The Man on the Balcony

by Maj Sjowall

  “What the hell are you saying, man?” he roared.

  “Don’t stand there shouting at us,” the older man said angrily. “We’re not a couple of drunks that you can bully and push around in the cells. We’re decent people with a sense of responsibility. We must protect ourselves and our children.”

  Kollberg stared at him. Then he opened his mouth to bellow but controlled himself with an effort and said as quietly as he could:

  “Is this your pistol?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you a license?”

  “No. I bought it in Barcelona some years ago. I keep it locked in a drawer normally.”

  “Normally?”

  The black-and-white patrol bus from Maria police station drove into the park with headlights full on. It was nearly dark now. Two policemen in uniform got out.

  “What’s going on here?” one of them said.

  Then, recognizing Kollberg, he repeated in a different tone:

  “What’s going on here?”

  “Take these two with you,” Kollberg said tonelessly.

  “I’ve never set foot in a police station in my life,” said the older man.

  “Nor have I,” said the one in the track suit.

  “Then it’s about time you did,” Kollberg said.

  He paused for a moment, looked at the two policemen and said:

  “I’ll be along soon.”

  Then he turned on his heel and walked off.

  At Maria police station in Rosenlundsgatan there was already a line of drunks.

  “What am I to do with these two civil engineers?” asked the police inspector on duty.

  “Search them and put them in the cells,” Kollberg said. “I’m taking them along to headquarters later.”

  “You’ll be sorry for this,” said the man in the track suit. “Do you know who I am?”

  “No,” Kollberg said.

  He went into the guardroom to phone and as he dialed the number to his home he gazed mournfully at the ancient interior. He had done patrol duty here once; it seemed a very long time ago, but even then this district had been one of the worst for drunkards. Nowadays there was a better class of people living round about, but the district still came a good third in drunkard statistics after Klara and Katarina.

  “Kollberg,” his wife said, answering the phone.

  “I’ll be a bit late,” he said.

  “You sound so funny, is anything wrong?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Everything.”

  He put the phone down and sat without moving for a moment. Then he called up Martin Beck.

  “I was struck down from behind in Tanto Park a while ago,” he said. “By two armed civil engineers. They’ve formed a militia here.”

  “Not only there,” Martin Beck said. “An hour ago a pensioner was battered in Haga Park. He was standing having a leak. I just heard about it.”

  “Everything’s going to hell.”

  “Yes,” Martin Beck said. “Where are you now?”

  “Still at Maria. Sitting in an interrogation room.”

  “What have you done with those two?”

  “They’re in the cells here.”

  “Bring them along.”

  “Okay.”

  Kollberg went down into the cell block. Many of the cells were already occupied. The man in the track suit stood staring out through the steel bars. In the next cell sat a tall, lean man aged about thirty-five with his knees drawn up to his chin. He was singing mournfully and sonorously:

  “My pocketbook is empty, my heart is full of pain …”

  The singer glanced at Kollberg and said:

  “Hi, marshal, where’s your six-shooter?”

  “Haven’t got one,” Kollberg said.

  “This is the goddam wild west,” said the guard.

  “What have you done?” Kollberg asked.

  “Nothing,” the man said.

  “It’s true,” the guard said. “We’re letting him out soon. Some naval police brought him here. Five of them, can you imagine. He had annoyed some bo’sun or other on guard at Skeppsholmen. And they go and lug him all the way here. Idiots. Said they couldn’t find a police station any closer. I had to shut him up in order to get rid of them. As if there wasn’t enough already …”

  Kollberg went on to the next cell.

  “Now you’ve set foot in a police station,” he said to the man in the track suit. “In a little while you’ll see what it’s like at headquarters as well.”

  “I shall report you for breach of authority.”

  “I don’t think you will,” Kollberg said.

  He took out his notebook.

  “But before we go I want the names and addresses of everyone in your organization.”

  “We don’t have an organization. We are simply men with families who …”

  “Who prowl about in public places armed and ready to strike down police,” Kollberg snapped. “Out with the names now.”

  Ten minutes later he stowed the two family men into the back seat and drove them to Kungsholmsgatan, took the elevator and pushed them inside Martin Beck’s office.

  “You’ll be sorry for this as long as you live,” the elder man said.

  “The only thing I’m sorry for is that I didn’t break your arm,” Kollberg retorted.

  Martin Beck gave him a quick, searching look and said:

  “Okay, Lennart. You go home now.”

  Kollberg went.

  The man in the track suit opened his mouth to speak but Martin Beck checked him. He gestured to them to sit down, sat in silence for some moments with his elbows on the desk and pressed his palms together. Then he said:

  “What you have done is indefensible. The very idea of militia comprises a far greater danger to society than any single criminal or gang. It paves the way for lynch mentality and arbitrary administration of justice. It throws the protective mechanism of society out of gear. Do you understand what I mean?”

  “You’re talking like a book,” said the man in the track suit acidly.

  “Exactly,” Martin Beck replied. “These are elementary facts. Mere catechism. Do you understand what I mean?”

  It took about an hour before they understood what he meant.

