The Man Who Went Up in Smoke

by Maj Sjowall

  “Ten days isn’t very long,” he said mildly.

  Another official came in from a nearby room and entered into the conversation so directly that he must have been listening at the door. Apparently some kind of caretaker, thought Martin Beck.

  “In this particular case, it’s more than enough,” said the new arrival. “The circumstances are highly exceptional. Alf Matsson flew to Budapest on the twenty-second of July, sent there by his magazine to write some articles. On the next Monday, he was to call the office here in Stockholm and read the text of a kind of regular column he writes every week. He didn’t. It’s relevant that Alf Matsson always delivered on time, as newspaper people say. In other words, he doesn’t miss a deadline when it comes to turning in manuscripts. Two days later, the office phoned his hotel in Budapest, where they said that he was staying there, but he didn’t seem to be in at that moment. The office left a message to say that Matsson should immediately inform Stockholm the moment he came in. They waited for two more days. Nothing was heard. They checked with his wife here in Stockholm. She hadn’t heard anything either. That in itself wouldn’t necessarily mean anything, as they’re getting a divorce. Last Saturday the editor called us up here. By then they had contacted the hotel again and been told that no one there had seen Matsson since they called last, but that his things were still in his room and his passport was still at the reception desk. Last Monday, the first of August, we communicated with our people down there. They knew nothing about Matsson, but put out a feeler, as they called it, to the Hungarian police, who appeared ‘not interested.’ Last Tuesday we had a visit from the editor in chief of the magazine. It was a very unpleasant meeting.”

  The redheaded man had definitely been upstaged. He bit on the stem of his pipe in annoyance and said, “Yes, exactly. Damned unpleasant.”

  A moment later he added by way of explanation: “This is my secretary.”

  “Well,” said his secretary, “anyhow, the result of that conversation was that yesterday we made unofficial contact with the police at top level, which in turn led to your coming here today. Pleased to have you here, by the way.”

  They shook hands. Martin Beck could not yet see the pattern. He massaged the bridge of his nose thoughtfully.

  “I’m afraid I don’t really understand,” he said. “Why didn’t the editors report the matter in the ordinary way?”

  “You’ll see why in a moment. The editor in chief and responsible publisher of the magazine—the same person, in fact—did not want to report the matter to the police or demand an official investigation because then the case would become known at once and would get into the rest of the press. Matsson is the magazine’s own correspondent, and he has disappeared on a reporting trip abroad, so—rightly or wrongly—the magazine regards this as its own news. The editor in chief did seem rather worried about Matsson, but on the other hand, he made no bones about the fact that he smelled a scoop, as they say, news of the caliber that increases a publication’s circulation by perhaps a hundred thousand copies just like that. If you know anything about the general line this magazine takes, then you ought to know … Well, anyhow, one of its correspondents has disappeared and the fact that he’s done it in Hungary, of all places, doesn’t make it any worse news.”

  “Behind the Iron Curtain,” said the red-haired man gravely.

  “We don’t use expressions like that,” said the other man. “Well, I hope you realize what all this means. If the case is reported and gets into the papers, that’s bad enough—even if the story retained some kind of reasonable proportions and did get a relatively factual treatment. But if the magazine keeps everything to itself and uses it for its own, opinion-leading purpose, then heaven only knows what … Well, anyhow it would damage important relations, which both we and other people have spent a long time and a good deal of effort building up. The magazine’s editor had a copy of a completed article with him when he was here on Monday. We had the dubious pleasure of reading it. If it’s published, it would mean absolute disaster in some respects. And they were actually intending to publish it in this week’s issue. We had to use all our powers of persuasion and appeal to every conceivable ethical standard to put a stop to its publication. The whole thing ended with the editor in chief delivering an ultimatum. If Matsson has not made his presence known of his own accord or if we haven’t found him before the end of next week … well, then sparks are going to fly.”

  Martin Beck massaged the roots of his hair.

  “I suppose the magazine is making its own investigations,” he said.

  The official looked absently at his superior, who was now puffing away furiously on his pipe.

  “I got the impression that the magazine’s efforts in that direction were somewhat modest. That their activities in this particular respect had been put on ice until further notice. For that matter, they haven’t the slightest idea as to where Matsson is.”

  “The man does undoubtedly seem to have disappeared,” said Martin Beck.

  “Yes, exactly. It’s very worrisome.”

  “But he can’t have just gone up in smoke,” said the red-haired man.

  Martin Beck rested one elbow on the edge of the table, clenched his fist and pressed his knuckles against the bridge of his nose. The steamer and the island and the jetty became more and more distant and diffuse in his mind.

  “Where do I come into the picture?” he said.

  “That was our idea, but naturally we didn’t know it would be you personally. We can’t investigate all this, least of all in ten days. Whatever’s happened, if the man for some reason is keeping under cover, if he’s committed suicide, if he’s had an accident or … something else, then it’s a police matter. I mean, insofar as the job can be done only by a professional. So, quite unofficially, we contacted the police at top level. Someone seems to have recommended you. Now it’s largely a matter of whether you will take on the case. The fact that you’ve come here at all indicates that you can be released from your other duties, I suppose.”

