Roseanna Read online

  ‘I'd like to make a few telephone calls,’ he said.

  ‘Use the office farthest down the corridor.’

  The room was larger than Ahlberg's and had windows on two walls. It was furnished with two desks, five chairs, a filing cabinet and a typewriter table with a disgracefully old Remington.

  Martin Beck sat down, placed his cigarettes and matches on the table, put down the green folder and began to go through the reports. They didn't tell him much more than he had already learned from Ahlberg.

  An hour and a half later he ran out of cigarettes. He had placed a few telephone calls without result and had talked to the Commissioner and to Superintendent Larsson who seemed tired and pressed. Just as he had crumpled the empty cigarette package, Kollberg called.

  Ten minutes later they met at the hotel.

  ‘God, you look dismal,’ Kollberg said. ‘Do you want a cigarette?’

  ‘No thank you. What have you been doing?’

  ‘I've been talking to a guy from the Motala Times. A local editor in Borensberg. He thought he had found something. A girl from Linköping was to have started a new job in Borensberg ten days ago but she never arrived. She was thought to have left Linköping the day before and, since then, no one has heard from her. No one thought to report her missing since she was generally unreliable. This newspaperman knew her employer and started making his own inquiries but never bothered to get a description of her. But I did. And it isn't the same girl. This one was fat and blonde. She's still missing. It took me the entire day.’

  He leaned back in his chair and picked his teeth with a match.

  ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘Ahlberg has sent out a few of his boys to knock on doors. You ought to give them a hand. When Melander gets here we'll have a run through with the Commissioner and Larsson. Go over to Ahlberg and he'll tell you what to do.’

  Kollberg straightened his chair and got up.

  ‘Are you coming too?’ he asked.

  ‘No, not now. Tell Ahlberg that I'm in my room if he wants anything.’

  When he got to his room Martin Beck took off his jacket, shoes, and tie and sat down on the edge of the bed.

  The weather had cleared and white puffs of cloud moved across the sky. The afternoon sun shone into the room.

  Martin Beck got up, opened the window a little, and closed the thin, yellow curtains. Then he lay down on the bed with his hands folded under his head.

  He thought about the girl who had been pulled out of Boren's bottom mud.

  When he closed his eyes he saw her before him as she looked in the picture, naked and abandoned, with narrow shoulders and her dark hair in a coil across her throat.

  Who was she? What had she thought? How had she lived? Whom had she met?

  She was young and he was sure that she had been pretty. She must have had someone who loved her. Someone close to her who was wondering what had happened to her. She must have had friends, colleagues, parents, maybe sisters and brothers. No human being, particularly a young, attractive woman, is so alone that there is no one to miss her when she disappears.

  Martin Beck thought about this for a long time. No one had inquired about her. He felt sorry for the girl whom no one missed. He couldn't understand why. Maybe she had said that she was going away? If so, it might be a long time before someone wondered where she was.

  The question was: how long?

  5

  It was eleven-thirty in the morning and Martin Beck's third day in Motala. He had got up early but accomplished nothing by it. Now he was sitting at the small desk thumbing through his notebook. He had reached for the telephone a few times, thinking that he really ought to call home, but nothing had come of the idea.

  Just like so many other things.

  He put on his hat, locked the door to his room, and walked down the stairs. The easy chairs in the hotel lobby were occupied by several journalists and two camera cases with folded tripods, bound by straps, lay on the floor. One of the press photographers stood leaning against the wall near the entrance smoking a cigarette. He was a very young man and he moved his cigarette to the corner of his mouth and raised his Leica to look through the viewer.

  When Martin Beck went past the group he drew his hat down over his face, ducked his head against his shoulder and walked straight ahead. This was merely a reflex action but it always seemed to irritate someone because one of the reporters said, surprisingly sourly:

  ‘Say, will there be a dinner with the leaders of the search this evening?’

  Martin Beck mumbled something without even knowing what he had said himself and continued towards the door. The second before he had opened the door, he heard the little click which indicated that the photographer had taken a picture.

  He walked quickly down the street, but only until he thought he was out of the range of the camera. Then he stopped and stood there indecisively for about ten seconds. He threw a half-smoked cigarette into the gutter, shrugged his shoulders and walked over to a taxi stand. He slumped into the back seat, rubbed the tip of his nose with his right index finger, and peered over towards the hotel. From under his hat brim he saw the man who had spoken to him in the lobby. The journalist stood directly in front of the hotel and stared after the taxi. But only for a moment. Then he, too, shrugged his shoulders and went back into the hotel.

  Press people and personnel from the Homicide Division of the National Police often stayed at the same hotel. After a speedy and successful solution to a crime, they often spent the last evening eating and drinking together. Over the years this had become a custom. Martin Beck didn't like it but several of his colleagues thought otherwise.

  Even though he hadn't been on his own very much, he had still learned a little about Motala during the forty-eight hours he had been there. At least he knew the names of the streets. He watched the street signs as the taxi drove by them. He told the driver to stop at the bridge, paid him, and stepped out. He stood with his hands on the railing and looked along the canal. While he stood there he realized that he had forgotten to ask the driver to give him a receipt for the fare and that there would probably be some kind of idiotic nonsense back at the office if he were to make one out himself. It would be best to type out the information, it would give more substance to his request.

