The Man on the Balcony

His wife put down the iron and looked at him.

'Thank heavens, I'd rather say."

She pulled out the plug of the iron and sat down on the arm of her husband's chair. He put his arm around her hips.

'I really came to ask whether your son has by any chance said anything that might have a bearing on what happened to Annika?"

'Bosse?"

'Yes, according to Lena he disappeared for a while and there's nothing to indicate that he didn't follow Annika. He may even have seen the person who brought about her death."

He heard how idiotic he sounded and thought: I'm talking like a book. Or like a police report. How the hell do I think I'm going to get anything sensible out of a three-year-old?

The couple in the armchair did not seem to react to his stilted speech. They probably took it for granted that police always spoke like that.

'But a policewoman has already been here and talked to him," Mrs. Oskarsson said. "He's so young."

'Yes, I know," Martin Beck said. "But I thought I'd ask to try all the same. He might just have seen something. If we could get him to remember that day…"

'But he's only three," she broke in. "He can't even talk properly. We're the only ones who can understand all he says. Come to that, we don't understand everything either."

'Well, we can try," the husband said. "I mean, let's do what we can to help. Perhaps Lena can get him to remember what he did."

'Thanks," Martin Beck said. "I'd be grateful."

Mrs. Oskarsson got up and went into the nursery, returning soon with the children.

Bosse ran up and stood beside his father.

'What's that?" he asked, pointing to Martin Beck.

He put his head on one side and looked at him. His mouth was dirty and he had a scratch on his cheek and a large bruise was visible under the fair hair that hung down over his forehead.

'Daddy, what's that?" he repeated impatiently.

'It's a man," his father explained, giving Martin Beck an apologetic smile.

'Hello," Martin Beck said.

Bosse ignored the greeting.

'What her name?" he asked his father.

'His," Lena corrected.

'My name's Martin," Martin Beck said. "What's yours?"

'Bosse. What name?"

'Martin."

'Mattin. Name Mattin," Bosse said in a tone indicating amazement that anyone could have a name like that.

'Yes," Martin Beck said. "And your name's Bosse."

'Daddy's name Kurt, Mommy's name… what name?"

He pointed to his mother, who said:

'Ingrid, you know that."

'Ingy."

He went up to the sofa and laid a chubby and sticky hand on Martin Beck's knee.

'Have you been in the park today?" Martin Beck asked.

Bosse shook his head and said shrilly:

'Not play park. Go for drive!"

'Yes," his mother said soothingly. "Later. Later well go for a drive."

'Then you too drive," Bosse said challengingly to Martin Beck.

'Yes. Perhaps."

'Bosse can drive," the boy said with satisfaction, climbing onto the sofa.

'What do you do when you play in the park?" Martin Beck asked in a tone which he himself thought sounded ingratiating and affected.

'Bosse not play park. Bosse drive," the boy said In fury.

'Yes, of course," Martin Beck said. "Of course you're going for a drive."

'Bosse's not going to play in the park today," his sister said. "The man only asked what you did last time you played in the park."

'Silly man," Bosse said with emphasis.

He slid down off the sofa and Martin Beck regretted not having brought some candy for the boy. He didn't usually bribe witnesses in order to win them over, but on the other hand he had never before had a three-year-old witness to question. A slab of chocolate now would surely have done the trick.

'He says that about everyone," Bosse's sister said. "He's so silly."

Bosse hit out at her and said indignantly:

'Bosse not silly! Bosse good!"

Martin Beck felt in his pockets to see if he had anything that might interest the lad, but found only the picture postcard from Stenström.

'Look at this," he said.

Bosse ran up to him at once and looked eagerly at the postcard.

'What's that?"

'A postcard," Martin Beck replied. "Can you see what's on it?"

'Horse. Flower. Andrin."

'What's andrin?" Martin Beck asked.

'Mandarin," his mother explained.

'Andrin," Bosse said, pointing. "And flower. And horse. And girl. What name girl?"

'I don't know," Martin Beck said. "What do you think her name is?"

'Ulla," Bosse replied promptly. "Girl Ulla."

Mrs. Oskarsson nudged her daughter.

'Do you remember when Ulla and Annika and Bosse and Lena were in the park on the swings?" Lena asked quickly.

'Yes!" Bosse said delightedly. "Ulla, Annika, Bosse, Lena swing in park buy ice cream. Member?"

'Yes," Lena said. "Do you remember we met a dog in the park?"

'Yes! Bosse meet little dog. Not pat little dog. Dang'ous pat little dog. Member?"

The parents exchanged a glance and the mother nodded. Martin Beck realized that the boy really did recall that very day in the park. He sat quite still, hoping that nothing would make the boy lose the thread.

'Do you remember," his sister went on, "Ulla, Lena, Bosse play hopscotch?"

'Yes," Bosse said. "Ulla, Lena hopscotch. Bosse too hopscotch. Bosse know hopscotch. Member Bosse hopscotch?"

The boy's delighted answers to his sister's questions came promptly, and the dialogue followed a pattern which made Martin Beck suspect that this was a question game that brother and sister used to play, a kind of do-you-remember game.

'Yes," Lena said, "I remember. Bosse, Ulla, Lena played hopscotch. Annika didn't play hopscotch."

'Annika not want hopscotch. Annika cross Lena, Ulla," Bosse said gravely.

'Do you remember that Annika got cross? Annika got cross and went off."

'Lena, Ulla silly Annika."

'Did Annika say that Lena and Ulla were silly? Do you remember that?"

'Annika said Lena, Ulla silly."

And then very emphatically:

'Bosse not silly."

'What did Bosse and Annika do when Lena and Ulla were silly?"

'Bosse, Annika hide-and-seek."

Martin Beck held his breath, hoping that the girl knew what she should ask next.

'Do you remember when Bosse and Annika played hide-and-seek?"

'Yes. Ulla, Lena not to play hide-and-seek. Ulla, Lena silly. Annika good. Bosse good. Man good."

'Which man?"

'Man in park good. Bosse got ticker."

'Did the man give you a ticker in the park? Do you remember?"

'Man give Bosse ticker."

'Do you mean a watch like Daddy's, that goes tick-tick?"

'Ticker!"

'What did the man say? Did the man speak to Bosse and Annika?"

'Man speak Annika. Man give Bosse ticker."

'Did Bosse and Annika get ticker from the man?"

'Bosse get ticker. Annika not ticker. Bosse get ticker."

Bosse turned suddenly and ran over to Martin Beck.

'Bosse get ticker!"

Martin Beck drew back his cuff and showed Bosse his wrist watch.

'Do you mean a ticker like this? Is this what the man gave you?"

Bosse hit Martin Beck's knee.

'No! Ticker!"

Martin Beck turned to the boy's mother.

'What is ticker?" he asked.

'I don't know," she said. "He does say that for watches and clocks, but he doesn't seem to mean that now."

Bending down to the little boy he asked:

'What did Bosse and Annika and the man do? Did you both play with the man?"

Bosse seemed to have lost interest in the question game and said sulkily:

'Bosse can't find Annika. Annika silly play man."

Martin Beck opened his mouth to say something but shut it again when he saw the witness dart out of the room.

'Can't catch me! Can't catch me!" the boy shouted gaily.

His sister looked after him crossly and said:

'He's always so silly."

'What do you think he meant by ticker?" the father asked.

'I don't know. Evidently not a watch, anyway. I don't know," she said.

'It seems as if he met someone together with Annika," Mr. Oskarsson said.

But when? thought Martin Beck. On Friday or a fortnight ago?

'Ugh, how horrible," his wife said. "It must have been that man. The one who did it."

She shuddered and her husband stroked her back soothingly. He gave Martin Beck a worried look and said:

'He's so small. He knows so few words. I hardly think he's able to give any kind of description of this man."

Mrs. Oskarsson shook her head.

'No," she said. "Not unless there was something special about his appearance. If he'd had some kind of uniform, for instance, Bosse would no doubt have called him the sojer. Otherwise I don't know. Children are never surprised at anything. If Bosse were to meet a man with green hair and pink eyes and three legs he wouldn't think anything of it."

Martin Beck nodded.

'Perhaps he did have a uniform. Or something else that Bosse remembers. It might be better if you talked to him alone?"

Mrs. Oskarsson got up and shrugged.

'I'll try by all means."

She left the door ajar so that Martin Beck could hear her conversation with the boy. After twenty minutes she came back, having been unable to get anything more out of him.

'Can't we leave now?" she asked anxiously. "I mean, does Bosse have to…"

She broke off, then went on:

'And Lena?"

'Yes, go by all means," Martin Beck said, getting up.

He shook hands and thanked them both, but as he was going Bosse came running out and flung 'his arms around his legs.

'Not go. You sit there. You must talk Daddy. Bosse also talk you."

Martin Beck tried to free himself but Bosse had a tight grip and Martin Beck did not want to upset him. Feeling in his trouser pocket he took out a fifty-ore bit and looked inquiringly at the mother. She nodded.

'Here, Bosse," he said, showing the boy the coin.

Bosse let go at once, took the money and said:

'Bosse buy ice cream. Bosse has lots money buy ice cream."

He ran ahead of Martin Beck out into the hall and took down a little jacket that was hanging on a hook low down near the front door. The boy dug into the jacket pockets.

'Bosse has lots money," he said, holding up a grubby five-ore bit.

Martin Beck opened the door, turned around and held out his hand to Bosse.

The little boy stood hugging the jacket, and when he pulled his hand out of the pocket a little bit of white paper fluttered down to the floor. Martin Beck stooped to pick it up and the boy shouted:

'Bosse's ticker! Bosse get ticker man!"

Martin Beck looked at the piece of paper in his hand.

It was an ordinary subway ticket.

18

A GOOD DEAL had already happened on this Friday morning, June 16, 1967.

The police sent out a description which had the disadvantage of fitting tens of thousands of more or less blameless citizens.

Rolf Evert Lundgren had slept on the matter and wanted to bargain. If the police would let bygones be bygones he offered to take part in the search and to give "supplementary information," whatever that might be. Having received a flat refusal, he sank into gloomy meditation and at last asked of his own accord to talk to a lawyer.

One of the detectives persisted in pointing out that Lundgren still lacked an alibi for the evening of the murder in Vanadis Park and in questioning his reliability as a witness. This in its turn led to Gunvald Larsson making a woman extremely embarrassed and to another woman making Kollberg, if possible, even more embarrassed.

Gunvald Larsson dialed a telephone number to an apartment near Vanadis Park. The following conversation ensued:

'Jansson speaking."

'Good morning. This is the police, homicide squad, Detective Inspector Larsson."

'Oh yes."

'May I speak to your daughter, please? Majken Jansson."

'Certainly. Just a moment. We're having breakfast. Majken!"

'Hello. This is Majken Jansson speaking."

The voice was bright and cultured.

'This is the police. Detective Inspector Larsson."

'Oh yes."

'You have stated that you took a breath of air in Vanadis Park on the evening of the ninth of June."

'Yes."

'What were you wearing when you took this breath of air?"

'What was I… Well, let me see, I had on a black-and-white cocktail dress."

'What else?"

'A pair of sandals."

'Aha. What else?"

'Nothing. Quiet, Daddy, he's only asking what I…"

'Nothing? You had nothing else on?"

'N-no."

'I mean, didn't you by any chance have anything under your dress?"

'Yes. Yes of course. Naturally I had underclothes."

'Aha. And what kind of underclothes?"

'What kind of underclothes?"

'Yes, exactly."

'Well, naturally I had what… well, what one usually has. Oh, Daddy, it's the police."

'And what do you usually have?"

'Well, a bra naturally and… well, what do you think?"

'I don't think anything. I have no preconceived opinions. I am merely asking."

'Pants of course."

'I see. And what kind of pants?"

'What kind? I don't know what you mean. I had pants of course, underpants."

'Panties?"

'Yes. I'm sorry but…"

'And what did these panties look like? Were they red or black or blue or maybe patterned?"

'A pair of…"

'Yes?"

'A pair of white lace panties. Yes, Daddy, I'll ask him. Why on earth are you asking me all this?"

'I am just checking the evidence of a witness." "The evidence of a witness?" "Exactly. Good-bye."

Kollberg drove to an address in the Old Town, parked the car at Storkyrkobrinken and climbed a worn, winding stone staircase. He looked for a doorbell which wasn't there and then, true to habit, he pounded deafeningly on the door.

'Come in!" a woman's voice called.

Kollberg went in.

'Good Lord," she said. "Who are you?"

'Police," he said lugubriously.

'Well, let me say that the police have a helluva nice habit of…"

'Is your name Lisbeth Hedvig Maria Karlström?" Kollberg asked, looking demonstratively at the piece of paper in his hand.

'Yes. Is it about that business yesterday?"

Kollberg nodded and looked about him. The room was untidy but pleasant. Lisbeth Hedvig Maria Karlström was wearing a blue-striped pajama jacket, which came down only far enough to show that she had not even lace panties on underneath. She had evidently just got up. She was making coffee, stirring it with a fork to make it drip more quickly through the filter bag.

'I've just got up and am making coffee," she said.

'Oh."

'I thought it was the girl who lives next door. She's the only one who ever thumps on the door like that And at this hour. Like some?"

'What?"

'Coffee."

'Well…" Kollberg said.

'Do sit down."

'What on?"

She pointed with the fork to a leather-covered ottoman beside the exceedingly unmade bed. He sat down dubiously. She put the coffeepot and two cups on a tray, pushed forward a small, low table with her left knee, put the tray down and sat on the bed, crossing her legs and thus revealing quite a lot of her anatomy, which was not altogether without its charms.

She poured out the coffee and handed a cup to Kollberg.

'Thank you," he said, looking at her feet

He was a susceptible person and at the moment felt strangely disturbed. In some way she reminded him far too much of someone, probably his wife.

She gave him a worried look and said:

'Would you like me to put something more on?"

'It might be just as well," Kollberg said thickly.

She got up at once, went over to the closet, took out a pair of brown corduroy slacks and pulled them on. Then she unbuttoned the pajama jacket and took it off. For a moment she stood with her upper body naked—with her back to him, to be sure, but that hardly improved matters. After a short hesitation she pulled a knitted sweater over her head.

