The Locked Room

by Maj Sjowall

  “But, my God,” Gustavsson said. “The old guy must have taken his own life.”

  Martin Beck turned around and looked at him.

  “Are these official criticisms?” said Gustavsson, alarmed.

  “Yes, in high degree. Good day.”

  “Wait a minute. I’ll do all I can to help.…”

  Martin Beck shook his head, and the man left. He seemed worried. But before the door had quite had time to close, Martin Beck heard him utter the words: “Old bastard …”

  Naturally Aldor Gustavsson ought never to have been a detective sergeant, nor even a policeman of any sort. He was untalented, impudent, conceited, and had a completely wrong approach to his job. The best of the uniformed force had always been recruited into the C.I.D. And probably still were.

  If men like him had made the grade and become detectives even ten years ago, what were things going to be like in the future?

  Martin Beck felt his first working day was at an end. Tomorrow he’d go and have a look at this locked room himself. What was he to do tonight? Eat something, anything, and then sit leafing through books he knew he ought to read. Lie alone in his bed and wait for sleep. Feel shut in.

  In his own locked room.

  8

  Einar Rönn was an outdoor type. He had chosen a career in the police because it kept him on the move and offered lots of opportunities to be outdoors. As the years had passed and one promotion had followed another, his working day had progressively tied him to a sedentary position behind his desk, and his moments in the fresh air, insofar as the Stockholm air can be called fresh, had become steadily rarer. It had become crucial to his existence to be able to spend his vacations in the wild mountain world of Lapland he had come from. Actually he detested Stockholm. Already, at forty-five, he had begun to think about his retirement, when he’d go home to Arjeplog for good.

  His annual vacation was approaching, and already he was beginning to be apprehensive. If this bank business, at least, hadn’t been cleared up, he might at any moment be asked to sacrifice it.

  In order to cooperate actively in bringing the investigation to some sort of conclusion, he had taken it upon himself, this Monday evening, to drive out to Sollentuna and talk to a witness, instead of going home to Vällingby and his wife.

  Not only had he volunteered to call on this witness, who could just as easily have been summoned to the C.I.D. in the customary way; he had even showed such enthusiasm for his mission that Gunvald Larsson wondered whether he and Unda had had a quarrel.

  “Sure, of course not,” Rönn said, with one of his peculiar non sequiturs.

  The man Rönn was to visit was the thirty-two-year-old metal worker who had already been examined by Gunvald Larsson on what he’d witnessed outside the Hornsgatan bank. His name was Sten Sjögren, and he lived alone in a semidetached house on Sångarvägen. He was in his little garden in front of the house, watering a rose bush, and as Rönn climbed out of his car he put down his watering can and came over to open the gate. Wiping the palms of his hands on the seat of his pants before shaking hands, he went up the steps and held the front door open for Rönn.

  The house was small and on the ground floor; apart from the kitchen and foyer there was only one room. The door to it stood ajar. It was quite empty. The man caught Rönn’s look.

  “My wife and I have just been divorced,” he explained. “She took some of the furniture with her, so perhaps it’s not too cozy for the time being. But we can go upstairs instead.”

  At the top of the stairs there was a rather large room with an open fireplace, in front of which stood a few ill-matched armchairs grouped around a low white table. Rönn sat down, but the man remained standing.

  “Can I get you a drink?” he asked. “I can heat up some coffee. But I guess I’ve some beer in the refrigerator.”

  “Thanks, I’ll take the same as you,” Rönn said.

  “Then we’ll take a beer,” said the man. He ran off downstairs and Rönn heard him banging about in the kitchen.

  Rönn looked around the room. Not much furniture, a stereo set, quite a few books. In a basket beside the fire lay a bundle of newspapers. Dagens Nyheter, Vi, the communist paper Ny Dag, and The Metal Worker.

