The Laughing Policeman

by Maj Sjowall

  Olsson is 46 years old and is an inspector for the highway department.

  He is 6 feet tall and weighs 170 pounds stripped.

  He has ash-blond wavy hair and gray eyes. He is lankily built.

  His face is long and lean with distinct features, prominent nose, rather crooked, wide mouth, thin lips and good teeth.

  Shoe size: 9.

  Rather dark complexion, which he says is due to his work, which forces him to be so often out of doors.

  Clothing, neat: gray suit, white shirt with tie and black shoes. Out-of-doors while at work, wears a waterproofed, knee-length raincoat, wide and loose-fitting. Color, gray. He has two such coats and always wears one of them in winter. On his head he has a black leather hat with narrow brim. He has heavy black shoes with deep-ribbed rubber soles on his feet. In rain or snow, however, he usually wears black rubber boots with reflex tape.

  Olsson has an alibi for the evening of November 13. At the time in question, from 10 P.M. to midnight, he was at premises belonging to a bridge club of which he is a member. He took part in a competition and his presence is confirmed by the competition score card and the testimonies of the three other players.

  Regarding Alfons (Alf) Schwerin, Olsson says that he was easy to get on with but lazy and given to strong drink.

  “Do you think Rönn stripped him and weighed him?” Gunvald Larsson said.

  Martin Beck did not answer.

  “Nice logical conclusions,” Gunvald Larsson went on. “He had the hat on his head and the shoes on his feet. He wore only one overcoat at a time. And is it his nose or his mouth that’s rather crooked? What are you going to do with that?”

  “Don’t know. It’s a sort of description.”

  “Yes, of Olsson.”

  “What about Assarsson?”

  “I was talking to Jacobsson just now,” Gunvald Larsson said. “An ugly customer.”

  “Jacobsson?”

  “Yes, him too,” Gunvald Larsson replied. “I suppose he’s sore because they can’t pull off their own goddam dope hauls and we have to do their job for them.”

  “Not ‘we.’ You.”

  “Even Jacobsson admits, of course, that Assarsson was the biggest wholesale dealer in dope they’ve ever laid hands on. They must have made money by the sackful, those brothers.”

  “And that other shady type? The foreigner?”

  “He was just a courier. Greek. The bastard had a diplomatic passport. He was an addict himself. Assarsson thinks he was the one who squealed. Says it’s very dangerous to confide anything to heads. He’s not at all pleased. Probably because he didn’t get rid of the courier long ago in some suitable way.”

  He paused briefly.

  “That Göransson on the bus was also an addict. I wonder …”

  Gunvald Larsson did not finish the sentence, but he had given Martin Beck something to think about.

  Kollberg plodded away with his lists but preferred not to show them to anyone. He began more and more to understand how Stenström had felt while he was working on this old case. As Martin Beck had rightly pointed out, the Teresa investigation was unassailable. Some incorrigible stickler for form had even made the comment that “technically the case was solved and the investigation was a model of perfectly carried out police work.”

  The consequences of this should be the much talked-of perfect crime.

  The work with the list of men who had associated with Teresa Camarão was by no means easy. It was amazing how many people managed to die, emigrate or change their names in sixteen years. Others had become incurably insane and awaited the end in some institution. Still others were in prison or in homes for chronic alcoholics. A number had simply disappeared, either at sea or in some other way. Many had long since moved to distant parts of the country, made a new life for themselves and their families and could in most cases be written off after a quick routine checkup. By this time Kollberg had twenty-nine names on his list. Persons who were at large and still lived in Stockholm or at any rate in the vicinity of the city. Up to now he had collected only summary information about these people. Present age, profession, postal address and civil status. At the moment the list was as follows, numbered from one to twenty-nine and arranged in alphabetical order:

