by Wahlöö, Per
‘Which boat is that?’ asked the County Police Superintendent.
‘Moore-McCormack's Brazil,’ said Martin Beck. ‘It comes here every summer.’
‘What building is that?’ asked the County Police Superintendent a little later.
‘It's an old people's home,’ said Kollberg. ‘Haile Selassie saluted it once when he was here before the war. He thought it was the Royal Palace.’
Seagulls, gracefully flapping their wings. Shots from the suburb Farsta, lines of people getting onto a bus with a plexiglass roof. Fishermen, sinisterly staring into the camera.
‘Who took the pictures?’ asked the County Police Superintendent.
‘Wilfred S. Bellamy, Jr from Klamath Falls, Oregon,’ said Martin Beck.
‘Never heard of it,’ said the County Superintendent.
Svartmans Street, the pump of Brunkeberg Street, underexposed.
‘Now,’ said the County Police Superintendent.
The Diana at Riddarholm's pier. Directly from the stern. Roseanna McGraw in a recognizable pose with her eyes looking straight up.
‘There she is,’ said the County Superintendent.
‘Oh God,’ said Kollberg.
The woman with the violet lips moved in from the left, with a toothy smile. Everything except for the shipping company's flag and the City Hall tower could be seen. White dots. Flickerings. Red-brown shadows. Darkness.
The lights were turned on and the man in the white coat glanced at the door.
‘Just one second. There's a little trouble with the projector.’
Ahlberg turned around and looked at Martin Beck.
‘Now it caught fire and burned up,’ said First Detective Assistant Lennart Kollberg, who was a mind reader.
At the same moment the lights went out.
‘Let's get it in focus, now, boys,’ said the County Superintendent.
Some more shots of the city, the backs of tourists, West Bridge, a pan shot of the bridge. Whitecaps on the water, the Swedish flag, some sailing boats in a race. A long sequence of Mrs Bellamy with her eyes closed sunning herself in a deck chair.
‘Watch the background,’ said the County Police Superintendent.
Martin Beck recognized several of the people on the film: none of them was Roseanna McGraw.
The Södertälje locks, a road bridge, a railway bridge. The mast seen from below with the shipping line's flag blowing lightly in the breeze against a blue sky. A motorsailer coming towards them with fish piled up on its deck, someone waving. The same motorsailer seen from the stern, Mrs Bellamy's wrinkled profile to the right in the picture.
Oxelösund, from the water, its modern church tower against the sky, the steel mill with billowing chimneys. The film rose and fell with the boat's slow, soft rolling and had a diffuse, grey-green tone.
‘The weather is worse now,’ said the County Superintendent.
The entire screen looked light grey, a quick turn of the camera, a bit of the bridge deck which was empty. The City of Gothenburg's flag, wet and slack, on the bow ahead in the distance. The helmsman in the picture, balancing a tray on the way down a ladder.
‘What now?’ asked the County Police Superintendent.
‘They're outside of Hävringe,’ said Martin Beck. ‘Some time around five or six o'clock. They've stopped because of the fog.’
A shot from the stern of the shelter deck, deserted deck chairs, light grey, damp. No people.
The camera to the right, then with a light turn, back again. Roseanna McGraw on the ladder-way leading up from A deck, still bare-legged and in sandals but with a thin, plastic raincoat over her dress and a scarf drawn over her hair. Past the lifeboat, right into the camera, a quick, indifferent look at the photographer, her face calm and relaxed, out of the picture to the right. A quick turn. Roseanna McGraw from the back, with her elbows on the railing, the weight of her body resting on her right foot, on her toes, scratching her left ankle with her right hand.
Just about twenty-four hours from her death. Martin Beck held his breath. No one in the room said anything. The woman from Lincoln faded away while white spots streamed over the screen. The film had come to an end.
The fog had disappeared. A strained, violet-lipped smile. Shots of an elderly couple in deck chairs with blankets over their knees. There was no sunshine but it was not raining either.
