The Laughing Policeman (12 page)

He sighed heavily.

Ek came in, a worried look on his face as he stroked his silver hair.

‘What is it?' Martin Beck asked.

'The newspapers are complaining they haven't been given a picture of that man who is still unidentified.'

‘You know yourself what that picture would look like,' Kollberg said.

'Sure, but -'

‘Wait a minute,' Melander said. ‘We can better the description. Between thirty-five and forty, height 5 feet 7 inches, weight eleven stone, shoe size 8½, brown eyes, dark-brown hair. Scar from an appendicitis operation. Brown hair on chest and stomach. Scar from some old injury on the ankle. Teeth ... No, it's no good.'

'I'll send it out,' Ek said and left the room.

They stood in silence for a while.

'Fredrik has got hold of something,' said Kollberg. 'That Stenström was already sitting in the bus when it got to Djurgardsbron. So he must have come from Djurgården.'

'What the hell was he doing there?' said Gunvald Larsson. 'In the evening? In that weather?'

'I've also got hold of something,' said Martin Beck. 'That apparency he didn't know that nurse at all.'

'Are you quite sure?' Kollberg asked.

'No.'

'He seems to have been alone at Djurgårdsbron,' Melander said. 'Rönn has also come up with something,' said Gunvald Larsson. 'What?'

'That wDnrk" means "I don't know". To say nothing of this guy Koleson.'

This was as far as they got on Wednesday, 15 November.

Outside, the snow was falling in large wet blobs. Darkness had already closed in.

Of course there was no one called Koleson. At least not in Sweden.

During Thursday they didn't get anywhere.

When Kollberg got home to his flat on Palandergatan on Thursday evening the time was already past eleven o'clock. His wife sat reading in the circle of light under the floor lamp. She was dressed in a short housecoat buttoned in front and sat curled up in the armchair with her bare legs drawn up under her.

'Hello,' said Kollberg. 'How is your Spanish course going?'

'To the dogs, of course. Absurd to imagine you can do anything at all when you're married to a policeman.'

Kollberg made no reply to this. Instead he got undressed and went into the bathroom. Shaved and took a long shower, hoping that some stupid neighbour wouldn't call up the police to send out a radio car, complaining of the water running so late. Then, putting on his bathrobe, he went into the living room and sat down opposite his wife. Regarded her thoughtfully.

'Haven't seen you for ages,' she said without raising her eyes. 'How are you all getting on?'

'Badly.'

'I am sorry. It seems odd that someone can shoot nine people dead in a bus in the middle of town just like that. And that the police can't think of anything cleverer than making a lot of ridiculous raids'

'Yes,' Kollberg said. 'It is odd.'

'Is there anyone else besides you who hasn't been home for thirty-six hours?' 'Probably.'

She went on reading. He sat in silence for some time, perhaps ten or fifteen minutes, without taking his eyes off her.

'What are you goggling at?' she asked, still without looking up but with a note of mischief in her voice.

Kollberg didn't answer, and she appeared to be more deeply engrossed in her reading than ever. She had dark hair and brown eyes, her features were regular and her eyebrows thick. She was fourteen years younger than he was and had just turned twenty-nine, and he had always thought she was very pretty. At last he said,

'Gun?'

For the first time since he came home she looked at him, with a feint smile and a glint of shameless sensuality in her eyes. 'Yes?'

'Stand up.' 'Why, certainly.'

She turned down the upper right-hand corner of the page she had just read, shut the book and laid it on the arm of the chair. Stood up and let her arms hang loosely, her bare feet wide apart.

 She looked at him steadily.

'Not at all nice.'

'Me?'

'No. Making dog-ears.'

'It's my book,' she said. 'Bought with my own money.'

'Strip,' he said.

Raising her right hand to her neckband, she undid the buttons, slowly and one by one. Still without taking her eyes off him she opened the thin cotton housecoat and let it fell to the floor behind her.

'Turn around,' said Kollberg.

She turned her back to him.

'You are beautiful.'

'Thank you. Am I to stand like this?'

'No. The front is better.'

'O-oh.'

She turned right round and looked at him with the same expression on her face as before.

'Can you stand on your hands?'