'It's just that it makes me so damned hot," she said.

He drank some coffee.

'What do you want to know?" she asked.

He drank some more.

'Very nice," he said.

'It's just that I don't know anything. Nothing at all. It was a lousy business, with that Simonsson, I mean."

'His name was Rolf Evert Lundgren," Kollberg said.

'Oh, that too. You must think I seem… that I don't appear in a very good light. But there's nothing I can do about it. Now."

She looked about her unhappily.

'Perhaps you'd like to smoke?" she asked. "I'm afraid I haven't any cigarettes. I don't smoke myself."

'Nor do I," Kollberg said.

'Oh. Well, bad light or not, it can't be helped. I met him at the Vanadis Baths at nine o'clock and then I went home with him. I know nothing at all."

'Presumably you do know one thing that interests us."

'What would that be?"

'How was he? Sexually, I mean?"

She shrugged awkwardly. Took a rusk and began nibbling it. At last she said:

'No comments. I don't as a rule…"

'What don't you as a rule?"

'I don't as a rule comment on men I go with. If you and I, for instance, got into bed together now, I wouldn't go around afterwards giving people details about you."

Kollberg fidgeted.. He felt hot and upset. He wanted to take off his coat. It was even possible that he wanted to take off his clothes altogether and have sex with this girl. True, he had very seldom done so while on duty and particularly not since he had got married, but it had happened.

'I'd be very glad if you would answer this question," he said. "Was he normal, sexually?" She did not answer. "It's important," he added.

She looked him straight in the eyes and said gravely: "Why?"

Kollberg looked at the girl doubtfully. It was a hard decision and he knew that many of his colleagues would consider his next words more blameworthy than if he had undressed and got into bed with her.

'Lundgren is a professional criminal," he said at last. "He has confessed to about a dozen violent assaults. Last Friday evening—a week ago, that is—he is known to have been in Vanadis Park at the same time as a little girl was murdered there."

She looked at him quickly and swallowed several times. "Oh," she said softly. "I didn't know that. I would never have thought that."

After a moment she looked at him again with her clear brown eyes and said:

'That answers my question. Now I see that I must answer yours." "Well?"

'As far as I could judge he was completely normal. Almost too normal."

'What do you mean by that?"

'I mean that I too am completely normal sexually but that… well, since I do it fairly seldom I want a little more than… shall we say routine?"

'I see," Kollberg said, scratching behind his ear with embarrassment.

He hesitated a few seconds. The girl regarded him gravely. At last he said:

'Was it he who… approached you in the Vanadis Baths?"

'No, the reverse, if anything."

She got up abruptly and went over to the window, which looked out onto the cathedral. Without turning her head she said:

'Exactly. The reverse, if anything. I went out yesterday to pick up a man. I was prepared for it, had prepared myself, if you like."

She shrugged.

'That's the way I live," she said. "I've done so for several years and if you like I'll tell you why I live like that."

'It's not necessary," Kollberg said.

'I don't mind," she said, fingering the curtain. "Telling you, I mean…"

'It's not necessary," Kollberg repeated.

'At any rate I can assure you that he behaved quite normally together with me. At first he didn't even seem… particularly interested. But… I saw to it that he became so."

Kollberg drank up his coffee.

'Well, that's about all," he said uncertainly.

Still without turning around, she said:

'I've had things happen before, but this really makes me think. It's not at all nice."

Kollberg said nothing.

'Nasty," she said to herself, again fingering the curtain.

Then she turned around and said:

'I assure you it was I who took the initiative. In a very flagrant manner. If you like I'll…"

'No, you needn't."

'And I can assure you that he was absolutely normal when he… when we were in bed together."

Kollberg got up.

'I think you're very nice," she said spontaneously.

'I like you too," he said.

He walked over to the door and opened it. Then to his own astonishment he said:

'I'm married. Have been for over a year. My wife's expecting a baby."

She nodded.

'As regards the life I lead…"

She broke off.

'It's not so good," he said. "It can be dangerous."

'I know."

'So long," Kollberg said.

'So long," said Lisbeth Hedvig Maria Karlström.

He found a parking ticket on his car. Absentmindedly he folded up the yellow slip and put it in his pocket. Nice girl, he thought. Looks rather like Gun, I wonder why…

As he settled down behind the wheel he reflected that the whole thing was verging on the perfect parody of a really bad novel.

At headquarters Gunvald Larsson said heartily:

'That settles it. He's sexually normal and his reliability as a witness is confirmed. Waste of time, the whole thing."

Kollberg was not altogether sure that it had been a waste of time.

'Where's Martin?" he asked.

'Out interrogating infants," Gunvald Larsson said.

'And otherwise?"

'Nothing."

'Here's something," Melander said, looking up from his papers.

'What?"

'A summary from the psychologists. Their viewpoints."

'Humph," Gunvald Larsson snorted. "Unrequited love for a wheelbarrow and all that rot."

'Well, I'm not so sure," Melander mumbled.

'Take the pipe out of your mouth so that we can hear what you say," Kollberg said.

'They have an explanation here, an explanation that seems very plausible. It's rather worrying."

'Can things be more worrying than they are already?"

'As regards the possibility that this man is not in our records," Melander went on impassively. "They say that he might very well have a clean police record. That he might even have lived for a long time without giving any expression at all to his inclinations. That the satisfaction of sexual perversion in many ways resembles addiction to drugs. This is borne out by foreign examples. A person who is a sexual pervert can behave for year after year as an exhibitionist or a Peeping Tom and in that way find an outlet for his sex urge. But if that person, on a sudden impulse, commits a rape or a sex murder, the only way he can get satisfaction in future is to commit .more rapes and more murders."

'Like the old story about the bear," Gunvald Larsson said. "A bear that has once killed a cow, and so on."

'It's the same with a junkie who wants stronger and stronger drugs the whole time," Melander said, riffling through the report. "A junkie who starts off with hashish and then changes to heroin can't go back to hashish because he gets no kick out of it any more. It may be the same sort of thing with a sexual pervert."

'It sounds sensible," Kollberg said. "But elementary."

'I think it sounds damned unpleasant," Gunvald Larsson said.

'It's much more unpleasant than that," Melander said. "It says here that a person can have lived for many years without giving any noticeable expression to his perverted sex urge, he needn't even have masturbated or looked at dirty pictures, still less have behaved as an exhibitionist or a Peeping Tom. He can simply have sat thinking of different forms of perversion, without actually knowing about it himself, until suddenly a chance impulse triggers off an act of violence. Then he just can't help repeating it, over and over again, with growing ruthlessness and presumably increasing bestiality."

'Rather like Jack the Ripper," Gunvald Larsson said.

'What about the impulse?" Kollberg asked.

'It can be triggered off by all kinds of things—a chance situation, a state of mental weakness, illness, liquor, drugs. If this view of crime is admissible, then there are no clues to the criminal in his own past. The police registers are useless, the same as the case histories of hospitals and doctors. The person in question just isn't there. And once he has started raping or killing, he can't stop. He's also incapable of giving himself up or of controlling his own actions."

Melander sat in silence for a moment. Then he tapped with his knuckles on the xeroxed report and said:

'There's something in this that fits our case horribly well."

'I imagine there are dozens of other explanations," Gunvald Larsson said irritably. "It might be a stranger, for instance, a foreigner just passing through. It might even be two different murderers; what happened in Tanto Park was perhaps a murder done on the spur of the moment—an impulse caused by the publicity around the first one."

'There's a lot against that line of reasoning," Melander said. "Knowledge of the locality, the somnambulant certainty with which the murder was carried out, the choice of time and place, the absurd fact that after two murders and seven days of search we haven't found a single suspect worth mentioning. Unless we count that man Eriksson. And there's a detail that rather discounts the theory of an impulse murder: in both cases the girl's pants were missing. That information has not been given out to the press."

'I imagine there are other explanations all the same," Gunvald Larsson said surlily.

'I'm afraid that's wishful thinking," Melander said, lighting his pipe.

'Yes," Kollberg said, rousing himself. "It may be wishful thinking, Gunvald, but I do hope you're right. Otherwise…"

'Otherwise," Melander said, "we have nothing at all. The only thing that can lead us to the murderer is to catch him red-handed next time. Or…"

Kollberg and Larsson each completed the thought and arrived at the same unpleasant conclusion.

'Or for him to repeat the murder over and over again with the same sleepwalking certainty until his luck gives out and we catch him," Melander said.

'What else does it say there?" Kollberg asked.

'The usual rigmarole. A whole lot of contradictory speculations. He can be oversexed or undersexed—the latter seems to be the most probable. But there are also examples of the reverse."

Putting down the report Melander said:

'Has it occurred to you that even if we saw him standing here in front of us we have no proof that he committed these two murders. The only material we have is some very dubious footprints in Tanto Park. And the only thing actually proving that the person we're after is a man, is a few spermatozoa on the ground near the girl's body, again in Tanto Park."

'And if he's not in our records we wouldn't even be helped by a full set of fingerprints," Kollberg said.

'Exactly," Melander said.

'But we have a witness," Gunvald Larsson said. "The mugger saw him."

'If only we could rely on that," Melander said.

'Couldn't you say one little tiny thing to cheer us up?" Kollberg asked.

Melander made no answer and they lapsed into silence. In the room next door they heard the telephones ring and Rönn and someone else answer.

'What did you think of that girl?" Gunvald Larsson asked suddenly.

'I liked her," Kollberg said.

At the same instant yet another unpleasant thought occurred to him. He knew whom Lisbeth Hedvig Maria Karlström had reminded him of. Not his wife, far from it. She reminded him in an ominous way of a person whom he had never met during her lifetime but who had governed his thoughts and actions long after she was dead. He had seen her only once, in the mortuary at Motala on a summer's day three years ago.

He shook himself, ill at ease.

A quarter of an hour later Martin Beck walked in with the ticket.

19

'WHAT'S THAT?" Kollberg asked.

'A ticker," Martin Beck replied.

Kollberg looked at the crumpled ticket lying in front of him on the desk.

'A subway ticket," he said. "So what? If you want your traveling expenses reimbursed you must go to the cashier's office."

'Bosse, our three-year-old witness, got it from a man that he and Annika met in Tanto Park just before she died," Martin Beck said.

Melander shut the door of the filing cabinet and came up to them. Kollberg turned his head and stared at Martin Beck.

'Just before the man strangled her, you mean," he said.

'Maybe. The question is: What can we get out of this ticket?"

'Fingerprints, perhaps," Kollberg said. Melander leaned forward, muttering, while he studied the ticket.

'Possible but hardly probable," Martin Beck said. "First of all the person who tore it off the block touched it, then whoever gave it to the boy must have touched it, I grant you, but the boy has had it in his pocket since Monday together with snails and God knows what, and to my shame I've touched it too. Apart from that, it's crumpled and fluffy. But we'll try, of course. But look at the punch holes first."

'I've already looked," Kollberg said. "It's punched at 1.30 P.M. on the twelfth, it doesn't say which month. That can mean…"

He broke off and all three thought what it might mean. Melander was the one to speak.

'These one-krona tickets, type 100, are used only within the actual city limits," he said. "It may be possible to find out when and where it was sold. There are two other numbers on it."

'Ring Stockholm Tramways," Kollberg said.

'It's called Stockholm Local Transport now," Melander said.

'I know. But the uniform buttons still have ST on them. I suppose they can't afford to make new ones. How the hell is that possible when it costs a krona to go from Gamla Stan to Slussen—the next station? What does a button cost?"

Melander was already on his way into the next room. The ticket still lay on the desk, presumably he had photographed it in his mind with serial number and everything. They heard him lift the receiver and dial a number.

'Did the boy say anything else?" Kollberg asked.

Martin Beck shook his head.

'Only that. That he was with the girl and that they met a man. He just found the ticket by chance."

Kollberg tipped back his chair and bit his thumbnail.

'So we have a witness who has presumably both seen and spoken to the murderer. It's just that this witness is only three years old. Had he been a little older…"

'The murder would never have happened," Martin Beck broke in. "At any rate not then and there."

Melander came back.

'They said they'd call up soon."

The call came through a quarter of an hour later. Melander listened and made notes. Then he said thank you and hung up.

Sure enough, the ticket had been bought on the twelfth of June. It had been sold by a ticket clerk at the northern barrier of the subway station at Rådmansgatan. In order to pass that barrier one has to go down through one of the two entrances on either side of Sveavägen on a level with the School of Economics.

Martin Beck knew the Stockholm subway network very well but he still went over and looked at the wall map.

If the person who bought the ticket at Rådmansgatan was on his way to Tanto Park, he must change trains either at T-Centralen, Gamla Stan or Slussen. In that case he would come to Zinkensdamm. From there it was about five minutes' walk to the spot where the dead girl had been found. The journey had been started between one thirty and one forty-five and should have taken about twenty minutes, allowing for changing trains. Between five minutes to two and ten minutes past the person in question could therefore have arrived at Tanto Park. According to the doctor the girl had probably died between two thirty and three o'clock, possibly a little earlier.

'As regards time it fits," Martin Beck said. At the same second Kollberg said: "It fits as regards time. If he went straight there." Haltingly, as though speaking to himself, Melander said: "The station isn't so far from Vanadis Park." "No," Kollberg said. "But what does that tell us? Nothing. That he rides on the subway from park to park and kills little girls? Come to that, why didn't he take the 55 bus? He could have gone all the way and not had to walk." "And probably been caught," Melander said. "Yes," Kollberg agreed. "There are never many people on that bus. They recognize the passengers."

Sometimes Martin Beck wished that Kollberg were not quite so talkative. He wished it now, as he licked and stuck down the envelope with the ticket. He had tried to hold on to a thought that flashed past; had Kollberg kept quiet he might have succeeded. Now the moment had gone.

Having sent off the envelope he called up the laboratory and asked to have the result as soon as possible. The man who answered was called Hjelm and Martin Beck had known him for many years. He sounded rushed and was in a bad mood. He asked if the gentlemen at Kungsholmsgatan and Västberga Allé knew how much he had to do. Martin Beck said he quite realized that their burden of work was inhuman and that he would gladly come along and give a hand if only he were skilled enough to carry out such exacting work. Hjelm muttered something and promised to deal with the ticket right away.

