had been locked from inside in three or four different ways. It had been as much as those guys could do to get it open. And the window was locked and the blind drawn.’

‘Was the window still closed?’

‘No. Obviously the uniforms had opened it when they'd come in. Otherwise no one could've stayed in there without a gas mask.’

‘How long were you there?’

‘Not many minutes. Just long enough to establish the fact that it wasn't anything for the CID. It must have been either suicide or natural death, so all the rest was a matter for the uniforms.’

Martin Beck leafed through the report. ‘There's no list of any objects being taken into custody here,’ he said.

‘Isn't there? Well, I suppose somebody ought to have thought about that. On the other hand there was no point in it. The old boy hardly owned a thing. A table, a chair, and a bed, I guess; and then a few bits of junk out in the kitchenette.’

‘But you looked around?’

‘Of course. I inspected everything before I gave them the go-ahead.’

‘For what?’

‘What? How do you mean?’

‘Before you gave the go-ahead for what?’

‘To take away the remains, of course. The old man had to have a post-mortem, didn't he? Even if he was a suicide, he still had to be dissected. It's regulations.’

‘Can you summarize your observations?’

‘Sure. Simple. The body was lying about three yards from the window.’

‘About?’

‘Yeah, the fact was I didn't have a yardstick on me. It looked about two months old; putrid, in other words. In the room were two chairs, a table, and a bed.’

‘Two chairs?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Just now you said one.’

‘Oh? Yeah, well it was two anyway, I guess; and then there was a little shelf with some old newspapers and books, and in the kitchenette a couple of saucepans and a coffee pot, and then the usual.’

‘The usual?’

‘Yeah, a can opener, knives and forks, a rubbish bin, and so forth.’

‘I see. Was anything lying on the floor?’

‘Not a thing, apart from the body, I mean. I asked the constables and they said they hadn't found anything either.’

‘Was anyone else in the flat?’

‘Nope. I asked the boys, and they said not. No one else went in there, apart from me and these two. Then the guys with the van came and took the body away with them in a plastic bag.’

‘Since then we have come to know the cause of Svärd's death.’

‘Indeed. That's right. He shot himself. Incomprehensible, I say. And what did he do with the gun?’

‘You've no plausible explanation?’

‘None. The whole thing's as idiotic as can be. An insoluble case, like I said. Doesn't happen so often, eh?’

‘Did the constables have any opinion?’

‘No, all they saw was he was dead and that the place was all shut up. If there'd been a pistol, either they or I'd have found it. Anyway, it could only have been lying on the floor beside that dead old guy.’

‘Did you find out who the deceased was?’

‘Of course. His name was Svärd, wasn't it? It was even written up on the door. You could see at a glance the type of man he'd been.’

‘What type?’

‘Well, a social case. Old drunk, probably. That type often kill themselves; that is, if they don't drink themselves to death or get a heart attack or something.’

‘You've nothing else of interest to add?’

‘No, it's beyond comprehension, like I said. Pure mystery. I bet even you can't fix this one. Anyway there's other things more important.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Yes, I reckon so. Can I go now?’

‘Not quite yet,’ said Martin Beck.

‘I've no more to say,’ said Aldor Gustavsson, stubbing out his cigar in the ash tray.

Martin Beck got up and walked over to the window, where he stood with his back to his visitor. ‘I've a few things to say,’ he said.

‘Oh? What?’

‘Quite a lot. Among other things the forensic team inspected the place last week. Though almost all traces had been destroyed, one large and two smaller bloodstains were immediately discovered on the carpet. Did you see any patches of blood?’

‘No. Not that I looked for any.’

‘Obviously not. What did you look for?’

‘Nothing special. The case seemed quite clear.’

‘If you failed to see those bloodstains, it's conceivable you missed other things.’

‘At any rate there was no firearm there.’

‘Did you notice how the dead man was dressed?’

‘No, not exactly. After all, he was completely putrid. Some kind of rags, I suppose. Besides, I didn't see it made any difference.’

‘What you did immediately notice was that the deceased had been a poor and lonely person. Not what you would call an eminent member of society.’

‘Of course. When you've seen as many alcoholics and welfare cases as I have …’

‘Then?’

‘Yes, well, then you know who's who and what's what.’

Martin Beck wondered whether Gustavsson did. Aloud he said: ‘Supposing the deceased had been better adapted socially, perhaps you might have been more conscientious?’

‘Yes, in such cases one has to mind one's p's and q's. The fact is, we've one hell of a lot to attend to.’ He looked around. ‘Even if you don't realize it here, we're overworked. You can't start playing at Sherlock Holmes every time you come across a dead tramp. Was there anything else?’

‘Yes, one thing. I'd like to point out that your handling of this case has been atrocious.’

‘What?’ Gustavsson got up. All of a sudden it seemed to have dawned on him that Martin Beck was in a position to mar his career – perhaps seriously. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘Just because I didn't see those bloodstains and a gun that wasn't there …’

‘Sins of omission aren't the worst ones,’ Martin Beck said. ‘Even if they, too, are unforgivable. To take an example: you called the police doctor and gave her instructions built on erroneous and preconceived ideas. Further, you fooled the two constables into thinking the case was so simple that you only had to walk into the room and look around for the whole matter to be cleared up. After declaring no criminological investigation was needed, you had the body carried away without even having any photos taken.’

‘But, my God,’ Gustavsson said. ‘The old guy must have taken his own life.’

Martin Beck turned around and looked at him.

‘Are these official criticisms?’ said Gustavsson, alarmed.

‘Yes, in high degree. Good day.’

‘Wait a minute. I'll do all I can to help …’

Martin Beck shook his head, and the man left. He seemed worried. But before the door had quite had time to close, Martin Beck heard him utter the words: ‘Old bastard …’

Naturally Aldor Gustavsson ought never to have been a detective sergeant, nor even a policeman of any sort. He was untalented, impudent, conceited, and had completely the wrong approach to his job. The best of the uniformed force had always been recruited into the CID. And probably still were. If men like him had made the grade and become detectives even ten years ago, what were things going to be like in the future?

