by Wahlöö, Per
‘That's the tenth time he's called today,’ said Kollberg.
Martin Beck picked up the receiver and looked at the clock. One minute to eleven.
It was Sonja Hansson. Her voice was hoarse and quivered a little.
‘Martin! He's here again.’
‘We'll be right there,’ he said.
Sonja Hansson pushed the telephone away and looked at the clock. One minute past eleven. In four minutes Ahlberg would come through the door and relieve her of that helpless, creeping feeling of unpleasantness she had at the thought of being alone. She wiped her perspiring palms on her cotton dressing gown. The cloth clung to her hips with the dampness.
She walked softly into the dark bedroom and over to the window. The parquet floor felt cold and hard under her bare feet. She stood on her toes, supported herself with her right hand against the window frame, and peeked carefully through the thin curtains. A number of people were on the street, several of them in front of the restaurant across the way, but she didn't see Bengtsson for at least a minute and a half. He turned off Runeberg Street and continued straight out onto Birger Jarls Street. Right in the middle of the trolley tracks he turned sharply to the right. After about half a minute, he disappeared from her sight. He had moved very fast, with long, gliding steps. He looked directly in front of him as if he didn't see anything around him or was concentrating on something in particular.
She went back into the living room which seemed welcoming with its light and warmth and the familiar accessories she liked. She lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. In spite of the fact that she was fully conscious of what she had taken on, she was also a little relieved when he walked by and didn't stop at the telephone booth. She had already waited too long for that clanging telephone ring which would smash her peace of mind into splinters and bring an irrational and unpleasant element into her home. Now she hoped that it would never come, that everything was wrong, that she could go back to her regular work routine and never have to think about that man again.
She picked up the sweater she had been knitting for the last three weeks, walked over to the mirror and held it to her shoulders. It would soon be finished. She looked at the clock again. Ahlberg was now about ten seconds late. He wouldn't break any records today. She smiled because she knew that would irritate him. She met her own calm smile in the mirror and saw the small beads of perspiration that glittered along her hairline.
Sonja Hansson walked through the hall and into the bathroom. She stood with her feet spread apart on the cool tile floor, bent forward and washed her face and hands with cold water.
When she turned off the tap she heard Ahlberg clattering with his key in the front door. He was already more than a minute late.
With the towel still in her hand she stepped out into the hall, stretched out her other hand, unlocked the safety latch, and threw open the door.
‘Thank God. I'm so glad that you're here,’ she said.
It wasn't Ahlberg.
With a smile still on her lips she backed slowly into the apartment. The man called Folke Bengtsson didn't let go of her with his eyes as he locked the door behind him and put on the safety chain.
29
Martin Beck was the last man out and already through the door when the telephone rang again. He ran back and grabbed the receiver.
‘I'm in the lobby of the Ambassador Hotel,’ said Stenström. ‘I've lost him. Somewhere outside here in the crowd. It can't have been more than four or five minutes ago.’
‘He's already on Runeberg Street. Get there as fast as you can.’
Martin Beck threw the phone down and rushed out to the stairs after the others. He climbed in the car past the back of Ahlberg's front seat. They always sat in the same places. It was important that Ahlberg got out first.
Kollberg put the car in gear but had to release the clutch immediately and swerve to avoid a grey police truck which was coming in. Then he got under way and turned up Regering Street between a green Volvo and a beige Volkswagen. Martin Beck supported his arms on his knees and stared out at the cold grey drizzle. He was excited and alert both mentally and physically but felt collected and well prepared like a well-trained athlete before a try for a new record.
Two seconds later the green Volvo ahead of them collided with a small delivery truck which came out of a one-way street, the wrong way. The Volvo swung sharply to the left one second before the collision and Kollberg, who had already started to pass, was also forced to turn to the left. He reacted quickly and didn't even touch the car in front of him but the other cars came to a stop right across the intersection and very close to each other. Kollberg had already put his car in reverse when the beige Volkswagen smashed into their left front door. The driver had stopped suddenly, which was a grave error in terms of the congestion at the intersection.
It was not a serious accident. In ten minutes several traffic policemen would be there with their tape measures. They would write down the names and the licence numbers, ask to see drivers' licences, identity cards and radio licences. Then they would write ‘body damage’ in their official books, shrug their shoulders and go away. If none of the drivers who were now yelling and shaking their fists at one another smelled of whisky, they would then get back into their cars and drive off in their own directions.
Ahlberg swore. It took ten seconds for Martin Beck to understand why. They couldn't get out. Both doors were blocked as effectively as if they had been soldered together.
In the same second that Kollberg took the desperate decision to back out of the confusion, a number 55 bus stopped behind them. With that, the only way of retreat was cut off. The man in the beige Volkswagen had come out into the rain, clearly furious and loaded with arguments. He was out of sight and was probably somewhere behind the other two cars.
Ahlberg pressed both of his feet against the door and pushed until he groaned, but the beige-coloured car was still in gear and couldn't be budged.
Three or four nightmare-like minutes followed. Ahlberg yelled and waved his arms. The rain lay like a frozen grey membrane over the back window. Outside a shadowy policeman could be seen in a shining dark raincoat.