Kollberg went out to lunch and Melander shut himself up with his piles of papers. Before doing so he said:

'We have the name of the clerk who sold the ticket at Rådmansgatan. Shall I get someone to talk to her?"

'By all means," Martin Beck said.

He sat down at the desk, glanced through his papers and tried to think. He felt irritable and nervy and presumed that fatigue was to blame. Rönn stuck his head in, looked at him and vanished without a word. Otherwise he was left in peace. Even the telephone was silent for a long time. Just as he was on the verge of dozing off at his desk, something which had never happened before, the phone rang. Before picking up the receiver he looked at the time. Twenty minutes past two. Still Friday. Bravo Hjelm, he thought.

It was not Hjelm but Ingrid Oskarsson.

'Sorry to disturb you," she said. "You must be awfully busy."

Martin Beck mumbled some kind of answer and heard himself how unenthusiastic he sounded.

'But you said I was to ring. It may not be important, but I thought I'd better tell you."

'Yes, of course, forgive me, I didn't hear who it was," Martin Beck said. "What has happened?"

'Lena suddenly remembered something Bosse said in the park on Monday. When that happened."

'Oh? What?"

'She says he told her he had met his day daddy."

'Day daddy?" he asked.

And thought: Are there such things?

'Yes. Bosse was with a day mother during the daytime earlier this year. There are so few day nurseries and I didn't know what to do with him while I was at work. So I advertised and found a day mother for him in Timmermansgatan."

'But didn't you just say 'day daddy'?"

'No, no, what I meant was, this day mother had a husband, he wasn't there all day but he often came home early, so Bosse saw him nearly every day. And he started calling him day daddy."

'And Bosse told Lena that he met him in Tanto Park on Monday?"

Martin Beck felt his tiredness vanish. Reaching for the note pad he felt in his pocket for a pen.

'That's right," Mrs. Oskarsson said.

'Did Lena gather whether it was before or after the time he was missing?"

'She's sure he didn't say it until afterwards. That's why I thought I'd better tell you. I don't suppose it has anything to do with it at all, he seemed so nice and kind, that man. But if Bosse met him, perhaps he in his turn might have seen or heard something…"

Martin Beck put pen to paper and asked:

'What's his name?"

'Eskil Engström. He's a truck driver, I think. They live in Timmermansgatan. I've forgotten the number, can you wait a second and I'll have a look."

She came back a minute later and gave him address and telephone number.

'He seemed such a nice man," she said. "I saw him quite often when I called for Bosse."

'Did Bosse say anything more about this meeting with the day daddy?"

'No. And we've tried to get him to tell us about it now, but he seems to have forgotten it." "What does the man look like?"

'Well, it's hard to say. Pleasant. Bit down at heel, perhaps, but that may be due to his job. He's about forty-five or fifty, thin-haired. Looks very ordinary."

There was silence for a while as Martin Beck made notes. Then he said:

'If I understand rightly, you don't leave Bosse with this day mother any more?"

'No. They've no children of their own, it was so dull for him. I was promised a vacancy at a day nursery, but a mother who was a nurse got it instead. They have priority around here."

'Where is Bosse now in the daytime?" "At home. I had to give up my job." "When did you stop leaving him with the Engströms?" She thought for a moment and then said: "The first week in April. I had a week off then. When I started work again Mrs. Engström had taken a new day child and couldn't have Bosse."

'Did Bosse like being with her?"

'Fairly well. I think he liked Mr. Engström best. The day daddy, that is. Do you think he was the one who gave Bosse the ticket?"

'I don't know," Martin Beck replied. "But I'll try and find out."

'I want to help all I can," she said. "We're going away this evening, you know that?"

'Yes, I know. Hope you have a nice trip. Say hello to Bosse for me."

Martin Beck put down the receiver, thought for a moment, lifted it again and rang the vice squad.

While waiting for the information he had asked for, he pulled over one of the files lying on the desk and turned the pages until he came to the transcript of the nocturnal interrogation with Rolf Evert Lundgren. He carefully read Lundgren's scant description of the man he had seen in Vanadis Park. Mrs. Oskarsson's description of the day daddy was still less detailed, but there was a faint possibility that it might be the same person.

There was no Eskil Engström in the vice squad's records. Martin Beck closed the file and went into the adjoining room. Gunvald Larsson sat behind his desk, staring broodingly out of the window and picking his teeth with the paper knife.

'Where's Lennart?" Martin Beck asked. Gunvald Larsson reluctantly finished his dental research, wiped the paper knife on his sleeve and said: "How the hell do I know?" "Melander then?"

Gunvald Larsson put the paper knife down on the pen tray and shrugged.

'In the lavatory, I suppose. What do you want?" "Nothing. What are you doing?"

Gunvald Larsson did not answer at once. Not until Martin Beck moved towards the door did he say: "People are goddam crazy." "What do you mean?"

'I've just been talking to Hjelm. He wants a word with you, by the way. Well, one of the men at Maria police station finds a pair of women's pants in the shrubbery at Homstulls Strand. Without telling us he goes and hands them in to the forensic laboratory, saying that they may be the pants that were missing from the body in Tanto Park. So the boys at the lab stand there staring at a pair of outsize pink pants too big even for Kollberg and wondering what the hell it's all about. Can you blame them. How stupid can you get in this job?"

'I've often asked myself the same thing," Martin Beck said. "What else did he say?" "Who?" "Hjelm."

'For you to call him up when you'd finished your little chat on the phone."

Martin Beck went back to his temporary desk and called up the forensic laboratory.

'Oh yes, your subway ticket," Hjelm said. "We couldn't develop any worthwhile fingerprints, the paper's too fluffy." "I was afraid of that," Martin Beck said. "We're not quite finished with it yet. Ill send the usual report later. Oh yes, we did find some blue cotton fiber, presumably from the lining of a pocket."

Martin Beck thought of the little blue jacket that Bosse had clasped in his arms. He thanked Hjelm and put down the receiver. Then he called a taxi and put on his coat.

It was Friday, and the big weekend exodus out of the city had already begun, although it was still fairly early in the afternoon. The traffic moved sluggishly over the bridges and despite the driver's skillful and shrewd maneuvering, the taxi took nearly half an hour to reach Timmermansgatan, on the south side.

The house was near the southern railroad station. It was old and dilapidated and the entrance was dark and chilly. There were only two doors on the ground floor; one of them opened onto a paved yard with garbage cans and a frame on which carpets were beaten. Martin Beck could just make out the name ENGSTRÖM on the tarnished brass plate on the second door. The bell burton was missing and he knocked loudly on the panel of the door.

The woman who opened the door was about fifty. She was small and lean and was wearing a brown woolen dress and slippers made of floral turkish toweling. She peered doubtfully at Martin Beck through noticeably thick spectacles. "Mrs. Engström?"

'Yes," she replied in a voice that seemed far too rough to be coming from such a frail woman, "Is Mr. Engström at home?" "N-no," she said slowly. "What do you want?" "I'd like a word with you. I know one of your day children."

'Which one?" she asked suspiciously.

'Bo Oskarsson. His mother gave me your address. May I come in?"

The woman held open the door and he went through the little hall, past the kitchen and into the apartment's one room. Outside the window he saw the garbage cans and the carpet frame. A sofa-bed cluttered with ill-assorted cushions dominated the sparsely furnished room. Martin Beck saw nothing to indicate that children were ever there.

'I'm sorry," the woman said, "but what have you come about? Has anything happened to Bosse?"

'I'm a policeman," Martin Beck said. "It's purely a routine matter. Nothing to worry about. And Bosse's quite all right."

The woman seemed rather frightened at first, then she seemed to brighten up.

'Why should I worry?" she said. "I'm not afraid of the police. Is it to do with Eskil?"

Martin Beck smiled at her.

'Yes, Mrs. Engström, I really came to speak to your husband. It seems, by the way, that he met Bosse the other day."

'Eskil?"

She looked at Martin Beck in distress.

'Yes," he said. "Do you know when he will be home?"

She stared at Martin Beck with round blue eyes, which looked unnaturally large through the thick lenses.

'But… but Eskil's dead," she said.

Martin Beck stared back. It was some moments before he recovered himself and was able to say:

'Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know. I'm awfully sorry. When did it happen?"

'On the thirteenth of April this year. A car crash. The doctor said he didn't have time to think much before the end."

The woman went up to the window and stared out at the dismal yard. Martin Beck looked at her bony back in the dress that was a size too large.

'My deepest sympathy, Mrs. Engström," he said.

'Eskil was on his way to Södertälje with his truck," she went on. "It was a Monday."

She turned around and said in a firmer voice:

'Eskil drove a truck for thirty-two years with a clean license. It wasn't his fault."

'I see," Martin Beck said. "I'm awfully sorry to have troubled you. There must be some mistake."

'And the hooligans who crashed into him were let off lightly," she said. "Even though the car was stolen."

She nodded with a faraway look in her eyes. Went up to the settee and fiddled with the cushions. "Ill go now," Martin Beck said.

He was suddenly overcome by claustrophobia. He would like to have walked straight out of the gloomy room with the dreary little woman, but he controlled himself and said:

'If you don't mind, I'd be glad if I could see a photograph of your husband before I go." "I have no photo of Eskil."

'But you've a passport, haven't you? Or a driver's license?" "We never traveled anywhere so Eskil didn't have a passport. And the driver's license is very old." "May I see it?" Martin Beck asked.

She opened a drawer and took out the license. It was made out in the name of Eskil Johan Albert Engström and had been issued in 1935. The photo showed a young man with shiny, wavy hair, big nose and a small mouth with thin lips. "He didn't look like that now," the woman said. "How did he look? Can you describe him?" She didn't seem at all surprised at the question but answered promptly:

'He wasn't as tall as you but a good bit taller than me. And rather thin. His hair was turning gray and had started to fall out. I don't know what else to say. He had a nice appearance—at least I thought so. though you couldn't call him handsome, with his big nose and small mouth. But he looked nice."

'Thank you, Mrs. Engström," Martin Beck said. "I've disturbed you long enough."

She saw him to the door and did not shut it until the street door had closed behind him.

Martin Beck took a deep breath and strode quickly along the street, northward, longing to get back to his desk.

On it lay two brief messages.

The first one was from Melander: The woman who sold the subway ticket is called Gunda Persson. Remembers nothing. No time to look at the passengers, she says.

The other was from Hammar: Come at once. Urgent.

20

GUNVALD LARSSON stood at the window studying six road workmen, who in their turn were studying a seventh, who was leaning on a shovel.

'Reminds me of a story," he said. "We lay in Kalmar once with a minesweeper. I was sitting in the navigation cabin together with the second mate and the boy on watch came in and said, 'Please, sir, there's a dead man on the quayside.'

'Nonsense,' I said. 'Yes, sir,' he said,'there's a dead man on the quayside.'

'Dead men don't stand about on quaysides,' I said, 'you must pull yourself together, Johansson.'

'But sir,' he said, 'it must be a dead man, I've been watching him all the time and he hasn't moved for several hours.' And the second mate got up and looked out of the porthole and said, 'Hah, it's a municipal workman.'"

The man in the street let the shovel fall and went off with the others. It was five o'clock and still Friday.

'Nice job if you can get it," Gunvald Larsson said. "Just stand there staring."

'What are you doing yourself?" Melander asked.

'Standing and staring of course. And if the assistant commissioner had his office across the street I bet you anything he would stand in the window staring at me, and if the commissioner was on the floor above here he would stand staring at the assistant commissioner and if the home secretary…"

'Answer the phone instead," Melander said.

Martin Beck had just entered the room. He stood by the door looking thoughtfully at Gunvald Larsson, who was just saying:

'What do you want me to do about it? Send out the dog van?"

He banged down the receiver, stared at Martin Beck and said:

'What's up with you?"

'You said something just now that made me think of…"

'The dog van?"

'No, something you said just before that."

'What did it make you think of?"

'I don't know. It's something I can't call to mind."

'You're not alone in that," Gunvald Larsson said.

Martin Beck shrugged.

'There's to be a roundup tonight," he said. "I was just talking to Hammar."

'Roundup? But everyone's already worn out," Gunvald Larsson said. "What will they look like tomorrow?"

'Doesn't seem very constructive," Melander said. "Whose idea is it?"

'I don't know. Hammar didn't seem very happy about it either."

'Who's happy nowadays," Gunvald Larsson said.

Martin Beck had not been there when the decision was made and had he had a chance he would probably have opposed it. He suspected that the motive was aimlessness in the investigation work and a general feeling that something must be done. The position was indeed very serious; the newspapers and television worked the public up with their vague accounts of the search, and people began saying that "the police did nothing" or "were helpless." Seventy-five men were now working in the actual search force and the external pressure they were subjected to was enormous. Tips were pouring in every hour and every single one had to be checked, even though it could be seen at a glance that most of them were useless. Added to this was the internal pressure, the knowledge that the murderer not only must be caught but that he must be caught quickly. The investigation was a macabre race with death, and so far there was very little to go on. A vague description based on the evidence of a three-year-old child and a ruthless criminal. A subway ticket. A general idea of the mentality of the man they were hunting. The whole lot intangible and very disturbing.

'This isn't an investigation, it's a guessing game," Hammar had said in regard to the subway ticket.

While this was one of his pet phrases and Martin Beck had heard it often before, it was an apt description of the situation at the moment.

Of course there was just a chance that a big roundup might give a clue, but the possibility seemed remote. The latest roundup had been made as late as Tuesday night and it had failed in its main purpose: to catch the mugger. Against that it had resulted in the seizure of about thirty criminals of various kinds, mainly dope pushers and burglars. This had further increased the burden of work for the police and moreover had caused panic in the underworld.