Martin Beck felt his first working day was at an end. Tomorrow he'd go and have a look at this locked room himself. What was he to do tonight? Eat something, anything, and then sit leafing through books he knew he ought to read. Lie alone in his bed and wait for sleep. Feel shut in.

In his own locked room.

8

Einar Rönn was an outdoor type. He had chosen a career in the police because it kept him on the move and offered lots of opportunities to be outdoors. As the years had passed and one promotion had followed another, his working day had progressively tied him to a sedentary position behind his desk, and his moments in the fresh air, insofar as the Stockholm air can be called fresh, had become steadily rarer. It had become crucial to his existence to be able to spend his holidays in the wild mountain world of Lapland he had come from. Actually he detested Stockholm. Already, at forty-five, he had begun to think about his retirement, when he'd go home to Arjeplog for good.

His annual holiday was approaching, and already he was beginning to be apprehensive. If this bank business, at least, hadn't been cleared up, he might at any moment be asked to sacrifice it.

In order to cooperate actively in bringing the investigation to some sort of conclusion, he had taken it upon himself, this Monday evening, to drive out to Sollentuna and talk to a witness, instead of going home to Vällingby and his wife.

Not only had he volunteered to call on this witness, who could just as easily have been summoned to the CID in the customary way; he had even showed such enthusiasm for his mission that Gunvald Larsson wondered whether he and Unda had had a quarrel.

‘Sure, of course not,’ Rönn said, with one of his peculiar non sequiturs.

The man Rönn was to visit was the thirty-two-year-old metal worker who had already been interrogated by Gunvald Larsson on what he'd witnessed outside the Hornsgatan bank. His name was Sten Sjögren, and he lived alone in a semi-detached house on Sångarvägen. He was in his little garden in front of the house, watering a rose bush, and as Rönn climbed out of his car he put down his watering can and came over to open the gate. Wiping the palms of his hands on the seat of his trousers before shaking hands, he went up the steps and held the front door open for Rönn.

The house was small and on the ground floor; apart from the kitchen and hall there was only one room. The door to it stood ajar. It was quite empty. The man caught Rönn's look.

‘My wife and I have just divorced,’ he explained. ‘She took some of the furniture with her, so perhaps it's not too cosy for the time being. But we can go upstairs instead.’

At the top of the stairs there was a rather large room with an open fireplace, in front of which stood a few ill-matched armchairs grouped around a low white table. Rönn sat down, but the man remained standing.

‘Can I get you a drink?’ he asked. ‘I can heat up some coffee. Or I expect I've some beer in the refrigerator.’

‘Thanks, I'll take the same as you,’ Rönn said.

‘Then we'll take a beer,’ said the man. He ran off downstairs and Rönn heard him banging about in the kitchen.

Rönn looked around the room. Not much furniture, a stereo, quite a few books. In a basket beside the fire lay a bundle of newspapers. Dagens Nyheter, Vi, the communist paper Ny Dag, and The Metal Worker.

Sten Sjögren returned with glasses and two beer cans, which he set down on the white table. He was thin and wiry and had reddish, tousled hair of a length Rönn regarded as normal. His face was spattered with freckles, and he had a pleasant frank smile. After opening the cans and pouring them out he sat down opposite Rönn, raised his glass to him, and drank.

Rönn tasted his beer and said: ‘I'd like to hear about what you saw on Hornsgatan last Friday. It's best not to give your memory time to fade.’ That sounded really good, thought Rönn, pleased with himself.

The man nodded and put down his glass. ‘Yes, if I'd known it was both a hold-up and a murder I'd sure have taken a better look both at the chick and at the bloke in the car.’

‘You're the best witness we have so far anyway,’ Rönn said encouragingly. ‘So you were walking along Hornsgatan. Which way were you heading?’

‘I was coming from Slussen and was heading for Ringvägen. This chick came up from behind and bumped into me quite hard as she ran past.’

‘Could you describe her?’

‘Not too well, I'm afraid. I only really saw her from behind – and for a split second from the side view as she climbed into the car. She was shorter than me, about six inches I reckon. I'm five foot ten and a half. The age is a bit hard to specify, but I don't think she was younger than twenty-five and no older than thirty-five, about thirty I'd say. She was dressed in jeans, ordinary blue, and a light blue blouse or shirt, hanging outside her trousers. What she had on her feet I didn't think about, but she was wearing a hat – a denim hat with quite a wide brim. She had fair hair, straight and not quite as long as a lot of girls wear it these days. Medium length, one could say. Then she had a green shoulder bag, one of those American military bags.’

He took out a packet of cigarettes from the breast pocket of his khaki shirt and held them out to Rönn, who shook his head and said: ‘Did you see if she was carrying anything?’

The man got up, took down a box of matches from the shelf above the open fireplace, and lit a cigarette. ‘No, I'm not sure of that. But I suppose she could have been.’

‘Her body build? Was she thin, or fat, or …’

‘Medium, I reckon. In any case neither particularly thin or fat. Normal, one might say.’

‘Didn't you catch her face at all?’

‘I suppose I saw it very fleetingly as she climbed into the car. But for one thing she was wearing that hat, and for another thing she had big sunglasses on.’

‘Would you recognize her if you saw her again?’

‘Not by her face anyway. And probably not if I saw her in different clothes, in a dress for example.’

Rönn sipped his beer thoughtfully. Then he said: ‘Are you absolutely certain it was a woman?’

The other looked at him in surprise. Then he frowned and said hesitatingly: ‘Yes, at least I took it for granted it was a chick. But now you mention it I'm not so sure. It was mostly a general impression I got, one usually has a feeling who's a guy and who's a chick, even if nowadays it can be hard to tell 'em apart. I can't actually swear it was a girl. I didn't have time to see what sort of breasts she had.’