  Sten Sjögren returned with glasses and two beer cans, which he set down on the white table. He was thin and wiry and had reddish, tousled hair of the length Rönn regarded as normal. His face was spattered with freckles, and he had a pleasant frank smile. After opening the cans and pouring them out he sat down opposite Rönn, raised his glass to him, and drank.

  Rönn tasted his beer and said: “I’d like to hear about what you saw on Hornsgatan last Friday. It’s best not to give your memory time to fade.” That sounded real good, thought Rönn, pleased with himself.

  The man nodded and put down his glass. “Yes, if I’d known it was both a holdup and a murder I’d sure have taken a better look both at the chick and at the guy in the car.”

  “You’re the best witness we have so far anyway,” Rönn said encouragingly. “So you were walking along Hornsgatan. Which way were you heading?”

  “I was coming from Slussen and was heading for Ringvägen. This chick came up from behind and bumped into me quite hard as she ran past.”

  “Could you describe her?”

  “Not too well, I’m afraid. I only really saw her from behind—and for a split second from the side view as she climbed into the car. She was shorter than me, about six inches I guess. I’m five foot ten and a half. The age is a bit hard to specify, but I don’t think she was younger than twenty-five and hardly older than thirty-five, about thirty I figure. She was dressed in jeans, ordinary blue, and a light blue blouse or shirt, hanging outside her pants. What she had on her feet I didn’t think about, but she was wearing a hat—a denim hat with quite a wide brim. She had fair hair, straight and not quite as long as a lot of chicks wear it these days. Medium length, one could say. Then she had a green shoulder bag, one of those American military bags.”

  He took out a packet of cigarettes from the breast pocket of his khaki shirt and held them out to Rönn, who shook his head and said: “Did you see if she was carrying anything?”

  The man got up, took down a box of matches from the shelf above the open fireplace, and lit a cigarette. “No, I’m not sure of that. But I guess she could have been.”

  “Her body build? Was she thin, or fat, or …”

  “Medium, I reckon. In any case neither particularly thin or fat. Normal, one might say.”

  “Didn’t you catch her face at all?”

  “I suppose I saw it very fleetingly as she climbed into the car. But for one thing she was wearing that hat, and for another thing she had big sunglasses on.”

  “Would you recognize her if you saw her again?”

  “Not by her face anyway. And probably not if I saw her in different clothes, in a dress for example.”

  Rönn sipped his beer thoughtfully. Then he said: “Are you perfectly certain it was a woman?”

  The other looked at him in surprise. Then he frowned and said hesitatingly: “Yes, at least I took it for granted it was a chick. But now you mention it I’m not so sure. It was mostly a general impression I got, one usually has a feeling who’s a guy and who’s a chick, even if nowadays it can be hard to tell ’em apart. I can’t actually swear it was a girl. I didn’t have time to see what sort of breasts she had.”

  He fell silent and peered at Rönn through the cigarette smoke. “No, you’re right about that,” he said slowly. “It didn’t have to be a girl; it could very well have been a guy. Moreover, that would be more plausible. You don’t often hear of girls who rob banks and shoot people.”

  “You mean, then, it could just as well have been a man?” Rönn asked.

  “Yes, now that you mention it. In fact it must have been a guy.”

  “Well, but the other two? Can you describe them? And the car?”

  Sjögren took a last drag at his cigarette, then threw the butt into the fireplac
e, where a large number of cigarette ends and dead matches lay already.

  “The car was a Renault 16, I know that for sure,” he said. “It was light gray or beige, I don’t know what the color’s called; but it’s almost white. I don’t remember all the number, but it was an ‘A’ registration and I’ve a mental image of two threes in the number. There could have been three, of course, but two at least, and I think they stood one after the other, some place in the middle of the row of figures.”

  “Are you sure it was ‘A’-registered?” Rönn asked. “Not ‘AA’ or ‘AB’ for example?”

  “No, just ‘A.’ I remember that clearly. I’ve a hell of a good visual memory.”

  “Yes, it’s very good,” Rönn said. “If all eyewitnesses had one like yours, life would be much simpler.”

