The Terrorists (7 page)

“You’re wrong, Rebecka,” said Bulldozer. “We live together in this country and we have mutual responsibility for what is good or bad. But I would like to know how a person can avoid hearing what is said on the radio and television and entirely miss what is written in the newspapers.”

“I have neither radio nor TV and the only things I read in the papers are the horoscopes.”

“But you went to school for nine years, didn’t you?”

“They just tried to teach us a lot of nonsense. I didn’t listen.”

“But money,” said Bulldozer, “money is something everyone’s interested in.”

“Not me.”

“Where did you get the money to live on?”

“Welfare. But I needed very little. Until now.”

The judge then read out the character appraisal which was not quite so lacking in interest as Braxén had predicted.

Rebecka Lind was born on January 3, 1956, and grew up in a lower middle class home. Her father was an office manager in a small building firm. Their home circumstances had been good, but Rebecka had very early on rebelled against her parents, and this antagonism had culminated when she was sixteen years old. She had been remarkably uninterested in school and had left after the ninth grade. Her teachers considered her fund of knowledge to be frighteningly inadequate. Although she did not lack intelligence, her attitudes were strange and divorced from reality. She had not been able to find work and showed no interest in doing so. When she was sixteen years old, life at home had become difficult and she moved out. Questioned by the investigator, the father said that this had been best for them all, as the parents had other children who were less of a disappointment to them.

At first she lived in a country cottage, which she had on more or less permanent loan from an acquaintance and which she kept after she managed to acquire a little cold-water apartment in the southern part of Stockholm. At the beginning of 1973 she met an American deserter named Jim Cosgrave and moved in with him. Rebecka soon became pregnant, which was her own wish, and in January 1974 she gave birth to a daughter, Camilla. Cosgrave had wanted to work but could find no job because he was long-haired and a foreigner. The only work he had during his years in Sweden was as a dishwasher for two weeks one summer on one of the ferries to Finland. Moreover, he longed to return to the United States. He had job experience and considered that he would have little difficulty in arranging things for himself and his family once he got home.

At the beginning of February, Cosgrave made contact with the United States Embassy and declared himself prepared to return voluntarily, provided he was given certain guarantees. They were anxious to get him home and promised him that his punishment would be mere formality.

Cosgrave flew back to the States on February 12. Rebecka had reckoned on being able to follow in March, when her boy friend’s parents had promised to help with money, but the months had gone by and no word had come from Cosgrave. She went to the social welfare office and was told that because Cosgrave
was a foreign citizen, they could do nothing. That was when Rebecka decided to go to the United States on her own, to find out what had happened. To get money, she turned to a bank, with known results.

The character appraisal was mainly positive. It pointed out that Rebecka had been an excellent mother and that she had never sunk to vice or shown criminal tendencies. She was incorruptibly truthful, but had an unrealistic attitude toward the world and often showed signs of exaggerated gullibility. Cosgrave was also appraised briefly. According to his acquaintances, he was a purposeful young man who had not attempted to evade his responsibilities and who had implicitly believed in a future for himself and his family in the United States.

Bulldozer Olsson now rose to give his summation.

Rhea observed him through half-closed eyes. Apart from his hopeless clothes, he was a man who radiated enormous self-confidence and an intense interest in what he was doing. He had seen through Crasher’s line of defense, but he was not going to let his actions be influenced by it. Instead, he expressed himself simply and briefly and stuck to his previous line of argument. He puffed out his chest—in fact mostly stomach—looked down at his unpolished brown shoes and began in a silky voice.

“I wish to limit my summation to a repetition of proven facts. Rebecka Lind went into the PK Bank, armed with a knife and equipped with a capacious shoulder bag in which she intended to put her booty. Long experience with bank robberies of the simpler variety—in fact there have been hundreds during this last year—convinces me that Rebecka was behaving according to a pattern although her lack of experience caused her to be immediately apprehended. I personally feel sorry for the accused, who while so young has allowed herself to be beguiled into committing such a serious crime. All the same, my regard for the law obliges me to demand unconditional imprisonment. The evidence that has been produced in this court is incontestable. No amount of argument can undo it.”