He fell silent and peered at Rönn through the cigarette smoke. ‘No, you're right about that,’ he said slowly. ‘It didn't have to be a girl; it could very well have been a guy. Moreover, that would be more plausible. You don't often hear of girls who rob banks and shoot people.’

‘You mean, then, it could just as easily have been a man?’ Rönn asked.

‘Yes, now that you mention it. In fact it must have been a guy.’

‘Well, but the other two? Can you describe them? And the car?’

Sjögren took a last drag at his cigarette, then threw the butt into the fireplace, where a large number of cigarette ends and dead matches lay already.

‘The car was a Renault 16, I know that for sure,’ he said. ‘It was light grey or beige, I don't know what the colour's called; but it's almost white. I don't remember all the number, but it was an “A” registration and I've a mental image of two threes in the number. There could have been three, of course, but two at least, and I think they stood one after the other, somewhere in the middle of the row of figures.’

‘Are you sure it was an “A”-reg?’ Rönn asked. ‘Not “AA” or “AB”, for example?’

‘No, just “A”. I remember that clearly. I've a hell of a good visual memory.’

‘Yes, it's very good,’ Rönn said. ‘If all eyewitnesses had one like yours, life would be much simpler.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Sjögren, ‘ I Am a Camera. Have you read it? By Isherwood.’

‘No,’ said Rönn. He'd seen the film, though he didn't say so. He'd seen it because he admired Julie Harris. But he neither knew who Isherwood was nor even that the film was based on a novel.

‘But you must have seen the film?’ said Sjögren. ‘That's how it is with all the good books around. People see the film and don't take the trouble to read the book. Now this film was damn good, though it had a stupid title. How about Wild Nights in Berlin, eh?’

‘Oh,’ said Rönn, who was sure it was called I Am a Camera when he'd seen it. ‘Yes, it does sound rather stupid.’

It was getting dark, and Sten Sjögren got up and lit the floor lamp behind Rönn's armchair. When he sat down again, Rönn said: ‘Well, suppose we go on. You were going to describe the men in the car.’

‘Yes, though when I caught sight of them there was only one of them sitting in it.’

‘Oh?’

‘The other was standing on the pavement, waiting with the rear door ajar. He was a big guy, a good bit taller than me and powerfully built. Not fat, but heavy and powerful looking. He could easily have been my age, roughly between thirty and thirty-five, and had lots of frizzy hair – almost like Harpo Marx, but darker – mouse-coloured. He wore black trousers, which looked very tight, with those flared legs, and a shiny black shirt. The shirt was unbuttoned quite far down the chest, and I think he had some sort of silver thing on a chain around his neck. His face was pretty sunburned or, to be more precise, red. When the chick – if it was a chick – came running along, he opened the rear door for her to jump in and then slammed it shut, sat down in front, and the car sped off at a terrific pace.’

‘In which direction?’ Rönn asked.

‘It swung right across the street and headed up towards the Maria Square.’

‘Oh,’ Rönn said. ‘I see. And the other man?’

‘He was sitting behind the wheel, so I didn't see him too well. But he looked younger, can't have been much over twenty. And he was thin and pale, that much I did see. He was wearing a white T-shirt, and his arms were really scrawny. His hair was black, quite long, and seemed dirty. Greasy and straggly. He had sunglasses on, yes, and now I remember he had a wide black watch strap on his left wrist.’

Sjögren leaned back in his chair, beer glass in hand.

‘Well, now I think I've told you all I can recall,’ he said. ‘Or do you reckon I've forgotten something?’

‘I don't know,’ Rönn said. ‘If you should happen to remember anything else, I hope you'll call me. Will you be at home these next few days?’

‘Yes, unfortunately,’ Sjögren said. ‘In fact I'm on holiday but haven't any money to travel anywhere with. So I suppose I'll just have to hang around here.’

Rönn emptied his glass, got up. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘It's very possible we'll be needing your help again a little later on.’

Sjögren, too, got up and followed Rönn down the stairs. ‘You mean I'll have to go through it all again?’ he said. ‘Wouldn't it be best to tape it once and for all?’ He opened his front door and Rönn stepped outside.

‘What I was thinking was that you might be needed to identify these characters when we catch up with them. It's also possible we may be asking you to come to CID and take a look at some pictures.’ They shook hands, and Rönn went on: ‘Well, we'll see. We may not have to trouble you further. Thanks for the beer.’

‘Oh, that was nothing. If I can be of any help, I'd be pleased to oblige.’

As Rönn drove off, Sten Sjögren waved amicably from his steps.

9

Police dogs apart, professional sleuths are rarely more than human. Even during the most important and serious investigations they can evince typically human reactions. The tension when some unique and conclusive item of evidence is to be studied, for example, can often become unbearable.

In all this, the special bank robbery squad was no exception. Like their eminent and self-invited guests, they were holding their breath. All eyes in the half-dark room were fixed on the rectangular screen where the bank's film of the Hornsgatan robbery was shortly to be shown. With their own eyes they were not only about to see an armed bank robbery and a murder, but also the person who had committed it and to whom the alert and inventive evening press had already attributed every peculiar trait, dubbing her ‘the sex-bomb murderer’ and ‘the blonde gunwoman in sunglasses’ – epithets which only revealed how journalists, lacking any imagination of their own, find inspiration elsewhere. The reality of the case – armed robbery and murder – was too banal for them.

The last sex queen to be caught robbing a bank had been a flat-footed, pimply lady of about forty-five. According to reliable sources, she had weighed almost fourteen stone and had more double chins than there are pages in a book. But not even the false teeth she lost in front of the court gave the lie, in the press's opinion, to its own lyrical description of her appearance. And a horde of uncritical readers were to remain convinced through all eternity that she was a winsome, starry-eyed creature who should have entered the Miss Universe contest.

