The Locked Room

by Maj Sjowall

  He followed her in, past what could only be a nursery. But the beds were so tidily made up that the room’s usual occupants could hardly be in the vicinity. Well, it was summer of course, and the children of all parents who could afford it were in the country, out of reach of the city’s polluted air and absurd living conditions.

  She threw him a glance over her shoulder, not a particularly appreciative one, and said: “Do you mind if we sit here in the kitchen? If you do, just say so.” The tone of voice, not exactly friendly, was not exactly hostile either.

  “This’ll do fine.”

  “Take a seat, then.”

  They had come into the kitchen, and he sat down at a large round table. There were six chairs of various kinds, painted in gay colors, with room for more.

  “Wait a second,” she said.

  She seemed nervous and restless, but behaved as if it were her normal condition. In front of the stove was a pair of clogs. She climbed into them and tramped off out of sight. He heard her busy herself with something, and at the same moment as an electric motor started up she said: “You didn’t tell me your name.”

  “Beck. Martin Beck.”

  “And you’re a policeman?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind?”

  “National Criminal Police.”

  “Salary scale twenty-five?”

  “Twenty-seven.”

  “See there! Not so bad.”

  “Not too bad, no.”

  “And how do I address you?”

  “Detective chief inspector.”

  The motor hummed. The sound was familiar from his past, and he realized almost immediately what she was doing: quickly drying her hair with the aid of a vacuum cleaner.

  “Rhea,” she said. “That’s me. Though of course I don’t have to say so. The name’s on the door.”

  The kitchen was a big one, as it so often is in older houses, and despite the table and its many chairs there was not only a gas stove and a dishwasher but also a refrigerator, a freezer, and plenty of room left over. On a shelf above the sink were pots and kettles, and on nails beneath them hung various natural products: for instance, twigs of wormwood and thyme, bunches of mountain ash berries, ribbons with dried mushrooms, and three long twists of garlic—objects which, though they create an atmosphere and give off an aromatic scent, are not altogether indispensable in a household. Wormwood and mountain ash berries are good spices to add to brandy, and thyme can be put into pea soup—though Beck, in the days when his stomach had been equal to that Swedish delicacy, had preferred sweet marjoram. Mushrooms are always good to have about if one knows how to use them. But the garlic could only be regarded as a decoration, since the quantity would have been enough to last any normal consumer a lifetime.

  She came back into the kitchen, combed her hair, saw instantly what he was looking at, and said: “To keep away the vampires.”

  “The garlic?”

  “Sure. Don’t you ever go to the movies? Peter Cushing knows everything about vampires.”

  She had swapped the wet knitted cardigan for a sleeveless turquoise-colored garment, in all essentials reminiscent of a slip. He noticed she had blond hair under her arms, little breasts, and no need of a bra. Nor was she wearing one, and her nipples were clearly visible under the cloth.

  “Police,” she said. “Detective chief inspector.” She looked at him with that straight look of hers and furrowed her brow: “I didn’t think that officers on salary scale twenty-seven made visits.”

  “Not usually, no,” he said.

  She sat down at the table but immediately got up again, biting on her knuckles.

  Martin Beck realized the moment had come for some kind of initiative. He said: “If I understand you correctly, you’re not especially positive in your attitude to the police.”

  She threw him a quick glance and said: “No. I can’t say I’ve ever had any use for them. Nor do I know anyone else who has. On the other hand I know a lot of people to whom they’ve caused suffering and unpleasantness.”

  “In that case I’ll do my best to trouble you as little as possible, Mrs. Nielsen.”

  “Rhea,” she said. “Everyone calls me Rhea.”

  “If I understand things correctly, you are the owner of this building?”

  “Yes. I inherited it a few years ago. But there’s nothing here to interest the police. No dope sessions, no gambling dens, not even any prostitutes or thieves.” She paused briefly. “Perhaps a little subversive activity goes on here from time to time. Mental crimes. But you aren’t on the political side.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  She laughed, suddenly and heartily. A gay infectious laugh. “I’m not all that dumb,” she said.

  No, certainly not, thought Martin Beck. Aloud he said: “You’re right. I’m only concerned with crimes of violence. Murder and manslaughter.”

  “We’ve had neither the one nor the other here. Not even a fight for the last three years. Though last winter it’s true someone broke into the attic and ripped off a lot of rubbish. I had to report it to the police, since the insurance people insist on it. No policemen turned up, they hadn’t time for it; but the insurance company paid up. All that about reporting it to the police was obviously only a formality.” She scratched her neck, and said: “Well, and what do you want?”

  “To talk about one of your tenants.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “One of mine?” she asked, laying heavy emphasis on the word “mine,” as if worried and astonished.

  “Not one of those you’ve got now,” he said.

  “Only one has moved out during the last year.”

  “Svärd.”

  “Right. A man called Svärd used to live here. He moved out last spring. What’s up with him?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Did someone do him in?”

  “Shot him.”

  “Who?”

  “It’s possible he committed suicide. But we’re not sure of it.”

