The Laughing Policeman (4 page)

'The one up there,' he said suddenly, 'has he ...'

He turned to Hammar and broke off short.

Behind Hammar, Kollberg appeared out of the dark, bareheaded and with his hair stuck to his forehead.

Martin Beck stared at him.

'Hi,' said Kollberg. 'I was beginning to wonder what had happened to you. I was about to tell them to call you again.'

He stopped in front of Martin Beck and gave him a searching look.

Then he gave a swift, nauseated glance at the interior of the bus and went on, ‘You need a cup of coffee. I'll get one for you.' Martin Beck shook his head. 'Yes,' Kollberg said.

He squished off Martin Beck stared after him, then went over to the front doors and looked in. Hammar followed with heavy steps.

The bus driver lay slumped over the wheel. He had evidently been shot through the head. Martin Beck regarded what had been the man's face and was vaguely surprised that he didn't feel any nausea. He turned to Hammar, who was staring expressionlessly out into the rain.

'What on earth was he doing here?' Hammar said tonelessly. 'On this bus?'

And at that instant Martin Beck knew to whom the man on the phone had been referring.

Nearest the window behind the stairs leading to the top deck sat Åke Stenström, detective sub-inspector on the homicide squad and one of Martin Beck's youngest colleagues.

'Sat' was perhaps not the right word. Stenström's dark-blue poplin raincoat was soaked with blood and he sprawled in his seat, his right shoulder against the back of a young woman who was sitting next to him, bent double.

He was dead. Like the young woman and the six other people in the bus.

In his right hand he held his service pistol.

The rain kept on all night and although the sun, according to the almanac, rose at twenty minutes to eight the time was nearer nine before it was strong enough to penetrate the clouds and disseminate an uncertain, hazy light

Across the pavement on Norra Stationsgatan stood the red doubledecker bus just as it had stopped ten hours previously.

But that was the only thing that was the same. By now about fifty men were inside the extensive cordons, and outside them the crowd of curious onlookers got bigger and bigger. Many had been standing there ever since midnight, and all they had seen was police and ambulance men and wailing emergency vehicles of every conceivable kind. It had been a night of sirens, with a constant stream of cars roaring along the wet streets, apparently going nowhere and for no reason.

Nobody knew anything for sure, but there were two words that were whispered from person to person and soon spread in concentric circles through the crowd and the surrounding houses and city, finally taking more definite shape and being flung out across the country as a whole. By now the words had reached for beyond the frontiers.

Mass murder.

Mass murder in Stockholm.

Mass murder in a bus in Stockholm.

Everybody thought they knew this much at least

Very little more was known at police headquarters on Kungsholmsgatan. It wasn't even known for certain who was in charge of the investigation. The confusion was complete. Telephones rang incessantly, people came and went, floors were dirtied and the men who dirtied them were irritable and clammy with sweat and rain.

'Who's working on the list of names?' Martin Beck asked.

'Rönn, I should think,' said Kollberg without turning round. He was busy taping a plan to the wall. The sketch was over three yards long and more than half a yard wide and was awkward to handle.

'Can't someone give me a hand?' he said. 'Sure,' said Melander calmly, putting down his pipe and standing up.

Fredrik Melander was a tall, lean man of grave appearance and methodical disposition. He was forty-eight years old and a detective inspector on the homicide squad. Kollberg had worked together with him for many years. He had forgotten how many. Melander, on the other hand, had not He was known never to forget anything.

Two telephones rang.

'Hello. This is Superintendent Beck. Who? No, he's not here. Shall I ask him to call? Oh, I see.'

He put the phone down and reached for the other one. An almost white-haired man of about fifty opened the door cautiously and stopped doubtfully on the threshold.

'Well, Ek, what do you want?' Martin Beck asked as he lifted the receiver.

'About the bus ...' the white-haired man said.

'When will I be home? I haven't the vaguest idea,' said Martin Beck into the telephone.

'Hell,' Kollberg exclaimed as the strip of tape got tangled up between his fat fingers.

'Take it easy’ Melander said.

Martin Beck turned back to the man in the doorway.