Always it had been like this. When women draw attention to themselves by committing a flagrant crime, the evening papers always make them sound as if they've come straight out of Inger Malmroos's school for models.

The pictures of the robbery had only just become available. This was because the cassette, as usual, had been faulty, and the photo lab had had to take extreme care not to damage the exposed negative. In the end, however, they had managed to pry it loose from the spool and develop it without even fraying its edges. For once the exposure, at least, seemed to have been correct and the results were being predicted as technically perfect.

‘What's it to be?’ Gunvald Larsson quipped. ‘A Donald Duck?’

‘The Pink Panther's funnier,’ said Kollberg.

‘Some guys, of course,’ Gunvald Larsson said, ‘are hoping for the Nazi rallies at Nuremberg.’

They were both sitting in the front row and spoke in loud voices, but behind them prevailed only a deep silence. All the potentates present, notably the National Police Commissioner and Superintendent Malm from the National Police Board, held their tongues. Kollberg wondered what they were thinking.

Weighing up their chances, no doubt, of making life hell for refractory subordinates. Perhaps their thoughts were even harking back to the days when there'd really been some order in things, when Heydrich had been elected president of the International Police Association by acclamation. Or perhaps they were thinking how much better the situation had been only a year ago, even, before anyone had dared to doubt the wisdom of once again entrusting all police training to military reactionaries.

The only one who sniggered was Bulldozer Olsson.

Formerly Kollberg and Gunvald Larsson had had very little to do with each other. But in recent years certain common experiences had to some extent changed the situation. Not to the point where they could be called friends or where the notion of associating outside their work would ever have occurred to them; but ever more frequently they found they were on the same wavelength. And here, in the special squad, they unquestionably had to stick together.

The technical preparations were over. The room was vibrating with suppressed excitement.

‘Well, now we'll see,’ Bulldozer Olsson said enthusiastically. ‘If the pictures are as good as they say they are, we'll put them on television tonight, and that'll give us the whole gang in a little box.’

‘Longlegs is passable, too,’ Gunvald Larsson said.

‘Or Swedish Sex,’ said Kollberg. ‘Fancy – I've never seen a blue movie. You know, Louise, Seventeen, Strips, all that sort of stuff’

‘Quiet over there!’ snapped the National Police Commissioner.

The film began. The focus was perfect. None of those present had ever seen anything like such excellent results. Usually the thieves only resembled vague blobs or poached eggs; but this time the image was perfect.

The camera had been artfully placed to show the cashier's desk from behind, and thanks to a new type of hypersensitive film they could see with perfect clarity the person standing on the other side of the counter.

At first there was nobody there. But only half a minute later a person had come into the field of vision, then stopped and looked around – first to the right then to the left. Whereafter the person in question stared straight into the lens, as if purposely to give a full-face view.

Even the clothes showed up clearly; a suede jacket and a well-cut shirt with long, soft points to the collar.

The face itself was forceful and grim, the blonde hair was combed back, and the fair eyebrows were shaggy. The eyes wore an air of discontent. Then the figure raised a large hairy hand and, extracting a hair from one nostril, scrutinized it at length.

At once they all saw who it was.

Gunvald Larsson.

Then the lights went up.

The special squad sat speechless.

The National Police Commissioner was the first to speak.

‘Nothing of this must get out.’

Naturally. Nothing was ever allowed to get out.

Superintendent Malm said in a shrill voice: ‘Absolutely nothing of this must be allowed to come out.’

Kollberg let out a guffaw.

‘How can this have happened?’ Bulldozer Olsson asked. Even he seemed a trifle put out.

‘Well,’ the film expert said, ‘there could be a technical explanation. The trigger may have got jammed and the camera started up a bit later than it should have. These are sensitive gadgets, you know.’

‘If I see so much as a single word in the press,’ thundered the National Police Commissioner, ‘then …’

‘… then the Ministry'll have to order another new carpet for someone's office,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘Maybe there's a kind with a raspberry flavour.’

‘Fantastic get-up she was wearing,’ snorted Kollberg.

The National Police Commissioner dashed for the door. Superintendent Malm trotted out after him.

Kollberg gasped for air.

‘What's one to say about this?’ said Bulldozer Olsson.

‘Though I say so myself,’ Gunvald Larsson said modestly, ‘I think that film was really rather good.’

10

Kollberg had collected himself and was looking dubiously at the person who, for the time being, he had to regard as his boss.

Bulldozer Olsson was the special squad's main engine. He was in love with bank robberies, and after the past year's avalanche of such events he'd blossomed as never before. It was he who had all the energy and ideas. Week after week he could go on working eighteen hours a day, without once complaining, getting depressed, or even becoming noticeably tired. At times his exhausted colleagues wondered whether he wasn't himself managing director of the Swedish Crime Co., that sinister organization which there was so much talk of. To Bulldozer Olsson police work was the most enjoyable and exciting thing imaginable.

This, no doubt, was because he was not a policeman.

He was a district attorney who was in charge of preliminary investigations into a wholly impenetrable skein of armed bank robberies. One of these was already half-solved, and a few more-or-less guilty individuals were being held in custody, and some had even been charged. But now things had reached such a pass that new hold-ups were occurring several times a week, and everybody realized that many of them were in some way and to some extent connected, though just how nobody could say.

Furthermore, banks were not the only targets. There had been an enormous increase in assaults on members of the public. Every hour of the day and night people were being struck down in the city's streets and squares, in their own boutiques, in the metro, or in their homes, indeed, everywhere and anywhere. But the bank robberies were deemed by far the most serious. To violate society's banks was to commit an outrage against its very foundations.

The existing social system was obviously hardly viable and only with the best of will could be described as functioning at all. Even this could not be said of the police. During the last two years Stockholm alone had had to shelve 220,000 criminal investigations; and even of the most serious crimes – only a small fraction of the total – only a quarter were ever cleared up.