  “Can’t we talk a little more relaxed?”

  “By all means. But what do you mean, relaxed? Call each other by our Christian names?”

  The woman shook her head. Then she said: “Formal talk is hopeless. I loathe it. Though I can behave in the most correct manner if I have to. And I can play the flirt, and dress myself up, and use eye shadow and lipstick.”

  Martin Beck felt strangely unsure of himself.

  Suddenly she said: “Like a cup of tea? Tea’s good.”

  Though he would dearly have liked a cup of tea, he said: “Please don’t bother for my sake. I don’t need anything.”

  “Nonsense,” she said. “Hot air. Wait a minute, and I’ll fix you something to eat, too. A grilled sandwich would do us both good.”

  Immediately he felt he wanted one too. And before he could say he didn’t she was chattering on.

  “It won’t take more than ten minutes at most. I can serve up food in two shakes of a cat’s tail. No bother at all. And it’s good. One must try to make the best of everything. Even if everything looks as if it’s going to the devil, one can always cook something nice. Tea and a sandwich in the oven, then we can talk.”

  To refuse seemed impossible. He became aware of something new about her. An obstinate trait, a strong-willed streak, which could be hard to resist.

  “Yes, thanks,” he said lamely.

  But before he’d even had time to say the words she was already busy. Banging about a lot, but also astonishingly quick and efficient. As a matter of fact he’d never seen anything like it, at least not in Sweden.

  During the seven minutes it took her to get the food ready she didn’t say a word. Six hot sandwiches with slices of tomato and grated cheese and a big pot of tea. He watched her making her improvised meal, wondered how old she was.

  At the same moment, as she sat down in front of him, she said: “Thirty-seven. Though most people think I’m younger.”

  He was too astonished to hide his amazement.

&nb
sp; “That was what you were thinking, wasn’t it? Eat up.”

  It tasted fine.

  “I’m always hungry,” she said. “I eat ten to twelve times a day.”

  People who eat ten or twelve times a day usually find it hard to keep their weight down.

  “And it doesn’t make me the least bit fatter,” she said. “Makes no difference anyway. A few pounds one way or the other don’t change a human being. I’m always myself. Though I go nuts if I don’t get my food.”

  She gulped down three sandwiches. Martin Beck ate one, and after some hesitation a second. “I see you’ve certain opinions about Svärd,” he said.

  “Yes, one could say that.”

  They found it easy to understand each other. Strangely enough neither was surprised at this. It seemed self-evident.

  “So there was something odd about him?” he said.

  “Yes,” said Rhea. “He was a queer one, he was. A very queer guy indeed. Couldn’t make head or tail of him. So, if the truth be told, I was happy when he moved out. By the way, how did he die?”

  “He was found in his flat on the eighteenth of last month. By that time he’d been dead at least six weeks. Probably longer. At a guess, about two months.”

  She shook herself and said: “Goddammit, I don’t want to know the details. I’m hypersensitive to the more advanced class of gory details, if you know what I mean. Dream about them afterwards.”

  It was on the tip of his tongue to say she would not be exposed to any unnecessary descriptions. But he saw it was superfluous.

  Instead it was she who said: “One thing’s clear, anyway.”

  “Oh, and what’s that?”

  “It could never have happened while he was living here.”

  “Couldn’t it? Why not?”

  “Because I wouldn’t have allowed it to.”

  She put her chin in her hand, her nose between her forefinger and middle finger. He noticed she had quite a big nose and strong hands with very short nails and was looking at him seriously.

  Then she suddenly got up again and poked about on the kitchen shelf until she’d found some matches and a pack of cigarettes. She smoked, inhaling deeply. Then she stubbed out her cigarette, ate up the fourth sandwich, and sat there with her elbows on her knees and her head bowed. She threw him a glance and said: “It’s possible I couldn’t have prevented him from dying. But he wouldn’t have stayed there for two months without me noticing it. Not even two days.”

  Martin Beck said nothing. She was certainly only telling the truth.

  “Landlords in this country are the last things God created,” she said. “But the system encourages them to exploit people.”

  He chewed his lower lip. Martin Beck had never made his political opinions public and always tried to avoid conversations of political import.

  She said: “No politics, eh? Okay, we’ll skip the politics. But I happen to be a landlord myself … just happen to be. I inherited this dump, as I’ve said before. Actually it’s a good building, but when I inherited it and moved in it was a bloody rat hole. My dad certainly hadn’t changed a light bulb or paid to have a broken window mended in ten years. He lived miles away from here and was only interested in collecting the rents and kicking out tenants who couldn’t pay on time. Then he divided the apartments up into bed spaces and rented them out at swinishly high prices to foreigners and others who had no choice. They’ve got to live somewhere too, haven’t they? In almost all these old houses it’s the same story.”

  Martin Beck heard someone open the front door and come in. The woman didn’t so much as react.

  A girl came into the kitchen. She was wearing a housecoat and carried a bundle. “Hello,” she said. “Can I use the washing machine?”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  The girl paid no attention to Martin Beck; but Rhea said: “I guess you two don’t know each other. This is … well, what did you say your name was, again?”

