The Laughing Policeman (24 page)

He has ash-blond wavy hair and grey eyes. He is lankily built His face is long and lean with distinct features, prominent nose, rather crooked, wide mouth, thin lips and good teeth.

Shoe size: 9.

Rather dark complexion, which he says is due to his work, which forces him to be so often out of doors.

Clothing, neat: grey suit, white shirt and tie and black shoes. Out-of-doors while at work, wears a waterproofed, knee-length raincoat wide and loose-fitting. Colour, grey. He has two such coats and always wears one of them in winter. On his head he has a black leather hat with narrow brim. He has heavy black shoes with deep-ribbed rubber soles on his feet. In rain or snow, however, he usually wears black rubber boots with reflex tape. Olsson has an alibi for the evening of 13 November. At the time in question, from 10 p.m. to midnight, he was at premises belonging to a bridge club of which he is a member. He took part in a competition and his presence is confirmed by the competition score card and the testimonies of the three other players.

Regarding Alfons (Alf) Schwerin, Olsson says that he was easy to get on with but lazy and given to strong drink.

'Do you think Rönn stripped him and weighed him?' Gunvald Larsson said.

Martin Beck did not answer.

'Nice logical conclusions,' Gunvald Larsson went on. 'He had the hat on his head and the shoes on his feet He wore only one overcoat at a time. And is it his nose or his mouth that's-rather crooked? What are you going to do with that?'

'Don't know. It's a sort of description.'

'Yes, of Olsson.'

'What about Assarsson?'

'I was talking to Jacobsson just now,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'An ugly customer.' 'Jacobsson?'

‘Yes, him too,' Gunvald Larsson replied. 'I suppose he's put out because they can't pull off their own drug seizures and we have to do their job for them.'

'Not "we". You.'

'Even Jacobsson admits, of course, that Assarsson was the biggest wholesale dealer in dope they've ever laid hands on. They must have made money by the sackful, those brothers'

'And that other shady type? The foreigner?'

'He was just a courier. Greek. The bastard had a diplomatic passport. He was an addict himself. Assarsson thinks he was the one who squealed. Says it's very dangerous to confide anything to pot-heads. He's not at all pleased. Probably because he didn't get rid of the courier long ago in some suitable way.'

He paused briefly.

'That Göransson on the bus was also an addict. I wonder ...'

Gunvald Larsson did not finish the sentence, but he had given Martin Beck something to think about.

Kollberg plodded away with his lists but preferred not to show them to anyone. He began more and more to understand how Stenström had felt while he was working on his old case. As Martin Beck had rightly pointed out, the Teresa investigation was unassailable. Some incorrigible stickler for form had even made the comment that 'technically the case was solved and the investigation was a model of perfectly carried out police work'.

The consequences of this should be the much talked-of perfect crime.

The work with the list of men who had associated with Teresa Camarão was by no means easy. It was amazing how many people managed to die, emigrate or change their names in sixteen years. Others had become incurably insane and awaited the end in some institution. Still others were in prison or in homes for chronic alcoholics. A number had simply disappeared, either at sea or in some other way. Many had long since moved to distant parts of the country, made a new life for themselves and their families and could in most cases be written off after a quick routine check-up. By this time Kollberg had twenty-nine names on his list. Individuals who were at large and still lived in Stockholm or at any rate in the vicinity of the city. Up to now he had collected only summary information about these people. Present age, profession, postal address and civil status. At the moment the list was as follows, numbered from one to twenty-nine and arranged in alphabetical order:

Sven Ahlgren, 41, shop assistant, Stockholm NO, married

Karl Andersson 63, ?, Stockholm SV (Högalid institution), unmarried

Ingvar Bengtsson, 43, journalist, Stockholm Va, divorced

Rune Bengtsson, 56, businessman, Stocksund, married

Jan Carlsson, 46, second-hand dealer, Upplands Vasby, unmarried

Rune Carlsson, 32, engineer, Nacka 5, married

Stig Ekberg, 83, former labourer, Stockholm SV (Rosenlund Home for the Aged), widower

