The Fire Engine that Disappeared
MAJ SJÖWALL AND PER WAHLÖÖ

Translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate

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 1971

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

Copyright text © Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö 1969

Copyright introduction © Colin Dexter 2007

Cover photograph © Shutterstock

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: 9780007242955

Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2009 ISBN: 9780007343492

Version: 2018-14-05

Praise

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

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

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

About the Authors

Other Books By

About the Publisher

Introduction

Let me be completely honest from the outset. When I was invited to write the introduction to The Fire Engine that Disappeared, I somewhat guiltily realized that I had never read a single word written by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. I had frequently read articles about the famous pair, and learnt from many knowledgeable critics that they were among the very finest writers of modern crime fiction. But such literature amounted to little more than books about the books, and not the books themselves; and with me, as with many others, the epithet ‘famous’ more often than not signifies ‘unread’.

Why was this?

I really ought to have been more kindly disposed towards the Swedes since they had been the very first nation to translate my own books; and from quite early on I had attended crime conferences in Stockholm and in Göteborg, where my most abiding memory is of the high price of alcohol. But the names of our two authors did not trip off the tongue with the easy familiarity of other foreign crime-writers, like Simenon or Dürrenmatt, and I got to read neither of them. A bigger factor, I am sure, was the view I’ve held for most of my life that the best definition of poetry is ‘what gets lost in translation’; and I have usually assumed (maybe correctly?) that ‘style’ in prose-writing also falls victim to the same potential malaise. And talking of translation and pronunciation, the reader of this novel must occasionally—surely!—feel a little intimidated by such topographical polysyllables as, for example, ‘Karlviksgatan is a street running from Norr Mälarstrand to Hantverkargatan, quite near Fridhemsplan’ (ch. 27). All a bit off-putting, isn’t it? But I took heart from the Sunday Telegraph quote for the blurb: ‘If you haven’t read Sjöwall and Wahlöö, start now.’ So I started, although with considerable clutter in my mind about what to expect.

My first preconception was that this husband-and-wife team, with a political stance well to the left, had become rather too bitterly critical in the sixties and seventies of what they saw as the betrayal of many of their Socialist ideas and ideals. My second was that their modus scribendi was deeply influenced by the 87th Precinct books of Ed McBain, with real-life crime found predominantly in cities rather than in sleepy English villages. Third, that during these same years, Sweden had become so liberal-minded about sex and sexuality that any sensitive soul might well have to be prepared for (or to hope for) a few paragraphs of explicit titillation.

Unexpectedly, it was none of these factors that struck me first. What struck me was the gently underplayed humour of the writing. Let me give some examples. An apartment building in Stockholm blows up spectacularly in the opening pages and is burnt to the ground. Melander is one of the investigating team, and the question of the cause of the fire was his particular headache, ‘apart from the fact that he had never had a headache’. Another of the team, and the hero of the rescue attempts, Gunvald Larsson, is being treated in hospital and being dressed in regulation clothing when we find him looking down at his feet ‘inserted into a pair of black, wooden-soled shoes, which either had been made for Goliath, or had been intended as a sign to hang outside some clog-maker’s’. One further example? ‘It took Martin Beck less than thirty seconds to open the door, which was considered a long time, as he had already got the key from the real-estate agent.’ All quite delightful.

Clearly then we are not going to be confronted by a couple of po-faced Marxists, and the first of my earlier preconceptions is in need of modification. What then am I now to say about any signs of disillusionment with those womb-to-tomb aspirations of what is unsympathetically termed the ‘nanny’ state? I found little or nothing in the novel that could be called tub-thumping propaganda. Instead, I came across a few rather muted and humane reflections on those laudable intentions which somehow had failed to materialize. As early as the first chapter, for example, Martin Beck, on a visit to his mother in an old people’s home, ‘walked past one of the dreary small sitting rooms in which he had never seen anyone sitting, and continued along the gloomy corridor’. All very gentle. Yet we do come across some bitter social commentary, albeit not given any third-person authorial imprimatur, but spoken by the discomfited mother of one of the villains: ‘It’s an accepted fact now that our reform schools and institutions act as a sort of introduction to drug-taking and crime. What you call treatment isn’t worth a cent.’ Pretty polemical!

My second preconception proved fully corroborated. The influence of the venerable McBain abounds, and this novel is a ‘police procedural’ from the top drawer. What a curious team of detectives we meet, each invested with a sharp individuality, each contributing, well, at least something to the novel’s dramatic dénouement; and, above all, every one of them is interesting as a human being, with their varied responsibilities, and their equally varied wives. Melander, for example, not only possesses a phenomenal memory, he is also a pipe-smoking, unflappable fellow, who has obviously followed a life-long philosophy of never turning round when being shouted at from behind. Martin Beck, who gives his name to the series, plays a comparatively minor role, rather like a cricket-captain who, as the sports pages would report, is having a quiet game. But for me, the most fascinating member of the team is Kollberg, a fat, sedentary figure, to whom I took an instant dislike. He takes much of the limelight, and proves to be a man of strong views and somewhat irrational prejudices, thoroughly detesting one of his colleagues, and steadily digging his own grave with a knife and fork. Yet I finished the book admiring him; and it is the mark of exceptional writing for any author(s) not only to characterize a particular protagonist but to re-characterize him. A good deal of interest, too, settles around a trio of comparatively junior members of the team, who exhibit amusing degrees of inexperience and incompetence during this complex and baffling story. Indeed, one of them is sent on an assignment ‘that might possibly strengthen his leg muscles but was otherwise quite useless’. Yet each of the three plays his part in the unfolding of the story.

What of my third preconception? Sex plays only a very small part in the novel; and what sex we do find is handled with an almost serene simplicity. The one brief (extraordinarily brief!) incident that I remember with great pleasure occurs when a police contact in Denmark is interviewing, and rather brusquely interviewing, a sculptor in her Copenhagen studio:

‘Do you want to sleep with me?’ she said suddenly.

‘Yes,’ said Månsson. ‘Why not?’

‘Good. It’ll be easier to talk afterward.’

Let me, at last, come to the story—although not too much about the story. The blurbs of some books occasionally, albeit inadvertently, give too many hints about the twists and turns of a plot, sometimes even about the guilty party. Such lapses are irritating, and in the US particularly may provide mines of unwanted and unnecessary information. Why not allow readers to discover for themselves exactly what is going to happen? So let me be brief. We know about the fire already, and it is no secret from the first few pages that we are going to be teased about the respective merits of accident, arson, and wilful murder. Expertly, the theories are juggled in front of our eyes as clues emerge to point the way to shady and deadly dealings in car theft and drugs, with the action shifting eventually from Stockholm down to Malmö in the south and the short crossing to Denmark. It is pleasing, at least for me, to reveal that as the plot develops the reader is not encumbered, as in many crime novels these days, with so much technical forensic detail, often to me unintelligible, that one needs the company of Gray’s Anatomy. Although the autopsies and post-mortems carried out here are of crucial importance, their results are reported with succinct clarity, and no degree in pathology is required to follow them.

For me, the best criterion of a good read is to wish that it had gone on a bit longer. I felt that here. If I am truthful, I cannot pretend that my life has been unduly influenced by the right-wing Sunday Telegraph—just as the lives of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö would not have been, either. But now I can only feel grateful to the crime critic of that newspaper, upon whose recommendation I have started to read the Martin Beck Series.

Colin Dexter

1

The man lying dead on the tidily made bed had first taken off his jacket and tie and hung them over the chair by the door. He had then unlaced his shoes, placed them under the chair and stuck his feet into a pair of black leather slippers. He had smoked three filter-tipped cigarettes and stubbed them out in the ashtray on the bedside table. Then he had lain down on his back on the bed and shot himself through the mouth.

That did not look quite so tidy.

His nearest neighbour was a prematurely retired army captain who had been injured in the hip during an elk hunt the previous year. He had suffered from insomnia after the accident and often sat up at night playing solitaire. He was just getting the deck of cards out when he heard the shot on the other side of the wall and he at once called the police.

It was twenty to four on the morning of the seventh of March when two radio police broke the lock on the door and made their way into the flat, inside which the man on the bed had been dead for thirty-two minutes. It did not take them long to establish the fact that the man almost certainly had committed suicide. Before returning to their car to report the death over the radio, they looked around the flat, which in fact they should not have done. Apart from the bedroom, it consisted of a living room, kitchen, hall, bathroom and wardrobe. They could find no message or farewell letter. The only written matter visible was two words on the pad by the telephone in the living room. The two words formed a name. A name which both policemen knew well.

Martin Beck.

It was Ottilia’s name day.

Soon after eleven in the morning, Martin Beck left the South police station and went and stood in the line at the off-licence in Karusellplan. He bought a bottle of Nutty Solera. On the way to the metro, he also bought a dozen red tulips and a can of English cheese biscuits. One of the six names his mother had been given at baptism was Ottilia and he was going to congratulate her on her name day.

The old people’s home was large and very old. Much too old and inconvenient according to those who had to work there. Martin Beck’s mother had moved there a year ago, not because she had been unable to manage on her own, for she was still lively and relatively fit at seventy-eight, but because she had not wanted to be a burden on her only child. So in good time she had secured herself a place in the home and when a desirable room had become vacant, that is, when the previous occupant had died, she had got rid of most of her belongings and moved there. Since his father’s death nineteen years earlier, Martin Beck had been her only support and now and again he was afflicted with pangs of conscience over not looking after her himself. Deep down, inwardly, he was grateful that she had taken things into her own hands without even asking his advice.

He walked past one of the dreary small sitting rooms in which he had never seen anyone sitting, continued along the gloomy corridor and knocked on his mother’s door. She looked up in surprise as he came in; she was a little deaf and had not heard his discreet tap. Her face lighting up, she put aside her book and began to get up. Martin Beck moved swiftly over to her, kissed her cheek and with gentle force pressed her down into the chair again.

‘Don’t start dashing about for my sake,’ he said.

He laid the flowers on her lap and placed the bottle and can of biscuits on the table.

‘Congratulations, Mother dear.’

She unwound the paper from the flowers and said:

‘Oh, what lovely flowers. And biscuits! And wine, or what is it? Oh, sherry. Good gracious!’

She got up and, despite Martin Beck’s protests, went over to a cupboard and took out a silver vase, which she filled with water from the handbasin.

‘I’m not so old and decrepit that I can’t even use my legs,’ she said. ‘Sit yourself down instead. Shall we have sherry or coffee?’

He hung up his hat and coat and sat down.

‘Whichever you like,’ he said.