The roundup tonight meant that many would be jaded tomorrow. And tomorrow perhaps…

But a roundup it was to be and a roundup it was. It started about eleven o'clock and the news spread like wildfire through condemned houses and junkies' pads. The result was discouraging. Thieves, fences, pimps, prostitutes, all lay low, even most of the junkies. Hour after hour passed and the raid continued with undiminished strength. They caught a burglar red-handed and a fence who had not enough instinct of self-preservation to go to earth. All that the police really succeeded in doing was to stir up the dregs—the homeless, the alcoholics, the drug addicts, those who had lost all hope, those who could not even crawl away when the welfare state turned the stone over. A fourteen-year-old schoolgirl was found naked in an attic. She had taken fifty preludin pills and been raped at least twenty times. But when the police came she was alone. Bleeding, filthy and bruised. She could still talk and gave a rambling account of what had happened, saying she didn't care. They couldn't even find her clothes but had to wrap her in an old quilt. They drove her to an address she gave and a person who made out she was her mother said that she had been missing for three days and refused to let her in. Only when the girl collapsed on the stairs did they send for an ambulance. Several similar cases came to light.

At half past four Martin Beck and Kollberg were sitting in a car at Skeppsbron.

'There's something funny about Gunvald," Martin Beck said.

'Yes, he's stupid," Kollberg said.

'No, something else. Something I can't put my finger on."

'Oh?" said Kollberg with a yawn.

Just then an alarm came through on the radio.

'This is Hansson of fifth district. We're in Vastmannagatan. We've found a body here. And…"

'Yes?"

'He fits the description."

They drove straight there. A couple of police cars were drawn up in front of a condemned house. The dead man lay on his back in a room on the third floor. It was extraordinary that he had been able to get up there, for the house was half pulled down and most of the stairs were missing. Martin Beck and Kollberg climbed a light-metal ladder that the police had put up. The man was about thirty-five, with a striking profile, light-blue shirt and dark-brown trousers. Worn-out black shoes. No socks. Thin hair brushed back. They looked at him, someone stifled a yawn.

'Nothing to do but rope off and wait for the technical division to open up," Kollberg said.

'Hardly worth waiting for," said Hansson, who was an old hand. "Suffocated by vomit. Clear as daylight."

'Yes, it looks like it," Martin Beck said. "How long do you think he's been dead?"

'Not very long," Kollberg said.

'No," Hansson said. "Not in this heat."

An hour later Martin Beck went home and Kollberg went to Kungsholmsgatan.

They exchanged a few remarks before parting.

'The description did fit."

'It fits a damn sight too many," Martin Beck answered.

'And it's the right district."

'We must find out who he is first."

The time was half past six when Martin Beck got home to Bagarmossen. His wife had evidently just woken up. At any rate she was awake and still lay in bed. She looked critically at him and said:

'What a sight you look."

'Why aren't you wearing a nightie?"

'It's so hot. Does it offend you?"

'No, I don't mind."

He felt unshaven and frowzy but was too tired to do anything about it. Got undressed and put on his pajamas. Got into bed. Thought: damn stupid idea this double bed, next pay day I'll buy a divan and put it in the other room.

'Does it get you all excited perhaps?" she said sarcastically.

But he was already asleep.

At eleven o'clock the same morning he was back at Kungsholmsgatan, somewhat hollow-eyed, but bathed and slightly refreshed. Kollberg was still there, and the dead man in Vastmannagatan had not yet been identified.

'Not a paper of any kind in his pockets, not so much as a subway ticket."

'What does the doctor say?"

'Suffocated by vomit, not a doubt. Thinks it's antifreeze. There was an empty can there."

'How long had he been dead?"

'Twenty-four hours at the outside."

They sat silent for a moment.

'I don't think he's the one," Kollberg said.

'Nor do I."

'But you never know."

'No."

Two hours later the mugger was confronted with the body.

'Christ, how disgusting," he said.

And a moment later:

'No, it wasn't him I saw. I've never seen this guy before."

Then he began to feel sick.

A real tough guy, thought Rönn, who was handcuffed to him and therefore had to accompany him to the lavatory. But he said nothing, merely took a towel and wiped Lundgren's mouth and forehead.

At investigation headquarters Kollberg said:

'There's no certainty, all the same."

'No," Martin Beck agreed.

21

THE TIME WAS a quarter to eight on Saturday evening when Kollberg's wife called up.

'Hello, Kollberg," he said, picking up the phone.

'What in heaven's name are you up to, Lennart? You haven't been home since yesterday morning"

'I know."

'I don't want to nag, but I hate being out here all by myself."

'I know."

'I want you to know that I'm not cross and I don't want to seem fretful, but I'm so lonely. I'm a tiny bit scared too."

'I see. Okay, I'll come home now."

'You're not to come just for my sake, not if there's something else you must do. As long as I can talk to you for a while."

'Yes, I'll come now. At once."

There was a short pause. Then she said with unexpected gentleness:

'Lennart?"

'Yes?"

“I saw you on TV not long ago. You looked so tired." I am tired. I'll come home now. So long."

'So long, darling."

Kollberg said a few words to Martin Beck, then he went straight down to his car.

Like Martin Beck and Gunvald Larsson, he lived to the south of the city, but rather more centrally. At Palandergatan near the subway station of Skärmarbrink. He drove straight through the city but when he got to Slussen he turned off to the right along Hornsgatan instead of continuing south. It was not difficult for him to analyze his own action.

There was no private life any longer, no time off, no room for thought of anything but duty and responsibility. So long as the murderer was at large, so long as it was light, so long as there was a park, and so long as a child might be playing there, then only the investigation mattered.

Or rather, the hunt. For a police investigation implies that one has factual material to work with, and the few facts available had long since been ground to pieces in the investigation machinery.

He thought of the conclusions in the psychological analysis; the murderer was a figure with no features and no qualities, and the only aim was to seize him before he had time to commit another murder. In order to do this they must be lucky, one of the reporters had said after the evening's press conference. Kollberg knew that this was an erroneous line of reasoning. He also knew that when the murderer was caught—and he was quite certain that he would be—it would look like luck and would be regarded by many people as a fluke. But it was a case of giving luck a helping hand, of making the net of circumstance that was eventually to catch the criminal as fine-meshed as possible. And this was a task that rested on him. And on every other policeman. Not on any outsider.

That is why Kollberg did not drive straight home, although he had fully intended doing so. Instead, he drove slowly west along Hornsgatan.

Kollberg was very methodical and considered that the taking of chances had no part in police work. He thought, for instance, that Gunvald Larsson had been guilty of a grave mistake when he broke into the mugger's apartment, even if the door had been old and rickety. Supposing the door had not given at the first assault? Breaking open a door was taking a chance, and was therefore something of which he disapproved on principle. It even happened that he differed from Martin Beck on this point.

He drove around Mariatorget, closely observing the small groups of youngsters in the gardens and around the stands.

He knew that this was mostly where schoolchildren and other young people met the small-scale dope pushers. Every day large quantities of hashish, marijuana, preludin and LSD were passed furtively from seller to buyer. And the buyers were getting younger and younger. Soon they would become addicts. Only the day before he had heard that schoolgirls of ten and eleven were offered shots. And there was nothing much the police could do; they just hadn't the resources. And to make quite sure that vice was bolstered up and those who indulged in it were still further lulled into boastfulness and smug security, this fact was trumpeted out time and again by the country's mass communication media. Anyway, he doubted whether this was a concern of the police at all. Drug-taking among young people was caused by a catastrophic philosophy which had been provoked by the prevailing system. Consequently society should be duty bound to produce an effective counterargument. One that was not based on smugness and more police officers.

Likewise he couldn't see the point of striking demonstrators at Hötorget and outside the US Trade Center with sabers and truncheons, though he quite well understood those colleagues who were more or less forced to do so.

Detective Inspector Lennart Kollberg was thinking all this as he turned off down Rosenlundsgatan and Sköldgatan and drove past the miniature golf course at Tantogården. He parked the car and walked along one of the paths leading up into the park.

The daylight was fading and there were not many people about. But naturally a few children were still playing, in spite of everything; come to that you could hardly expect all the children in a big city to be kept indoors just because a murderer was at large. Kollberg went and stood in one of the few sparse shrubberies, putting his right foot up on the stub of a tree. From this vantage point he could see the allotment gardens and the spot where the dead girl had lain five days earlier.

He was not aware of any special reason why he had been drawn to this particular place; perhaps because it was the biggest park in the central part of the city and was within easy reach on his way home. In the distance he saw several children, fairly big, perhaps in their early teens. He stood still, waiting. For what, he didn't know, perhaps for the children to go home. He was very tired. Now and then he saw a flickering in front of his eyes.

Kollberg was unarmed. Even with the growing gangster mentality and the steadily increasing brutality of crime, he was one of those who urged that the police should be disarmed entirely, and nowadays he carried a pistol only in case of extreme need and then only when directly ordered to do so.

A train trundled past on the high track, and only when the thud of the wheels on the joints began to die away did Kollberg realize that he was no longer alone in the shrubbery.

Then he was lying headlong in the dew-wet grass with the taste of blood in Ms mouth. Someone had struck him over the back of the neck, very hard and presumably with some kind of weapon.

Whoever struck Kollberg made a mistake. Similar mistakes had been made before, and several people had paid dearly for them.

Moreover, the assailant had put the weight of his body behind the blow and was off balance, and it took Kollberg less than two seconds to roll over on his back and bring his attacker to the ground—a tall, heavy man who fell with a thud. That was all Kollberg had time to take in, for there was a second man, who, his face blank with astonishment, stuck his right hand into his jacket pocket and looked just as amazed when Kollberg, with one knee still on the ground, seized his arm and twisted it.

It was a grip that would have dislocated the arm or even broken it, if Kollberg had not checked himself halfway and contented himself with flinging the man backwards into the bushes.

The man who had struck him was sitting on the ground making faces while he rubbed his right shoulder with his left hand. The rubber truncheon had dropped from his hand. He was dressed in a blue track suit and looked several years younger than Kollberg. The second man crawled out of the bushes. He was older and smaller, and was wearing a corduroy jacket and sports trousers. Both had white sneakers with rubber soles. They looked like a couple of amateur yachtsmen.

'What the hell's all this?" Kollberg asked.

'Who are you?" asked the man in the track suit

'Police," Kollberg replied.

'Oh," the smaller man said.

He had got up and was sheepishly dusting down his trousers.

'Then I presume we must apologize," the first man said. "A good trick that, where did you learn it?"

Kollberg made no reply. He had caught sight of a flat object on the ground. He stooped down and picked it up, and saw at once what it was. A small black automatic pistol, an Astra, made in Spain. Kollberg weighed it in his hand and looked suspiciously at the two men.

'Just what the hell is all this?" he said.

The big man stood up and shook himself.

'As I said, we apologize. You stood here behind the bushes spying on the children. And… you know, the murderer…"

'Yes? Go on."

'We live up here," the smaller man said, pointing to the apartment houses on the other side of the railroad.

'And?"

'We have children of our own and we know the parents of the girl who was murdered the other day."

'And?"

'And so as to help…"

'Yes?"

'We have formed our own voluntary civic guard that patrols in the park."

'You have what?"

'We have formed a voluntary militia…"

Kollberg was overcome by a sudden rage.

'What the hell are you saying, man?" he roared.

'Don't stand there shouting at us," the older man said angrily. "We're not a couple of drunks that you can bully and push around in the cells. We're decent people with a sense of responsibility. We must protect ourselves and our children."

Kollberg stared at him. Then he opened his mouth to bellow but controlled himself with an effort and said as quietly as he could:

'Is this your pistol?"

'Yes."

'Have you a license?"

'No. I bought it in Barcelona some years ago. I keep it locked in a drawer normally."

'Normally?"

The black-and-white patrol bus from Maria police station drove into the park with headlights full on. It was nearly dark now. Two policemen in uniform got out.

'What's going on here?" one of them said.

Then, recognizing Kollberg, he repeated in a different tone:

'What's going on here?"

'Take these two with you," Kollberg said tonelessly.

'I've never set foot in a police station in my life," said the older man.

'Nor have I," said the one in the track suit

'Then it's about time you did," Kollberg said.

He paused for a moment, looked at the two policemen and said:

'll1 be along soon."

Then he turned on his heel and walked off.

At Maria police station in Rosenlundsgatan there was already a line of drunks.

'What am I to do with these two civil engineers?" asked the police inspector on duty.

'Search them and put them in the cells," Kollberg said. "I'm taking them along to headquarters later."

You'll be sorry for this," said the man in the track suit "Do you know who I am?"

'No," Kollberg said.

He went into the guardroom to phone and as he dialed the number to his home he gazed mournfully at the ancient interior. He had done patrol duty here once; it seemed a very long time ago, but even then this district had been one of the worst for drunkards. Nowadays there was a better class of people living round about, but the district still came a good third in drunkard statistics after Klara and Katarina.

'Kollberg," his wife said, answering the phone.

'Ill be a bit late," he said.

'You sound so funny, is anything wrong?"

'Yes," he said. "Everything."

He put the phone down and sat without moving for a moment Then he called up Martin Beck.

'I was struck down from behind in Tanto Park a while ago," he said. "By two armed civil engineers. They've formed a militia here."

'Not only there," Martin Beck said. "An hour ago a pensioner was battered in Haga Park. He was standing having a leak. I just heard about it."

'Everything's going to hell."

'Yes," Martin Beck said. "Where are you now?"

'Still at Maria. Sitting in an interrogation room."

'What have you done with those two?"

'They're in the cells here."

'Bring them along."

'Okay."

Kollberg went down into the cell block. Many of the cells were already occupied. The man in the track suit stood staring out through the steel bars. In the next cell sat a tall, lean man aged about thirty-five with his knees drawn up to his chin. He was singing mournfully and sonorously:

'My pocketbook is empty, my heart is full of pain…"

The singer glanced at Kollberg and said:

'Hi, marshal, where's your six-shooter?"

'Haven't got one," Kollberg said.

'This is the goddamn wild west," said the guard.

'What have you done?" Kollberg asked.

'Nothing," the man said.

'It's true," the guard said. "We're letting him out soon. Some naval police brought him here. Five of them, can you imagine. He had annoyed some bo'sun or other on guard at Skeppsholmen. And they go and lug him all the way here. Idiots. Said they couldn't find a police station any closer. I had to shut him up in order to get rid of them. As if there wasn't enough already…"

Kollberg went on to the next cell.

'Now you've set foot in a police station," he said to the man in the track suit. "In a little while you'll see what it's like at headquarters as well."

'I shall report you for breach of authority."

'I don't think you will," Kollberg said.

He took out his notebook.