  “Oh yes,” said Sjögren, “I Am a Camera. Have you read it? By Isherwood.”

  “No,” said Rönn. He’d seen the film, though he didn’t say so. He’d seen it because he admired Julie Harris. But he neither knew who Isherwood was nor even that the film was based on a novel.

  “But you must have seen the film?” said Sjögren. “That’s how it is with all the good books around. People see the film and don’t take the trouble to read the book. Now this film was damn good, though it had a stupid title. How about Wild Nights in Berlin, eh?”

  “Oh,” said Rönn, who was sure it was called I Am a Camera when he’d seen it. “Yes, it does sound rather stupid.”

  It was getting dark, and Sten Sjögren got up and lit the floor lamp behind Rönn’s armchair. When he sat down again, Rönn said: “Well, suppose we go on. You were going to describe the men in the car.”

  “Yes, though when I caught sight of them there was only one of them sitting in it.”

  “Well?”

  “The other was standing on the sidewalk, waiting with the rear door ajar. He was a big guy, a good bit taller than me and powerfully built. Not fat, but heavy and powerful looking. He could easily have been my age, roughly between thirty and thirty-five, and had lots of frizzy hair—almost like Harpo Marx, but darker—mouse-colored. He wore black pants, which looked very tight, with those flared leg bottoms, and a shiny black shirt. The shirt was unbuttoned quite far down the chest, and I think he had some sort of silver thing on a chain around his neck. His face was pretty sunburned or, to be more exact, red. When the chick—if it was a chick—came running along, he opened the rear door for her to jump in and then slammed it shut, sat down in front, and the car sped off at a terrific pace.”

  “In which direction?” Rönn asked.

  “It swung right across the street and headed up towards the Maria Square.”

  “Oh,” Rönn said. “I see. And the other man?”

  “He was sitting behind the wheel, so I didn’t see him too well. But he looked younger, can’t have been much over twenty. And he was thin and pale, that much I did see. He was wearing a white T-shirt, and his arms were real scrawny. His hair was black, pretty long, and seemed dirty. Greasy and straggled. He had sunglasses on, yes, and now I remember he had a wide black watch strap on his left wrist.”

  Sjögren leaned back in his chair, beer glass in hand.

  “Well, now I think I’ve told you all I can recall,” he said. “Or do you reckon I’ve forgotten something?”

  “I don’t know,” Rönn said. “If you should happen to remember anything else, I hope you’ll call me. Will you be at home these next few days?”

  “Yes, unfortunately,” Sjögren said. “In fact I’m on vacation but haven’t any dough to travel anywhere with. So I guess I’ll just have to hang around here.”

  Rönn emptied his glass, got up. “Good,” he said. “It’s very possible we’ll be needing your help again a little later on.”

  Sjögren, too, got up and followed Rönn down the stairs. “You mean I’ll have to go through it all again?” he said. “Wouldn’t it be best to tape it once and for all?” He opened his front door and Rönn stepped outside.

  “What I was thinking was that you might be needed to identify these characters when we catch up with them. It’s also possible we may be asking you to come to the C.I.D. to take a look at some pictures.” They shook hands, and Rönn went on: “Well, we’ll see. We may not have to trouble you further. Thanks for the beer.”

  “Oh, that was nothing. If I can be of any help, I’d be pleased to oblige.”

  As Rönn drove off, Sten Sjögren waved amicably from his steps.

  9

  Police dogs apart, professional sleuths are rarely more than human. Even during the most important and serious investigations they can evince typically human reactions. The tension when some unique and conclusive item of evidence is to be studied, for example, can often become unbearable.

  In all this, the special bank robbery squad was no exception. Like their eminent and self-invited guests, they were holding their breath. All eyes in the half-dark room were fixed on the rectangular screen where the bank’s film of the Hornsgatan robbery was shortly to be shown. With their own eyes they were not only about to see an armed bank robbery and a murder, but also the person who had committed it and to whom the alert and inventive evening press had already attributed every peculiar trait, dubbing her “the sex-bomb murderer” and “the blond gunwoman in sunglasses”—epithets which only revealed how journalists, lacking any imagination of their own, find inspiration elsewhere. The reality of the case—armed robbery and murder—was too banal for them.

