Martin Beck: The Locked Room Part 20

All things considered, Bulldozer felt happy about his morning. He grabbed a quick lunch of flounder and mashed potatoes in the canteen and with renewed energy flung himself into his next task: the capture of the Mohren gang.

Kollberg had had his work cut out Major forces had been mobilized at the two main spots where the attack was expected: Rosenlundsgatan and the vicinity of the bank. The mobile forces had orders to stand by around these two areas and at the same time to avoid drawing attention to themselves. Along the getaway route, too, vehicles were stationed that could quickly block it if the bank robbers, against all expectations, should get that far.

In the police headquarters on Kungsholmen there was not so much as a motorcycle. Car park and garage stood empty. All vehicles had been stationed in tactical positions about the town.

At the critical moment Bulldozer was to be in the police building, where he would be able to follow events over the radio and also receive the gangsters when they were brought in.

The members of the special squad were to be in and around the bank itself - all but Ronn. It was to be his job to keep an eye on Rosenlundsgatan.

At two o'clock Bulldozer drove around on a tour of inspection in a grey 'T'-registered Volvo Amazon. Perhaps there were a few too many police cars to be seen in the streets around Rosenlundsgatan, but around the bank there were no signs at all that it was under observation, and police cars were not noticeably numerous. Fully satisfied with these arrangements, Bulldozer drove back to Kungsholmsgatan to await the critical hour.

Now it was 2.45; but at Rosenlundsgatan all was quiet. One minute later nothing had happened at the police headquarters. When it was 2.50 and the bank, too, had not been attacked, it was clear this was not the day of the big coup.

For safety's sake Bulldozer waited until 3.30 before calling off the operation, whose planning and details they now had a whole week to polish up and correct They all agreed, however, that things had gone according to plan: they all had done their jobs satisfactorily; the time schedule had worked; everyone had been at the right place at the right moment.

Only the day was wrong. But in a week's time it would all be repeated - if possible with even greater precision and efficiency.

Then, it was to be hoped, Malmstrom and Mohren, too, would put in an appearance.

On that Friday, however, the very thing that everyone feared most of all occurred. The National Police Commissioner got it into his head that someone was going to throw an egg at the United States amba.s.sador, or perhaps a tomato at the emba.s.sy, or set fire to the Star-Spangled Banner.

The security police were worried. They lived in a world of spooks, a world that swarmed with dangerous communists and bomb-throwing anarchists and hooligans who were trying to bring society to its senses by protesting against plastic milk bottles and the vandalization of the urban environment. The security police got most of their information from Ustasja and other fascist organizations, with whom they were delighted to collaborate in order to gain information about alleged left-wing activists. The National Police Commissioner, personally, was even more worried. For he knew something that even the security police still had not got wind of. Ronald Reagan was turning up. That hardly popular governor had already popped up in Denmark, where he had lunched with the Queen. It was not out of the question that he might drop in on Sweden, too, in which case his visit could hardly be kept a secret.

This was why the Vietnam demonstration, planned for that evening, came at a most inopportune moment Many thousands of people were indignant about the bombing of North "Vietnam's d.y.k.es and wholly unprotected villages, which for reasons of prestige had to be blasted back into the Stone Age. Some of these people had gathered at Hakberget to adopt a resolution. Afterwards it was their intention to hand the doc.u.ment to some doorman at the United States Emba.s.sy.

This must not be allowed to happen. The situation was delicate, the chief of the Stockholm Police was off duty, and the head of the riot police was away on holiday. Thousands of disturbers of the peace were threateningly close to the city's most sacrosanct building: the gla.s.s palace of the United States. In this situation the National Commissioner of Police made a historic decision. He was going to see to it, in person, that the demonstration went off peacefully. He personally would lead the procession to some safe spot, far from the dangerous neighbourhood. This safe place was Humlegrden Park, in the centre of Stockholm. There the d.a.m.ned resolution was to be read aloud, after which the demonstration was to be dissolved. The demonstrators, for their part, were peaceful enough and agreed to everything. The procession got going along Karlavagen. Every able-bodied policeman within reach was mobilized to supervise the operation.

For example, Gunvald Larsson suddenly found himself sitting in a helicopter, staring down at the long line of people with banners and "Viet Cong flags proceeding at a snail's pace northwards. He clearly saw what happened but could do little or nothing about it. Nor did he want to.

