Roseanna Read online

  E: What?

  B: Where were you living before you signed on the Finnish boat?

  E: With a friend in Gothenburg.

  B: How long did you stay in Gothenburg?

  E: A few days. Maybe a week.

  B: And before that?

  E: At my old lady's, my mother's.

  B: Were you working then?

  E: No, I was sick.

  B: What was wrong with you?

  E: I was just sick. Felt bad and had a fever.

  B: Where did you work before you were sick?

  E: On a boat.

  B: What was the name of the boat?

  E: The Diana.

  B: What kind of a job did you have on the Diana?

  E: Fireman.

  B: How long were you on the Diana?

  E: The whole summer.

  B: From… ?

  E: From the first of July until the middle of September. Then they lay off. They put the boat up, too. They only run in the summer. Back and forth with a bunch of corny tourists. Damn dull. I wanted to sign off the tub but my buddy wanted to stay on, and anyway, I needed the cash.

  After that strain on his oratorical powers, Eriksson seemed completely exhausted and sank even further down in his chair.

  B: What's your buddy's name? What was his job on the Diana?

  E: Fireman. There were three of us at the engine. Me, my buddy and the engineer.

  B: Did you know any of the other crew members?

  Eriksson bent forward and put out his cigarette in the ash tray. ‘What the hell kind of an examination is this,’ he said, and threw himself back in his chair. ‘I haven't done anything. Here I've gone and gotten a job and some damn cops come and …’

  B: You will answer my questions. Did you know any of the other crew members?

  E: Not when I started. I only knew my buddy then. But you get to meet the others later. There was a guy who worked on the deck that was kind of fun.

  B: Did you meet any girls on the trips?

  E: There was only one gal who was anything at all but she went around with the cook. The rest of them were old bags.

  B: The passengers then?

  E: We didn't see much of them. I really didn't meet any girls.

  B: Did you work in shifts, the three of you in the engine room?

  E: Yes.

  B: Do you remember if anything unusual happened at any time during the summer?

  E: No, what do you mean, unusual?

  B: If any one trip was different from the rest. Didn't the engine break down at some point?

  E: Yes, that's right. A steampipe broke. We had to go into Söderköping for repairs. It took a hell of a long time. But that wasn't my fault.

  B: Do you remember when it happened?

  E: Just after we'd passed Stegeborg.

  B: Yes, but which day did it happen?

  E: Who the hell knows? What kind of damn nonsense is this? It wasn't my fault that the engine broke down. Anyway, I wasn't working then. It wasn't my shift.

  B: But when you left Söderköping? Was it your shift then?

  E: Yes, and before that too. All three of us had to work like hell to get the barge going again. We worked all night and then we worked the next day, the engineer and I.

  B: What time did you go off the shift during the day?

  E: The day after Söderköping? Quite late in the afternoon, I think.

  E: Then what did you do when you were free?

  Eriksson looked emptily at Martin Beck and didn't answer.

  B: What did you do when you had finished working that day?

  E: Nothing.

  B: You must have done something? What did you do?

  (The same empty look.)

  B: Where was the boat when you were free?

  E: I don't know. At Roxen, I think.

  B: What did you do when you got off your shift?

  E: Nothing, I told you.

  B: You must have done something. Did you meet anyone?

  Eriksson looked bored and stroked his neck.

  B: Think about it. What did you do?

  E: What a lot of garbage. What do you think anyone can do on that damned tub? Play football? The boat was right out in the middle of the water. Now listen, the only things you could do on that tub were eat and sleep.

  B: Did you meet anyone that day?

  E: Sure, I met Brigitte Bardot. How the hell can I know if I met anyone? It was a few years ago.

  B: Okay. We'll start over. Last summer, when you were working on the Diana, did you meet anyone or any of the passengers?

  E: I didn't meet any passengers. We didn't get to meet the passengers anyway. And even if we had, I wasn't interested. A bunch of snotty tourists. The hell with them.

  B: What's the name of your buddy who also worked on the Diana?

  E: Why? What's this all about anyway? We didn't do anything.

  B: What's his name?

  E: Roffe.

  B: First name and last name?

  E: Roffe Sjöberg.

  B: Where is he now?

  E: He's on some German boat. I don't know where the hell he is. Maybe he's in Kuala Lumpur. I don't know.

  Martin Beck gave up. He turned off the tape recorder and got up. Eriksson began to stretch slowly to get out of his chair.

  ‘Sit down,’ roared Martin Beck. ‘Sit there until I tell you to get up.’

  He called in to Ahlberg who stood in the doorway five seconds later.

  ‘Get up,’ said Martin Beck, and went out of the room ahead of him.