  1. Sven Ahlgren, 41, shop assistant, Stockholm NO, married

  2. Karl Andersson, 63, ?, Stockholm SV (Högalid institution), unmarried

  3. Ingyar Bengtsson, 43, journalist, Stockholm Va, divorced

  4. Rune Bengtsson, 56, businessman, Stocksund, married

  5. Jan Carlsson, 46, junk dealer, Upplands Väsby, unmarried

  6. Rune Carlsson, 32, engineer, Nacka 5, married

  7. Stig Ekberg, 83, former laborer, Stockholm SV (Rosenlund Home for the Aged), widower

  8. Ove Eriksson, 47, car mechanic, Bandhagen, married

  9. Valter Eriksson, 69, former stevedore, Stockholm SV (Högalid institution), widower

  10. Stig Ferm, 31, housepainter, Sollentuna, married

  11. Björn Forsberg, 48, businessman, Stocksund, married

  12. Bengt Fredriksson, 56, artist, Stockholm C, divorced

  13. Bo Frostensson, 66, actor, Stockholm Ö, divorced

  14. Johan Gran, 52, former waiter, Solna, unmarried

  15. Jan-Åsa Karlsson, 38, clerk, Enköping, married

  16. Kenneth Karlsson, 33, truck driver, Skälby, unmarried

  17. Lennart Lindgren, 81, former bank manager, Lidingö 1, married

  18. Sven Lundström, 37, warehouseman, Stockholm K, divorced

  19. Tage Nilsson, 61, lawyer, Stockholm Sö, unmarried

  20. Carl-Gustaf Nilsson, 51, former mechanic, Johanneshov, divorced

  21. Heinz Ollendorf, 46, artist, Stockholm K, unmarried

  22. Kurt Olsson, 59, civil servant, Saltsjöbaden, married

  23. Bernhard Peters, 39, commercial artist, Bromma, married (Negro)

  24. Vilhelm Rosberg, 71,?, Stockholm SV, widower

  25. Bernt Turesson, 42, mechanic, Gustavsberg, divorced

  26. Ragnar Viklund, 60, major, Vaxholm, married

  27. Bengt Wahlberg, 38, buyer (?), Stockholm K, unmarried

  28. Hans Wennström, 76, former assistant fishmonger, Solna, unmarried

  29. Lennart öberg, 35, civil engineer, Enskede, married

  Kollberg sighed and looked at the list. Teresa Camarão had included all social groups in her activities. She had also operated within different generations. When she died the youngest of these men had been fifteen and the eldest sixty-seven. On this list alone there was everything from bank managers in Stocksund to alcoholic old burglars at the Högalid institution.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Martin Beck asked.

  “Don’t know,” Kollberg replied despondently but truthfully.

  Then he went in and laid the papers on Melander’s desk.

  “You remember everything. When you have a moment to spare, will you see if you recall anything extraordinary about any of these men?”

  Melander cast a blank look at the list and nodded.

  On the twenty-third Månsson and Nordin flew home, missed by nobody. They were to return immediately after Christmas.

  Outside, the weather was cold and horrible.

  The consumer society creaked at the joints. On this particular day everything could be sold, at any price. Very often upon presentation of credit cards and dud checks.

  On his way home that evening, Martin Beck thought that Sweden now had, not only its first mass murder, but also its first unsolved police murder.

  The investigation had stuck fast. And technically—unlike the Teresa investigation—it looked like a pile of rubbish.

  28

  Christmas Eve arrived.

  Martin Beck got a Christmas present which, despite all speculations to the contrary, did not make him laugh.

  Lennart Kollberg got a Christmas present which made his wife cry.

  Both had resolved not to give a thought either to Åke Stenström or Teresa Ca
marão, and both failed in their intention.

  Martin Beck woke up early but stayed in bed reading the book about the Graf Spee until the rest of the family began to show signs of life. Then he got up, put away the suit he had worn the day before and pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater. His wife, who thought people ought to be dressed up on Christmas Eve, frowned as she eyed his clothes but for once said nothing.

  While she paid her traditional visit to her parents’ grave, Martin Beck decorated the tree together with Rolf and Ingrid. The children were noisy and excited, and he did his best not to dampen their spirits. His wife returned from her ritual call on the dead and he gamely joined in a custom that he didn’t care for—dipping bread into the pot in which the ham had been cooked.

