MAJ SJÖWALL

AND PER WAHLÖÖ

The Laughing Policeman

Translated from the Swedish by Alan Blair

Copyright

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

4th Estate

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

www.harpercollins.co.uk

This ebook first published by Harper Perennial in 2007

This 4th Estate edition published in 2016

This translation first published by Random House Inc, New York, in 1970

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

Copyright text © Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö 1968

Copyright introduction © Jonathan Franzen 2009

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

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 ebook 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 ebooks

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007242948

Ebook Edition © APRIL 2009 ISBN: 9780007323548

Version: 2016-10-13

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

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

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Keep Reading

About the Authors

Also by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

An actual Swedish person, my college roommate Ekström, introduced me to this book. He gave me a mass-market edition on whose cover was a cheesy photograph of a raincoated man in mod sunglasses pointing a sub-machine gun into the reader’s face. This was in 1979. I was exclusively reading great literature (Shakespeare, Kafka, Goethe), and although I could forgive Ekström for not understanding what a serious person I’d become, I had zero interest in opening a book with such a lurid cover. It wasn’t until several years later, on a morning when I was sick in bed and too weak to face the likes of Faulkner or Henry James, that I happened to pick up the little paperback again. And how perfectly comforting The Laughing Policeman turned out to be! Once I’d made the acquaintance of Inspector Martin Beck, I was never again so afraid of colds (and my wife was never again so afraid of how grouchy I would be when I got one), because colds were henceforth associated with the grim, hilarious world of Swedish murder police. There were ten Martin Beck mysteries altogether, each of them readable cover-to-cover on the worst day of a sore throat. The volume I loved best and reread most often was The Laughing Policeman. Its happily cohabiting authors, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, had wedded the satisfying simplicities of genre fiction to the tragicomic spirit of great literature. Their books combined beautiful, deft detective work with powerful pure evocations of the kind of misery that people with sore throats so crave the company of.

‘The weather was abominable,’ the authors inform us on the first page of The Laughing Policeman; and abominable it remains thereafter. The floors at police headquarters are ‘dirtied’ by men ‘irritable and clammy with sweat and rain.’ One chapter is set on a ‘repulsive Wednesday.’ Another begins: ‘Monday. Snow. Wind. Bitter cold.’ As with the weather, so with society as a whole. Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s negativity towards postwar Sweden – a theme in all ten of their books – reaches its delirious apex in The Laughing Policeman. Not only does the Swedish winter weather inevitably suck, but the Swedish journalists are inevitably sensationalist and stupid, the Swedish landladies inevitably racist and rapacious, the Swedish police administrators inevitably self-serving, the Swedish upper class inevitably decadent or vicious, the Swedish antiwar demonstrators inevitably persecuted, the Swedish ashtrays inevitably overflowing, the Swedish sex inevitably sordid or unappetizingly blatant, the Swedish streets at Christmastime inevitably nightmarish. When Detective Lennart Kollberg finally gets an evening off and pours himself a nice big glass of akvavit, you can be sure that his phone is about to ring with urgent business. Stockholm in the late sixties probably really did have more than its share of ugliness and frustrations, but the perfect ugliness and perfect frustration depicted in the novel are clearly comic exaggerations.

Needless to say, the book’s exemplary sufferer, Martin Beck, fails to see the humour. Indeed, what makes the novel so comforting to read is precisely its denial of comfort to its main character. When, on Christmas Day, his children play him a recording of ‘The Laughing Policeman’, in which the singer Charles Penrose gives out big belly laughs between the verses, Beck listens to it stone-faced while the children laugh and laugh. Beck blows his nose and sneezes, enduring an apparently incurable cold, smoking his nasty Floridas. He’s stoop-shouldered, grey-skinned, bad at chess. He has stomach ulcers, drinks too much coffee (‘in order to make his condition a little worse’), and sleeps alone on the living-room sofa (in order to avoid his nag of a wife). At no point does he brilliantly help solve the mass murder that’s committed in Chapter 2 of the book. He does achieve one valuable insight – he guesses which cold case a deceased young colleague has been reworking – but he neglects to mention this insight to anyone else, and by failing to perform a thorough search of his dead colleague’s desk he inflicts a month and a half of avoidable misery on his department. His most memorable act in the book is to prevent a crime, by removing bullets from a gun, rather than to solve one.

One striking thing about Sjöwall and Wahlöö, as mystery writers, is how honestly unsmitten they are with their main character. They let Martin Beck be a real policeman, which is to say that they resist the temptation to make him a romantic rebel, a heroic misfit, a brilliant problem-solver, an exciting drinker, a secret do-gooder, or any of the other self-flattering personae that crime writers are wont to project onto their protagonists. Beck is cautious, recessive, phlegmatic, and altogether unwriterly. By nonetheless rendering him with exacting sympathy, Sjöwall and Wahlöö are, in effect, swearing their allegiance to the realities of police work. They do occasionally indulge themselves with their secondary characters, notably Lennart Kollberg, the ‘sensualist’ and gun-hater in whose leftist tirades it’s hard not to hear the authors’ own voices and opinions. But Kollberg, tellingly, is the one detective who feels ever more estranged from the police department. Later in the series, he finally quits the force altogether, while Martin Beck dutifully persists in rising through the ranks. Although much is made (and rightly so) of Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s ambition to create a ten-volume portrait of a corrupt modern society, no less impressive is their openness to discovering, book by book, via the character of Martin Beck, how stubbornly Other the world of police work is.

As long as the mass murder remains unsolved, Beck can be nothing but miserable. He and his colleagues pursue a thousand useless leads, go door to door in freezing winds, endure abuse from fools and sadists, make punishingly long drives on wintery roads, read unimaginable reams of dull reports. To do police work is, in a word, to suffer. We readers, not being Martin Beck, can laugh at how awful the world is and with what cruel efficiency it visits pain on the detectives; we readers are having fun all along. And yet it’s the suffering cops who, in the end, produce the beautiful thing: the simultaneous solution of a very old crime and a horrific new one, a solution that turns on a delicious piece of automotive arcana, a solution foreshadowed by the words of witness after witness, ‘It’s funny you should ask …’ The Laughing Policeman is a journey through real-world ugliness toward the self-sufficient beauties of good police work. The book is fuelled by the tension between the dystopic vision of its authors and the essential optimism of its genre. When Martin Beck finally does laugh, on the final page, it’s in recognition of how unnecessary all the suffering turns out to have been. How unreal.

Jonathan Franzen

1

On the evening of 13 November it was pouring in Stockholm. Martin Beck and Kollberg sat over a game of chess in the latter's flat not far from the underground station of Skärmarbrink in the southern suburbs. Both were off duty insomuch as nothing special had happened during the last few days.

Martin Beck was bad at chess but played all the same. Kollberg had a daughter who was just over two months old. On this particular evening he was forced to baby-sit, and Martin Beck on the other hand had no wish to go home before it was absolutely necessary. The weather was abominable. Driving curtains of rain swept over the rooftops, pattering against the windows, and the streets lay almost deserted; the few people to be seen evidently had urgent reasons to be out on such a night.

Outside the American embassy on Strandvägen and along the streets leading to it, 412 policemen were struggling with about twice as many demonstrators. The police were equipped with tear-gas bombs, pistols, whips, truncheons, cars, motorcycles, shortwave radios, battery megaphones, riot dogs and hysterical horses. The demonstrators were armed with a letter and cardboard signs, which grew more and more sodden in the pelting rain. It was difficult to regard them as a homogeneous group, for the crowd comprised every possible kind of person, from thirteen-year-old schoolgirls in jeans and duffel coats and dead-serious political students to agitators and professional trouble-makers, and at least one eighty-five-year-old woman artist with a beret and a blue silk umbrella. Some strong common motive had induced them to defy both the rain and whatever else was in store. The police, on the other hand, by no means comprised the force's élite. They had been mustered from every available precinct in town, but every policeman who knew a doctor or was good at dodging had managed to escape this unpleasant assignment. There remained those who knew what they were doing and liked it, and those who were considered cocky and who were far too young and inexperienced to try and get out of it; besides, they hadn't a clue as to what they were doing or why they were doing it. The horses reared up, chewing their bits, and the police fingered their holsters and made charge after charge with their truncheons. A small girl was bearing a sign with the memorable text: DO YOUR DUTY! KEEP FUCKING AND MAKE MORE POLICE! Three thirteen-stone patrolmen flung themselves at her, tore the sign to pieces and dragged her into a squad car, where they twisted her arms and pawed her breasts. She had turned thirteen on this very day and had not yet developed any.

Altogether more than fifty persons were seized. Many were bleeding. Some were celebrities, who were not above writing to the papers or complaining on the radio and television. At the sight of them, the sergeants on duty at the local police station had a fit of the shivers and showed them the door with apologetic smiles and stiff bows. Others were less well treated during the inevitable questioning. A mounted policeman had been hit on the head by an empty bottle and someone must have thrown it.

The operation was in the charge of a high-ranking police officer trained at a military school. He was considered an expert on keeping order and he regarded with satisfaction the utter chaos he had managed to achieve.

In the apartment at Skärmarbrink, Kollberg gathered up the chessmen, jumbled them into the wooden box and shut the sliding lid with a smack. His wife had come home from her evening course and gone straight to bed.

‘You'll never learn this,’ Kollberg said plaintively.

‘They say you need a special gift for it,’ Martin Beck replied gloomily. ‘Chess sense I think it's called.’

Kollberg changed the subject.

‘I bet there's a right to-do at Strandvägen this evening,’ he said.

‘I expect so. What's it all about?’

‘They were going to hand a letter over to the ambassador,’ Kollberg said. ‘A letter. Why don't they post it?’

‘It wouldn't cause so much fuss.’

‘No, but all the same, it's so stupid it makes you ashamed.’

