Man On The Balcony (2 page)

Martin Beck took the directory, looked at it and nodded. Melander dug a matchbox out of his trouser pocket and began elaborately lighting his pipe. Martin Beck took two steps into the room and put the directory down on the table. Then he went back to the filing cabinet.

'What are you busy on, you two?" Gunvald Larsson asked suspiciously.

'Nothing much," Melander said. "Martin had forgotten the name of a fence we tried to nail twelve years ago." "And did you?" "No," said Melander. "But you remembered it?" "Yes."

Gunvald Larsson pulled the directory towards him, riffled through it and said:

'How the devil can you remember the name of a man called Larsson for twelve years?"

'It's quite easy," Melander said gravely. The telephone rang. "First division, duty officer. "Sorry, madam, what did you say? "What?

'Am I a detective? This is the duty officer of the first division, Detective Inspector Larsson. "And your name is…?"

Gunvald Larsson took a ball-point pen from his breast pocket and scribbled a word. Then sat with the pen in midair.

'And what can I do for you? "Sorry, I didn't get that "Eh? A what? "A cat?

'A cat on the balcony?'

'Oh, a man.

'Is there a man standing on your balcony?" Gunvald Larsson pushed the telephone directory aside and drew a memo pad towards him. Put pen to paper. Wrote a few words.

'Yes, I see. What does he look like, did you say? "Yes, I'm listening. Thin hair brushed straight back. Big nose. Aha. White shirt. Average height. Hm. Brown trousers. Unbuttoned. What? Oh, the shirt. Blue-gray eyes.

'One moment, madam. Let's get this straight You mean he's standing on his own balcony?"

Gunvald Larsson looked from Melander to Martin Beck and shrugged. He went on listening and poked his ear with the pen.

'Sorry, madam. You say this man is standing on his own balcony? Has he molested you?

'Oh, he hasn't. What? On the other side of the street? On his own balcony?

'Then how can you see that he has blue-gray eyes? It must be a very narrow street.

'What? You're doing what?

'Now wait a minute, madam. All this man has done is to stand on his own balcony. What else is he doing?

'Looking down into the street? What's happening in the street?

'Nothing? What did you say? Cars? Children playing?

'At night too? Do the children play at night too?

'Oh, they don't. But he stands there at night? What do you want us to do? Send the dog van?

'As a matter of fact there's no law forbidding people to stand on their balconies, madam.

'Report an observation, you say? Heavens above, madam, if everyone reported their observations we'd need three policemen for every inhabitant.

'Grateful? We ought to be grateful?

'Impertinent? I've been impertinent? Now look here, madam…"

Gunvald Larsson broke off and sat with the receiver a foot from his ear.

'She hung up," he said in amazement.

After three seconds he banged down the receiver and said:

'Go to hell, you old bitch."

He tore off the sheet of paper he had been writing on and carefully wiped the ear wax off the tip of the pen.

'People are crazy," he said. "No wonder we get nothing done. Why doesn't the switchboard block calls like that? There ought to be a direct line to the nut house."

'You'll just have to get used to it," Melander said, calmly taking his telephone directory, closing it and going into the next room.

Gunvald Larsson, having finished cleaning his pen, crumpled up the paper and tossed it into the wastepaper basket. With a sour look at the suitcase by the door he said:

'Where are you off to?"

'Just going down to Motala for a couple of days," Martin Beck replied. "Something there I must look at."

'Oh."

'Be back inside a week. But Kollberg will be home today. He's on duty here as from tomorrow. So you needn't worry."

'I'm not worrying."

'By the way, those robberies…"

“Yes?”

'No, it doesn't matter."

'If he does it twice more well get him," Melander said from the next room.

'Exactly," said Martin Beck. "So long."

'So long," Gunvald Larsson replied.

MARTIN BECK got to Central Station nineteen minutes before the train was due to leave and thought he would fill in the time by making two telephone calls.

First home.

'Haven't you left yet?" his wife said.

He ignored this rhetorical question and merely said:

'll1 be staying at a hotel called the Palace. Thought you'd better know."

'How long will you be away?"

'A week."

'How do you know for certain?"

This was a good question. She wasn't dumb at any rate, Martin Beck thought.

'Love to the children," he said, adding after a moment, "take care of yourself."

'Thanks," she said coldly.