'But before we go I want the names and addresses of everyone in your organization."

'We don't have an organization. We are simply men with families who…"

'Who prowl about in public places armed and ready to strike down police," Kollberg snapped. "Out with the names now."

Ten minutes later he stowed the two family men into the back seat and drove them to Kungsholmsgatan, took the elevator and pushed them inside Martin Beck's office.

'You'll be sorry for this as long as you live," the elder man

'The only tiling I'm sorry for is that I didn't break your arm," Kollberg retorted.

Martin Beck gave him a quick, searching look and said:

'Okay, Lennart. You go home now."

Kollberg went.

The man in the track suit opened his mouth to speak but Martin Beck checked him. He gestured to them to sit down, sat in silence for some moments with his elbows on the desk and pressed his palms together. Then he said:

'What you have done is indefensible. The very idea of militia comprises a far greater danger to society than any single criminal or gang. It paves the way for lynch mentality and arbitrary administration of justice. It throws the protective mechanism of society out of gear. Do you understand what I mean?"

'You're talking like a book," said the man in the track suit acidly.

'Exactly," Martin Beck replied. "These are elementary facts. Mere catechism. Do you understand what I mean?"

It took about an hour before they understood what he meant

When Kollberg got home to Palandergatan his wife was sitting up in bed knitting. Without saying a word he got undressed, went into the bathroom and had a shower. Then he got into bed. His wife put down her knitting and said:

'That's a nasty bruise on your neck. Has someone hit you?"

'Put your arms around me," he said.

'My tummy's in the way, but… there. Who hit you?"

'A couple of goddam amateurs,'' Kollberg said and fell asleep.

22

AT BREAKFAST on Sunday morning Martin Beck's wife said:

'How are you doing? Can't you get hold of that creature? Look what happened to Lennart yesterday, it's awful. I don't wonder people are scared, but it's a bit much when they go for policemen."

Martin Beck sat hunched over the table. He was wearing dressing gown and pajamas. He was busy trying to recall a dream he had had just before waking up. An unpleasant dream. Something about Gunvald Larsson. Stubbing out the first cigarette of the day he looked at his wife.

'They didn't know he was a policeman," he said.

'All the same," she said. "It's very nasty."

'Yes. It's very nasty."

She took a bite at a piece of toast and frowned at the stub in the ashtray.

'You shouldn't smoke so early in the morning. It's bad for your throat."

'No," Martin Beck said, withdrawing his hand from the pocket of the dressing gown.

He had been about to light another cigarette but now he left the packet where it was and thought: Inga's right. Of course it's not good for me. I smoke far too much. And look what it costs.

'You smoke far too much," she said. "And look what it costs."

'I know," he said.

He wondered how many times she had said this during the sixteen years of their marriage. Even a guess seemed impossible.

'Are the children asleep?" he asked, changing the subject.

'Yes, it's the summer vacation. Our daughter was late getting home last night. I don't like her being out like that at night. Especially with that lunatic at large. She's only a child."

'She will soon be sixteen," he said. "And from what I gathered she was with a friend next door."

'Nilsson underneath said yesterday that parents who let their children run about without keeping an eye on them have only themselves to blame. He said that there are minorities in the community—exhibitionists and the like—who have to get rid of their aggressions, and that it's the parents' fault if the children get into trouble."

'Who's Nilsson?"

'The businessman who lives underneath us."

'Has he children?"

'No."

'Well then."

'Just what I said. That he doesn't know what it is to have children. How worried one always is."

'Why did you talk to him?"

'Well, you have to be nice to your neighbors. It wouldn't do any harm if you too were friendly to people sometimes. Anyway, they're very nice people."

'It doesn't sound like it," Martin Beck said.

Realizing that a quarrel was blowing up he quickly drained his cup of coffee.

'I must hurry and dress," he said, getting up.

He went into the bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed. Inga washed up, and when he heard the water stop running and her footsteps approaching he retired swiftly into the bathroom and locked the door. Then he turned on the water, undressed and stretched out in the hot bath.

He lay quite still and relaxed. Closing his eyes, he tried to recall the dream he had had. He thought of Gunvald Larsson. Neither he nor Kollberg liked Gunvald Larsson, whom they only worked with sporadically, and he suspected that even Melander found it hard to appreciate this colleague, though he gave no sign of it. Gunvald Larsson had an unusual capacity to annoy Martin Beck, who felt irritated even now when he thought of nun. But in some way he had a feeling that his present annoyance had nothing to do with Gunvald Larsson personally, but was rather something he had said or done. Martin Beck had an idea that Gunvald Larsson had said or done something important, something that was decisive for the park murders. Whatever it was eluded him, and it was no doubt this fact which was irritating him now.

He dismissed the thought and climbed out of the bath. It was probably all mixed up with his dream, he thought as he shaved.

A quarter of an hour later he was on his way into town on the subway. He opened his morning paper. On the front page was an identikit picture of the girls' murderer, drawn by the police artist from the meager description given by witnesses, chiefly Rolf Evert Lundgren. Nobody was satisfied with it. Least of all the artist and Rolf Evert Lundgren.

Martin Beck held the paper away from him and looked at the picture with narrowed eyes. He wondered to what extent it really resembled the man they were hunting. They had also shown it to Mrs. Engström, who at first had said it wasn't in the least like her dead husband but had then admitted there might be a resemblance.

Beneath the picture was the incomplete description. Martin Beck read the short text.

Suddenly he stiffened. Felt a wave of warmth pass through him. Held his breath. In a flash he knew what it was that had been worrying him ever since they caught the mugger, what had niggled at him and what it was that linked up with Gunvald Larsson. The description.

Gunvald Larsson's summary of the description Lundgren had given was almost word for word a repetition of something Martin Beck had heard him say on the phone over two weeks ago.

He remembered standing by the filing cabinet, listening to Gunvald Larsson speaking on the phone. Melander had also been in the room.

He could not recall the whole conversation, but seemed to remember that it had been with a woman who wanted to report a man who had been standing on a balcony in the apartment house opposite. Gunvald Larsson had asked her to describe the man and he had repeated the description in almost exactly the same words as Lundgren used when he was interrogated later. Also, the woman had said that the man kept watching children who were playing in the street.

Martin Beck folded up the paper and stared out of the window, trying to recall what had been said and done that morning. He knew on which day the conversation had taken place, for soon afterwards he had driven down to the Central Station and taken the train to Motala. It was Friday, June 2, exactly a week before the murder in Vanadis Park.

He tried to remember whether the woman on the phone had given her address. Probably she had, and in that case Gunvald Larsson must have written it down somewhere.

As the train approached the city center Martin Beck regarded this bright idea of his with waning enthusiasm. The description was so defective that it could fit thousands of people. The fact that Gunvald Larsson had used the same wording on two entirely different occasions need not mean that it referred to the same person. The fact that a man stands on his balcony at all times of the day and night need not mean that he is a presumptive murderer. The fact that Martin Beck on previous occasions had had a flash of intuition which had turned out to provide the solution to difficult cases need not mean that it would do so this time.

Still, it was worth looking into.

Usually he got off at T-Centralen and walked over the Klaraberg viaduct to Kungsholmsgatan, but today he took a taxi.

Gunvald Larsson was sitting at his desk drinking coffee, Kollberg half sat with one thigh over the edge of the desk, nibbling at a pastry. Martin Beck sat down in Melander's chair, stared at Gunvald Larsson and said:

'Do you remember that woman who called up the same day I went to Motala? She wanted to report a man who was standing on a balcony on the other side of the street?"

Kollberg put the rest of the pastry into his mouth and stared at Martin Beck in astonishment

'Hell, yes," Gunvald Larsson said. "That crazy bitch. What about her?"

'Do you remember how she described him?"

'No, I certainly don't. How can I remember what all these nutty people say?"

Kollberg swallowed with some difficulty and said:

'What are you talking about?"

Martin Beck waved him to be quiet and went on:

'Think hard, Gunvald. It might be important."

Gunvald Larsson looked at him distrustfully.

'Why? Okay, wait, and I'll think."

After a while he said:

'Now I've thought. No, I don't remember. I don't think there was anything special about him. He no doubt looked very ordinary."

He shoved the knuckle of his first finger into a nostril and frowned.

'Wasn't his fly undone? No, wait… No, it was his shirt. He had a white shirt and it was unbuttoned. That's it, now I remember. The old woman said he had blue-gray eyes and then I asked how narrow the street was. And do you know what she said? That the street wasn't narrow at all but that she looked at him through binoculars. Crazy. She was a peeper, of course, and she's the one who ought to be locked up. Sitting gaping at men through binoculars…"

'What are you talking about?" Kollberg asked again.

'That's what I'm wondering," Gunvald Larsson said. "Why is that suddenly so important?"

Martin Beck sat silent for a moment. Then he said:

'I happened to think of that man on the balcony because Gunvald used the same wording when he repeated the woman's description as when he summed up Lundgren's description of the man in Vanadis Park. Thin hair brushed back, big nose, average height, white unbuttoned shut, brown trousers, blue-gray eyes. Is that right?"

'Maybe," Gunvald Larsson said. "I don't really remember. But it fits Lundgren's man anyway."

'You mean it could be the same person?" Kollberg asked doubtfully. "It's not a very unusual description, is it?" Martin Beck shrugged.

'No. It doesn't tell us very much. But ever since we questioned Lundgren I've had a hunch that there's a connection between the murders and that man on the balcony. It's just that I couldn't put my finger on it until today."

He stroked his chin and looked awkwardly at Kollberg. "It's a very frail supposition. Not much to go on. I know that. But it might be worth while checking up on that man." Kollberg got up and went over to the window. Stood with his back to it and folded his arms. "Well, frail suppositions sometimes…"

Martin Beck was still looking at Gunvald Larsson.

'Come on now, try and remember that conversation. What did the woman say when she called up?"

Gunvald Larsson flung out his big hands.

'That's all she said. That she wanted to report a man who was standing on the balcony opposite. She thought it funny."

'Why did she think it funny?"

'Because he was nearly always standing there. At night too. She said she watched him through binoculars. That he stood looking down into the street at the cars and at children playing. Then she lost her temper because I was not sufficiently interested. But why should I be interested? People have a right to stand on their balconies without the neighbors calling up the police. Eh? What the hell did she want me to do?"

'Where did she live?" Martin Beck asked.

'I don't know," Gunvald Larsson replied. "I'm not even sure she said."

'What was her name?" Kollberg asked.

'I don't know. Come to that, how the hell could I know?"

'Didn't you ask her?" Martin Beck said.

'Yes, I suppose I did. One always does."

'Can't you remember?" Kollberg said. "Think hard."

Martin Beck and Kollberg watched with close attention the visible expressions of Gunvald Larsson's forced mental processes. He had his fair eyebrows drawn together so that they formed a continuous line above the clear blue eyes. He was also red in the face and looked as if he sat straining. After a while he said:

'No, I don't remember. Mrs… er… Mrs. something."

'Didn't you write it down anywhere?" Martin Beck asked. "You always make a note of things."

Gunvald Larsson glared at him.

'Yes, I do. But I don't keep all my notes. I mean, it wasn't anything important. A crazy old girl calling up. Why should I remember it?"

Kollberg sighed.

'Well, where do we go from here?"

'When is Melander coming?" Martin Beck asked.

'Three o'clock, I think. He was working last night."

'Call up and ask him to come here now," Martin Beck said. "He can sleep some other time."

23

SURE ENOUGH, when Kollberg called up, Melander was asleep in his apartment at the corner of Norr Mälarstrand and Polhemsgatan. Dressing at once, he drove the short distance to Kungsholmsgatan in his own car and only a quarter of an hour later he joined the other three.

He recalled the telephone conversation and when they had run the last part of the tape from the interrogation with Rolf Evert Lundgren, he confirmed that Martin Beck's theory concerning the description was correct. Then he asked for a cup of coffee and began carefully filling his pipe.

He lighted up, leaned back in the chair and said:

'So you think there's some connection?"

'It's only supposition," Martin Beck said. "A contribution to the guessing competition."

'There may be something in it, of course," Melander said. "What do you want me to do about it?"

'Use that built-in computer you have instead of a brain," Kollberg said.

Melander nodded and went on calmly sucking at Ms pipe. Kollberg called him "the living punch-card machine," which was a fitting name. Melander's memory had already become legendary within the force.

'Try and remember what Gunvald said and did when he got that phone call," Martin Beck said.

'Wasn't it the day before Lennart came here?" Melander said. "Let's see now… the second of June it must have been. I had the office next door then, and when Lennart came I moved in here."

'Exactly," Martin Beck said. "And I went down to Motala that day. I was on the way to the train and only looked in to ask about that fence."

'Larsson, the one who had died."

Kollberg was perched on the window sill, listening. He had often been present when Melander recapitulated the course of events—sometimes they had been much farther back than this—and he always had the feeling that he was witnessing a seance.

Melander had taken up what Kollberg called "his thinker pose": he was leaning back in the chair with his legs stretched full length but crossed, his eyes half shut, and drawing calmly at his pipe. Martin Beck, as usual, stood with one arm on the filing cabinet.

'When I came in you were standing exactly where you're standing now and Gunvald sat where he's sitting now. We were talking about that fence when the phone rang. Gunvald answered. He said his name and asked hers, I remember that."

'Do you remember whether he wrote the name down?" Martin Beck asked.

'I think so. I remember he had a pen in his hand. Yes, he must have made a note of it."

'Do you remember whether he asked for the address?"

'No, I don't think he did. But she may have given both name and address all at once."

Martin Beck looked inquiringly at Gunvald Larsson, who shrugged.

'I don't recall any address at any rate," he said.

'Then he said something about a cat," Melander said.

'So I did," Gunvald Larsson said. "I thought that's what she said. That there was a cat on her balcony. Then she said it was a man and of course I thought she meant that he was standing on her balcony. Seeing she called up the police."

'Then you asked her to describe the man and I remember plainly that you made notes at the same time as you repeated what she said."

'Okay," Gunvald Larsson said, "but if I made notes, which I've no doubt I did, then I wrote on the block here, and since it turned out that no action was needed, I probably tore the sheet off and threw it away."