‘Who are they?’ asked the County Superintendent.
‘Two other Americans,’ said Kollberg. ‘Their name is Anderson.’
The boat in a lock. A picture from the bridge over the forward deck, a lot of backs. A member of the crew on land, bent forward, pushing the wheel for the lock chamber's gates. The camera flew on, the lock gates opened. Mrs Bellamy's wrinkled, double chin seen from below with the bridge and the name of the ship in the background.
Another shot from the bridge. A new lock. The forward deck full of people. A change of scene to a man talking busily and wearing a straw hat.
‘Cornfield, an American. He travelled alone,’ said Kollberg.
Martin Beck wondered if he had been the only one to see Roseanna McGraw in the scene that had just passed. She had been standing by the starboard railing, leaning on her elbows as usual, dressed in slacks and a dark sweater.
Shots of the locks continued but she was not in any of them.
‘Where would that be?’ asked the County Superintendent.
‘Karlsborg,’ answered Ahlberg. ‘Not at Lake Vättern though. This is a bit west of Söderköping. They left Söderköping at a quarter to ten. This ought to have been around eleven o'clock.’
A new lock. Another view of the forward deck. There she was again. Her sweater was black and had a turtleneck collar. A lot of people stood near her. She turned her face towards the camera and seemed to laugh. A fast change of scene. A shot of the water. A long sequence with Mrs Bellamy and the Andersons. At one point the colonel from North Mälarstrand walked by, between the subject and the eye of the camera.
Martin Beck's neck was perspiring. Ten hours left. Had she laughed?
A short shot of the forward deck with only three or four persons on it. The boat was out on a lake. White spots. End of that roll.
The County Police Superintendent turned around.
‘Roxen?’
‘No, Asplången,’ said Ahlberg.
A drawbridge. Buildings on the shore. People on shore, waving and staring
‘Norsholm,’ said Ahlberg. ‘It's a quarter past three now.’
The camera stayed stubbornly on the shore. Trees, cows, houses. A little girl, seven or eight years old, walked on the path along the edge of the canal. A blue cotton summer dress, two pigtails and wooden shoes. Someone on board threw a coin on the path. She picked it up, curtsied shyly, and looked confused. More coins were thrown. The child picked them up. She ran a few steps to keep up. A woman's hand with a shining half-dollar between two sinewy fingers with crimson coloured fingernails. The camera came back again. Mrs Bellamy with an exalted expression, throwing coins. The girl on the shore with her entire right hand full of money, totally confused, with her astonished blue eyes.
Martin Beck didn't see it. He heard Ahlberg take a deep breath, and Kollberg move in his chair.
Behind the do-gooding woman from Klamath Falls, Oregon, Roseanna McGraw had crossed the shelter deck from left to right. She had not been alone. At her left, and pressed closely to her, there had been another person. A man in a sports cap. He was a head taller than her and his profile could be seen during a brief tenth of a second against the light background.
Everyone had seen him.
‘Stop the film,’ said the County Police Superintendent.
‘No, no,’ said Ahlberg.
The camera did not return to the boat. A number of green shores glided past. Meadows, trees, tall grass blowing in the breeze, until the summer countryside faded away behind a lot of white spots.
Martin Beck took his handkerchief out of his breast pocket, crumpled it in his hands, and dried his neck.
/> The picture that covered the screen was new and surprising. The canal lay before and below them; it curved through a long, soft distance between tree-covered shores. Along the left side ran a path, and far off to the left some horses were grazing behind a fence. A group of people were walking along the path.
Ahlberg spoke before the County Superintendent had a chance to.
‘This is west of Roxen now. The boat has passed Berg's locks. The photographer must have gone ahead to Ljungsbro during that time. There is the last lock before the one at Borensberg. It's about seven o'clock in the evening now.’
The white bow with the Gothenburg flag appeared in the foreground far ahead. The people on the path came nearer.
