by Maj Sjowall
'Hey, wait a minute," the younger rflan said. "Let's have a look at the girls."
The older man walked on, saying over his shoulder:
'Hell, no. Come on, I'm as thirsty as a camel."
They went on up towards the water tower at the top of the park. Having rounded the gloomy building, they saw to their relief that they had the ground behind the tower to themselves. The older man sat down in the grass, took out the bottle and started unscrewing the cap. The younger man had continued to the top of the slope on the other side, where a red-painted paling sagged.
'Jocke!" he shouted. "Let's sit here instead. In case anyone comes."
Jocke got up, wheezing, and bottle in hand followed the other man, who had started down the slope.
'Here's a good spot," the younger man called, "by these bush…"
He stopped dead and bent forward.
'Christ!" he whispered hoarsely. "Jesus Cbristr
Jocke came up behind him, saw the girl on the ground, turned aside and vomited.
She was lying with the top part of her body half hidden under a bush. Her legs, wide apart, were stretched out on the damp sand. The face, turned to one side, was bluish and the mouth was open. Her right arm was bent over her head and her left hand lay against her hip, palm upwards.
The fair, longish hair had fallen across her cheek. She was barefoot and dressed in a skirt and a striped cotton T-shirt that had slipped up, leaving her waist bare.
She had been about nine years old.
There was no doubt that she was dead.
The time was five minutes to ten when Jocke and his mate appeared at the ninth district police station in Surbrunnsga-tan. They gave a rambling and nervous account of what they had seen in Vanadis Park to a police inspector called Granlund, who was duty officer. Ten minutes later Granlund and four policemen were on the spot.
Only twelve hours had passed since two of the four policemen had been called to an adjacent part of the park, where yet another brutal robbery had taken place. As nearly an hour had passed between the assault and the time it was reported, everyone had taken it for granted that the assailant had made himself scarce. They had therefore not examined the area closely and couldn't say whether the girl's body had been there at that time or not.
The five policemen established the fact that the girl was dead and that as far as they could tell she had been strangled. That was about all they could do for the moment.
While waiting for the detectives and the men from the technical department their main duty was to see that no busy-bodies came prying about.
Granlund, casting his eye over the scene of the crime, saw that the men from headquarters were not going to have an easy job. It had obviously rained heavily for some time after the body had been put there. On the other hand he thought he knew who the girl was, and the knowledge didn't make him too happy.
At eleven o'clock the previous evening an anxious mother had come to the police station and begged them to search for her daughter. The girl was eight and a half years old. She had gone out to play about seven, and had not been heard of since. The ninth district had alerted headquarters and all men on patrol had been given the girl's description. The accident wards of all hospitals had been checked.
The description, unfortunately, seemed to fit.
As far as Granlund knew, the missing girl had not been found. Also, she lived in Sveavägen near Vanadis Park. There seemed no room for doubt.
He thought of the girl's parents waiting at home in suspense, and inwardly he prayed that he would not have to be the one who told them the truth.
When the detectives at last arrived Granlund felt as if he had been standing an eternity in the sunshine near the child's little body.
As soon as the experts began their work he left them to it and walked back to the police station, the image of the dead girl branded on his retina.
7
WHEN KOLLBERG and Rönn reached the scene of the crime in Vanadis Park the area behind the water tower was properly roped off. The photographer had finished his work and the doctor was busy with his first routine examination of the body.
The ground was still damp and the only footprints near the body were fresh and had almost certainly been made by the men who had found the body. The girl's sandals were lying farther down the slope near the red paling.
When the doctor had finished Kollberg went up to him and said:
'Well?"
'Strangled," the doctor said. "Rape of some sort. Maybe."
He shrugged.
'When?"
'Last evening some time. Find out when she last ate and what…"
'I know. Do you think it happened here?"
'I see no signs that it didn't."
'No," Kollberg said. "Why the hell did it have to rain like that."
'Huh," the doctor said, walking off towards his car.
Kollberg stayed for another half hour, then took a car from the ninth district to the station at Surbrunnsgatan.
The superintendent was at his desk reading a report when
Kollberg entered. He greeted him and put the report aside. Pointed to a chair. Kollberg sat down and said:
'Nasty business."
'Yes," the superintendent said. "Have you found anything?"
'Not as far as I know. I think the rain has ruined everything."
'When do you think it happened? We had an assault case up there last evening. I was just looking at the report."
'I don't know," Kollberg said. "Well see when we can move her."
'Do you think it can be the same guy? That she saw him do it, or something?"
'If she has been raped it's hardly the same one. A mugger who is also a sex murderer… it's a bit much," Kollberg said vaguely.
'Raped? Did the doctor say so?"
'He thought it possible."
Kollberg sighed and rubbed his chin.
'The boys who drove me here said you know who she is."
'Yes," the superintendent said. "It seems like it. Granlund was in just now and identified her from a photo her mother brought in here last night."
The superintendent opened a file, took out a snapshot and gave it to Kollberg. The girl who now lay dead in Vanadis Park was leaning against a tree and laughing up at the sun. Kollberg nodded and handed the photo back.