'Well, what about the bus?'

Ek shut the door behind him and studied his notes.

'It's built by the Leyland factories in England,' he said. 'It's an Atlantean model, but here it's called Type H35. It holds seventy-five seated passengers. The odd thing is -'

The door was flung open. Gunvald Larsson stared incredulously into his untidy office. His light raincoat was sopping wet, like his trousers and his fair hair. His shoes were muddy.

'What a bloody mess in here,' he grumbled.

'What was the odd thing about the bus?' Melander asked.

'Well, that particular type isn't used on route 47.'

'Isn't it?'

'Not as a rule, I mean. They usually put German buses on, made by Bussing. They're also doubledeckers. This was just an exception.'

'A brilliant clue,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'The madman who did this only murders people in English buses. Is that what you mean?'

Ek looked at him resignedly. Gunvald Larsson shook himself and said, 'By the way, what's the horde of apes doing down in the vestibule? Who are they?'

'Journalists,' Ek said. 'Someone ought to talk to them.'

'Not me,' Kollberg said promptly.

'Isn't Hammar or the Commissioner or the Attorney General or some other higher-up going to issue a communique?' Gunvald Larsson said.

'It probably hasn't been worded yet,' said Martin Beck. 'Ek is right. Someone ought to talk to them.' 'Not me,' Kollberg repeated.

Then he wheeled round, almost triumphantly, as if he had had a brainwave.

'Gunvald,' he said. 'You were the one who got there first You can hold the press conference.'

Gunvald Larsson stared into the room and pushed a wet tuft of hair off his forehead with the back of his big hairy right hand. Martin Beck said nothing, not even bothering to look towards the door.

'OK,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'Get them herded in somewhere. I'll talk to them. There's just one thing I must know first'

'What?'Martin Beck asked.

'Has anyone told Stenström's mother?'

Dead silence fell, as though the words had robbed everyone in the room of the power of speech, including Gunvald Larsson himself. The man on the threshold looked from one to the other.

At last Melander turned his head and said, 'Yes. She's been told.'

'Good,' Gunvald Larsson said, and banged the door.

'Good,' said Martin Beck to himself, drumming the top of the desk with his fingertips.

'Was that wise?' Kollberg asked.

'What?'

'Letting Gunvald ... Don't you think we'll get enough abuse in the press as it is?'

Martin Beck looked at him but said nothing. Kollberg shrugged. 'Oh well,' he said. 'It doesn't matter.'

Melander went back to the desk, picked up his pipe and lit it.

'No,' he said. 'It couldn't matter less.'

He and Kollberg had got the sketch up now. An enlarged drawing of the lower deck of the bus. Some figures were sketched in. They were numbered from one to nine.

'Where's Rönn with that list?' Martin Beck mumbled.

'Another thing about the bus -' Ek said obstinately.

And the telephones rang.

The office where the first improvised confrontation with the press took place was decidedly ill-suited to the purpose. It contained nothing but a table, a few cupboards and four chairs, and when Gunvald Larsson entered the room, it was already stuffy with cigarette smoke and the smell of wet overcoats.

He stopped just inside the door, looked round at the assembled journalists and photographers and said tonelessly, 'Well, what do you want to know?'

They all began to talk at once. Gunvald Larsson held up his hand and said, 'One at a time, please. You, there, can start Then we'll go from left to right'

Thereafter the press conference proceeded as follows:

QUESTION: When was the bus found?

ANSWER: About ten minutes past eleven last night

Q: By whom?

A: A man in the street who then stopped a radio patrol car.

Q: How many were in the bus?

A: Eight

Q: Were they all dead?

A: Yes.

Q: How had they died?

A: It's too soon yet to say.

Q: Was their death caused by external violence?

A: Probably.

Q: What do you mean by probably?

A: Exactly what I say.

Q: Were there any signs of shooting?

A: Yes.

Q: SO all these people had been shot dead?

A: Probably.

Q: SO it's really a question of mass murder?

A: Yes.

Q: Have you found the murder weapon? A: NO.

Q: Have the police detained anyone yet? A: NO.