This being the state of affairs, there was little that those who bore ultimate responsibility could do except shake their heads and look thoughtful. For a long while everyone had been blaming everyone else; and now there was no longer anyone to blame. The only constructive suggestion put forward recently had been that people should be prevented from drinking beer. Since Sweden is a country where beer consumption is rather low anyway, it can be seen just how unrealistic was the so-called thinking of many representatives of the country's highest authorities.

One thing, however, was plain. The police had largely only themselves to blame. After the 1965 nationalization, the entire force now came under a single hat, and from the outset it had been obvious that this hat was sitting on the wrong head.

For a long time now many analysts and researchers had been asking themselves what the philosophy might be that was guiding activities at National Police Headquarters. A question which, of course, went unanswered. In accordance with his doctrine that nothing must ever be allowed to leak out, the National Police Commissioner, on principle, never gave answers to anything. On the other hand, he was only too fond of speechifying –speeches which, even as samples of sheer rhetoric, were totally uninteresting.

Some years ago someone in the police force had discovered a way of manipulating crime statistics. The methods used, though simple, were not immediately obvious, and without being directly mendacious were nevertheless utterly misleading. It had all started with demands for a more militant and homogeneous police force, for greater technical resources in general, and for more firearms in particular. To get this it had been necessary to exaggerate the hazards that policemen faced. Since verbiage had not proved politically effective enough, it had been necessary to resort to another method: namely, the manipulation of statistics.

At this juncture the political demonstrations during the second half of the sixties had opened up magnificent possibilities. Demonstrators pleading for peace had been suppressed by violence. Hardly ever armed with anything but their banners and their convictions, they had been met by tear gas, water cannons, and rubber batons. Few were the non-violent demonstrations that had not ended in tumult and chaos. Those individuals who had tried to defend themselves had been mauled, arrested, and prosecuted for ‘assaulting the police’ or ‘resisting arrest’. All this information had been fed into the statistics. The method had worked perfectly. Each time a few hundred policemen were sent out to ‘control’ a demonstration, the figures for alleged assaults against the police had rocketed. The uniformed police had been encouraged ‘not to pull their punches’, as the expression went, an order which many a constable had been only too delighted to follow whenever possible. Tap a drunk with a baton and the chances of his hitting back are always fairly high.

A simple lesson, which anyone could learn.

These tactics had worked. Now the Swedish police were armed to the teeth. All of a sudden, situations that formerly could have been cleared up by a single man equipped with a lead pencil and a pinch of common sense required a busload of police officers equipped with automatics and bullet-proof vests.

The long-term result, however, was something no one had quite foreseen. Violence breeds not only antipathy and hatred but also insecurity and fear.

In the end things had come to such a pass that people were going about being scared of each other and Stockholm had become a city containing tens of thousands of terrified individuals. And frightened people are dangerous people.

Many of the six hundred officers who suddenly no longer existed had in fact resigned because they were scared – yes, even though they were armed to the teeth and for the most part just sat locked inside their cars.

Many, of course, had fled from Stockholm for other reasons, either because they'd come to dislike the place in general, or because they were disgusted with the treatment they were now obliged to mete out.

The regime had backfired. As for its deepest motives, they remained shrouded in darkness – a darkness, however, in which some people detected a tint of Nazi brown.

Examples of similar manipulations abounded, and some bore witness to outright cynicism. A year ago there had been a drive against people passing bad cheques. People were overdrawing their accounts, and some money had ended up in the wrong pockets. The figures for unsolved petty fraud were regarded as discreditable, and called for radical measures. The National Police Board objected to cheques being accepted as legal tender. Everyone knew what this would mean: people would have to carry a lot of cash with them, and this would give the green light to muggers on the city's streets and squares. Which was precisely what had happened. Fraudulent cheques, of course, disappeared, and the police could boast of a questionable success. The fact that numerous citizens were daily being beaten up was of minor importance.

It was all part and parcel of the rising tide of violence, to which the only answer was ever more numerous and still better armed police.

But where were all these policemen to come from?

The official crime figures for the first six months had been a great triumph. They showed a drop of two per cent, although, as everybody knew, there had really been a massive increase. The explanation was simple. Non-existent policemen cannot expose crimes. And every overdrawn bank account had been counted as a crime in itself.

When the political police had been forbidden to bug people's telephones, the theorists of the National Police Board had hastened to their aid. Through scare propaganda and gross exaggeration Parliament had been prevailed on to pass a law permitting phones to be bugged in the struggle against drugs. Whereupon the anticommunists had calmly continued their eavesdropping, and the drugs trade had flourished as never before.

No, it was no fun, thought Lennart Kollberg, being a policeman. What could a man do as he witnessed the gradual decay of his own organization? As he heard the rats of fascism pattering about behind the skirting boards? All his adult life he had loyally served this organization.

What to do? Say what you think and get the sack? Unpleasant. There must be some more constructive line of action. And, of course, there were other police officers besides himself who saw things in the same light. But which, and how many?

No such problems afflicted Bulldozer Olsson. Life, to him, was one big jolly game, and most things as clear as crystal. ‘But there's one thing I don't get,’ he said.

‘Really?’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘What?’

‘What happened to that car? The roadblocks functioned as they ought to, didn't they?’

‘So it appears.’

‘So there should have been men on all the bridges within five minutes.’

The south of Stockholm is an island, with six points of access. The special squad had long ago devised detailed schemes by which each of the central Stockholm districts could quickly be sealed off.

‘Sure,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘I've checked with the Metropolitan Police. For once everything seems to have clicked.’

‘What kind of a car was it?’ Kollberg asked. As yet he hadn't had time to catch up on all the details.

‘A Renault 16, light grey or beige, “A”-registered, and with two threes in its number.’

