by Maj Sjowall
The spool stopped whirring.
“Uhuh,” said Månsson, with bovine calm. “Does that tell you anything?”
They stared at him as if they’d seen a ghost.
“Well,” said Månsson. “That’s about it. For the moment. Have you fixed up a room for me? Christ, it’s hot. Excuse me a moment.”
He went out into the corridor.
Rönn rose and followed him. For most of the time he had been sitting thinking about something else besides Olofsson and his accomplices, namely that Månsson was an expert in house-searches. He caught up with Månsson and said:
“Say, Per, would you like to come back and have dinner with us tonight?”
“Of course,” said Månsson. “Very much indeed.”
He seemed both delighted and surprised.
“Good,” said Rönn.
It was now over three months since the fire engine that Mats had been given for his fourth birthday had disappeared, and although the boy hardly bothered to ask after it any longer, Rönn could not help wondering how it had disappeared so completely. He still hunted for it now and again, but was convinced that there was not a square inch of the apartment that he had not covered.
When Rönn, sometime back, had lifted the lid of the water-tank behind the toilet for the fiftieth time, a remark of Månsson’s had come back to him. Nearly six months ago, an important page from a report had been missing and Martin Beck had asked if anyone was an expert at searching. Månsson, who at the time had come up from Skåne to take part in a case of multiple murder, had replied: “I’m good at looking for things. If there’s anything to find, then I’ll find it.” He had indeed also found the page of the report.
So it was this speciality of his that Månsson had to thank for the fact that instead of a dismal and lonely dinner at some cheap eating-place, he was given the opportunity of enjoying Unda Rönn’s excellent cooking. Månsson liked food very much, but he was also fastidious and knew how to appreciate a well-prepared meal.
By the time he had eaten the crisply fried venison slices with scrambled eggs as creamy as he himself usually made them, he was sighing with pleasure, and when a dish of golden brown grouse was placed on the table, he leaned forward and drew in the aroma through his nostrils.
“Now this really is quite something,” he said. “Where does such wonderful grub come from at this time of the year?”
“We got them from my brother in Karesuando,” said Unda. “He goes shooting quite a bit. He’s the one who keeps us in venison, too.”
Rönn passed the bowl of cloudberry jelly and said:
“We’ve a whole reindeer in the freezer. From the autumn culling.”
“Not horns and all, I suppose,” said Månsson, and Mats, who had begged to be allowed to sit at the table, burst out laughing:
“Ha-ha! You can’t eat the horns. You chop them off first.”
Månsson ruffled the boy’s hair and said:
“You’re a clever boy. What are you going to be when you grow up?”
“A fireman,” said the boy.
He jumped down from his chair and vanished through the door, wailing like a fire engine.
Rönn grasped the opportunity to tell Månsson about the disappearing fire engine.
“Have you looked under the reindeer?” asked Månsson.
“I’ve looked everywhere. It’s simply gone.”
Månsson wiped his mouth and said:
“Oh, no. We’ll probably find it.”
When they had finished their meal, Unda shooed them out of the kitchen and carried the coffee into the living room. Rönn got out a bottle of brandy.
Mats was lying on the floor in his pajamas in front of the television set, watching with interest a group of solemn people sitting on a semicircular sofa, discussing something. A young man with an important expression on his face said:
“I consider that divorce in marriages where there are children should as far as possible be prevented or made difficult by society, as children of lone parents become more insecure than others, and with that more disposed to succumb to alcohol and drugs,” … and disappeared into a shining dot as Rönn switched off the set.
“Load of shit,” said Månsson. “Look at me for example. I didn’t meet my father until I was over forty. My mother brought me up on her own from when I was a year old, and there’s nothing wrong with me. Nothing seriously wrong, that is.”
“Did you look up your father after so many years?” said Rönn.
“Christ, no,” said Månsson. “Whatever for? No, we met by chance at the liquor store in Davidshallstorg. I was a sergeant at the time.”
“What did it feel like?” said Rönn. “Meeting your father like that?”
“Nothing special. I was standing there in line and in the next line there was this big guy, gray-haired, as tall as I am. He came up to me and said: ‘Good-day. I am your father, sir. I’ve been meaning to speak to you many a time when I’ve seen you in town, sir, but it never came off.’ Then he said: ‘I’ve heard things are going well for you, sir.’ ”
“What did you say?”
“I didn’t really know what to say. Well, then the old man stuck out his hand and said, ‘Jönsson.’ ‘Månsson,’ I said and we shook hands.”
“Have you met since?” asked Rönn.
“Yes, we run into each other occasionally, and he always greets me just as politely.”
Unda came in and fetched Mats, who was falling asleep on Rönn’s knee. After a while, she came back and said:
“He wants you to go and say goodnight.”
The boy was already asleep when they went into the room. Månsson looked round with expert eyes before tiptoeing out and closing the door.
“I presume you’ve looked in there?” he said.
“Looked,” said Rönn, “I’ve turned the whole room upside down. The others too, for that matter. But you can look around. Perhaps I’ve overlooked something.”
He had not done so. They went together through the whole apartment and Månsson could not find a cranny where Rönn had not already searched several times. They returned to their coffee and cognac and Unda.
“Yes, it is strange, isn’t it?” she said. “It was quite a big one, too.”
“About a foot long,” said Rönn.
“You said that he hadn’t been out for several days after he was given it,” said Månsson. “Might he have thrown it out the window?”
“No,” said Unda. “As you see, we have safety chains on every window so that he can’t open them himself. And we never have the windows open when Mats is around.”
“And when you open them with the chain on, the gap is too small for the fire engine to get through,” said Rönn.
Månsson rolled his cognac glass between his palms and said:
“The garbage bag then? Might he have put it in that?”
Unda shook her head.
“No, it’s in the same cupboard as the soap powders and that sort of thing and we’ve got a kind of bar on the door which he can’t open.”
“Uhuh,” said Månsson, sipping his cognac thoughtfully.
“Have you an attic storage room here?” he said.
“No, one down in the basement,” said Rönn. “Have you taken anything down there since the fire engine disappeared?”
Rönn looked at his wife, who shook her head.
“Neither have I,” said Rönn.
“Can you think of anything that has been moved out of here? Something that has been sent for repair, or something like that? Or laundry? It might have gone with the dirty laundry.”
“I wash everything myself,” said Unda. “We’ve a laundry down in the basement.”
“And he’s had no friends here who might have taken it with them?”
“No, he’d had a cold for quite a long time, so no one had been here during the time,” said Unda.
They sat in silence for a while.
“Has anyone else been here who might have taken it with him?” asked Månss
on.
“I’ve had some of my friends here once or twice,” said Unda. “But they don’t steal toys. Anyhow, it was not until after that that we discovered it was missing.”
Rönn nodded gloomily.
“This is as bad as police interrogation,” said Unda with a laugh.
“Just you wait until he gets out his stick and starts third-degreeing you,” Rönn said.
“Think now,” said Månsson. “Has anyone else been here, someone who came to fetch something, or to read the meter, or a plumber or another workman?”
“No,” Rönn said. “Not as far as I know. Do you mean that someone might have stolen it?”
“Well, why not?” said Månsson. “People steal a lot of strange things. In Malmö, we had a guy who went around to houses pretending to be from Anticimex exterminator company and when we got hold of him he had a hundred and thirteen pairs of ladies’ panties in a box at home. That was the only thing he stole. But I was thinking that the fire engine had more likely gone with someone by mistake.”
“You ought to know that, Unda,” said Rönn. “You’re at home in the daytime.”
“Yes, I was just sitting here thinking about it. I can’t remember having any workmen here. That man who put in the new window-pane was much earlier, wasn’t he?”
“Yes,” said Rönn. “That was in February.”
“Yes,” said Unda.
She bit the knuckle of her forefinger thoughtfully.
“Yes,” she said. “The janitor was here letting the air out of the radiators. That was a few days after Mats’s birthday, I’m sure.”
“Letting the air out of the radiators?” said Rönn. “I didn’t know that.”
“I probably forgot to tell you,” said Unda.
“Did he have his tools with him?” said Månsson. “He must have had a wrench. Do you remember whether he had a tool kit with him?”
“Yes, I think so,” said Unda. “Though I’m not sure.”
“Does he live in the building?”
“Yes, on the ground floor. Svensson’s his name.”
Månsson put down his cognac glass and got up.
“Come on, Einar,” he said. “Let’s go and visit your janitor.”
Svensson was a small sinewy man of sixty or so. He was wearing well-pressed dark trousers and a brilliantly white shirt with sleeve-bands.
Månsson had already spotted a tool kit standing on a shoe-shelf in the hall, when the janitor said:
“Good evening, Mr. Rönn. Can I help you with anything?”
Rönn did not really know how to begin, but Månsson pointed at the tool kit and said:
“Is that your tool kit, Mr. Svensson?”
“Yes,” said Svensson in surprise.
“How long is it since you last used it?”
“Well, I don’t really know. It’s quite a while now. I’ve been in the hospital for several weeks, so Berg at number 11 has been looking after the block for me in the meantime. Why, if I may ask?”
“May we look inside it?”
The janitor picked up the tool box.
“Please do,” he said. “Why …”
Månsson opened the bag and Rönn saw how the janitor stretched his neck and looked down into the bag with undisguised astonishment. He stepped forward himself and there, among the hammers, screwdrivers and wrenches, lay the fire engine, red and shining.
Several days later, Tuesday, the thirtieth of July to be exact, Martin Beck and Kollberg made a private summary of the case as they sat out at Västberga, sipping coffee.
“Has Månsson gone home?” asked Martin Beck.
“Yes, he went off on Saturday. Doesn’t think much of Stockholm, I guess, that man.”
“No, he probably had enough of it last winter, after the bus murder.”
“Damned good job he’s done,” said Kollberg. “I’d never have expected it of that slow-poke. And yet, I keep wondering …”
“What?”
Kollberg shook his head.
“There’s something fishy about that interrogation. The girl, you know …”
“Why do you think that?”
“I don’t know really. Well, anyhow, the whole thing seems all tied up now. Olofsson and Malm and that guy Karlsson, who was their forger, thought of getting off and opening their own …”
“Apropos Karlsson, by the way, we went up and had a look at the insurance company where he worked. All the things he used for the forgeries were there. Stamps and papers and so on,” said Martin Beck. “He had them in a cupboard there and his head of department had packed them all up in a box without knowing what they were. It’s at Kungsholmsgatan now, if you want to look at it.”
“He wasn’t a bad forger,” said Kollberg. “Well, those three guys knew too much and so that Lasalle-Riffi-Cravanne whatever we’re to call him was sent over.”
“Call him Whatshisname.”
“Yes, Whatshisname’ll do fine. He went to Copenhagen and then on to Malmö and knocked off Olofsson. But Malm got scared and scrammed. Then Malm got nabbed by the police and …”
“Yes,” said Martin Beck. “Both he and Sigge Karlsson had lost their livelihoods. They knew or had some idea of what had happened to Olofsson. They were broke and desperate and finally Malm took a car which he thought of driving down and selling on his own accord, to get some money somehow. And got caught at once.”
“And then he was released and that didn’t make things any better. He and Sigge Karlsson were just waiting for this Whatshisname or someone else to appear and finish them off for good. They were living on borrowed time, so to speak.”
“And Whatshisname did indeed arrive like a letter in the mail. He must have made his presence known in some way, presumably by telephone, or perhaps they caught sight of him when he was checking on their addresses. Sigge Karlsson gives up altogether and shoots himself, first having had a moment of clarity and considered calling you, but that obviously passed very quickly.”
Martin Beck nodded.
“Malm is now in such a fix that he quite openly visits Sigge Karlsson, although he probably knows he is being tailed. Then he hears that Karlsson is dead.”
“So he buys a beer with his last penny and goes home and turns on the gas. But before that, Whatshisname, who is in town to do a job and wants it done quickly, has been there and put his jolly little contrivance into Malm’s bed. The day after, Whatshisname takes a plane to Whatsitcalled. And left behind are we. The Keystone Cops. The Flatfoots. It seems idiotic that a crowd of people like you and me and Rönn and Larsson have been stumping round for five months, hunting for a guy who was dead a month before we began, and for a guy whose name we don’t know and was also far out of reach from the very beginning.”
“Perhaps he’ll come back,” said Martin Beck thoughtfully.
“Optimist,” said Kollberg. “He’ll never set foot in the place again.”
“Hm,” said Martin Beck. “I’m not so sure. Have you thought about one thing? He’s got an important asset for doing jobs here, namely, that he speaks Swedish.”
“Yes, where the hell did he learn that?”
“Worked in Sweden some time or been here as a refugee during the war. Anyhow, he must be extremely valuable if the firm decides to build up its Stockholm branch again. And also, he has no idea that we even know of his existence. He may very well appear again.”
Kollberg tilted his head to one side and looked doubtful.
“Have you thought about another thing?” he said. “Even if he does come back and perhaps even voluntarily steps in here, then what can we prove? It isn’t illegal for him to have been in Sundbyberg.”
“No, we can’t blame the fire on him, but he’s pretty well tied to this affair in Malmö, the murder of Olofsson.”
“True. But that’s not our headache. Anyhow, he won’t ever come back again.”
“I’m still not convinced of that. I’ll ask Interpol and the French police to keep their eyes open. And notify us if he appears.”
�
��You do that,” said Kollberg yawning.
30
Just over a month later, Lennart Kollberg was sitting in his office in Västberga puzzling over where a seventeen-year-old girl had got to. People were constantly missing, especially girls, and mostly in the summer. Nearly all of them appeared again, some having hitched to Nepal to sit cross-legged smoking opium, others having earned a little extra posing naked for German pornographic magazines, and others having gone with friends to the country and simply forgotten to telephone their families. But this one seemed to have genuinely disappeared. The girl in the photograph lying in front of him was smiling and he thought gloomily that she would probably reappear in somewhat less good shape, out of the Channel, for instance, or out of some pond in Nacka national park.
Martin Beck was on leave and Skacke unobtainable, although he ought to have been somewhere in the vicinity.
It was raining outside, fresh clean summer rain, which sluiced the dust off the leaves and spattered cheerfully against the windows.
Kollberg liked rain, especially this fresh kind of rain after oppressive heat, and he looked with pleasure at the heavy banks of gray clouds which occasionally opened up and allowed the sun to sift through in ragged patches, and then he thought about how he would soon be going home, at the latest half-past five, and that was late, for it was Saturday.
And then, of course, the telephone rang.
“Hello. It’s Strömgren.”
“Uhuh.”
“I’ve got something on the Telex which I can’t really make out.”
“What?”
“From Paris. Just got a translation. It just says this: Lasalle inquired about probably en route from Brussels to Stockholm. Extra-flight SN X3 estimated at Arlanda eighteen fifteen hours. Name Samir Malghagh. Passport Moroccan.”
Kollberg said nothing.
“It’s for Beck, but he’s on leave. I can’t make it out at all. Can you?”
“Yes,” said Kollberg. “Unfortunately. How many people around your place?”