Finally several observers seemed to understand the situation and began to push the beige Volkswagen away. Their movements were fumbling and slow. A policeman tried to stop them. Then, after a minute he tried to help them. Now there was a distance of three feet between the cars but the hinge had stuck and the door wouldn't move. Ahlberg swore and pushed. Martin Beck felt the perspiration run from his neck, down under his collar, and collect in a cold runner between his shoulder blades.
The door opened, slowly and creakingly.
Ahlberg tumbled out. Martin Beck and Kollberg tried to get out of the door at the same time and somehow managed to do so.
The policeman stood ready with his pad in his outstretched hand.
‘What happened here?’
‘Shut up,’ Kollberg screamed.
Fortunately he was recognized.
‘Run,’ yelled Ahlberg, who was already fifteen feet ahead of them.
Groping hands tried to stop them. Kollberg ran into an old man selling frankfurters from a box resting on his stomach.
Four hundred and fifty yards, Martin Beck thought. That would take a trained sportsman only a minute. But they weren't trained sportsmen. And they weren't running on a cinder track, but on an asphalt street in below-freezing rain. Ahlberg was still fifteen feet ahead of them at the next corner when he tripped and nearly fell. That cost him his lead and they continued, side by side down the slope. Martin Beck was beginning to see stars. He heard Kollberg's heavy panting right behind him.
They turned the corner, crashed through the low shrubbery, and saw it, all three of them at the same time. Two flights up in the apartment house on Runeberg Street the weak, light rectangle which showed that the lamp in the bedroom was on and the shades were drawn.
The red stars before his eyes had disappeared and the pain in his chest was gone. When Martin Be
ck crossed the street he knew that he was running faster than he had ever run in his life even though Ahlberg was nine feet ahead of him and Kollberg by his side. When he got to the house, Ahlberg already had the downstairs door open.
The elevator was not on the ground floor. They hadn't thought about using it anyway. On the first flight landing he noted two things: he was no longer getting air into his lungs and Kollberg was not at his side. The plan worked, the damned perfect plan, he thought as he climbed the last stairs with the key already in his hand.
The key turned once in the lock and he pushed against the door which opened a few inches. He saw the safety chain stretched across the crevice and from inside the apartment heard no human sound, only a continuous, peculiarly metallic telephone signal. Time had stopped. He saw the pattern on the rug in the hall, a towel and a shoe.
‘Move away,’ said Ahlberg hoarsely but surprisingly calmly.
It sounded as if the whole world had cracked into pieces when Ahlberg shot through the safety chain. He was still pushing against the door and fell, rather than rushed, through the hall and the living room.
The scene was as unreal and as static as a tableau in Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors. It seemed as immutable as an overexposed photograph, drowned in flooding white light, and he took in every one of its morbid details.
The man still had his overcoat on. His brown hat lay on the floor, partly hidden by the torn, blue and white dressing gown.
This was the man who had killed Roseanna McGraw. He stood bent forward over the bed with his left foot on the floor and his right knee on the bed, pressed heavily against the woman's left thigh, just above her knee. His large, sunburned hand lay over her chin and mouth with two fingers pressed around her nose. That was his left hand. His right hand rested somewhat lower down. It sought her throat and had just found it.
The woman lay on her back. Her wide-open eyes could be seen through his outstretched fingers. A thin stream of blood ran along her cheek. She had brought up her right leg and was pressing against his chest with the sole of her foot. She was naked. Every muscle in her body was straining. The tendons in her body stood out as clearly as on an anatomical model.
A hundredth of a second, but long enough for each detail to become etched into his consciousness and remain there always. Then the man in the overcoat let go his grip, jumped to his feet, balanced himself and turned around, all in a single, lightning quick movement.
Martin Beck saw, for the first time, the person he had hunted for six months and nineteen days. A person called Folke Bengtsson who only slightly reminded him of the man he had examined in Kollberg's office one afternoon shortly before Christmas.
His face was stiff and naked; his pupils contracted; his eyes flew back and forth like those of a trapped animal. He stood leaning forward with his knees bent and his body swaying rhythmically.
But once again — only a tenth of a second — he cast himself forward with a choked, gurgling sob. At the same moment Martin Beck hit him on the collarbone with the back side of his right hand and Ahlberg threw himself over him from behind and tried to grab his arms.
Ahlberg was hindered by his own pistol and Martin Beck was caught unawares by the strength of the attack, partly because the only thing he could think about was the woman on the bed who didn't move and just lay there, stretched out and limp, with her mouth open and her eyes half-closed.
The man's head hit him in the diaphragm with an amazing force and he was thrown backwards against the wall at the same time as the madman broke out of Ahlberg's incomplete grip and rushed for the door, still crouching and with a speed in his long stride that was just as unbelievable as everything else in this absurd situation.
The entire time the unceasing telephone signal continued.
Martin Beck was never nearer to him than half a flight of stairs and the distance kept increasing.