Q: Are there any traces or clues that point to one particular

person? A: NO.

Q: Were the murders committed by one and the same person?

A: Don't know.

Q: Is there anything to indicate that more than one person killed these eight people?

A: NO.

Q: HOW could one single person kill eight people in a bus before anyone had time to resist?

A: Don't know.

Q: Were the shots fired by someone inside the bus or did they come from outside?

A: They did not come from outside.

Q: HOW do you know?

A: The windowpanes that were damaged had been fired at from inside.

Q: What kind of weapon had the murderer used?

A: Don't know.

Q: It must surely have been a machine gun or a submachine gun?

A: NO comment.

Q: Was the bus standing still when the murders were committed or was it moving? A: Don't know.

Q: Doesn't the position in which the bus was found indicate that the shooting took place while it was in movement and that it then mounted the pavement?

A: Yes.

Q: Did the police dogs get a scent?

A: It was raining.

Q: It was a doubledecker bus, wasn't it?

A: Yes.

Q: Where were the bodies found? On the upper or lower deck?

A: On the lower one.

Q: All eight?

A: Yes.

Q: Have the victims been identified?

A: No.

Q: Has any of them been identified?

A: Yes.

Q: Who? The driver?

A: NO. A policeman.

Q: A policeman? Can we have his name?

A: Yes. Detective Sub-inspector Åke Stenström.

Q: Stenström? From the homicide squad? A: Yes.

A couple of the reporters tried to push towards the door, but Gunvald Larsson again put up his hand.

'No running back and forth, if you don't mind,' he said. 'Any more questions?'

Q: Was Inspector Strenström one of the passengers in the bus?

A: He wasn't driving at any rate.

Q: DO you consider he was there just by chance?

A: Don't know.

Q: The question was put to you personally. Do you consider it a mere chance that one of the victims is a man from the CID?

A: I have not come here to answer personal questions.

Q: Was Inspector Stenström working on any special investigation when this happened?

A: Don't know.

Q: Was he on duty last night?

A: NO.

Q: He was off duty?

A: Yes.

Q: Then he must have been there by chance. Can you name any of the other victims? A: NO.

Q: This is the first time a real mass murder has occurred in Sweden. On the other hand there have been several similar crimes abroad in recent years. Do you think that this maniacal act was inspired by what happened in America, for instance? '

A: Don't know.

Q: IS it the opinion of the police that the murderer is a madman who wants to draw sensational attention to himself?

A: That is one theory.

Q: Yes, but it doesn't answer my question. Are the police working on the lines of that theory?

A: All dues and suggestions are being followed.

Q: HOW many of the victims are women?

A: TWO.

Q: SO six of the victims are men?

A: Yes.

Q: Including the bus driver and Inspector Stenström?

A: Yes.

Q: Just a minute, now. We've been told that one of the people in the bus survived and was taken away in an ambulance that arrived on the scene before the police had had time to cordon off the area.

A: Oh?

Q: Is this true?

A: Next question.

Q: Apparently you were one of the first policemen to arrive on the scene?

A: Yes.

Q: What time did you get there?

A: At eleven twenty-five.

Q: What did it look like inside the bus just then?

A: What do you think?

Q: Can you say it was the most ghastly sight you've ever seen in your life?

Gunvald Larsson stared vacantly at the questioner, who was quite a young man with round, steel-rimmed glasses and a somewhat unkempt red beard. At last he said, 'No. I can't'

The reply caused some bewilderment. One of the woman journalists frowned and said lamely and incredulously, 'What do you mean by that?'

'Exactly what I say.'

Before joining the police force Gunvald Larsson had been a regular seaman in the navy. In August 1943, he had been one of those to go through the submarine Ulven, which had struck a mine and had been salvaged after having lain on the seabed for three months. Several of the thirty-three killed had been on the same courses with him. After the war, one of his duties had been to help with the extradition of the Baltic collaborators from the camp at Ränneslätt. He had also seen the arrival of thousands of victims who had been repatriated from the German concentration camps. Most of these had been women and many of them had not survived.