He hung up and fished another coin out of his trouser pocket. There was a line in front of the call boxes and the people standing nearest glared at him as he put the coin in the slot and dialed the number of southern police headquarters. It took about a minute before he got Kollberg on the line.

'Beck here. Just wanted to make sure you were back."

'Very thoughtful of you," Kollberg said. "Are you still here?"

'How's Gun?"

'Fine. Big as a house of course."

Gun was Kollberg's wife; she was expecting a baby at the end of August. "Ill be back in a week."

'So I gather. And by that time I shall no longer be on duty here."

There was a pause, then Kollberg said:

'What takes you to Motala?"

'That fellow…"

'Which fellow?"

'That junk dealer who was burned to death the night before last. Haven't you…"

"I read about it in the papers. So what?"

'I'm going down to have a look."

'Are they so dumb they can't clear up an ordinary fire on their own?"

'Anyway they've asked…"

'Look here," Kollberg said. "You might get your wife to swallow that, but you can't kid me. Anyway, I know quite well what they've asked and who has asked it. Who's head of the investigation department at Motala now?" "Ahlberg, but…"

'Exactly. I also know that you've taken five vacation days that were due to you. In other words you're going to Motala in order to sit and tipple at the City Hotel with Ahlberg. Am I right?" "Well…"

'Good luck," Kollberg said genially. "Behave yourself."

'Thanks."

Martin Beck hung up and the man standing behind him elbowed his way roughly past him. Beck shrugged and went out into the main hall of the station.

Kollberg was right up to a point. This in itself didn't matter in the least, but it was vexing all the same to be seen through so easily. Both he and Kollberg had met Ahlberg in connection with a murder case three summers earlier. The investigation had been long and difficult and in the course of it they had become good friends. Otherwise Ahlberg would hardly have asked the national police board for help and he himself would not have wasted half a day's work on the case.

The station clock showed that the two telephone calls had taken exactly four minutes; there was still a quarter of an hour before the train left. As usual the big hall was swarming with people of all kinds.

Suitcase in hand, he stood there glumly, a man of medium height with a lean face, a broad forehead and a strong jaw. Most of those who saw him probably took him for a bewildered provincial who suddenly found himself in the rush and bustle of the big city.

'Hi, mister," someone said in a hoarse whisper. He turned to look at the person who had accosted him. A girl in her early teens was standing beside him; she had lank fair hair and was wearing a short batik dress. She was barefoot and duty and looked the same age as his own daughter. In her cupped right hand she was holding a strip of four photographs, which she let him catch a glimpse of.

It was very easy to trace these pictures. The girl had gone into one of the automatic photo machines, knelt on the stool, pulled her dress up to her armpits and fed her coins into the slot.

The curtains of these photo cubicles had been shortened to knee height, but it didn't seem to have helped much. He glanced at the pictures; young girls these days developed earlier than they used to, he thought. And the little slobs never thought of wearing anything underneath either. All the same, the photos had not come out very well.

'Twenty-five kronor?" the child said hopefully. Martin Beck looked around in annoyance and caught sight of two policemen in uniform on the other side of the hall. He went over to them. One of them recognized him and saluted. "Cant you keep the kids here in order?" Martin Beck said angrily.

'We do our best, sir."

The policeman who answered was the same one who had saluted, a young man with blue eyes and a fak, well-trimmed beard.

Martin Beck said nothing but turned and walked towards the glass doors leading out to the platforms. The girl in the batik dress was now standing farther down the hall, looking furtively at the pictures, wondering if there was something wrong with her appearance.

Before long some idiot was sure to buy her photographs. Then off she would go to Humlegården or Mariatorget and buy purple hearts or marijuana with the money. Or perhaps LSD.

The policeman who recognized him had had a beard. Twenty-four years earlier, when he himself joined the force, policemen had not worn beards.

By the way, why hadn't the other policeman saluted, the one without a beard? Because he hadn't recognized him?

Twenty-four years ago policemen had saluted anyone who came up to them even if he were not a superintendent. Or had they?

In those days girls of fourteen and fifteen had not photographed themselves naked in photo machines and tried to sell the pictures to detective superintendents ia order to get money for a fix.

Anyway, he was not a bit pleased with the new title he had got at the beginning of the year. He was not pleased with his new office at southern police headquarters out in the noisy industrial area at Västberga. He was not pleased with his suspicious wife and with the fact that someone like Gunvald Larsson could be made a detective inspector.