At the junction of Karlavagen and Sturegatan the National Police Commissioner, in person, led the procession straight into a large and extremely disgruntled crowd of football fans who were pouring out of the civic stadium, greatly displeased at the poor showing of the home team. The melee that ensued was reminiscent of the rout after Waterloo or the Pope's visit to Jerusalem. Within three minutes policemen of every kind were striking out right and left against everything and everyone: football fans, people taking a stroll in Humlegrden, and pacifists - all of whom suddenly found batons raining down on them, and motorcycle police and mounted detachments brutally forcing their way among them. Demonstrators and fans began fighting without knowing why, and in the end the uniformed police were knocking down their plainclothes colleagues. The National Police Commissioner himself had to be evacuated by helicopter.

Not, however, the one Gunvald Larsson was sitting in; for after a minute of this hullabaloo he said: 'Fly off, dammit, anywhere you like, as long as it's for away.'

A hundred people were arrested and many more were injured. None of them knew why. Stockholm was in chaos. And the National Police Commissioner said, out of pure habit 'None of this must be allowed to come out'

26.

Martin Beck rode again - crouching low and at a gallop across a plain - surrounded by men in raglan coats. In front of him he saw the Russian artillery emplacement; the muzzle of a gun stuck out between the sandbags, staring at him. Death's black eye. He saw the sh.e.l.l coming straight towards him. It grew. It became bigger and bigger until it filled his whole field of vision - and then the image blackened. This must be Balaklava. Then he was standing on the bridge of HMS Lion. The Indefatigable and the Queen Mary had just blown up and been swallowed by the sea. A messenger rushed up and yelled: 'Princess Royal has blown up!' Beatty bent forward and said in a loud, calm voice, above the roar of battle: 'Beck, there seems to be something wrong with our b.l.o.o.d.y s.h.i.+ps today. Steer two points closer to the enemy.'

Then came the usual scene with Garfield and Guiteau. He jumped off his horse, rushed through the railway station, and caught the bullet in his body. At the very moment when he was breathing his last, the National Police Commissioner came up and affixed a medal to his shattered chest, unrolled something resembling a scroll of parchment, and said, rolling his r's: 'You've been prromoted to the rrank of Commissioner, salarry grrade B-thrree.'

The President lay in a heap on the platform, wearing his top hat Then a wave of burning pain pa.s.sed through him, and he opened his eyes.

He was lying, soaked in sweat in his own bed. The cliches were getting worse and worse. This time Guiteau had looked like ex-Constable Eriksson, President Garfield like an elegantly turned out elderly gendeman, the National Police Commissioner like the National Police Commissioner, and Beatty as he did on the 1919 Peace Mug - surrounded by a laurel wreath and exuding a faindy arrogant air.

Otherwise his dream, this time too, had been full of absurdities and misquotations.

David Beatty had never said: "Turn two points nearer to the enemy.' According to all available sources, his order had been: 'Chatfield, there seems to be something wrong with our b.l.o.o.d.y s.h.i.+ps today. Turn two points to port' In itself, of course, this made no difference. Two points to port, in this context, was the same as two points towards the enemy.

And in the previous dream, when Guiteau had looked like John Carradine, the pistol was a Hammerli International. Now, when he had resembled Eriksson, his gun had been a derringer. Furthermore, only Fitzroy James Henry Somerset, surely, had worn a raglan coat at Balaklava. There was neither rhyme nor reason to these dreams of his.

He got up, shed his pyjamas, and took a shower. As the cold water gave him goose pimples he thought of Rhea.

On his way to the metro he thought about his own odd behaviour yesterday evening.

At his desk out at Vastberga, all of a sudden he felt unpleas-andy alone.

Kollberg came in and asked him how he was. It was a tricky question, and all he managed to reply was: 'Oh, not too bad.'

Kollberg left again, almost at once. He was sweating and was in a big rush. In the doorway he said: 'That job on Hornsgatan seems to have been cleared up. What's more, we've a fine chance to catch Malmstrom and Mohren red-handed. How's your locked room coming along, by the way?'

'Not too bad. Anyway, better than I'd expected.'

