by Maj Sjowall
It was a few minutes after three when they heard from Stenström again.
'Now we're on Folkung Street. He just keeps going up and down the streets. He never stops and never looks around. He seems apathetic in some way."
'Just keep on," Martin Beck replied.
Normally, it would take a lot to break down Martin Beck's calm exterior. But after he had looked from the clock to the telephone for forty-five minutes and no one in the room had uttered a word, he suddenly got up and went out.
Ahlberg and Kollberg looked at one another. Kollberg shrugged his shoulders and began to set up the chess board.
Out in the washroom Martin Beck rinsed his hands and face with cold water and dried himself carefully. When he walked out into the corridor, a policeman in shirtsleeves told him that he had a telephone call.
It was his wife.
'I haven't seen hide nor hair of you for an eternity and now I'm not even supposed to call you. What are you doing? When are you coming home?" "I don't know," he said tiredly.
She continued to talk and her voice became harsh and shrill. He broke in and interrupted her in the middle of a sentence.
'I don't have time now," he said irritably. "Goodbye. Don't call any more."
He regretted his tone before he put down the receiver but shrugged his shoulders and went back to his chess-playing colleagues.
Stenström's third call came from Skepps Bridge. By then it was twenty minutes to five.
'He went into a restaurant for a while. He's sitting alone in a corner drinking a beer. We've walked around the entire southern part of the city. He still seems strange."
Martin Beck realized that he hadn't eaten anything all day. He sent out for some food from the cafeteria across the street. After they had eaten Kollberg fell asleep in his chair and began to snore.
When the telephone rang he woke up with a start. It was seven o'clock.
'He's been sitting here until now and he's had four beers. He's just left and is on his way toward the center of the city again. He's walking faster now. I'll call in as soon as I can. So long."
Stenström sounded out of breath as if he had been || running and he hung up the phone before Martin Beck had a chance to say anything.
'He's on his way there," said Kollberg. The next call came at half past seven and was even shorter and just as one-sided.
'I'm at Englebrekts Square. He's walking on Birger Jarls Street at a pretty fast pace."
They waited. They watched the clock and the telephone in turn.
Five after eight. Martin Beck picked up the receiver in the middle of the ring. Stenström sounded disappointed.
'He's swung onto Eriksberg Street and crossed the viaduct. We're on Oden Street now. I guess, he's going home. He's walking slowly again."
'Damn it! Call me when he's home." A half hour went by before Stenström called again. "He didn't go home. He turned onto Uppland Street. He doesn't seem to realize that he has feet. He just walks and walks. Mine won't hold up much longer." "Where are you now?"
'North Ban Square. He's passing the City Theater now." Martin Beck thought about the man who had just passed the City Theater. What was he thinking about? Was he really thinking at all; or was he just walking around unconscious of his surroundings, withdrawn and with one thought or possibly one decision ripening within him?
During the next three hours Stenström telephoned four times from different places. The man stayed on the streets near Eriksberg Square but never went really close to her house.
At 2:30 a.m. Stenström reported that Bengtsson had finally gone home and that the light in his room had just gone out.
Martin Beck sent Kollberg as a replacement.
At eight o'clock on Sunday morning Kollberg came back, awakened Ahlberg who was sleeping on a sofa, threw himself down on it and slept.
Ahlberg went over to Martin Beck who sat brooding by the telephone.
'Has Kollberg arrived?" he asked and looked up with bloodshot eyes.
'He's sleeping. Out like a light. Stenström's on watch."
They only had to wait two hours for the first telephone call of the day.
'He's gone out again," Stenström reported. "He's walking toward the bridge to Kungsholm."
'How does he look?"
'Just the same. Even the same clothes. God knows if he even took them off."
'Is he walking fast?"
'No, rather slowly."
'Have you slept?"
'Yes, a little. But I don't exactly feel like a man of steel."
Between ten in the morning and four in the afternoon Stenström called in approximately every hour. Except for two short breaks in a coffee shop, Folke Bengtsson had been walking for six hours. He had wandered around Kungsholm, the old part of the city, and southern Stockholm. He hadn't gone anywhere near Sonja Hansson's apartment.
At five-thirty Martin Beck fell asleep in his chair by the telephone. Fifteen minutes later Stenström's call awakened him.
'I'm at Norrmalms Square. He's walking toward her part of the city. He seems different now."
'In what way?"
'It's as if he's come to life. He seems compelled in some way."
Eight-fifteen.
'I have to be more careful now. He's just swung onto Sveavägen still headed in her direction. He's looking at girls now."
Nine-thirty.
'Sture Street He's going slowly toward Stare Square. He seems calmer and is still looking at the girls."
'Take it easy," Martin Beck said.
Suddenly he felt fresh and rested in spite of the fact that he hadn't really slept for forty-eight hours.
He stood and looked at the map on which Kollberg was trying to follow Bengtsson's wandering with a red pen. The phone rang again.
'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 after 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 II half. He turned off of 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 brea
k any records today. She smiled because she knew that would irritate Mm. 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 gray police truck which was coming in. Then he got underway 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 gray 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 license numbers, ask to see drivers' licenses, identity cards and radio licenses. 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 in back of 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 colored 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 gray 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 runnel 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 Beck 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 no longer was getting air in 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 consciousnes
s 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 be 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 a 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.