Martin Beck lighted a cigarette, walked over and put the match in Melander's ashtray and returned to his place at the cabinet.

'Yes, I'm afraid you probably did," he said. "Go on, Fredrik."

'It wasn't until after she'd given you the description that you realized he was standing on his own balcony, eh?"

'Yes," Gunvald Larsson said. "I thought the old girl was nutty."

'Then you asked how it was she could see that he had blue-gray eyes if he was on the other side of the street."

'That was when the old girl said she had been watching him through binoculars."

Melander looked up in surprise.

'Binoculars? Good Lord."

'Yes, and I asked if he had molested her in any way, but he hadn't. He just stood there, and she thought it was nasty, she said."

'He evidently stood there at night too," Melander said.

'Yes. That's what she said anyway."

'And you asked what he was looking at and she said that he kept looking down at the street. At cars and children playing. And then you asked if she thought you ought to send the dog van."

Gunvald Larsson looked irritably at Martin Beck and said:

'Yes, Martin had been standing here nagging about it. It was a good chance for him to send out his goddam dog van."

Martin Beck exchanged a glance with Kollberg but said nothing.

'That was the end of the conversation, I think," Melander said. "The old girl thought you were insolent and put down the phone. And I went back to my room."

Martin Beck sighed.

'Well, that's not much to go on. Except that the description tallies."

'Funny for a guy to stand on his balcony day and night," Kollberg said. "Maybe he'd been pensioned off and had nothing else to do."

'No," Gunvald Larsson said. "It wasn't that… Now I remember she said, 'And he's a young man too. Couldn't be over forty. Seems to have nothing better to do than stand there staring.' Those were her very words. I'd quite forgotten."

Martin Beck lowered his arm from the cabinet and said:

'In that case it also fits Lundgren's description. About forty. If she examined him in the binoculars she should have seen him pretty plainly."

'Didn't she say how long she'd been looking at him 'before she called you up?" Kollberg asked.

Gunvald Larsson thought hard for a moment, then said:

'Wait now… Yes, she said she had been observing him for the last two months but that he might easily have been there earlier without her thinking anything of it. First she'd thought he stood debating whether to take 'his life or not. To jump, she said."

'Are you sure you still haven't your notes somewhere?" Martin Beck asked.

Gunvald Larsson pulled out a drawer, took out a thin bundle of papers of different sizes, laid them in front of him and started looking through them.

'These are all the notes about things that have to be followed up and reported on. When the matter has been dealt with I throw the notes away," he said as he fingered through them.

Melander leaned forward and knocked out his pipe.

'Yes," he said. "You had the pen in your hand and as you picked up the note pad you moved the telephone directory aside…"

Gunvald Larsson had looked through the bundle and put it back in the drawer.

'No, I know I haven't kept any notes of that conversation. It's a pity, but I haven't."

Melander raised his pipe and pointed at Gunvald Larsson with the stem.

'The telephone directory," he said.

'What telephone directory?"

'A telephone directory was lying open on your desk. Didn't you write in that?"

'It's possible."

Gunvald Larsson reached for his telephone directories and said:

'Hell of a job looking through all these."

Putting down his pipe, Melander said:

'You don't have to. If you wrote anything—and I think you did—it wasn't in your directory."

Martin Beck suddenly saw the scene in front of him. Melander had come into the room from next door with an open telephone directory in his hands, given it to him and shown him the name of the fence, Arvid Larsson. Then Martin Beck himself had put the directory down on the desk.

'Lennart," he said. "Would you mind getting the first part of the telephone directory in your room?"

Martin Beck looked first for the page giving Larsson Arvid sec. hand f urn. No notes there. Then he started at the beginning and looked through the directory carefully page by page. In several places he found illegible scrawls, most of them written in Melander's unmistakable hand but also some in Kollberg's clear and legible writing. The others stood round him in silence, waiting. Gunvald Larsson looked over his shoulder.

Not until he got to page 1082 did Gunvald Larsson exclaim:

'There!"

All four of them stared at the note in the margin.

A single word.

Andersson.

24

ANDERSSON.

Gunvald Larsson put his head on one side and looked at the name.

'Yes, it looks like Andersson all right. Or maybe Andersen. Or Andresen. It might be damn anything. Though I think it's meant to be Andersson."

Andersson.

There are three hundred and ninety thousand people in Sweden called Andersson. The Stockholm telephone directory alone lists ten thousand two hundred subscribers with this name, plus another two thousand in the immediate environs.

Martin Beck thought this over. It might turn out to be very easy to get hold of the woman who had made the much-discussed phone call, provided they made use of press, radio and television. But it could also be very difficult. And up to now nothing had been easy during this investigation.

They did make use of press, radio and television.

Nothing happened.

It was understandable that nothing happened on Sunday.

By eleven o'clock on Monday morning there were still no developments and Martin Beck began to have his doubts.

To start door-to-door questioning and calling up thousands of subscribers meant that a very great part of the search squad must be freed from other work to follow up a clue which might very well turn out to be useless. But couldn't the sphere of work be limited in some way? A rather wide street. It must be somewhere in the central part of the city.

'Must it?" Kollberg said doubtfully.

'Of course not, but…"

'But what? Is your intuition telling you something?"

Martin Beck gave him a harried look, then pulled himself together and said:

'The subway ticket, which was bought at Rådmansgatan."

'And which is not proved to have any connection with either the murders or the murderer," Kollberg said.

'It was bought at the station at Rådmansgatan and used only in one direction," Martin Beck said obstinately. "The murderer kept it because he intended using it for the return journey. He took the subway from Rådmansgatan to Mariatorget or Zinkensdamm and walked the rest of the way to Tanto Park."

'Mere speculation," Kollberg said.

'He had to do something to get rid of the little boy who was with the girl. He had nothing else to hand but the ticket."

'Speculation," Kollberg said.

'But it sticks together logically."

'Only just."

'And besides, the first murder was committed in Vanadis Park. It's all linked up with that part of the city. Vanadis Park, Rådmansgatan, the whole area north of Odengatan."

'You've said that before," Kollberg said drily. "It's pure guesswork."

'The theory of probability."

'You can call it that too if you like."

'I want to get hold of that Andersson woman," Martin Beck said, "and we can't just sit twiddling our thumbs and wait for her to come to us of her own accord. She may not have a TV, she may not read the papers. But she must have a telephone at any rate."

'Must she?"

'Without a doubt. You don't make a call like that from a call box or a tobacconist's. Besides, it seemed as if she was watching the man while she talked."

'Okay, I give in on that point."

'And if we're going to start ringing around and go from door to door, we must begin somewhere, within a certain area.

Seeing that we haven't enough men in the force to contact every single person by the name of Andersson."

Kollberg sat in silence for a while. Then he said:

'Let's leave this Andersson woman for a moment and ask ourselves instead what we know of the murderer."

'We have a sort of description."

'Sort of, yes, that just sums it up. And we don't know if it was the murderer Lundgren saw, if indeed he saw anyone."

'We know it's a man."

'Yes. What else do we know?"

'We know that he's not in the vice squad's records."

'Yes. Provided no one has been careless or forgotten something. That has happened before."

'We know the approximate times the murders were committed—soon after seven in the evening in Vanadis Park and between two and three in the afternoon in Tanto. So he wasn't at work then."

'Which implies?"

Martin Beck said nothing. Kollberg answered his own question:

'That he's out of work, is on vacation, is on sick leave, is only visiting Stockholm, has irregular working hours, is pensioned off, is a vagrant or… in short, it implies nothing at all."

'True enough," Martin Beck said. "But we do have some idea of his behavior pattern."

'You mean the psychologists' rigmarole?"

'Yes."

'That's only guesswork too, but…"

Kollberg was silent for a moment before going on:

'But I must admit that Melander made a very plausible extract from all that stuff."

'Yes."

'As for this woman and her phone call, let's try and find her. And since we must start somewhere, as you so aptly pointed out, and since we're only guessing our way along anyway, we might just as well presume that you are right. How do you want it done?"

'Well start in the fifth and ninth districts," Martin Beck said. "Put a couple of men onto calling up everyone by the name of Andersson and a couple more onto door knocking. Well ask the entire personnel in those districts to focus then-attention on this particular question. Especially along wide streets where there are balconies—Odengatan, Karlbergsvägen, Tegnérgatan, Sveavägen and so on."

'Okay," Kollberg said.

They set to work.

It was an awful Monday. The Great Detective (the general public), who had seemed less busy during Sunday, partly because so many people had gone to the country for the weekend, partly because of the reassuring appeals in press and television, were fully active once more. The central office for tips was swamped with calls from people who thought they knew something, from lunatics who wanted to confess and from scoundrels who called up just to be cussed. Parks and wooded areas swarmed with plainclothes police, as far as a hundred men can be said to swarm, and on top of all this came the search for someone called Andersson.

And the whole time fear was lurking in the background. Many parents called the police about children who had not been away from home for longer than fifteen or twenty minutes. Everything had to be noted down and checked. The material grew and grew. And in all cases was utterly useless.

In the middle of all this Hansson in fifth district called up.

'Have you found another body?" Martin Beck said.

'No, but I'm worried about that Eriksson we were to keep an eye on. The exhibitionist you had in custody."

'What about him?"

'He hasn't been out since last Wednesday, when he brought home a lot of drink, mostly wine. He went from one liquor store to another."

'And then?"

'We caught a glimpse of him now and again in the window. He looked like a ghost, the boys said. But there hasn't been a sign of him since yesterday morning."

'Have you rung the doorbell?"

'Yes. He won't open the door."

Martin Beck had almost forgotten the man. Now he remembered the furtive, miserable eyes, the trembling, emaciated hands. He felt a chill spread over his body.

'Break in," he said.

'How?"

'Any way you like."

Putting down the phone, he sat with his head in his hands. No, he thought, not this on top of everything else.

Half an hour later Hansson called up again.

'He had turned the gas on."

'And?"

'He's on the way to hospital now. Alive."

Martin Beck sighed. With relief, as they say.

'Though only just," Hansson said. "He had done it very neatly. Sealed up the cracks around the doors and stuffed up the keyholes of both front door and kitchen door."

'But tell be an right?"

'Yes, thanks to the usual. The slugs in the meter gave out But if he'd been left to lie there any longer…"

Hansson left the rest of the sentence unsaid.

'Had he written anything?"

'Yes. 'I can't go on.' He had scrawled it on the edge of an old girlie magazine. I've notified the temperance board."

'It should have been done before."

'Well, he did his job all right," Hansson replied.

After a moment or two he added:

'Until you picked him up."

Several hours of this horrible Monday still remained. At about eleven in the evening Martin Beck and Kollberg went home. Gunvald Larsson too. Melander stayed on. Everyone knew that he loathed having to be up all night and that the mere thought of giving up his ten hours' sleep was a nightmare to him, but he himself said nothing and his expression was as stoical as ever.

Nothing had happened. Many women called Andersson had been interviewed, but none of them had made the now-famous phone call.

No more bodies had been found and all the children reported missing during the day had turned up safely.

Martin Beck walked to Fridhemsplan and took the subway home.

They had got through the day. It was over a week now since the last murder. Or rather the latest one.

He felt like a drowning man who has just found a foothold but who knows that it's only a respite. That in a few hours it will be high tide.

25

IT WAS EARLY in the morning of Tuesday the twentieth of June and in the guardroom of ninth district police station things were still quiet. Police Officer Kvist sat at a table smoking and reading the paper. He was a young man with a fair beard. From behind the partition in the corner came the murmur of voices, interrupted now and then by the clatter of a typewriter. A telephone rang. Kvist looked up from his paper and saw Granlund lift the receiver inside the glass cage.

The door behind him opened and Rodin came in. He stopped inside the door and fastened his belt and shoulder strap. He was a good bit older than Kvist, both in years and length of service. Kvist had finished his training at the police school the year before and been transferred to ninth district quite recently.

Rodin went up to the table and picked up his cap. He slapped Kvist on the shoulder.

'Well, chum, let's go. We'll do one more round, then have coffee."

Kvist stubbed out his cigarette and folded up the paper.

They went out the main door and started walking westwards along Surbrunnsgatan. Slowly side by side, with equally long steps and hands behind their backs.

'What was it Granlund said we were to do with that Andersson woman if we found her?" Kvist asked.

'Nothing. Ask if she was the one who called up headquarters on the second of June and blathered about a man on a balcony," Rodin said. "Then we were to call Granlund."

They passed Tulegatan and Kvist looked up towards Vanadis Park.

'Were you up there after the murder?" he asked.

'Yes," Rodin said. "Weren't you?"

'No, it was my day off."

They walked on in silence. Then Kvist said:

'I've never found a body. It must have looked horrible."

'Don't worry, you'll see a lot of them before you're through."

'What made you join the police?" Kvist asked.

Rodin did not answer at once. Seemed to think it over. Then he said:

'My dad was a policeman. It seemed natural for me to be one too, though mom wasn't too happy about it, of course. And you? What made you want to be a cop?"

'To do something for the good of the community," Kvist said.

He gave a laugh and went on:

'At first I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had only Bs in my school-leaving report, but I met a guy in the army when I was doing my national service who was going to be a policeman and he said that my grades were good enough to get me into the police school. Also, there's a shortage of men in the force and… well, anyway, he talked me into it."

'The pay's pretty lousy," Rodin said.

'Oh, I dunno," Kvist said. "I got fourteen hundred kronor a month at training pay and now I'm up in the ninth salary grade."

'Yes, it's a bit better now than when I started."

'I read somewhere," Kvist said, "that the police force is recruited out of the twenty percent that does not go to trade schools or university, and that many of that twenty percent do as you did, take the same job as their fathers. It just so happened that your father was a policeman."

'Yes. But I damn well wouldn't have taken the same job if he'd been a garbage man," Rodin said.

'They say that there are at least fifteen hundred jobs vacant all over the country," Kvist said. "So, no wonder we have to do so much overtime."

Rodin kicked aside an empty beer can lying on the sidewalk and said:

'You sure are up on statistics. Do you intend to become commissioner?"

Kvist laughed, slightly embarrassed.

'Oh, I just read an article about it But maybe it's not a bad idea to be commissioner. What do you think he earns?"

'Well, you ought to know, with all your reading."

