The Man Who Went Up in Smoke

by Maj Sjowall

  Stig Lund, born 1932 in Gothenburg, unmarried, photographer on the same magazine as Kronkvist. Flat on Sveavägen owned by the magazine.

  Came to Stockholm in 1960 and has known Matsson since that time. They spent a lot of time together earlier, but during the last two years they have only met because they go to the same pubs. Quiet and gentle, drinks a lot and usually falls asleep at the table when he’s drunk. Ex-athlete, took part in competitions with cross-country running his specialty, 1945–51.

  Åke Gunnarsson, born 1932 in Jakobstad, Finland. Unmarried, journalist, writes about cars. Own flat, Svartensgatan 6.

  Came to Sweden 1950. Journalist on various auto magazines and in the daily press since 1959. Earlier various jobs such as auto mechanic. Speaks Swedish almost without accent. Moved to flat on Svartensgatan July 1 of this year; before that he lived in Hagalund. Plans to marry at beginning of September, to a girl from Uppsala who is not one of the gang. No more friendly with Matsson than the aforementioned. Drinks quite a bit, but is known for not appearing drunk when he is. Seems quite a bright boy.

  Sven-Erik Molin, born 1933 in Stockholm, divorced, journalist, house in Enskede.

  Alf Matsson’s “best friend,” i.e. he maintains he is, but speaks ill of M. behind his back. Divorced in Stockholm four years ago, keeps up support payments and sees his children now and again. Conceited, overbearing and tough attitude, especially when drunk, which happens often. Charged with intoxication in Stockholm twice, 1963 and 1965. Relationship with Pia Bolt not very serious on his side.

  There are some more in the group: Krister Sjöberg, commercial artist; Bror Forsgren, advertising representative; Lena Rosén, journalist; Bengtsfors, journalist; Jack Meredith, film cameraman, as well as a few more, more or less peripheral. None of these was actually present on the day or evening in question.

  Martin Beck got up and fetched the piece of paper he had made notes on while talking to Melander.

  He took the paper back to bed with him.

  Before putting out the light, he read the whole lot through again—Kollberg’s report and his own carelessly scribbled notes.

  26

  Saturday, the thirteenth of August, was gray and windy, and the plane to Stockholm took its time against the headwind.

  The lingering taste of crayfish was anything but delicious at this time of day and the paper mug of bad coffee that the airline had to offer hardly improved matters. Martin Beck leaned his head against the vibrating window and watched the clouds.

  After a while he tried smoking, but it tasted disgusting. Kollberg was reading a daily from southern Sweden, glancing critically at the cigarette. He probably did not feel too good either.

  As far as Alf Matsson was concerned, it could now be said that he was probably seen for the last time exactly three weeks ago—in the foyer of the Hotel Duna in Budapest.

  The pilot informed them that the weather was cloudy and that the temperature was fifteen degrees centigrade in Stockholm, and it was drizzling.

  Martin Beck extinguished his cigarette in the ashtray and said, “That murder you were on ten days ago, is it cleared up?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “No difficulties?”

  “No. Psychologically, it was utterly uninteresting, if that’s what you mean. Drunk as pigs, both of them. The guy who lived in the flat sat there giving the other guy trouble until he got angry and hit him with a bottle. Then he got scared and hit him twenty times more. But you know all that.”

  “And afterward. Did he try to get away?”

  “Oh, yes, of course. He went home and wrapped up his bloodstained clothes. Then he got a bottle of wood alcohol and went and sat under Skanstull Bridge. All we had to do was to go and pick him up. Then he flatly denied everything for a while and then began to bawl.”

  After a brief pause, he said, still without looking up, “He’s got a screw or two missing. Skanstull Bridge! But he did his best.”

  Kollberg lowered his paper and looked at Martin Beck.

  “Exactly,” he said. “He did his best.”

  He returned to his paper.

