Man On The Balcony (18 page)

All four of them stared at the note in the margin.

A single word.

Andersson.

ANDERSSON.

Gunvald Larsson put his head on one side and looked at the name.

'Yes, it looks like Andersson all right. Or maybe Andersen. Or Andresen. It might be damn anything. Though I think it's meant to be Andersson."

Andersson.

There are three hundred and ninety thousand people in Sweden called Andersson. The Stockholm telephone directory alone lists ten thousand two hundred subscribers with this name, plus another two thousand in the immediate environs.

Martin Beck thought this over. It might turn out to be very easy to get hold of the woman who had made the much-discussed phone call, provided they made use of press, radio and television. But it could also be very difficult. And up to now nothing had been easy during this investigation.

They did make use of press, radio and television.

Nothing happened.

It was understandable that nothing happened on Sunday.

By eleven o'clock on Monday morning there were still no developments and Martin Beck began to have his doubts.

To start door-to-door questioning and calling up thousands of subscribers meant that a very great part of the search squad must be freed from other work to follow up a clue which might very well turn out to be useless. But couldn't the sphere of work be limited in some way? A rather wide street. It must be somewhere in the central part of the city.

'Must it?" Kollberg said doubtfully.

'Of course not, but…"

'But what? Is your intuition telling you something?"

Martin Beck gave him a harried look, then pulled himself together and said:

'The subway ticket, which was bought at Rådmansgatan."

'And which is not proved to have any connection with either the murders or the murderer," Kollberg said.

'It was bought at the station at Rådmansgatan and used only in one direction," Martin Beck said obstinately. "The murderer kept it because he intended using it for the return journey. He took the subway from Rådmansgatan to Mariatorget or Zinkensdamm and walked the rest of the way to Tanto Park."

'Mere speculation," Kollberg said.

'He had to do something to get rid of the little boy who was with the girl. He had nothing else to hand but the ticket."

'Speculation," Kollberg said.

'But it sticks together logically."

'Only just."

'And besides, the first murder was committed in Vanadis Park. It's all linked up with that part of the city. Vanadis Park, Rådmansgatan, the whole area north of Odengatan."

'You've said that before," Kollberg said drily. "It's pure guesswork."

'The theory of probability."

'You can call it that too if you like."

'I want to get hold of that Andersson woman," Martin Beck said, "and we can't just sit twiddling our thumbs and wait for her to come to us of her own accord. She may not have a TV, she may not read the papers. But she must have a telephone at any rate."

'Must she?"

'Without a doubt. You don't make a call like that from a call box or a tobacconist's. Besides, it seemed as if she was watching the man while she talked."

'Okay, I give in on that point."

'And if we're going to start ringing around and go from door to door, we must begin somewhere, within a certain area.

Seeing that we haven't enough men in the force to contact every single person by the name of Andersson."

Kollberg sat in silence for a while. Then he said:

'Let's leave this Andersson woman for a moment and ask ourselves instead what we know of the murderer."

'We have a sort of description."

'Sort of, yes, that just sums it up. And we don't know if it was the murderer Lundgren saw, if indeed he saw anyone."

'We know it's a man."

'Yes. What else do we know?"

'We know that he's not in the vice squad's records."

'Yes. Provided no one has been careless or forgotten something. That has happened before."

'We know the approximate times the murders were committed—soon after seven in the evening in Vanadis Park and between two and three in the afternoon in Tanto. So he wasn't at work then."

'Which implies?"

Martin Beck said nothing. Kollberg answered his own question:

'That he's out of work, is on vacation, is on sick leave, is only visiting Stockholm, has irregular working hours, is pensioned off, is a vagrant or… in short, it implies nothing at all."

'True enough," Martin Beck said. "But we do have some idea of his behavior pattern."

'You mean the psychologists' rigmarole?"

'Yes."

'That's only guesswork too, but…"

Kollberg was silent for a moment before going on:

'But I must admit that Melander made a very plausible extract from all that stuff."