They had reached Sveavägen and the conversation flagged.

By the newsstand at the corner, outside the liquor store, stood a couple of distinctly drunken men, pushing each other. One of them kept shaking his fist and trying to strike the second man, but was evidently too drunk to succeed. The other man appeared slightly more sober and kept his antagonist at bay by pushing the flat of his hand against his chest At last the more sober of the men lost patience and tumbled the spluttering troublemaker into the gutter.

Rodin sighed.

'Well have to take him with us," he said, starting to cross the road. "I know him of old, he's always making trouble."

'Which one?" Kvist asked.

'The one in the gutter. The other can manage on his own."

They strode quickly up to the men. A third and equally seedy-looking type who had been watching the altercation from the small garden outside the Metropole restaurant, moved off towards Odengatan with hard-won dignity, looking back anxiously over his shoulder.

The two policemen lifted the drunk out of the gutter and stood him on his feet. He was in his sixties, very lean and very underweight by the look of him. Several passers-by, classed as ordinary decent citizens, stopped at a distance and gaped.

'Well, Johansson, how are things today?" Rodin said.

Johansson's head flopped and he made a feeble attempt to dust himself down.

'Jush f-fine, offisher. I was jush talking to my pal here, jush having a bit of f-fun, shee?"

His pal made a commendable attempt to straighten up and said:

'Nothing wrong with Oskar. He'll be all right."

'Scram," Rodin said good-naturedly, waving him away.

Relieved, the man hurried out of harm's way.

Rodin and Kvist took a firm grip under the drunk's arms and started hauling him towards the taxi stand twenty yards farther off.

The taxi .driver saw them coming, got out and opened the door to the back seat. He was one of the cooperative types.

'You're going to have a ride in a taxi, Johansson," Rodin said. "And then you can sleep."

Johansson crawled meekly into the taxi, collapsed on the back seat and fell asleep. Rodin propped him up in the corner and said over his shoulder to Kvist:

'll1 book him and see you at the station. Buy a few cakes on the way back."

Kvist nodded and as the taxi swung out from the curb he walked slowly back to the newsstand at the corner. He looked around for Johansson's mate and discovered him in Surbrunnsgatan, a few yards away from the liquor store. When Kvist took a couple of steps towards him the man waved him away with both hands and started walking up towards Hagagatan.

Kvist watched the man until he had disappeared around the corner. Then he turned on his heel and returned to Sveavägen.

The saleswoman in the newsstand stuck her head out of the opening and said:

'Thank you. Those drunkards ruin my business. And they're always hanging about just here."

'It's the liquor store that attracts them," Kvist said.

In a way he felt sorry for Johansson and his like, knowing that part of their trouble was that they had nowhere to spend their time.

He saluted and walked on. A little farther down Sveavägen he saw a shop sign: BAKERY. looking at his watch, he thought he might as well buy the cakes there and go back to the station and have coffee.

A little bell tinkled as he opened the door of the bakery. An elderly woman in a checked smock stood at the counter talking to the woman who was serving her.

Kvist put his hands behind his back and waited. He inhaled the smell of fresh-baked bread, thinking that these small bakeries were getting rare.

Soon they'll vanish altogether and you'll be able to buy nothing but mass-produced bread in plastic wrapping and the entire Swedish nation will eat exactly the same loaves and buns and cakes, thought Police Officer Kvist.

Kvist was only twenty-two but often had the feeling that his childhood was in the distant past. He listened with half an ear to the conversation between the two women.

'And to think old Palm in Number 81 went and died," said the fat woman in the smock.

'Yes, but just as well he did really," the shopwoman said. "He was so old and decrepit."

She was gray-haired and elderly and wore a white coat. Casting a glance at Kvist, she quickly put the goods into the customer's shopping bag.

'Will that be all, Mrs. Andersson?" she asked. "No cream today?"

The customer picked up her bag and puffed.

'No, no cream today, thank you. And charge it as usual, please. Good morning."

She moved towards the door and Kvist hurried to open it' for her.

'Good morning, Mrs. Andersson, dear," the shopwoman said.

The fat woman squeezed past Kvist with a nod by way of thanks.

He smiled to himself at the "dear" and was about to close the door behind her when a thought struck him. The shopwoman stared at him blankly as, without saying a word, he hurried out into the street and shut the door behind him.

As he caught up with her the woman in the check smock was already halfway inside the entrance next to the bakery. Saluting quickly, he said:

'Excuse me, madam, is your name Andersson?"

'Ye-es…?"

Taking her shopping bag, he held open the door for her. When it had shut behind them he said:

'Forgive my asking, but was it by any chance you who called up police headquarters on the morning of Friday the second of June?"

'The second of June? Ye-es, I did call the police. Maybe it was the second. What of it?"

'Why did you make that call?" Kvist asked.

He could not help betraying his eagerness and the woman called Andersson looked at him in astonishment.

'I spoke to a detective or whatever he was. A very rude man. Didn't seem in the least interested. I only wanted to re port something I'd noticed. That man had been standing there on his balcony for…"

'Do you mind if I come up with you and use your phone?" Kvist asked, already on his way to the elevator.

'I'll explain on the way up," he said.

26

MARTIN BECK put down the phone and shouted to Kollberg. Then he buttoned his jacket, put his cigarettes and a box of matches in his pocket and looked at his wrist watch. Five to ten. Kollberg appeared in the doorway.

'What are you bawling for?" he said.

'They've found her. Mrs. Andersson. Granlund in ninth district just called up. She lives in Sveavägen."

Kollberg vanished into the next room, fetched his jacket and was still struggling into it when he came back.

'Sveavägen," he said thoughtfully, looking at Martin Beck, "How did they get hold of her? Door-to-door?"

'No, a young officer from ninth met her in a bakery when he went in to buy cakes."

As they went downstairs Kollberg said:

'Isn't it Granlund who says that coffee breaks should be abolished? Perhaps he'll change his mind now."

Mrs. Andersson regarded them critically through the crack in the door.

'Was it either of you I spoke to when I called up that morning?" she asked.

'No," Martin Beck said politely. "You spoke to Detective Inspector Larsson."

Mrs. Andersson undid the safety chain and admitted them to a small, dark hall.

'Detective inspector or not, he was very rude. As I said to the young officer who came up with me, the police ought to be grateful that people do report things. Who knows, I said to him, if people didn't report things you might not have any work. But step inside, please, and I'll get the coffee."

Kollberg and Martin Beck went into the living room. Even though the apartment was on the third floor and the window gave onto the street, the room was rather dark. It was large, but the heavy, old furniture took up most of the floor space. One half of the window was slightly open, the other half mostly hidden by tall pot plants. The curtains were cream-colored and fussily draped.

In front of a brown plush sofa stood a round mahogany table set with coffee cups and a plate of cakes. Two tall armchairs with antimacassars stood one on each side of the table.

Mrs. Andersson came in from the kitchen carrying a china coffeepot. She poured out the coffee and then sat down on the sofa, which groaned beneath her weight.

'Can't talk without coffee," she said cheerfully. "Do tell me now, has anything happened about that man opposite?"

Martin Beck started to say something but his words were drowned by the wail of an ambulance tearing along the street below. Kollberg closed the window.

'Haven't you read the papers, Mrs. Andersson?" Martin Beck asked.

'No, when I'm in the country I never read the papers. I came home last night. Have another cake, gentlemen. Go on, do, they're just fresh from the bakery downstairs. By the way, that's where I met that nice young man in uniform, though how he could know ,' was the one to call up the police, I'm sure I don't know. Anyway, I did and it was the second of June, a Friday, I remember quite well, because my sister's husband's name is Rutger and it was his name day, and when I was there with them at the coffee party I told them about that rude inspector or whatever he was and it was only an hour or two after I had called up."

Here she had to get her breath and Martin Beck put in quickly:

'Would you mind showing us that balcony?"

Kollberg had already gone over to the window. The woman heaved herself up.

'The third balcony from the bottom," she said, pointing.

'Beside that window with no curtains."

They looked at the balcony. The apartment to which it belonged seemed to have only two windows onto the street, large one near the balcony door and a smaller one.

'Have you seen the man recently?" Martin Beck asked.

'No, not for some time. You see, I was in the country over the weekend, but before that I didn't see him for some days."

Kollberg caught sight of a pair of binoculars between two flower pots on the window sill. He picked them up and looked through them at the apartment house opposite. The balcony door and the windows were shut. The windowpanes reflected the daylight and he could not make out anything inside the dark rooms.

'Rutger gave me those binoculars," the woman said. I "They're naval ones. Rutger used to be a naval officer. I usually look at that man through the binoculars. If you open the window you can see better. Don't go thinking I'm inquisitive, now, but you see I had an operation on my leg at the beginning of April and that was when I discovered that man. After the operation, that is. I had this incision in my leg and I couldn't walk and it hurt so much I couldn't sleep either, so I sat here at the window most of the time, watching. I thought there was something very peculiar about a man who had nothing better to do than stand there staring. Ugh. There was something nasty about him."

While the woman was talking Martin Beck took out the I identikit picture that had been drawn from the mugger's description and showed it to her.

'Quite like him," she said. "Not very well drawn, if you ask me. But there's a likeness all right."

'Do you remember when you saw him last?" Kollberg asked, handing the binoculars to Martin Beck.

'Well, it's some days ago now. Over a week. Let's see now… yes, I think the last time was. when I had the woman in to clean. Wait and I'll have a look."

Opening the writing desk, she took out a calendar.

'Let's see now… Last Friday, that's it. We cleaned the windows. He was standing there in the morning but not in the evening and not the next day. Yes, that's right. Since then I haven't seen him. I'm sure of that."

Martin Beck lowered the binoculars and glanced swiftly at Kollberg. They didn't need a calendar to remember what had happened on that Friday.

'On the ninth, that is," Kollberg said.

'That's right. Now what about another cup of coffee?"

'No, thank you," Martin Beck said.

'Oh, just a drop, come on."

'No, thank you," Kollberg said.

She filled up the cups and sank down onto the sofa. Kollberg perched on the arm of the chair and popped a small almond biscuit into his mouth.

'Was he always alone, that man?" Martin Beck asked.

'Well, I've never seen anyone else there at any rate. He looks the lonely type. Sometimes I almost feel sorry for him. It's always dark in the apartment and when he's not standing on the balcony he sits at the kitchen window. He does that when it rains. But I've never seen anyone with him. But do sit down and have some more coffee and tell me what's happened to him. Just think, my calling up did the trick after all. But it took an awfully long time."

Martin Beck and Kollberg had already gulped down their coffee. They stood up.

'Thanks very much, Mrs. Andersson. Good-bye. No, please don't bother to see us out."

They retreated towards the hall.

When they came out of the main entrance Kollberg, law-abiding, started walking towards the pedestrian crossing fifty yards away, but Martin Beck took him by the arm and they hurried across the road towards the apartment house on the other side.

27

MARTIN BECK walked up the three flights, Kollberg took the elevator. They met outside the door and looked at it attentively. An ordinary brown wooden door that opened inwards, with Yale lock, mail slot of brass and a tarnished white-metal nameplate, on which was engraved in black letters: I. FRANSSON. There was not a sound in the whole building. Kollberg put his right ear to the door and listened. Then he knelt down with his right knee on the stone floor and very cautiously pushed up the flap of the mail slot about half an inch. Listened. Lowered the flap as silently as he had raised it. Got up and shook his head.

Martin Beck shrugged, stretched out his right hand and pressed the button of the electric doorbell. Not a sound. The bell was evidently out of order. He tapped on the door. No result. Kollberg pounded with his fist. Nothing happened.

They did not open the door themselves. They went downstairs half a flight and spoke in whispers. Then Kollberg went off to arrange the formalities and send for an expert. Martin Beck remained standing on the stairs and never took his eyes off the door.

After only a quarter of an hour Kollberg returned with the expert, who sized up the door with a quick, trained glance, dropped to his knees and stuck a long but handy instrument like a pair of tongs through the mail slot. The lock had no antiburglar device over it on the inside and he needed only thirty seconds to grip it and work open the door a few inches. Martin Beck pushed past him and put his left index finger against the door. Opened it. The unoiled hinges creaked.

They looked into a hall with two open doors. The left one led into the kitchen and the right one into what was apparently the only room in the apartment. A heap of mail lay on the doormat, so far as they could see chiefly newspapers, advertisements and brochures. The bathroom lay to the right of the hall, just inside the front door.

The only sound was the muffled roar of traffic from Sveavägen.

Martin Beck and Kollberg stepped carefully over the pile of mail and glanced into the kitchen. At the far end was a small dining area with a window on to the street.

Kollberg pushed open the door of the bathroom while Martin Beck went into the living room. Straight in front of him was the balcony door and obliquely behind him to the right he saw another door, which he found led into a clothes closet. Kollberg said a few words to the lock expert, closed the front door and came into the room. "Obviously no one at home," he said. "No," Martin Beck said.

They went through the apartment systematically but with great caution, taking care to touch as few objects as possible.

The windows, one in the living room and one in the dining area, gave onto the street and were shut; so was the balcony door. The air was close and stale.

The apartment was in no way dilapidated or neglected, yet somehow it seemed shabby. It was also very bare. The living room had only three pieces of furniture: an unmade bed with a torn, red quilt and grubby sheets, a kitchen chair at the head of the bed and, by the opposite wall, a low chest of drawers. No curtains and no rug on the linoleum floor. On the chair, which evidently served as a bedside table, lay a box of matches, a saucer and an issue of the Småland Gazette. The newspaper was folded up in a way that indicated it had been read, and on the saucer lay a little tobacco ash, seven dead matches and small, tight balls of cigarette paper.

Above the chest of drawers hung a framed reproduction of an oil painting of two horses and a birch tree, and on the chest of drawers stood another ornament, a glazed blue ceramic dish. Empty. That was all.

Kollberg regarded the objects on the chair and said:

'Looks as if he saves the tobacco from the cigarette butts and smokes it in a pipe."

Martin Beck nodded.

They didn't go out onto the balcony but merely looked through the glass pane of the closed door. The balcony had an iron tube railing and the sides were of corrugated iron. It was furnished with a rickety varnished garden table and a folding chair. The chair looked old, with worn wooden arms and faded canvas seat.

