The Man Who Went Up In Smoke (16 page)

They walked back to the car and drove around the block, then stopped in front of the building. The flat where Gun-narsson had presumably lived had only two windows and appeared to consist of only one room.

'It must be a pretty small flat," said Kollberg. "He's going to get married now since he's got a bigger one."

Martin Beck looked out into the rain. He wanted to smoke and felt cold. There was a field and wooded slope on the other side of the street. At the far end of the field was a newly built highrise building and another one was in the process of being built beside it. The whole field was probably going to be built on with a row of identical highrises. From the dismal block where Gunnarsson had lived, one at least had an open, country-like view, but now that, too, would be spoiled.

In the middle of the field stood the charred remains of a burnt-out house.

'A fire?" he said, pointing.

Kollberg leaned forward and peered through the rain.

'That's an old farm," he said. "I remember seeing it last summer. A fine old wooden house, but no one lived there. I think the fire department burned it down. You know—to practice. They set it alight and then put the fire out, and then they set it alight again and put it out again, and they go on like that until there's nothing left. Pity with such a fine old place. But they probably need the land to build on."

He looked at his watch and started the engine.

'We'll have to step on it if we're going to get your call," he said.

The rain poured down the windshield and Kollberg had to drive carefully. They sat in silence all the way back. When they got out of the car it was five to seven and already dark.

The telephone rang so precisely on the dot of seven that it seemed almost unnatural. It was unnatural.

'Where the hell's Lennart?" said Kollberg's wife.

Martin Beck handed over the receiver and tried not to listen to Kollberg's replies in the dialogue that followed.

'Yes, I'm coming soon now… Yes, in a little while, I said… Tomorrow? That'll be hard, I expect…"

Martin Beck retired to the bathroom and did not come back until he had heard the receiver being replaced.

'We should have children," said Kollberg. "Poor thing, sitting out there on her own, waiting for me."

They had only been married six months, so things would probably work out all right.

A bit later the call came through.

'I'm sorry to have kept you waiting," said Szluka. "It's more difficult to get hold of people here on Saturday. However, you were right."

'About the passport?"

'Yes. A Belgian student lost his passport at Hotel Ifjuság."

'When?"

'That hasn't been determined at the moment. He came to the hotel on Friday the twenty-second of July in the afternoon. Alf Matsson came in the evening of the same day."

'So it fits."

'Yes, it does, doesn't it? The difficulty is this. This man, whose name is Roeder, is visiting Hungary for the first time and doesn't know the regulations here. He himself claims that he found it quite natural to hand in his passport and not get it back until he had left the hotel. As he was to stay for three weeks, he didn't give the matter a thought and did not ask for his passport before Monday, in other words the day we met for the first time. He needed it to apply for a visa to Bulgaria. All this is, of course, according to the man's own statement."

'It could be right."

'Yes, of course. At the hotel reception they at once said that Roeder had been given back his passport on the morning after he had arrived, that is, the twenty-third, or the same day Matsson moved to Hotel Duna—and disappeared. Roeder swears he was never given his passport, and the hotel staff are equally certain his passport was put in his pigeonhole on the Friday evening and that, consequently, he should have received it back when he came down on the Saturday morning. That's the routine."

'Does anyone remember that he actually received it?"

'No. But that would be too much to ask. At this time of year, it often happens that people at the reception desk receive up to fifty foreign passports a day and hand out the same number. Also, the people who sort the passports into the pigeonholes are not the same ones who hand them out the next morning."

'Have you seen this Roeder?"

'Yes, he's still staying at the hotel. His embassy is arranging for his journey home."

'And? I mean, does it fit?"

'He has a beard. Otherwise they aren't especially alike, judging from the pictures. But unfortunately people don't often look like their passport photos either. Someone could well have stolen the passport out of the pigeonhole during the night. Nothing could be simpler. The night porter is alone and naturally has to turn his back sometimes, or leave his place. And the officials who check passports haven't time to study faces when tourists are pouring back and forth across the border. If we work on the theory that your fellow countryman took Roeder's passport, then he might well have left the country with its help."