'Yes."

'As for this woman and her phone call, let's try and find her. And since we must start somewhere, as you so aptly pointed out, and since we're only guessing our way along anyway, we might just as well presume that you are right. How do you want it done?"

'Well start in the fifth and ninth districts," Martin Beck said. "Put a couple of men onto calling up everyone by the name of Andersson and a couple more onto door knocking. Well ask the entire personnel in those districts to focus then-attention on this particular question. Especially along wide streets where there are balconies—Odengatan, Karlbergsvägen, Tegnérgatan, Sveavägen and so on."

'Okay," Kollberg said.

They set to work.

It was an awful Monday. The Great Detective (the general public), who had seemed less busy during Sunday, partly because so many people had gone to the country for the weekend, partly because of the reassuring appeals in press and television, were fully active once more. The central office for tips was swamped with calls from people who thought they knew something, from lunatics who wanted to confess and from scoundrels who called up just to be cussed. Parks and wooded areas swarmed with plainclothes police, as far as a hundred men can be said to swarm, and on top of all this came the search for someone called Andersson.

And the whole time fear was lurking in the background. Many parents called the police about children who had not been away from home for longer than fifteen or twenty minutes. Everything had to be noted down and checked. The material grew and grew. And in all cases was utterly useless.

In the middle of all this Hansson in fifth district called up.

'Have you found another body?" Martin Beck said.

'No, but I'm worried about that Eriksson we were to keep an eye on. The exhibitionist you had in custody."

'What about him?"

'He hasn't been out since last Wednesday, when he brought home a lot of drink, mostly wine. He went from one liquor store to another."

'And then?"

'We caught a glimpse of him now and again in the window. He looked like a ghost, the boys said. But there hasn't been a sign of him since yesterday morning."

'Have you rung the doorbell?"

'Yes. He won't open the door."

Martin Beck had almost forgotten the man. Now he remembered the furtive, miserable eyes, the trembling, emaciated hands. He felt a chill spread over his body.

'Break in," he said.

'How?"

'Any way you like."

Putting down the phone, he sat with his head in his hands. No, he thought, not this on top of everything else.

Half an hour later Hansson called up again.

'He had turned the gas on."

'And?"

'He's on the way to hospital now. Alive."

Martin Beck sighed. With relief, as they say.

'Though only just," Hansson said. "He had done it very neatly. Sealed up the cracks around the doors and stuffed up the keyholes of both front door and kitchen door."

'But tell be an right?"

'Yes, thanks to the usual. The slugs in the meter gave out But if he'd been left to lie there any longer…"

Hansson left the rest of the sentence unsaid.

'Had he written anything?"

'Yes. 'I can't go on.' He had scrawled it on the edge of an old girlie magazine. I've notified the temperance board."

'It should have been done before."

'Well, he did his job all right," Hansson replied.

After a moment or two he added:

'Until you picked him up."

Several hours of this horrible Monday still remained. At about eleven in the evening Martin Beck and Kollberg went home. Gunvald Larsson too. Melander stayed on. Everyone knew that he loathed having to be up all night and that the mere thought of giving up his ten hours' sleep was a nightmare to him, but he himself said nothing and his expression was as stoical as ever.

Nothing had happened. Many women called Andersson had been interviewed, but none of them had made the now-famous phone call.

No more bodies had been found and all the children reported missing during the day had turned up safely.

Martin Beck walked to Fridhemsplan and took the subway home.

They had got through the day. It was over a week now since the last murder. Or rather the latest one.

He felt like a drowning man who has just found a foothold but who knows that it's only a respite. That in a few hours it will be high tide.

IT WAS EARLY in the morning of Tuesday the twentieth of June and in the guardroom of ninth district police station things were still quiet. Police Officer Kvist sat at a table smoking and reading the paper. He was a young man with a fair beard. From behind the partition in the corner came the murmur of voices, interrupted now and then by the clatter of a typewriter. A telephone rang. Kvist looked up from his paper and saw Granlund lift the receiver inside the glass cage.

