by Maj Sjowall
“You can come out now, Einar,” he called.
Rönn came into the cabin.
“Better put handcuffs on that character,” Gunvald Larsson said, pointing to The Breadman with his foot.
Then he looked at Ronnie Casparsson.
“You don’t need handcuffs, do you?”
Ronnie Casparsson shook his head. He was still holding his face in his hands.
Fifteen minutes later, they had their prisoners in the back seat and had driven up in front of the cabin to turn around. Lindberg had recovered from the blow and even regained some of his good spirits.
Just then a man in a sweatsuit came running into the yard. He was holding a compass in one hand and stared stupidly from the car to the house and back to the car.
“Sweet Jesus,” said The Breadman. “A cop dressed up for orienteering. But why has he got a compass and no map?”
He laughed loudly.
Gunvald Larsson rolled down the window.
“Hello there,” he said.
The man in the sweatsuit came over to the car.
“Have you got your two-way radio on you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then inform Malm that he can call off the maneuver. All we need is someone to drive up and go through the house.”
The man fussed with the radio for a long time.
“You’re to turn over your prisoners to Division Commander Malm at his command post,” he said. “Two thousand meters east of the second ‘e’ in ‘East Haninge.’ ”
“Well, then, that’s what we’ll do,” said Gunvald Larsson and rolled up his window again.
Malm looked very pleased as he stood there surrounded by subordinates.
“Smartly done, Larsson,” he said. “I must admit. And why isn’t Casparsson in handcuffs?”
“He doesn’t need them.”
“Nonsense. Put them on.”
“Don’t have any,” Gunvald Larsson said.
And he and Rönn drove away.
“I hope the boy gets a good lawyer,” said Gunvald Larsson after a while.
Rönn didn’t answer. He changed the subject.
“Gunvald,” he said, “your jacket’s torn. It’s cut.”
“Yes, what a pain in the ass,” said Gunvald Larsson joylessly.
30
As soon as Martin Beck got the phone call from Benny Skacke, the rest of it went quickly.
After a preliminary search of the beige Volvo at the Crime Lab in Solna, Hjelm could report that a white cotton rag had been found in the trunk. The laboratory analysis showed this to contain nickel shavings of the same type as those in the rag found at the scene of the crime.
That same afternoon, there was a search of Clark Sundström’s factory, which made machine parts and precision tools. Nickel was an essential element in several of these products, and particles of that metal were found in abundance on the premises. Furthermore, a cardboard box filled with white cotton rags containing nickel shavings was found in a corner of the factory where Clark Sundström usually parked his car.
A comparative study of handwriting showed, as anticipated, that the two letters found in Sigbrit Mård’s night table had been written in Sundström’s hand.
In his desk, they found a packet of envelopes of the same type used to send in the rent for the one-room apartment. The typewriter used to type the words Rent S. Jönsson stood on the shelf beside the desk.
The Helsingborg Crime Lab had made a minute examination of the apartment that had been used as a love nest, and among other things, they had secured fingerprints.
With that, the evidence could definitely be said to link Clark Evert Sundström to the murder of Sigbrit Märd.
The factory was located in Trelleborg, but Cecilia Sundström had inherited the firm, and it still bore her father’s name, which might explain why the industrious Trelleborg detectives had not succeeded in finding Clark Sundström. Technically, he was employed by his wife as factory manager.
Sundström was not in his office during the search of the factory on Tuesday afternoon. He had not been feeling well after lunch and had taken a taxi home.
Martin Beck wondered if he really was sick or if he had had a premonition of what was about to happen. Before any news of the decision to search the factory could reach Clark Sundström, Månsson sent two of his men to Vellinge to keep a discreet eye on the house.
By the time all the samples had been taken, analyzed, and compared, and enough evidence had been assembled to issue an arrest warrant, it was evening.
Martin Beck and Benny Skacke took the new expressway and arrived in Vellinge just before eight. First they searched out the two plainclothesmen, who had parked their car on a side road where they had a good view of the Sundström house without calling attention to themselves.
“He’s still in the house,” said one of them when Martin Beck walked over to their car.
“His wife went out and did some shopping about five,” the other one said. “But no one’s left the place since then. The girls came home an hour ago.”
The Sundström couple had two daughters, twelve and fourteen years old.
“Good,” said Martin Beck. “For the time being, you wait here.”
He went back to Skacke.
“Drive up to the gate and wait in the car,” said Martin Beck. “I’ll go in alone. But be ready—we don’t know how he’s going to react.”
Skacke pulled up in front of the house, and Martin Beck walked through the broad wrought-iron gates. The gravel path leading up from the street was bordered by rosebushes, and directly in front of the front door lay a millstone that had been broken in half to form a semicircular step. He pressed the doorbell and heard the faint sound of two chimes ringing behind the massive oak door.
The woman who answered was almost as tall as Martin Beck. She was slender, or rather, thin—dry and bony as if there was simply no flesh beneath her very pale skin. The bridge of her nose was sharp and slightly curved, her cheekbones were high and prominent, and her face was covered with light-brown freckles. Her chestnut hair, though thick and wavy, was shot with gray. As far as he could see, she was wearing no make-up. Her lips were pale and thin, and there was something bitter about the line of her mouth. She had pretty eyes, with gray-green irises under heavy lids, and she raised her arched brows and looked at him questioningly.