There was a short silence. Then Szluka said:

'Someone has done it, anyway."

Martin Beck sat up.

'Do you know that?"

'Yes. We heard about it twenty minutes ago. Roeder's exit permit is in our files. It was handed in to the border police in Hegyeshalom on the afternoon of Saturday the twenty-third of July. One of the passengers on the Budapest-Vienna express. And that passenger can't have been Roeder as he's still here."

Szluka paused again. Then he said hesitantly, "I suppose this means that Matsson has left Hungary."

'No," said Martin Beck. "He's never been there at all."

Martin Beck slept badly and got up early. The flat in Bagarmossen was dismal and lifeless and the familiar objects seemed irrelevant and dreary. He took a shower. Shaved. Took out his newly pressed gray suit. Dressed carefully and correctly. Then went out on to the balcony. It had stopped raining. He looked at the thermometer. It was 60° Fahrenheit. He got himself a lugubrious grass-widower's breakfast of tea and rusks. Then he sat down and waited.

Kollberg came at nine o'clock. He had Stenström with him in the car. They drove to the police station.

'How did it go?" said Martin Beck.

'So so," said Stenström.

He leafed through his notebook.

'Molin was working on that Saturday, that's clear. He was at the office from eight o'clock in the morning. On that Friday, he seems to have been at home sleeping off his hangover. We argued a bit over his being asleep. He said that he hadn't been sleeping, but had passed out. 'Don't you know what it is to pass out and have little demons sitting there on your pillow, copper? That's good. Then you're suited to being a policeman, because you don't understand a god damn about anything.' I wrote down that remark, word for word."

'Why did he have little demons?" said Kollberg.

'That didn't come out. Didn't seem to know himself, and what he'd done the night between Thursday and Friday, he couldn't remember. He said he was grateful for that. He was pretty darned insolent and awkward all around."

'Go on," said Martin Beck.

'Well, I'm afraid I was wrong yesterday when I said Lund and Kronkvist were clear. It turned out, in fact, that it wasn't Kronkvist but Fors who had gone with those girls to Lidingö. On the other hand, it was Kronkvist who went with Lund to Karlstad, not on Friday but on Saturday. It is a bit of a mix-up, all this, but I don't think Lund was lying when he made the first statement. He really didn't remember. He and Kronkvist seem to have been the most drunk of the lot of them. Lund got everything mixed up. Fors was brighter and when I got hold of him things became clearer. Lund collapsed as soon as they got to the girls' place, and they didn't get a sign of life out of him all that Friday. Then on Saturday morning, he rang up Fors, who went there and picked him up, and then they went to the pub, not to the Tankard, as Lund had thought, but to the Opera House bar. When Lund had had something to eat and a couple of beers, he revived and went home and picked up Kronkvist and all his photographic gear. Kronkvist was at home at that time."

'What had he done before that?"

'Lain at home feeling ill and lonely, he said. The only definite thing is that he was there at half past four on Saturday afternoon."

'Is that verified?"

'Yes, they got to the hotel in Karlstad in the evening. Kronkvist also had a fearful hangover, he said. Lund said he was too high to have anything. Lund hasn't got a beard, by the way. I made a note of that."

'Uh-huh."

'Then there was Gunnarsson. His memory was ä little better. He sat at home writing on Friday. On Saturday he was at the office at first in the morning and then in the evening, turning in various articles."

'Are you certain?"

'I wouldn't say that. The office there is large and I couldn't find anyone who could remember anything special. On the other hand, it's true that he handed in an article, but that could just as well have been in the evening as in the morning."

'And passports?"

'Wait a minute. Pia Bolt was also quite explicit. She refused to say where she'd been on that Thursday night, however. I got the impression that she'd been sleeping with someone but didn't want to say who."

'Sounds possible," said Kollberg. "It was Thursday and all that."

