The Terrorists (17 page)

“Don’t put yourself to any trouble,” said Åsa.

“I was going to have some myself,” said Hellström.

“In that case, tea would be nice,” said Åsa.

Hellström returned to the kitchen and Martin Beck sat down in one of the armchairs. An open book lay on the table. He turned it over and looked at the jacket.
Sermon to the Dogs
by Ralf Parland. Walter Petrus’s gardener obviously had rather good and advanced tastes in literature.

Hellström brought mugs, a sugar bowl and a carton of milk out to the table, went back to the kitchen and returned with the teapot. He sat down in the other armchair and took a flattened pack of cigarettes and a book of matches out of his jeans pocket. When he had lit a cigarette, he poured out the tea and looked at Martin Beck. “You want to talk about my daughter, you said.”

“Yes,” said Martin Beck. “Where is she?”

“The last time I heard from her, she was in Copenhagen.”

“What does she do there?” asked Åsa. “Does she work?”

“I don’t really know,” said Hellström, looking at the cigarette between his sunburnt fingers.

“When was it that you heard from her?” Martin Beck asked.

Hellström did not answer at once. “I didn’t really hear from her at all,” he said finally. “But I was down to visit her a while back. In the spring.”

“And what was she doing then?” asked Åsa. “Has she met a man there?”

Hellström smiled bitterly. “You could say that. Not just one, either.”

“Do you mean she’s …”

“She’s a whore? Yes,” he interrupted, almost spitting out the words. “She walks the streets, in other words. That’s what she lives on. I got the social services down there to help me find her,
and she was pretty down. She didn’t want anything to do with me. I tried to get her to come home with me, but she wouldn’t.”

He paused and fingered his cigarette.

“She’ll be twenty soon, so no one can stop her from living her own life,” he said.

“You brought her up on your own, didn’t you?”

Martin Beck sat in silence, letting Åsa handle the conversation.

“Yes, my wife died when Kiki was only a month old. We didn’t live here then. We lived in town.”

Åsa nodded and he went on.

“Mona took her own life and the doctor said it was because of some sort of depression after the baby was born. I didn’t understand anything. Of course, I saw she was depressed and down, but I thought that was because of money worries and the future and all that, what with having a child.”

“What sort of work did you do then?”

“I was a church caretaker. I was twenty-three then, but I didn’t have any kind of education. My father was a garbage man, and my mother did cleaning jobs now and then. There was nothing for me to do but start work as soon as I finished school. I was an errand boy and worked in a warehouse and that sort of thing. Things were tight at home and I had several younger brothers and sisters, so we needed the money.”

“How did you come to be a gardener?”

“I worked in a truck farm in Svartsjöland. The old boy who owned it was all right and took me on as an apprentice. He paid for me to learn to drive and get my license, too. He had a truck and I drove vegetables and fruit to Klara market.”

Hellström took a last draw on his cigarette and then stubbed it out in the ashtray.

“How did you manage to take care of the child and work at the same time?” asked Åsa, while Martin Beck drank his tea and listened.

“I had to,” said Hellström. “When she was little, I took her with me everywhere. Later, when she went to school, she had to manage alone in the afternoons. It wasn’t the best way to bring up a child, but I had no choice.”

He sipped his tea and added bitterly, “You can see the result.”

“When did you come here to Djursholm?” Åsa asked.

“I got this job ten years ago. A free house if I looked after the garden here. And then I got gardening jobs at several other places, so we managed pretty well. I thought this neighborhood would be good for Kiki—a good school and fine friends. But I guess it wasn’t all that easy for her. All her school friends had rich parents who lived in big houses and she was ashamed of the way we lived. She never brought anyone home here.”

“The Petrus family has a daughter about the same age. Did the girls get along? They were neighbors, after all.”

Hellström shrugged. “They were in the same class, but they never played outside school. Petrus’s daughter looked down on Kiki. The whole family did, in fact.”

“You were chauffeur to Petrus, too.”

“It wasn’t really my job, but I often drove him places. When the Petrus family moved here, they hired me as gardener and they never mentioned chauffeuring. But I got some extra pay for taking care of the cars.”

