by Maj Sjowall
He strode quickly across the floor and lifted the receiver before the second ring had finished.
'Beck.'
'Superintendent Beck?'
He didn't recognize the voice at the other end. 'Yes, speaking.'
'This is Radio Central. Several passengers have been found shot dead in a bus on route 47 near the end of the line on Norra Stationsgatan. You're asked to go there at once.'
Martin Beck's first thought was that he was a victim of a practical joke or that some antagonist was trying to trick him to go out into the rain just to give him trouble.
'Who gave you the message?' he asked.
'Hansson from the Fifth. Superintendent Hammar has already been notified.'
'How many dead?'
'They're not sure yet Six at least'
'Anyone arrested?' 'Not as far as I know.'
Martin Beck thought I'll pick up Kollberg on the way. Hope there's a taxi. And said, 'OK, I'll come at once.' 'Oh, Superintendent...' 'Yes?'
'One of the dead ... he seems to be one of your men.'
Martin Beck gripped the receiver hard.
‘Who?'
'I don't know. They didn't say a name.'
Martin Beck flung down the receiver and leaned his head against the wall. Lennart! It must be him. What the hell was he doing out in the rain? What the hell was he doing on a 47 bus? No, not Kollberg, it must be a mistake.
He picked up the phone and dialled Kollberg's number. He heard a ring at the other end. Two. Three. Four. Five.
'Kollberg.'
It was Gun's sleepy voice. Martin Beck tried to sound calm and natural.
'Hello. Is Lennart there?'
He thought he heard the bed creak as she sat up, and it was an eternity before she answered.
'No, not in bed at any rate. I thought he was with you. Or rather that you were here.'
'He left when I did. To take a walk. Are you sure he's not at home?'
'He may be in the kitchen. Hang on and I'll have a look.' It was another eternity before she came back. 'No, Martin, he's not at home.' Now her voice was anxious. 'Wherever can he be?' she said. 'In this weather?' 'I expect he's just out getting a breath of air. I just got home, so he can't have been out long. Don't worry.' 'Shall I ask him to call you when he comes?'
She sounded reassured.
'No, it's not important Sleep well. So long.'
He put down the receiver. Suddenly he felt so cold that his teeth were chattering. He picked up the receiver again and stood with it in his hand, thinking that he must call someone and find out exactly what had happened. Then he decided that the best way was to get to the place himself as fast as he could. He dialled the number of the nearest taxi rank and got a reply immediately.
Martin Beck had been a policeman for twenty-three years. During that time several of his colleagues had been killed in the course of duty. It had hit him hard every time it happened, and somewhere at the back of his mind was also the realization that police work was getting more and more risky and that next time it might be his own turn. But when it came to Kollberg, his feelings were not merely those of a colleague. Over the years they had become more and more dependent on each other in their work. They were a good complement to one another and they had learned to understand each other's thoughts and feelings without wasting words. When Kollberg got married eighteen months ago and moved to Skärmarbrink they had also come closer together geographically and had taken to meeting in their spare time.
Quite recently Kollberg had said, in one of his rare moments of depression, 'If you weren't there, God only knows whether I'd stay on the force.'
Martin Beck thought of this as he pulled on his wet raincoat and ran down the stairs to the waiting taxi.
6
Despite the rain and the late hour a cluster of people had collected outside the cordon towards Karlbergsvägen. They stared curiously at Martin Beck as he got out of the taxi. A young constable in a black raincape made a violent movement to check him, but another policeman grabbed his arm and saluted.
A small man in a light-coloured trench coat and cap placed himself in Martin Beck's way and said, 'My condolences, Superintendent. I just heard a rumour that one of your -'
Martin Beck gave the man a look that made him swallow the rest of the sentence.
He knew the man in the cap only too well and disliked him intensely. The man was a freelance journalist and called himself a crime reporter. His speciality was reporting murders and his accounts were full of sensational, repulsive and usually erroneous details. In fact only the very worst weeklies published them.
