The Laughing Policeman (20 page)

She soon recovered and it was obvious that not only the coffee, but also the attention shown her, cheered her up. She answered their questions obligingly and before leaving she pressed their hands and said, 'Imagine, I never would have thought that co-police could be such sweethearts.'

When the door had closed behind her they considered this for a moment Then Kollberg said, 'Well, sweethearts? Shall we sum up?'

They summed up: Nils Erik Göransson. Age: 38 or 39.

Since 1965 or earlier, no permanent employment

March 1967-August 1967, lived with Magdalena Rosen (Blonde Malin), Arbetargatan 3, Stockholm K.

Thereafter and until some time in October lived with Sune Björk on the South Side.

The weeks prior to his death whereabouts unknown.

Drug addict, smoking, swallowing and mainlining whatever he could get hold of.

Possibly also a pusher.

Had gonorrhea.

Last seen by Magdalena Rosen 3 or 4 November outside Restaurant Damberg. Then in same suit and coat as 13 November. Usually had plenty of money.

Of all the men who were working on the bus murders, Nordin was thus the first to show something which, with a little good will, could be called a constructive result. But even on this point, opinions were divided.

'Well,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'Now we know the name of that vagrant So what?'

'Mmm... er... mnyaa...' Melander murmured thoughtfully.

'What are you mumbling about?'

'He was never picked up for anything, that Göransson. But I seem to remember the name.' 'Oh?'

‘I think he cropped up in connection with an investigation at some time.'

'You mean you once interrogated him?'

'No. I would remember that I have never spoken to him and doubt if I've seen him either. But the name. Nils Erik Göransson. I've come across it at some time or other.'

Melander stared abstractly out into the room, puffing at his pipe.

Gunvald Larsson waved his big hands in front of his face. He was opposed to people using tobacco and was irritated by the smoke.

‘I’m more interested in that swine Assarsson’ he said.

'I expect I'll think of it,' Melander said.

'Not a doubt. If you don't die of lung cancer first'

Gunvald Larsson got up and went in to Martin Beck's office.

'Where did this Assarsson get his money from?' he asked.

'Don't know.'

'What does the firm do?'

'Imports a lot of junk. Presumably anything that pays. From cranes to plastic Christmas trees.' 'Plastic Christmas trees?'

'Yes, they sell a lot of them nowadays. Unfortunately.' 'I took the trouble to find out what these gentlemen and their firm have paid in taxes during the last few years.' 'And?'

'About one third of what you or I fork out And when I think of what it looked like at the widow's place ...' 'Yes?'

'I've a damn good mind to ask for permission to raid their office.'

'On what grounds?' 'Don't know.'

Martin Beck shrugged. Gunvald Larsson walked towards the door. Stopped in the doorway and said, 'An ugly customer, that Assarsson. And his brother is probably no better.'

Shortly afterward Kollberg appeared in the doorway. He looked tired and dejected, and his eyes were bloodshot

'What are you busy at?' Martin Beck asked.

'I've been playing back the tapes from Stenström's interrogation with Birgersson. The guy who killed his wife. It took all night'

'And?'

‘Nothing. Nothing at all, Unless I've overlooked something.' 'It's always possible.'

'Kind of you to say so,' Kollberg snapped, slamming the door behind him.

Martin Beck propped his elbows on the edge of the desk and put his head in his hands.

It was already Friday and the eighth of December. Twenty-five days had passed and the investigation was getting nowhere. In fact, it showed signs of falling to pieces. Everyone was clinging to his own particular straw.

Melander was puzzling over where and when he had seen or heard the name of Nils Erik Göransson.

Gunvald Larsson was wondering how the Assarsson brothers had made their money.

Kollberg was trying to make out how a mentally unbalanced wife-killer by the name of Birgersson could conceivably have cheered up Stenström.

Nordin was trying to establish a connection between Göransson, the mass murder and the garage in Hagersten.

Ek had made such a technical study of the red doubledecker bus that nowadays it was practically impossible to talk to him about anything except electric circuits and windscreen-wiper controls.