  Martin Beck got up and shook hands. “Martin,” he said.

  “Ingela,” said the girl.

  “She’s just moved in,” Rhea said. “Lives in the flat Svärd used to have.” She turned to the girl with the bundle. “How do you like it?” she asked.

  “It’s sure fine,” the girl said. “But there’s trouble with the toilet again today.”

  “Hell. I’ll ring the plumber first thing tomorrow.”

  “Otherwise everything’s lovely. By the way …”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t have any detergent.”

  “It’s behind the bath.”

  “I’m stone broke.”

  “Okay. Don’t take more than fifty öre’s worth. You can do me some little fifty-öre service sometime. Lock the street door, for instance.”

  “Nice of you.” The girl went out into the bathroom.

  Rhea lit a fresh cigarette. “That’s one thing. Svärd’s was a good flat. I had it done up two years ago. It only cost eighty kronor a month. Yet he moved out, even so.”

  “Why?”

  “Couldn’t say.”

  “No trouble?”

  “None. I don’t have trouble with people who live here. No need for it. Everyone’s got his own little ways, naturally. But that’s just fun.”

  Martin Beck said nothing. He felt he’d begun to relax. He also noticed that he didn’t need to put questions to her.

  “Svärd’s queerest trait was that he used to have four locks on his door. In a house where almost no one ever locks his door except when he absolutely needs to be in peace. When he moved out he unscrewed all his chains and bolts and took the whole lot with him. He was as strongly protected as little girls are nowadays.”

  “You mean—metaphorically?”

  “Sure. Sexually. Here our pillars of society go crying out in horror because kids, girls particularly, begin feeling their oats when they’re thirteen. Idiots. Everyone knows we begin getting sexy when we’re thirteen or so, and with the pill and all that a girl’s as safe as Fort Knox. So what’s there to be afraid of nowadays? In our day a girl was dead scared of getting pregnant. Anyway, how did we come to talk of such things?”

  Martin Beck laughed. He was astonished. But it was a fact. He had laughed. “We were talking about Svärd’s door,” he said.

  “Yes. And you laughed. I didn’t think you knew how. Or that you’d forgotten the trick of it.”

  “Maybe I happen to be in a bad mood today,” he conceded.

  But it was the wrong line; it achieved the opposite effect from what he’d intended. A faint expression of disappointment flitted over her face. She had been right and she knew it.

  To try to fool each other was stupid, and he said: “I’m sorry.”

  “Though it’s true I didn’t really fall in love until I was sixteen. But things were different in those days.” She killed her cigarette and said in a matter-of-fact voice: “I talk a hell of a lot too much. Always. But that’s only one of my many weaknesses. Though it’s not exactly a flaw of character, is it?”

  He shook his head.

  She scratched her neck and said: “Did Svärd still have all those lock gadgets?”

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head, kicked off her clogs, put her heels on the floor, and turned her feet inwards so that the toes rubbed each other.

  “Couldn’t understand it. Must have been a phobia with him. But sometimes it worried me. I’ve spare keys to all the doors. Some of the people here are old. They can fall ill and need help. And then one must be able to get in. But what’s the use of a spare key if the door’s barricaded from inside? And Svärd was fairly old, of course.”

  The noises from the bathroom changed character, and Rhea shouted out: “Need some help, Ingela?”

  “Yes … I guess so.…”

  She got up and was out awhile. When she came back she said: “Now that’s fixed. Apropos this age question, we must be about the same.”

  Martin Beck smiled. He knew that almost everyone took him for about five years less
than the fifty he’d soon be.

  “Svärd really wasn’t all that old, though,” she said. “But he wasn’t well. Apparently pretty ill. He didn’t count on living all that much longer, and when he moved he went into the hospital for a checkup. What the result was I don’t know. But he was in the radium clinic and that doesn’t sound too good, it seems to me.”

  Martin Beck pricked up his ears. This was news. But now the front door opened again. Someone said in a bright voice: “Rhea?”

  “Yes. I’m out here in the kitchen.”

  A man came in. Seeing Martin Beck, he hesitated a moment, but at once she pushed him a chair with her foot and said: “Sit down.”

  The man was fairly young, perhaps twenty-five, of medium height and normal physique. Oval face, fair hair, gray eyes, and good teeth. Clothes: a flannel shirt, corduroy trousers, and sandals. In his hand he held a bottle of red wine. “I’ve brought this with me,” he said.

  “And I who’d meant to stick to tea today,” she said. “But okay. You can get yourself a glass. Four, while you’re at it. Ingela’s in there, doing her wash.”

  She bent forward, scratched her left wrist, and said: “One bottle won’t go far with four of us. I’ve got some too. You can get one out of the pantry. On the left inside the door. The corkscrew’s in the top drawer below and to the left of the dishwasher.”

  The newcomer followed her instructions. He seemed accustomed to obey. When he’d sat down, she said: “I guess you’ve never met. Martin … Kent.”