‘I’ll make coffee,’ she said. ‘Then I can save the sherry and offer some to the old ladies and boast about my nice son. One has to save up the cheerful subjects.’

Martin Beck sat in silence, watching as she switched on the electric hotplate and measured out the water and coffee. She was small and fragile and seemed to grow smaller each time he saw her.

‘Is it boring for you here, Mother?’

‘Me? I’m never bored.’

The reply came much too quickly and glibly for him to believe her. Before sitting down, she put the coffee pot on the hotplate and the vase of flowers on the table.

‘Don’t you worry about me,’ she said. ‘I’ve got such a lot to do. I read and talk to the other old girls, and I knit. Sometimes I go into town and just look, though it’s awful the way they’re pulling everything down. Did you see that the building your father’s business was in has been demolished?’

Martin Beck nodded. His father had had a small transport business in Klara and where it had once been, there was now a shopping centre of glass and concrete. He looked at the photograph of his father that stood on the chest of drawers by her bed. The picture had been taken in the mid-twenties, when he himself had been only a few years old and his father had still been a young man with clear eyes, glossy hair with a side-parting, and a stubborn chin. It was said that Martin Beck resembled his father. He himself had never been able to see the likeness, and should there be any, then it was limited to physical appearance. He remembered his father as a straightforward, cheerful man who was generally liked and who laughed and joked easily. Martin Beck would have described himself as a shy and rather dull person. At the time the photograph had been taken, his father had been a construction worker, but a few years later the depression came and he was unemployed for a couple of years. Martin Beck reckoned that his mother had never really got over those years of poverty and anxiety; although they were much better off later on, she had never stopped worrying about money. She still could not bring herself to buy anything new if it were not absolutely necessary, and both her clothes and the few bits of furniture she had brought with her from her old home were worn by the years.

Martin Beck tried to give her money now and again and at regular intervals he offered to pay the bill at the home, but she was proud and obstinate and wished to be independent.

When the coffee had boiled, he brought the pot over and let his mother pour it. She had always been solicitous towards her son and when he had been a boy she had never even allowed him to help with the dishes or make his own bed. He had not realized how misdirected her thoughtfulness had been until he had discovered how clumsy he was when it came to the simplest domestic chore.

Martin Beck watched his mother with amusement as she popped a sugar lump into her mouth before taking a sip of the coffee. He had never seen her drinking coffee ‘on the lump’ before. She caught his eye and said:

‘Ah well, you can take a few liberties when you’re as old as I am.’

She put down her cup and leaned back, her thin freckled hands loosely clasped in her lap.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘Tell me how things are with my grandchildren.’

Nowadays, Martin Beck was always careful to express himself in nothing but positive terms when he talked to his mother about his children, as she considered her grandchildren cleverer, more brilliant and more beautiful than any other children. She often complained that he did not appreciate their merits and she had even accused him of being an unsympathetic and harsh father. He himself thought he was able to regard his children in a quite sober light and he presumed they were much like any other children. His contact with sixteen-year-old Ingrid was best; a lively, intelligent girl who found things easy at school and was a good mixer. Rolf would soon be thirteen and was more of a problem. He was lazy and introverted, totally uninterested in anything to do with school and did not seem to have any other special interests or talents either. Martin Beck was concerned about his son’s inertia, but hoped it was just his age and that the boy would overcome his lethargy. As he could not find anything positive to say about Rolf at the moment and as his mother would not have believed him if he had told her the truth, he avoided the subject. When he had told her about Ingrid’s latest progress at school, his mother said quite unexpectedly:

‘Rolf’s not going into the police force when he leaves school, is he?’

‘I don’t think so. Anyhow, he’s hardly thirteen. It’s a little soon to begin worrying about that sort of thing.’

‘Because if he wants to, you must stop him,’ she said. ‘I’ve never understood why you were so stubborn about becoming a policeman. Nowadays it must be an even more awful profession than it was when you first began. Why did you join the police force, anyway, Martin?’

Martin Beck stared at her in astonishment. It was true she had been against his choice of profession at the time, twenty-four years ago, but it surprised him that she brought the subject up now. He had become a chief inspector in the Murder Squad less than a year ago and his conditions of work were completely different from those that had existed when he had been a young constable.

He leaned forward and patted her hand.

‘I am all right now, Mother,’ he said. ‘Nowadays, I mostly sit at a desk. But of course, I’ve often asked myself the same question.’

It was true. He had often asked himself why he had become a policeman.

Naturally he could have replied that at the time, during the war years, it was a good way of avoiding military service. After a two-year deferment because of bad lungs, he had been declared fit and no longer exempt, which was quite an important reason. In 1944 conscientious objectors were not tolerated. Many of those who had evaded military service in the way he had, had since changed occupation, but he himself had been promoted over the years to chief inspector. That ought to mean that he was a good policeman, but he was not so sure. There were several instances of senior posts in the police being held by less able policemen. He was not even certain he wanted to be good policeman, if that involved being a dutiful person who never deviated one iota from the regulations. He remembered something Lennart Kollberg had once said a long time ago. ‘There are lots of good cops around. Stupid guys who are good cops. Inflexible, limited, tough, self-satisfied types who are all good cops. It would be better if there were a few more good guys who were cops.’

His mother came out with him, and they walked together in the park a bit. The slushy snow made it difficult to walk and the icy wind rattled round the branches of the tall bare trees. After they had slipped about for ten minutes, he accompanied her back to the porch and kissed her on the cheek. He turned around on his way down the slope and saw her standing there waving by the entrance. Small and shrunken and grey.

He took the metro back to the South police station in Västberga Allé.

On the way to his office, he glanced into Kollberg’s room. Kollberg was an inspector as well as Martin Beck’s assistant and best friend. The room was empty. He glanced at his wristwatch. It was half-past one. It was Thursday. It required no powers of deduction to work out where Kollberg was. For a brief moment Martin Beck even considered joining him down there with his pea soup, but then he thought of his stomach and desisted. It was already disturbed by the far too numerous cups of coffee his mother had pressed on him.

On his blotter there was a brief message about the man who had committed suicide that same morning.

His name was Ernst Sigurd Karlsson and he was forty-six years old. He was unmarried and his nearest relative was an elderly aunt in Boras. He had been absent from his work in an insurance company since Monday. Influenza. According to his colleagues at work, he was a loner and as far as they knew he had no close friends. His neighbours said he was quiet and inoffensive, came and went at definite times and seldom had visitors. Tests on his handwriting showed that it had indeed been he who had written Martin Beck’s name on the telephone pad. That he had committed suicide was perfectly evident.

There was nothing else to say about the case. Ernst Sigurd Karlsson had taken his own life, and as suicide is not a crime in Sweden, the police could not do very much more. All the questions had been answered. Except one. Whoever had written out the report had also asked this question: Had Chief Inspector Beck had any connection with the man in question and could he possibly add anything?

Martin Beck could not.

He had never heard of Ernst Sigurd Karlsson.

2

As Gunvald Larsson left his office at the police station in Kungsholmsgatan, it was half-past ten at night and he had no plans whatsoever for becoming a hero; insofar as it was no great deed to go home to Bollmora, shower, put on his pyjamas and go to bed. Gunvald Larsson thought about his pyjamas with pleasure. They were new, bought that same day, and most of his colleagues would not have believed their ears if they had heard what they had cost. On his way home, he was to carry out a minor duty which would hardly set him back more than five minutes, if that. As he thought about his pyjamas, he struggled into his Bulgarian sheepskin coat, put out the light, slammed the door and left. The decrepit lift which went up to their department went wrong as usual and he had to stamp twice on the floor before it could be persuaded to get going. Gunvald Larsson was a large man, six feet two inches in his socks, weighing over fourteen stone, and it was noticeable when he stamped his feet.

It was cold and windy outside, with gusts of dry, swirling snow, but it took only a few steps to get to the car and he did not need to worry about the weather.

Gunvald Larsson drove across Vaster Bridge, glancing indifferently to his left. He saw the City Hall with the yellow light thrown on to the three golden crowns on the spire at the top of the tower, and thousands upon thousands of other lights which he could not identify. From the bridge, he continued straight to Hornsplan, turned left on to Hornsgatan and then turned right by the Zinkensdamm metro station. He drove only about five hundred yards southward along Ringvägen, then braked.

There are as good as no buildings there, despite the fact that it is still in central Stockholm. On the west side of the street, Tantolunden, a hilly park, spreads out, and to the east there is a rocky knoll, a car park and a petrol station. It is called Sköldgatan and is not really a street at all, but rather a bit of road which for some incomprehensible reason has remained since, with doubtful zeal, the planners devastated this city district, as well as most of the others, depriving them of their original value and obliterating their special character.

Sköldgatan is a winding bit of road, less than three hundred yards long, which connects Ringvägen with Rosenlundsgatan and is largely used by a few taxi drivers or occasional lost police cars. In the summer, it is something of an oasis with its luxuriant roadside foliage, and despite the heavy traffic on Ringvägen and the trains thundering along the line only fifty yards away, the older generation of the district’s unhappy children, with bottles of wine, bits of sausage and greasy packs of cards, can operate relatively undisturbed in the undergrowth. No one is to be found voluntarily there in the winter.

On this particular evening, the seventh of March, 1968, however, a man was standing freezing among the bare bushes on the south side of the road. His attention was not entirely what it ought to have been and was only partly directed towards the one dwelling house in the street, an old wooden, two-storey building. A short while earlier, the lights had been on in two of the windows on the second floor and the sounds of music, shouting and occasional peals of laughter had been heard, but now all the lights in the house were out and the only thing to be heard was the wind and the hum of the traffic far away. The man in the bushes was not standing there of his own free will. He was a policeman and his name was Zachrisson and he was wishing heartily that he was elsewhere.

Gunvald Larsson got out of his car, put up his coat collar and pulled his fur cap down over his ears. Then he strode straight across the wide road, past the petrol station, and slogged on through the slushy snow. The highway authorities clearly did not think it worth their while wasting road salt on this useless bit of roadway. The house lay about seventy-five yards further on, slightly above road level and at a sharp angle to it. He stopped in front of it, looked around and said quietly:

‘Zachrisson?’

The man in the bushes shook himself and came up to him.

‘Bad news,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘You’ve got two more hours. Isaksson is off sick.’

‘Hell!’ said Zachrisson.

Gunvald Larsson surveyed the scene. Then he made a disgruntled grimace and said:

‘It’d be better if you stood up on the slope.’

‘Yes, if I want to freeze my arse off,’ said Zachrisson misanthropically.

