Cop Killer (17 page)

Suddenly he stepped on soft moss that gave way beneath his weight, and his right foot sank up to the bootleg in what felt like a quagmire.

That's odd, he thought

There shouldn't be any quagmire here.

He moved his other foot to a broken spruce branch on what he thought was solid ground. But the branch broke, and his boot slid down into the mud, though it sank only a few inches before striking solid support.

He pulled his right foot out of the ooze, which sucked at his boot and almost pulled it off. Then keeping his weight on his left foot, he took a giant step up on to solid ground.

He had forgotten the mushroom, and he turned around to look at this curious, moss-covered mudhole.

He saw black mud bubbling up into the holes left by his feet

And then he noticed something else, rising slowly out of the mire and moss and spruce twigs about a yard from the depression where his left boot had been.

He stood very still and wondered what it might be.

The object took shape before his eyes, and it took a fraction of a second for his brain to register the fact that what he saw was a human hand.

And then he screamed.

By Monday, 12 November, everything had changed.

Sigbrit Mård was no longer missing. She was a rather badly decomposed corpse in a mud puddle in the woods. Everyone knew where she was, and she had been found roughly where a lot of people had expected to find her. She was beyond all good and evil, and had been so for almost four weeks.

Folke Bengtsson was arraigned that morning. He had not confessed to anything, but his own attitude and the vague testimony of the witnesses carried a lot of weight, and when his lawyer objected to the arraignment it was more of a gesture than a serious protest

Martin Beck and the lawyer had even met and exchanged a few remarks. It was not a very profound conversation, but the lawyer did make one comment with which Martin Beck could agree wholeheartedly.

'I don't understand him,' he said.

Folke Bengtsson was certainly not easy to understand. Martin Beck had talked to him on Friday - three hours in the morning and the same after lunch. It had not been a fruitful exchange. Both parties sank back in their chairs for long periods and repeated phrases they had already used only minutes earlier.

On Saturday, it had been Kollberg's turn. He had set to work with even less enthusiasm than Martin Beck, with commensurate results.

That is, none at all.

Virtually the whole interrogation was hung up on the same points. First and foremost, what had taken place in the post office. 'You did speak to each other in the post office, didn't you?' 'Yes, she accosted me.' 'Accosted you?'

'She came over to me and asked me if I would have any eggs on Friday.'

'Would you really call that "accosting'' someone?'

'What else would you call it?'

'Didn't she ask about anything else?'

'I don't remember.'

'Didn't she want a ride home?'

'I don't remember.'

And then, of course, there was the famous moment at the bus stop.

'Did Sigbrit Mård make any sort of sign? Did she wave or anything?'

'I don't remember.'

'And she didn't get into your car?'

'No. She did not'

Personally, Martin Beck was inclined to think that Herrgott was right She had probably asked him for a ride home, and he had been evasive. It also seemed likely that she actually had made some sort of hitchhiking gesture as he drove by the bus stop a few minutes later.

The trouble was that the witnesses were so poor.

Allwright had now spoken to everyone who had been in the post office at the time in question. Four people could attest to the feet that Sigbrit Mård and Folke Bengtsson had spoken to one another, but no one had heard what they said.

But, of course, Folke Bengtsson couldn't know that

The situation was similar with regard to the infamous Signe Persson and what she had seen or not seen at the bus stop.

Only one thing was absolutely certain. Sigbrit Mård was dead, and whoever killed her had done their very best to hide the body.

'She could have been here all winter without ever being found,' Allwright said. 'If it hadn't been for those cranks who ramble around lakes.'

They were standing at the scene of the crime - if, in feet, it was the scene of the crime - watching some policemen who were trying to secure clues within the roped-off area.

Another certain fact was that Folke Bengtsson's garden had been dug up to no purpose, unless it might make his crops grow better next spring. They had also ripped up some floorboards in his house, and in the nearly deserted chicken coop.

And now they had seized his car for a laboratory examination.