‘Yes,’ Martin Beck agreed.

He had put on his hat and coat and was about to go. Kollberg got up quickly.

‘I'll come with you,’ he said.

‘Whatever for?’

‘Oh, to stroll around a little.’

‘In this weather?’

‘I like rain,’ Kollberg said, climbing into his dark-blue poplin coat.

‘Isn't it enough for me to have a cold?’ Martin Beck said.

Martin Beck and Kollberg were policemen. They belonged to the homicide squad. For the moment they had nothing special to do and could, with relatively clear consciences, consider themselves free.

Downtown no policemen were to be seen in the streets. The old lady outside the central station waited in vain for a beat officer to come up to her, salute, and smilingly help her across the street. A person who had just smashed the glass of a showcase with a brick had no need to worry that the rising and falling wail from a patrol car would suddenly interrupt his doings.

The police were busy.

A week earlier the police commissioner had said in a public statement that many of the regular duties of the police would have to be neglected because they were obliged to protect the American ambassador against letters and other things from people who disliked Lyndon Johnson and the war in Vietnam.

Detective Inspector Lennart Kollberg didn't like Lyndon Johnson and the war in Vietnam either, but he did like strolling about the city when it was raining.

At eleven o'clock in the evening it was still raining and the demonstration could be regarded as broken up.

At the same time eight murders and one attempted murder were committed in Stockholm.

2

Rain, he thought, looking out of the window dejectedly. November darkness and rain, cold and pelting. A forerunner of the approaching winter. Soon it would start to snow.

Nothing in town was very attractive just now, especially not this street with its bare trees and large, shabby blocks of flats. A bleak esplanade, misdirected and wrongly planned from the outset. It led nowhere in particular and never had, it was just there, a dreary reminder of some grandiose city plan, begun long ago but never finished. There were no well-lit shop windows and no people on the pavements. Only big, leafless trees and street lamps, whose cold white light was reflected by puddles and wet car roofs.

He had trudged about so long in the rain that his hair and the legs of his trousers were sopping wet, and now he felt the moisture along his shins and right down his neck to the shoulder blades, cold and trickling.

He undid the two top buttons of his raincoat, stuck his right hand inside his jacket and fingered the butt of the pistol. It, too, felt cold and clammy.

At the touch, an involuntary shudder passed through the man in the dark-blue poplin raincoat and he tried to think of something else. For instance of the hotel balcony at Andraitz, where he had spent his holiday five months earlier. Of the heavy, motionless heat and of the bright sunshine over the quayside and the fishing boats and of the limitless, deep-blue sky above the mountain ridge on the other side of the bay.

Then he thought that it was probably raining there too at this time of year and that there was no central heating in the houses, only open fireplaces.

And that he was no longer in the same street as before and would soon be forced out into the rain again.

He heard someone behind him on the stairs and knew that it was the person who had got on outside Ahléns department store on Klarabergsgatan in the centre of the city twelve stops before.

Rain, he thought. I don't like it. In fact I hate it. I wonder when I'll be promoted. What am I doing here anyway and why aren't I at home in bed with …

And that was the last he thought.

The bus was a red doubledecker with cream-coloured top and grey roof. It was a Leyland Atlantean model, built in England, but constructed for the Swedish right-hand traffic, introduced two months before. On this particular evening it was plying on route 47 in Stockholm, between Bellmansro at Djurgården and Karlberg, and vice versa. Now it was heading north-west and approaching the terminus on Norra Stationsgatan, situated only a few yards from the city limits between Stockholm and Solna.

Solna is a suburb of Stockholm and functions as an independent municipal administrative unit, even if the boundary between the two cities can only be seen as a dotted line on the map.

It was big, this red bus; over 36 feet long and nearly 15 feet high. It weighed more than 15 tons. The headlights were on and it looked warm and cosy with its misty windows as it droned along deserted Karlbergsvägen between the lines of leafless trees. Then it turned right into Norrbackagatan and the sound of the engine was fainter on the long slope down to Norra Stationsgatan. The rain beat against the roof and windows, and the wheels flung up hissing cascades of water as it glided downward, heavily and implacably.

The hill ended where the street did. The bus was to turn at an angle of 30 degrees, on to Norra Stationsgatan, and then it had only some 300 yards left to the end of the line.

The only person to observe the vehicle at this moment was a man who stood flattened against a house wall over 150 yards farther up Norrbackagatan. He was a burglar who was about to smash a window. He noticed the bus because he wanted it out of the way and had waited for it to pass.

He saw it slow down at the corner and begin to turn left with its side lights blinking. Then it was out of sight. The rain pelted down harder than ever. The man raised his hand and smashed the pane.

What he did not see was that the turn was never completed.

The red doubledecker bus seemed to stop for a moment in the middle of the turn. Then it drove straight across the street, climbed the sidewalk and burrowed halfway through the wire fence separating Norra Stationsgatan from the desolate freight depot on the other side.

Then it pulled up.

The engine died but the headlights were still on, and so was the lighting inside.

The misty windows went on gleaming cosily in the dark and cold.

And the rain lashed against the metal roof.

The time was three minutes past eleven on the evening of 13 November, 1967.

In Stockholm.

3

Kristiansson and Kvant were radio patrol policemen in Solna.

During their not-very-eventful careers they had picked up thousands of drunks and dozens of thieves, and once they had presumably saved the life of a six-year-old girl by seizing a notorious sex maniac who was just about to assault and murder her. This had happened less than five months ago, and although it was a fluke it constituted a feat which they intended to live on for a long time.

On this particular evening they had not picked up anything at all, apart from a glass of beer each; as this was perhaps against the rules, it had better be ignored.

Just before ten thirty they got a call on the radio and drove to an address at Kapellgatan in the suburb of Huvudsta, where someone had found a lifeless figure lying on the front steps. It took them only three minutes to drive there.

Sure enough, sprawling in front of the street door lay a human being in frayed black trousers, down-at-heel shoes and a shabby pepper-and-salt overcoat. In the lit hallway inside stood an elderly woman in slippers and dressing gown. She was evidently the one who had complained. She gesticulated at them through the glass door, then opened it a few inches, stuck her arm through the crack and pointed demandingly to the motionless form.

‘A-ha, and what's all this?’ Kristiansson said.

Kvant bent down and sniffed.

‘Out cold,’ he said with deeply-felt distaste. ‘Give us a hand, Kalle.’

‘Wait a second,’ Kristiansson said.

‘Eh?’

‘Do you know this man, madam?’ Kristiansson asked more or less politely.

‘I should say I do.’

‘Where does he live?’

The woman pointed to a door three yards farther inside the hall.

‘There,’ she said. ‘He fell asleep while he was trying to unlock the door.’

‘Oh yes, he has the keys in his hand,’ Kristiansson said, scratching his head. ‘Does he live alone?’

‘Who could live with an old bastard like that?’ the lady said.

‘What are you going to do?’ Kvant asked suspiciously.

Kristiansson didn't answer. Bending down, he took the keys from the sleeper's hand. Then he jerked the drunk to his feet with a grip that denoted many years' practice, pushed open the front door with his knee and dragged the man towards the flat. The woman stood on one side and Kvant remained on the outer steps. Both watched the scene with passive disapproval.

Kristiansson unlocked the door, switched on the light in the room and pulled off the man's wet overcoat. The drunk lurched, collapsed on to the bed and said, ‘Thanksh, Miss.’

Then he turned over on his side and fell asleep. Kristiansson laid the keys on a kitchen chair beside the bed, put out the light, shut the door and went back to the car.

‘Good night, madam,’ he said.

The woman stared at him with pursed lips, tossed her head and disappeared.

Kristiansson did not act like this from love of his fellow humans, but because he was lazy.

None knew this better than Kvant. While they were still serving as ordinary beat officers on the beat in Malmö, he had many a time seen Kristiansson lead drunks along the street and even across bridges in order to get them into the next precinct.

Kvant sat at the wheel. He switched on the ignition and said sourly, ‘Siv oftentimes says I'm lazy. She should see you.’

Siv was Kvant's wife and also his dearest and often sole subject of conversation.

‘Why should I get puked on for nothing?’ Kristiansson said philosophically.

Kristiansson and Kvant were similar in build and appearance. Both were 6 feet 1 inch tall, fair, broad-shouldered and blue-eyed. But they had widely different temperaments and didn't always see eye to eye. This was one of the questions upon which they were not in agreement.

Kvant was incorruptible. He never compromised over things he saw, but on the other hand he was an expert at seeing as little as possible.

He drove slowly, in glum silence, following a twisting route from Huvudsta that led past the Police Training College, then through an area of communal garden plots, past the railway museum, the National Bacteriological Laboratory, the School for the Blind, and then zigzagging through the extensive university district with its various institutions, finally emerging via the railway administration buildings on to Tomtebodavägen.

It was a brilliantly thought-out course, leading through areas which were almost guaranteed to be empty of people. They met not a single car the whole way and saw only two living creatures, first a cat and then another cat.

When they reached the end of Tomtebodavägen, Kvant stopped the car with the radiator one yard from the Stockholm city limit and let the engine idle while he considered how to arrange the rest of their shift.

I wonder if you've got the cheek to turn around and drive back the same way. Kristiansson thought. Aloud he said, ‘Can you lend me 10 kronor?’

Kvant nodded, took his wallet out of his breast pocket and handed the note to his colleague without even a glance at him. At the same instant he made a quick decision. If he crossed the city limits and followed Norra Stationsgatan for some five hundred yards in a north-easterly direction they would only need to be in Stockholm for two minutes. Then he could turn in to Eugeniävagen, drive across the hospital area and continue through Haga Park and along by the Northern Cemetery, finishing up finally at police headquarters. By that time their shift would be over and the chance of seeing anyone on the way should be infinitesimal.