  Martin Beck suppressed a laugh. Both officials looked at him sternly. Presumably they found his behavior inappropriate.

  “Yes, I can probably be released,” he said, thinking about his nets and the rowboat. “But exactly what do you think I’d be able to do?”

  The official shrugged his shoulders.

  “Go down there, I suppose. Find him. You can go tomorrow morning if you like. Everything is arranged, by way of our channels. You’ll be temporarily transferred to our payroll, but you’ve no official assignment. Naturally we’ll help you in every possible way. For example, if you want to you can make contact with the police down there—or otherwise not. And as I said, you can leave tomorrow.”

  Martin Beck thought about it.

  “The day after tomorrow, in that case.”

  “That’s all right too.”

  “I’ll let you know this afternoon.”

  “Don’t think about it too long, though.”

  “I’ll phone in about an hour. Good-bye.”

  The red-haired man rushed up and round his desk. He thumped Martin Beck on the back with his left hand and shook hands with his right.

  “Well, good-bye then. Good-bye, Martin. And do what you can. This is important.”

  “It really is,” said the other man.

  “Yes,” said the redhead, “we might have another Wallenberg affair on our hands.”

  “That was the word we were told not to mention,” said the other man in weary despair.

  Martin Beck nodded and left.

  4

  “Are you going out there?” said Hammar.

  “Don’t know yet. I don’t even know the language.”

  “Neither does anyone else on the force. You can be quite sure we checked. Anyhow, they say you can get by with German and English.”

  “Odd story.”

  “Stupid story,” said Hammar. “But I know something that those people at the F.O. don’t know. We’ve got a dossier on him.”
>
  “Alf Matsson?”

  “Yes. The Third Section had it. In the secret files.”

  “Counter-Espionage?”

  “Exactly. The Security Division. An investigation was made on this guy three months ago.”

  There was a deafening thumping on the door and Kollberg thrust his head in. He stared at Martin Beck in astonishment.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Having my holiday.”

  “What’s all this hush-hush you’re up to? Shall I go away? As quietly as I came, without anybody noticing?”

  “Yes,” said Hammar. “No, don’t. I’m tired of hush-hush. Come in and shut the door.”

  He pulled a file out of a desk drawer.

  “This was a routine investigation,” he said, “and it gave rise to no particular action. But parts of it might interest anyone who is thinking of looking into the case.”

  “What the hell are you up to?” said Kollberg. “Have you opened a secret agency or something?”

  “If you don’t pipe down, you can go,” said Martin Beck. “Why was Counter-Espionage interested in Matsson?”

  “The passport people have their own little eccentricities. At Arlanda airport, for instance, they write down the names of people who travel to those European countries that require visas. Some bright boy who looked in their books got it into his head that this Matsson traveled all too often. To Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Sofia, Bucharest, Constanta, Belgrade. He was great for using his passport.”

  “And?”

  “So Security did a little hush-hush investigation. They went, for instance, to the magazine he works for and asked.”

  “And what did they reply?”

  “Perfectly correct, said the magazine. Alf Matsson is a great one for using his passport. Why shouldn’t he be? He’s our expert on Eastern European affairs. The results are no more remarkable than that. But there are one or two things. Take this rubbish and read it for yourself. You can sit here. Because now I’m going to go home. And this evening I’m going to go to a James Bond film. Bye!”

  Martin Beck picked up the report and began to read. When he had finished the first page, he pushed it over to Kollberg, who picked it up between the tips of his fingers and placed it down in front of him. Martin Beck looked questioningly at him.

  “I sweat so much,” said Kollberg. “Don’t want to mess up their secret documents.”

  Martin Beck nodded. He himself never sweated except when he had a cold.

  They said nothing for the following half hour.

  The dossier did not offer much of immediate interest, but it was very thoroughly compiled. Alf Matsson was not born in Gothenburg in 1934, but in Mölndal in 1933. He had begun as a journalist in the provinces in 1952 and been a reporter on several daily papers before going to Stockholm as a sports writer in 1955. As a sports reporter, he had made several trips abroad, among others to the Olympic Games, in Melbourne in 1956 and in Rome in 1960. A number of editors vouchsafed that he was a skillful journalist: “… adroit, with a speedy pen.” He had left the daily press in 1961, when he was taken on by the weekly for which he still worked. During the last four years he had devoted more and more of his time to overseas reporting on a very wide variety of subjects, from politics and economics to sport and pop stars. He had taken his university entrance exam and spoke fluent English and German, passable Spanish and some French and Russian. He earned over 40,000 kronor a year and had been married twice. His first marriage took place in 1954 and was dissolved the following year. He had married again in 1961 and had two children, a daughter by his first marriage and a son by his second.

