Hard Cheese

by Ulf Durling

  I’d been thinking about this—and the joyful prospect of grilling Blom really hard—while I was driving the children over earlier to see my old man. I was feeling very pleased with myself, and it was probably for that reason I was foolish enough to bare my soul about official business. My father took it without blinking and a few hours later the doctor and Lundgren had both been brought in.

  However, before my third-degree interrogation with Blom,-I —hardworking as I am—took the time to visit another person for a less dramatic chat.

  After her cleaning duties, Blom’s maid had already gone home to her husband by twelve o’clock, but it was necessary, in my opinion, to ask her about one or two things. Ivehed had spent some time with her during the morning, but that examination was probably not worth very much, seen from a police point of view.

  She lived a couple of floors up in a housing co-operative. The name on the door was Svensson.

  A teenage girl opened the door. She just stood there, her mouth open, and stared. I said who I was and her chin dropped even more. It was as if she’d never seen a policeman in her life.

  Her mother came hurrying over to ask me in. The girl left and I hung up my trench-coat. I had bought one with flaps and a belt and stuff, just like all the cops in the movies wear. You have to stay up-to-date.

  Loud pop music was streaming out of a nearby room. The door was open and I understood that it was Miss Svensson’s room, for there were a lot of horse pictures on the walls. Among the gee-gees there was some with unusually long manes and a few others that looked somewhat human. I recognized one. Paul Anka was his name.

  As I entered the living-room her mother steered me in the direction of a rocking-chair, in which sat a toothless old hag with watery eyes and a red, runny nose. She grabbed hold of my tie with a bony hand.

  ‘Are you Hadar?’ she asked.

  ‘No, mother,’ said Mrs. Svensson. ‘Hadar is dead.’

  ‘Mum is here for a cup of coffee,’ she explained to me. ‘She lives in the old people’s home at Ängsbyvägen.’

  ‘Ekgården,’ her mother whimpered.

  Mrs. Svensson and I sat down at the other end of the room.

  ‘You do cleaning at The Little Boarding-House,’ I began.

  ‘Yes, for the past fifteen years.’

  ‘Have you ever suspected that Blom could be … how should I say … a little bit imprudent?’

  She looked at me in an unappreciative way.

  ‘Dishonest,’ I blurted out.

  A negative look crept into her eyes and she fell silent. When I raised my eyebrows and smiled encouragingly in order to appear nice, she muttered something about motes and beams in the eyes, which I vaguely recalled from our school Bible class.

  We plodded through the subject for a while but got nowhere. At last I realised she was quoting stuff from the Bible. Just to keep up with her I began to search for quotations from my own memory.

  It turned out that I wasn’t well versed in the Scriptures, and when it came to hymns, I only remembered Den blomstertid nu kommer. It deals with the time flowers arrive in the summer and we used to sing it at the end of school term, but I found no reason to recite it then.

  It was obvious that Mrs. Svensson didn’t want to talk about anything to do with her employer. I began to ask her a little bit about Nilsson.

  ‘At what time did you arrive at the hotel this morning?’

  ‘Seven o’clock.’

  ‘And the back door was locked?’

  ‘Yes, as usual. I have my own key. The other one was hanging on its hook inside the door. I told the constable all that this morning. I started to wonder when Nilsson didn’t let me into room number 5.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he was very particular about getting the room cleaned. He knew that it had to be done before twelve, because that’s when I leave.’

  ‘Ekgården,’ said a voice from the rocking-chair.

  ‘Did he say anything about expecting you this morning?’

  ‘No.…’

  Suddenly she stopped speaking and turned red. She looked over at the old woman and then started talking with small syllables.

  ‘He was quite impertinent,’ she whispered. ‘Yesterday he was shameless enough to propose that on Sunday, which is the day of rest, we could.…’

  ‘What?’ I wondered, most interested.

  ‘But the Lord’s judgment fell on him and he was called hence!’ she announced triumphantly.

  ‘Ekgården,’ cackled the old woman.

  ‘How was he otherwise?’