  Before long the dull pain in his stomach made itself felt. Martin Beck was so used to these attacks that he paid no attention to them any more, but he had an idea that they had been occurring more frequently and more violently of late. Nowadays he never told Inga that he was in pain. At one time he had done so, and she had nearly been the death of him with her herbal potions and incessant fussing. For her, illness was an event on a par with life itself.

  The Christmas dinner was colossal, seeing that it was meant for only four persons, of whom one very seldom managed to get down a normal portion of cooked food, one was dieting and one was too exhausted by the work of preparing it, to eat. That left Rolf, who, on the other hand, ate all the more. He was twelve years old and Martin Beck never ceased to be amazed that his son’s spindly body was able to dispose of as much food in a day as he himself forced himself to eat in a week.

  They all lent a hand with the washing-up, this too something that happened only on Christmas Eve.

  Then Martin Beck lighted the candles on the tree, thinking of the Assarsson brothers who imported plastic Christmas trees as a cloak for their drugs traffic. Then came the hot punch and the gingerbread biscuits and Ingrid who said, “Now I think it’s time to lead in the horse.”

  As usual they had all promised to give only one present to each and as usual they had all bought a lot more.

  Martin Beck had not bought a horse for Ingrid, but as a substitute he gave her some riding breeches and paid for her riding lessons for the next six months.

  His own presents included a model construction kit of the clipper ship Cutty Sark and a scarf two yards long, knitted by Ingrid.

  She also gave him a flat package, watching him expectantly as he unwrapped the paper. Inside was a 45 r.p.m. EP record. On the sleeve was a photograph representing a fat man in the familiar uniform and helmet of the London bobby. He had a large, curling mustache and knitted mittens on his hands, which he held spread out over his stomach. He was standing in front of an old-fashioned microphone and to judge from his expression he was roaring with laughter. His name was apparently Charles Penrose and the record was called The Adventures of the Laughing Policeman.

  Ingrid fetched the record player and put it on the floor beside Martin Beck’s chair.

  “Just wait till you hear it,” she said. “It’ll kill you.”

  She took the record out of the sleeve and looked at the label.

  “The first song is called The Laughing Policeman. Pretty appropriate, eh?”

  Martin Beck knew very little about music, but he heard at once that the recording must have been made in the twenties or even earlier. Each verse was followed by long bursts of laughter, which were evidently infectious, as Inga and Rolf and Ingrid howled with mirth.

  Martin Beck was left utterly cold. He couldn’t even manage a smile. So as not to disappoint the others too much he got up and turned his back, pretending to adjust the candles on the tree.

  When the record was finished he went back to his chair. Ingrid wiped the tears from her eyes and looked at him.

  “Why, Daddy, you didn’t laugh,” she said reproachfully.

  “I thought it was awfully amusing,” he said as convincingly as he could.

  “Listen to this, then,” Ingrid said, turning the record over. “Jolly Coppers on Parade.”

  Ingrid had evidently played the record many times and she joined in the song as though she had done nothing else but sing duets with the laughing policeman:

  There’s a tramp, tramp, tramp

  At the end of the street.

  It’s the jolly coppers walking on parade.

  And their uniforms are blue

  And the brass is shining too.

  A finer lot of men were never made …

  The candles burned with a steady flame, the fir tree gave out its scent in the warm room, the children sang and Inga curled up in her new dressing gown and nibbled the head off a marzipan pig. Martin Beck sat leaning forward, his elbows propped on his knees and his chin in his hands, staring at the laughing policeman on the record sleeve.

  He thought of Stenström.

  And the telephone rang.

  Somewhere inside him Kollberg felt far from content and least of all off duty. But as it was hard to say exactly what he was neglecting, there was no reason to spoil his Christmas Eve with unnecessary brooding.

  He therefore mixed the punch with care, tasting it several times before he was satisfied, sat down at the table and regarded the deceptively idyllic scene surrounding him. Bodil lying on her stomach beside the Christmas tree, making gurgling noises. Åsa Torell sitting with crossed legs on the floor, playfully poking at the baby. Gun sauntering about the apartment with a soft, indolent nonchalance, barefoot and dressed in some mysterious garment which was a cross between pajamas and a tracksuit.