  With praiseworthy diligence, the investigator now went over to the man’s less admirable points. On several occasions he had neglected to pay maintenance for his elder child. His first wife described him as a “drunkard and a brutal beast.” Parenthetically, it was pointed out that this witness appeared to be not entirely reliable. There were, however, several indications that Alf Matsson drank, among others a remark in a statement by an ex-colleague who said that he was “all right, but a bastard when he got drunk,” but only one of these statements was supported by evidence. On the eve of Twelfth Day in 1966, a radio patrol in Malmö had taken him to the emergency room of General Hospital after he had been stabbed in the hand during a brawl at the home of a certain Bengt Jönsson, whom he had happened to be visiting. The case was investigated by the police but was not taken to court, as Matsson had not wished to press a charge. However, two policemen by the names of Kristiansson and Kvant described both Matsson and Jönsson as under the influence, so the case was registered at the Commission on Alcoholism.

  The tone of the statement by his present boss, an editor called Eriksson, was snooty. Matsson was the magazine’s “expert on Eastern Europe” (whatever use a publication of this kind could possibly have for such a person) and the editorial board found no cause to give the police any further information about his journalistic activities. Matsson was, they went on to say, very interested in and well-informed on Eastern European matters, often produced projects of his own, and had on several occasions proved himself ambitious by giving up holidays and days off without extra pay to be able to carry out certain reporting assignments that especially interested him.

  Some previous reader had in turn appeared ambitious by underlining this sentence in red. It could hardly have been Hammar, who did not mess up other people’s reports.

  A detailed account of Matsson’s published articles showed that they consisted almost exclusively of interviews with famous athletes and reportage on sports, film stars and other figures from the entertainment world.

  The dossier contained several items in the same style. When he had finished reading, Kollberg said, “Singularly uninteresting person.”

  “There’s one peculiar detail.”

  “That he’s disappeared, you mean?”

  “Exactly,” said Martin Beck.

  A minute later, he dialed the Foreign Office number and Kollberg, much to his surprise, heard him say, “ ‘Is that Martin? Yes, hi Martin—this is Martin.”

  Martin Beck seemed to listen for a moment, a tortured expression on his face. Then he said, “Yes, I’m going.”

  5

  The building was old and had no elevator. Matsson was the top name on the list of tenants down in the entrance hall. When Martin Beck had climbed the five steep flights of stairs, he was out of breath and his heart was thumping. He waited for a moment before ringing the doorbell.

  The woman who opened the door was small and fair. She was wearing slacks and a cotton-knit top and had hard lines around her mouth. Martin Beck guessed she was about thirty.

  “Come in,” she said, holding open the door.

  He recognized her voice from the telephone conversation they had had an hour earlier.

  The hall of the flat was large and unfurnished except for an unpainted stool along one wall. A small boy of about two or three came out of the kitchen. He had a half-eaten roll in his hand and went straight up to Martin Beck, stood in front of him and stretched up a sticky fist.

  “Hi,” he said.

  Then he turned around and ran into the living room. The woman followed him and lifted up the boy, who with a satisfied gurgle had sat down in the room’s only comfortable armchair. The boy yelled as she carried him into a neighboring room and closed the door. She came back, sat down on the sofa and lit a cigarette.

  “You want to ask me about Alf. Has something happened to him?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Martin Beck sat down on the armchair.

  “Not so far as we know. It’s just that he doesn’t seem to have been heard from for a couple of weeks. Neither by the magazine, nor, so far as I can make out, by you, either. You don’t know where he might be?”

  “No idea. And the fact that he’s not let me know anything isn’t very strange in itself. He’s not been here for four weeks, and before that I didn’t hear from him for a month.”

  Martin Beck loo
ked toward the closed door.

  “But the boy? Doesn’t he usually …”

  “He hasn’t seemed especially interested in his son since we’ve separated,” she said, with some bitterness. “He sends money to us every month. But that’s only right, don’t you think?”

  “Does he earn a lot on the magazine?”

  “Yes. I don’t know how much, but he always had plenty of money. And he wasn’t mean. I never had to go without, although he spent a lot of money on himself. In restaurants and on taxis and so on. Now I’ve got a job, so I earn a little myself.”

  “How long have you been divorced?”

  “We’re not divorced. It’s not been granted yet. But he moved out of here almost eight months ago now. He got hold of a flat then. But even before that, he was away from home so much that it hardly made any difference.”

  “But I suppose you’re familiar with his habits—who he sees and where he usually goes?”

  “Not any longer. To be quite frank, I don’t know what he’s up to. Before, he used to hang around mostly with people from work. Journalists and the like. They used to sit around in a restaurant called the Tankard. But I don’t know now. Maybe he’s found some other place. Anyhow, that restaurant’s moved or has been torn down, hasn’t it?”

  She put out her cigarette and went over to the door to listen. Then she opened it cautiously and went in. A moment later she came out and shut the door just as carefully behind her.

  “He’s asleep,” she said.

  “Nice little boy,” said Martin Beck.

  “Yes, he’s nice.”

  They sat silent for a moment, and then she said, “But Alf was on an assignment in Budapest, wasn’t he? At least, I heard that somewhere. Mightn’t he have stayed there? Or have gone somewhere else?”

  “Did he used to do that? When he was away on assignments?”

  “No,” she said hesitantly. “No, actually he didn’t. He’s not especially conscientious and he drinks a lot, but while we were together he certainly didn’t neglect his work. For instance, he was awfully particular about getting his manuscripts in at the time he’d promised. When he lived here, he often sat up late at night writing to get things finished in time.”