The Man on the Balcony

by Maj Sjowall

  The man on the balcony followed her with his eyes. When she had gone about twenty yards she stopped, raised her hand to her breast and stood like that for a moment. Then she opened the satchel and rummaged in it while she turned and began to walk back. Then she broke into a run and rushed back inside without closing the satchel.

  The man on the balcony stood quite still and watched the entrance door close behind her. Some minutes passed before it opened again and the girl came out. She had closed the satchel now and walked more quickly. Her fair hair was tied in a pony tail and swung against her back. When she got to the end of the block she turned the corner and disappeared.

  The time was three minutes to eight. The man turned around, went inside and into the kitchen. There he drank a glass of water, rinsed the glass, put it on the rack and went out again onto the balcony.

  He sat down on the folding chair and laid his left arm on the rail. He lighted a cigarette and looked down into the street while he smoked.

  2

  The time by the electric wall-clock was five minutes to eleven and the date, according to the calendar on Gunvald Larsson’s desk, was Friday, June 2, 1967.

  Martin Beck was only in the room by chance. He had just come in and put down his case on the floor inside the door. He had said hello, laid his hat beside the carafe on the filing cabinet, taken a glass from the tray and filled it with water, leaned against the cabinet and was about to drink. The man behind the desk looked at him ill-humoredly and said:

  “Have they sent you here too? What have we done wrong now?”

  Martin Beck took a sip of water.

  “Nothing, as far as I know. And don’t worry. I only came up to see Melander. I asked him to do something for me. Where is he?”

  “In the lavatory as usual.”

  Melander’s curious capacity for always being in the lavatory was a hackneyed joke, and although there was a grain of truth in it Martin Beck for some reason felt irritated.

  Mostly, however, he kept his irritation to himself. He gave the man at the desk a calm, searching look and said:

  “What’s bothering you?”

  “What do you think? The muggings of course. There was one in Vanadis Park last night again.”

  “So I heard.”

  “A pensioner who was out with his dog. Struck on the head from behind. A hundred and forty kronor in his wallet. Concussion. Still in hospital. Heard nothing. Saw nothing.”

  Martin Beck was silent.

  “This was the eighth time in two weeks. That guy will end by killing someone.”

  Martin Beck drained the glass and put it down.

  “If someone doesn’t grab him soon,” Gunvald Larsson said.

  “Who do you mean by someone?”

  “The police, for Christ’s sake. Us. Anybody. A civil patrol from the protection squad in ninth district was there ten minutes before it happened.”

  “And when it happened? Where were they then?”

  “Sitting over coffee at the station. It’s the same all the time. If there’s a policeman hiding in every bush in Vanadis Park, then it happens in Vasa Park, and if there’s a policeman hiding in every bush in both Vanadis Park and Vasa Park, then he pops up in Lill-Jans Wood.”

  “And if there’s a policeman in every bush there too?”

  “Then the demonstrators break up the US Trade Center and set fire to the American embassy. This is no joking matter,” Gunvald Larsson added stiffly.

  Keeping his eyes fixed on him, Martin Beck said:

  “I’m not joking. I just wondered.”

  “This man knows his business. It’s almost as if he had radar. There’s never a policeman in sight when he attacks.”

  Martin Beck rubbed the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.

  “Send out …”

  Larsson broke in at once.

  “Send out? Whom? What? The dog van? And let those goddam dogs tear the civil patrol to pieces? Yesterday’s victim had a dog, come to that. What good was it to him?”

  “What kind of dog?”

  “How the hell do I know? Shall I interrogate the dog perhaps? Shall I get the dog here and send it out to the lavatory so that Melander can interrogate it?”

  Gunvald Larsson said this with great gravity. He pounded the desk with his fist and went on:

  “A lunatic prowls about the parks bashing people on the head and you come here and start talking about dogs!”

  “Actually it wasn’t I who …”

  Again Gunvald Larsson interrupted him.