‘Naturally they'd given it a false number plate,’ Gunvald Larsson put in.

‘Obviously But I've yet to hear of someone being able to respray a car between Maria Square and Slussen. And if they switched cars …’

‘Yes?’

‘Then where did the first one get to?’

Bulldozer Olsson paced the room, thumping the palms of his hands against his forehead. He was a man in his forties, chubby, well under average height, with a slightly florid complexion. His movements were as animated as his intellect. Now he was addressing himself: ‘They park the car in a garage near a metro station or a bus stop, then one of the guys hotfoots it with the loot; the other one gives the car a new number plate. Then he hotfoots it too. On Saturday the car guy comes back and does the respraying. And yesterday morning the car was ready to be driven off. But …’

‘But what?’ asked Kollberg.

‘But I had our people check every single Renault leaving the south side right up to one a.m. last night.’

‘So either it had time to get away, or else it's still here,’ said Kollberg.

Gunvald Larsson said nothing at all. Instead he scrutinized Bulldozer Olsson's attire and felt an intense antipathy. A crumpled light blue suit, a piggy-pink shirt, and a wide flowery tie. Black socks and pointed brown shoes with stitching – notably unbrushed.

‘And what do you mean by the car guy?’

‘They never fix the cars themselves. They always hire a special guy, who leaves them in some prearranged spot and gets them afterwards. Often he comes from some completely different town, Malmö or Göteborg, for example. They're always very careful about the getaway cars.’

Kollberg, looking even more pensive, said: ‘They? Who's they?’

‘Malmström and Mohrén, of course.’

‘And who are Malmström and Mohrén?’

Bulldozer Olsson gazed at him, dumbfounded. But then his gaze cleared. ‘Ah yes, of course. You're new to the squad, aren't you? Malmström and Mohrén are two of our most cunning bank robbers. It's four months now since they got out. And this is their fourth job since. They beat it from Kumla Prison at the end of February.’

‘But Kumla's supposed to be escape-proof,’ Kollberg said.

‘Malmström and Mohrén didn't escape. They just failed to return from weekend parole. As far as we can see, they didn't do any jobs until the end of April – before which they must certainly have gone on holiday to the Canaries or Gambia. Probably a fourteen-day round trip.’

‘And then?’

‘Then they equipped themselves. Weapons and so forth. They usually do that in Spain or Italy.’

‘But it was a woman who raided that bank last Friday, wasn't it?’ Kollberg remarked.

‘Disguised,’ said Bulldozer Olsson didactically. ‘Disguised in a blonde wig and falsies. But I'm dead sure it was Malmström and Mohrén who did it. Who else would have had the nerve, or been smart enough to make such a sudden move? This is a special job, don't you see? Hellish intriguing really. Frightfully exciting. Actually it's like …’

‘… playing a game of postal chess with a champ,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘But champ or not, both Malmström and Mohrén are as big as oxes, and that's something you can't talk yourself out of. Each weighs fifteen stone, wears size twelve shoes, and has hands like hams. Mohrén is forty-six inches around the chest – that's five more than Anita Ekberg in her prime. I find it difficult to imagine him fitted out in a dress, wearing falsies.’

‘Wasn't the woman wearing trousers anyway?’ asked Kollberg. ‘And rather on the small side?’

‘Naturally they sent in someone else,’ Bulldozer Olsson said placidly. ‘One of their usual tricks.’ Running over to one of the desks he grabbed a slip of paper. ‘How much loot have they got hold of?’ he asked himself. ‘Fifty thousand in Borås, forty in Gubbängen, twenty-six in Märsta, and now ninety. That makes over two hundred thousand! So they'll soon be ready.’

‘Ready?’ Kollberg asked. ‘Ready for what?’

‘Their big haul. Big with a capital “H”. All these other jobs are just to get some finance. But any time now it'll be the big bang.’ Seemingly beside himself with enthusiasm, he practically flew around the room. ‘But where, gentlemen? Where? Let me see, let me see. We must think. If I were Werner Roos now, what move would I make? How would I attack his king? How would you do it? And when?’

‘Who the hell's Werner Roos?’ Kollberg enquired again.

‘He's an airline purser,’ said Gunvald Larsson.

‘First and foremost he's a criminal,’ Bulldozer Olsson shouted. ‘In his own way Werner Roos is a genius. He's the one who plots out everything down to the last detail. Without him Malmström and Mohrén would be mere nonentities. It's he who does all the thinking. Without him plenty of others would be out of work. And he's the biggest skunk of the lot! He's a sort of professor of –’

‘Don't shout so damn loud,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘You're not in the district court.’

‘We'll get him,’ Bulldozer Olsson said, as if he'd just hit on some genial idea. ‘We'll nab him now, right away.’

‘And release him tomorrow,’ said Gunvald Larsson.

‘Never mind. It'll be a surprise. Catch him off his guard.’

‘You think so? It'll be the fifth time this year.’

‘No matter,’ said Bulldozer Olsson, making for the door.

Actually Bulldozer Olsson's first name was Sten. But this was something everyone, except possibly his wife, had long ago forgotten. She, on the other hand, had very likely forgotten what he looked like.

‘There seem to be a lot of things I don't understand,’ Kollberg complained.

‘Where Roos is concerned, Bulldozer's probably right,’ Gunvald Larsson said. ‘He's a smart devil who's always got an alibi. Fantastic alibis. Whenever anything happens he's always away in Singapore or San Francisco or Tokyo.’

‘But how does Bulldozer know these Malmström and Mohrén guys are behind this particular job?’

‘Some sort of sixth sense, I expect.’

Gunvald Larsson shrugged and said: ‘But where's the sense in it? Here are Malmström and Mohrén, known to be a couple of gangsters, who, though they never confess, have been inside any number of times. And now, when at last they're under lock and key in Kumla, they're granted weekend parole!’