‘If you want a decent view. Has anything happened?’

The other man shook his head.

‘Not a damn thing,’ he said. ‘They had some sort of party up there a while back. Now it looks as if they’re lying up there sleeping it off.’

‘And Malm?’

‘Him too. It’s three hours since he put his light out.’

‘Has he been alone all the time?’

‘Yes, seems so.’

‘Seems? Has anyone left the house?’

‘I haven’t seen anyone.’

‘What have you seen, then?’

‘Three people have gone in since I came. A man and two women. They came in a taxi. I think they were in on that party.’

‘Think?’ said Gunvald Larsson inquiringly.

‘Well, what the hell is one to think? I haven’t got …’

The man’s teeth were chattering so that he had difficulty in speaking. Gunvald Larsson inspected him critically and said:

‘What haven’t you got?’

‘X-ray eyes,’ said Zachrisson dismally.

Gunvald Larsson was inclined to severity and had little understanding for human weaknesses. As an officer, he was anything but popular and many people were afraid of him. If Zachrisson had known him better, he would never have dared behave as he had, that is, naturally; but not even Gunvald Larsson could wholly ignore the fact that the man was exhausted and cold, and his condition and ability to observe would hardly improve over the next few hours. He realized what ought to be done but did not plan to drop the matter for that reason. He grunted irritably and said:

‘Are you cold?’

Zachrisson gave a hollow laugh and tried to scrape the icicles off his eyelashes.

‘Cold?’ he said with dull irony. ‘I feel like the three men in the burning fiery furnace.’

‘You’re not here to be funny,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘You’re here to do your job.’

‘Yes, sorry, but—’

‘And one part of that job is keeping warm and properly dressed and moving your flat feet occasionally. Otherwise, you may be left standing there like a damn snowman when something happens. And then perhaps it won’t be so funny … afterwards.’

Zachrisson began to suspect something. He shivered awkwardly and said apologetically:

‘Yes, of course, that’s okay, but—’

‘It’s not at all okay,’ said Gunvald Larsson angrily. ‘I happen to have to take the responsibility for this assignment and I prefer not to be messed about by some bungler in the ordinary force.’

Zachrisson was only twenty-three years old and an ordinary policeman. At the moment he belonged to the Protection Section in the Second District. Gunvald Larsson was twenty years older and an inspector in the Stockholm Murder Squad. When Zachrisson opened his mouth to reply, Gunvald Larsson raised his large right hand and said harshly:

‘No more backchat, thanks. Get off to the station in Rosenlundsgatan and have a cup of coffee or something. In precisely half an hour, you’re to be back here, fresh and alert, so you’d better get a move on.’

Zachrisson went. Gunvald Larsson looked at his wristwatch, sighed and said to himself, ‘Rookie.’

Then he turned right around, walked through the bushes and began climbing up the slope, muttering and swearing under his breath because the thick rubber soles of his Italian winter shoes could not get a grip on the icy stones.

Zachrisson had been right in that the knoll did not offer any shelter whatsoever against the mercilessly biting north wind, and he himself had been right when he had said that this was the best observation point. The house lay directly in front and slightly below him. He could not help observing what happened in the building and its immediate surroundings. The windows were all wholly or partly covered with frosted ice and no lights were showing behind them. The only sign of life was the smoke from the chimney, which hardly had time to be coloured by the cold before it was torn to shreds by the wind and rushed away in great cotton-wool blobs up into the starless sky.

The man on the knoll automatically moved his feet from side to side and flexed his fingers inside his sheepskin-lined gloves. Before becoming a policeman, Gunvald had been a sailor, first as an ordinary seaman in the navy, later on cargo ships in the North Atlantic, and many wintry watches on open bridges had taught him the art of keeping warm. He was also an expert on this sort of assignment, though nowadays he preferred to restrict himself to planning and supervising them. After he had stood on the knoll for a while, he was able to make out a flickering light behind the window furthest to the right on the second floor, as if someone had struck a match to light a cigarette or look at the time, for instance. He glanced automatically at his own watch. It was four minutes past eleven. Sixteen minutes since Zachrisson had left his post. By this time, he was presumably sitting in the canteen at Maria police station, filling himself with coffee and grumbling to the off-duty uniformed policemen, a short-lived pleasure, for in seven minutes the man would have to be on the march back again. If he did not want to be in for the rollicking of the century, thought Gunvald Larsson grimly.

Then he thought for a few minutes about the number of people who might be in the house at that particular moment. There were four flats in the old building, two on the first floor and two on the second floor. Up on the left lived an unmarried woman in her thirties, with three children, all with different fathers. That was more or less all he knew about the lady and that was enough. Below her, to the left on the first floor, lived a married couple, old people. They were about seventy and had lived there for almost half a century, in contrast to the upper flats, which changed tenants rapidly. The husband drank and, in spite of his venerable age, he was a regular customer in the cells at Maria police station. To the right on the second floor lived a man who was also well known, but for more criminal reasons than just Saturday-night boozing. He was twenty-seven and already had six different sentences of varying lengths behind him. His crimes varied from drunken driving, breaking and entering, to assault. His name was Roth and it was he who had thrown a party for his one male and two female chums. Now they had turned off the record-player and the light, either to sleep or else to continue the festivities in some other way. And it was in his flat that someone had struck a match.

Below this flat, at the bottom right, lived the person whom Gunvald Larsson was watching. He knew what this person’s name was and what he looked like. On the other hand, oddly enough, he had no idea why the man had to be watched.

It had come about in this way: Gunvald Larsson was what the newspapers in exalted moments refer to as a murder-scout, and as at this particular moment there was no special murderer to scout for, he had been loaned to another department to be responsible for this assignment, on top of his own duties. He had been allocated a scratch collection of four men and given simple directions: Ensure that the man in question does not disappear and that nothing happens to him and note whom he meets.

He had not even bothered to ask what it was all about. Drugs, presumably. Everything seemed to be about drugs these days.

Now the watch had gone on for ten days and the only thing that had happened to the man in question was a tart and two halfbottles of booze.

Gunvald Larsson looked at his watch. Nine minutes past eleven. Eight minutes left.

He yawned and raised his arms to start beating them round him.

At that precise moment the house exploded.

3

The fire began with an ear-splitting bang. The windows in the right-hand first-floor flat were blown out and most of the gable seemed to be torn off the house, as simultaneously long ice-blue flames shot through the broken panes. Gunvald Larsson was standing on the top of the hillock with his arms stretched out, like a statue of the Saviour, paralytically staring at what was happening on the other side of the road. But only for a moment. Then he rushed, slipping and swearing, down the stony slope, across the street and up towards the house. As he ran, the flames changed colour and character, became orange and licked greedily upward along the boards. He also got the impression that the roof had already begun to sag above the right-hand part of the house, as if part of the actual foundations had been jerked away. The flat on the first floor had been in flames for several seconds and before he reached the stone steps outside the front door, it was burning in the room above as well.

He flung open the door and at once saw that it was too late. The door to the right in the hall had been torn off its hinges and was blocking the stairs. It was blazing like a giant log and the fire had begun to spread up the wooden staircase. A wave of intense heat blew back against him and he staggered, scorched and blinded, backwards down the outer steps. From inside the house came desperate screams of human beings in pain and terror. So far as he knew, there were at least eleven people in the building, helplessly barricaded inside this veritable death-trap. Presumably some of them were already dead. Tongues of flame were shooting out of the first-floor windows as if from a blowtorch.

Gunvald Larsson glanced swiftly around to see if there were any ladders or other aids. There was nothing in sight.

A window was thrown open on the second floor and through the smoke and flames he thought he could make out a woman, or rather a girl, who was screaming shrilly and hysterically. He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled:

‘Jump! Jump to the right!’

She was up on the windowsill now, but hesitating.

‘Jump! Now! As far out as you can! I’ll catch you.’

The girl jumped. She came hurtling through the air straight at him and he managed to catch the falling body with his right arm between her legs and his left arm round her shoulders. She was not all that heavy, perhaps seven or eight stone, and he caught her expertly, without her even touching the ground. The moment he caught her, he swung right around so that he was protecting her from the roaring fire, took three steps and put her down on the ground. The girl was hardly more than seventeen. She was naked and her whole body was shaking as she screamed and tossed her head from side to side. Otherwise, he could see nothing wrong with her.

When he turned around again, there was someone else at the window, a man wrapped in some sort of sheet. The fire was burning more fiercely than ever, smoke seeping out along the length of the ridge of the roof, and on the right-hand side the flames had begun to come through the tiles. If that blasted fire engine doesn’t come soon…, thought Gunvald Larsson, getting as close to the fire as he was able. There were cracks and creaks from the burning woodwork, and showers of mercilessly burning sparks fell on his face and over his sheepskin coat, where they slowly burned their way in and were extinguished in that expensive material. He shouted as loudly as he could to make himself heard above the roar of the fire.

‘Jump! As far out as you can! To the right!’ At the same moment as the man jumped, the fire caught the piece of cloth he was wrapped in. The man let out a penetrating scream as he fell, trying to tear off the burning sheet. This time the descent was not so successful. The man was considerably heavier than the girl, and he twisted around, hitting Gunvald Larsson’s shoulder with his left arm and then thudding on to the uneven cobblestones with his shoulder first. At the last moment, Gunvald Larsson managed to get his huge left hand under the man’s head, thus saving him from cracking his skull open. He laid the man down on the ground, tore away the burning sheet at the same time irreparably burning his own gloves. The man was naked too, except for a gold wedding ring. He was groaning horribly, chattering gutturally in between times like an imbecile chimpanzee. Gunvald Larsson rolled him a few yards away and let him lie in the snow more or less out of the way of the burning timbers that were falling. As he turned around, a third person, a woman in a black bra, jumped from the now blazing flat up on the right. Her red hair was alight and she fell much too near the wall.

Gunvald Larsson rushed in among the burning planks and woodwork and dragged her away from the immediate danger zone, extinguished the fire in her hair with snow and left her lying. He could see that she was badly burned and she was shrieking shrilly, twisting like a snake with the pain. She had obviously also fallen badly, for one leg lay stretched out at a highly unnatural angle to her body. She was slightly older than the other woman, perhaps about twenty-five, and was red-haired, between her legs too. The skin on her stomach was remarkably undamaged and looked pale and slack. Her face, legs and back were most damaged, as well as across her breasts, where the bra had burned into her skin.

When he raised his eyes to the second-floor flat for the last time, he saw a ghostly figure burning like a torch, and in a pathetic spiral it sank out of sight, its arms raised above its head. Gunvald Larsson presumed that he was the fourth member of the party and realized that he was already beyond human help.