  Martin Beck frowned, picked up the list he had received the night before and read it through again. Time and time again, until they arrived. He put the paper in his pocket and fastened his safety belt. Then came the usual few minutes of unpleasantness as the plane waddled in the wind and slid down its invisible chute. Gardens and rooftops and two bounces on the concrete, and then he could let out his breath again.

  They exchanged a few remarks in the domestic flight lounge while they were waiting for their luggage.

  “Are you going out to the island tonight?”

  “No, I’ll wait a bit.”

  “There’s something rotten about this Matsson story.”

  “Yes.”

  “Aggravating.”

  In the middle of Traneberg Bridge, Kollberg said, “And it’s even more aggravating that we can’t stop thinking about the miserable business. Matsson was a boor. If he’s really disappeared, then that’s a good deed done. If he’s on the run, then someone’ll get him one of these days. That’s not our business. And if by any chance he’s somehow died down there, then that’s nothing to do with us either. Is it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But supposing the man just goes on having disappeared. Then we’ll be thinking about it for ten years. Christ!”

  “You’re not being particularly logical.”

  “No. Exactly,” said Kollberg.

  The police station seemed unusually quiet, but of course it was Saturday and, despite everything, still summer. On Martin Beck’s desk lay a number of uninteresting letters and a note from Melander:

  “A pair of black shoes in the flat. Old. Not used for a long time. No dark-gray suit.”

  Outside the window, the wind tore at the treetops and the rain was driving against the windowpane. He thought of the Danube and the steamers and the breeze from the sunny hills. Viennese waltzes. The soft, warm night air. The bridge. The quay. Martin Beck gingerly felt the bump on the back of his head with his fingers, then went back to his desk and sat down.

  Kollberg came in, looked at Melander’s message, scratched his stomach and said, “It’s probably our concern in any case.”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  Martin Beck thought for a moment.

  “When you were in Rumania, did you turn in your passport?”

  “Yes, the police collected your passport at the airport. Then you got it back at the hotel a week later. I saw mine standing in my pigeonhole for several days before they gave it to me. It was a big hotel. The police handed in whole bundles of passports every evening.”

  Martin Beck pulled the telephone toward him.

  “Budapest 298-317, a person-to-person call to Major Vilmos Szluka. Yes, Major S-Z-L-U-K-A. No, it’s in Hungary.”

  He returned to the window and stared out into the rain without saying anything. Kollberg sat in the visitor’s chair and studied his nails. Neither of them moved or spoke until the telephone rang.

  Someone said in very bad German, “Yes, Major Szluka will come in a minute.”

  Steps echoed through police headquarters in Deák Ferenc Tér. Then Szluka’s voice came over: “Good morning. How are things in Stockholm?”

  “It’s raining and windy. Cold.”

  “Oh, it’s over 85° Fahrenheit here. Almost too hot. I was just thinking of going to Palatino. Anything new?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Same here. We haven’t found him yet. Can I help you with anything?”

  “Doesn’t it sometimes happen that people lose their passports now during the tourist season?”

  “Yes, unfortunately. It’s always troublesome. Fortunately that’s not one of my concerns.”

  “Could you find out whether any foreigner has reported the loss of his passport at the Ifjuság or the Duna since the twenty-first of July?”

  “Of course. But it’s not my department, as I said. Will it be all right if I g
et the answer back by five?”

  “You can telephone whenever you like. And one more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “If someone has reported this, do you think you could find out what the person looked like? Just a brief description.”

  “I’ll call you at five o’clock. Good-bye.”

  “Good-bye. Hope you don’t miss going to the baths.”

  He put down the receiver. Kollberg looked at him suspiciously.

  “What the hell is the business about baths?”

  “A sulfur bath, where you sit in marble armchairs under water.”

  “Oh.”

  There was a brief silence. Kollberg scratched his head and said, “So in Budapest he was wearing a blue blazer and gray trousers and brown shoes.”

  “Yes, and the raincoat.”

  “And in his suitcase there was a blue blazer.”