‘Well, we can't really keep people locked up in one room with a TV set for all eternity, can we?’

‘No,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘That's true enough.’

For a while they sat silent. Both men were thinking the same thing: how it had cost the state millions to build Kumla Prison and equip it with every conceivable refinement designed to insulate social misfits from society. Foreigners with experience in penal institutions from far and wide had said that Kumla's internment department was probably the most inhuman and personality-deadening in the whole world. Lack of lice in the mattresses or maggots in the food is no substitute for human contact.

‘As for this murder on Hornsgatan …’ Kollberg began.

‘That wasn't murder. Probably just an accident. She fired by mistake, maybe didn't even realize the gun was loaded.’

‘Sure it was a girl?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What about all this talk of Malmström and Mohrén, then?’

‘Well, it's just possible they sent in a girl …’

‘Weren't there any fingerprints? As far as I know, she wasn't even wearing gloves.’

‘Sure there were fingerprints. On the doorknob. But before we had time to lift them one of the bank people had been there and messed it all up. So we couldn't use them.’

‘Any ballistic investigation?’

‘You bet your life there was. The experts got both the bullet and the cartridge. They say she shot him with a forty-five, presumably a Llama Auto.’

‘Big gun … especially for a girl.’

‘Yeah. According to Bulldozer that's another bit of evidence on this Malmström and Mohrén and Roos gang. They always use big, heavy weapons, to cause alarm. But …’

‘But what?’

‘Malmström and Mohrén don't shoot people. At least they've never done so yet. If someone causes trouble they just put a bullet in the ceiling, to restore order.’

‘Is there any point in holding this Roos guy?’

‘Hmm, well I suspect Bulldozer's reasoning goes like this: If Roos has one of his usual perfect alibis – for instance, if he was in Yokohama last Friday – then we can be dead sure he planned the job. On the other hand, if he was in Stockholm, then the thing's more doubtful.’

‘What does Roos say himself? Doesn't he get angry?’

‘Never. He says it's true Malmström and Mohrén are old chums of his and he thinks it's sad things should have turned out so badly for them in life. Last time he asked if we thought he could help his old chums in some way. Malm happened to be there. He almost had a brain haemorrhage.’

‘And Olsson?’

‘Bulldozer just roared. He loved it.’

‘What's he waiting for, then?’

‘The next move, didn't you hear? He thinks Roos is planning a major job which Malmström and Mohrén are going to carry out. Presumably Malmström and Mohrén want to scrape enough money together to emigrate quietly and live the rest of their lives on the proceeds.’

‘And it's got to be a bank robbery?’

‘Bulldozer thinks everything except banks can go to the devil,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘It's his orders, so they say.’

‘What about the witness?’

‘Einar's?’

‘Yeah.’

‘He was here this morning, looking at pictures. Didn't recognize anyone.’

‘But he's sure of the car?’

‘Damn right.’

Gunvald Larsson sat silent, tugging at his fingers one after the other until the joints cracked. After a long while he said: ‘There's something about that car that doesn't jell.’

11

The day looked as if it was going to be a hot one, and Martin Beck took his lightest suit out of the closet. It was pale blue. He'd bought it a month ago and only worn it once. As he pulled on his trousers a big, sticky chocolate mark on the right trouser knee reminded him how, on that particular occasion, he'd been chatting with Kollberg's two kids and how they'd indulged in an orgy of lollipops and Mums-Mums chocolate balls.

Martin Beck climbed out of his trousers again, took them into the kitchen, and soaked one corner of a towel in hot water. Then he rubbed the towel against the stain, which immediately spread. Yet he didn't give up. As he gritted his teeth and went on working away at the material he thought to himself it was really only in such situations that he missed Inga – which said a good deal about their former relationship. At least one of the trouser legs was thoroughly soaked, and the stain seemed at least partially to have disappeared. Squeezing his thumb and forefinger along the crease, he hung his trousers over a chair in the sunshine which was flooding in through the open window.

It was only eight o'clock, but already he'd been awake for several hours. In spite of everything, he'd fallen asleep early the previous evening, and his sleep had been unusually calm and free of dreams. True, though it had been his first real working day in a long time, it had not been a particularly strenuous one; even so, it had left him exhausted.

Martin Beck opened the refrigerator door, inspected the milk carton, the stick of butter, and a solitary bottle of Ramlosa – reminding himself that on his way home tonight he must make some purchases, beer and yoghurt. Or maybe he ought to stop having yoghurt in the mornings; it really didn't taste all that good. On the other hand, that would mean he'd have to think up something else for his breakfast. The doctor had said he must put back on every pound he'd lost since he'd come out of the hospital, and preferably a few more.

The telephone in the bedroom rang. Martin Beck closed the refrigerator, and going in, picked up the receiver. It was Sister Birgit at the old people's home.

‘Mrs Beck is worse,’ she said. ‘This morning she had a high temperature, well over 101. I thought you'd want to know, Inspector.’

‘Sure. Of course. Is she awake now?’

‘She was, five minutes ago. But she's very tired.’

‘I'll be over immediately,’ Martin Beck said.

‘We've had to move her into a room where we can have her under better observation,’ Sister Birgit said. ‘But come to my office first.’

Martin Beck's mother was eighty-two and had spent the last two years in the sick ward of the old people's home. Her illness had been of long duration. Its first signs had been slight attacks of dizziness. As time had gone by, these had become more severe and occurred at closer intervals. In the end she'd become partially paralysed. All last year she'd only been able to sit up in a wheelchair, and since the end of April hadn't left her bed.

Martin Beck had visited her quite often during his own convalescence, but it pained him to see her slowly wasting away as her age and illness dazed her. The last few times he'd been to see her she'd taken him for her husband. His father had been dead twenty-two years.