The car drove into Stockholm and turned left onto Norra Stationsgatan.

Kristiansson tucked the 10 kronor into his pocket and yawned. Then he peered out into the pouring rain and said, Over there, running this way's a bastard.'

Kristiansson and Kvant were from Skåne, in the far South, and their sense of word order left much to be desired.

‘He has a dog, too,’ Kristiansson said. ‘And he's waving at us.’

‘It's not my table,’ Kvant said.

The man with the dog, an absurdly small dog which he practically dragged after him through the puddles, rushed out into the road and planted himself right in front of the car.

‘God damn!’ Kvant swore, jamming on the brakes.

He wound the side window down and roared, ‘What do you mean by running out into the road like that?’

‘There's …there's a bus over there,’ the man gasped out, pointing along the street.

‘So what?’ Kvant said rudely. ‘And how can you treat the dog like that? A poor dumb animal?’

‘There's … there's been an accident.’

‘All right, we'll look into it,’ Kvant said impatiently. ‘Move aside.’

He drove on.

‘And don't do that again!’ he shouted over his shoulder.

Kristiansson stared through the rain.

‘Yes,’ he said resignedly. ‘A bus has driven off the road. One of those doubledeckers.’

‘And the lights are on,’ Kvant said. ‘And the door in front is open. Hop out and take a look, Kalle.’

He pulled up at an angle behind the bus. Kristiansson opened the door, straightened his shoulder belt automatically and said to himself, ‘A-ha, and what's all this?’

Like Kvant, he was dressed in boots and leather jacket with shiny buttons and carried a truncheon and pistol at his belt.

Kvant remained sitting in the car, watching Kristiansson, who moved leisurely towards the open front door of the bus.

Kvant saw him grasp the rail and lazily heave himself up on to the step to peer into the bus. Then he gave a start and crouched down quickly, while his right hand flew to the pistol holster.

Kvant reacted swiftly. It took him only a second to switch on the red lamps, the searchlight and the orange flashing light of the patrol car.

Kristiansson was still crouching down beside the bus when Kvant flung open the car door and rushed out into the downpour. All the same, Kvant had drawn and cocked his 7.65 mm Walther and had even cast a glance at his watch.

It showed exactly thirteen minutes past eleven.

4

The first senior policeman to arrive at Norra Stationsgatan was Gunvald Larsson.

He had been sitting at his desk at police headquarters at Kungsholmen, thumbing through a dull and wordy report, very listlessly and for about the umpteenth time, while he wondered why on earth people didn't go home.

In the category of ‘people’ he included the police commissioner, a deputy commissioner and several different superintendents and inspectors who, on account of the happily concluded riots, were trotting about the staircases and corridors. As soon as these persons thought fit to call it a day and take themselves off, he would do so himself, as fast as possible.

The phone rang. He grunted and picked up the receiver.

‘Hello. Larsson.’

‘Radio Central here. A Solna radio patrol has found a whole bus full of dead bodies on Norra Stationsgatan.’

Gunvald Larsson glanced at the electric wall clock, which showed eighteen minutes past eleven, and said, ‘How can a Solna radio patrol find a bus full of dead bodies in Stockholm?’

Gunvald Larsson was a detective inspector in the Stockholm homicide squad. He had a rigid disposition and was not one of the most popular members of the force.

But he never wasted any time and so he was the first one there.

He braked the car, turned up his coat collar and stepped out into the rain. He saw a red doubledecker bus standing right across the pavement; the front part had broken through a high wire fence. He also saw a black Plymouth with white mudguard, and the word POLICE in white block letters across the doors. It had its emergency lights on and in the cone of the searchlight stood two uniformed patrolmen with pistols in their hands. Both looked unnaturally pale. One of them had vomited down the front of his leather jacket and was wiping himself in embarrassment with a sodden handkerchief.

‘What's the trouble?’ Gunvald Larsson asked.

‘There … there are a lot of corpses in there,’ said one of the policemen.

‘Yes,’ said the other. ‘Yes, that's right. There are. And a lot of cartridges.’

‘And a man who shows signs of life.’

‘And a policeman.’

‘A policeman?’ Gunvald Larsson asked.

‘Yes. A CID man.’

‘We recognize him. He works at Västberga. On the homicide squad.’

‘But we don't know his name. He has a blue raincoat. And he's dead.’

The two radio police both talked at once, uncertainly and quietly.

They were anything but small, but beside Gunvald Larsson they did not look very impressive.

Gunvald Larsson was 6 feet 5 inches tall and weighed nearly sixteen stone. His shoulders were as broad as those of a professional heavyweight boxer and he had huge, hairy hands. His fair hair, brushed back, was already dripping wet.

The sound of many wailing sirens cut through the splashing of the rain. They seemed to be coming from all directions. Gunvald Larsson pricked up his ears and said, ‘Is this Solna?’

‘Right on the city limits,’ Kvant replied slyly.

Gunvald Larsson cast an expressionless blue glance from Kristiansson to Kvant. Then he strode over to the bus.

‘It looks like … like a shambles in there,’ Kristiansson said.

Gunvald Larsson didn't touch the bus. He stuck his head in through the open door and looked around.

‘Yes,’ he said calmly. ‘So it does.’

5

Martin Beck stopped in the doorway of his flat in Bagarmossen. He took off his raincoat and shook the water off it on the landing before hanging it up and closing the door.

It was dark in the hall but he didn't bother to switch on the light. He saw a ray of light under the door of his daughter's room and he heard the radio or record player going inside. He knocked and went in.

The girl's name was Ingrid and she was sixteen. She had matured somewhat of late, and Martin Beck got on with her much better than before. She was calm, matter-of-fact and fairly intelligent, and he liked talking to her. She was in the sixth year of the comprehensive school and had no difficulty with her schoolwork, without on that account being what in his day had been called a swot.

She was lying on her back in bed, reading. The record player on the bedside table was going. Not pop music but something classical, Beethoven, he guessed.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Not asleep yet?’

He stopped, almost paralysed by the utter futility of his words. For a moment he thought of all the trivialities that had been spoken between these walls during the last ten years.

Ingrid put down her book and shut off the record player.

‘Hi, Dad. What did you say?’

He shook his head.

‘Lord, how wet your legs are,’ the girl said. ‘Is it raining so hard?’

‘Cats and dogs. Are Mum and Rolf asleep?’

‘I think so. Mum bundled Rolf off to bed right after dinner. She said he had a cold.’

Martin Beck sat down on the bed.

‘Didn't he have?’

‘Well, I thought he looked well enough. But he went to bed without any fuss. Probably in order to get off school tomorrow.’

‘You seem to be hard at work, anyway. What are you studying?’

‘French. We've a test tomorrow. Like to quiz me?’

‘Wouldn't be much use. French isn't my strong point. Go to sleep now instead.’

He stood up and the girl snuggled down obediently under the quilt. He tucked her in and before he shut the door behind him he heard her whisper, ‘Keep your fingers crossed tomorrow.’

‘Good night.’

He went into the kitchen in the dark and stood for a while by the window. The rain seemed to be less heavy now, but it may have been because the kitchen window was sheltered from the wind. Martin Beck wondered what had happened during the demonstration against the American embassy and whether the papers tomorrow would describe the police's behaviour as clumsy and inept or as brutal and provocative. In any case the opinions would be critical. Since he was loyal to the force and had been so for as long as he could remember, Martin Beck admitted only to himself that the criticism was often justified, even if it was a bit one-sided. He thought of what Ingrid had said one evening a few weeks ago. Many of her schoolmates were politically active, taking part in meetings and demonstrations, and most of them strongly disliked the police. As a child, she had said, she could boast and be proud of the fact that her father was a policeman, but now she preferred to keep quiet about it. Not that she was ashamed, but she was often drawn into discussions in which she was expected to stand up for the entire police force. Silly, of course, but there it was.

Martin Beck went into the living room, listened at the door of his wife's bedroom and heard her light snoring. Cautiously he let down the sofa bed, switched on the wall lamp and drew the curtains. He had bought the sofa recently and moved out of the common bedroom, on the pretext that he didn't want to disturb his wife when he came home late at night. She had protested, pointing out that sometimes he worked all night and therefore must sleep in the daytime, and she didn't want him lying there making a mess of the living room. He had promised on these occasions to lie and make a mess in the bedroom; she wasn't in there much in the daytime anyway. Now he had been sleeping in the living room for the past month and liked it.

His wife's name was Inga.

Relations between them had worsened with the years, and it was a relief not to have to share a bed with her. This feeling sometimes gave him a bad conscience, but after seventeen years of marriage there didn't seem to be much he could do about it, and he had long since given up worrying over whose fault it might be.

Martin Beck stifled a coughing attack, took off his wet trousers and hung them over a chair near the radiator. As he sat on the sofa pulling off his socks it crossed his mind that Kollberg's nocturnal walks in the rain might be due to the fact that his marriage, too, was slipping into boredom and routine.

Already? Kollberg had only been married for eighteen months.

Before the first sock was off he had dismissed the thought. Lennart and Gun were happy together, not a doubt of that. Besides, what business was it of his?

He got up and walked naked across the room to the bookshelf. He looked over the books for a long time before choosing one. It was written by the old English diplomat Sir Eugene Millington-Drake and was about the Graf Spee and the Battle of La Plata. He had bought it secondhand about a year ago but hadn't yet taken the time to read it. He crawled down into bed, coughed guiltily, opened the book and found he had no cigarettes. One of the advantages of the sofa bed was that he could now smoke in bed without complications.

He got up again, took a damp and flattened pack of Floridas out of his raincoat pocket, laid out the cigarettes to dry on the bedside table and lit the one that seemed most likely to burn. He had the cigarette between his teeth and one leg in bed when the telephone rang.