“I am Detective Inspector Beck,” said Martin Beck. “I am looking for Mr. Sundström.”
“My husband isn’t feeling well and has gone to bed to rest,” she said. “What is it about?”
“I’m sorry to have to bother you at this time of day, but unfortunately it is necessary. And it’s quite urgent, so if he isn’t too ill …”
“Is it about the factory?” she asked.
“No, not directly,” said Martin Beck.
He always disliked this situation. He knew very little about this woman. Perhaps she was not very happy with her existence, but she probably led a calm and normal family life. In a little while she would learn that she was married to a man who had murdered his mistress.
If only the people who murdered other people didn’t have families, thought Martin Beck irrationally.
“It’s a matter of a few questions that I have to discuss with your husband,” he said. “So if …”
“Is it so important it can’t wait until tomorrow?” she said.
“Yes, it is that important.”
She opened the door the rest of the way and Martin Beck stepped into the front hall.
“Wait here for a moment, I’ll tell him.”
She walked up the stairs to the second floor. She held herself very straight.
Martin Beck could hear a TV from one of the rooms on the right side of the hall. He waited.
It was almost five minutes before Clark Sundström appeared. He was wearing dark-blue flannel trousers and a Shetland sweater of the same color. The shirt beneath the sweater was also blue and buttoned at the neck. His wife followed him down the stairs, and
when they both stood in front of him, Martin Beck noticed that she was a head taller than her husband.
“Go in to the girls, Sissy,” said Clark Sundström.
She gave him a searching and somewhat uneasy glance, but opened the door beside the stairs. The TV sound grew louder, but she immediately closed the door behind her again.
Clark Sundström fit the descriptions given by Folke Bengtsson and Skacke, but Martin Beck was struck by the look of tired resignation around his mouth and eyes. He might possibly have had a suntan when Folke Bengtsson saw him earlier that year, but now his skin was grayish-yellow and flaccid. He looked worn. But his hands were large and sunburned with long, sinewy fingers.
“Yes?” he said. “What’s this all about?”
Martin Beck saw fear in the eyes behind the glasses. He couldn’t disguise that.
“You know what this is all about,” said Martin Beck.
The man shook his head, but small beads of perspiration appeared at his hairline and along his upper lip.
“Sigbrit Mård,” said Martin Beck. Clark Sundström turned away and took a couple of steps toward the front door and then he stopped, with his back to Martin Beck.
“Can we go out in the yard and talk? I think I need some fresh air.”
“Fine,” said Martin Beck and waited while Clark Sundström put on his sheepskin coat.
They went out onto the front step, and Clark Sundström began to walk slowly toward the front gate with his hands in his pockets. Halfway down the gravel path, he stopped and looked up at the sky. The stars were out. He didn’t say anything. Martin Beck stopped beside him.
“We have proof that you killed her,” he said. “And we’ve seen the apartment in Trelleborg. I have a warrant for your arrest in my pocket.”
Clark Sundström stood quite still.
“Proof?” he said after a while. “How can you have proof?”
“Among other things, we found a rag that we can trace to you. Why did you kill her?”
“I had to.”
His voice sounded odd. Strained.
“Are you feeling all right?” said Martin Beck.
“No.”
“Wouldn’t it be just as well to come in to Malmö with us, and we could talk there?”
“My wife …”
The sentence was interrupted by an ugly whimpering sound from the man’s throat. He clawed at his heart, staggered, doubled over, and fell headlong into the rosebushes.
Martin Beck stared at him.
Benny Skacke came running through the gate and helped him turn the man over on his back.
“Coronary thrombosis,” Skacke said. “I’ve seen it before. I’ll call an ambulance.”
He ran back to the car, and Martin Beck could hear him talking on the radio.
At that moment, his wife came running out into the yard with her daughters at her heels. She must have seen what had happened through the window. She pushed Martin Beck aside, kneeled down beside her unconscious husband, and told the girls to go back in the house. They obeyed, but remained standing in the doorway, staring anxiously and uncomprehendingly at their parents and the two strange men in the garden.
The ambulance arrived seven minutes later.
Benny Skacke followed it closely all the way into Malmö General Hospital, and when it came to a stop outside the emergency room, he was only a few yards behind.
Martin Beck sat in the car and watched the attendents hurry in with the stretcher. Mrs. Sundström followed it in, and the doors slammed behind them.
“Aren’t you going in?” Skacke said.
“Yes,” said Martin Beck. “But there isn’t any rush. They’ll treat him for shock and massage his heart and put him in a respirator. If he makes it that far, he could recover pretty quickly. And if he doesn’t …”
He sat silently and stared at the closed doors. After a while, the attendents came out with the rolling stretcher, pushed it back into the ambulance, and closed the doors. Then they climbed into the front seat and drove away.
Martin Beck straightened up.
“I’d better go in and see how they’re coming along.”
“Shall I go with you or shall I wait here?” Skacke asked.