Månsson had taken over Gunvald Larsson's diffuse ideas that Mohammed Boussie must have played some sort of leading role because he was Algerian; he had systematically interrogated the entire Arab colony in Stockholm.

Martin Beck himself could think only of Stenström, what he had been working on, whether he had been shadowing someone and whether this someone had shot him. The argument seemed far from convincing. Would a comparatively experienced policeman really let himself get shot by the man he was shadowing? On a bus?

Rönn could not tear his thoughts away from what Schwerin had said at the hospital during the few seconds before he died.

On this very Friday afternoon he had a talk with the sound expert at the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation who had tried to analyse what was said on the tape.

The man had taken his time, but now he seemed ready with his report.

'Not very copious material to work with,' he said. 'But I've come to certain conclusions. Like to hear them?' 'Yes, please,' Rönn said.

He transferred the receiver to his left hand and reached for the notepad.

‘You're from the North yourself, aren't you?' Yes.'

'Well, it's not the questions that are interesting, but the answers. First of all I've tried to eliminate all the background noise like whirring and dripping and so on.'

Rönn waited with his pen at the ready.

'As regards the first answer, referring to the question as to who did the shooting, one can clearly distinguish four consonants - d, n, r, and k!

'Yes,' Rönn said.

'A closer analysis reveals certain vowels and diphthongs between and after these consonants. For example, an e or an i sound between d and n.

'Dinrk,' Rönn said.

'Yes, that's more or less how it sounds to an untrained ear,' the expert said. 'Furthermore, I think I can hear the man say a very faint oo after the consonant k'

'Dinrk oo,' Rönn said.

'Something like that, yes. Though not such a marked oo.' The expert paused. Then he went on reflectively, 'This man was in pretty bad shape, wasn't he?' 'Yes.'

'And he was probably in pain.' 'Very likely,' Rönn agreed.

'Well,' the expert said lightly, 'that could explain why he said oo.' Rönn nodded and made notes. Poked at the tip of his nose with the pen. Listened.

'However, I'm convinced that these sounds form a sentence, composed of several words.'

'And how does the sentence go?' Rönn asked, putting pen to paper.

'Very hard to say. Very hard indeed. For example "dinner reckon" or "dinner record, oo".'

'"Dinner record, oo"?' Rönn asked in astonishment.

'Well, just as an example, of course. As to the second reply -'

'"Koleson"?'

'Oh, you thought it sounded like that? Interesting. Well, I didn't. I've reached the conclusion that there's an ‘l’ before the ‘k’, and that he says two words: "like," repeating the last word of the question, and "oleson".'

'"Oleson"? And what does that mean?'

'Well, it might be a name ...'

'"Like Oleson"?'

‘Yes, exactly. You have the same thick ‘l’ in the word "Oleson" too. Perhaps a similar dialect'

The sound technician was silent for a few seconds. Then he went on: 'That's about the lot then. I'll send over a written report, of course, together with the bill. But I thought I'd better call up in case it was urgent'

'Thanks very much,' Rönn said.

Putting the receiver down, he regarded his notes thoughtfully. After careful consideration he decided not to take the matter up with the investigation chiefs. At any rate not at present

Although the time was only a quarter to three in the afternoon, it was already pitch-dark when Kollberg arrived at Långholmen. He felt cold and miserable, and the prison surroundings didn't exactly cheer him up. The bare visitors' room was shabby and bleak, and he paced gloomily up and down while waiting for the prisoner he had come to see. The man, whose name was Birgersson and who had killed his wife, had undergone a thorough mental examination at the clinic of forensic psychiatry. In due course, he would be exempted from punishment and transferred to some institution.

After about fifteen minutes the door opened and a prison guard in a dark-blue uniform admitted a small, thin-haired man of about sixty. The man stopped just inside the door, smiled and bowed politely. Kollberg went up to him. They shook hands.

'Kollberg.'

'Birgersson.'

The man was pleasant and easy to talk to. 'Inspector Stenström? Oh yes indeed, I remember him. Such a nice man. Please give him my kind regards.' 'He's dead.'

'Dead? I can't believe it ... He was just a boy. How did it happen?'

'That's just what I want to talk to you about.'

Kollberg explained in detail why he had come.