'What do you mean by that?" said Stenström.

'Nothing. Perhaps that was a little below the belt."

'Go on," said Martin Beck.

'On Saturday, anyway, she was at home with her mother from eleven in the morning on. I checked that in a discreet way. It was true. Well, now there are the passports. Molin refused to show his. He didn't have to identify himself in his own home, he said. Lund had an almost new passport. The last stamp was from Arlanda on the sixteenth of June, when he returned from Israel That seemed to be all right."

'Refused to show his passport!" said Kollberg. "And you let him."

'Pia Bolt had been to Majorca for a week two years ago, that is all. Kronkvist had an old passport. It looked a mess, covered with notes and scribbles. The last stamp from Gothenburg in May. Returning from England. Gunnarsson also had an old passport, almost full, but a bit cleaner. He has stamps from Arlanda, left the country on the seventh of May and re-entered the tenth. Had been to the Renault factories in Billancourt, he said. Evidently they don't stamp passports in France."

'No, that's right," said Martin Beck.

'Then there were the others. I haven't had time to get around to them all. Krister Sjöberg was at home with his family in Älvsjö. That Meredith, he's an American—colored, by the way."

'We'll skip that," said Kollberg. "We couldn't take him in anyhow, or we'd be lynched by the Mods."

'Now you're being really stupid."

'I usually am. Anyhow, I don't think you need go on."

'No, I don't think so," said Martin Beck.

'Do you know who it is?" said Stenström.

'We think so at least."

'Who?"

Kollberg glared at Stenström.

'Think for yourself, man," he said. "In the first place, was it Alf Matsson who was in Budapest? Would Matsson take a small fortune to pay for drugs and then not bother about it and leave the money in his bag at the hotel? Would Matsson throw his key down outside the entrance of the police station? A man who ought to make a long detour around any policeman he ever saw down there? Why should Matsson disappear of his own free will, in such an improvised manner?"

'No, of course not."

'Why should Matsson travel to Hungary dressed in a blue blazer, gray trousers and suede shoes, when he had exactly the same kind of clothes packed in his bag? What happened to Matsson's dark suit? The one he had on the night before and which was not in his bag and is not in his flat?"

'O.K. It wasn't Matsson. Who was it then?"

'Someone who had Matsson's glasses and raincoat, someone with a beard. Who was last seen with Matsson? Who had no alibi whatsoever before Saturday evening, at the earliest? Who of all that lot was sufficiently sober and intelligent to be able to cook up this little story? Think it over."

Stenström looked very solemn.

'I've thought of something else," said Kollberg.

He spread the map of Budapest out on the table.

'Look here. There's the hotel and there's the central station, or whatever it's called."

'Budapest Nyugati."

'Maybe. If I was going to walk from the hotel to the station, I would walk this way and thus pass police headquarters."

'That's right, but in that case you'd go to the wrong station. The trains to Vienna go from down here, from the old Eastern Railway Station."

Kollberg said nothing. He went on staring at the map.

Martin Beck spread out a blueprint of the Solna area and nodded at Stenström.

'Go on out to the Solna police," he said. "Ask them to rope this area off. There's a burnt-out house there. We'll be there soon."

'Now, at once?"

'Yes."

Stenström left. Martin Beck hunted for a cigarette and lit it. He smoked in silence. And looked at Kollberg who was sitting quite still. Then he put out the cigarette and said, "Let's go, then."

Kollberg drove swiftly through the empty Sunday streets and then they crossed the bridge. The sun came out from behind driving clouds and a light breeze swept across the water. Martin Beck looked absently at a group of small sailing boats which were just rounding a buoy in the bay.

They drove in silence and parked in the same place as the day before. Kollberg pointed at a black Lancia parked a little farther on.

'That's his car," he said. "Then he's probably at home."

They crossed Svartensgatan and pushed open the door. The air felt raw and damp. They walked in silence up the worn stairs to the fifth floor.