  “Yes.”

  “And a pair of gray trousers.”

  “Yes.”

  “And a pair of brown shoes.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the night before he left he was wearing a dark suit and black shoes.”

  “Yes, and the raincoat.”

  “And neither the shoes nor the suit are in his flat.”

  “No.”

  “Christ!” said Kollberg simply.

  “Yes.”

  The atmosphere in the room changed and seemed to become less tense. Martin Beck rummaged in his drawer, found a dry old Florida and lit it. Like the man in Malmö, he was trying to give up smoking, but much more halfheartedly.

  Kollberg yawned and looked at his watch.

  “Shall we go and eat somewhere?”

  “Yes, why not?”

  “The Tankard?”

  “Sure.”

  27

  The wind had dropped and in Vasa Park the light rain was falling peacefully down onto the double row of tombola stalls, a carousel and two policemen in black rain capes. The carousel was running and on one of the painted horses sat a lone child: a little girl in a red-plastic coat with a hood. She was riding round and round in the rain with a solemn expression on her face and her eyes focused straight ahead. Her parents were standing under an umbrella a little way away, regarding the amusement park with melancholy eyes. A fresh smell of greenery and wet leaves came from the park. It was Saturday afternoon and, despite everything, still summer.

  The restaurant diagonally opposite the park was almost empty. The only audible sound in the place was a faint comforting rustle from the evening papers of two elderly regular customers and the muted sound of darts thudding into the board in the dart room. Martin Beck and Kollberg took a seat in the bar, six feet or so from the table that was the favorite refuge of Alf Matsson and his fellow journalists. There was no one there now, but in the middle of the table stood a glass containing a red reservation card. Presumably this was a fixture.

  “The lunch hour is over now,” said Kollberg. “In an hour or so people begin dropping in again, and in the evening it’s so chock-full of people spilling beer all over each other that you can hardly get your foot inside.”

  The atmosphere did not make for extensive discussion. They ate a late lunch in silence. Outside the Swedish summer was pouring away. Kollberg drained a stein of beer, folded up his table napkin, wiped his mouth and said, “Is it difficult to get across the border down there? Without a passport?”

  “Fairly. They say the borders are guarded well. A foreigner who didn’t know his way around would hardly make it.”

  “And if you leave by the ordinary routes, then you have to have a visa in your passport?”

  “Yes, and an exit permit besides. That’s a loose piece of paper that you get on entry and keep in your passport until you leave the country. Then the passport control people take it. The police also stamp the date of departure beside the visa in your passport. Look.”

  Martin Beck took his passport out of his inside pocket and put it on the table. Kollberg studied the stamps. Then he said:

  “And assuming that you’ve got both a visa and an exit permit, then you can cross any border you like?”

  “Yes. You have five countries to choose from—Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, Rumania, Yugoslavia and Austria. And you can go any way you like—by air, train, car or boat.”

  “Boat? From Hungary?”

  “Yes, on the Danube. From Budapest you can get to Vienna or Bratislava in a few hours by hydrofoil.”

  “And you can ride a bicycle, walk, swim, ride horseback or crawl?” said Kollberg.

  “Yes, as long as you make your way to a border station.”

  “And you can go to Austria and Yugoslavia without a visa?”

  “That depends on what kind of passport you’ve got. If it’s Swedish for instance, or German or Italian, then you don’t need one. On a Hungarian passport you can go to Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia without a visa.”

  “But it’s hardly likely that he did that?”

  “No.”

  They went on to coffee. Kollberg was still looking at the stamps in the passport.

  “The Danes didn’t stamp it when you got to Kastrup,” he said.

  “No.”

  “Then in other words there’s no evidence that you’ve returned to Sweden.”

  “No,” said Martin Beck.

  A moment later he added, “But on the other hand, I’m sitting here—right?”