  ‘Not very nice, I must admit. But he kept his things in order. He was very careful with his medicines as well.’

  ‘What were his pills for?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I didn’t get any more out of her. She hadn’t noticed anything suspicious at the hotel during the morning hours. All the windows on the ground floor had been locked.

  I didn’t get anything more about Nilsson, either, but I hadn’t expected to. The only thing I had hoped for was perhaps a cup of coffee.

  When I left the room I had to shake hands with the old crone again.

  ‘Bye, bye, Hadar,’ she croaked.

  From the girl’s room came gramophone music blasting at full volume.

  ‘Children will be children,’ her mother said in a spiritual way.

  ‘Tryggare kan ingen vara,’ I quoted a hymn about how safe the children of God are, in an attempt to be clever. I shut the door as fast as I could. It’s always good to have the last word.

  That was that. The visit was a total waste of time.

  We were due to gather, as agreed, in the dining room at six o’clock.

  During the afternoon, the ambulance had taken Nilsson’s body to the morgue. Photos had been developed, though I don’t know for what purpose, and our fingerprint expert had gone over the room. We would hear from him shortly. Nilsson’s personal belongings had been collected in a big plastic bag and sent after him to the morgue. Since that part of the case had been concluded, I saved the meeting with the medical examiner for the following day.

  Melin arrived first. I turned up at the same time as Ivehed, and Gustavsson emerged from a closet, where he had been rummaging among a lot of spare beds.

  All the guests were in the boarding-house and Blom was walking about in his felt slippers. It’s an understatement to say that he looked uncomfortable. I took the opportunity to prepare him on the way in.

  ‘The performance will soon begin, just a few short minutes to go!’

  He grinned anxiously and obsequiously and opened the door to the dinner room for me. Unfortunately, I happened to tread on his foot as I walked past him. Just bad luck, it wasn’t really intentional. The contact was unpleasant for me as well.

  ‘I’m sorry, Superintendent.’

  ‘Detective Sergeant!’

  When the four of us were gathered and had lit our cigarettes, I gave a short speech.

  ‘Well, this is quite a nasty incident. We can’t exclude a serious crime, so we must apply all our resources as fast as possible.’

  I spoke in a loud voice and at the same time I gave Gustavsson a sign. While I was talking, he sneaked over to the door and when I nodded he opened it. Needless to say, Blom was standing there eavesdropping. He tried to compose his flabby features and looked very embarrassed.

  ‘If we need anything, we’ll call you,’ I roared.

  He slouched away and Gustavsson shut the door again. I continued.

  ‘Now listen!’ I continued. ‘A man died here tonight, but it’s not a question of murder. Some of the masterminds here have demonstrated their total inability to comprehend this and so I repeat: Nilsson’s death was an accident. Does anyone need it in writing? Ivehed?’

  ‘No, chief.’

  ‘Melin?’

  He shook his head. Afterwards I came to thinking that maybe he couldn’t read.

  ‘Good! We’ve had our eyes on this third-class boarding-house for a couple of years and
this situation gives us the opportunity to find out about Blom. Do you understand what I’m saying? In plain language: under the pretext of a murder investigation we will observe this place, so you will all shut up and not talk about our real intention. The public at large and the press must be kept out of it as much as possible. I’m through with the Nilsson case, but it doesn’t mean I’m not interested in who he was drinking with in the room yesterday evening. Gustavsson is to collect information about Nilsson and his contacts in the town, find out why he was here, check those telephone numbers, investigate why he needed the medicine and so on. Ivehed is to enquire in the area about witnesses who may have seen or heard something. He is to do it as discreetly and tactfully as possible. If people don’t answer when he knocks, he’s free to smash the door down, just to keep his hand in. There may be new stiffs piling up in the garden, beginning at the western corner. Melin and I constitute the brains trust. Any clever questions?’

  Gustavsson was the only one who had anything to say.

  ‘Why are you so interested in the visitor now, if there’s no crime?’