  “Anyway, I told you, this man knows his business. He only goes for defenseless old men and women. And always from behind. What was it someone said last week? Oh yes, ‘he leaped out of the bushes like a panther.’ “

  “There’s only one way,” Martin Beck said in a honeyed voice.

  “What’s that?”

  “You’d better go out yourself. Disguised as a defenseless old man.”

  The man at the desk turned his head and glared at him.

  Gunvald Larsson was six foot three and weighed 216 pounds. He had shoulders like a heavyweight boxer and huge hands covered with shaggy blond hair. He had fair hair, brushed straight back, and discontented, clear blue eyes. Kollberg usually completed the description by saying that the expression on his face was that of a motorcyclist.

  Just now the blue eyes were looking at Martin Beck with more than the usual disapproval.

  Martin Beck shrugged and said:

  “Joking apart …”

  And Gunvald Larsson interrupted him at once.

  “Joking apart I can’t see anything funny in this. Here am I up to my neck in one of the worst cases of robbery I’ve ever known, and along you come driveling about dogs and God knows what.”

  Martin Beck realized that the other man, no doubt unintentionally, was about to do something that only few succeeded in: to annoy him to the point of making him lose his temper. And although he was quite well aware of this, he could not help raising his arm from the cabinet and saying:

  “That’s enough!”

  At that moment, fortunately, Melander came in from the room next door. He was in his shirtsleeves, and had a pipe in his mouth and an open telephone directory in his hands.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Hello,” said Martin Beck.

  “I thought of the name the second you hung up,” Melander said. “Arvid Larsson. Found him in the telephone directory too. But it’s no good calling him. He died in April. Stroke. But he was in the same line of business up to the last. Had a rag-and-bone shop on the south side. It’s shut now.”

  Martin Beck took the directory, looked at it and nodded. Melander dug a matchbox out of his trouser pocket and began elaborately lighting his pipe. Martin Beck took two steps into the room and put the directory down on the table. Then he went back to the filing cabinet.

  “What are you busy on, you two?” Gunvald Larsson asked suspiciously.

  “Nothing much,” Melander said. “Martin had forgotten the name of a fence we tried to nail twelve years ago.”

  “And did you?”

  “No,” said Melander.

  “But you remembered it?”

  “Yes.”

  Gunvald Larsson pulled the directory towards him, riffled through it and said:

  “How the devil can you remember the name of a man called Larsson for twelve years?”

  “It’s quite easy,” Melander said gravely.

  The telephone rang.

  “First division, duty officer.

  “Sorry, madam, what did you say?

  “What?

  “Am I a detective? This is the duty officer of the first division, Detective Inspector Larsson.

  “And your name is …?”

  Gunvald Larsson took a ball-point pen from his breast pocket and scribbled a word. Then sat with the pen in mid-air.

  “And what can I do for you?

  “Sorry, I didn’t get that.

  “Eh? A what?

  “A
cat?

  “A cat on the balcony?

  “Oh, a man.

  “Is there a man standing on your balcony?”

  Gunvald Larsson pushed the telephone directory aside and drew a memo pad towards him. Put pen to paper. Wrote a few words.

  “Yes, I see. What does he look like, did you say?

  “Yes, I’m listening. Thin hair brushed straight back. Big nose. Aha. White shirt. Average height. Hm. Brown trousers. Unbuttoned. What? Oh, the shirt. Blue-gray eyes.

  “One moment, madam. Let’s get this straight. You mean he’s standing on his own balcony?”

  Gunvald Larsson looked from Melander to Martin Beck and shrugged. He went on listening and poked his ear with the pen.

  “Sorry, madam. You say this man is standing on his own balcony? Has he molested you?

  “Oh, he hasn’t. What? On the other side of the street? On his own balcony?

  “Then how can you see that he has blue-gray eyes? It must be a very narrow street.

  “What? You’re doing what?