The telephone was out in the hall. Six months ago he had ordered an extra extension to be installed in the living room, but knowing the normal working speed of the Telephone Service, he imagined he'd be lucky if he had to wait only another six months before the extension was installed.

He strode quickly across the floor and lifted the receiver before the second ring had finished.

‘Beck.’

‘Superintendent Beck?’

He didn't recognize the voice at the other end.

‘Yes, speaking.’

‘This is Radio Central. Several passengers have been found shot dead in a bus on route 47 near the end of the line on Norra Stationsgatan. You're asked to go there at once.’

Martin Beck's first thought was that he was a victim of a practical joke or that some antagonist was trying to trick him to go out into the rain just to give him trouble.

‘Who gave you the message?’ he asked.

‘Hansson from the Fifth. Superintendent Hammar has already been notified.’

‘How many dead?’

‘They're not sure yet. Six at least.’

‘Anyone arrested?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

Martin Beck thought: I'll pick up Kollberg on the way. Hope there's a taxi. And said, ‘OK, I'll come at once.’

‘Oh, Superintendent …’

‘Yes?’

‘One of the dead … he seems to be one of your men.’

Martin Beck gripped the receiver hard.

‘Who?’

‘I don't know. They didn't say a name.’

Martin Beck flung down the receiver and leaned his head against the wall. Lennart! It must be him. What the hell was he doing out in the rain? What the hell was he doing on a 47 bus? No, not Kollberg, it must be a mistake.

He picked up the phone and dialled Kollberg's number. He heard a ring at the other end. Two. Three. Four. Five.

‘Kollberg.’

It was Gun's sleepy voice. Martin Beck tried to sound calm and natural.

‘Hello. Is Lennart there?’

He thought he heard the bed creak as she sat up, and it was an eternity before she answered.

‘No, not in bed at any rate. I thought he was with you. Or rather that you were here.’

‘He left when I did. To take a walk. Are you sure he's not at home?’

‘He may be in the kitchen. Hang on and I'll have a look.’

It was another eternity before she came back.

‘No, Martin, he's not at home.’

Now her voice was anxious.

‘Wherever can he be?’ she said. ‘In this weather?’

‘I expect he's just out getting a breath of air. I just got home, so he can't have been out long. Don't worry.’

‘Shall I ask him to call you when he comes?’

She sounded reassured.

‘No, it's not important. Sleep well. So long.’

He put down the receiver. Suddenly he felt so cold that his teeth were chattering. He picked up the receiver again and stood with it in his hand, thinking that he must call someone and find out exactly what had happened. Then he decided that the best way was to get to the place himself as fast as he could. He dialled the number of the nearest taxi rank and got a reply immediately.

Martin Beck had been a policeman for twenty-three years. During that time several of his colleagues had been killed in the course of duty. It had hit him hard every time it happened, and somewhere at the back of his mind was also the realization that police work was getting more and more risky and that next time it might be his own turn. But when it came to Kollberg, his feelings were not merely those of a colleague. Over the years they had become more and more dependent on each other in their work. They were a good complement to one another and they had learned to understand each other's thoughts and feelings without wasting words. When Kollberg got married eighteen months ago and moved to Skärmarbrink they had also come closer together geographically and had taken to meeting in their spare time.

Quite recently Kollberg had said, in one of his rare moments of depression, ‘If you weren't there, God only knows whether I'd stay on the force.’

Martin Beck thought of this as he pulled on his wet raincoat and ran down the stairs to the waiting taxi.

6

Despite the rain and the late hour a cluster of people had collected outside the cordon towards Karlbergsvägen. They stared curiously at Martin Beck as he got out of the taxi. A young constable in a black raincape made a violent movement to check him, but another policeman grabbed his arm and saluted.

A small man in a light-coloured trench coat and cap placed himself in Martin Beck's way and said, ‘My condolences, Superintendent. I just heard a rumour that one of your –’

Martin Beck gave the man a look that made him swallow the rest of the sentence.

He knew the man in the cap only too well and disliked him intensely. The man was a freelance journalist and called himself a crime reporter. His speciality was reporting murders and his accounts were full of sensational, repulsive and usually erroneous details. In fact only the very worst weeklies published them.

The man slunk off and Martin Beck swung his legs over the rope. He saw that a similar cordon had been made a little farther up towards Torsplan. The roped-off area was swarming with black-and-white cars and unidentifiable figures in shiny raincoats. The ground around the red doubledecker was loose and squelchy.

The bus was lit up inside and the headlights were on, but the cones of light did not reach far in the heavy rain. The ambulance from the State Forensic Laboratory stood at the rear of the bus with its radiator pointing to Karlsbergsvägen. The medico-legal expert's car was also on the scene. Behind the broken wire fence some men were busy setting up floodlights. All these details showed that something far out of the ordinary had happened.

Martin Beck glanced up at the dismal blocks of flats on the other side of the street. Figures were silhouetted in several of the lit windows, and behind rain-streaked panes, like blurred white patches, he saw faces pressed against the glass. A bare-legged woman in boots and with a raincoat over her nightdress came out of an entrance obliquely opposite the scene of the accident. She got halfway across the street before being stopped by a policeman, who took her by the arm and led her back to the doorway. The constable strode along and she half ran beside him while the wet white nightdress twisted itself around her legs.

Martin Beck could not see the doors of the bus but he saw people moving about inside, and presumed that men from the forensic laboratory were already at work. He couldn't see any of his colleagues from the homicide squad, either, but guessed that they were somewhere on the other side of the vehicle.

Involuntarily he slowed his steps. He thought of what he was soon to see and clenched his hands in his coat pockets as he gave the forensic technicians' grey vehicle a wide berth.

In the glow from the doubledecker's open middle doors stood Hammar, who had been his boss for many years and was now a chief superintendent. He was talking to someone who was evidently inside the bus. He broke off and turned to Martin Beck.

‘There you are. I was beginning to think they'd forgotten to call you.’

Martin Beck made no answer but went over to the doors and looked in.

He felt his stomach muscles knotting. It was worse than he had expected.

The cold bright light made every detail stand out with the sharpness of an etching. The whole bus seemed to be full of twisted, lifeless bodies covered with blood.

He would have liked to have turned and walked away and not had to look, but his face did not betray his feelings. Instead, he forced himself to make a systematic mental note of all the details. The men from the laboratory were working silently and methodically. One of them looked at Martin Beck and slowly shook his head.

Martin Beck regarded the bodies one by one. He didn't recognize any of them. At least not in their present state.

‘The one up there,’ he said suddenly, ‘has he …’

He turned to Hammar and broke off short.

Behind Hammar, Kollberg appeared out of the dark, bareheaded and with his hair stuck to his forehead.

Martin Beck stared at him.

‘Hi,’ said Kollberg. ‘I was beginning to wonder what had happened to you. I was about to tell them to call you again.’

He stopped in front of Martin Beck and gave him a searching look.

Then he gave a swift, nauseated glance at the interior of the bus and went on, ‘You need a cup of coffee. I'll get one for you.’

Martin Beck shook his head.

‘Yes,’ Kollberg said.

He squished off. Martin Beck stared after him, then went over to the front doors and looked in. Hammar followed with heavy steps.

The bus driver lay slumped over the wheel. He had evidently been shot through the head. Martin Beck regarded what had been the man's face and was vaguely surprised that he didn't feel any nausea. He turned to Hammar, who was staring expressionlessly out into the rain.

‘What on earth was he doing here?’ Hammar said tonelessly. ‘On this bus?’

And at that instant Martin Beck knew to whom the man on the phone had been referring.

Nearest the window behind the stairs leading to the top deck sat Åke Stenström, detective sub-inspector on the homicide squad and one of Martin Beck's youngest colleagues.

‘Sat’ was perhaps not the right word. Stenström's dark-blue poplin raincoat was soaked with blood and he sprawled in his seat, his right shoulder against the back of a young woman who was sitting next to him, bent double.

He was dead. Like the young woman and the six other people in the bus.

In his right hand he held his service pistol.

7

The rain kept on all night and although the sun, according to the almanac, rose at twenty minutes to eight the time was nearer nine before it was strong enough to penetrate the clouds and disseminate an uncertain, hazy light.

Across the pavement on Norra Stationsgatan stood the red doubledecker bus just as it had stopped ten hours previously.

But that was the only thing that was the same. By now about fifty men were inside the extensive cordons, and outside them the crowd of curious onlookers got bigger and bigger. Many had been standing there ever since midnight, and all they had seen was police and ambulance men and wailing emergency vehicles of every conceivable kind. It had been a night of sirens, with a constant stream of cars roaring along the wet streets, apparently going nowhere and for no reason.

Nobody knew anything for sure, but there were two words that were whispered from person to person and soon spread in concentric circles through the crowd and the surrounding houses and city, finally taking more definite shape and being flung out across the country as a whole. By now the words had reached far beyond the frontiers.

Mass murder.

Mass murder in Stockholm.

Mass murder in a bus in Stockholm.

Everybody thought they knew this much at least.

Very little more was known at police headquarters on Kungsholmsgatan. It wasn't even known for certain who was in charge of the investigation. The confusion was complete. Telephones rang incessantly, people came and went, floors were dirtied and the men who dirtied them were irritable and clammy with sweat and rain.

‘Who's working on the list of names?’ Martin Beck asked.

‘Rönn, I should think,’ said Kollberg without turning round. He was busy taping a plan to the wall. The sketch was over three yards long and more than half a yard wide and was awkward to handle.

‘Can't someone give me a hand?’ he said.

‘Sure,’ said Melander calmly, putting down his pipe and standing up.

Fredrik Melander was a tall, lean man of grave appearance and methodical disposition. He was forty-eight years old and a detective inspector on the homicide squad. Kollberg had worked together with him for many years. He had forgotten how many. Melander, on the other hand, had not. He was known never to forget anything.