'Do the parents know that…"
'No," the superintendent said.
He tore a sheet off the note pad in front of him and gave it to Kollberg.
'Mrs. Karin Carlsson, Sveavägen 83," Kollberg read aloud.
'The girl's name was Eva," the superintendent said. "Someone had better… you had better go there. Now. Before she finds out in a more unpleasant way."
'It's quite unpleasant enough as it is," Kollberg sighed.
The superintendent regarded him gravely but said nothing.
'Anyway, I thought this was your district," Kollberg said But he stood up and continued:
'Okay, okay, I'll go. Someone has to do it"
In the doorway he turned and said:
'No wonder we're short of men in the force. You have to be crazy to become a cop."
As he had left his car by Stefan's Church he decided to walk to Sveavägen. Besides, he wanted to take his time before meeting the girl's parents.
The sun was shining and all traces of the night's rain had already dried up. Kollberg felt slightly sick at the thought of the task ahead of him. It was disagreeable, to say the least. He had been forced into similar tasks before, but now, in the case of a child, the ordeal was worse than ever. If only Martin had been here, he thought; he's much better at this sort of thing than I am. Then he remembered how depressed Martin Beck had always seemed in situations like this, and followed up the train of thought: hah, it's just as hard for everyone, whoever has to do it.
The apartment house where the dead girl had lived was obliquely opposite Vanadis Park, in the block between Sur-brunnsgatan and Frejgatan. The elevator was out of order and he had to walk up the five
flights. He stood still for a moment and got his breath before ringing the doorbell.
The woman opened the door almost at once. She was dressed in a brown cotton housecoat and sandals. Her fair hair was tousled, as if she had been pushing her fingers through it over and over again. When she saw Kollberg her face fell with disappointment, then her expression hovered between hope and fear.
Kollberg showed his identity card and she gave him a desperate, inquiring look.
'May I come in?"
The woman opened the door wide and stepped back.
'Haven't you found her?" she said.
Kollberg walked in without answering. The apartment seemed to consist of two rooms. The outer one contained a bed, bookshelves, desk, TV set, chest of drawers and two armchairs, one on each side of a low teak table. The bed was made, presumably no one had slept in it that night. On the blue bedspread was a suitcase, open, and beside it lay piles of neatly folded clothes. A couple of newly ironed cotton dresses hung over the lid of the suitcase. The door of the inner room was open; Kollberg caught sight of a blue-painted bookshelf with books and toys. On top sat a white teddy bear.
'Do you mind if we sit down?" Kollberg asked, and sat in one of the armchairs.
The woman remained standing and said:
'What has happened? Have you found her?"
Kollberg saw the dread and the panic in her eyes and tried to keep quite calm.
'Yes," he said. "Please sit down, Mrs. Carlsson. Where is your husband?"
She sat in the armchair opposite Kollberg.
'I have no husband. We're divorced. Where's Eva? What has happened?"
'Mrs. Carlsson, I'm terribly sorry to tell you this. Your daughter is dead."
The woman stared at him.
'No," she said. "No."
Kollberg got up and went over to her.
'Have you no one who can be with you? Your parents?"
The woman shook her head.
'It's not true," she said.
Kollberg put his hand on her shoulder.
'I'm terribly sorry, Mrs. Carlsson," he said lamely.
'But how? We were going to the country…"
'We're not sure yet," Kollberg replied. "We think that she… that she's been the victim of…"
'Killed? Murdered?"
Kollberg nodded.
The woman shut her eyes and sat stiff and still. Then she opened her eyes and shook her head.
'Not Eva," she said. "It's not Eva. You haven't… you've made a mistake."
'No," Kollberg said. "I cant tell you how sorry I am, Mrs. Carlsson. Isn't there anyone I can call up? Someone I can ask to come here? Your parents or someone?"
'No, no, not them. I don't want anyone here."
'Your ex-husband?"
'He's living in Malmö, I think."
Her face was ashen and her eyes were hollow. Kollberg saw that she had not yet grasped what had happened, that she had put up a mental barrier which would not allow the truth past it He had seen the same reaction before and knew that when she could no longer resist, she would collapse.
'Who is your doctor, Mrs. Carlsson?" Kollberg asked.
'Doctor Ström. We were there on Wednesday. Eva had had a tummy ache for several days and as we were going to the country I thought I'd better…"
She broke off and looked at the doorway into the other room.
'Eva's never sick as a rule. And she soon got over this tummy ache. The doctor thought it was a touch of gastric influenza."
She sat silent for a moment. Then she said, so softly that Kollberg could hardly catch the words:
'She's all right again now."
Kollberg looked at her, feeling desperate and idiotic. He did not know what to say or do. She was still sitting with her face turned towards the open door into her daughter's room. He was trying frantically to think of something to say when she suddenly got up and called her daughter's name in a loud, shrill voice. Then she ran into the other room. Kollberg followed her.
The room was bright and nicely furnished. In one corner stood a red-painted box full of toys and at the foot of the narrow bed was an old-fashioned dollhouse. A pile of school-books lay on the desk.