The man slunk off and Martin Beck swung his legs over the rope. He saw that a similar cordon had been made a little farther up towards Torsplan. The roped-off area was swarming with black-and-white cars and unidentifiable figures in shiny raincoats. The ground around the red doubledecker was loose and squelchy.
The bus was lit up inside and the headlights were on, but thecones of light did not reach far in the heavy rain. The ambulance from the State Forensic Laboratory stood at the rear of the bus with its radiator pointing to Karlsbergsvägen. The medico-legal expert's car was also on the scene. Behind the broken wire fence some men were busy setting up floodlights. All these details showed that something far out of the ordinary had happened.
Martin Beck glanced up at the dismal blocks of flats on the other side of the street Figures were silhouetted in several of the lit windows, and behind rain-streaked panes, like blurred white patches, he saw faces pressed against the glass. A bare-legged woman in boots and with a raincoat over her nightdress came out of an entrance obliquely opposite the scene of the accident. She got halfway across the street before being stopped by a policeman, who took her by the arm and led her back to the doorway. The constable strode along and she half ran beside him while the wet white nightdress twisted itself around her legs.
Martin Beck could not see the doors of the bus but he saw people moving about inside, and presumed that men from the forensic laboratory were already at work. He couldn't see any of his colleagues from the homicide squad, either, but guessed that they were somewhere on the other side of the vehicle.
Involuntarily he slowed his steps. He thought of what he was soon to see and clenched his hands in his coat pockets as he gave the forensic technicians' grey vehicle a wide berth.
In the glow from the doubledecker's open middle doors stood Hammar, who had been his boss for many years and was now a chief superintendent. He was talking to someone who was evidently inside the bus. He broke off and turned to Martin Beck.
'There you are. I was beginning to think they'd forgotten to call you.'
Martin Beck made no answer but went over to the doors and looked in.
He felt his stomach muscles knotting. It was worse than he had expected.
The cold bright light made every detail stand out with the sharpness of an etching. The whole bus seemed to be full of twisted, lifeless bodies covered with blood.
He would have liked to have turned and walked away and not had to look, but his face did not betray his feelings. Instead, he forced himself to make a systematic mental note of all the details. The men from the laboratory were working silently and methodically. One of them looked at Martin Beck and slowly shook his head.
Martin Beck regarded the bodies one by one. He didn't recognize any of them. At least not in their present state.
'The one up there,' he said suddenly, 'has he ...'
He turned to Hammar and broke off short.
Behind Hammar, Kollberg appeared out of the dark, bareheaded and with his hair stuck to his forehead.
Martin Beck stared at him.
'Hi,' said Kollberg. 'I was beginning to wonder what had happened to you. I was about to tell them to call you again.'
He stopped in front of Martin Beck and gave him a searching look.
Then he gave a swift, nauseated glance at the interior of the bus and went on, ‘You need a cup of coffee. I'll get one for you.' Martin Beck sho
ok his head. 'Yes,' Kollberg said.
He squished off Martin Beck stared after him, then went over to the front doors and looked in. Hammar followed with heavy steps.
The bus driver lay slumped over the wheel. He had evidently been shot through the head. Martin Beck regarded what had been the man's face and was vaguely surprised that he didn't feel any nausea. He turned to Hammar, who was staring expressionlessly out into the rain.
'What on earth was he doing here?' Hammar said tonelessly. 'On this bus?'
And at that instant Martin Beck knew to whom the man on the phone had been referring.
Nearest the window behind the stairs leading to the top deck sat Åke Stenström, detective sub-inspector on the homicide squad and one of Martin Beck's youngest colleagues.
'Sat' was perhaps not the right word. Stenström's dark-blue poplin raincoat was soaked with blood and he sprawled in his seat, his right shoulder against the back of a young woman who was sitting next to him, bent double.