Ove Eriksson, 47, car mechanic, Bandhagen, married

1. Valter Eriksson, 69, former docker, Stockholm SV (Hogalid institution), widower.
   

Stig Ferm, 31, house painter, Sollentuna, married

Bjorn Forsberg, 48, businessman, Stocksund, married

Bengt Fredriksson, 56, artist, Stockholm C, divorced

Bo Frostensson, 66, actor, Stockholm 0, divorced

Johan Gran, 52, former waiter, Solna, unmarried

JanSke Karlsson, 38, clerk, Enkdping, married

Kenneth Karlsson, 33, lorry driver, Skalby, unmarried

Lennart Lindgren, 81, former bank manager, Lidingö 1, married

Sven Lundstrom, 37, warehouseman, Stockholm K, divorced

Tage Nilsson, 61, lawyer, Stockholm SO, unmarried

Carl-Gustaf Nilsson, 51, former mechanic, Johanneshov, divorced

Heinz Ollendorf, 46, artist, Stockholm K, unmarried

Kurt Olsson, 59, civil servant, Saltsjobaden, married

Bernhard Peters, 39, commercial artist, Bromma, married (Negro)

Vilhelm Rosberg, 71, ?, Stockholm SV, widower

Bernt Turesson, 42, mechanic, Gustavsberg, divorced

Ragnar Viklund, 60, major, Vaxholm, married

Bengt Wahlberg, 38, buyer (?), Stockholm K, unmarried

Hans Wennstrom, 76, former assistant fishmonger, Solna, unmarried

Lennart Oberg, 35, civil engineer, Enskede, married

Kollberg sighed and looked at the list. Teresa Camarão had included all social groups in her activities. She had also operated within different generations. When she died the youngest of these men had been fifteen and the eldest sixty-seven. On this list alone there was everything from bank managers in Stocksund to alcoholic old burglars at the Hogalid institution.

'What are you going to do with that?' Martin Beck asked.

'Don't know,' Kollberg replied despondently but truthfully.

Then he went in and laid the papers on Melander's desk.

'You remember everything. When you have a moment to spare, will you see if you recall anything extraordinary about any of these men?'

Melander cast a blank look at the list and nodded.

On the twenty-third Månsson and Nordin flew home, missed by nobody. They were to return immediately after Christmas.

Outside, the weather was cold and horrible.

The consumer society creaked at the joints. On this particular day everything could be sold, at any price. Very often upon presentation of credit cards and dud cheques.

On his way home that evening, Martin Beck thought that Sweden now had, not only its first mass murder, but also its first unsolved police murder.

The investigation had stuck fast. And technically - unlike the Teresa investigation - it looked like a pile of rubbish.

Christmas Eve arrived.

Martin Beck got a Christmas present which, despite all speculations to the contrary, did not make him laugh.

Lennart Kollberg got a Christmas present which made his wife cry...

Both had resolved not to give a thought either to Åke Stenström or Teresa Camarão, and both failed in their intention.

Martin Beck woke up early but stayed in bed reading the book about the Graf Spee until the rest of the family began to show signs of life. Then he got up, put away the suit he had worn the day before and pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater. His wife, who thought people ought to be dressed up on Christmas Eve, frowned as she eyed his clothes but for once said nothing.

While she paid her traditional visit to her parents' grave, Martin Beck decorated the tree together with Rolf and Ingrid. The children were noisy and excited, and he did his best not to dampen their spirits. His wife returned from her ritual call on the dead and he gamely joined in a custom that he didn't care for - dipping bread into the pot in which the ham had been cooked.

Before long the dull pain in his stomach made itself felt Martin Beck was so used to these attacks that he paid no attention to them any more, but he had an idea that they had been occurring more frequently and more violently of late. Nowadays he never told Inga that he was in pain. At one time he had done so, and she had nearly been the death of him with her herbal potions and incessant fussing. For her, illness was an event on a par with life itself.

The Christmas dinner was colossal, considering it was meant for only four, one of whom very seldom managed to get down a normal portion of cooked food, one was dieting and one was too exhausted by the work of preparing it to eat. That left Rolf, who, on the other hand, ate all the more. He was twelve years old and Martin Beck never ceased to be amazed that his son's spindly body was able to dispose of as much food in a day as he himself forced himself to eat in a week.

They all lent a hand with the washing-up, this too something that happened only on Christmas Eve.