'I've played back the whole tape and listened carefully to every word. But I presume that the tape recorder was not going when you sat talking over coffee and so on.'

'That's right.'

'But you did talk then, too?'

'Oh yes. Most of the time, anyway.'

‘What about?'

'Well, everything really.'

'Can you recall anything that Stenström seemed specially interested in?'

The man thought hard and shook his head. 'We just talked about things in general. This and that But something special? What would that have been?' 'That's exactly what I don't know.'

Kollberg took out the notebook he had brought from Åsa's apartment and showed it to Birgersson.

'Does this convey anything to you? Why has he written "Morris"?'

The man's face lit up at once.

'We must have been talking about cars. I had a Morris 8, the big model, you know. And I think I mentioned it on one occasion.'

'I see. Well, if you happen to think of anything else, please call me up at once. At any time.'

'It was old and didn't look much, my Morris, but it went well. My ... wife was ashamed of it. Said she was ashamed to be seen in such an old rust bucket when all the neighbours had new cars -'

He blinked rapidly and broke off.

Kollberg quickly wound up the conversation. When the guard had led the prisoner away a young doctor in a white coat entered the room.

'Well, what did you think of Birgersson?' he asked. 'He seemed nice enough.'

'Yes,' the doctor said. 'He's OK. All he needed was to be rid of that bitch he was married to.'

Kollberg looked hard at him, put his papers into his pocket and left.

The time was eleven thirty on Saturday evening and Gunvald Larsson felt cold in spite of his heavy winter coat, his fur cap, ski trousers and ski boots. He was standing in the doorway of Tegnérgatan 53, as still as only a policeman can stand. He was not there by chance, and it was not easy to see him in the dark. He had already been there for four hours and this was not the first evening, but the tenth or eleventh.

He had decided to go home as soon as the light went out in certain windows he was watching. Shortly before midnight a grey Mercedes with foreign licence plates stopped outside the door of the flats nearly opposite across the street. A man got out opened the boot and lifted out a suitcase. Then he crossed the pavement, unlocked the door and went inside. Two minutes later a light was switched on behind lowered Venetian blinds in two windows on the ground floor.

Gunvald Larsson strode swiftly across the street He had already tried out a suitable key to the street door two weeks ago. Once inside the entrance hall, he took off his overcoat, folded it neatly and hung it over the handrail of the marble staircase, placing his fur cap on top. Unbuttoned his jacket and gripped the pistol that he wore clipped to his waistband.

He had known for a long time that the door opened inward. Looked at it for five seconds and thought: If I break in without a valid reason, I'm overstepping my authority, and I'll probably be suspended or sacked.

Then he kicked in the door.

Ture Assarsson and the man who had alighted from the foreign car were standing one on either side of the desk. To use a hackneyed phrase, they looked thunderstruck. They had just opened the suitcase and it was lying between them.

Gunvald Larsson waved them aside with the pistol, following up the train of thought he had begun out in the hall: But it doesn't matter because I can always go to sea again.

Gunvald Larsson lifted the receiver and dialled 90 000. With his left hand and without lowering his service pistol. He said nothing. The other two said nothing either. There was not much to say.

The suitcase contained 250,000 of a brand of dope tablets called Ritalina. On the black market they were worth about one million Swedish kronor.

Gunvald Larsson got home to his flat at Bollmora at three o'clock on Sunday morning. He was a bachelor and lived alone. As usual he spent twenty minutes in the bathroom before putting on his pyjamas and getting into bed. He picked up the novel by Övre

Richter-Frich that he was reading, but after only a minute he put it down and reached for the telephone.

The phone was a white Ericofon. Turning it upside down, he dialled Martin Beck's number.

Gunvald Larsson made it a rule never to think of his work when he was at home, and he could not recall ever before having made an official call after he had gone to bed.

Martin Beck answered after only the second ring.

'Hi. Did you hear about Assarsson?'

'Yes.'.

'Something has just occurred to me.' 'What?'

'That we might have been making a mistake. Stenström was of course shadowing Gösta Assarsson. And the murderer killed two birds with one stone - Assarsson and the man who was shadowing him.'