‘Thank God,’ said Ahlberg.
Only Martin Beck knew what he meant. The man who took the film had an alternative. He could have got off the boat and gone with a guide who showed people around a monastery in Vreta during the time the boat was in the lock chamber.
Now there was a shot of the entire boat, moving slowly along the canal, inertly, with a grey-white plume of smoke which was reflected against the evening light.
But no one in the projection room looked at the boat any longer. The group of passengers on the path had come so close that separate individuals could be discerned. Martin Beck immediately identified Günes Fratt, the twenty-two year old medical student from Ankara. He walked ahead of the others, waving to the person who was following him.
Then he saw her.
About forty-five feet behind the main group there were two figures. One of them was Roseanna McGraw, still wearing light slacks and a dark sweater. Beside her, taking long steps, walked the man in the sports cap.
They were still quite far away.
‘Let there be enough film,’ thought Martin Beck.
They came nearer. The position of the camera did not change.
Could they make out the faces?
He saw the tall man take her by the arm, as if to help her past a puddle of water in the path.
Saw them stop and look at the boat, which passed by and began to hide them from view. They were gone. But Mr Bellamy from Klamath Falls was more stubborn than ever and held the position of his camera. Roseanna McGraw passed the boat, could be seen completely and clearly down on the path. She stopped walking and nodded her head, stretched out her right arm towards the person who was still hidden, but who then appeared. There.
The change of scene came as a shock. The sluice gate in the foreground, around and about, on the periphery, observers' legs. He thought he saw a pair of light trousers, feet in sandals and a pair of low shoes right beside them.
The picture was gone. It flickered slightly. Several people sighed. Martin Beck twisted his handkerchief between his fingers.
But it wasn't over yet. A somewhat underexposed shot of a face with violet lips and sunglasses filled the screen, and then disappeared to the right. Along the port side of A deck a waitress in a white blouse banged on a gong. Roseanna McGraw stepped out from behind her coming from the door to the dining room, wrinkled her forehead, looked up at the sky, laughed, and turned towards someone who was hidden. Not completely. They could see an arm in speckled tweed, a bit of a shoulder. Then came the white spots, and then the film faded and ended in grey, grey, grey.
She had laughed. He was certain of it. At seven o'clock on the evening of the fourth of July. Ten minutes later she had eaten beefsteak, fresh potatoes, strawberries and milk, while a Swedish colonel and a German major had exchanged viewpoints on the siege of Stalingrad.
The screen was flooded with light. More locks. A blue sky with floating clouds. The captain with his hand on the telegraph machine.
‘Sjötorp,’ said Ahlberg. ‘Twelve o'clock the next day. Soon they'll be out in Lake Vänern.’
Martin Beck remembered all the details. One hour later it had stopped raining. Roseanna McGraw was dead. Her body had been lying naked and violated in the mud near the breakwater at Borenshult for nearly twelve hours.
On the canal boat's deck people were stretched out in deck chairs, talking, laughing, and looking up at the sun. A wrinkled, upper-class woman from Klamath Falls, Oregon, smiled violently towards the camera.
Now they were in Lake Vänern. People moved about here and there. The repulsive young man from the examination room in Motala emptied a sack of ashes into the lake. His face was sooty and he looked angrily at the photographer.
No woman in a dark sweater and light pants and sandals.
No tall man in a tweed jacket and a sports cap.
Roll after roll of film went by. Vänersborg in the evening sun. The Diana tied up there at the pier. A shot of a deck boy going on land. The Tröllhatten canal.
‘There's a motor bike on the forward deck,’ said Ahlberg.
The boat lay tied up at Lilla Bomen in Gothenburg in the clear morning sun, at the stern of the full rigger, the Viking. A shot of the forward deck, people going down the gangway. The motor bike was no longer there.
Another shot, the woman with the violet lips sitting stiffly in one of Gothenburg's sightseeing boats, a pan over the Garden Association's flowers, white spots running vertically over the screen.