  He was still thinking about that as he walked along the path on the north side of the canal.

  During the morning hours there had been a few rain showers and the air was fresh and light. He stopped, right in the middle of the path, and felt how fresh it was. He drank in the cool, clean odour of wild flowers and wet grass. It reminded him of his childhood, but that was before tobacco smoke, petrol odours and mucus had robbed his senses of their sharpness. Nowadays it wasn't often he had this pleasure.

  Martin Beck had passed the five locks and continued along the sea wall. Several small boats were moored near the locks and by the breakwater, and a few small sailing boats could be seen out in the open water. One hundred and fifty feet beyond the jetty, the dredger's bucket clanged and clattered under the watchful eye of some seagulls who were flying in wide, low circles. Their heads moved from one side to the other as they waited for whatever the bucket might bring up from the bottom. Their powers of observation and their patience were admirable, as was their staying power and optimism. They reminded Martin Beck of Kollberg and Melander.

  He walked to the end of the breakwater and stood there for a while. She had been lying here, or more accurately, her violated body had been lying here, on a crumpled tarpaulin practically on view to anyone for public inspection. After a few hours it had been carried away by two businesslike, uniformed men with a stretcher and, in time, an elderly gentleman whose profession it was to do so had opened it up, examined it in detail, and then sewn it together again before it was sent to the mortuary. He hadn't seen it himself. There was always something to be thankful for.

  Martin Beck became conscious of the fact that he was standing with his hands clasped behind his back as he
shifted his weight from the sole of one foot to another, a habit from his years as a patrolman which was totally unconscious and almost unbreakable. He was standing and staring at a grey and uninteresting piece of ground from where the chalk marks from the first, routine investigation had long since been washed away by the rain. He must have occupied himself with this for a long time because the surroundings had gone through a number of changes. When he looked up he observed a small, white passenger boat entering one of the locks at a good speed. When it passed the dredger, some twenty cameras pointed at it, and, as if to underscore the situation, the dredging foreman climbed out of his cabin and also photographed the passenger boat. Martin Beck followed the boat with his eyes as it passed the jetty and noted certain ugly details. The hull had clean lines but the mast was cut off and the original smokestack, which had surely been high and straight and beautiful, had been replaced by a strange, streamlined little tin hood. From inside the ship growled something that must have been a diesel engine. The deck was full of tourists. Nearly all of them seemed to be elderly or middle-aged and several of them wore straw hats with flowered bands.

  The boat was named Juno. He remembered that Ahlberg had mentioned this name the first time they had met.

  There were a lot of people on the breakwater and along the edge of the canal now. Some of them fished and others sunbathed, but most of them were chiefly occupied with watching the boat. For the first time in several hours Martin Beck found a reason to say something.

  ‘Does the boat always pass here at this time of day?’

  ‘Yes, if it comes from Stockholm. Twelve-thirty. Right. The one that goes in the other direction comes by later, just after four. They meet at Vadstena. They tie up there.’

  ‘There are a lot of people here, on shore, I mean.’

  ‘They come down to see the boat.’

  ‘Are there always so many?’

  ‘Usually.’

  The man he was talking to took the pipe from his mouth and spat in the water.

  ‘Some pleasure,’ he said. ‘To stand and stare at a bunch of tourists.’

  When Martin Beck walked back along the brink of the canal he passed the little passenger boat again. It was now about halfway up, peacefully rising in the third lock. A number of passengers had gone on land. Several of them were photographing the boat, others crowded around the kiosk on shore where they were buying postcards and plastic souvenirs which, without doubt, were made in Hong Kong.

  Martin Beck couldn't really say that he was short of time so with his innate respect for government budgets he took the bus back to town instead of a taxi.

  There were no newspapermen in the hotel lobby and no messages for him at the desk. He went up to his room, sat down at the table and looked out over the Square. Actually he should have gone over to the police station but he had already been there twice before lunch.

  Half an hour later he telephoned Ahlberg.

  ‘Hi. I'm glad you called. The Public Prosecutor is here.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He's going to hold a press conference at six o'clock. He seems worried.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘He would like you to be there.’

  ‘I'll be there.’

  ‘Will you bring Kollberg with you. I haven't had time to tell him yet.’

  ‘Where is Melander?’

  ‘Out with one of my boys following up a lead.’

  ‘Did it sound as if it could be anything important?’

  ‘Hell, no.’

  ‘And otherwise?’

  ‘Nothing. The Prosecutor is worried about the press. The other telephone is ringing now.’

  ‘So long. See you later.’

  He remained seated at the table and listlessly smoked all his cigarettes. Then he looked at the clock, got up, and went out into the corridor. He stopped three doors down the hall, knocked and walked in, quietly and very quickly, in his usual manner.

  Kollberg lay on the bed reading an evening paper. He had taken off his shoes and jacket and opened his shirt. His service pistol lay on the night table, wrapped up in his tie.