Martin Beck opened the car door and stepped out. He leaned down toward Skacke.
“It’s possible he’ll come round and the doctors will let me talk to him. It would be nice to have a tape recorder.”
Skacke turned the key in the ignition switch.
“I’ll go get one right away,” he said.
Martin Beck nodded, and Skacke drove away.
Clark Sundström had been taken to the intensive care unit, and Martin Beck could see his wife through the glass panel in the door to the waiting room. She was standing by the window with her back to the door, very straight and still.
Martin Beck waited in the corridor. A little while later, he heard the clapping of wooden shoes, and a woman in a white coat and jeans came toward him, but she turned and disappeared through a door before he had a chance to say anything. He walked over to the door. There was a sign on it reading Duty Office, and he knocked and opened it without waiting for an answer.
The woman was standing by a desk shuffling through a stack of case reports. She found the paper she was looking for, wrote something on it, attached it to a clipboard, and put it down on a shelf behind her. Then she looked inquiringly at Martin Beck, and he showed her his identity card and stated his business.
“I can’t tell you anything yet,” she said. “He’s being given heart massage right now. But you can wait here if you like.”
She was young, with sprightly brown eyes and dark blond hair in a braid down her back.
“I’ll see to it that you’re kept informed,” she said and hurried out of the room.
Martin Beck walked over and read the case report on the shelf. It was not about Clark Sundström.
There was a small device like a TV set on the wall, and a bright green dot was rushing across the screen from left to right. Halfway across, it bounced up with a short, high whistle. The green dot described a constant curve, and the whistling sound recurred with monotonous regularity. Someone’s heart was beating normally. Martin Beck assumed that this was not Clark Sundström’s electrocardiogram.
After an uneventful quarter of an hour, Martin Beck saw Skacke drive up outside. He went out and collected the tape recorder and told Skacke to go on home. He looked a little disappointed, as if he would rather have stayed, but Martin Beck had no need for him.
At ten-thirty, the woman with the braid came back. It seemed she was the resident on duty.
Sundström had survived the crisis, had regained consciousness, and, under the circumstances, his condition was good. He had talked to his wife for a few minutes, and she had left the hospital. He was now sleeping and couldn’t be disturbed.
“But come back tomorrow and we’ll see,” she said.
Martin Beck explained the situation, and in the end she reluctantly agreed to let him talk to Clark Sundström as soon as he woke up. She showed him to an examination room where he could wait.
The room contained a cot covered with green vinyl, a stool, and a magazine rack with three religious periodicals that had been thumbed to pieces. Martin Beck put the tape recorder on the stool, lay down on the cot, and stared at the ceiling.
He thought about Clark Sundström and his wife. She had given him the impression of being a strong woman. Psychologically strong. Or maybe that was nothing but a practiced manner, or emotional reserve. He thought about Folke Bengtsson, but not for very long. Then he thought about Rhea, and after a while he went to sleep.
When the doctor woke him, it was five-thirty in the morning, and her brown eyes were no longer so sprightly.
“He’s awake now,” she said. “But keep it as short as you can.”
Clark Sundström was lying on his back staring toward the door. A young man in a white coat and white trousers sat on a chair at the foot of the bed biting his nails. He stood up wh
en Martin Beck came in.
“I’ll go get a cup of coffee,” he said. “Push the buzzer before you go.”
On a shelf over the head of the bed was a device like the one Martin Beck had seen in the Duty Office. Three thin wires of three different colors connected the apparatus to round electrodes that were attached to Clark Sundström’s chest with strips of tape. The green dot registered the electrocardiogram, but the whistling sound was very faint.
“How do you feel?” said Martin Beck.
Clark Sundström plucked at the sheet.
“All right,” he said. “I don’t know. I don’t remember what happened.”
He was not wearing his glasses, and his face looked younger and softer without them.
“Do you remember me?” said Martin Beck.
“I remember your coming, and then we went out in the yard. Nothing else.”
Martin Beck pulled out a low stool that was under the bed, put the tape recorder on it, and fastened the microphone to the edge of the sheet. He moved up the chair and sat down.
“Do you remember what we were talking about?” he asked.
Clark Sundström nodded.
“Sigbrit Mård,” said Martin Beck. “Why did you kill her?”
The man in the bed closed his eyes for a few moments and then opened them again.
“I’m sick. I’d rather not talk about it.”
“How did you get to know her?”
“You mean how did we meet?”
“Yes. Tell me.”
“We met at the pastry shop where she worked. I used to go there sometimes in those days for a cup of coffee.”
“When was this?”
“Three, four years ago.”
“Yes? And then?”
“I saw her in town one day and asked her if she wanted a ride. She asked me if I could drive her home to Domme, because she’d just left her car at the garage. I drove her home. Later on, she told me she just made up that story about the car, because she wanted to get to know me. She left her car in Trelleborg and took the bus in the next day.”
“Did you go into the house when you drove her home?” asked Martin Beck.
“Yes, and we went to bed together too. That’s what you wanted to know.”
Clark Sundström looked at Martin Beck for a moment, then turned his head and looked out the window.