Fade-out. The end. The lights turned on.
After fifteen seconds of total silence Commissioner Hammar got out of his chair, looked from the County Police Superintendent to the Public Prosecutor and over at Larsson.
‘Lunchtime, gentlemen. You are guests of the government.’
He looked blandly at the others and said: ‘I guess that you will want to remain here for a little while.’
Stenström left too. He was actually working on a different case.
Kollberg looked questioningly at Melander.
‘No, I've never seen that man before.’
Ahlberg held his right hand in front of his face.
‘A deck passenger,’ he said.
He turned around and looked at Martin Beck.
‘Do you remember the man that showed us around the boat in Bohus? The draperies that could be drawn if any of the deck passengers wanted to sleep on one of the sofas?’
Martin Beck nodded.
‘The motor bike wasn't there in the beginning. The first time I saw it was in the locks after Söderköping,’ said Melander.
He took his pipe out of his mouth and emptied it.
‘The guy in the sports cap could be seen there too,’ he said. ‘Once, from the back.’
When they ran the film the next time, they saw that he was right.
20
The first snow of winter had begun to fall. It flew against the windows in large, white flakes which melted immediately and ran down the window panes in broad rills. It murmured in the rain gutters and heavy drops splashed against the metal window sills.
In spite of the fact that it was twelve noon, it was so dark in the room that Martin Beck had to turn on his reading light. It spread a pleasant light over his desk and the open file in front of him. The rest of the room lay in darkness.
Martin Beck put out his last cigarette, lifted up the ash tray and blew the ashes from the top of his desk.
He felt hungry and regretted that he had not gone to the cafeteria with Kollberg and Melander.
Ten days had passed since they had seen Kafka's film and they were still waiting for something to happen. Just as everything else in this case had, the new clue had disappeared in a jungle of question marks and doubtful testimony. Examination of witnesses had been conducted almost completely by Ahlberg and his staff, very carefully and with a great deal of energy. But the results had been meagre. The most positive thing that could be said was that they had not heard anything to negate their theory that a deck passenger had come on board the boat in Mem, Söderköping or Norsholm, and had stayed on the boat all the way to Gothenburg. Nor was there anything to contradict their assumption that this deck passenger had been a man of average build, somewhat above average height, and that he had been wearing a sports cap, a grey speckled tweed jacket, grey gabardin
e trousers, and brownish shoes. Or, in addition, that he had a blue Mo nark motor bike.
The first mate, whose testimony was the most helpful, thought that he had sold a ticket to someone who reminded him of the man in the pictures. He did not know when. He wasn't even sure if it had been this past summer. It could have been one of the previous summers. He did have a weak recollection, however, that the man, if indeed it was the same one that they meant, could have had a bicycle or a motor bike with him and, in addition, some fishing equipment and other stuff which could point to the fact that he was a sport fisherman.
Ahlberg had heard this testimony himself and had pushed the witness to the boundary of the conceivable. A copy of the record was in Martin Beck's file.
AHLBERG: Is it usual to carry deck passengers on a cruise?
WITNESS: It was more usual in past years but there are always a few.
A: Where do they usually get on?
W: Wherever the boat stops, or at the locks.
A: What is the most natural stretch for deck passengers to stay on board?
W: Any part of the trip. A lot of people on bicycles or hikers get on in Motala or Vadstena to get across Lake Vättern.
A: And others?
W: Yes, what shall I say? We used to take vacationers from Stockholm to Oxelösund, and from Lidköping to Vänersborg, but we stopped that.
A: Why?
W: It got too crowded. The regular passengers have paid a good price. They shouldn't have to be crowded out by a bunch of old women and young people running around with their thermoses and lunch baskets.
A: Is there anything to contradict the fact that a deck passenger could have come on board at Söderköping?
W: Not at all. He could have come on board anywhere. At any lock, too. There are sixty-five locks on the way. In addition, we tie up at several different places.