  “Now wait a minute, madam. All this man has done is to stand on his own balcony. What else is he doing?

  “Looking down into the street? What’s happening in the street?

  “Nothing? What did you say? Cars? Children playing?

  “At night too? Do the children play at night too?

  “Oh, they don’t. But he stands there at night? What do you want us to do? Send the dog van?

  “As a matter of fact there’s no law forbidding people to stand on their balconies, madam.

  “Report an observation, you say? Heavens above, madam, if everyone reported their observations we’d need three policemen for every inhabitant.

  “Grateful? We ought to be grateful?

  “Impertinent? I’ve been impertinent? Now look here, madam …”

  Gunvald Larsson broke off and sat with the receiver a foot from his ear.

  “She hung up,” he said in amazement.

  After three seconds he banged down the receiver and said:

  “Go to hell, you old bitch.”

  He tore off the sheet of paper he had been writing on and carefully wiped the ear wax off the tip of the pen.

  “People are crazy,” he said. “No wonder we get nothing done. Why doesn’t the switchboard block calls like that? There ought to be a direct line to the nut house.”

  “You’ll just have to get used to it,” Melander said, calmly taking his telephone directory, closing it and going into the next room.

  Gunvald Larsson, having finished cleaning his pen, crumpled up the paper and tossed it into the wastepaper basket. With a sour look at the suitcase by the door he said:

  “Where are you off to?”

  “Just going down to Motala for a couple of days,” Martin Beck replied. “Something there I must look at.”

  “Oh.”

  “Be back inside a week. But Kollberg will be home today. He’s on duty here as from tomorrow. So you needn’t worry.”

  “I’m not worrying.”

  “By the way, those robberies …”

  “Yes?”

  “No, it doesn’t matter.”

  “If he does it twice more we’ll get him,” Melander said from the next room.

  “Exactly,” said Martin Beck. “So long.”

  “So long,” Gunvald Larsson replied.

  3

  Martin Beck got to Central Station nineteen minutes before the train was due to leave and thought he would fill in the time by making two telephone calls.

  First home.

  “Haven’t you left yet?” his wife said.

  He ignored this rhetorical question and merely said:

  “I’ll be staying at a hotel called the Palace. Thought you’d better know.”

  “How long will you be away?”

  “A week.”

  “How do you know for certain?”

  This was a good question. She wasn’t dumb at any rate, Martin Beck thought.

  “Love to the children,” he said, adding after a moment, “take care of yourself.”

  “Thanks,” she said coldly.

  He hung up and fished another coin out of his trouser pocket. There was a line in front of the call boxes and the people standing nearest glared at him as he put the coin in the slot and dialed the number of southern police headquarters. It took about a minute before he got Kollberg on the line.

  “Beck here. Just wanted to make sure you were back.”

  “Very thoughtful of you,” Kollberg said. “Are you still here?”

  “How’s Gun?”

  “Fine. Big as a house of course.”

  Gun was Kollberg’s wife; she was expecting a baby at the end of August. “I’ll be back in a week.”

  “So I gather. And by that time I shall no longer be on duty here.”

  There was a pause, then Kollberg said:

  “What takes you to Motala?”

  “That fellow …”

  “Which fellow?”

  “That junk dealer who was burned to death the night before last. Haven’t you …”

  “I read about it in the papers. So what?”

  “I’m going down to have a look.”

  “Are they so dumb they can’t clear up an ordinary fire on their own?”

  “Anyway they’ve asked …”

  “Look here,” Kollberg said. “You might get your wife to swallow that, but you can’t kid me. Anyway, I know quite well what they’ve asked and who has asked it. Who’s head of the investigation department at Motala now?”

  “Ahlberg, but …”

  “Exactly. I also know that you’ve taken five vacation days that were due to you. In other words you’re going to Motala in order to sit and tipple at the City Hotel with Ahlberg. Am I right?”