Martin Beck heard the fleeing man below him but didn't see him at all until he reached the ground floor. By that time the man had already gone through the glass door near the entry and was very close to the relative freedom of the street.
But Kollberg was there. He took two steps away from the wall and the man in the overcoat aimed a powerful blow at his face.
One second later Martin Beck knew that the end was finally here. He heard very clearly the short, wild scream of pain when Kollberg grabbed the man's arm and bent it all the way up to his shoulder with a fast, merciless twist. The man in the overcoat lay powerless on the marble floor.
Martin Beck stood leaning against the wall and listened to the police sirens which seemed to be coming from several directions at the same time. A picket had already been set up and out on the pavement several uniformed policemen were warding off the stubborn group of curious bystanders.
He looked at the man called Folke Bengtsson who was half lying where he had fallen with his face against the wall and the tears streaming down his cheeks.
‘The ambulance is here,’ said Stenström.
Martin Beck took the elevator up. She sat in one of the easy chairs dressed in corduroy slacks and a woollen sweater. He looked at her unhappily.
‘The ambulance is here. They'll be right up.’
‘I can walk myself,’ she said, tonelessly.
In the elevator she said, ‘Don't look so miserable. It wasn't your fault. And there's nothing seriously wrong with me.’
He wasn't able to look her in the eye.
‘Had he tried to rape me I might have been able to cope with him. But it wasn't a question of that. I had no chance, none at all.’
She shook her head.
‘Ten or fifteen seconds more and … Or if he hadn't started to think about the downstairs telephone, that disturbed him. Broke the isolation in some way. Ugh! God, it's awful.’
When they went out to the ambulance she said: ‘Poor man.’
‘Who?’
‘Him.’
Fifteen minutes later only Kollberg and Stenström were left outside the house on Runeberg Street.
‘I came just in time to see how you fixed him. Stood on the other side of the street. Where did you learn to do that?’
‘I was a parachute jumper. I don't use it very often.’
‘That's the best I've ever seen. You can take anyone with that.’
‘In August was the jackal born,
The rains fell in September.
“Now such a fearful flood as this,”
Says he, “I can't remember!”’
‘What is that?’
‘A quote,’ said Kollberg. ‘Someone named Kipling.’
30
Martin Beck looked at the man who sat slouched before him with one arm in a sling. He kept his head bowed and didn't look up.
This was the moment he had waited for for six and a half months. He leaned over and turned on the tape recorder.
‘Your name is Folke Lennart Bengtsson, born in Gustaf Vasa's parish on the sixth of August, 1926, now living at Rörstand Street in Stockholm. Is that correct?’
The man nodded almost imperceptibly.
‘You must answer out loud,’ Martin Beck said.
‘Yes,’ said the man called Folke Bengtsson. ‘Yes that's correct.’
‘Do you admit that you are guilty of murder and sexual assault of the American citizen Roseanna McGraw on the night of 4-5 July last year?’
‘I haven't murdered anyone,’ Folke Bengtsson said.
‘Speak up.’
‘No, I didn't do it.’
‘Earlier you have admitted that you met Roseanna McGraw on 4 July last year on board the passenger ship Diana. Is that correct?’
‘I don't know. I didn't know what her name was.’
‘We have evidence that you were with her on 4 July. That night you killed her in her cabin and threw her body overboard.’
‘No, that's not true!’
‘Killed her the same way you tried to kill the woman on Runeberg Street?’
‘I didn't want to kill her.’
&nb
sp; ‘Who didn't you want to kill?’
‘That girl. She came to me several times. She asked me to come to her apartment. She didn't mean it seriously. She only wanted to humiliate me.’
‘Did Roseanna McGraw also want to humiliate you? Was that why you killed her?’
‘I don't know.’
‘Were you inside her cabin?’
‘I don't remember. Maybe I was. I don't know.’
Martin Beck sat quietly and studied the man. Finally he said: ‘Are you very tired?’
‘Not really.’
‘Does your arm hurt?’
‘Not any more. They gave me a shot at the hospital.’
‘When you saw that woman last night, didn't she remind you of the woman last summer, the woman on the boat?’
‘They aren't women.’
‘What do you mean? Of course they're women.’
‘Yes but… like animals.’
‘I don't understand what you mean.’
‘They are like animals, completely given over to …’
‘Given over to what? To you?’
‘For God's sake don't mock me. They were given over to their lust. To their shamelessness.’
Thirty seconds of silence.
‘Do you really think so?’
‘All true human beings must think so, except for the most decadent and depraved.’
‘Didn't you like those women? Roseanna McGraw and the girl on Runeberg Street, whatever her name was …’
‘Sonja Hansson.’
He spat out the name.
‘Yes, that's right. Didn't you like her?’
‘I hate her. I hated the other one too. I don't remember very well. Don't you see how they act? Don't you understand what it means to be a man?’
He spoke quickly and eagerly.
‘No. What do you mean?’
‘Ugh! They're disgusting. They sparkle and exult with their decadence, and later they're insolent and offensive.’
‘Do you visit prostitutes?’
‘They aren't as disgusting, not as shameless. And then they take money. At least there's a certain honour and honesty about them.’