'Really?' said Kollberg. Lingering a couple of seconds longer, he said: 'I think you're looking a bit brighter today. So long.'

'So long.'

Then he was alone again. He began thinking about Svard.

At the same time he thought about Rhea. She had given him much more than he'd expected. From a policeman's point of view, that is. Three lines of thought, maybe four. Svard was pathologically miserly. Always, or at any rate for years, he had barricaded himself inside his flat even though it had contained nothing of any value. Svard had been ill and not long before his death had been admitted to a radium clinic.

Could Svard have had some money stashed away somewhere? And if so, where?

Had Svard been frightened of something? And if so, what? The only thing of any putative value inside his lair, barred and bolted, had been his own life.

What the devil had Svard suffered from? The radium clinic suggested cancer. But if he had been a doomed man anyway, why had he been so concerned to protect himself against someone or something? Perhaps he'd been afraid of one particular person? In which case - of whom?

And why had he moved to a more expensive and presumably inferior flat if he was really as stingy as everyone made out?

Questions - hard ones, but not altogether insoluble - questions hardly to be resolved in a couple of hours. More likely they'd take days. Why not weeks or months? Perhaps several years. Or maybe for ever.

And what about that ballistic investigation? That's where he should make a start. Martin Beck reached for the phone. It was not in a helpful mood today. He had to dial six times, four of which ended with a 'Just a moment, please and then went dead. But finally he got hold of the girl who had opened up Svard's chest seventeen days earlier.

'Oh yes,' she said. 'Now I remember. There was a policeman who called me, grumbling about that bullet.'

'Detective Inspector Ronn.'

'I suppose that was his name, yes. Don't remember. Anyway, it wasn't the same guy who had charge of the case earlier, Aldor Gustavsson, I mean. This one didn't seem so experienced. He began all his sentences with "okay" or "well".'

'What happened then?'

'Well, as I told you last time, the police didn't seem all that interested to begin with. No one had asked for a ballistic investigation until that northerner called up. I didn't really know what to do with the bullet But...'

'Yes?'

'It seemed wrong to throw it away, so I stuffed it into an envelope and added my own comments, what it was all about, and so forth. Exactly as if it had been a real murder case. But I didn't send it over to the lab since I happen to know how overwhelmed with work they are there.'

'What did you do then?'

'Put the envelope aside. Then I couldn't find it immediately. I'm new here, and I don't have a filing cabinet of my own, and so forth. But anyway I found it and sent it in.'

'To be examined?'

'Well, it's not my business to ask for that kind of thing. But I a.s.sume that if the ballistics people get hold of a bullet they examine it, even when it's suicide.'

'Suicide?'

'Yes, I made a note of that. The police said at once it was suicide.' 'Well, in that case I'll have to call the lab,' Martin Beck said. 'But there's one more thing I wanted to ask you.' 'What's that?'

'During the autopsy, did you notice anything particular?' 'Yes; that he'd shot himself. That was in the police report.' 'I was mostly thinking of something else. Did you find anything to suggest that Svard had suffered from any serious illness?' 'No. His organs seemed healthy. But...' 'But?'

'But I didn't examine him all that closely. Just confirmed the cause of death. That was why I only looked at the thorax organs.' 'Which means?'

'Heart and lungs, mostly. Nothing wrong with them. Apart from the fact that he was dead, that is.'

'Otherwise he could have suffered from almost anything?'

'Certainly. Anything from gout to cancer of the liver. Hey, why're you asking me so much about this? It was just a routine case, wasn't it?'

'Questions are part of our routine,' Martin Beck said. He brought the conversation to an end and tried to contact one of the ballistics experts at the lab. He had no success and was finally obliged to call the head of the department himself. This was a man called Oskar Hjelm who, though he was an eminent criminologist, was above all a person disinclined to conversation.

'Oh, so it's you, is it?' Hjelm said sourly. 'I thought you were going to be promoted to commissioner. But perhaps that was a vain hope.'

'How so?'

'Commissioners sit thinking about their own careers,' said Hjelm, 'when they're not out playing golf or talking nonsense on television. Above all they don't ring me up and ask a lot of obvious questions. What is it now?'

'Just a ballistic check-up.'