He was dead. Like the young woman and the six other people in the bus.
In his right hand he held his service pistol.
7
The rain kept on all night and although the sun, according to the almanac, rose at twenty minutes to eight the time was nearer nine before it was strong enough to penetrate the clouds and disseminate an uncertain, hazy light
Across the pavement on Norra Stationsgatan stood the red doubledecker bus just as it had stopped ten hours previously.
But that was the only thing that was the same. By now about fifty men were inside the extensive cordons, and outside them the crowd of curious onlookers got bigger and bigger. Many had been standing there ever since midnight, and all they had seen was police and ambulance men and wailing emergency vehicles of every conceivable kind. It had been a night of sirens, with a constant stream of cars roaring along the wet streets, apparently going nowhere and for no reason.
Nobody knew anything for sure, but there were two words that were whispered from person to person and soon spread in concentric circles through the crowd and the surrounding houses and city, finally taking more definite shape and being flung out across the country as a whole. By now the words had reached for beyond the frontiers.
Mass murder.
Mass murder in Stockholm.
Mass murder in a bus in Stockholm.
Everybody thought they knew this much at least
Very little more was known at police headquarters on Kungsholmsgatan. It wasn't even known for certain who was in charge of the investigation. The confusion was complete. Telephones rang incessantly, people came and went, floors were dirtied and the men who dirtied them were irritable and clammy with sweat and rain.
'Who's working on the list of names?' Martin Beck asked.
'Rönn, I should think,' said Kollberg without turning round. He was busy taping a plan to the wall. The sketch was over three yards long and more than half a yard wide and was awkward to handle.
'Can't someone give me a hand?' he said. 'Sure,' said Melander calmly, putting down his pipe and standing up.
Fredrik Melander was a tall, lean man of grave appearance and methodical disposition. He was forty-eight years old and a detective inspector on the homicide squad. Kollberg had worked together with him for many years. He had forgotten how many. Melander, on the other hand, had not He was known never to forget anything.
Two telephones rang.
'Hello. This is Superintendent Beck. Who? No, he's not here. Shall I ask him to call? Oh, I see.'
He put the phone down and reached for the other one. An almost white-haired man of about fifty opened the door cautiously and stopped doubtfully on the threshold.
'Well, Ek, what do you want?' Martin Beck asked as he lifted the receiver.
'About the bus ...' the white-haired man said.
'When will I be home? I haven't the vaguest idea,' said Martin Beck into the telephone.
'Hell,' Kollberg exclaimed as the strip of tape got tangled up between his fat fingers.
'Take it easy’ Melander said.
Martin Beck turned back to the man in the doorway.
'Well, what about the bus?'
Ek shut the door behind him and studied his notes.
'It's built by the Leyland factories in England,' he said. 'It's an Atlantean model, but here it's called Type H35. It holds seventy-five seated passengers. The odd thing is -'
The door was flung open. Gunvald Larsson stared incredulously into his untidy office. His light raincoat was sopping wet, like his trousers and his fair hair. His shoes were muddy.
'What a bloody mess in here,' he grumbled.
'What was the odd thing about the bus?' Melander asked.
'Well, that particular type isn't used on route 47.'
'Isn't it?'
'Not as a rule, I mean. They usually put German buses on, made by Bussing. They're also doubledeckers. This was just an exception.'
'A brilliant clue,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'The madman who did this only murders people in English buses. Is that what you mean?'
Ek looked at him resignedly. Gunvald Larsson shook himself and said, 'By the way, what's the horde of apes doing down in the vestibule? Who are they?'
'Journalists,' Ek said. 'Someone ought to talk to them.'
'Not me,' Kollberg said promptly.
'Isn't Hammar or the Commissioner or the Attorney General or some other higher-up going to issue a communique?' Gunvald Larsson said.
'It probably hasn't been worded yet,' said Martin Beck. 'Ek is right. Someone ought to talk to them.' 'Not me,' Kollberg repeated.