  “Well …”

  “Good luck,” Kollberg said genially. “Behave yourself.”

  “Thanks.”

  Martin Beck hung up and the man standing behind him elbowed his way roughly past him. Beck shrugged and went out into the main hall of the station.

  Kollberg was right up to a point. This in itself didn’t matter in the least, but it was vexing all the same to be seen through so easily. Both he and Kollberg had met Ahlberg in connection with a murder case three summers earlier. The investigation had been long and difficult and in the course of it they had become good friends. Otherwise Ahlberg would hardly have asked the national police board for help and he himself would not have wasted half a day’s work on the case.

  The station clock showed that the two telephone calls had taken exactly four minutes; there was still a quarter of an hour before the train left. As usual the big hall was swarming with people of all kinds.

  Suitcase in hand, he stood there glumly, a man of medium height with a lean face, a broad forehead and a strong jaw. Most of those who saw him probably took him for a bewildered provincial who suddenly found himself in the rush and bustle of the big city.

  “Hi, mister,” someone said in a hoarse whisper.

  He turned to look at the person who had accosted him. A girl in her early teens was standing beside him; she had lank fair hair and was wearing a short batik dress. She was barefoot and dirty and looked the same age as his own daughter. In her cupped right hand she was holding a strip of four photographs, which she let him catch a glimpse of.

  It was very easy to trace these pictures. The girl had gone into one of the automatic photo machines, knelt on the stool, pulled her dress up to her armpits and fed her coins into the slot.

  The curtains of these photo cubicles had been shortened to knee height, but it didn’t seem to have helped much. He glanced at the pictures; young girls these days developed earlier than they used to, he thought. And the little slobs never thought of wearing anything underneath either. All the same, the photos had not come out very well.

  “Twenty-five kronor?” the child said hopefully.

  Martin Beck looked around in annoyance and caught sight of two policemen in uniform on the other
side of the hall. He went over to them. One of them recognized him and saluted.

  “Can’t you keep the kids here in order?” Martin Beck said angrily.

  “We do our best, sir.”

  The policeman who answered was the same one who had saluted, a young man with blue eyes and a fair, well-trimmed beard.

  Martin Beck said nothing but turned and walked towards the glass doors leading out to the platforms. The girl in the batik dress was now standing farther down the hall, looking furtively at the pictures, wondering if there was something wrong with her appearance.

  Before long some idiot was sure to buy her photographs.

  Then off she would go to Humlegården or Mariatorget and buy purple hearts or marijuana with the money. Or perhaps LSD.

  The policeman who recognized him had had a beard. Twenty-four years earlier, when he himself joined the force, policemen had not worn beards.

  By the way, why hadn’t the other policeman saluted, the one without a beard? Because he hadn’t recognized him?

  Twenty-four years ago policemen had saluted anyone who came up to them even if he were not a superintendent. Or had they?

  In those days girls of fourteen and fifteen had not photographed themselves naked in photo machines and tried to sell the pictures to detective superintendents in order to get money for a fix.

  Anyway, he was not a bit pleased with the new title he had got at the beginning of the year. He was not pleased with his new office at southern police headquarters out in the noisy industrial area at Västberga. He was not pleased with his suspicious wife and with the fact that someone like Gunvald Larsson could be made a detective inspector.

  Martin Beck sat by the window in his first-class compartment, pondering all this.

  The train glided out of the station and past the City Hall. He caught sight of the old white steamer Mariefred, that still plied to Gripsholm, and the publishing house of Norstedt, before the train was swallowed up in the tunnel to the south. When it emerged into daylight again he saw the green expanse of Tantolunden—the park that he was soon going to have nightmares about—and heard the wheels echo on the railroad bridge.

  By the time the train stopped at Södertälje he was in a better mood. He bought a bottle of mineral water and a stale cheese sandwich from the metal handcart that now replaced the restaurant car on most of the express trains.