Martin Beck sat by the window in his first-class compartment, pondering all this.

The train glided out of the station and past the City Hall. He caught sight of the old white steamer Mariefred, that still plied to Gripsholm, and the publishing house of Norstedt, before the train was swallowed up in the tunnel to the south. When it emerged into daylight again he saw the green expanse of Tantolunden—the park that he was soon going to have nightmares about—and heard the wheels echo on the railroad bridge.

By the time the train stopped at Södertälje he was in a better mood. He bought a bottle of mineral water and a stale cheese sandwich from the metal handcart that now replaced the restaurant car on most of the express trains.

'WELL," AHLBERG SAID, "that's how it happened. It was rather chilly that night and he had one of those old-fashioned electric heaters that he stood beside the bed. Then he kicked off the blanket in his sleep and it fell down over the heater and caught fire."

Martin Beck nodded.

'It seems quite plausible," Ahlberg said. "The technical investigation was completed today. I tried to phone you but you had already left"

They were standing on the site of the fire at Borenshult and between the trees they could glimpse the lake and the flight of locks where they had found a dead woman three years earlier. All that remained of the burned-down house were the foundation and the base of the chimney. The fire brigade had, however, managed to save a small outhouse.

'There were some stolen goods there," Ahlberg said. "He was a fence, this fellow Larsson. But he'd been sentenced before, so we weren't surprised. We'll send out a list of the things."

Martin Beck nodded again, then said:

'I checked up on his brother in Stockholm. He died last spring. Stroke. He was a fence too."

'Seems to have run in the family," Ahlberg said.

'The brother never got caught but Melander remembered him."

'Oh yes, Melander… he's like the elephant, he never forgets. You don't work together any more, do you?"

'Only sometimes. He's at headquarters in Kungsholmsga-tan. Kollberg too, as from today. It's crazy, the way they keep moving us about."

They turned their backs on the scene of the fire and went back to the car in silence.

A quarter of an hour later Ahlberg drew up in front of the police station, a low yellow brick building at the corner of Prästgatan and Kungsgatan, just near the main square and the statue of Baltsar von Platen. Half-turning to Martin Beck he said:

'Now that you're here with nothing to do you might as well stay for a couple of days." Martin Beck nodded.

'We can go out with the motorboat," Ahlberg said. That evening they dined at the City Hotel on the local specialty from Lake Vättern, a delicious salmon trout. They also had a few drinks.

On Saturday they took the motorboat out on the lake. On Sunday too. On Monday Martin Beck borrowed the motor-boat. And again on Tuesday. On Wednesday he went to Vadstena and had a look at the castle.

The hotel he was staying at in Motala was modern and comfortable. He got on well with Ahlberg. He read a novel by Kurt Salomonson called The Man Outside. He was enjoying himself.

He deserved it. He had worked very hard during the winter and the spring had been awful. The hope that it would be a quiet summer still remained.

THE MUGGER had nothing against the weather.

It had started to ram early in the afternoon. At first heavily, then in a steady drizzle which had stopped about seven o'clock. But the sky was still overcast and oppressive and the rain was obviously going to start again soon. It was now nine o'clock and dusk was spreading under the trees. Half an hour or so still remained before lighting-up time.

The mugger had taken off his thin plastic raincoat and laid it beside him on the park bench. He was wearing tennis shoes, khaki trousers and a neat gray nylon pullover with a monogram on the breast pocket. A large red bandanna handkerchief was tied loosely around his neck. He had been in the park or its immediate vicinity for over two hours, observing people closely and calculatingly. On two occasions he had studied the passers-by with special interest and each time it had been not one person but two. The first couple had been a young man and a girl; both were younger than himself, the girl was dressed in sandals and a short black-and-white summer dress, the boy wore a smart blazer and light-gray trousers. They had made their way to the shady paths in the most secluded corner of the park. There they had stopped and embraced. The girl had stood with her back to a tree and after only a few seconds the boy had thrust his right hand up under her skirt and inside the elastic band of her panties and started digging with his fingers between her legs. "Someone might come," she said mechanically, but she had immediately moved her feet apart. The next second she had closed her eyes and started to twist her hips rhythmically, at the same time scratching the back of the boy's well-trimmed neck with the fingers of her left hand. What she had done with her right hand he had not been able to see, although he had been so close to them that he had caught a glimpse of the white lace panties.