Bulldozer fingered his tie, then concluded: “I therefore submit my case for the approval of the court.”

“Is counsel for the defense prepared for his summation?” asked the judge.

Crasher was apparently not in the least prepared. He shuffled his papers together unsorted, regarded his unlit cigar for a moment, then put it into his pocket. He looked round the courtroom, staring curiously at each person in turn, as if he had never seen any of them before. Then he rose and limped back and forth in front of the judge.

Finally he said, “As I have already pointed out, this young lady who has been placed on the accused’s bench, or perhaps I should say chair, is innocent, and a speech in her defense is largely unnecessary. Nevertheless, I shall say a few words.”

Everyone wondered nervously what Crasher might mean by “a few words.”

Crasher unbuttoned his jacket, belched with relief, thrust out his stomach and said, “As counsel for the prosecution has pointed out, a great many bank robberies occur in this country. The wide publicity they are given, as well as the often spectacular attempts of the police to stop them, have not only made the public prosecutor a famous man but have also caused a general hysteria.”

Crasher paused and stood for a moment with his eyes on the floor, presumably trying to concentrate, then resumed.

“Rebecka Lind has not had much help or joy from society. Neither school, nor her own parents, nor the older generation in general have on the whole offered her support or encouragement. That she has not bothered to involve herself in the present system of rule cannot be blamed on her. When, in contrast to many other young people, she tries to get work, she is told that there is none. I am tempted here to go into the reasons why there is no work for the younger generation, but I shall abstain.

“At any rate, when she finally finds herself in a difficult situation, she turns to a bank. She has not the slightest idea of how a bank works, and is led to the mistaken conclusion that the PK Bank is less capitalistic, or that it is actually owned by the people.

“When the bank teller catches sight of Rebecka, she at once thinks the girl has come to rob the bank, partly because she cannot understand what such a person would be doing in a bank, and partly because she is inflamed by the innumerable directives that have been heaped onto bank employees recently.
She at once sounds the alarm and begins to put money into the bag the girl has placed on the counter. What happens then? Well, instead of one of the public prosecutor’s famous detectives, who have no time to bother with such futile little cases, along come two uniformed policemen in a patrol car. While one of them, according to his own words, leaps on the girl like a panther, the other manages to scatter the money all over the floor. Beyond this contribution, he also questions the teller. From this interrogation it appears that Rebecka did not threaten the bank staff at all and that she did not demand money. The whole matter can then be called a misunderstanding. The girl behaved naively, but, as you know, that is no crime.”

Crasher limped over to his table, studied his papers, and with his back to the judge and jurymen said, “I ask that Rebecka Lind be released and that the charge against her be declared void. No other plea is possible, because anyone with any sense must see that she is not guilty and that there can be no question of any other verdict.”

The court’s deliberations were quite brief. The result was announced in less than half an hour.

Rebecka Lind was declared free and immediately released. On the other hand, the charges were not declared void, which meant that the prosecution could appeal the verdict. Five of the jurymen had voted for release and two against. The judge had recommended conviction.

As they left the courtroom, Bulldozer Olsson came up to Martin Beck and Rhea and said, “You see? If you’d been a bit quicker, you’d have won that bottle of whisky.”

“Are you going to appeal?”

“No. Do you think I’ve nothing better to do than sit in the High Court for a whole day arguing the toss with Crasher? In a case like this?” He rushed away.

Crasher also came up to them, limping worse than ever. “Thanks for coming,” he said. “Not many people would have done that.”

“I thought I understood your train of thought,” said Martin Beck.

“That’s what’s wrong,” said Braxén. “Lots of people understand
one’s train of thought, but hardly anyone will come and support it.”

Crasher looked thoughtfully at Rhea as he snipped off the top of his cigar.