The door behind him opened and Rodin came in. He stopped inside the door and fastened his belt and shoulder strap. He was a good bit older than Kvist, both in years and length of service. Kvist had finished his training at the police school the year before and been transferred to ninth district quite recently.

Rodin went up to the table and picked up his cap. He slapped Kvist on the shoulder.

'Well, chum, let's go. We'll do one more round, then have coffee."

Kvist stubbed out his cigarette and folded up the paper.

They went out the main door and started walking westwards along Surbrunnsgatan. Slowly side by side, with equally long steps and hands behind their backs.

'What was it Granlund said we were to do with that Andersson woman if we found her?" Kvist asked.

'Nothing. Ask if she was the one who called up headquarters on the second of June and blathered about a man on a balcony," Rodin said. "Then we were to call Granlund."

They passed Tulegatan and Kvist looked up towards Vanadis Park.

'Were you up there after the murder?" he asked.

'Yes," Rodin said. "Weren't you?"

'No, it was my day off."

They walked on in silence. Then Kvist said:

'I've never found a body. It must have looked horrible."

'Don't worry, you'll see a lot of them before you're through."

'What made you join the police?" Kvist asked.

Rodin did not answer at once. Seemed to think it over. Then he said:

'My dad was a policeman. It seemed natural for me to be one too, though mom wasn't too happy about it, of course. And you? What made you want to be a cop?"

'To do something for the good of the community," Kvist said.

He gave a laugh and went on:

'At first I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had only Bs in my school-leaving report, but I met a guy in the army when I was doing my national service who was going to be a policeman and he said that my grades were good enough to get me into the police school. Also, there's a shortage of men in the force and… well, anyway, he talked me into it."

'The pay's pretty lousy," Rodin said.

'Oh, I dunno," Kvist said. "I got fourteen hundred kronor a month at training pay and now I'm up in the ninth salary grade."

'Yes, it's a bit better now than when I started."

'I read somewhere," Kvist said, "that the police force is recruited out of the twenty percent that does not go to trade schools or university, and that many of that twenty percent do as you did, take the same job as their fathers. It just so happened that your father was a policeman."

'Yes. But I damn well wouldn't have taken the same job if he'd been a garbage man," Rodin said.

'They say that there are at least fifteen hundred jobs vacant all over the country," Kvist said. "So, no wonder we have to do so much overtime."

Rodin kicked aside an empty beer can lying on the sidewalk and said:

'You sure are up on statistics. Do you intend to become commissioner?"

Kvist laughed, slightly embarrassed.

'Oh, I just read an article about it But maybe it's not a bad idea to be commissioner. What do you think he earns?"

'Well, you ought to know, with all your reading."

They had reached Sveavägen and the conversation flagged.

By the newsstand at the corner, outside the liquor store, stood a couple of distinctly drunken men, pushing each other. One of them kept shaking his fist and trying to strike the second man, but was evidently too drunk to succeed. The other man appeared slightly more sober and kept his antagonist at bay by pushing the flat of his hand against his chest At last the more sober of the men lost patience and tumbled the spluttering troublemaker into the gutter.

Rodin sighed.

'Well have to take him with us," he said, starting to cross the road. "I know him of old, he's always making trouble."

'Which one?" Kvist asked.

'The one in the gutter. The other can manage on his own."

They strode quickly up to the men. A third and equally seedy-looking type who had been watching the altercation from the small garden outside the Metropole restaurant, moved off towards Odengatan with hard-won dignity, looking back anxiously over his shoulder.

The two policemen lifted the drunk out of the gutter and stood him on his feet. He was in his sixties, very lean and very underweight by the look of him. Several passers-by, classed as ordinary decent citizens, stopped at a distance and gaped.