'Just? And which one, if I may ask? Any lunatic can send us something. We've heaps of objects under study here and no one to study them. The other day-we received a toilet bucket from Melander. He wanted to know how many different individuals had shat in it It was full to the brim, certainly hadn't been emptied for a couple of years.' 'Not very nice.'

Fredrik Melander was a detective on the murder squad who for many years had been one of Martin Beck's most valuable a.s.sistants. A while ago, however, he'd been transferred to the burglary squad, presumably in the hope that he might be able to do something about the total confusion prevailing there.

'No,' said Hjelm. 'Our work isn't nice. But no one seems to understand that The National Police Commissioner hasn't so much as set foot in this place for several years, and when I asked to speak to him last spring he sent a message saying he was occupied for the foreseeable future.'

'I know your life's h.e.l.l,' said Martin Beck.

'To say the least,' said Hjelm, a bit more conciliatory now. 'You can hardly imagine how things are here, but we're always grateful for the least little bit of encouragement or understanding. Though we never get any, of course.'

The fellow was an incurable grumbler, but clever and susceptible to flattery.

'It's a wonder you get by at all,' Martin Beck said.

'More than that,' said Hjelm, thoroughly amiable now. 'It's a miracle. And now, what was this ballistic question?'

'It was about a bullet from a guy who was killed. A man called Svard. Karl Edvin Svard.'

'Oh yes,' said Hjelm. 'I know that one. Typical story. Suicide, so it was alleged. The autopsy people sent it here without telling us what to do with it Shall we have it gold-plated and sent to the police museum, or what? Or was it just a polite hint that we can just as well give up and shoot ourselves?'

'What sort of bullet was it?'

'A pistol bullet. Used. Haven't you got the weapon?'

'No.'

'Then how can it be suicide?'

A good question. Martin Beck made a note on his pad. 'Any special characteristics?'

'Well, one might suppose it came from a forty-five automatic. There are so many makes of them. But if you'll send us the empty cartridge we can tell you more about it'

'I haven't found the cartridge.'

'Haven't you? What did this Svard fellow do after he'd shot himself, may I ask?' 'Don't know.'

'People who have that kind of a bullet in their guts aren't usually so nimble,' said Hjelm. 'They don't have much choice, just lie down and die, for the most part'

'Yes,' said Martin Beck. 'Thanks very much.'

'For what?'

'For your help. And good luck.'

'No macabre jokes, if you please,' Hjelm said. He put down the phone.

So that was that. Whether Svard himself or someone else had fired the lethal shot, he hadn't taken any risks. With a forty-five one can be pretty sure of obtaining the desired results, even if one doesn't quite hit the heart.

But what had this conversation yielded, really? A bullet isn't much in the way of evidence as long as one hasn't got the weapon or at least the cartridge. But there was one positive detail. Hjelm had said it was a forty-five automatic, and he was known for never making statements he couldn't substantiate. Therefore Svard had been shot with an automatic.

All the rest was just as incomprehensible as before. Svard didn't seem to have committed suicide and no one else could have shot him.

Martin Beck went on with his work. He began with the banks, since experience had taught him this always took a lot of time. Though it's true bank secrecy in Sweden isn't what it should be, there were still hundreds of financial inst.i.tutions to check. And with interest rates being so wretchedly low, many small savers preferred to place their funds in some other Scandinavian country, usually Denmark.

He went on phoning: It was the police. It was about a person called so-and-so and with one or another of these addresses and the following social security number. Had this person any kind of account or perhaps a safe-deposit box?

Simple though this question was, there were many people it had to be put to. Besides which it was Friday, and the hour was approaching for all banks to close. To count on getting any answer before the beginning of next week at the earliest seemed unrealistic.

He would also like to know what the hospital Svard had been admitted to had to say. But that too would have to wait until Monday.

Now Friday was over as far as his duties were concerned. By this time Stockholm was in utter chaos. The police were hysterical, and large parts of the public were panic-stricken. Martin Beck didn't even know. That segment of the landscape he could see from his window consisted of a stinking main road and an industrial park, and - as a view - it was no more confused or repulsive than usual.

By seven o'clock he still hadn't gone home, even though his working day had ended two hours ago and there was nothing more he could do to further his investigations. The day's efforts had yielded only scanty results. The most tangible consequence was a slight pain in his right forefinger, from all his dialling.