“Where did you drive Mr. Petrus?”

“To his office, and other places when he had other things to do in town. And sometimes when he and his wife went to a party.”

“Did you ever drive him to Rotebro?”

“A few times. Three or four, maybe.”

“What did you think of Mr. Petrus?”

“I didn’t think anything about him. He was just one of the people I worked for.”

Åsa thought for a while and then said, “You worked for him for six years, didn’t you?”

Hellström nodded.

“Yes, just about. Since they built the house here.”

“Then you must have talked to him quite a bit, in the car for instance.”

Hellström shook his head. “We almost never talked in the car. And when we did, it was mostly about what had to be done in the garden and that kind of thing.”

“Did you know what kind of films Mr. Petrus made?”

“I’ve never seen any of them. I hardly ever go to the movies.”

“Did you know your daughter was in one of his films?”

Hellström shook his head again. “No,” he said curtly.

Åsa looked at him, but he did not meet her eyes. After a while he said, “As an extra?”

“She was in a pornographic film,” said Åsa.

Hellström glanced swiftly at her. “I didn’t know that.”

Åsa looked at him for a moment and said, “You must have been very fond of your daughter. Perhaps more than most fathers. And she of you. You only had each other.”

Hellström nodded. “Yes, we only had each other. When she was little she was the only thing I lived for.”

He straightened up and lit another cigarette. “But she’s grown up now and does as she pleases. I’m not going to try to interfere with her life anymore.”

“What were you doing that morning when Mr. Petrus was murdered?”

“I was here, I suppose.”

“You know which day I’m talking about—Thursday the sixth of June?”

“I’m usually here and usually start work pretty early. So that day was probably like any other.”

“Can anyone vouch for that? Any of your employers, for instance?”

“I don’t know. It’s a fairly independent job. As long as I do what has to be done, no one bothers about when I do it. I usually start work about eight.” He paused, then added, “I didn’t kill him. I didn’t have any reason to.”

“Maybe you didn’t,” said Martin Beck, speaking up for the first time, “but it’d be nice if someone could confirm that you were here on the morning of June sixth.”

“I don’t know if anyone can. I live alone, and if I’m not out in the garden, then I’m usually in the workshop. There’s always something that needs fixing.”

“We may have to talk to the people you work for, and anyone else who might have seen you,” said Martin. “Just to be sure.”

Hellström shrugged. “It was so long ago,” he said. “I can’t remember what I was doing on that particular morning.”

“No, maybe not,” said Martin Beck.

“What happened in Copenhagen when you saw your daughter?” asked Åsa.

“Nothing special,” Hellström replied. “She was living in a little apartment where she met her customers. She told me that straight out. She went on about some movie she was supposed to be in, and said that this other thing was just temporary, but she didn’t have anything against being a whore, since it paid well, but she was going to stop soon, she said, as soon as she got this movie job. She promised to write, but I haven’t heard from her yet. That was all. She got rid of me after an hour, said she didn’t want to come back home with me, and there wasn’t any point in me going to see her again. And I’m not going to either. As far as I am concerned, she’s lost for good. I just have to accept it.”

“How long is it since she left home?”

“Oh, she left as soon as she finished school. Lived with some friends in town. She came here sometimes to see me. Not very often. Then she disappeared completely, and after a while I found out she was in Copenhagen.”

“Did you know about her relationship with Mr. Petrus?”

“Relationship? No, there was no relationship between them. Maybe she got some kind of job in a movie, but otherwise she was just the gardener’s daughter to him. Like the rest of the family. I can see why she didn’t want to stay in a snobbish place like this, where everyone looks down on you if you don’t have any money.”

“Do you know if there’s anyone at home up at the house?” Martin Beck asked. “Maybe I could go up and see if anyone saw you here that morning.”

“I don’t know if they’re at home,” said Hellström. “But you can go up and see. Not that I think they keep track of what I’m up to.”

Martin Beck winked at Åsa and got up. Åsa took the cue, poured out another cup of tea for herself and Hellström and leaned back in the sofa.