Then he wheeled round, almost triumphantly, as if he had had a brainwave.
'Gunvald,' he said. 'You were the one who got there first You can hold the press conference.'
Gunvald Larsson stared into the room and pushed a wet tuft of hair off his forehead with the back of his big hairy right hand. Martin Beck said nothing, not even bothering to look towards the door.
'OK,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'Get them herded in somewhere. I'll talk to them. There's just one thing I must know first'
'What?'Martin Beck asked.
'Has anyone told Stenström's mother?'
Dead silence fell, as though the words had robbed everyone in the room of the power of speech, including Gunvald Larsson himself. The man on the threshold looked from one to the other.
At last Melander turned his head and said, 'Yes. She's been told.'
'Good,' Gunvald Larsson said, and banged the door.
'Good,' said Martin Beck to himself, drumming the top of the desk with his fingertips.
'Was that wise?' Kollberg asked.
'What?'
'Letting Gunvald ... Don't you think we'll get enough abuse in the press as it is?'
Martin Beck looked at him but said nothing. Kollberg shrugged. 'Oh well,' he said. 'It doesn't matter.'
Melander went back to the desk, picked up his pipe and lit it.
'No,' he said. 'It couldn't matter less.'
He and Kollberg had got the sketch up now. An enlarged drawing of the lower deck of the bus. Some figures were sketched in. They were numbered from one to nine.
'Where's Rönn with that list?' Martin Beck mumbled.
'Another thing about the bus -' Ek said obstinately.
And the telephones rang.
8
The office where the first improvised confrontation with the press took place was decidedly ill-suited to the purpose. It contained nothing but a table, a few cupboards and four chairs, and when Gunvald Larsson entered the room, it was already stuffy with cigarette smoke and the smell of wet overcoats.
He stopped just inside the door, looked round at the assembled journalists and photographers and said tonelessly, 'Well, what do you want to know?'
They all began to talk at once. Gunvald Larsson held up his hand and said, 'One at a time, please. You, there, can start Then we'll go from left to right'
Thereafter the press conference proceeded as follows:
/> QUESTION: When was the bus found?
ANSWER: About ten minutes past eleven last night
Q: By whom?
A: A man in the street who then stopped a radio patrol car.
Q: How many were in the bus?
A: Eight
Q: Were they all dead?
A: Yes.
Q: How had they died?
A: It's too soon yet to say.
Q: Was their death caused by external violence?
A: Probably.
Q: What do you mean by probably?
A: Exactly what I say.
Q: Were there any signs of shooting?
A: Yes.
Q: SO all these people had been shot dead?
A: Probably.
Q: SO it's really a question of mass murder?
A: Yes.
Q: Have you found the murder weapon? A: NO.
Q: Have the police detained anyone yet? A: NO.
Q: Are there any traces or clues that point to one particular
person? A: NO.
Q: Were the murders committed by one and the same person?
A: Don't know.
Q: Is there anything to indicate that more than one person killed these eight people?
A: NO.
Q: HOW could one single person kill eight people in a bus before anyone had time to resist?
A: Don't know.
Q: Were the shots fired by someone inside the bus or did they come from outside?
A: They did not come from outside.
Q: HOW do you know?
A: The windowpanes that were damaged had been fired at from inside.
Q: What kind of weapon had the murderer used?
A: Don't know.
Q: It must surely have been a machine gun or a submachine gun?
A: NO comment.
Q: Was the bus standing still when the murders were committed or was it moving? A: Don't know.
Q: Doesn't the position in which the bus was found indicate that the shooting took place while it was in movement and that it then mounted the pavement?
A: Yes.
Q: Did the police dogs get a scent?
A: It was raining.
Q: It was a doubledecker bus, wasn't it?
A: Yes.
Q: Where were the bodies found? On the upper or lower deck?
A: On the lower one.
Q: All eight?