The attic was now in flames too, as well as the roof beams beneath the tiles. Thick smoke was billowing up and he heard sharp cracks from the burning woodwork. The windows furthest to the left on the second floor were flung open and someone shouted for help. Gunvald Larsson rushed over and saw a woman in a white nightgown leaning over the windowsill, a bundle pressed to her chest. A child. Smoke was pouring out of the open window, but clearly it was not yet burning in the flat, at least not in the room the woman was in.

‘Help!’ she cried desperately.

As the fire was not yet so fierce in this part of the house, he was able to stand quite near the wall, almost immediately below the window.

‘Throw the child,’ he shouted.

The woman immediately flung down the child, so unhesitatingly that he was taken by surprise. He saw the bundle falling straight at him, and at the last moment flung out his arms and caught it directly in his hands, much like a goalkeeper catching a free kick. The child was very small. It whimpered a bit, but did not cry. Gunvald Larsson remained standing with it in his arms for a few seconds. He had no experience of children and could not even remember with any certainty ever having to hold one before. For a second he wondered whether he had been too rough and had crushed it. Then he moved away and put the bundle down on the ground. As he stood there bending over, he heard running steps and he looked up. It was Zachrisson, panting and scarlet in the face.

‘What?’ he said. ‘How…?’

Gunvald Larsson stared at him and said:

‘Where the hell’s the fire engine?’

‘It should be here…I mean…I saw the fire from Rosenlundsgatan…so I ran and telephoned…’

‘Run back then, for God’s sake, and get the fire engines and the ambulance here…’

Zachrisson turned about and ran.

‘And the police!’ yelled Gunvald Larsson after him.

Zachrisson’s cap fell off and he stopped to pick it up.

‘Idiot!’ yelled Gunvald Larsson.

Then he returned to the house. The whole of the right-hand side was now a roaring inferno and the attic floor looked as if it were on fire. Much more smoke than before was pouring out through the window, where the woman in the nightgown was now standing with yet another child, a fair-haired boy of about five, wearing flowered blue pyjamas. The woman flung down the child just as swiftly and unexpectedly as before, but this time Larsson was more prepared and caught the boy safely in his arms. Strangely enough, the boy did not seem at all frightened.

‘What’s your name?’ he shouted.

‘Larsson.’

‘Are you a fireman?’

‘For God’s sake, push off now,’ said Gunvald Larsson, putting the child down on the ground.

He looked up again and was hit on the head by a tile. It was red-hot and although his fur cap deadened the blow, everything went black before his eyes. He felt a burning pain in his forehead and blood pouring down his face. The woman in the nightgown had disappeared. Presumably to fetch the third child, he thought, and at that moment the woman appeared at the window with a large porcelain dog, which she at once threw out. It fell to the ground and smashed to pieces. The next second, she herself jumped. That did not go so well. Gunvald Larsson was standing directly in line and fell in a heap on the ground, the woman on top of him. He hit the back of his head and his back, but at once heaved the woman off and began to get up. The woman in the nightgown looked unhurt, but her eyes were glazed and staring. He looked at her and said:

‘Haven’t you got another child?’

She stared at him, then hunched up and began to whimper like a hurt animal.

‘Get over there and look after the other two,’ said Gunvald Larsson.

The fire had now caught the whole of the second floor and flames were already shooting out of the window from which the woman had jumped. But the two old people were still in the left-hand first-floor flat. It had obviously not begun to burn in there yet, but they had shown no sign of life. Presumably the flat was full of smoke, and it was also only a matter of minutes before the roof would fall in.

Gunvald Larsson looked around for a tool and saw a large stone a few yards away. It was frozen into the ground, but he forced it loose. The stone weighed at least forty to fifty pounds. He raised it above his head with straight arms and flung it with all his strength through the middle of the window furthest to the left in the first-floor flat, shattering the window frame in a shower of splinters of glass and wood. He hauled himself up on to the sill, leaned against a blind which gave way and a table which fell over and landed on the floor in the room, where the smoke was thick and suffocating. He coughed and pulled his woollen scarf up over his mouth. Then he tore down the blind and looked round. The fire was roaring all around him. In the flickering reflections from outside, he saw a figure huddled in a shapeless heap on the floor. The old woman, obviously. He lifted her up, carried the slack body over to the window, took her under the arms and carefully let her down to the ground, where she at once sank into a heap against the foundation wall. She appeared to be alive but hardly conscious.

He took a deep breath and returned to the flat, tore down the blind on the other window and smashed the windows with a chair. The smoke lifted slightly, but above him the ceiling was now bulging and orange tongues of flame were beginning to appear around the hall door. It did not take him more than fifteen seconds to find the man. He had not managed to get out of bed, but he was alive and was coughing weakly and pitifully.

Gunvald whipped off the blanket, slung the old man over his shoulder, carried him right across the room and climbed out in a cascade of falling sparks. He coughed hoarsely and could hardly see for the blood running down from the wound in his forehead, mixing with the sweat and tears.

With the old man still over his shoulder, he dragged the old woman away and laid them both down beside each other on the ground. Then he examined the woman to see if she was breathing. She was. He hauled off his sheepskin coat and brushed a few sparks off it. Then he used it to cover the naked girl, who was still screaming hysterically, and led her away to the others. He took off his tweed jacket and swept that around the two small children, and gave his woollen scarf to the naked man, who at once wound it round his hips. Finally he went over to the red-haired woman, lifted her up and carried her over to the assembly place. She smelled revolting and her screams cut to the quick.

He looked over at the house, which was now blazing all over, burning wildly and uninhibitedly. Several private cars had stopped near the road and bewildered people were just getting out of them. He ignored them. Instead he took off his ruined fur cap and pressed it down over the forehead of the woman in the nightgown. He repeated the question he had put to her a few minutes earlier:

‘Haven’t you got another child?’

‘Yes…Kristina…her room’s in the attic.’

Then the woman started weeping uncontrollably.

Gunvald Larsson nodded.

Bloodstained, soot-streaked, drenched with sweat and his clothes torn, he stood among these hysterical, shocked, screaming, unconscious, weeping and dying people. As if on a battlefield.

Above the roar of the fire came the primeval wail of the sirens.

And then suddenly everyone came at once. Water tankers, fire ladders, fire engines, police cars, ambulances, motorcycle police, and fire brigade officers in red saloon cars.

Zachrisson.

Who said: ‘What…how did it happen?’

And at that moment the roof fell in and the house was transformed into a cheerfully crackling beacon.

Gunvald Larsson looked at his watch. Sixteen minutes had gone by since he had stood, frozen, up on that hill.

4

On the afternoon of Friday, the eighth of March, Gunvald Larsson was sitting in a room at the police station in Kungsholmsgatan. He was wearing a white polo sweater and a pale grey suit with slanting pockets. Both hands were bandaged and the bandage around his head reminded him very strongly of the popular picture of General von Döbeln during the battle of Jutas in Finland. He also had two bandage patches on his face and neck. Some of his brushed-back fair hair had been singed away, as had his eyebrows, but his clear blue eyes looked just as blank and discontented as ever.

There were several other people in the room.

For instance, Martin Beck and Kollberg, who had been called there from the Murder Squad in Västberga, and Evald Hammar who was their superintendent and until further notice considered responsible for the investigation. Hammar was a large, heavily built man and his thick mane of hair had by now turned almost white in the course of duty. He had already begun to count the days until he retired, and regarded every serious crime of violence as persecution of himself personally.

‘Where are the others?’ asked Martin Beck.

As usual, he was standing to one side, fairly near the door, leaning with his right elbow against a filing cabinet.

‘What others?’ asked Hammar, well aware of the fact that the composition of the investigation team was entirely his affair. He had sufficient influence to be able to second any individual member of the force he wanted and was used to working with.

‘Rönn and Melander,’ said Martin Beck stoically.

‘Rönn is at South Hospital and Melander at the scene of the fire,’ said Hammar shortly.

The evening papers lay spread out over the desk in front of Gunvald Larsson and he was rustling angrily among them with his bandaged hands.

‘Damned hacks,’ he said, shoving one of the papers over towards Martin Beck. ‘Just look at that picture.’

The picture took up three columns and portrayed a young man in a trench coat and a narrow-brimmed hat, a troubled look on his face, standing poking with a stick in the still-smoking ruins of the house in Sköldgatan. Diagonally behind him, in the left-hand corner of the picture, stood Gunvald Larsson, staring foolishly into the camera.

‘You perhaps don’t come out to your best advantage,’ said Martin Beck. ‘Who’s the guy with the walking stick?’

‘His name is Zachrisson. A rookie from the Second District. Absolute idiot. Read the caption.’

Martin Beck read the caption.

The hero of the day, Inspector Gunwald Larsson (r) made a heroic contribution during last night’s fire by saving several people’s lives. Here he can be seen examining the remains of the house, which was totally destroyed.

‘Not only do the blasted bunglers not even know the difference between right and left,’ mumbled Gunvald Larsson, ‘but they…’

He did not say anything more, but Martin Beck knew what he meant, and nodded thoughtfully to himself. The name was spelled wrong too. Gunvald Larsson looked at the picture with distaste and pushed the paper away with his arm.

‘And I look moronic too,’ he said.

‘There are drawbacks to being famous,’ said Martin Beck.

Against his will, Kollberg, who detested Gunvald Larsson, squinted down at the scattered newspapers. All the pictures were equally misleading and every front page was decorated with Gunvald Larsson’s staring eyes underneath glaring headlines.

Heroic deeds and heroes and God knows what else, thought Kollberg, sighing dejectedly. He was sitting hunched up in a chair, fat and flabby, his elbows on the desk.

‘So we find ourselves in the strange position of not knowing what happened?’ said Hammar severely.

‘Not all that strange,’ said Kollberg. ‘I personally hardly ever know what’s happened.’

Hammar looked critically at him and said:

‘I mean we don’t know whether the fire was arson or not.’

‘Why should it be arson?’ asked Kollberg.

‘Optimist,’ said Martin Beck.

‘’Course it was bloody well arson,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘The house blew up practically right in front of my nose.’

‘And are you certain the fire began in this man Malm’s room?’

‘Yes. As good as.’

‘How long had you had the house under observation?’

‘About half an hour. Personally. And before that, that fathead Zachrisson was there. Hell of a lot of questions, by the way.’

Martin Beck massaged the bridge of his nose between his right-hand thumb and forefinger. Then he said:

‘And are you certain no one went in or out during that time?’