  The last sex queen to be caught robbing a bank had been a flat-footed, pimply lady of about forty-five. According to reliable sources, she had weighed 192 pounds and had more double chins than there are pages in a book. But not even the false teeth she lost in front of the court gave the lie, in the press’s opinion, to its own lyrical description of her appearance. And a horde of uncritical readers were to remain convinced through all eternity that she was a winsome, starry-eyed creature who should have entered the Miss Universe contest.

  Always it had been like this. When women draw attention to themselves by committing a flagrant crime, the evening papers always make them sound as if they’ve come straight out of Inger Malmroos’s school for models.

  The pictures of the robbery had only just become available. This was because the cassette, as usual, had been faulty, and the photo lab had had to take extreme care not to damage the exposed negative. In the end, however, they had managed to pry it loose from the spool and develop it without even fraying its edges. For once the exposure, at least, seemed to have been correct and the results were being predicted as technically perfect.

  “What’s it to be?” Gunvald Larsson quipped. “A Donald Duck?”

  “The Pink Panther’s funnier,” said Kollberg.

  “Some guys, of course,” Gunvald Larsson said, “are hoping for the Nazi rallies at Nuremberg.”

  They were both sitting in the front row and spoke in loud voices, but behind them prevailed only a deep silence. All the potentates present, notably the National Police Commissioner and Superintendent Malm from the National Police Board, held their tongues. Kollberg wondered what they were thinking.

  Weighing up their chances, no doubt, of making life hell for refractory subordinates. Perhaps their thoughts were even harking back to the days when there’d really been some order in things, when Heydrich had been elected president of the International Police Association by acclamation. Or perhaps they were thinking how much better the situation had been only a year ago, even, before anyone had dared to doubt the wisdom of once again entrusting all police training to military reactionaries.

  The only one who sniggered was Bulldozer Olsson.

  Formerly Kollberg and Gunvald Larsson had had very little to do with each other. But in recent years certain common experiences had to some extent changed the situation. Not to the point where they could be called buddies or where the notion of associating outside their work would ever have occurred to them; but ever more frequently they found they were on the same wavelength. And her
e, in the special squad, they unquestionably had to stick together.

  The technical preparations were over. The room was vibrating with suppressed excitement.

  “Well, now we’ll see,” Bulldozer Olsson said enthusiastically. “If the pictures are as good as they say they are, we’ll put them on television tonight, and that’ll give us the whole gang in a little box.”

  “Longlegs is passable, too,” Gunvald Larsson said.

  “Or Swedish Sex,” said Kollberg. “Fancy—I’ve never seen a blue movie. You know, Louise, Seventeen, Strips, all that sort of stuff.”

  “Quiet over there!” snapped the National Police Commissioner.

  The film began. The focus was perfect. None of those present had ever seen anything like such excellent results. Usually the thieves only resembled vague blobs or poached eggs; but this time the image was perfect.

  The camera had been artfully placed to show the cashier’s desk from behind, and thanks to a new type of hypersensitive film they could see with perfect clarity the person standing on the other side of the counter.

  At first there was nobody there. But only half a minute later a person had come into the field of vision, then stopped and looked around—first to the right then to the left. Whereafter the person in question stared straight into the lens, as if purposely to give a full-face view.

  Even the clothes showed up clearly; a suede jacket and a well-cut shirt with long, soft points to the collar.

  The face itself was forceful and grim, the blond hair was combed back, and the fair eyebrows were shaggy. The eyes wore an air of discontent. Then the figure raised a large hairy hand and, extracting a hair from one nostril, scrutinized it at length.

  At once they all saw who it was.

  Gunvald Larsson.

  Then the lights went up.