  ‘We've fallen back to page twelve today,’ he said. ‘The poor devils, they don't have an easy time of it.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Those reporters. “The mystery tightens around the bestial murder of the woman in Motala. Not only the local police but even the Homicide Division of the National Police are fumbling around hopelessly in the dark.” I wonder where they get all that?’

  Kollberg was fat and had a nonchalant and jovial manner which caused many people to make fateful mistakes in judging him.

  ‘“The case seemed to be a routine one in the beginning but has become more and more complicated. The leaders of the search are uncommunicative but are working along several different lines. The naked beauty in Boren …” oh, crap!’

  He looked through the rest of the article and threw the newspaper on the floor.

  ‘Yes, she was some beauty. A completely ordinary bowlegged woman with a big rear end and very small breasts.’

  ‘She had a big crotch, of course,’ said Kollberg. ‘And that was her misfortune,’ he added philosophically.

  ‘Have you seen her?’ Martin Beck asked.

  ‘Of course, haven't you?’

  ‘Only her pictures.’

  ‘Well, I've seen her,’ said Kollberg.

  ‘What have you been doing this afternoon?’

  ‘What do you think? Reports from knocking on doors. What garbage! It's insane to send out fifteen different guys all over the place. Everybody expresses themselves differently and sees things differently. Some of them write four pages about seeing a one-eyed cat and saying that the kids in a house are snot-nosed, and others write up finding three bodies and a time bomb in a few paragraphs. They even ask totally different questions.’

  Martin Beck said nothing. Kollberg sighed.

  ‘They should have a formula,’ he said. ‘They would save four-fifths of the time.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Martin Beck searched in his pockets.

  ‘As you know I don't smoke,’ said Kollberg jokingly.

  ‘The Public Prosecutor is holding a press conference in half an hour. He would like us to be there.’

  ‘Oh. That ought to be lively.’

  He pointed to the newspaper and said:

  ‘If we questioned the reporters for once. For four days in a row that guy has written that an arrest can be expected before the end of the afternoon. And the girl looks a little bit like Anita Ekberg and a little bit like Sophia Loren.’

  He sat up in bed, buttoned his shirt and began to lace his shoes.

  Martin Beck walked over to the window.

  ‘It's going to rain any minute,’ he said.

  ‘Oh damn,’ Kollberg said and yawned.

  ‘Are you tired?’

  ‘I slept two hours last night. We were out in the woods in the moonlight searching for that type from St Sigfrid's.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Yes, of course! And after we had wandered around for seven hours in this damn tourist place someone got around to telling us that the boys back at Klara station in Stockholm got the guy in Berzelii Park the night before last.’

  Kollberg finished dressing and put his pistol in place. He took a quick look at Martin Beck and said: ‘You look depressed. What is it?’

  ‘Nothing special.’

  ‘Okay, let's go. The world press is waiting.’

  There were about twenty journalists in the room in which the press conference was to be held. In addition, the Public Prosecutor, the Superintendent of Police, Larsson, and a TV photographer with two spotlights were there. Ahlberg wasn't there. The Prosecutor sat behind a table and was looking thoughtfully through a folder. Several of the others were standing. There weren't enough chairs for everyone. It was noisy and everyone was talking at once. The room was crowded and the air was already unpleasant. Martin Beck, who disliked crowds, took several steps away from the others an
d stood with his back to the wall in the space between those who would ask the questions and those who would answer them.

  After several minutes the Public Prosecutor turned to the Chief of Police and asked, loudly enough to cut through all the other noise in the room:

  ‘Where the devil is Ahlberg?’

  Larsson grabbed the telephone and forty seconds later Ahlberg entered the room. He was red-eyed and perspiring and still in the process of getting into his jacket.

  The Public Prosecutor stood up and knocked lightly on the table with his fountain pen. He was tall and well built and quite correctly dressed, but almost too elegant.

  ‘Gentlemen, I am pleased to see that so many of you have come to this impromptu press conference. I see representatives of all branches of media, the press, radio and television.’

  He bowed slightly towards the TV photographer, who was obviously the only press person present in the room whom he could definitely identify.

  ‘I am also pleased to be able to say that from the outset your manner of handling this tragic and … sensitive matter has been, for the most part, correct and responsible. Unfortunately, there have been a few exceptions. Sensationalism and loose speculations do not help in such a … sensitive case as …’

  Kollberg yawned and didn't even bother to put his hand in front of his mouth.

  ‘As you all know this case has … and I certainly do not need to point it out again, special… sensitive aspects and …’

  From the opposite side of the room Ahlberg looked at Martin Beck, his pale blue eyes filled with gloomy recognition and understanding.

  ‘… and just these … sensitive aspects call for a particularly careful way of treating them.’

  The Public Prosecutor continued to speak. Martin Beck looked over the shoulder of the reporter who sat in front of him and saw a drawing of a star on his notebook. The TV man was leaning against his tripod.

  ‘… and naturally I want to, no, more properly said, we neither want to nor can we hide our gratefulness for all the help in this … sensitive case. In short, we need the support of what we often call that great detective, the Public.’