‘Yes, I’m damned sure of that. What happened before I went there, I don’t know. Zachrisson said that three people had gone in and no one had come out.’

‘Can one rely on that?’

‘Don’t think so. He seems unusually dumb.’

‘You don’t mean that, do you?’

Gunvald Larsson looked angrily at him and said:

‘What the hell’s all this about anyway? I’m standing there and the miserable house catches fire. Eleven people were trapped inside and I got eight of them out.’

‘Yes, I’ve noticed that,’ said Kollberg, glancing sideways at the newspapers.

‘Is it quite certain that it is a question of only three people killed in the fire?’ Hammar asked.

Martin Beck took some papers out of his inside pocket and studied them. Then he said:

‘It seems so. That man Malm, another called Kenneth Roth who lived above Malm, and then Kristina Modig, who had a room in the attic. She was only fourteen.’

‘Why did she live in the attic?’ asked Hammar.

‘Don’t know,’ said Martin Beck. ‘We’ll have to find that out.’

‘There’s a hell of a lot more we’ve got to find out,’ said Kollberg. ‘We don’t even know that it was just those three who were killed. And also, all that about eleven people is just a supposition, isn’t it, Mr Larsson?’

‘Who were the people who got themselves out, then?’ said Hammar.

‘First of all, they didn’t get themselves out,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘I was the one who got them out. If I hadn’t happened to have been standing there, not a damned one of them would have got clear. And second, I didn’t write down their names. I had other things to do at the time.’

Martin Beck looked thoughtfully at the big man in bandages. Gunvald Larsson often behaved badly, but to be offensive to Hammar must be due to either megalomania or a stroke. Hammar frowned.

Martin Beck shuffled through his papers and said as a diversion:

‘I’ve at least got the names here. Agnes and Herman Söderberg. They are married, sixty-eight and sixty-seven years old. Anna-Kajsa Modig and her two children, Kent and Clary. The mother is thirty, the boy five and the girl seven months. Then two women, Clara Berggren and Madeleine Olsen, sixteen and twenty-four, and a guy called Max Karlsson. How old he is, I don’t know. The last three didn’t live in the house, but were there as guests. Probably at Kenneth Roth’s, the one who was killed in the fire.’

‘None of those names means anything to me,’ said Hammar.

‘Nor me,’ said Martin Beck.

Kollberg shrugged his shoulders.

‘Roth was a thief,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘And Söderberg a drunk and Anna-Kajsa Modig a whore. If that makes you any happier.’

A telephone rang and Kollberg answered. He pulled a notepad towards him and took a ballpoint pen out of his pocket.

‘Oh, yes, it’s you is it? Yes, get going.’

The others watched him in silence. Kollberg put down the receiver and said:

‘That was Rönn. This is the position: Madeleine Olsen probably won’t survive. She’s got eighty per cent burns plus concussion and a multiple fracture of the femur.’

‘She was red-haired all over,’ said Gunvald Larsson.

Kollberg looked sharply at him and went on:

‘Old man Söderberg and his wife are suffering smoke poisoning, but their chances are passable. Max Karlsson has thirty per cent burns and will live. Carla Berggren and Anna-Kajsa Modig are physically uninjured, but both are suffering from severe shock, as is Karlsson. None of them is fit to be interrogated. Only the two kids are perfectly all right.’

‘So it might be an ordinary fire, then,’ said Hammar.

‘Balls,’ said Gunvald Larsson.

‘Shouldn’t you go home to bed?’ said Martin Beck.

‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you, eh?’

Ten minutes later, Rönn himself appeared. He goggled at Larsson in astonishment and said:

‘What in the world are you doing here?’

‘You may well ask,’ said Gunvald Larsson.

Rönn looked reproachfully at the others.

‘Have you lost your minds?’ he said. ‘Come on, Gunvald, let’s go.’

Gunvald rose obediently and walked over to the door.

‘One moment,’ said Martin Beck. ‘Just one question. Why were you shadowing Göran Malm?’

‘Haven’t the slightest idea,’ said Gunvald Larsson, and left.

An astonished silence reigned.

A few minutes later, Hammar grunted something incomprehensible and left the room. Martin Beck sat down, picked up a newspaper and began reading it. Thirty seconds later, Kollberg followed his example. They sat like this, in sullen silence, until Rönn returned.

‘What did you do with him?’ said Kollberg. ‘Take him to the zoo?’

‘What d’you mean,’ said Rönn, ‘do with him? Who?’

‘Mr Larsson,’ said Kollberg.

‘If you mean Gunvald, he’s in South Hospital with concussion. He is not allowed to speak or read for several days. And whose fault is that?’

‘Well, not mine,’ said Kollberg.

‘Yes, that’s just what it is. I’ve a damned good mind to punch you.’

‘Don’t stand there yelling at me,’ said Kollberg.

‘I can do better than that,’ said Rönn. ‘You’ve always behaved like a clod to Gunvald. But this just takes the biscuit.’

Einar Rönn was from Norrland, a calm, good-natured man, who never normally lost his temper. During their fifteen-year acquaintanceship, Martin Beck had never before seen him angry.

‘Oh, well, then, it’s just as well he’s got one mate, anyhow,’ said Kollberg, sarcastically.

Rönn took a step towards him, clenching his fists. Martin Beck rose swiftly and stood between them, turning to Kollberg and saying:

‘Stop it now, Lennart. Don’t make things any worse.’

‘You’re not much better yourself,’ said Rönn to Martin Beck. ‘You’re both a couple of shits.’

‘Hey, now, what the hell…’ said Kollberg, straightening up.

‘Calm down, Einar,’ said Martin Beck to Rönn. ‘You’re quite right, we should have seen that there was something wrong with him.’

‘I’ll say you should,’ said Rönn.

‘I didn’t notice much difference,’ said Kollberg nonchalantly. ‘Presumably one has to be at the same high intellectual level to…’

The door opened and Hammar came in.

‘You all look very peculiar,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing,’ said Martin Beck.

‘Nothing? Einar looks like a boiled lobster. Are you thinking of having a fight? No police brutality, please.’

The telephone rang and Kollberg snatched up the receiver like a drowning man grasping the proverbial straw.

Slowly, Rönn’s face resumed its normal colour. Only his nose remained red, but it was usually red anyway.

Martin Beck sneezed.

‘How the hell should I know that?’ said Kollberg into the telephone. ‘What corpses anyway?’

He flung down the receiver, sighed and said:

‘Some idiot at the medical labs who wanted to know when the bodies can be moved. Are there any bodies, for that matter?’

‘Have any of you gentlemen been to the scene of the fire, may I ask?’ said Hammar acidly.

No one replied.

‘Perhaps a visit for study purposes would do no harm,’ said Hammar.

‘I’ve got a bit of desk work to do,’ said Rönn, vaguely.

Martin Beck walked towards the door. Kollberg shrugged his shoulders, rose and followed him.

‘It must simply be an ordinary fire,’ said Hammar stubbornly, and to himself.

5

The scene of the fire was now barricaded off to such an extent that no ordinary mortal could catch a glimpse of anything more than a cordon of uniformed police. The moment Martin Beck and Kollberg got out of the car, they were accosted by two of them.

‘Hey, you, where are you two off to?’ said one of them pompously.

‘Don’t you see you can’t park there like that,’ said the other.

Martin Beck was just about to show his identification card, but Kollberg warded him off and said:

‘Excuse me, officer, but would you mind giving me your name?’

‘What business is it of yours?’ said the first policeman.

‘Move along, then,’ said the other. ‘Otherwise there might be trouble.’

‘Of that I’m certain,’ said Kollberg. ‘It’s just a question of for whom.’

Kollberg’s bad temper was reflected very clearly in his appearance. His dark blue trench coat was flapping in the wind, he had not bothered to button up his collar, his tie hung out of his right-hand jacket pocket and his battered old hat was perched on the back of his head. The two policemen glanced at each other meaningfully. One of them took a step nearer. Both had rosy cheeks and round blue eyes. Martin Beck saw that they had decided that Kollberg was intoxicated and were just about to lay hands on him. He knew Kollberg was in a state to make mincemeat of them, both physically and mentally, in less than sixty seconds and that their chances of waking up next morning without a job were very great. He wished no one ill that day, so he swiftly drew out his identity card and thrust it under the nose of the more aggressive of the two policemen.

‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ said Kollberg, angrily. Martin Beck looked at the two policemen and said placidly:

‘You’ve got a lot to learn. Come on, now, Lennart.’

The ruins of the fire looked melancholy. Superficially, all that was left of the house were the foundations, one chimney stack and a huge heap of charred boards, blackened bricks and fallen tiles. Over everything hung the acrid smell of smoke and burned matter. Half a dozen experts in grey overalls were crawling about, carefully poking in the ashes with sticks and short spades. Two great sieves had been set up in the back yard. Hoses still snaked their way along the ground, and down on the road there was a fire engine. In the front seat sat two firemen playing paper, scissors, stone.

Ten yards away stood a lone dismal figure, a pipe in his mouth and his hands thrust deep down in his coat pockets. This was Fredrik Melander of the Murder Squad in Stockholm and a veteran of hundreds of difficult investigations. He was generally known for his logical mind, his excellent memory and unshakeable calm. Within a smaller circle, he was most famous for his remarkable capacity for always being in the toilet when anyone wanted to get hold of him. His sense of humour was not nonexistent, but very modest; he was parsimonious and dull and never had brilliant ideas or sudden inspiration. Briefly, he was a first-class policeman.

‘Hi,’ he said, without taking his pipe out of his mouth.

‘How’s it going?’ said Martin Beck.

‘Slow.’

‘Any results?’

‘Not exactly. We’re being very careful. It’ll take time.’

‘Why?’ asked Kollberg.

‘By the time the fire engine got here, the house had collapsed and before the extinguishing work got going, it was almost burned out. They poured on gallons of water and put the fire out pretty quickly. Then it got colder later on in the night and it all froze together into one great slab.’

‘Sounds jolly cheerful,’ said Kollberg.

‘If I’ve got it right, then they have to sort of peel off that heap, layer by layer.’

Martin Beck coughed and said:

‘And the bodies? Have they found any yet?’

‘One,’ said Melander.

He took his pipe out of his mouth and pointed with the stem towards the right-hand part of the burned-out house.

‘Over there,’ he said. ‘The fourteen-year-old girl, I think. The one who slept in the attic.’

‘Kristina Modig?’

‘Yes, that’s her name. They’re leaving her there overnight. It’ll soon be dark and they don’t want to work except in daylight.’