'I could, at any rate, before I met you. Since then I've had no cause to. Shall I try?' 'You needn't bother.' 'I can if you like.'

She walked across the room and stood on her hands, arching her body upward and putting her feet against the wall. No effort at all. Kollberg looked at her thoughtfully. 'Do you want me to stay like this?' she asked. 'No, it's not necessary.'

'I'll do it gladly if it amuses you. They say you faint after a time. Of course in that case you can cover me over with a cloth or something.'

'No, come down now.'

She put her feet gracefully to the floor and stood upright, looking at him over her shoulder.

'Supposing I wanted to take your photograph like that?' he said. ‘What would you say?'

‘What do you mean by like that? Naked?'

'Yes.'

'Standing on my hands?' 'Yes, that for instance.' ‘You don't even have a camera/ 'No, but that's neither here nor there.' 'Of course you can if you want to. You can do whatever you damn well like with me. I already told you that two years ago.' He didn't answer. She remained standing by the wall. 'What are you going to do with the pictures anyway?' "That's just the question.'

Turning around, she went up to him. Then she said, 'And now do you mind if I ask: What the hell is this all about? If it so happens that you want to make love to me, there's a comfortable bed in there, and if you can't be bothered going so far, this rya rug is also first-rate. Nice and soft. I made it myself.'

'Stenström had a bundle of pictures like that in the drawer of his desk.'

'At the office?' 'Yes.'

'Of whom?' 'His girl.' 'Åsa?' 'Yes.'

"That can't have been any great feast for the eyes.'

'I wouldn't say that,' Kollberg replied.

She looked at him and frowned.

'The question is, why?' he said.

'Does it matter?'

'I don't know. I can't explain it'

'Perhaps he just wanted to look at them.'

'That's what Martin said.'

'It seems much more sensible, of course, to go home and have a look now and again.'

'Of course, Martin isn't always so bright either. He's worried about us, for instance. You can tell by the look of him.'

'About us? Why?'

'Because I went out alone on Friday evening, I think.' 'He has a wife, hasn't he?'

'Something doesn't add up,' Kollberg said. 'With Stenström and these pictures.'

'Why? You know how men are. Was she attractive in the pictures?' 'Yes.'

'Very?'

 'Yes.'

‘You know what I should say now.'

 'Yes.'

'But I'm not going to say it'

'No. I know that, too.'

'So far as Stenström is concerned, he probably wanted to show them to his mates. To boast.'

'It doesn't add up. He wasn't like that' 'Why are you worrying about this?'

'Don't know. I suppose because there are no other clues left'

'Do you call this a clue? Do you think someone shot Stenström because of these pictures? In that case why should he kill eight more people?'

Kollberg looked at her intently.

'Exactly. That's a good question.'

Bending over, she kissed him lightly on the forehead

'Let's go to bed,' Kollberg said.

'A brilliant idea. I'll just make a bottle for Bodil first. It only takes thirty seconds. According to the directions on the package. I’ll see you in bed. Or on the floor or in the bathtub or wherever you damn well like.'

'The bed, thanks.'

She went out into the kitchen. Kollberg got up and turned off the floor lamp. 'Lennart?' 'Yes?'

'How old is Åsa?' 'Twenty-four.'

'Woman's sexual activity culminates between twenty-nine and thirty-two. Kinsey says so.' 'Oh? And man's?' 'At eighteen.'

He heard her whisking the babyfood in the saucepan. Then she called out, 'But with men it's more individual. If that's any consolation.'

Kollberg watched his wife through the half-open kitchen door. She was standing naked at the counter by the sink, stirring the saucepan. His wife was a long-legged girl of normal build and sensual nature. She was exactly what he wanted, but it had taken him over twenty years to mid her and another year to think it over.

At the moment her posture was impatient and she kept fidgetting with her feet

'Thirty seconds,' she muttered to herself. 'Damn liars.'

Kollberg smiled in the dark. He knew that soon he would be spared the thought of Stenström and the red doubledecker bus. For the first time in three days.

Martin Beck had not spent twenty years in search of his wife. He had met her seventeen years ago, made her pregnant on the spot and married in haste.

He had indeed repented at leisure, and now she was standing at the bedroom door, a living reminder of his mistake, in a crumpled nightdress and with red marks from the pillow on her face.