Martin Beck heaved a deep sigh, and Allwright looked at him with clever, questioning brown eyes.

It was Kollberg's turn to continue the one-sided dialogue with Folke Bengtsson, and Martin Beck had forgotten that he was in Trelleborg. When Martin Beck sighed, Kollberg generally knew what he meant. They had worked together for such a long time that they thought the same way. Usually. They communicated thoughts and conclusions without words. Of course, it didn't always work that way.

And it seemed very unlikely that Allwright would understand why Martin Beck had sighed.

'What's the sigh for?' Allwright said. Martin Beck didn't answer.

'God-awful place for a murder, isn't it? Assuming this is where it happened. But it probably is.'

'We'll know after the post-mortem, if not before,' said Martin Beck.

The lake hikers who found the body had been nature lovers.

They hadn't littered, or damaged the terrain as such, but, of course, it was inescapable that the ground near the spot where the body was found had been trampled by a lot of feet. Policemen moving over the area had not made things any better, and on top of that, the find was almost four weeks old. The weather had been changeable, with rain and storms and frost

From the laboratory point of view, the scene of the crime did not inspire optimism. There was a sort of road that led to the spot, at least as far as the pile of storm debris, but heavy forestry machinery had moved over it recently. In addition, they had information indicating that its present terrible condition was due to the fact that the army had churned it up with cross-country vehicles only about a week earlier when the road was wet and muddy.

In its present state, the road was not passable for any ordinary passenger car. But it might very well have been so four weeks earlier.

As for the question of whether or not this spot had been selected by chance, the answer had to be no.

By and large, it was only the owner and the people who worked here occasionally who knew the area in detail. The nearest building was a summer cottage, where no one had been since the end of September.

It was an inaccessible and difficult piece of terrain. No one would go there by car without knowing in advance that the car could get out again.

On the other hand, it was reasonable to suppose that anyone living in the vicinity had a good chance of knowing the place.

Folke Bengtsson and Sigbrit Mård lived not far away, and if you assumed that Bengtsson was guilty, which many people did and which no one at the moment could refute, the location of the body was an additional point against him. If the road were in good condition, he could get here from Anderslöv in ten minutes. Furthermore, it lay in the same general direction he said he had taken. He would only have had to turn off a little sooner and then gradually wind his way up to this path through the woods.

Martin Beck leaned back against a pile of logs and looked across the debris towards the spruce trees.

'What do you think, Herrgott? Do you think someone could have driven in here in an ordinary car on October seventeenth?'

Allwright scratched the back of his head, pushing his hat askew.

'Yes,' he said. 'I think so. Someone could probably have driven as far as this stack of beech. You couldn't drive through that debris even in a tank. Not now, and not then either. Sit, Timmy! Down, for heaven's sake! Yes, that's right. Good dog.'

The men examining the scene of the crime had a German shepherd with them, a trained police dog, and Timmy was much too interested in the doings of this animal to stay calmly on his leash.

'Let him go, why not,' said Martin Beck with an involuntary yawn. 'Maybe he'll find something.'

'And maybe we'll have a dogfight,' Allwright said.

'We'll see.'

Allwright released the dog, who immediately started nosing around on the ground.

'Well, look who's here to nip at our heels again,' said Evert Johansson a few moments later.

He was one of the men working with the lab crew.

‘Yes, take care of anything he finds,' Allwright said.

A little while later, Johansson walked over to where they were standing. He was wearing overalls and high rubber boots and moved slowly through the deadwood.

'She looks pretty awful,' he said.

Martin Beck nodded. He had been through this far too many times to let it bother him. Sigbrit Mård's remains were not the most appetizing sight he had ever seen nor were they anywhere near the most repulsive.

‘You can move her as soon as the girl with the camera's done,' said Martin Beck. 'Then we'll have a look at what the dogs have found.'

'Timmy's found something odd,' said Evert Johansson, extending a plastic bag full of something indescribable.

'Yes, take along everything that doesn't seem to be a part of the natural vegetation,' said Martin Beck.