To see how lonely she'd become in her sickroom, and how utterly cut off from the outside world too, had pained him. Right up to the time when the spells of dizziness had started she'd gone out, even gone into town, just to visit shops and see people around her, or to call on those few of her friends who were still alive. Often she'd gone out to see Inga and Rolf in Bagarmossen or visited her granddaughter Ingrid, who lived by herself out at Stocksund. Naturally, even before her illness, she'd often been bored and lonely in the old people's home, but as long as she'd been healthy and on her feet she still had an occasional chance to see something besides invalids and old people. She'd still read the papers, watched TV, and listened to the radio – occasionally she had even gone to a concert or the cinema. She had kept in touch with the world around her and been able to interest herself in what was going on in it. But once isolation had been forced upon her, there had been rapid mental deterioration.

Martin Beck had watched her becoming slow-witted, ceasing to interest herself in life outside the sickroom walls, until in the end she'd lost all touch with reality and the present. It must be some defence mechanism of her mind, he assumed, which nowadays tied her consciousness to the past: there was nothing heartening about her present reality.

When he had realized how her days passed, even as long as she'd still been able to sit up in a wheelchair, he'd been shocked – even though she had seemed happy to see him and aware of his visits. Every morning she was washed and dressed, put into her wheelchair, and given her breakfast. Then she just sat there all alone in her room. Since her hearing had deteriorated she no longer listened to the radio. Reading had become too strenuous, and her hands had become too weak to hold any needlework. At noon she was given her lunch, and at three the attendants finished their working day by undressing her and putting her back to bed. Later she was given a light evening meal, but she had no appetite and often refused to eat at all. Once she'd told him the attendants were cross with her for not eating. But it didn't matter. At least it had meant someone had come and talked to her.

Martin Beck knew that a lack of staff constituted a difficult problem for the old people's home, not least the shortage of nurses and ward assistants. He also knew that such personnel as did exist were friendly and considerate to the old folk – despite wretchedly low wages and inconveniently long working hours – and that they did their best for them. He'd given a great deal of thought to how he could make existence more tolerable for her, maybe by having her moved to a private nursing home where people would devote more time and attention to her; but he'd quickly come to the conclusion that she could not expect much better care than where she was already. All he could do for her was to visit her as often as possible. During his examination of the possibilities for improving his mother's situation he'd discovered how much worse off an incredible number of other old people were.

To grow old alone and in poverty, unable to look after oneself, meant that after a long and active life one was suddenly stripped of one's dignity and identity – fated to await the end in an institution in the company of other old people, equally outcast and annihilated.

Today they were not even called ‘institutions’, or even ‘old people's homes’. Nowadays they were called ‘pensioners' homes’, or even ‘pensioners' hotels’, to gloss over the fact that in practice most people weren't there voluntarily, but had quite simply been condemned to it by a so-called Welfare State that no longer wished to know about them. It was a cruel sentence, and the crime was being too old. As a worn-out cog in the social machine, one was dumped on the rubbish heap.

Martin Beck realized that in spite of everything his mother was better off than most of the other old and sick people. She had saved and stinted and put aside money in order to be secure in her old age and not become a burden to anyone. Although inflation had catastrophically devalued her money, she still received medical care, fairly nutritious food, and, in her large and airy sickroom, which she was spared from sharing with anyone else, she still had her own intimate belongings around her. This much at least she had been able to buy with her savings.

Now his trousers had dried slowly in the sunny window and the stain had disappeared almost completely. He dressed and rang for a taxi.

The park around the old people's home was spacious and well kept, with tall, leafy trees and cool, shady paths winding between the arbours, flowerbeds, and terraces. Before his mother had fallen sick she had liked to walk there, leaning on his arm.

Martin Beck went straight to the office; but neither Sister Birgit nor anyone else was there. In the corridor he met a maid carrying a tray with thermos bottles. He asked after Sister Birgit, and the assistant informed him in sing-song Finnish-Swedish that Sister Birgit was occupied at the moment with a patient. He asked her which was Mrs Beck's room. She nodded towards a door further down the corridor and went off with her tray.

Martin Beck looked in at the door. The room was smaller than the one his mother had had before and looked more like a sickroom. Inside, everything was white except the bouquet of red tulips he'd given her two days ago, which were now standing on a table beside the window. His mother was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling with eyes that seemed to grow larger every time he visited her. Her skinny hands plucked at the bedspread. Standing by the bed, he took her hand, and she moved her eyes slowly up to his face. ‘Have you come all this way?’ she whispered in a scarcely audible voice.

‘Don't tire yourself by talking, Mum,’ Martin Beck said, releasing her hand. He sat looking at the tired face with the wide feverish eyes. ‘How are you, Mum?’ he asked.

She didn't answer immediately – just looked at him and blinked once or twice, as though her eyelids were so heavy it was an effort to lift them. ‘I'm cold,’ she said at last.

Martin Beck looked around the room. A blanket lay on a chair at the foot of the bed. He picked it up and spread it over her.

‘Thank you, my dear,’ she whispered.

Again he sat quiet, looking at her. Not knowing what to say, he just held her thin, cold hand in his.

There was a faint rattle in her throat as she breathed. Gradually her breathing became more calm, and she closed her eyes. He went on sitting there, holding her hand. A blackbird sang outside the window. Otherwise all was quiet.

When he had sat there, quite still, a long while, he gently let go of her hand and got up. He stroked her cheek. It was hot and dry. Just as he took a step towards the door, still looking down at her face, she opened her eyes and looked at him.

‘Put your woollen cap on,’ she whispered, ‘it's cold out.’ And again she closed her eyes.

After a while Martin Beck bent down, kissed her on the forehead, and left.

12

Today Kenneth Kvastmo, one of the two policemen who had broken into Svärd's flat, had to give evidence again in the district court. Martin Beck looked in on him where he sat waiting in a corridor of City Hall and had time to get answers to two of his most important questions before Kvastmo was called into court.

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