“I had an interesting and profitable conversation with Miss … Mrs.… this lady during the recess.”

“Nielsen’s her name,” said Martin Beck. “Rhea Nielsen.”

“Thank you,” said Crasher with a certain warmth. “Sometimes I wonder if I don’t lose a lot of cases just because of this name business. Anyhow, Mrs. Nilsson should have gone in for law. She analyzed the whole case in ten minutes and summarized it in a way that would have taken the public prosecutor several months, if he were bright enough to manage it at all.”

“Mmm,” said Martin Beck. “If Bulldozer wanted to appeal, he would be unlikely to lose in a higher court.”

“Well,” said Crasher, “you have to reckon with your opponent’s psyche. If Bulldozer loses in the first instance, he doesn’t appeal.”

“Why not?” said Rhea.

“He would lose his image as a man who is so busy that he really has no time for anything. And if all prosecutors were as successful as Bulldozer usually is, then half the population of the country would be in prison.”

Rhea grimaced.

“Thanks again,” said Crasher and limped away.

Martin Beck watched him go with some thoughtfulness, then turned to Rhea. “Where do you want to go?”

“Home.”

“Your place or mine?”

“Yours. It’s beginning to be a long time ago.”

To be precise, long ago was four days.

Martin Beck lived in Köpmangatan in the Old City, as close to the middle of Stockholm as one could get. The building was well maintained—it even had an elevator—and all but a few incorrigible snobs with villas and grand gardens and swimming pools in Saltjöbaden or Djursholm would have called it an ideal apartment. He had been in luck when he found the place, and the most extraordinary thing was that he didn’t get it through cheating or bribery and corruption—in other words, the way police generally acquired privileges. This stroke of luck had in turn given him the strength to break up an unhappy marriage of eighteen years.

Then his luck ran out again. He was shot in the chest by a madman on a roof and a year later, when he was finally out of the hospital, he had truly been out in the cold, bored with work and horrified at the thought of spending the rest of his working life in a swivel chair in a carpeted office with originals by established painters on the walls.

But now that risk had been minimized. The upper echelons of the police force appeared convinced that even if he wasn’t actually crazy, he was certainly impossible to work with. So Martin Beck had become head of the National Homicide Squad and would remain so until that antediluvian but singularly efficient organization was abolished.

Ironically, that very efficiency had engendered some criticism of the Squad. Some said that the Squad’s extraordinary rate of success was due to the fact that it had too good a staff for its relatively few cases.

In addition, there were also people in high places who disliked Martin Beck personally. One of these had even let it be known that, by various unjust means, Martin Beck had persuaded Lennart Kollberg, who had been one of the best policemen in the country, to resign from the force to become a part-time
revolver sorter at the Army Museum, compelling his poor wife to take on the burden of being the family breadwinner.

Martin Beck seldom became really angry, but when he heard this gibe, he came close to going up to the person in question and slugging him on the jaw. The fact was that everyone had gained from Kollberg’s resignation. Kollberg himself not only escaped from a distasteful job but also managed to see his family more often, and his wife and children very much preferred seeing more of him. Another beneficiary was Benny Skacke, who took Kollberg’s place and thus could hope to collect more credits toward his great purpose in life, that of becoming chief of police. And last but by no means least to benefit were certain members of the National Police Administration who, even if they were forced to admit that Kollberg was a good policeman, never could get over the fact that he was “troublesome” and “caused complications.” When you came down to it, there was only one person who missed Kollberg, and that was Martin Beck.

When he had come out of hospital more than two years earlier, he also had problems of a more personal nature. He had felt lonely and isolated in a way he had never felt before. The case he had been given as occupational therapy had been unique in that it seemed to come straight from the world of detective stories. It concerned a locked room, and the investigation had been mystifying and the solution unsatisfactory. He had often had the feeling that it was he himself who was seated in the locked room, instead of a rather uninteresting corpse.