  When Kollberg got home to Palandergatan his wife was sitting up in bed knitting. Without saying a word he got undressed, went into the bathroom and had a shower. Then he got into bed. His wife put down her knitting and said:

  “That’s a nasty bruise on your neck. Has someone hit you?”

  “Put your arms around me,” he said.

  “My tummy’s in the way, but … there. Who hit you?”

  “A couple of goddam amateurs,” Kollberg said and fell asleep.

  22

  At breakfast on Sunday morning Martin Beck’s wife said:

  “How are you doing? Can’t you get hold of that creature? Look what happened to Lennart yesterday, it’s awful. I don’t wonder people are scared, but it’s a bit much when they go for policemen.”

  Martin Beck sat hunched over the table. He was wearing dressing gown and pajamas. He was busy trying to recall a dream he had had just before waking up. An unpleasant dream. Something about Gunvald Larsson. Stubbing out the first cigarette of the day he looked at his wife.

  “They didn’t know he was a policeman,” he said.

  “All the same,” she said. “It’s very nasty.”

  “Yes. It’s very nasty.”

  She took a bite at a piece of toast and frowned at the stub in the ashtray.

  “You shouldn’t smoke so early in the morning. It’s bad for your throat.”

  “No,” Martin Beck said, withdrawing his hand from the pocket of the dressing gown.

  He had been about to light another cigarette but now he left the packet where it was and thought: Inga’s right. Of course it’s not good for me. I smoke far too much. And look what it costs.

  “You smoke far too much,” she said. “And look what it costs.”

  “I
know,” he said.

  He wondered how many times she had said this during the sixteen years of their marriage. Even a guess seemed impossible.

  “Are the children asleep?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “Yes, it’s the summer vacation. Our daughter was late getting home last night. I don’t like her being out like that at night. Especially with that lunatic at large. She’s only a child.”

  “She will soon be sixteen,” he said. “And from what I gathered she was with a friend next door.”

  “Nilsson underneath said yesterday that parents who let their children run about without keeping an eye on them have only themselves to blame. He said that there are minorities in the community—exhibitionists and the like—who have to get rid of their aggressions, and that it’s the parents’ fault if the children get into trouble.”

  “Who’s Nilsson?”

  “The businessman who lives underneath us.”

  “Has he children?”

  “No.”

  “Well then.”

  “Just what I said. That he doesn’t know what it is to have children. How worried one always is.”

  “Why did you talk to him?”

  “Well, you have to be nice to your neighbors. It wouldn’t do any harm if you too were friendly to people sometimes. Anyway, they’re very nice people.”

  “It doesn’t sound like it,” Martin Beck said.

  Realizing that a quarrel was blowing up he quickly drained his cup of coffee.

  “I must hurry and dress,” he said, getting up.

  He went into the bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed. Inga washed up, and when he heard the water stop running and her footsteps approaching he retired swiftly into the bathroom and locked the door. Then he turned on the water, undressed and stretched out in the hot bath.

  He lay quite still and relaxed. Closing his eyes, he tried to recall the dream he had had. He thought of Gunvald Larsson. Neither he nor Kollberg liked Gunvald Larsson, whom they only worked with sporadically, and he suspected that even Melander found it hard to appreciate this colleague, though he gave no sign of it. Gunvald Larsson had an unusual capacity to annoy Martin Beck, who felt irritated even now when he thought of him. But in some way he had a feeling that his present annoyance had nothing to do with Gunvald Larsson personally, but was rather something he had said or done. Martin Beck had an idea that Gunvald Larsson had said or done something important, something that was decisive for the park murders. Whatever it was eluded him, and it was no doubt this fact which was irritating him now.

  He dismissed the thought and climbed out of the bath. It was probably all mixed up with his dream, he thought as he shaved.

  A quarter of an hour later he was on his way into town on the subway. He opened his morning paper. On the front page was an identikit picture of the girls’ murderer, drawn by the police artist from the meager description given by witnesses, chiefly Rolf Evert Lundgren. Nobody was satisfied with it. Least of all the artist and Rolf Evert Lundgren.

  Martin Beck held the paper away from him and looked at the picture with narrowed eyes. He wondered to what extent it really resembled the man they were hunting. They had also shown it to Mrs. Engström, who at first had said it wasn’t in the least like her dead husband but had then admitted there might be a resemblance.

  Beneath the picture was the incomplete description. Martin Beck read the short text.

  Suddenly he stiffened. Felt a wave of warmth pass through him. Held his breath. In a flash he knew what it was that had been worrying him ever since they caught the mugger, what had niggled at him and what it was that linked up with Gunvald Larsson.

  The description.

  Gunvald Larsson’s summary of the description Lundgren had given was almost word for word a repetition of something Martin Beck had heard him say on the phone over two weeks ago.

  He remembered standing by the filing cabinet, listening to Gunvald Larsson speaking on the phone. Melander had also been in the room.

  He could not recall the whole conversation, but seemed to remember that it had been with a woman who wanted to report a man who had been standing on a balcony in the apartment house opposite. Gunvald Larsson had asked her to describe the man and he had repeated the description in almost exactly the same words as Lundgren used when he was interrogated later. Also, the woman had said that the man kept watching children who were playing in the street.