  A number of customers had dropped in during the last half hour, and there was already a shortage of tables. A man of about thirty-five came in and sat down at the table with the red reservation card on it, was given a stein of beer and sat leafing through the evening paper, seemingly bored. Now and again he looked anxiously toward the door, as if he were waiting for someone. He had a beard and was wearing thick-rimmed glasses, a brown checked tweed jacket, a white shirt, brown trousers and black shoes.

  “Who’s that?” said Martin Beck.

  “Don’t know. They all look alike. Besides, there are a number of marginal creatures who only show up now and then.”

  “It’s not Molin, anyhow, because I’d recognize him.”

  Kollberg glanced at the man.

  “Gunnarsson maybe.”

  Martin Beck thought.

  “No, I’ve seen him too.”

  A woman came in. She had red hair and was quite young, dressed in a brick-red sweater, tweed skirt and green stockings. She moved easily, letting her eyes wander over the room as she fingered her nose. She sat down at the table with the red card and said, “Ciao, Per.”

  “Ciao, sweetheart.”

  “Per,” said Kollberg. “That’s Kronkvist. And that’s Pia Bolt.”

  “Why have they all got beards?”

  Martin Beck said it thoughtfully, as if he had pondered the problem for a long time.

  “Perhaps they’re false,” said Kollberg solemnly.

  He looked at his watch.

  “Just to give us trouble,” he said.

  “We’d better get back,” said Martin Beck. “Did you tell Stenström to come on up?”

  Kollberg nodded. As they were leaving, they heard the man named Per Kronkvist call out to the waitress:

  “More beer! Over here!”

  It was very quiet at the police station. Stenström was sitting in the downstairs office playing patience.

  Kollberg looked critically at him, and said, “Have you already started with that? What are you going to do when you get old?”

  “Sit thinking the same thing I’m thinking now: why am I sitting here?”

  “You’re going to check some alibis,” said Martin Beck. “Give him the list, Lennart.”

  Stenström was given the list. He glanced at it.

  “Now?”

  “Yes, this evening.”

  “Molin, Lund, Kronkvist, Gunnarsson, Bengtsfors, Pia Bolt. Who is Bengtsfors?”

  “That’s a mistake,” said Kollberg gloomily. “Supposed to be Bengt Fors. The t on my typewriter sticks to the s.”

  “Shall
I question the girl too?”

  “Yes, if it amuses you,” said Martin Beck. “She’s at the Tankard.”

  “Can I talk to them direct?”

  “Why not? Routine investigation in the Alf Matsson case. Everyone knows what it’s all about now. How’s things with the Narcotics boys, by the way?”

  “I spoke to Jacobsson,” said Stenström. “They’ll soon have it all tied up. As soon as the heads here knew that Matsson had had it, they began to talk. I was thinking of something, by the way. Matsson sold the stuff directly to a few people who were really desperate and he made them pay through the nose.”

  “What were you thinking?”

  “Couldn’t it be one of the poor devils he skinned—that one of his customers got tired of him, so to speak?”

  “Could be,” said Martin Beck solemnly.

  “Especially at the movies,” said Kollberg. “In America.”

  Stenström put the piece of paper into his pocket and got up. At the door he stopped and said huffily, “Sometimes something different actually might happen here too.”

  “Possibly,” said Kollberg. “But you’ve forgotten that Matsson disappeared in Hungary, on his way to pick up some more stuff for his poor customers. Now scram.”

  Stenström left.

  “That was nasty of you,” said Martin Beck.

  “He might do a little thinking for himself too,” said Kollberg.

  “That’s what he was doing.”

  “Huh!”

  Martin Beck went out into the corridor. Stenström was just putting on his coat.

  “Look at their passports.”

  Stenström nodded.

  “Don’t go alone.”

  “Are they dangerous?” said Stenström sarcastically.

  “Routine,” said Martin Beck.

  He went back in to Kollberg. They sat in silence until the telephone rang. Martin picked up the receiver.

  “Your call to Budapest will be coming through at seven o’clock instead of five,” said the telephone operator.