The woman was sitting on the edge of the bed, her elbows propped on her knees and face buried in her hands. She rocked to and fro and Kollberg could not hear whether she was crying or not.
He looked at her for a moment, then went out into the hall where he had seen the telephone. An address book lay beside it and in it, sure enough, he found Doctor Strom's number.
The doctor listened while Kollberg explained the situation and promised to come within five minutes.
Kollberg went back to the woman, who was sitting as he had left her. She was making no sound. He sat down beside her and waited. At first he wondered whether he dared touch her, but after a while he put his arm cautiously around her shoulders. She seemed unaware of his presence.
They sat like this until the silence was broken by the doctor's ring at the door.
8
KOLLBERG WAS sweating as he walked back through Vanadis Park. The cause was neither the steep incline, the humid heat after the rain, nor his tendency to corpulence. At any rate not entirely.
Like most of those who were to deal with this case, he was jaded before the investigation started. He thought of the repulsiveness of the crime itself and he thought of the people who had been so hard hit by its blind meaninglessness. He had been through all this before, how many times he couldn't even say offhand, and he knew exactly how horrible it could turn out to be. And how difficult
He thought too of the swift gangsterization of this society, which in the last resort must be a product of himself and of the other people who lived in it and had a share in its creation. He thought of the rapid technical expansion that the police force had undergone merely during the last year; despite this, crime always seemed to be one step ahead. He thought of the new investigation methods and the computers, which could mean that this particular criminal might be caught within a few hours, and also what little consolation these excellent technical inventions had to offer the women he had just left, for example. Or himself. Or the set-faced men who had now gathered around the little body in the bushes between the rocks and the red paling.
He had only seen the body for a few moments, and at a distance, and he didn't want to see it again if he could help it. This he knew to be an impossibility. The mental image of the child in the blue skirt and striped T-shirt was etched into his mind and would always remain there, together with all the others he could never get rid of. He thought of the wooden-soled sandals on the slope and of his own child, as yet unborn; of how this child would look in nine years' time; of the horror and disgust that this crime would arouse, and what the front pages of the evening papers would look like.
The entire area around the gloomy, fortress-like water tower was roped off now, as well as the steep slope behind it, right down to the steps leading to Ingemarsgatan. He walked past the cars, stopped at the cordon and looked out over the empty playground with its sandpits and swings.
The knowledge that all this had happened before and was certain to happen again, was a crushing burden. Since the last time they had gotten computers and more men and more cars. Since the last time the lighting in the parks had been improved and most of the bushes had been cleared away. Next time there would be still more cars and computers and even less shrubbery. Kollberg wiped his brow at the thought and the handkerchief was wet through.
The journalists and photographers were already there, but fortunately only a few of the inquisitive had as yet found their way here. The journalists and photographers, oddly enough, had become better with the years, partly thanks to the police. The inquisitive would never be any better.
The area around the water tower was strangely quiet, despite all the people. From afar, perhaps from the swimming pool or the playground at Sveavägen, cheerful shouts could be heard and children laughing.
Kollberg remained standing
by the cordon. He said nothing, nor did anyone speak to him.
He knew that the homicide squad had been alerted, that the search was being stabilized, that men from the technical division were examining the scene of the crime, that the vice squad had been called in, that a central office was being organized to receive tips from the public, that a special inquiry squad was being prepared to go from door to door, that the coroner was ready and waiting, that every radio patrol car was on the watch, and that no resources would be spared, even his own.
Yet he allowed himself this moment of reflection. It was summer. People were swimming. Tourists were wandering about, map in hand. And in the shrubbery between the rocks and the red paling lay a dead child. It was horrible. And it might get worse.
Still another car, perhaps the ninth or tenth, hummed up the hill from Stefan's Church and stopped. Without actually turning his head, Kollberg saw Gunvald Larsson get out and come up to him.
'How is it going?"
'Don't know."
'The rain. It poured with rain all night Probably…"
For once, Gunvald Larsson interrupted himself. After a moment he went on:
'If they take any footprints they're probably mine. I was here last evening. Soon after ten."
'Oh."
'The mugger. He struck down an old woman. Not fifty yards from here."
'So I heard."
'She had just shut up her fruit and candy stand and was on her way home. With the entire day's takings in her handbag."
'Oh?"
'Every single cent of ft. People are crazy," Gunvald Larsson said.
He paused again. Nodded towards the rocks and the shrubbery and the red paling and said:
'She must have been lying there then."
'Presumably."
'It had already started raining when we got here. And the civil patrol, ninth district, had been here three quarters of an hour before the robbery. They didn't see anything either. She must have been lying here then too."
'They were looking for the mugger," Kollberg said.
'Yes. And when he got here they were in Lill-Jans Wood. This was the ninth time."
'What about the old woman?"
'Ambulance case. Rushed to hospital. Shock, fractured jaw, four teeth knocked out, broken nose. All she saw of the man was that he had a red bandanna handkerchief over his face. God awful description."