  Martin Beck folded up the paper and stared out of the window, trying to recall what had been said and done that morning. He knew on which day the conversation had taken place, for soon afterwards he had driven down to the Central Station and taken the train to Motala. It was Friday, June 2, exactly a week before the murder in Vanadis Park.

  He tried to remember whether the woman on the phone had given her address. Probably she had, and in that case Gunvald Larsson must have written it down somewhere.

  As the train approached the city center Martin Beck regarded this bright idea of his with waning enthusiasm. The description was so defective that it could fit thousands of people. The fact that Gunvald Larsson had used the same wording on two entirely different occasions need not mean that it referred to the same person. The fact that a man stands on his balcony at all times of the day and night need not mean that he is a presumptive murderer. The fact that Martin Beck on previous occasions had had a flash of intuition which had turned out to provide the solution to difficult cases need not mean that it would do so this time.

  Still, it was worth looking into.

  Usually he got off at T-Centralen and walked over the Klaraberg viaduct to Kungsholmsgatan, but today he took a taxi.

  Gunvald Larsson was sitting at his desk drinking coffee, Kollberg half sat with one thigh over the edge of the desk, nibbling at a pastry. Martin Beck sat down in Melander’s chair, stared at Gunvald Larsson and said:

  “Do you remember that woman who called up the same day I went to Motala? She wanted to report a man who was standing on a balcony on the other side of the street?”

  Kollberg put the rest of the pastry into his mouth and stared at Martin Beck in astonishment.

  “Hell, yes,” Gunvald Larsson said. “That crazy bitch. What about her?”

  “Do you remember how she described him?”

  “No, I certainly don’t. How can I remember what all these nutty people say?”

  Kollberg swallowed with some difficulty and said:

  “What are you talking about?”

  Martin Beck waved him to be quiet and went on:

  “Think hard, Gunvald. It might be important.”

  Gunvald Larsson looked at him distrustfully.

  “Why? Okay, wait, and I’ll think.”

  After a while he said:

  “Now I’ve thought. No, I don’t remember. I don’t think there was anything special about him. He no doubt looked very ordinary.”

  He shoved the knuckle of his first finger into a nostril and frowned.

  “Wasn’t his fly undone? No, wait … No, it was his shirt. He had a white shirt and it was unbuttoned. That’s it, now I remember. The old woman said he had blue-gray eyes and then I asked how narrow the street was. And do you know what she said? That the street wasn’t narrow at all but that she looked at him through binoculars. Crazy. She was a peeper, of course, and she’s the one who ought to be locked up. Sitting gaping at men through binoculars …”

  “What are you talking about?” Kollberg asked again.

  “That’s what I’m wondering,” Gunvald Larsson said. “Why is that suddenly so important?”

  Martin Beck sat silent for a moment. Then he said:

  “I happened to think of that man on the balcony because Gunvald used the same wording when he repeated the woman’s description as when he summed up Lundgren’s description of the man in Vanadis Park. Thin hair brushed back, big nose, average height, white unbuttoned shirt, brown trousers, blue-gray eyes. Is that right?”

  “Maybe,” Gunvald Larsson said. “I don’t really rem
ember. But it fits Lundgren’s man anyway.”

  “You mean it could be the same person?” Kollberg asked doubtfully. “It’s not a very unusual description, is it?”

  Martin Beck shrugged.

  “No. It doesn’t tell us very much. But ever since we questioned Lundgren I’ve had a hunch that there’s a connection between the murders and that man on the balcony. It’s just that I couldn’t put my finger on it until today.”

  He stroked his chin and looked awkwardly at Kollberg.

  “It’s a very frail supposition. Not much to go on. I know that. But it might be worth while checking up on that man.”

  Kollberg got up and went over to the window. Stood with his back to it and folded his arms.

  “Well, frail suppositions sometimes …”

  Martin Beck was still looking at Gunvald Larsson.

  “Come on now, try and remember that conversation. What did the woman say when she called up?”

  Gunvald Larsson flung out his big hands.

  “That’s all she said. That she wanted to report a man who was standing on the balcony opposite. She thought it funny.”

  “Why did she think it funny?”

  “Because he was nearly always standing there. At night too. She said she watched him through binoculars. That he stood looking down into the street at the cars and at children playing. Then she lost her temper because I was not sufficiently interested. But why should I be interested? People have a right to stand on their balconies without the neighbors calling up the police. Eh? What the hell did she want me to do?”

  “Where did she live?” Martin Beck asked.

  “I don’t know,” Gunvald Larsson replied. “I’m not even sure she said.”

  “What was her name?” Kollberg asked.

  “I don’t know. Come to that, how the hell could I know?”

  “Didn’t you ask her?” Martin Beck said.

  “Yes, I suppose I did. One always does.”

  “Can’t you remember?” Kollberg said. “Think hard.”

  Martin Beck and Kollberg watched with close attention the visible expressions of Gunvald Larsson’s forced mental processes. He had his fair eyebrows drawn together so that they formed a continuous line above the clear blue eyes. He was also red in the face and looked as if he sat straining. After a while he said: