by Maj Sjowall
“She asked for them herself?”
“Yes, that’s right. But she was always happy to work Fridays and Saturdays when the other girls all wanted off.”
Martin Beck sat silently for a moment. He looked at the telephone standing on the desk.
“Did she ever get private phone calls here at work?”
“No, never. I’d really rather that none of the girls got personal calls here, but, of course, it does happen now and then in family emergencies and so forth. But Sigbrit never had any calls here at work.”
Suddenly she looked at Martin Beck and knit her brows.
“Why are you asking all these questions, Superintendent?
You’ve arrested the man, after all, that maniac who killed her. What good are all these questions?”
“There are still a few points that haven’t been cleared up,” said Martin Beck. “We think there was a man in her life, and we’d like to find him.”
The woman shook her head.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Sigbrit was always talkative and open. I’m sure she would have mentioned it if she’d met someone new.”
“So no one ever came here to see her? Or picked her up after work?”
She shook her head again.
“Think hard,” said Martin Beck. “It might be important.”
“No,” she said. “Never.”
“Have you ever heard her mention anyone named Clark?”
“No. Never.”
“And you’ve never seen anyone meet her in a car.”
More head-shaking.
“Do you have any objection to my talking to the women she worked with? I promise not to keep them long.”
“Yes, that would be all right,” she said. “You stay here, and I’ll send them in. Do you want to talk to Mrs. Johansson in the kitchen too?”
“Yes,” said Martin Beck. “If it’s all right, I’d like to talk to all of them. How many employees do you have?”
“Five. Four girls—I’ve had to get a replacement for Sigbrit—and then a woman for the buffet, to make the coffee and sandwiches. And then I have the bakery, of course, but that’s in a different building, two blocks from here.”
She stood up. When she opened the door, the smell of coffee and freshly baked bread drifted in from the kitchen outside.
Martin Beck saw a thin woman with white hair and very red hands decorating a plate of sandwiches. He watched in wonder as she speared a section of mandarin orange, an olive, and a cocktail cherry on a toothpick and jabbed the whole collection into a thick slab of headcheese resting on a piece of lettuce.
The owner came back with a tray and put it down in front of Martin Beck.
Coffee and a large plate of Danish pastries and cookies.
“I hope you’ll like them,” she said. “Ulla will be right here.”
Martin Beck realized he was hungry, and although as a rule he wasn’t fond of cookies and heavy Danish pastry, he managed to clean the plate before Ulla came in.
He spoke to the four girls and finally to the imaginative Mrs. Johansson.
Their opinions of Sigbrit Mård varied. Mrs. Johansson and two of the girls did not appear to share their employer’s enthusiasm. They seemed to think she put on airs and was conceited.
None of them thought she was having a love affair or had anything to do with men at all. They had never heard of any Clark, nor seen a beige Volvo in connection with Sigbrit Mård.
Martin Beck left the pastry shop and walked down toward the harbor. The ferry ship was empty.
He strolled slowly along toward the police building. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, which meant that his chances of finding Kollberg with Folke Bengtsson were slim. Kollberg was not in the habit of skipping lunch.
He was not looking forward to the coming interview with Bengtsson with any great delight, but it was a necessity, and this time he had concrete questions to ask and might possibly find Bengtsson a little more cooperative.
He looked in at the Cosmopolite, a restaurant in the same block with the police building. Kollberg wasn’t there, but he recognized a couple of detectives sitting at a corner table eating Baltic herring and mashed potatoes. They nodded to him, and he raised his hand in greeting before closing the door behind him.
Folke Bengtsson was in the jail.
Martin Beck managed to borrow a room with a view of the harbor, and while he waited for someone to fetch Bengtsson, he looked at the view.
A small German freighter lay at the quay. A woman came out on deck and emptied a bucket of scraps over the outside rail. A solitary gull, sailing lazily against the wind, dove immediately to the surface of the water, grabbed something long and limp in its bill, and lifted again in an easy circle. The woman stood by the rail with the bucket in her hands and watched the gulls. In less than a minute, a whole flock of them had gathered and were screaming and flapping their wings as they fought for the best pieces. The woman disappeared down the fo’c’s’le hatch.
Folke Bengtsson was calm and unruffled and greeted Martin Beck politely before taking a seat in the visitor’s armchair in front of the desk.
“Detective Inspector Kollberg was here and questioned me this morning,” he said. “I don’t know what I can tell you that I haven’t told you already. I really did not kill her, that’s all I can say.”
“I came to ask you about something in particular,” said Martin Beck. “Something you said when we talked at your house in Domme ten days ago.”
Folke Bengtsson looked attentively and expectantly at Martin Beck. He sat with his back straight and his hands folded in his lap, and Martin Beck was reminded of an obedient schoolboy waiting for the teacher’s question.
“You mentioned at that time that you had seen Mrs. Mård’s ex-husband on a couple of occasions, is that right?”
“Yes, that’s true. I saw him twice.”
“Can you tell me a little more about it?” said Martin Beck. “Can you remember when this was?”
Folke Bengtsson sat and thought for a long time.
“The first time was last spring,” he said finally. “The last Sunday in May. I remember because it was Mother’s Day and I had been into town to call my mother in Södertälje. I always call her on Mother’s Day and on her birthday.”
He stopped talking, absorbed in his own thoughts. Martin Beck waited, but finally broke the silence himself.
“Yes?” he said. “And that’s when you saw Mård? Can you tell me how it happened?”
“Well, I had driven up to the house and then walked back to close the gate. Just then a beige Volvo swung into the road, and since he was going pretty slow I stood there thinking maybe he was coming to my place. Not that I was expecting anyone—and it was a Sunday too—but sometimes people come and want to buy fish or eggs.”
“Which direction did the car come from?”
“From up toward Malmö.”
“Did you see the driver?”
“Yes, it was him, her husband.”
Martin Beck stared at the man in front of him.
“What did he look like?” he said.
Folke Bengtsson sat in silence again, as if he hadn’t heard the question.
“I had heard that he was supposed to be a ship’s captain,” he said at last. “But it didn’t seem to me that he looked like a seaman. He was very tanned, of course, but he was thin and looked frail. Rather small. His hair was wavy and almost white, and he wore glasses.”
“Did you see him that clearly? Even if he was driving slowly, you couldn’t have had that much time to study him.”
“No, perhaps I didn’t look at him so closely then. But I saw him once more, later on.”
“When was that?”
Folke Bengtsson looked out through the window.
“I don’t remember exactly, but it wasn’t so long ago. At the beginning of September, maybe.”
“And how did that happen? Did he drive up in his car that time too?”
“No, but the car was standing in
Sigbrit’s yard. I’d been down in the pasture to see if any mushrooms had come up. None had. There are often a lot of champignons down there. I can pick several quarts, and a lot of customers are happy to buy mushrooms. Especially champignons.”
“So you walked down the road past Sigbrit Mård’s house?”
“Yes, that’s right. And then he came out on the steps and then he got into his car. Maybe that was when it occurred to me that he looked sort of frail and puny to be a seaman.”
He fell silent again.
“Seamen are usually strong,” he said. “But then, of course, he’d been sick, or so I’d heard.”
“Did you see Mrs. Mård as well on that occasion?”
“No, I didn’t. I only saw Mr. Mård standing on the steps buttoning up his coat, and then he walked over and got in the car. He passed me just before I reached my place.”
“In which direction?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“In which direction did he drive off? When he got down to the highway?”
“Toward Malmö. That’s where he lives. Or so I’ve heard.”
“What was he wearing?”
“All I remember is the coat. It was one of those brown sheepskin coats with the fur on the inside. It looked new and smart, but it must have been warm on a day like that. He had nothing on his head.”
He raised his eyes and looked at Martin Beck.
“It was a warm day. I remember that.”
“Do you remember anything else about him?” Folke Bengtsson shook his head.
“No, that’s all.”
“Did you see the license number on the car?”
“No, I didn’t. I didn’t think of that.”
“Did it have old plates so you could see what province it was from?”
The Swedish automobile registry was just in the process of changing its numbering system.
“No, I don’t remember.”
Folke Bengtsson went back to jail, and Martin Beck got a ride in a police car back to Anderslöv.
Kollberg had not come back, but Allwright was sitting in his office at the police station. Martin Beck told him about his visit to Trelleborg.
“Well,” said Allwright thoughtfully, “I guess it must be this fellow Clark who drives the beige Volvo. I’ll ask around town if anyone else has seen him or the car. But I doubt it. If anyone had known about him, surely they would have mentioned it before. While Sigbrit was still missing.”
They sat in silence for a few moments.
“Which means,” said Allwright finally, “that Folke is the only one who knows this man exists.”
18
It was not a good car. Much too conspicuous for the purpose. A big, light-green Chevrolet with three sevens in the license number, a lot of chrome, and a lot of lights.
On top of which it had been seen, and some nosy neighbor had already called the police.
It was early in the morning and rather cold, although it was going to be a warm day for some. The damp rose up from the ground and mixed with the mist drifting lazily in from the sea. The early morning light was grayish-white, hazy, and confusing.
In the back seat of the green car lay a pair of rolled-up oriental rugs, a television receiver, a transistor radio, and five bottles of liquor. The trunk contained several paintings, a figurine of doubtful origin, a pedestal, and some other odds and ends.
In the front seat sat two thieves. They were young and nervous and making a lot of mistakes. They both knew they’d been seen. And their luck was bad. The whole thing had begun badly and was going to get worse.
There were no street lights on at this hour, but the soft glow from the sky reflected in the film of dew that covered the car. The engine hummed gently and, with its lights off, the green car glided along between the hedges surrounding the private gardens on either side of the street. At the end of the block, it slowed and stopped. Then it swung out onto the highway, as cautiously as a circus tiger entering the ring. There had been no rain for some time, but the pavement was streaked with moisture and might have looked to the uninitiated as if it had just been cleaned. The initiated knew, however, that the department of sanitation didn’t operate this far from town.
A light-green American car with its headlights off. It slid through the mist like a phantom, almost soundless, its contours blurred.
The patrol car, on the other hand, was frighteningly matter-of-fact.
A black and white four-door Valiant with spotlights and two blue flashers on the roof. It was unmistakable. But just to be sure, the actual word POLICE was spelled out in highly visible letters on the doors, hood, and trunk.
Automobile density in Sweden was still high, and patrol car density abnormally so. It was more and more common for these vehicles to stop suddenly and spew out oddly clad men with weapons in their hands, and yet the human element in these occurrences was virtually nonexistent.
Squad cars poked about in unlikely places or stood poisoning the air with idling engines, while the average patrolmen inside had a bad back and a steadily decreasing IQ even as he grew more and more alienated from society in general.
A policeman on foot was something of a curiosity these days, and in any case it was a sight that boded unpleasantness.
The patrol in question consisted of three policemen—Elofsson, Borglund, and Hector.
Elofsson and Borglund were an old patrol car team, and they looked like any other middle-aged policemen. Hector was younger and more gung ho. They didn’t really need him, to put it mildly. He was along for the fun of it, and for a little extra overtime. He was very proud of his well-tended sideburns, which seemed to have become standard equipment for younger policemen.
Borglund was lazy and pudgy, and at the moment he was asleep in the back seat with his mouth open. Elofsson was drinking coffee from a plaid thermos bottle and drowsily smoking a cigarette. Hector disliked tobacco and had pointedly rolled down the side window. He sat with his hands on the wheel and stared silently out through the windshield with a morose and bored expression. All three men were wearing gray-blue uniforms of the jumpsuit variety, with shoulder belts and pistols and night sticks in white leather holsters.
The car was standing by the side of the road with its parking lights on. The engine was indeed idling, and poisonous exhaust fumes laid their shroud of death and suffocation over the languishing vegetation along the edge of the ditch.
None of the policemen had spoken for quite some time.
Hector had turned up the radio a little while ago, but Elofsson had immediately turned it down again, by right of several years’ seniority. Hector had sense enough not to make a fuss, and the voice on the radio was now a subdued babble of almost sprightly remarks delivered in a foolish tone of voice. Elofsson wasn’t listening at all, Borglund was breathing stertorously in the back seat, and Hector had to strain to hear what was being said.
“Good morning, good morning, good morning, dear friends and colleagues out on the highways and byways. We have a few little tidbits for you. A domestic disturbance on Björkgatan in Sofielund. Complaints about the noise, probably a drunken party. Closest patrol please check it out. What? Yes, music and singing. Björkgatan twenty-three. Suspicious hot rod outside an empty villa in Ljunghusen. Two-tone blue Chrysler, an A plate with three sixes in the number. Closest patrol will investigate. The address is Östersjövägen thirty-six. May be connected with a suspected burglary. A young man and two girls seen in the car. Routine check.”
“That’s right nearby,” Hector said.
“What?” said Elofsson.
Borglund’s only reaction was a slightly indignant snore.
“You fellows in the area might have a care,” said the voice. “Usual procedure. Take no chances. Check out the vehicle if it shows up. Direction of travel unknown. Try not to attract attention. Take it a little easy if you spot this item. Ordinary routine checkout. Nothing more at the moment. Good morning, all.”
“That’s right nearby,” Hector repeated.
Elofsson slurped some coffee from the mug of his thermos but didn’t say anything. Borglund turned in his sleep.
“Right in this neighborhood,” Hector said.
“Don’t bust a gut, boy,” Elofsson said, rooting around in his cookie bag.
He sank his teeth into a cinammon twirl.
“Right close by,” Hector said. “Let’s go.”
“Easy, boy. It’s probably nothing at all. And if it is something, we’re not the only cops in the world.”
Hector flushed.
“What do you mean?” he said. “I don’t get it.”
Elofsson went on chewing.
Borglund sighed deeply in his sleep and whimpered. Perhaps he was dreaming about the National Commissioner.
They were no more than sixty feet from the intersection when the light-green Chewy swung onto the road ahead of them.
“There’s the little bastards now,” Hector said.
“Maybe,” Elofsson said.
The word was muffled by a mouthful of food.
“Let’s take ’em,” Hector said.
He put the car in gear and tramped on the gas.
The patrol car leaped forward.
“What?” said Borglund groggily.
“Burglars,” Hector said.
“Maybe,” Elofsson said.
“What?” said Borglund, still half asleep. “What’s going on?”
The youths in the green car didn’t discover the patrol car until it was already beside them, and then it was too late.
Hector accelerated, cut in front, and jammed on the brakes. The police car skidded on the damp pavement. The green car was forced to the right and came to a stop with its front wheel three inches from the edge of the ditch. The driver didn’t have much choice.
Hector was the first one out on the road. He had already unbuttoned his holster and drawn his 7.65 mm Walther.
Elofsson got out on the other side.
Borglund was last, disoriented and breathing hard.
“What’s going on here?” he said.
“No headlights,” said Hector in a shrill voice. “That’s a violation. Out of the car, you little sluts.”
He had his pistol in his right hand.