Then Martin Beck lit the candles on the tree, thinking of the Assarsson brothers who imported plastic Christmas trees as a cover for their drugs traffic. Then came the hot punch and the gingerbread biscuits and Ingrid who said, 'Now I think it's time to lead in the horse.'

As usual they had all promised to give only one present to each and as usual they had all bought a lot more.

Martin Beck had not bought a horse for Ingrid, but as a substitute he gave her some riding breeches and paid for her riding lessons for the next six months.

His own presents included a model construction kit of the clipper ship Cutty Sark and a scarf two yards long, knitted by Ingrid.

She also gave him a flat package, watching him expectantly as he unwrapped the paper. Inside was a 45 r.p.m. EP record. On the sleeve was a photograph representing a fat man in the familiar uniform and helmet of the London bobby. He had a large, curling moustache and knitted mittens on his hands, which he held spread out over his stomach. He was standing in front of an old-fashioned microphone and to judge from his expression he was roaring with laughter. His name was apparently Charles Penrose and the record was called The Adventures of the Laughing Policeman.

Ingrid brought the record player and put it on the floor beside Martin Beck's chair.

'Just wait till you hear it,' she said. 'It'll kill you.'

She took the record out of the sleeve and looked at the label.

'The first song is called "The Laughing Policeman". Pretty appropriate, eh?'

Martin Beck knew very little about music, but he heard at once that the recording must have been made in the twenties or even earlier. Each verse was followed by long bursts of laughter, which were evidently infectious, as Inga and Rolf and Ingrid howled with mirth.

Martin Beck was left utterly cold. He couldn't even manage a smile. So as not to disappoint the others too much he got up and turned his back, pretending to adjust the candles on the tree.

When the record was finished he went back to his chair. Ingrid wiped the tears from her eyes and looked at him.

'Why, Daddy, you didn't laugh,' she said reproachfully.

'I thought it was awfully amusing,' he said as convincingly as he could.

'Listen to this, then,' Ingrid said, turning the record over. '"Jolly Coppers on Parade".'

Ingrid had evidently played the record many times and she joined in the song as though she had done nothing else but sing duets with the laughing policeman:

There's a tramp, tramp, tramp

At the end of the street.

It's the jolly coppers walking on parade.

And their uniforms are blue

And the brass is shining too.

A finer lot of men were never made...

The candles burned with a steady flame, the fir tree gave out its scent in the warm room, the children sang and Inga curled up in her new dressing gown and nibbled the head off a marzipan pig. Martin Beck sat leaning forward, his elbows propped on his knees and his chin in his hands, staring at the laughing policeman on the record sleeve.

He thought of Stenström.

And the telephone rang.

Somewhere inside him Kollberg felt far from content and least of all off duty. But as it was hard to say exactly what he was neglecting, there was no reason to spoil his Christmas Eve with unnecessary brooding.

He therefore mixed the punch with care, tasting it several times before he was satisfied, sat down at the table and regarded the deceptively idyllic scene surrounding him. Bodil lying on her stomach beside the Christmas tree, making gurgling noises. Åsa Torell sitting with crossed legs on the floor, playfully poking at the baby. Gun sauntering about the flat with a soft, indolent nonchalance, barefoot and dressed in some mysterious garment which was a cross between pyjamas and a tracksuit.

He helped himself to a serving of fish, prepared especially for Christmas Eve. Sighed happily at the thought of the large, well-deserved meal he was about to gobble up. Tucked the napkin into his shirt and draped it over his chest Poured out a big drink of akvavit Raised the glass. Looked dreamily at the clear, ice-cold liquid and the mist forming on the glass. And at that moment the phone rang.

He hesitated a moment then drained the glass in one gulp, went into the bedroom and lifted the receiver.

'Good evening, my name is Fröjd, from Långholmen prison.' "Well, that's cheering.'

Said Kollberg in the secure knowledge that he was not on the emergency list and that not even a new mass murder could drive him out into the snow. Capable men were detailed for such things, for example Gunvald Larsson, who was in fact on call, and Martin Beck, who had to take the consequences of his higher rank.

'I work at the mental clinic here,' the man said. 'And we have a patient who insists on talking to you. His name's Birgersson. Says he has promised and that it's urgent and -'