The lady of the house was at home, and to Martin Beck’s question replied that no, indeed, she did not keep track of what
the gardener did, as long as he did the work expected of him. She reminded him that the gardener didn’t work just for them but for other households as well, and came and went as he liked.

Martin Beck thanked her and took his leave, walking back through the garden down to Hellström’s house. He knew that Åsa was good at getting people to talk and had thought she would manage better with Hellström on her own.

He stopped and looked into the garage. It was empty except for a couple of spare tires, a rolled-up hose and a large gasoline can. The door to the workshop was ajar, so he pushed it open and walked in.

The lathe Hellström had been working on was screwed down to the bench. Along one wall were garden tools of various kinds, and above the bench hung tools on hooks and pegs. Just inside the door was a power-mower, and leaning against the wall beyond it was a row of newly painted greenhouse frames.

Martin Beck was standing by the bench, running his forefinger along the newly planed surface of the pine moldings when he suddenly saw something half-hidden in a corner behind a heap of black plastic sacks. He went over and pulled the object out. It was a square wrought-iron grating with four octagonal bars soldered into a strong frame. A wide space in the middle and two rough surfaces indicated that there should have been a fifth.

Martin Beck picked up the grating and went back to Hellström’s house.

Åsa was sitting with her mug of tea in her hand, talking to Hellström, when Martin Beck came in. When she saw what he had in his hand, she fell silent.

Hellström turned round and looked at Martin Beck and then at the grating.

“I found this in your workshop,” said Martin Beck.

“It’s from the old house they tore down when Petrus built his new one,” said Hellström. “It was in one of the cellar windows. I thought I’d find a use for it, and it’s been here ever since.”

“You did find a use for it, didn’t you?” said Martin Beck.

Hellström did not reply. He turned to the table and carefully stubbed out his cigarette.

“One of the bars is missing,” said Martin Beck.

“It always has been,” said Hellström.

“I don’t think so,” said Martin Beck. “I think you’d better come with us so we can try and clear this up.”

Hellström sat still for a moment. Then he got up, went out into the hall and put on his jacket. He walked ahead of them through the gate and waited calmly by the car while Martin Beck put the grating into the trunk.

He sat beside Martin Beck in the back, while Åsa drove.

None of them said a word the whole way to the police station.

Almost three hours went by before Sture Hellström confessed to murdering Walter Petrus.

It didn’t take long to establish, however, that the iron bar used as the murder weapon was the missing piece from the grating Martin Beck had found in Hellström’s workshop. Faced with this evidence, Hellström repeated that the bar had been missing at the time that he had taken the grating, six years before, and that anyone could have taken it.

The technical examination of the sand behind the crates in Maud Lundin’s garage produced clear prints of a buckle of the kind on Hellström’s belt, probably made as he lay waiting. It also produced a few footprints, as incomplete and blurred as those found in the garden but undoubtedly from the soles of a pair of sneakers found in Sture Hellström’s wardrobe. They also found a few strands of hair and some fibers from some dark-blue cotton fabric.

While Martin Beck patiently exhibited and explained the evidence that more and more clearly bound Sture Hellström to the crime, the latter patiently continued to deny it. He didn’t say much, just shook his head and lit one cigarette after another.

Martin Beck had had tea and cigarettes brought in, but Hellström didn’t want anything to eat.

It had begun to rain again and the monotonous patter on the
windowpane and the gray light in the smoke-filled office created a strange atmosphere of timelessness and isolation in the room. Martin Beck looked at the man in front of him. He had tried to talk to Hellström about his childhood and youth, about his struggle for his own and his child’s existence, about his books, about his feelings for his daughter, and about his work. At first the man had answered with stubborn defiance, but then he had gradually become more and more taciturn, and now he was sitting with his shoulders hunched, his melancholy eyes directed toward the floor.

Martin Beck sat in silence, too, and waited.

At last Sture Hellström straightened up and looked at Martin Beck. “I haven’t really anything left to live for,” he said. “He destroyed my daughter and I hated him as much as it’s possible for me to hate anyone.”