  He helped himself to a serving of fish, prepared especially for Christmas Eve. Sighed happily at the thought of the large, well-deserved meal he was about to gobble up. Tucked the napkin into his shirt and draped it over his chest. Poured out a big drink of akvavit. Raised the glass. Looked dreamily at the clear, ice-cold liquid and the mist forming on the glass. And at that moment the phone rang.

  He hesitated a moment, then drained the glass at one gulp, went into the bedroom and lifted the receiver.

  “Good evening, my name is Fröjd, from Långholmen prison.”

  “Well, that’s cheering.”

  Said Kollberg in the secure knowledge that he was not on the emergency list and that not even a new mass murder could drive him out into the snow. Capable men were detailed for such things, for example Gunvald Larsson, who was in fact on call, and Martin Beck, who had to take the consequences of his higher rank.

  “I work at the mental clinic here,” the man said. “And we have a patient who insists on talking to you. His name’s Birgersson. Says he has promised and that it’s urgent and—”

  Kollberg frowned.

  “Can he come to the phone?”

  “Sorry, no. It’s against the rules. He’s undergoing …”

  Kollberg’s face took on a sorrowful expression. The A-l team was obviously not on duty on Christmas Eve.

  “O.K., I’ll come,” he said and put down the phone.

  His wife had heard these last words and stared at him wide-eyed.

  “Have to go to Långholmen,” he said wearily. “How the hell do you get a taxi at this hour on Christmas Eve?”

  “I can drive you,” Åsa said. “I haven’t drunk anything.”

  They did not talk on the way. The guard at the entrance peered suspiciously at Åsa Torell.

  “She’s my secretary,” Kollberg said.

  “Your what? Just a moment, I must take another look at your identification card.”

  Birgersson had not changed. If possible he seemed even more gentle and polite than he had been two weeks earlier.

  “What do you want to tell me?” Kollberg said gruffly.

  Birgersson smiled.

  “It seems silly,” he said. “But I just remembered something this evening. You were asking about the car, my Morris. And—”

  “Yes? And?”

  “Once when Inspector Stenström and I had a break and sat having something to eat, I told him a story. I rem
ember we had boiled pickled pork and mashed turnips. It’s my favorite dish, and today when we had Christmas dishes …”

  Kollberg regarded the man with massive disapproval.

  “A story?” he asked.

  “A story about myself, really. From the time we lived on Roslagsgatan, my—”

  He broke off and looked doubtfully at Åsa Torell. The prison guard over by the door yawned.

  “Well, go on,” Kollberg growled.

  “My wife and I, that is. We had only one room and when I was at home I always used to feel nervous and shut-in and restless. I also slept badly.”

  “Un-huh,” Kollberg grunted.

  He felt hot and slightly dizzy. He was very thirsty and above all hungry. Moreover, his surroundings depressed him and he longed for home. Birgersson went on talking, quietly but long-windedly.

  “… so I used to go out of an evening, just so as to get away from home. This was nearly twenty years ago. I walked and walked the streets for hours, sometimes all night. Never spoke to anyone, just wandered about so as to be left in peace. After a while I’d calm down, it usually took an hour or so. But I had to occupy my thoughts with something, you see, in order to keep from worrying about everything else. Being at home and my wife and all that. So I used to find things to do. To divert myself, you might say, take my mind off my troubles and keep myself from brooding.”

  Kollberg looked at his watch.

  “Yes, yes, I see,” he said impatiently. “What did you do?”

  “I used to look at cars.”

  “Cars?”

  “Yes. I used to walk along the street and through parking lots, looking at the cars that stood there. Actually I wasn’t at all interested in cars, but in that way I got to know all the makes and models there were. After a time I became quite an expert. It was satisfying, somehow. I could do something. I could recognize all cars 40 or 50 yards away, from whichever side I saw them. If I could have taken part in one of those quiz programs on TV, you know when they ask you questions on one special subject, I’d have won first prize. From in front or from behind or from the side, it made no difference.”