'You'll wake the whole house with your coughing and snuffling.'

'I'm sorry.'

'And why do you lie there smoking in the middle of the night?' she went on. ‘Your throat's bad enough as it is.'

Stubbing out the cigarette, he said, 'I'm sorry if I woke you up.'

'Oh, it doesn't matter. The main thing is that you don't go and get pneumonia again. You'd better stay at home tomorrow.'

'I can't very well.'

'Nonsense. If you're ill you shouldn't go to work. You're not the only policeman. Besides, you should be asleep, not lying reading those old reports. You'll never dear up that taxi murder anyhow. It's half-past one. Leave that old pile of papers alone and put the light out. Good night'

'Good night,' Martin Beck said mechanically to the closed bedroom door.

Frowning, he slowly put the stapled report down. It was quite wrong to call it an old pile of papers, as it was a copy of the postmortem reports handed to him just as he was going home the evening before. It was true, however, that a few months earlier he had lain awake at night going through the investigation into the murder of a taxi driver twelve years before.

He lay still for a while, staring up at the ceiling. When he heard his wife's light snoring from the bedroom, he got up swiftly and tiptoed out into the hall. Hesitated a moment with his hand on the telephone. Then he shrugged, lifted the receiver and dialled Kollberg's number.

'Kollberg,' Gun said breathlessly.

'Hi. Is Lennart there?'

'Yes. Closer than you'd think.'

'What is it?' Kollberg muttered.

'Am I disturbing you?'

‘You might say that. What the hell is it now?'

'Do you remember last summer, just after the park murders?'

'Yes, what?'

'We had nothing special to do then and Hammar said we were to look through old unsolved cases. Remember?'

'Of course I damn well remember. What about it?'

'I went through the taxi murder in Boras and you worked on that old boy at Östermalm who simply disappeared seven years ago.'

'Yes. Are you calling me just to say that?'

'No. What was Stenström working on? He had just got back from his vacation then.'

'I haven't the vaguest idea. I thought he told you.'

'No, he never mentioned it to me.'

'Then he must have told Hammar.'

‘Yes. Yes, of course. Yes, you're right. So long then. Sorry I woke you up.' 'Go to hell'

Martin Beck heard him slam the receiver down. He stood with the phone to his ear for a few seconds before putting it down and slouching back to the sofa bed.

He lay down again and put the light out Lay there in the dark feeling he had made a fool of himself.

Contrary to all expectations, Friday morning brought a hopeful scrap of news.

Martin Beck received it by telephone and the others heard him say, 'What! Have you? Really?'

Everyone in the room dropped what he was doing and stared at him. Putting down the receiver he said, 'They're through with the ballistic investigation.'

'And?'

'They think they've identified the weapon.' 'Oh,' Kollberg said listlessly.

'A submachine gun,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'The army has thousands lying about in unguarded military depots. Might just as well deal them out free to the thieves and save themselves the trouble of putting on new padlocks once a week. As soon as I have half an hour to spare I'll drive into town and buy half a dozen.'

'It's not quite what you all think,' Martin Beck said, holding the slip of paper he had scribbled on. 'Model 37, Suomi type.'

'Really?' Melander asked.

'That old kind with the wooden butt,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'I haven't seen one like that since the forties.'

'Made in Finland or made here under licence?' Kollberg asked.

'Finnish,' Martin Beck said. 'The guy who called said they were almost sure. Old ammunition too. Made at Tikkakoski sewing-machine factory.'

'M-37,' Kollberg said. 'With 70-shot ammunition drum. Who's likely to have one today?'

'Nobody,' Gunvald Larsson replied. 'Today it's lying at the bottom of the harbour. A hundred feet down.'

'Presumably,' Martin Beck said. 'But who can have had one four days ago?'

'Some mad Finn,' Gunvald Larsson growled. 'Out with the Black Maria and round up all the crazy Finns in town. A hell of a nice job.'

'Shall we say anything of this to the papers?' Kollberg asked.

'No,' said Martin Beck. 'Not a whisper.'

They relapsed into silence. This was the first clue. How long would it take them to find the next?

The door was flung open and a young man came in and looked about him in curiosity. He had a brown envelope in his hand.