Melander took out his tobacco pouch, carefully filled his pipe and lit it. Then he said:

‘How’re things going with you, then?’

‘Marvellously,’ said Kollberg.

‘Yes,’ said Martin Beck. ‘Especially for Lennart. First he almost had a fight with Rönn …’

‘Really,’ said Melander, raising his eyebrows slightly.

‘Yes. And then he almost got taken in for drunkenness by two policemen.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Melander tranquilly. ‘How’s Gunvald?’

‘In the hospital. Concussion.’

‘He did a good job last night,’ said Melander.

Kollberg regarded the remains of the house, shook himself and said:

‘Yes, I have to admit that. Damn, it’s cold.’

‘He didn’t have much time,’ said Melander.

‘No, exactly,’ said Martin Beck. ‘How could the house burn out at such a rate in such a short time?’

‘The fire department reckon it’s inexplicable.’

‘Mmm,’ said Kollberg.

He glanced over at the parked fire engine and picked up another train of thought.

‘Why are those guys still here? The only thing that could burn here now is the fire engine, isn’t it?’

‘Extinguishing the embers,’ said Melander. ‘Routine.’

‘When I was small, a funny thing happened once,’ said Kollberg. ‘The fire station caught fire and burned down and all the fire engines were destroyed inside, while the firemen all stood outside staring. I don’t remember where it was.’

‘Well, it wasn’t quite like that. It happened in Uddevalla,’ said Melander. ‘To be more exact on the tenth of—’

‘Oh, can’t one even have one’s childhood memories left in peace,’ said Kollberg irritably.

‘How do they explain the fire, then?’ Martin Beck asked.

‘They don’t explain it at all,’ said Melander. ‘Waiting for the results from the technical investigation. Just like us.’

Kollberg looked around despondently.

‘Damn, it’s cold,’ he said again. ‘And this place stinks like an open grave.’

‘It is an open grave,’ said Melander solemnly.

‘Come on, let’s go,’ said Kollberg to Martin Beck.

‘Where to?’

‘Home. What are we doing here, anyway?’

Five minutes later they were sitting in the car on their way south.

‘Didn’t that clod really know why he was tailing Malm?’ asked Kollberg, as they passed Skanstull Bridge.

‘Gunvald, d’you mean?’

‘Yes, who else?’

‘I don’t think he knew. But one can never be certain.’

‘Mr Larsson is not what you’d call a great brain, but…’

‘He’s a man of action,’ said Martin Beck. ‘That has its advantages, too.’

‘Yes, of course, but it’s a bit much to stomach that he had no idea what he was up to.’

‘He knew he was watching a man and perhaps that was enough for him.’

‘How did it come about?’

‘It’s quite simple. This Göran Malm had nothing to do with the Murder Squad. Someone else had caught him and had him up for something. They tried to get him remanded in custody and it didn’t work. So he was released, but they didn’t want him to vanish. As they were up to their necks with work, they asked Hammar for help. And he let Gunvald organize the surveillance, as an extra duty.’

‘Why just him?’

‘Since Stenström died, Gunvald has been considered the best at that sort of job. Anyhow, it turned out to be a stroke of genius.’

‘Insofar as?’

‘Insofar as it saved eight people’s lives. How many do you think Rönn would have got out of that death-trap? Or Melander?’

‘You’re right, of course,’ said Kollberg heavily. ‘Perhaps I ought to apologize to Rönn.’

‘I think you ought to.’

The lines of cars going south were moving very slowly. After a while, Kollberg said:

‘Who was it wanted him shadowed?’

‘Don’t know. Burglary division, I suppose. With three hundred thousand breaking-and-entering and theft cases a year, or whatever it is, those boys hardly have time to run downstairs to eat their lunch. We’ll have to find out all that on Monday. That’s easily done.’

Kollberg nodded and let the car creep forward another ten yards or so. Then they had to stop again.

‘I suppose Hammar’s right,’ he said. ‘It’s quite simply an ordinary fire.’

‘Well, it did begin to burn suspiciously quickly,’ said Martin Beck. ‘And Gunvald said that—’

‘Gunvald’s a fool,’ said Kollberg. ‘And he’s always imagining things. There are lots of natural explanations.’

‘Such as?’

‘Some sort of explosion. Some of those people were thieves and had a mass of high-explosives at home. Or jerry cans of petrol in the wardrobe. Or cylinders of gas. That Malm can’t have been any great shakes if they let him go. It seems insane that anyone should risk eleven people’s lives to get rid of him.’

‘If it turns out to be arson, then there’s nothing to show that it was Malm they were after,’ said Martin Beck.

‘No. That’s true,’ said Kollberg. ‘This is not one of my best days, is it?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Martin Beck.

‘Oh, well, we’ll see on Monday.’

At that, conversation ceased.

At Skärmarbrink, Martin Beck got out and took the metro. He did not know which he loathed more, the overcrowded underground or crawling along in traffic. But going by metro had one advantage. It was quicker. Not that he had anything to hurry home for.

But Lennart Kollberg had. He lived in Palandergatan and had a fine wife called Gun, and a daughter who was just six months old. His wife was lying on her stomach on the rug in the living room, studying a correspondence course of some kind. She had a yellow pencil in her mouth and alongside the open papers lay a red eraser. She was wearing an old pyjama top and was idly moving her long naked legs. She looked at him with her large brown eyes and said:

‘Jee-sus, you look gloomy.’

He took off his jacket and threw it into a chair.

‘Is Bodil asleep?’

She nodded.

‘It’s been a damned awful day,’ said Kollberg. ‘And everyone keeps jumping on me. First Rönn, of all people, and then two imbecile cops in Maria.’

Her eyes glittered.

‘And it wasn’t your fault at all?’

‘Anyhow, now I’m off duty until Monday.’

‘I’m not going to beat you,’ she said. ‘What d’you want to do?’

‘I want to go out and eat something hellish good and have five doubles.’

‘Can we afford that?’

‘Yes. Hell, it’s only the eighth: Can we fix a sitter?’

‘I expect Åsa will come.’

Åsa Torell was a policeman’s widow, although she was only twenty-five. She had lived with a colleague of Kollberg’s called Åke Stenström, who had been shot dead on a bus only four months earlier.

The woman on the floor drew down her strong dark eyebrows and rubbed energetically at her papers.

‘There’s an alternative,’ she said. ‘We can go to bed. It’s cheaper and more fun.’

‘Lobster Vanderbilt’s fun too,’ said Kollberg.

‘You think more about food than love,’ she complained. ‘Even though we’ve only been married two years.’

‘Not at all. Anyway, I’ve an even better idea,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and eat first and have five doubles and then go to bed. Call Åsa up now.’

The telephone had a twenty-foot extension cable and was already on the rug. She stretched out her hand and pulled it towards her, dialled a number and got a reply.

As she talked, she turned over on her back, drew up her knees and placed the soles of her feet on the floor. The pyjama top slid up a bit.

Kollberg looked at his wife, thoughtfully regarding the broad patch of thick raven-black hair which spread over the lower half of her abdomen and reluctantly thinned out between her legs. She was looking up at the ceiling as she listened. After a while she drew up her left leg and scratched her ankle.

‘Okay,’ she said, putting down the receiver. ‘She’s coming. It’ll take her an hour to get here, won’t it? Have you heard the latest, by the way?’

‘No, what?’

‘Åsa’s going to train to be a policewoman.’

‘Christ,’ he said absently. ‘Gun?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve thought of yet another solution, even better than the last one. First we go to bed and then we go and eat and have five doubles and then we go to bed again.’

‘But that’s almost brilliant,’ she said. ‘Here on the rug?’

‘Yes, call up Operakällaren and order a table.’

‘Look up the number, then.’

Kollberg riffled through the telephone directory as he unbuttoned his shirt and undid his belt; he found the number and heard her dialling it.

Then she sat up, pulled the pyjama top over her head and flung it away across the floor.

‘What are you after? My vanished chastity?’

‘Exactly.’

‘From behind?’

‘However you like.’

She giggled and began to turn, slowly and pliably, kneeling on all fours with her legs wide apart and her dark head down, her forehead pressed against her forearms.

Three hours later, over the ginger sherbet, she reminded Kollberg about something he had not thought about since he had seen Martin Beck disappearing in the direction of the metro station.

‘That awful fire,’ she said. ‘Do you think it was deliberate?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe that. There must be some limit.’

He had been a policeman for more than twenty years and should have known better.

6

Saturday came with sun and bright clear light.

Martin Beck woke slowly, with an unusual feeling of contentment. He lay still, his face burrowed into the pillow, and he tried to hear whether it was late or early in the morning. He heard a blackbird in the trees outside the window and heavy drops falling with irregular splashes into the slush on the balcony. Cars driving past and an underground train braking at the station further away. His neighbour’s door slamming. Gurgling in the water pipes and suddenly, in the kitchen on the other side of the wall, a crash which made him open his eyes immediately. Rolf’s voice:

‘Oh hell!’

And Ingrid:

‘You’re so damned clumsy.’

And Inga hushing them.

He put out his hand for cigarettes and matches, but had to get up on his elbow and dig out the ashtray from under a heap of books. He had lain reading about the battle of Tsushima until four in the morning and the ashtray was full of cigarette butts and dead matches. When he could not be bothered to get up and empty it before going to sleep, he usually hid it under a book to avoid hearing Inga’s prophecies about how one fine day they would all wake up burned to death as a result of his smoking in bed.

His watch said half-past nine, but it was Saturday and he was off duty. Off duty in two ways, he thought contentedly, feeling a twinge of self-reproach. He was going to be alone in the flat for two days. Inga and the children were going with Inga’s brother to his cottage in Roslagen, and staying there until Sunday evening. Martin Beck was of course also invited, but as a weekend alone at home was a rare pleasure which he did not particularly want to forgo, he had pleaded work to avoid having to join them.

He finished his cigarette before getting up and then took the ashtray with him to the toilet and emptied it. He skipped shaving and pulled on his khaki trousers and corduroy shirt. Then he put the book about Tsushima back on the bookshelf, rapidly transformed the bed back into a sofa and went out into the kitchen.

His family were sitting around the table, eating breakfast. Ingrid got up and fetched a cup for him from the cupboard and poured some tea.

‘Oh, Daddy, you can come too, can’t you?’ she said. ‘Look what a marvellous day it is. It’s not such fun when you don’t come.’

‘Can’t, I’m afraid,’ said Martin Beck. ‘It’d be great fun, but—’

‘Daddy has to work,’ said Inga acidly. ‘As usual.’