  ‘We’ve got to have someone to hunt, for heaven’s sake. The show must go on.’

  3

  I’ve been stuck in this hole now for seven years. Since I joined the police, that is. I was born and bred here and I know the town like the back of my hand. Most of what happens here is totally without interest. No action. It became more tolerable when we got TV. Not many new things happen at the office either, but it’s strange that we haven’t been able to catch Blom up till now. We’ve long suspected that he’s mixed up in unlawful bootlegging and possibly other dubious activity. This Sunday I decided the time was ripe for putting the screws on him.

  He was unsteady and anxious when he entered, and that was what I had hoped for. He was sweaty as usual and was continually wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. He claimed he’d been running a temperature since a day ago and that he thought that he’d caught pneumonia. He coughed in an artificial way.

  ‘It’s about time we got a clearer picture of one or two things, Blom. Do you prefer it to be here or at the station?’

  ‘Whatever the superintendent wants. I have nothing to hide.’

  ‘We can turn a blind eye to some things, but what’s just happened is the last straw. Now I want answers to my questions and the answers have to please me. Is that understood?’

  ‘You’ll be satisfied.’

  ‘I’ve been dissatisfied for a long time.’

  ‘Without any cause whatever, I can assure the superintendent.’

  ‘I’m a detective sergeant. Well, let’s start with why you watch your back door every night until one o’clock in the morning? Why have you put a twenty centimetre layer of gravel on the pathway? Why have you put up a window-mirror? What purpose does the espalier serve?’

  ‘I don’t want anyone to get into the house. Nobody unauthorized, that is.’

  ‘Horseshit!’

  ‘That’s the truth. Why would I go to great pains to keep a strict watch, if it wasn’t for the benefit of the guests?’

  ‘I’ll ask the questions. How does it benefit the guests if you hang out of the window in the back of the house halfway through the night?’

  ‘My goodness, a murderer slipped inside yesterday evening and you doubt my intentions.’

  ‘The truth at last! That I doubt your intentions. Very well worded, Blom! Maybe the watch is deliberately intended to be ineffective!’

  ‘Would I keep the doors wide open and allow a lot of riff-raff to come and go as they like?’

  ‘Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing?’

  He didn’t reply. I think he understood what I meant. He wet his lips with his tongue and his eyes avoided my steady gaze. They shifted and roamed about the room like a billiard-ball bouncing around until it hit a pocket.

  ‘Do you know what Melin is doing right now?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Listen!’

  I opened the window and at first he looked relieved when the clean, fresh air streamed into the room. Then we both heard the clatter of gravel. Blom turned pale.

  ‘This is a murder investigation, Blom, and because of that we have to go over your house with a fine-tooth comb from the basement to the attic. Right now we’re turning the garden upside down, starting with the gravel path.’

  ‘I have nothing to do with Axel Nilsson.’

  ‘Perhaps not, but we can’t turn a blind eye to whatever turns up during our investigation. Have I made myself clear?’

  Now he really was on the defensive. It was a bluff on my part but it could work. He was thinking frantically and I was helping him to do it in my own way….

  ‘It could take quite a while before we find the connection under the gravel. That’s where we’re starting. Perhaps we could avoid a lot of inconvenience and not have to excavate the whole path and ruin the lawn if you … my lads are careful, but quite ruthless. I’ve had quite a few complaints about that.’

  ‘It’s nothing criminal.’

  ‘Excavating the backyard? No, but installing a burglar alarm in a particular way could be, perhaps. I don’t really know. I must ask the public prosecutor tomorrow.’

  ‘Well, before I gravelled the path a couple of years ago, I put a few contact plates down. They’re connected to an electric bell wiring system. When anyone treads on them I hear a signal in my room. How did you find out?’

  ‘We know almost everything at this point, Blom. It was wise of you to remember a little bit more, it is about time.’