Two telephones rang.

‘Hello. This is Superintendent Beck. Who? No, he's not here. Shall I ask him to call? Oh, I see.’

He put the phone down and reached for the other one. An almost white-haired man of about fifty opened the door cautiously and stopped doubtfully on the threshold.

‘Well, Ek, what do you want?’ Martin Beck asked as he lifted the receiver.

‘About the bus …’ the white-haired man said.

‘When will I be home? I haven't the vaguest idea,’ said Martin Beck into the telephone.

‘Hell,’ Kollberg exclaimed as the strip of tape got tangled up between his fat fingers.

‘Take it easy,’ Melander said.

Martin Beck turned back to the man in the doorway.

‘Well, what about the bus?’

Ek shut the door behind him and studied his notes.

‘It's built by the Leyland factories in England,’ he said. ‘It's an Atlantean model, but here it's called Type H35. It holds seventy-five seated passengers. The odd thing is –’

The door was flung open. Gunvald Larsson stared incredulously into his untidy office. His light raincoat was sopping wet, like his trousers and his fair hair. His shoes were muddy.

‘What a bloody mess in here,’ he grumbled.

‘What was the odd thing about the bus?’ Melander asked.

‘Well, that particular type isn't used on route 47.’

‘Isn't it?’

‘Not as a rule, I mean. They usually put German buses on, made by Büssing. They're also doubledeckers. This was just an exception.’

‘A brilliant clue,’ Gunvald Larsson said. ‘The madman who did this only murders people in English buses. Is that what you mean?’

Ek looked at him resignedly. Gunvald Larsson shook himself and said, ‘By the way, what's the horde of apes doing down in the vestibule? Who are they?’

‘Journalists,’ Ek said. ‘Someone ought to talk to them.’

‘Not me,’ Kollberg said promptly.

‘Isn't Hammar or the Commissioner or the Attorney General or some other higher-up going to issue a communiqué?’ Gunvald Larsson said.

‘It probably hasn't been worded yet,’ said Martin Beck. ‘Ek is right. Someone ought to talk to them.’

‘Not me,’ Kollberg repeated.

Then he wheeled round, almost triumphantly, as if he had had a brainwave.

‘Gunvald,’ he said. ‘You were the one who got there first. You can hold the press conference.’

Gunvald Larsson stared into the room and pushed a wet tuft of hair off his forehead with the back of his big hairy right hand. Martin Beck said nothing, not even bothering to look towards the door.

‘OK,’ Gunvald Larsson said. ‘Get them herded in somewhere. I'll talk to them. There's just one thing I must know first.’

‘What?’ Martin Beck asked.

‘Has anyone told Stenström's mother?’

Dead silence fell, as though the words had robbed everyone in the room of the power of speech, including Gunvald Larsson himself. The man on the threshold looked from one to the other.

At last Melander turned his head and said, ‘Yes. She's been told.’

‘Good,’ Gunvald Larsson said, and banged the door.

‘Good,’ said Martin Beck to himself, drumming the top of the desk with his fingertips.

‘Was that wise?’ Kollberg asked.

‘What?’

‘Letting Gunvald … Don't you think we'll get enough abuse in the press as it is?’

Martin Beck looked at him but said nothing. Kollberg shrugged.

‘Oh well,’ he said. ‘It doesn't matter.’

Melander went back to the desk, picked up his pipe and lit it.

‘No,’ he said. ‘It couldn't matter less.’

He and Kollberg had got the sketch up now. An enlarged drawing of the lower deck of the bus. Some figures were sketched in. They were numbered from one to nine.

‘Where's Rönn with that list?’ Martin Beck mumbled.

‘Another thing about the bus –’ Ek said obstinately.

And the telephones rang.

8

The office where the first improvised confrontation with the press took place was decidedly ill-suited to the purpose. It contained nothing but a table, a few cupboards and four chairs, and when Gunvald Larsson entered the room, it was already stuffy with cigarette smoke and the smell of wet overcoats.

He stopped just inside the door, looked round at the assembled journalists and photographers and said tonelessly, ‘Well, what do you want to know?’

They all began to talk at once. Gunvald Larsson held up his hand and said, One at a time, please. You, there, can start. Then we'll go from left to right.'

Thereafter the press conference proceeded as follows:

QUESTION: When was the bus found?

ANSWER: About ten minutes past eleven last night.

Q: By whom?

A: A man in the street who then stopped a radio patrol car.

Q: How many were in the bus?

A: Eight.

Q: Were they all dead?

A: Yes.

Q: How had they died?

A: It's too soon yet to say.

Q: Was their death caused by external violence?

A: Probably.

Q: What do you mean by probably?

A: Exactly what I say.

Q: Were there any signs of shooting?

A: Yes.

Q: So all these people had been shot dead?

A: Probably.

Q: So it's really a question of mass murder?

A: Yes.

Q: Have you found the murder weapon?

A: No.

Q: Have the police detained anyone yet?

A: No.

Q: Are there any traces or clues that point to one particular person?

A: No.

Q: Were the murders committed by one and the same person?

A: Don't know.

Q: Is there anything to indicate that more than one person killed these eight people?

A: No.

Q: How could one single person kill eight people in a bus before anyone had time to resist?

A: Don't know.

Q: Were the shots fired by someone inside the bus or did they come from outside?

A: They did not come from outside.

Q: How do you know?

A: The windowpanes that were damaged had been fired at from inside.

Q: What kind of weapon had the murderer used?

A: Don't know.

Q: It must surely have been a machine gun or a submachine gun?

A: No comment.

Q: Was the bus standing still when the murders were committed or was it moving?

A: Don't know.

Q: Doesn't the position in which the bus was found indicate that the shooting took place while it was in movement and that it then mounted the pavement?

A: Yes.

Q: Did the police dogs get a scent?

A: It was raining.

Q: It was a doubledecker bus, wasn't it?

A: Yes.

Q: Where were the bodies found? On the upper or lower deck?

A: On the lower one.

Q: All eight?

A: Yes.

Q: Have the victims been identified?

A: No.

Q: Has any of them been identified?

A: Yes.

Q: Who? The driver?

A: No. A policeman.

Q: A policeman? Can we have his name?

A: Yes. Detective Sub-inspector Åke Stenström.

Q: Stenström? From the homicide squad?

A: Yes.

A couple of the reporters tried to push towards the door, but Gunvald Larsson again put up his hand.

‘No running back and forth, if you don't mind,’ he said. ‘Any more questions?’

Q: Was Inspector Strenström one of the passengers in the bus?

A: He wasn't driving at any rate.

Q: Do you consider he was there just by chance?

A: Don't know.

Q: The question was put to you personally. Do you consider it a mere chance that one of the victims is a man from the CID?

A: I have not come here to answer personal questions.

Q: Was Inspector Stenström working on any special investigation when this happened?

A: Don't know.

Q: Was he on duty last night?

A: No.

Q: He was off duty?

A: Yes.

Q: Then he must have been there by chance. Can you name any of the other victims?

A: No.

Q: This is the first time a real mass murder has occurred in Sweden. On the other hand there have been several similar crimes abroad in recent years. Do you think that this maniacal act was inspired by what happened in America, for instance?

A: Don't know.

Q: Is it the opinion of the police that the murderer is a madman who wants to draw sensational attention to himself?

A: That is one theory.

Q: Yes, but it doesn't answer my question. Are the police working on the lines of that theory?

A: All clues and suggestions are being followed.

Q: How many of the victims are women?

A: Two.

Q: So six of the victims are men?

A: Yes.

Q: Including the bus driver and Inspector Stenström?

A: Yes.

Q: Just a minute, now. We've been told that one of the people in the bus survived and was taken away in an ambulance that arrived on the scene before the police had had time to cordon off the area.

A: Oh?

Q: Is this true?

A: Next question.

Q: Apparently you were one of the first policemen to arrive on the scene?

A: Yes.

Q: What time did you get there?

A: At eleven twenty-five.

Q: What did it look like inside the bus just then?

A: What do you think?

Q: Can you say it was the most ghastly sight you've ever seen in your life?

Gunvald Larsson stared vacantly at the questioner, who was quite a young man with round, steel-rimmed glasses and a somewhat unkempt red beard. At last he said, ‘No. I can't.’

The reply caused some bewilderment. One of the woman journalists frowned and said lamely and incredulously, ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Exactly what I say.’

Before joining the police force Gunvald Larsson had been a regular seaman in the navy. In August, 1943, he had been one of those to go through the submarine Ulven, which had struck a mine and had been salvaged after having lain on the seabed for three months. Several of the thirty-three killed had been on the same courses with him. After the war, one of his duties had been to help with the extradition of the Baltic collaborators from the camp at Ränneslätt. He had also seen the arrival of thousands of victims who had been repatriated from the German concentration camps. Most of these had been women and many of them had not survived.

However, he saw no reason to explain himself to this youthful assembly but said laconically, ‘Any more questions?’

‘Have the police been in touch with any witnesses of the actual event?’

‘No.’

‘In other words, a mass murder has been committed in the middle of Stockholm. Eight people have been killed, and that's all the police have to say?’

‘Yes.’

With that, the press conference was concluded.

9

It was some time before anyone noticed that Rönn had come in with the list. Martin Beck, Kollberg, Melander and Gunvald Larsson stood leaning over one of the tables, which was littered with photographs from the scene of the crime, when Rönn suddenly stood next to them and said, ‘It's ready now, the list.’

He was born and raised in Arjeplog and although he had lived in Stockholm for more than twenty years he had still kept his north-Swedish dialect.

He laid the list on a corner of the table, drew up a chair and sat down.

‘Don't go around frightening people,’ Kollberg said.

It had been silent in the room for so long that he had started at the sound of Rönn's voice.

‘Well, let's see,’ Gunvald Larsson said impatiently, reaching for the list.

He looked at it for a while. Then he handed it back to Rönn.

‘That's about the most cramped writing I've ever seen. Can you really read that yourself? Haven't you typed out any copies?’

‘Yes,’ Rönn replied. ‘I have. You'll get them in a minute.’

‘OK,’ said Kollberg. ‘Let's hear.’

Rönn put on his glasses and cleared his throat. He glanced through his notes.

Of the eight dead, four lived in the vicinity of the terminus,' he began. ‘The survivor also lived there.’

‘Take them in order if you can,’ Martin Beck said.

‘Well, first of all there's the driver. He was hit by two shots in the back of the neck and one in the back of the head and must have been killed outright.’

Martin Beck had no need to look at the photograph that Rönn extracted from the pile on the table. He remembered all too well how the man in the driver's seat had looked.

‘The driver's name was Gustav Bengtsson. He was forty-eight, married, two children, lived at Inedalsgatan 5. His family has been notified. It was his last run for the day and when he had let off the passengers at the last stop he would have driven the bus to the Hornsberg depot at Lindhagensgatan. The money in his fare purse was untouched and in his wallet he had 120 kronor.’

He glanced at the others over his glasses.

‘There's no more about him for the moment.’

‘Go on,’ Melander said.

‘I'll take them in the same order as on the sketch. The next is Åke Stenström. Five shots in the back. One in the right shoulder from the side, might have been a ricochet. He was twenty-nine and lived –’

Gunvald Larsson interrupted him.

‘You can skip that. We know where he lived.’

‘I didn't,’ Rönn said.

‘Go on,’ said Melander.

Rönn cleared his throat.

‘He lived on Tjärhovsgatan together with his fiancée …’

Gunvald Larsson interrupted him again.

‘They were not engaged. I asked him not long ago.’

Martin Beck cast an irritated glance at Gunvald Larsson and nodded to Rönn to continue.

‘Together with Åsa Torell, twenty-four. She works at a travel agency.’

He gave Gunvald Larsson a quick look and said, ‘In sin. I don't know whether she's been told.’

Melander took his pipe out of his mouth and said, ‘She has been told.’

None of the five men around the table looked at the pictures of Stenström's mutilated body. They had already seen them and preferred not to see them again.

‘In his right hand he held his service pistol. It was cocked but he had not fired a shot. In his pockets he had a wallet containing 37 kronor, identification card, a snapshot of Åsa Torell, a letter from his mother and some receipts. Also, driving licence, notebook, pens and bunch of keys. It will all be sent up to us when the boys at the lab are through with it. Can I go on?’

‘Yes, please,’ said Kollberg.

‘The girl in the seat next to Stenström was called Britt Danielsson. She was twenty-eight, unmarried and worked at Sabbatsberg Hospital. She was a registered nurse.’

‘I wonder whether they were together,’ Gunvald Larsson said. ‘Perhaps he was having a bit of fun on the side.’

Rönn looked at him disapprovingly.

‘We'd better find out,’ Kollberg said.

‘She shared a room at Karlbergsvägen 87 with another nurse from Sabbatsberg. According to her roommate, Monika Granholm by name, Britt Danielsson was coming straight from the hospital. She was hit by one shot. In the temple. She was the only one in the bus to be struck by only one bullet. She had thirty-eight different things in her handbag. Shall I enumerate them?’

‘Christ, no,’ said Gunvald Larsson.

‘Number four on the list and on the sketch is Alfons Schwerin, the survivor. He was lying on his back on the floor between the two longitudinal seats at the rear. You already know his injuries. He was hit in the abdomen and one bullet lodged in the region of the heart. He lives alone at Norra Stationsgatan 117. He is forty-three and employed by the highway department of the city council. How is he, by the way?’

‘Still in a coma,’ Martin Beck said. ‘The doctors say there's just a chance he'll regain consciousness. But if he does they don't know whether he'll be able to talk or even to remember anything.’

‘Can't you talk with a bullet in your belly?’ Gunvald Larsson asked.

‘Shock,’ said Martin Beck.

He pushed back his chair and stretched himself. Then he lit a cigarette and stood in front of the sketch.

‘What about this one in the corner?’ he said. ‘Number eight?’

He pointed to the seat at the very back of the bus in the right-hand corner. Rönn consulted his notes.

‘He got eight bullets in him. In the chest and abdomen. He was an Arab and his name was Mohammed Boussie, Algerian subject, thirty-six, no relations in Sweden. He lived at a kind of boarding house on Norra Stationsgatan. Was obviously on his way home from work at the Zig-Zag, that grill restaurant on Vasagatan. There's nothing more to say about him at the moment.’

‘Arabia,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘Isn't that where there's usually an awful lot of shooting?’

‘Your political knowledge is devastating,’ Kollberg said. ‘You should apply for a transfer to Sepo.’

‘Its correct name is the Security Department of the National Police Board,’ said Gunvald Larsson.

Rönn got up, fished one or two pictures out of the pile and lined them up on the table.

‘This guy we haven't been able to identify,’ he said. ‘Number six. He was sitting on the outside seat immediately behind the middle doors and was hit by six shots. In his pockets he had the striking surface of a matchbox, a packet of Bill cigarettes, a bus ticket and 1,823 kronor in cash. That was all.’

‘A lot of money,’ Melander said thoughtfully.

They leaned over the table and studied the pictures of the unknown man. He had slithered down in the seat and lay sprawled against the back with arms hanging and his left leg stuck out in the aisle. The front of his coat was soaked in blood. He had no face.

‘Hell, it would have to be him,’ Gunvald Larsson said. ‘His own mother wouldn't recognize him.’

Martin Beck had resumed his study of the sketch on the wall. Holding his left hand in front of his face he said, ‘I'm not so sure there weren't two of them after all.’

The others looked at him.

‘Two what?’ Gunvald Larsson asked.

‘Two gunmen. Look at all the passengers, they never moved from their seats. Except the one who's still alive and he might have tumbled off afterwards.’

‘Two madmen?’ Gunvald Larsson said sceptically. ‘At the same time?’

Kollberg went and stood beside Martin Beck.

‘You mean that someone should have had time to react if there had been only one? Hm, maybe. But he simply mowed them down. It happened rather fast, and when you think they were all caught napping …’

‘Shall we go on with the list? We'll find that out as soon as we know whether there was one weapon or two.’

‘Sure,’ said Martin Beck. ‘Go on, Einar.’

‘Number seven is a foreman called Johan Källström. He was sitting beside the man who has not yet been identified. He was fifty-two, married and lived at Karlbergsvägen 89. According to his wife he was coming from the workshop on Sibyllegatan, where he'd been working overtime. Nothing startling about him.’

‘Nothing except that he got a bellyful of lead on the way home from work,’ said Gunvald Larsson.

‘By the window immediately in front of the middle doors we have Gösta Assarsson, number eight. Forty-two. Half his head was shot away. He lived at Tegnérgatan 40, where he also had his office and his business, an export and import firm that he ran together with his brother. His wife didn't known why he was on the bus. According to her, he should have been at a club meeting on Narvavägen.’

‘A-ha,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘Out carousing.’

‘Yes, there are signs that point to that. In his briefcase he had a bottle of whisky. Johnnie Walker, Black Label.’

‘A-ha,’ said Kollberg, who was an epicure.

‘In addition he was well supplied with condoms,’ said Rönn. ‘He had seven in an inside pocket. Plus a chequebook and over 800 kronor in cash.’

‘Why seven?’ Gunvald Larsson asked.

The door opened and Ek stuck his head in.

‘Hammar says you're all to be in his office in fifteen minutes. Briefing. Quarter to eleven, that's to say.’

He disappeared.

‘OK, let's go on,’ Martin Beck said.

‘Where were we?’

‘The guy with the seven johnnies,’ said Gunvald Larsson.

‘Is there anything more to be said about him?’ Martin Beck asked.

Rönn glanced at the sheet of paper covered with his scribbling.

‘I don't think so.’

‘Go on, then,’ said Martin Beck, sitting down at Gunvald Larsson's desk.

‘Two seats in front of Assarsson sat number nine, Mrs Hildur Johansson, sixty-eight, widow, living at Norra Stationsgatan 119. Shot in the shoulder and through the neck. She has a married daughter on Västmannagatan and was on her way home from there after baby-sitting.’

Rönn folded the piece of paper and tucked it into his jacket pocket.

‘That's the lot,’ he said.

Gunvald Larsson sighed and arranged the pictures in nine neat stacks.

Melander put his pipe down, mumbled something and went out to the toilet.

Kollberg tilted his chair and said, ‘And what do we learn from all this? That on quite an ordinary evening on quite an ordinary bus, nine quite ordinary people get mowed down with a submachine gun for no apparent reason. Apart from this guy who hasn't been identified, I can't see anything odd about any of these people.’

‘Yes, one,’ Martin Beck said. ‘Stenström. What was he doing on that bus?’

Nobody answered.

An hour later Hammar put exactly the same question to Martin Beck.

Hammar had summoned the special investigation group that from now on was to work entirely on the bus murders. The group consisted of seventeen experienced CID men, with Hammar in charge. Martin Beck and Kollberg also led the investigation.

All available facts had been studied, the situation had been analysed and assignments allotted. When the briefing was over and all except Martin Beck and Kollberg had left the room, Hammar said, ‘What was Stenström doing on that bus?’

‘Don't know,’ Martin Beck replied.

‘And nobody seems to know what he was working on of late. Do either of you know?’

Kollberg threw up his hands and shrugged.

‘Haven't the vaguest idea. Over and above daily routine, that is. Presumably nothing.’

‘We haven't had so much recently,’ Martin Beck said. ‘So he has had quite a bit of time off. He had put in an enormous amount of overtime before, so it was only fair.’