Again he felt a twinge of conscience. Then he thought that they would have more fun without him, as Inga’s brother always took Martin Beck’s presence as an excuse to bring out the booze and get drunk. Inga’s brother in a sober state was certainly nothing much to write home about and drunk he was almost unbearable. He had, however, one positive feature and that was that on principle he never drank alone. Martin Beck’s thoughts continued in that direction and arrived at the conclusion that he was really doing a good deed by lying and staying at home, as his absence would force his brother-in-law to remain sober.

He had just come to this advantageous conclusion when his brother-in-law rang the doorbell, and five minutes later Martin Beck was able to begin celebrating his coveted free weekend.

It was just as successful as he had hoped. Inga had in fact left food in the freezer for him, but he went out all the same and shopped for dinner. Among other things, he bought a bottle of Grönstedts Monopole cognac and six strong beers. Then he devoted the rest of Saturday to putting down the deck of the model of the Cutty Sark, which he had not had time to touch for several weeks. For dinner he ate cold meatballs, fish roe and camembert on pumpernickel bread, and he drank two beers. He also drank some coffee and cognac and watched an old American gangster film on television. Then he got his bed ready and lay in the bathtub reading Raymond Chandler’s The Lady in the Lake, every now and again taking a sip of cognac which he had placed within reach on the toilet seat.

He felt very well and thought about neither work nor his family.

When he had finished his bath, he put on his pyjamas, switched off all the lights except the reading lamp on his desk, and went on reading and drinking cognac until he felt sleepy and dopey and went to bed.

He slept late on Sunday, then sat in his pyjamas, working on his model ship, and did not dress until afternoon. In the evening, when the family had returned, he took Rolf and Ingrid to the movies and saw a film on vampires.

It was a successful weekend and on Monday morning he felt quite rested and energetic, and at once took up the question of just who Göran Malm had actually been and what he might have had on his conscience. He spent the morning in the offices of various colleagues at the police station and paid a brief visit to the court. When he returned to relate the results of his investigations, there was no one there to tell, for they had all gone for lunch.

He called up the South police station and to his surprise was put straight through to Kollberg, who was ordinarily the first out to lunch, especially on Mondays.

‘Why aren’t you out to lunch?’

‘I was just about to go,’ said Kollberg. ‘Where are you, anyway?’

‘I’m in Melander’s room. Come over and eat here instead, then I know I’ve got you. When Melander and Rönn put in an appearance, we can take a slightly closer look at Göran Malm. If Melander can possibly drag himself away from the scene of the fire. Anyhow, I’ve found out quite a bit about Malm.’

‘Okay,’ said Kollberg. ‘I’ll just get hold of Benny and instruct him, so to speak.’

‘If that’s possible,’ he added.

Benny Skacke was their newest recruit. He had joined the Murder Squad two months earlier, to replace Åke Stenström. Stenström had been twenty-nine when he died and had been regarded as a toddler by his colleagues, especially Kollberg. Benny Skacke was two years younger. Martin Beck took out Melander’s tape recorder and as he waited for the others, he played back the tape he had borrowed from the court. He took a piece of paper and made notes as he listened.

Rönn arrived on the dot of one, and fifteen minutes later Kollberg jerked open the door and said:

‘Well, let’s have it.’

Martin Beck handed over his chair to Kollberg and placed himself by the filing cabinet.

‘It was about car thefts,’ he said. ‘And trading in stolen cars. During last year, the number of undetected car thefts rose so much that there’s reason to believe one or several large, well-organized gangs were occupied with the selling of stolen cars. And presumably also smuggling them out of the country. Malm was probably some kind of cog in the machine.’

‘A large cog or a small one?’ asked Rönn.

‘Small, I should think,’ said Martin Beck. ‘Even very small indeed.’

‘What had he done that he’d got caught?’ said Kollberg.

‘Wait a moment, and I’ll start from the beginning,’ said Martin Beck.

He took up his notes and put them down beside him on the cabinet; then he began to speak, easily and fluently.

‘At about ten o’clock on the night of the twenty-fourth of February, Göran Malm was stopped at a roadblock some two miles north of Södertälje. It was a routine traffic check and he was heading in that direction by chance. He was driving a Chevrolet Impala, 1963 model. The car seemed okay, but as it turned out that Göran Malm was not the owner, they compared the registration number with the current list of stolen cars. The number was indeed there, but according to the list belonged to a Volkswagen and not to a Chevrolet. It appears that the car was given a false number and by mistake, or by chance, it was a hot number. At the first interrogation, Malm said that he had been loaned the car by the owner, who was a friend of his. This owner’s name was Bertil Olofsson. That name was given by Malm and it was on the name plate of the car too. It turned out that this Olofsson was not unknown to the police. In actual fact, he had for some time been suspected of just this kind of car racket. A few weeks before Malm was caught, they had managed to find quite a bit of evidence against Olofsson, but then they couldn’t get hold of him. He has still not been found. Malm maintained that Olofsson had loaned the car to him because he did not need it for a while, as he was to go abroad. When the boys who suspected Olofsson, and had already begun to look for him, heard about this Malm and that the police had got him by chance, they tried to have him remanded in custody. They were convinced that Malm and Olofsson were in some way or other accomplices. When they failed—well, he wasn’t remanded in custody, as you will shortly hear—they put Gunvald, with Hammar’s gracious consent, on to tail Malm. They hoped in this way to get at Olofsson, who in his turn then might reveal the gang. If there was such a gang. And if Olofsson and Malm, in that case, belonged to it.’

Martin Beck crossed the floor and stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray.

‘Well, that’s about it,’ he said. ‘No, it’s not. The registration certificate and the licence were forged, of course, very skilfully, by the way.’

Rönn scratched his nose and said:

‘Why did they let Malm go?’

‘Insufficient evidence,’ said Martin Beck. ‘Wait till you hear it.’

He bent over the tape recorder.

‘The prosecution pleaded that Malm should be remanded in custody on suspicion of receiving. The motivation being that Malm might complicate the investigation if he was free.’

He switched on the tape recorder and let the spool run on quickly.

‘Here it is. Prosecution’s interrogation of Malm.’

P: Well, Mr Malm, you have heard my case before the court regarding this evening, that is, the twenty-fourth of February, this year. Will you now please tell us in your own words what happened?

M: Well, it was just like what you said. I was driving along the Södertälje road and there was a police car there, one of those police roadblocks, and I stopped of course and…and when the police saw the car wasn’t mine, they took me to the police station.

P: Oh, yes. Well, Mr Malm, how did it happen that you were driving about in a car which wasn’t yours?

M: Well, I was going to go down to Malmö to see a mate of mine and as Berra had—

P: Berra? That’s Bertil Olofsson, is it?

M: Yes, that’s right. Berra, or Olofsson, had loaned me his car for a couple of weeks. I was going to go down to Malmö anyway. So I took the chance of going when I had a car so that I didn’t have to go by train. It’s cheaper too. Well, so I took the car and drove. How was I to know the car was hot?

P: How did it come about that Olofsson loaned you his car for such a long time just like that? Didn’t he need it himself?

M: No, he was going abroad, he said, so he didn’t need it.

P: Oh, yes, so he was to go abroad. How long was he to be away?

M: He didn’t say.

P: Were you thinking of using the car all the time until he came back?

M: Yes. If I wanted to. Otherwise I was to put it in his parking space. He lives in one of those buildings where a parking space sort of goes with the flat.

P: Has Olofsson come back home yet?

M: Not as far as I know.

P: Do you know where he is?

M: No. Perhaps he’s still in France or wherever it was he was going to.

P: Mr Malm, have you a car of your own? M:No.

P: But you have had one, haven’t you?

M: Yes, but a long time ago.

P: Did you often borrow Olofsson’s car on other occasions?

M: No, only this once.

P: How long have you known Olofsson?

M: About a year.

P: Did you often meet?

M: Not often. Sometimes.

P: What do you mean by sometimes? Once a month? Once a week? Or how often?

M: Well, perhaps about once a month. Or twice.

P: So you knew each other quite well, then?

M: Well, fairly.

P: But you must have known each other quite well if he loaned you his car just like that.

M: Yes, of course.

P: What was Olofsson’s profession?

M: What?

P: What did Olofsson do for a living?

M: I don’t know.

P: Don’t you know after having known him for at least a year?

M: No. We never talked about it.

P: What do you yourself do for a living?

M: Nothing special now…not just at the moment, that is.

P: What do you usually do?

M: Different things. Depends on what I can get.

P: What did you do last?

M: I was a car sprayer in a garage in Blackeberg.

P: How long ago was that?

M: Well, last summer. Then the garage shut down in July and I had to leave.

P: And then? Have you looked for other work?

M: Yes, but there wasn’t any.

P: How have you managed financially without work for, let’s see, nearly eight months?

M: Well, it hasn’t been too good.

P: But you must have got money from somewhere, mustn’t you, Mr Malm? You have your rent to pay and a man must eat.

M: Well, I had a bit saved up and I’ve borrowed a bit here and there and so on.

P: What were you going to do in Malmö, anyway?

M: Look up a mate of mine.

P: Before Olofsson offered to lend you the car, you were to go by train, you said. It’s quite expensive to go by train to Malmö, as you said yourself. Could you afford that?

M: We-ell…

P: How long had Olofsson had that car? The Chevrolet?

M: I don’t know.

P: But you must have noticed what car he had when you first met?

M: I didn’t think about it.

P: Mr Malm, you’ve worked with cars quite a bit, haven’t you? You were a car sprayer, you said. Isn’t it strange that you didn’t notice what make of car your friend had? Wouldn’t you have noticed if he had changed his car?

M: No, I didn’t think about it. Anyhow, I never saw much of his car.

P: Mr Malm, wasn’t it in fact so that you were going to help Olofsson sell that car?

M: No.

P: But you knew that Olofsson traded in stolen cars, didn’t you?

M: No, I didn’t know that.

P: No more questions.

Martin Beck switched off the tape recorder.

‘Unusually polite prosecutor,’ said Kollberg, yawning.

‘Yes,’ said Rönn, ‘and ineffective.’

‘Yes,’ said Martin Beck. ‘So then they let Malm go and Gunvald undertook to watch him. They hoped to get at Olofsson through Malm. It’s very probable that Malm worked for Olofsson, but taking Malm’s standard of living into consideration, he can’t have got much for his pains.’

‘He was a car sprayer too,’ said Kollberg. ‘People like that are useful when you’re handling stolen cars.’

Martin Beck nodded.

‘This Olofsson,’ said Rönn. ‘Can’t we get hold of him?’

‘No, he’s still not been traced,’ said Martin Beck. ‘It’s highly possible that Malm was telling the truth during his interrogation when he said that Olofsson had gone abroad. He’ll appear, no doubt.’

Kollberg thumped his fist irritably on the arm of his chair.

‘I just don’t understand that Larsson fellow,’ he said, glancing sideways at Rönn. ‘I mean, how can he maintain he didn’t know why he was watching Malm?’

‘He didn’t need to know, did he?’ Rönn asked. ‘Don’t start knocking Gunvald again now.’

‘For Christ’s sake, he must have known that he had to keep his eyes open for Olofsson. Otherwise there wasn’t much point in tailing Malm.’

‘Yes,’ said Rönn tranquilly. ‘You’ll have to ask him when he’s better, won’t you?’

‘Huh,’ said Kollberg.

He stretched himself so that the seams of his jacket creaked.

‘Oh, well,’ he said. ‘That car business is not our headache, at any rate. And thank God for that.’

7

On Monday afternoon, it looked as if Benny Skacke, for the first time in his life in his capacity as a member of the Murder Squad, would have to solve a murder on his own.

Or at least a case of manslaughter.

He was sitting in his office at the South police station, busy with a task set for him by Kollberg before going to Kungsholms gatan. That is, he was listening for the telephone and was sorting reports into different files. This sorting process was slow, for he read carefully through every report before filing it. Benny Skacke was ambitious and painfully conscious of the fact that even if he had learned everything there was to learn about investigation into murder at the police training college, he had not really had any opportunity of putting his knowledge into practice. In expectation of a chance of showing his hidden talents in this field, he tried in every way to acquire a share in his older colleagues’ experiences. One of his methods was to listen in on their conversations as often as possible, something which was already driving Kollberg crazy. Another was to read old reports, which he was in the act of doing when the telephone rang.

It was a man on the reception desk in the same building.

‘I’ve a guy here who says he wants to report a crime,’ he said, somewhat nonplussed. ‘Shall I send him up, or—’

‘Yes, do that,’ said Assistant Inspector Skacke immediately.

He replaced the receiver and went out into the corridor to let in his visitor. Meanwhile he wondered what the man in reception had been about to say when he was interrupted. Or? Perhaps—‘or shall I tell him to go to the proper police?’ Skacke was a sensitive young man.

His visitor came slowly and unsteadily up the stairs. Benny Skacke opened the glass doors for him and involuntarily fell back a step at the acrid smell of sweat, urine and stale alcohol. He went ahead of the man into his office and offered him the chair in front of his desk. The man did not sit down at once, but remained standing until Skacke himself had sat down.

Skacke studied the man in the chair. He looked between fifty and fifty-five, was scarcely more than four feet five inches and very thin, weighing not more than about seven stone. He had thin, ash-blond hair and faded blue eyes. His cheeks and nose were covered with red veins. His hands were trembling and a muscle in his left eye was twitching. His brown suit was spotted and shiny and the machine-knitted vest under his jacket had been darned with wool of another colour. The man smelled of alcohol but did not appear to be drunk.

‘Well, you want to report something? What’s it about?’

The man looked down at his hands. He was nervously rolling a cigarette end between his fingers.

‘Do smoke if you want to,’ said Skacke, pushing a box of matches across the desk.

The man picked up the box, lit his dog-end, coughed drily and hoarsely and raised his eyes.

‘I’ve killed the missus,’ he said.

Benny Skacke stretched out his hand for his notepad and said in a voice which he considered calm and authoritative:

‘Oh, yes. Where?’

He wished that Martin Beck or Kollberg had been there.

‘On the head.’

‘No, I didn’t mean that. Where is she now?’

‘Oh. At home. Number 11 Dansbanevägen.’

‘What’s your name?’ asked Skacke.

‘Gottfridsson.’

Benny Skacke wrote the name down on the pad and leaned forward with his forearms resting on the desk.

‘Can you tell me how it happened, Mr Gottfridsson?’

The man called Gottfridsson chewed his lower lip.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Well, I went home and she began nagging and going on at me. I was tired and couldn’t be bothered to answer back so I told her to shut up, but she just went on and on. Then I saw red and took her by the throat and she began to kick and yell and so I bashed her over the head several times. Then she fell down and after a while I got scared and tried to bring her round but she just lay there on the floor.’

‘Didn’t you call a doctor?’

The man shook his head.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I thought she was already dead so there wasn’t no point in getting a doctor.’

He sat in silence for a moment. Then he said:

‘I didn’t mean her no harm. I just got annoyed. She shouldn’t have gone on so.’

Benny Skacke rose and collected his coat from the hanger by the door. He was not sure what he ought to do with the man. As he pulled on his coat, he said:

‘Why did you come here instead of going to the district police station? It’s quite near.’

Gottfridsson got up and shrugged his shoulders.

‘I thought…I thought a thing like this…murder and all that, so…’

Benny Skacke opened the door into the corridor.

‘You’d better come with me, Mr Gottfridsson.’

It took only a few minutes to get to the block where Gottfridsson lived. The man sat in silence, his hands shaking violently. He went ahead up the stairs and Skacke took the key away from him and opened the front door.

They went into a small, dark hall with three doors, all shut. Skacke looked inquiringly at Gottfridsson.

‘In there,’ said the man, pointing to the left-hand door.

Skacke took three steps across the floor and opened the door.

The room was empty.

The furniture was shabby and dusty, but seemed to be in its right place and there was no sign of a struggle of any sort. Skacke turned around and looked at Gottfridsson, who was still standing by the outer door.

‘There’s no one here,’ he said.

Gottfridsson stared at him. He raised his hand and pointed as he slowly came into the doorway.

‘But,’ he said, ‘she was lying there.’

He looked around in confusion. Then he walked straight across the hall and opened the kitchen door. The kitchen was also empty.

The third door led to the bathroom and there was nothing remarkable there either.

Gottfridsson ran his hand through his thinning hair.

‘What?’ he said. ‘I saw her lying there.’

‘Yes,’ said Skacke. ‘Perhaps you did. But she obviously wasn’t dead. How did you come to that conclusion, anyhow?’

‘I could see,’ said Gottfridsson. ‘She wasn’t moving and she wasn’t breathing. And she was cold. Like a corpse.’

‘Perhaps she just seemed dead.’

It occurred to Skacke that perhaps the man was pulling his leg and had invented the whole story. Perhaps he had no wife at all. Also, both the death of his presumed wife, and her resurrection and disappearance appeared to leave the man singularly unmoved. He eyed the floor where the dead woman, according to Gottfridsson, had lain. There was no trace of either blood or anything in particular.

‘Well,’ said Skacke. ‘She’s not here now. Perhaps we should ask the neighbours.’

Gottfridsson tried to dissuade him.

‘No, don’t do that. We’re not on very good terms. Besides, they’re not at home at this time of day.’

He went into the kitchen and sat down on a wooden chair.

‘Where the devil is the woman,’ he said.

At that moment, the outer door opened. The woman who came into the hall was short and plump. She was wearing a coverall apron and a cardigan, and had tied a check scarf around her head. She was carrying a string bag in one hand.

Skacke could not immediately find anything to say. Neither did the woman say anything. She walked swiftly past him into the kitchen.

‘Oh, yes, so you dared come back, did you, you clod?’

Gottfridsson stared at her and opened his mouth to say something. His wife dumped the string bag on the kitchen table with a bang and said:

‘And who’s that creature? Now, it’s no good you bringing your boozing pals here, you know that. You boozers can go somewhere else.’

‘Excuse me,’ said Skacke uncertainly. ‘Your husband thought you’d had an accident and—’

‘Accident,’ she snorted. ‘Accident, my foot.’

She swung around and looked at Skacke with hostility.

‘I just thought I’d scare him a bit. Coming home like that and beginning to fight after being out boozing for days. There has to be a limit.’

The woman took off her scarf. She had an insignificant bruise on her jaw, but otherwise there did not appear to be anything wrong with her.

‘How do you feel?’ said Skacke. ‘You’re not hurt, are you?’

‘Poof!’ she said. ‘But when he knocked me down, I thought I’d just lie there and pretend to have fainted.’

She turned to the man.

‘You were a bit scared, weren’t you?’

Gottfridsson glanced embarrassedly at Skacke and mumbled something.

‘Who are you, anyway?’ asked the woman.

Skacke met Gottfridsson’s eyes and said curtly: ‘Police.’

‘Police!’ cried Mrs Gottfridsson.

She put her hands on her hips and leaned over her husband, who was cowering on the kitchen chair, a miserable expression on his face.

‘Have you gone mad?’ she cried. ‘Bringing the cops here! What was that for, may I ask?’

She straightened up and looked angrily at Skacke.

‘And you. What sort of policeman are you? Pushing your way in here on to innocent people. Aren’t you supposed to show your badge at least before you come barging in on honest folk?’

Skacke hurriedly got out his identity card.

‘An assistant, eh?’

‘Assistant Inspector,’ said Skacke bleakly.

‘What did you think you’d find here, then, eh? I’ve not done nothing wrong and neither has my husband either.’

She placed herself beside Gottfridsson and protectively laid her hand on his shoulder.

‘Has he got a warrant or anything, that he can come tramping like this into our home?’ she asked. ‘Has he shown you anything, Ludde?’

Gottfridsson shook his head but said nothing. Skacke took a step forward and opened his mouth, but was immediately interrupted by Mrs Gottfridsson.

‘Well, just be off with you, then. I’ve half a mind to report you for breaking-and-entering. Off you go now, before I get angry.’

Skacke looked at the man, who was stubbornly staring down at the floor. Then he shrugged his shoulders, turned his back on the pair and returned somewhat shaken to the South police station.

Martin Beck and Kollberg had not yet returned from Kungsholmsgatan. They were still in Melander’s office and had again played back the tape on the Malm case, this time for Hammar, who had looked in during the afternoon to ask whether they had got anywhere.

The smoke from Martin Beck’s cigarettes and Hammar’s cigar lay like fog over the room, and Kollberg had added to the air pollution by lighting a bonfire of dead matches and empty cigarette packets in the ashtray. Rönn worsened the situation even more by opening the window and letting in the most polluted city air in the whole of northern Europe. Martin Beck coughed and said:

‘If we’re going to consider the arson theory at all, then everything is made much more difficult by all the witnesses being in the hospital and not available for questioning.’

‘Yes,’ said Rönn.

‘I don’t think it was arson, now,’ said Hammar. ‘But we mustn’t draw any hasty conclusions until Melander has finished at the scene of the fire and the labs have had their say.’

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