  When Ahlberg came back to his office Martin Beck was sitting beside his desk. He looked up at him and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Let's go and eat now,’ he said. ‘I'll try again later.’

  15

  At nine-thirty the next morning Martin Beck sent for Eriksson for the third time. The examination continued for two hours and brought equally poor results.

  When Eriksson slouched out of the room escorted by a young constable, Martin Beck put the tape recorder on rewind and went to get Ahlberg. They listened to the tape mostly in silence which was broken only now and then by Martin Beck's short comments.

  A few hours later they were sitting in Ahlberg's office.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’

  ‘It wasn't him,’ said Martin Beck. ‘I'm almost sure of it. In the first place he isn't intelligent enough to keep up the mask. He simply doesn't understand what it's all about. He's not faking.’

  ‘Maybe you're right,’ said Ahlberg.

  ‘In the second place, and this is only instinct, but I'm convinced of it in any case. We know a little about Roseanna McGraw, don't we?’

  Ahlberg nodded.

  ‘So it's very hard for me to believe that she would willingly go to bed with Karl-Åke Eriksson.’

  ‘No, that's right. She was willing, but not with just anyone. But who said that she did willingly?’

  ‘Yes. It must have been that way. She met someone that she thought she would like to go to bed with and by the time it had gone far enough for her to discover her mistake, it was too late. But it wasn't Karl-Åke Eriksson.’

  ‘It could have happened some other way,’ said Ahlberg doubtfully.

  ‘How? In that tiny cabin? Someone forced open the door and threw himself on her? She would have fought and screamed like mad and people on board would have heard her.’

  ‘He could have threatened her. With a knife or maybe a pistol.’

  Martin Beck shook his head slowly. Then he got up quickly and walked over to the window. Ahlberg followed him with his eyes.

  ‘What should we do with him?’ asked Ahlberg. ‘I can't hold him much longer.’

  ‘I'd like to talk with him one more time. I don't think he really knows why he is here. I am going to tell him now.’

  Ahlberg got up and put on his jacket. Then he went out.

  Martin Beck remained seated for a while, thinking. After that he sent for Eriksson, took his briefcase and went into the examining room
next door.

  ‘What the hell is all this about?’ asked Eriksson. ‘I haven't done anything. You can't keep me here when I haven't done anything. God damn it…’

  ‘Be quiet until I tell you you can talk. You are here to answer my questions,’ said Martin Beck.

  He took out the retouched photograph of Roseanna McGraw and held it up in front of Eriksson.

  ‘Do you recognize this woman?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Eriksson answered. ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Look carefully at the picture and then answer. Have you ever seen the woman in this photograph?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Eriksson placed one elbow on the back of his chair and rubbed his nose with his index finger.

  ‘Yes. I've never laid eyes on the dame.’

  ‘Roseanna McGraw. Does that name mean anything to you?’

  ‘What a hell of a name. Is this a joke?’

  ‘Have you heard the name Roseanna McGraw before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I'm going to tell you something. The woman in the photograph is Roseanna McGraw. She was an American and a passenger on the Diana's first trip out of Stockholm on 3 July. The Diana was delayed on that trip by twelve hours, first due to fog south of Oxelösund and then due to an engine breakdown. You have already said that you were on that trip. When the vessel arrived in Gothenburg ten hours off schedule Roseanna McGraw wasn't on it. She was killed during the night between 4-5 July and was found three days later in the lock chamber at Borenshult.’

  Eriksson sat straight up in his chair. He grabbed the arm rests and chewed on the left corner of his mouth.

  ‘Is that why …? Do you think that… ?’

  He pressed the palms of his hands together, placed his hands tightly between his knees and bent forward so that his chin nearly rested on the desk. Martin Beck saw how the skin on the bridge of his nose had paled.

  ‘I haven't murdered anyone! I've never seen that dame! I swear!’

  Martin Beck said nothing. He kept looking directly at the man's face and saw the fear grow in his enlarged eyes.

  When he spoke his voice was dry and toneless.

  ‘Where were you and what were you doing on the night of 4-5 July?’

  ‘In my cabin. I swear! I was in my cabin sleeping! I haven't done anything! I've never seen that dame! It isn't true!’

  His voice rose to a falsetto and he threw himself back in his chair. His right hand went up to his mouth and he began to bite on his thumb while he stared at the photograph in front of him. Then his eyes narrowed and his voice became thin and hysterical.

  ‘You're trying to trick me. You think you can frighten me, don't you? All that about the girl is fake. You've talked with Roffe and that devil said it was me. He's squealed. He did it, not me. I haven't done anything. That's the truth. I haven't done anything. Roffe said it was me, didn't he? He said it.’