  The surveillance had seemed to be suspicious from the very beginning. It seemed to be preposterous to watch the back door for hours at a time through the window, even if possible disturbers of the peace did enter the field of vision when they rounded the espalier and even if the window-mirror made it a little bit easier. Furthermore, I had been sceptical about the supernatural hearing ability that could catch footsteps on the incredibly well-raked gravel path outside, with or without an open window, and with a radio blaring. Why had Blom been so anxious to arrange such inconvenient methods, when it was so much simpler to have fixed an alarm device? Hadn’t Blom let the cat out of the bag when he explained that no murderer could have avoided his watch the past evening? With that he had to explain how such a watch was performed and it turned out to be so complicated that we suspected mischief. Why go to that much trouble?

  ‘How about taking it another step further, Blom? Why is it so important to control everybody who comes in? I guess that nobody slips out without your knowledge either. The stairs are creaking, aren’t they? Your door is ajar and you have good hearing.’

  ‘As I told you, I want to keep my house in good order.’

  ‘Isn’t it more like the other way round: you want extra visitors here?’

  ‘Why would I want that?’

  ‘To boost your income a little bit. How many rooms have you got?’

  ‘Ten.’

  ‘How many double rooms?’

  ‘Two. Number 1 and number 5.’

  ‘Disregarding the prices, isn’t it strange that there is such a small difference between single and double rooms here?’

  ‘The double rooms are bigger.’

  ‘Just a few square centimetres. Strictly speaking there are just ten single rooms, isn’t that the case?’

  ‘Not true. There are two double rooms, but all right, they are not very big. The guests don’t mind. On the contrary most of them are very contented with all my facilities.’

  ‘I am glad to hear that. And if the double rooms are occupied and another couple who want a double room overnight arrives?’

  ‘In such a case, I must direct them to the Private Hotel or to Videll’s Lodgings for Visitors.’

  ‘But you don’t do that?’

  ‘Of course I do. Once in a while I may put in an additional bed.’

  ‘Does it fit?’

  ‘If the guests put up with it, yes.’

  ‘How many extra beds are there
?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. A couple of them.’

  ‘You have six extra beds in a space inside the TV room.’

  ‘Yes, that’s possible.’

  Now was the time to make a decisive thrust. Blom had recovered from the exposure of the alarm system and seemed to be relieved when I rapidly dropped the subject.

  ‘This place has a bad reputation, Blom.’

  I raised a warning hand when he started to object.

  ‘You’re keen on keeping the bad reputation alive. It’s here that the men in town put up when they’ve got a playmate and need a chambre separée for some entertainment exercises. In reality you don’t have any double rooms, and you put up signs prohibiting visitors to the rooms after ten o’clock. So they pick a single room and smuggle the partner into the hotel through the rear door. Nothing prevents them from entering that way after nightfall. That’s what they think. But you know it, because you’re the one who’s admitted them into the trap.’

  Now he was seriously frightened. Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead and there was a twitch round the corner of his mouth. There was no point in wasting this opportunity. It was just piling it on.

  ‘Then you knock at the door and enter, but not until they have undressed and it’s after ten o’clock. The man has hardly been able to button his flies and the woman hasn’t had time to cover her charms with the sheet.’

  I gave him a few seconds to digest my words and went on:

  ‘Damned if I know what you threaten them with, perhaps the police. You show them your damned sign on the inside of the door—where, by the way, there’s a hook so that the sign is usually covered by clothes. To begin with, you talk about the reputation of the hotel and about scandal and corruption of morals, which unfortunately is true. After some discussion you make an exception. You put in an extra bed and charge for a double room. Am I right?’

  I was right. It was obvious.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, I’m only trying to help them. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘OK, you substitute one lack of morals for another. I’ll find out if that’s unlawful. You just need to know that I know. We also know that you’re selling alcohol on the sly, and my lads are right now looking for the stock. It means profits on the side, and when the assessment authority has taken a look at your income tax returns of the last few years, we’ll see what happens to your right to run a hotel. We’ll keep an eye on you. Our investigation into the murder will continue the whole week and we will be right here. You mustn’t leave the hotel and we may at any time have to interrogate you about Nilsson’s death. Any questions?’