Hammar drummed his fingers against the edge of the desk and wrinkled his brow in thought. Then he said, ‘Who was it that informed his fiancée?’

‘Melander,’ said Kollberg.

‘I think someone ought to have a talk with her as soon as possible,’ Hammar said. ‘She must at all events know what he was up to.’

He paused, then added, ‘Unless he …’

He fell silent.

‘What?’ Martin Beck asked.

‘Unless he was going with that nurse on the bus, you mean,’ Kollberg said.

Hammar said nothing.

‘Or was out on another similar errand,’ Kollberg said.

Hammar nodded.

‘Find out,’ he said.

10

Outside police headquarters on Kungsholmsgatan stood two people who definitely wished they had been somewhere else. They were dressed in police caps and leather jackets with gilded buttons, they had shoulder belts diagonally across their chests and carried pistols and truncheons at their waists. Their names were Kristiansson and Kvant.

A well-dressed, elderly woman came up to them and asked, ‘Excuse me, but how do I get to Hjärnegatan?’

‘I don't know, madam,’ Kvant said. ‘Ask a policeman. There's one standing over there.’

The woman gaped at him.

‘We're strangers here ourselves,’ Kristiansson put in quickly, by way of explanation.

The woman was still staring after them as they mounted the steps.

‘What do you think they want us for?’ Kristiansson asked anxiously.

‘To give evidence, of course,’ Kvant replied. ‘We made the discovery, didn't we?’

‘Yes,’ Kristiansson said. ‘We did, but –’

‘No “buts,” now, Kalle. Into the lift with you.’

On the third floor they met Kollberg. He nodded to them, gloomily and absently. Then he opened a door and said, ‘Gunvald, those two guys from Solna are here now.’

‘Tell them to wait,’ said a voice from inside the office.

‘Wait,’ Kollberg said, and disappeared.

When they had waited for twenty minutes Kvant shook himself and said, ‘What the hell's the idea. We're supposed to be off duty, and I've promised Siv to mind the kids while she goes to the doctor.’

‘So you said,’ Kristiansson said dejectedly.

‘She says she feels something funny in her cu—’

‘Yeah, you said that too,’ Kristiansson murmured.

‘Now she'll probably be in a terrible temper again,’ Kvant said. ‘I can't make the woman out these days. And she's starting to look such a fright. Has Kerstin also got broad in the beam like that?’

Kristiansson didn't answer.

Kerstin was his wife and he disliked discussing her.

Kvant didn't seem to care.

Five minutes later Gunvald Larsson opened the door and said curtly, ‘Come in.’

They went in and sat down. Gunvald Larsson eyed them critically.

‘Sit down, by all means.’

‘We have already,’ Kristiansson said fatuously.

Kvant silenced him with an impatient gesture. He began to scent trouble.

Gunvald Larsson stood silent for a moment. Then he placed himself behind the desk, sighed heavily and said, ‘How long have you both been on the force?’

‘Eight years,’ said Kvant.

Gunvald Larsson picked up a sheet of paper from the desk and studied it.

‘Can you read?’ he asked.

‘Oh yes,’ said Kristiansson, before Kvant could stop him.

‘Read, then.’

Gunvald Larsson pushed the sheet across the desk.

‘Do you understand what's written there? Or do I have to explain it?’

Kristiansson shook his head.

‘I'll explain gladly,’ Gunvald Larsson said. ‘That is a preliminary report from the investigation at the scene of the crime. It shows that two individuals with size eleven shoes have left behind them about one hundred footprints all over that damn bus, both on the upper and lower deck. Who do you think these two individuals can be?’

No answer.

‘To explain further, I can add that I spoke to an expert at the lab not long ago, and he said that the scene of the crime looked as if a herd of hippopotamuses had been trotting about there for hours. This expert considers it incredible that a herd of human beings, consisting of only two individuals, should be able to wipe out almost every trace so completely and in such a short time.’

Kvant began to lose his temper, and stared stonily at the man behind the desk.

‘Now it so happens that hippopotamuses and other animals don't usually go about armed,’ Gunvald Larsson went on in honeyed tones. ‘Nevertheless, someone fired a shot inside the bus with a 7.65 mm Walther-to be exact, up through the front stairs. The bullet ricocheted against the roof and was found embedded in the padding of one of the seats on the upper deck. Who do you think can have fired that shot?’

‘We did,’ Kristiansson said. ‘That's to say, I did.’

‘Oh, really? And what were you firing at?’

Kristiansson scratched his neck unhappily.

‘Nothing,’ he said.

‘It was a warning shot,’ Kvant said.

‘Intended for whom?’

‘We thought the murderer might still be in the bus and was hiding on the top deck,’ Kristiansson said.

‘And was he?’

‘No,’ said Kvant.

‘How do you know? What did you do after that cannonade?’

‘We went up and had a look,’ Kristiansson said.

‘There was nobody there,’ said Kvant.

Gunvald Larsson glared at them for at least half a minute. Then he slammed the flat of his hand on the desk and roared, ‘So both of you went up! How the hell could you be so damn stupid?’

‘We each went up a different way,’ Kvant said defensively. ‘I went up the back stairs and Kalle took the front stairs.’

‘So that whoever was up there couldn't escape,’ said Kristiansson, trying to make things better.

‘But Jesus Christ there wasn't anyone up there! All you managed to do was to ruin every single footprint there was in the whole damn bus! To say nothing of outside! And why did you go tramping about among the bodies? Was it to make even more of a gory mess inside there?’

‘To see if anyone was still alive,’ Kristiansson said.

He turned pale and swallowed.

‘Now don't start throwing up again, Kalle,’ Kvant said reprovingly.

The door opened and Martin Beck came in. Kristiansson stood up at once, and after a moment Kvant followed his example.

Martin Beck nodded to them and looked inquiringly at Gunvald Larsson.

‘Are you the one who is shouting? It doesn't help much, bawling out these boys.’

‘Yes it does,’ Gunvald Larsson retorted. ‘It's constructive.’

‘Constructive?’

‘Exactly. These two idiots …’

He broke off and reconsidered his vocabulary.

‘These two colleagues are the only witnesses we have. Listen now, you two! What time did you arrive on the scene?’

‘Thirteen minutes past eleven,’ Kvant said. ‘I took the time on my chronograph.’

‘And I sat in exactly the same spot where I'm sitting now,’ Gunvald Larsson said. ‘I received the call at eighteen minutes past eleven. If we allow a wide margin and say that you fumbled with the radio for half a minute and that it took fifteen seconds for the Radio Central to contact me, that still leaves more than four minutes. What were you doing during that time?’

‘Well …’ said Kvant.

‘You ran about like poisoned rats, trampling in blood and brains and moving bodies and doing God knows what. For four minutes.’

‘I really can't see what's constructive –’ Martin Beck began, but Gunvald Larsson cut him off.

‘Wait a minute. Apart from the fact that these nitwits spent four minutes ruining the scene of the crime, they did get there at thirteen minutes past eleven. And they didn't go of their own accord but were told by the man who first discovered the bus. Is that right?’

‘Yes,’ said Kvant.

‘The old boy with the dog,’ said Kristiansson.

‘Exactly. They were notifed by a person whose name they didn't even bother to find out and whom we probably would never have identified if he hadn't been nice enough to come here today. When did you first catch sight of this man with the dog?’

‘Well …’ said Kvant.

‘About two minutes before we got to the bus,’ said Kristiansson, looking down at his boots.

‘Exactly. Because according to his statement they wasted at least a minute sitting in the car and shouting at him rudely. About dogs and things. Am I right?’

‘Yes,’ mumbled Kristiansson.

‘When you received the information the time was therefore approximately ten or eleven minutes past. How far from the bus was this man when he stopped you?’

‘About three hundred yards,’ said Kvant.

‘That's a fact, that's a fact,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘And since this man was seventy years old and also had a sick dachshund to drag along …’

‘Sick?’ said Kvant in surprise.

‘Exactly,’ Gunvald Larsson replied. ‘The damn dog had a slipped disc and was almost lame in the hind legs.’

‘I'm at last beginning to see what you mean,’ said Martin Beck.

‘Mm-m. I had the man do a trial run on the same stretch today. Dog and all. Made him do it three times, then the dog gave up.’

‘But that's cruelty to animals,’ Kvant said indignantly.

Martin Beck cast a surprised and interested glance at him.

‘At any rate the pair of them couldn't cover the distance in under three minutes, however hard they tried. Which means that the man must have caught sight of the stationary bus at seven minutes past eleven at the latest. And we know almost for sure that the massacre took place between three and four minutes earlier.’

‘How do you know that?’ Kristiansson and Kvant said in chorus.

‘None of your business,’ Gunvald Larsson retorted.

‘Inspector Strenström's watch,’ said Martin Beck. ‘One of the bullets passed straight through his chest and landed up in his right wrist. It broke off the stem of his wrist watch, an Omega Speedmaster, which according to the expert made the watch stop at the same instant. The hands showed three minutes and thirty-seven seconds past eleven.’

Gunvald Larsson glowered at him.

‘We knew Inspector Stenström, and he was meticulous about time,’ Martin Beck said sadly. ‘He was what watchmakers sometimes call a second hunter. That is, his watch always showed the exact time. Go on, Gunvald.’

‘This man with the dog came walking along Norrbackagatan from the direction of Karlbergsvägen. He was in fact overtaken by the bus just where the street begins. It took him about five minutes to trudge down Norrbackagatan. The bus did the same stretch in about forty-five seconds. He met nobody on the way. When he got to the corner he saw the bus standing on the other side of the street.’

‘So what,’ said Kvant.

‘Shut up,’ said Gunvald Larsson.

Kvant made a violent movement and opened his mouth, but glanced at Martin Beck and shut it again.

‘He did not see that the windows had been shattered, which, by the way, these two wonderboys didn't notice either when they eventually managed to crawl along. But he did see that the front door was open. He thought there had been an accident and hurried to get help. Calculating, quite correctly, that it would be quicker for him to reach the last bus stop than to go back up the hill along Norrbackagatan, he started off along Norra Stationsgatan in a south-westerly direction.’

‘Why?’ said Martin Beck.

‘Because he thought there'd be another bus waiting at the end of the line. As it happened, there wasn't. Instead, unfortunately, he met a police patrol car.’

Gunvald Larsson cast an annihilating china-blue glance at Kristiansson and Kvant.

‘A patrol car from Solna that came creeping out of its district like something that comes out when you lift up a rock. Well, how long had you been skulking with the engine idling and the front wheels on the city limits?’

‘Three minutes,’ said Kvant.

‘Four or five, more like it,’ said Kristiansson.

Kvant gave him a withering look.

‘And did you see anyone coming that way?’

‘No,’ said Kristiansson. ‘Not until that man with the dog.’

‘Which proves that the murderer cannot have made off to the south-west along Norra Stationsgatan, nor south up Norrbackagatan. If we take it that he did not hop over into the freight depot, there's only one possibility left. Norra Stationsgatan in the opposite direction.’

‘How do … we know that he didn't head into the station yard?’ Kristiansson asked.

‘Because that was the only spot where you two hadn't trampled down everything in sight. You forgot to climb over the fence and mess around there, too.’

‘OK, Gunvald, you've made your point, now,’ Martin Beck said. ‘Good. But as usual it took a hell of a time to get down to brass tacks.’

This remark encouraged Kristiansson and Kvant to exchange a look of relief and secret understanding. But Gunvald Larsson cracked out, ‘If you two had had any sense in your thick skulls you would have got into the car, caught the murderer and nabbed him.’

‘Or have been butchered ourselves,’ Kristiansson retorted misanthropically.

‘When I grab that guy I'm damn well going to shove you two in front of me,’ Gunvald Larsson said savagely.

Kvant stole a glance at the wall clock and said, ‘Can we go now? My wife –’

‘Yes,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘You can go to hell!’

Avoiding Martin Beck's reproachful look, he said, ‘Why didn't they think?’

‘Some people need longer than others to develop their train of thought,’ Martin Beck said amiably. ‘Not only detectives.’

11

‘Now we must think,’ Gunvald Larsson said briskly, banging the door. ‘There's a briefing with Hammar at three o'clock sharp. In ten minutes.’

Martin Beck, sitting with the telephone receiver to his ear, threw him an irritated glance, and Kollberg looked up from his papers and muttered gloomily, ‘As if we didn't know. Try thinking yourself on an empty stomach and see how easy it is.’

Having to go without a meal was one of the few things that could put Kollberg in a bad mood. By this time he had gone without at least three meals and was therefore particularly glum. Moreover, he thought he could tell from Gunvald Larsson's satisfied expression that the latter had just been out and had something to eat, and the thought didn't make him any happier.

‘Where have you been?’ he asked suspiciously.

Gunvald Larsson didn't answer. Kollberg followed him with his eyes as he went over and sat down behind his desk.

Martin Beck put down the phone.

‘What's biting you?’ he said.

Then he got up, took his notes and went over to Kollberg.

‘It was from the lab,’ he said. ‘They've counted sixty-eight fired cartridges.’

‘What calibre?’ Kollberg asked.

‘As we thought. Nine millimetres. Nothing to say that sixty-seven of them didn't come from the same weapon.’

‘And the sixty-eighth?’

‘Walther 7.65.’

‘The shot fired at the roof by that Kristiansson,’ Kollberg declared.

‘Yes.’

‘It means there was probably only one madman after all,’ Gunvald Larsson said.

‘Yes,’ said Martin Beck.

Going over to the sketch, he drew an X inside the widest of the middle doors.

‘Yes,’ Kollberg said. ‘That's where he must have stood.’

‘Which would explain …’

‘What?’ Gunvald Larsson asked.

Martin Beck didn't answer.

‘What were you going to say?’ Kollberg asked. ‘Which would explain …?’

‘Why Stenström didn't have time to shoot,’ Martin Beck said.

The others looked at him wonderingly.

‘Hungh-h,’ said Gunvald Larsson.

‘Yes, yes, you're right, both of you,’ Martin Beck said doubtfully and massaged the root of his nose between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.

Hammar flung open the door and entered the room, followed by Ek and a man from the office of the public prosecutor.

‘Reconstruction,’ he said abruptly. ‘Stop all telephone calls. Are you ready?’

Martin Beck looked at him mournfully. It had been Stenström's habit to enter the room in exactly the same way, unexpectedly and without knocking. Almost always. It had been extremely irritating.

‘What have you got there?’ Gunvald Larsson asked. ‘The evening papers?’

‘Yes,’ Hammar replied. ‘Very encouraging.’

He held the papers up and gave them a hostile glare. The headlines were big and black but the text contained very little information.

‘I quote,’ Hammar said. ‘“‘This is the crime of the century,' says tough CID man Gunvald Larsson of the Stockholm homicide squad, and goes on: ‘It was the most ghastly sight I've ever seen in my life’.”’ Two exclamation marks.’

Gunvald Larsson heaved himself back in the chair and frowned.

‘You're in good company,’ said Hammar. ‘The minister of justice has also excelled himself. “The tidal wave of lawlessness and the mentality of violence must be stopped. The police have drawn on all resources of men and materials in order to apprehend the culprit without delay.”’

He looked around him and said, ‘So these are the resources.’

Martin Beck blew his nose.

‘“The direct investigation force already comprises more than a hundred of the country's most skilled criminal experts,”’ Hammar went on. ‘“The biggest squad ever known in this country's history of crime.”’

Kollberg sighed and scratched his head.

‘Politicians,’ Hammar mumbled to himself.

Tossing the newspapers on to the desk, he said, ‘Where's Melander?’

‘Talking to the psychologists,’ Kollberg said.

‘And Rönn?’

‘At the hospital.’

‘Any news from there yet?’

Martin Beck shook his head.

‘They're still operating,’ he said.

‘Well,’ Hammar said. ‘The reconstruction.’

Kollberg looked through his papers.

‘The bus left Bellmansro about ten o'clock,’ he said.

‘About?’

‘Yes. The whole timetable had been thrown off by the commotion on Strandvägen. The buses were stuck in traffic jams or police cordons, and as there were already big delays the drivers had been told to ignore the departure times and turn straight round at the last stops.’

‘By radio?’

‘Yes. This instruction had already been sent out to the drivers on route 47 by shortly after nine o'clock. On Stockholm Transport's own wavelength.’

‘Go on.’

‘We assumed that there are people who rode part of the way on the bus on this particular run. But so far we haven't traced any such witnesses.’

‘They'll turn up,’ said Hammar.

He pointed to the newspapers and added, ‘After this.’

‘Stenström's watch had stopped at eleven, three and thirty-seven,’ Kollberg went on in a monotone. ‘There is reason to presume that the shots were fired at precisely that time.’

‘The first or the last?’ Hammar asked.

‘The first,’ Martin Beck said.

Turning to the sketch on the wall, he put his right forefinger on the X he had just drawn.

‘We assume that the gunman stood just here,’ he said. ‘In the open space by the exit doors.’

‘On what do you base that assumption?’

‘The trajectories. The position of the fired cartridges in relation to the bodies.’

‘Right. Go on.’

‘We also assume that the murderer fired three bursts. The first forward, from left to right, thereby shooting all those sitting in the front of the bus-marked here on the sketch as numbers one, two, three, eight and nine. Number one stands for the driver and number two for Stenström.’

‘And then?’

‘Then he turned around, probably to the right, and fired the next burst at the four individuals at the rear of the bus, still from left to right, killing numbers five, six and seven. And wounding number four-Schwerin, that is. Schwerin was lying on his back at the rear of the aisle. We take this to mean that he had been sitting on the longitudinal seat on the left side of the bus and that he had time to stand up. He would therefore have been hit last.’

‘And the third burst?’

‘Was fired forward,’ Martin Beck said. ‘This time from right to left.’

‘And the weapon must be a submachine gun?’

‘Yes,’ Kollberg replied. ‘In all probability. If it's the ordinary army type –’

‘One moment,’ Hammar interrupted. ‘How long should this have taken? To shoot forward, swing right around, shoot backward, point the weapon forward again and empty the magazine?’

‘As we still don't know what kind of weapon he used –’ Kollberg began, but Gunvald Larsson cut him off.

‘About ten seconds.’

‘How did he get out of the bus?’ Hammar asked.

Martin Beck nodded to Ek and said, ‘Your department.’

Ek passed his fingers through his silvery hair, cleared his throat and said, ‘The door that was open was the rear entrance door. In all likelihood the murderer left the bus that way. In order to open it he must first move straight forward along the aisle to the driver's seat, then stretch his arm over or past the driver and push a switch.’

He took out his glasses, polished them with his handkerchief and went over to the wall.

‘I've had two instruction sketches blown up here,’ he said. ‘One showing the instrument panel in its entirety, the other showing the actual lever for the front doors. On the first sketch the switch for the door circuits is marked with number 15 and the door lever with number 18. The lever is therefore to the left of the wheel, in front of and obliquely below the side window. The lever itself, as you see from the second sketch, has five different positions.’

‘Who could make head or tail out of all this?’ Gunvald Larsson said.

‘In the horizontal position, or position one, both doors are shut,’ Ek went on unperturbed. ‘In position two, one step upward, the rear entrance door is opened, in position three, two steps upward, both doors are opened. The lever also has two positions downward-numbers four and five. In the first of these, the front entrance door is opened, in the second, both doors are opened.’

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