  Martin Beck didn't take his eyes away from the man's face.

  ‘That bastard. He fixed the lock and he stole the money.’

  He bent forward and his voice became eager. The words poured out of him.

  ‘He forced me to go along with it. He had worked in that damn building. It was his idea all along. I didn't want to. I said so. I refused. I didn't want to have anything to do with such a thing. But he forced me, that damned louse. He squealed, that ass …’

  ‘Okay,’ said Martin Beck. ‘Roffe squealed. You'd better tell me everything now.’

  One hour later he played back the tape for Larsson and Ahlberg. There was a complete confession of a burglary which Karl-Åke Eriksson and Roffe Sjöberg had committed in a garage in Gothenburg one month earlier.

  When Larsson had left to telephone to the Gothenburg police, Ahlberg said: ‘In any case we know where we have him for the time being.’

  He sat quietly for a while and drummed on the desk.

  ‘Now there are about fifty possible suspects left,’ said Ahlberg. ‘If we go on the premise that the murderer was among the passengers.’

  Martin Beck remained silent and looked at Ahlberg who sat with his head down and seemed to be examining his fingernails. He looked just as depressed as Martin Beck had felt when he realized that the examination of Eriksson wasn't leading anywhere.

  ‘Are you disappointed?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, I'll have to admit it. For a while I really thought we were there and now it seems that we have just as far to go.’

  ‘We've made some progress in any case. Thanks to Kafka.’

  The telephone rang and Ahlberg answered it. He sat listening for a long while with the receiver pressed against his ear. Then he cried suddenly:

  ‘Ja, ja, ich bin hier. Ahlberg hier’

  ‘Amsterdam,’ he said to Martin Beck who left the room discreetly.

  While he was washing his hands he thought ‘an, auf, hinter, in, neben, über, unter, vor, zwischen’, and he was reminded of the first sticky odour of a room many years ago and of a round table with a baize cloth and an elderly teacher with a thin German grammar book between her fat fingers. When he went back Ahlberg had just put down the phone.

  ‘What a language,’ he said. ‘Roffe Sjöberg wasn't on the boat. He had signed on in Gothenburg but he never went on board. Well, that will be Gothenburg's headache now.’

  Martin Beck slept on the train. He didn't wake up before it arrived in Stockholm. He really only woke up when he got into his own bed at home.

  16

  At ten minutes past five Melander tapped at the door. He waited about five seconds before he showed his long, thin face in the door opening and said: ‘I thought I'd leave now. Is that all right?’

  He had no official reason for asking but he went through the same process every day. On the other hand, he never bothered to announce his arrival in the morning.

  ‘Certainly,’ said Martin Beck. ‘So long.’

  After a moment he added, ‘Thanks for your help today.’

  Martin Beck remained and listened to the work day die away. The telephones were the first to become silent, then the typewriters, and then the sound of voices stopped until finally even the footsteps in the corridors could no longer be heard.

  At five-thirty he called home.

  ‘Shall we wait for dinner?’

  ‘No, go ahead and eat.’

  ‘Will you be late?’

  ‘I don't know. It's possible.’

  ‘You haven't seen the children for ages.’

  Without doubt he had both seen and heard them less than nine hours ago, but she knew that just as well as he did.

  ‘Martin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don't sound well. Is it anything special?’

  ‘No, not at all. We have a lot to do.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Now she sounded like herself again. The moment had passed. A few of her standard phrases and the discussion was over. He had held the receiver to his ear and heard the click when she put hers down. A click, and empty silence and it was as if she were a thousand miles away. Years had passed since they had really talked.

  He wrinkled his forehead and sighed and looked at the papers on his desk. Each one of them had something to say about Roseanna McGraw and the last days of her life. He was sure of that. And still, they didn't tell him anything.

  It seemed meaningless to read through all of them once again but he probably should do it anyway, and do it now. He would start soon.

  He stretched out his hand to get a cigarette but the package was empty. He threw it into the wastepaper basket and reached in the pocket of his jacket for another pack. During the past few weeks he had smoked twice as much as he usually did and he felt it, both in his wallet and in his throat. It seemed that he had used up his reserve pack because the only thing he found in his pockets was something that he did not immediately recognize.

  It was a postcard, bought at a tobacco shop in Motala. It showed the lock chamber at Bor
enshult seen from above. The lake and the breakwater were in the background and two men were in the process of opening the sluice gates for a passenger boat rising in the foreground. The picture was obviously quite old because the ship on the photograph no longer existed. Her name was Astrea and she had long since succumbed to the wreckers and the blowtorches.