'And I've just found this old rag,' said Allwright, pointing with the toe of his boot.

'Bring it along.'

They had walked around the woodpile and were approaching the rope barrier, where a few tireless reporters were on guard.

'There's one thing I would like to point out,' Allwright said. 'And that is that I wouldn't want to try and drive out here in Folke's old banger. Not even if the weather was good and the ground was. fairly dry.'

'Well, what about in your own car, for example?'

'Yes, I probably could have made it. Before the army tore up the road.'

'Have you considered the fact that Bertil Mård must be familiar with this area too?'

‘Yes, it did occur to me,' Allwright said.

They came to the cordon and climbed over the rope. Another of Allwright's sergeants was keeping the reporters company on the other side.

It was a very peaceful scene.

'Haven't you been up to take a look?' said one of the reporters.

'Good Lord, no. Ugh,' said the policeman.

Martin Beck smiled. It was a miserable and tragic situation, but there was something rural and idyllic about it nonetheless. As opposed to the usual grim atmosphere of heavy suspicion and threatening truncheons.

'Is she naked?' said the reporter to Martin Beck.

'Not completely, as far as I could see.'

'But she was murdered?'

'Yes, it looks that way.'

He looked at the reporters, who were ill-equipped for the terrain and the weather.

'We can't tell you much of interest until there's been an autopsy,' he said. 'There's a dead human being over there. All the indications are that it's Sigbrit Mård and that someone tried to hide her body. My personal impression was that she didn't have much on and that she'd been violently attacked. If you stay here and freeze long enough, you'll see us come by with a stretcher covered with a-tarpaulin. And that's pretty much the story.'

'Thanks,' said one of the reporters and actually turned and started off with a shiver towards the line of cars parked several hundred yards away.

And that was pretty much the story, even for Martin Beck.

The lab report came through, and the results of the autopsy.

Nothing much had been learned.

Timmy had made the most curious discovery - a piece of smoked goose breast, which, however, could be traced to the lake hikers. The funniest part of that, it seemed to Martin Beck, was that the dog hadn't eaten it

A cotton rag that couldn't be traced anywhere.

Sigbrit Mård herself, her clothes, and her handbag.

Her wristwatch had a window for the date and had stopped at sixteen minutes, twenty-three seconds after 4 a.m. on 18 October - as a result of not being wound.

Sigbrit Mård had been strangled, and there were indications of violence directed at the lower abdomen. There was a contusion on the pelvis, as if from a very hard blow.

The condition of her clothing was rather interesting.

Her coat and blouse had been found in one piece beside the body. Her skirt and panties, on the other hand, were torn. Her sexual organs had been exposed and her brassiere partially removed.

Martin Beck stayed on in Anderslöv, although the questioning was taking place in Trelleborg.

He sat and studied the lab reports. They could be interpreted in various ways, of course. One thing seemed fairly obvious.

Her coat and blouse were undamaged because she had removed them herself. This, in turn, might indicate that she had accompanied her murderer voluntarily.

Exactly where she died could not be determined. Probably in the vicinity of the mudhole, but that would have to remain a guess.

The contents of her handbag were not unusual.

Most of the evidence indicated that shortly after leaving the post office, she accompanied someone to the isolated spot where she was later found and that she was killed somewhere in that immediate area.

None of this made the outlook any brighter for Folke Bengtsson. Roseanna McGraw had died under very similar circumstances a little over nine years earlier.

And Bengtsson continued to deny everything, apathetically, and without the least show of cooperation.

The investigation was bogging down.

The evidence was shoddy, but Bengtsson had public opinion against him and would probably be convicted.

Martin Beck was not satisfied. There was something that didn't fit, but what?

Maybe something about Bertil Mård.

Martin Beck often thought about him and his notebook. It really was an exceptionally fine notebook. The best notebook Mård had been able to find in 108 countries. Had he really made a note of everything? Had he, for example, recorded the death of the Brazilian oiler in Trinidad-Tobago?