In the closet hung a reasonably good dark-blue suit, a threadbare winter overcoat and a pair of brown corduroy trousers. On the shelf lay a fur cap and a woolen scarf and on the floor one black shoe and a pair of worn-out brown boots. They looked about size 8.

'Small feet," Kollberg said. "Wonder where the other shoe is."

They found it a few minutes later in the broom cupboard. Beside it lay a cleaning rag and a shoe brush. The shoe looked to be smeared with something, but the light was bad and they didn't want to touch it; they just stared into the dark cupboard.

The kitchen offered several other things of interest. On the gas cooker was a large box of matches and a saucepan with remains of food. Looked like oatmeal, quite dried up. On the sink an enamel coffeepot and a dirty cup with a thin layer of dregs in the bottom. Dry as dust. Also a soup plate and a can of coarse-ground coffee. Along the other wall was a refrigerator and two kitchen cupboards with sliding doors. The men opened all three. The refrigerator contained an opened half-packet of margarine, two eggs and a bit of sausage, which was so old that it was covered with a thin layer of mold.

One of the cupboards seemed to be used for china, the other as a pantry. A few plates, cups and glasses, a serving dish, salt, half a loaf of bread, a packet of lump sugar and a bag of rolled oats. In the drawers underneath were a carving knife and several odd knives, forks and spoons.

Kollberg poked at the bread. It was hard as a stone.

'He doesn't seem to have been home for a while," he said.

'No," Martin Beck agreed.

In the cupboard under the draining board was a frying pan and saucepans and in the opening under the sink was a garbage bag. It was almost empty.

By the window in the dining recess stood a red kitchen table with leaves and two kitchen chairs. On the table stood two bottles and a dirty glass. The bottles had contained ordinary sweet vermouth. One of them still had a little in the bottom.

Both window sill and table top were covered with a film of greasy dirt, obviously exhaust fumes from the street, which had seeped in through the cracks of the window, although this was shut.

Kollberg went into the bathroom and had a look, returned after half a minute and shook his head.

'Nothing there."

The two top drawers of the chest of drawers contained shirts, a cardigan, socks, underclothes and two ties. They all seemed clean but threadbare. The bottom drawer was full of dirty linen. There was also an enrollment book from the army.

They opened it and read: 2521-7-46 Fransson Ingemund Rudolph Växjö 5,'2-26 Gardener Vaster gatan 22 Malmö.

Martin Beck leafed through the enrollment book. It told him quite a lot about what Ingemund Rudolf Fransson had been doing up to and including the year 1947. He was born in Småland forty-one years ago. In 1946 he had had a job as a gardening laborer in Malmö and had lived in Västergatan there. In the same year he had been called up, had been graded as C3 and unfit for armed service, and had served twelve months with the antiaircraft regiment in Malmö. On being discharged from the army in 1947 someone with an illegible signature had given him the rating X-5-5, which lay well below average. The Roman figure was a mark of military conduct and showed that he had not been guilty of any breach of discipline, the two fives indicated that he was not much of a soldier, even within the C3 category. The officer with the illegible signature had given him the laconic utility code "kitchen hand," which probably meant that he had performed his national service peeling potatoes.

Otherwise their rapid and superficial search of the apartment revealed nothing about Ingemund Fransson's present occupation or about his doings during the last twenty years.

'The mail," Kollberg said, going out into the hall.

Martin Beck nodded. He was standing by the bed, looking down at it. The sheets were crumpled and grubby, the pillow squashed into a lump. Even so, it didn't look as if anyone had slept in it for several days.

Kollberg came back.

'Only newspapers and advertisements," he said. "What's the date of the paper lying there?"

Martin Beck put his head on one side, narrowed his eyes and said:

'Thursday the eighth of June."

'It evidently comes the day after. He hasn't touched his post since Saturday the tenth. Not after the murder in Vanadis Park."

'Yet he seems to have been home on Monday."

'Yes," Kollberg agreed, then added:

'But hardly since then."

Martin Beck stretched out his right arm, took hold of one corner of the pillowcase with thumb and forefinger and lifted the pillow.

Under it lay two pairs of little girls' white pants.

Seemed very small.

Stained by spots in different shades.

They stood quite still in the stale, bleak room, listening to the traffic and their own breathing. For perhaps twenty seconds. Then Martin Beck said swiftly and tonelessly:

'Okay. That's it. We'll seal off the apartment and alert the technical squad."

'Pity there was no photograph," Kollberg said.

Martin Beck thought of the dead man in the condemned house in Västmannagatan who had not yet been identified. It could be the same one but it was far from certain. Not even likely.

They still knew very little about the man called Ingemund Fransson.

Three hours later the time was two o'clock in the afternoon of Tuesday, the twentieth of June, and they knew considerably more.

For one thing, the dead man in Västmannagatan was not identical with Ingemund Fransson. Several nauseated witnesses had confirmed this.

The police had at last got hold of a loose end of thread, and with the aid of the well-oiled and ruthlessly efficient investigation machinery they soon unraveled the relatively simple tangle concerning Ingemund Fransson's past. They had already been in touch with about a hundred persons: neighbors, shopkeepers, social workers, doctors, army officers, clergymen, temperance administrators and many others. The picture cleared up very quickly.

Ingemund Fransson had moved to Malmö in 1943 and had got a job with the parks branch of the municipal council. His change of domicile was probably due to the fact that he had lost his parents. His father, who had been a laborer in Växjö, had died in the spring and his mother had already been dead for five years. He had no other relations. As soon as he had done his national service he had moved to Stockholm. He had lived in the apartment in Sveavägen since 1948 and had been employed as a gardening laborer until 1956. He then gave up his job, was sick-listed first by a doctor in private practice, then gradually examined by various psychiatrists in social welfare and was finally pensioned off two years later as unfit to work. The official report had the somewhat mystifying wording: "mentally incapable of physical work."

The doctors concerned said that he had more than average talent but was seized by a kind of chronic fear of work which simply prevented him from going off to work. Attempts at rehabilitation had failed. When he was supposed to be working in a machine shop he went to the factory gates every morning for four weeks but could not bring himself to go in. It was said that this type of inability to work was rare but by no means unique. Fransson was not mentally ill in any way or in need of care. There was nothing wrong with his intelligence and he had no physical defects to speak of. (The army doctor had given him a low rating because of flat feet.) But he was very unsociable, had no need of human contact, no friends and no interests, apart from what a doctor called "a vague interest in his native Småland countryside." He had a quiet, friendly manner, did not drink, was extremely economical and could be considered orderly, although he "didn't bother much about his appearance." He smoked. No sexual abnormalities had been apparent; Fransson had answered very vaguely when asked whether he was in the habit of masturbating, but the doctor presumed that he did so and that in any case he had an unusually weak sex urge. He suffered from agoraphobia.

Most of this dated from doctors' reports of the years 1957 and 1958. Since then none of the authorities had had reason to concern themselves with Fransson other than as a matter of routine. He had drawn his national pension and had kept to himself. He had subscribed to the Småland Gazette since the early 1950s.

'What's agoraphobia?" Gunvald Larsson asked.

'Morbid dread of public places," Melander said.

Investigation headquarters were buzzing with activity. Every available man had been put on to the job. Most of them had forgotten their tiredness. Hope of a quick solution had been kindled.

Outside, the weather grew slowly colder. A light rain had begun to fall.

Information poured in as though on a teleprinter. The police as yet had no photograph, but they did have a complete description, the missing details having been filled in by doctors, neighbors, former workmates and the assistants in the shops where he bought his food.

Fransson was 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighed about 176 pounds and, sure enough, took size 8 in shoes.

The neighbors said that he spoke little but was a gentle and friendly man who always passed the time of day. He had a Småland accent. Seemed the sort of person you could trust. No one had seen him for eight days.

The technicians in the apartment at Sveavägen had by this time checked and examined everything possible. There seemed no doubt that Fransson had committed both murders. They had even found blood on the black shoe in the closet.

'So he lay low for more than ten years," Kollberg said.

'And now he's got the itch and wanders about raping and murdering little girls," Gunvald Larsson said.

A telephone rang. Rönn answered.

Martin Beck paced up and down, biting his knuckles.

'We know practically everything that's worth knowing about him," he said. "We have everything except his photograph. And I expect that will turn up too. The only thing we don't know is—where is he now?"

'I know where he was fifteen minutes ago," Rönn said. "A dead girl is lying in St. Erik's Park."

28

ST. ERIK'S PARK is one of the smallest in the city; in fact it is so insignificant that most Stockholmers don't even know of its existence. Few people go there and still fewer have any thought of guarding it.

It lies in the north part of the city, forming a kind of unnatural end to the long street of Västmannagatan. A small tree-covered, rocky outcrop with gravel paths and steps, pitching down rather steeply towards the surrounding streets. The greater part of the area is, moreover, occupied by a school, which of course is closed in the summer.

The body lay in the northwest part of the park, fully visible and right out on the edge of the rock. It was a macabre corroboration of the theory that the murders would get more and more horrible. The man called Ingemund Fransson had been in a great hurry this time. He had bashed the girl's head against a stone and strangled her. Then he had ripped open her red plastic coat and her dress, torn her pants off and rammed something resembling the shaft of an old hammer up between her legs.

To make matters worse, it was the girl's mother who had found her. The girl, whose name was Solveig, was older than the previous victims, having already turned eleven. She lived in Dannemoragatan, less than five minutes' walk from the scene of the crime, and, as far as anyone knew, she had had no reason to be in the park at all. She had gone out to buy some chocolate at a candy stand almost on the corner of Dannemoragatan and Norra Stationsgatan, outside the actual park and at its northeast end. The errand should not have taken more than ten minutes and the girl had been told several times previously not to play in the park, which in any case she was not in the habit of doing. When she had been gone only a quarter of an hour her mother had gone out to look for her. She would have gone with her at the outset if she had not had another daughter, who was only eighteen months old and had to be looked after. She had found the body almost at once, had broken down completely and was already in the hospital.

They stood in the bleak drizzle gazing down at the dead child, feeling far more guilty than the murderer of this death, so hideous and pointless. The pants could not be found, nor the chocolate. Perhaps Ingemund Fransson was hungry and had taken it with him.

No doubt that it was his work. There was even a witness, who had seen him standing and talking to the girl But they had seemed on such familiar terms that the witness was convinced that he saw a father who was out with his daughter. Ingemund Fransson was, as they knew, gentle and friendly and seemed the sort of person you could trust. He had been dressed in a beige-colored corduroy jacket, brown trousers, white shirt open at the neck, and neat black shoes.

The missing underpants were light-blue.

'He must be somewhere close by," Kollberg said.

Below them, the heavy traffic rumbled past on the main thoroughfare along St. Eriksgatan and Norra Stationsgatan. Martin Beck gazed out over the sprawling freightyard of the railroad and said quietly:

'Comb every railroad car, every warehouse, every cellar, every attic in this area. Now. Immediately."

Then he turned and walked away. The time was three o'clock on Tuesday the twentieth of June. It was raining.

29

THE HUNT BEGAN about five o'clock on Tuesday afternoon; it was still going on at midnight and was intensified during the early morning hours.

Every single man who could be spared for the search was on the go, every dog was out and every car in movement. The hunt was concentrated at first on the northern parts of the city but spread by degrees to the center and then out to the suburbs.

Stockholm is a city in which many thousands of people sleep out of doors in the summer. Not only tramps, junkies and alcoholics but also a large number of visitors who cannot get hotel rooms and just as many homeless people who, though fit for work and for the most part capable of holding down a job, cannot find anywhere to live, since bungled community planning has resulted in an acute housing shortage. They sleep on park benches and on old newspapers spread out on the ground, under bridges, on quaysides and in back yards. An equal number find temporary lodging in condemned houses, in buildings under construction, in air-raid shelters, garages, railroad cars, staircases, cellars, attics and sheds. Or in coastal vessels and motorboats and old wrecks. Many drift about in the subway stations and at the railroad station or climb into some athletic field, and those who are smart have no great difficulty in getting down into the subterranean communications system beneath the big city buildings with its labyrinth of corridors and connecting shafts.

Plainclothes and uniformed policemen shook thousands of such people awake on this night, forcing them to their feet, shining flashlights into faces stupid with sleep and demanding proof of identity. Many came in for this five or six times; they moved about from place to place, only to be prodded awake by new police who were just as exhausted as themselves.

Otherwise the streets were quiet. Not even prostitutes and drug pushers dared to show their faces; evidently they did not realize that the police had less time for them than ever.

By seven o'clock on Wednesday morning the hunt had died down. Haggard and hollow-eyed policemen stumbled home for a few hours sleep, others dropped like felled trees onto sofas and wooden benches in the guardrooms and dayrooms of the various stations.

Scores of people were found that night, in the most surprising places, but none of them was called Ingemund Rudolf Fransson.

At seven o'clock Kollberg and Martin Beck were at headquarters at Kungsholmsgatan. By now they were so tired that they were past feeling it and had got their second wind, as it were.

Kollberg was standing with his hands behind his back in front of the big map on the wall.

'He was a gardening laborer," he said. "Employed by the local council He worked for eight years in the city parks, he must have got to know them all during that time. And up to now he hasn't gone outside the actual city limits. He keeps to ground he knows."

'If only we could be sure," Martin Beck said.

'One thing is certain. He didn't sleep in any park last night. Not in Stockholm."

Kollberg paused and said reflectively:

'Unless we've had goddam bad luck."

'Exactly," Martin Beck said. "Besides, there are enormous areas that just can't be checked effectively at night. Djurgården, Gärdet, Lill-Jans Wood… to say nothing of the districts outside the city."

'The Nacka reserve," Kollberg,said.

'The cemeteries," Martin Beck said.

'Yes, the cemeteries… They're locked, it's true, but…"

Martin Beck looked at the clock.

'The immediate question is: what does he do in the daytime?"

'That's what is so fantastic," Kollberg said. "He evidently walks around town quite openly."

'We've got to pull him in today," Martin Beck said. "Anything else is unthinkable."

'Yes," Kollberg said.

The psychologists were on the alert and came forward with the view that Ingemund Fransson was not deliberately trying to hide or keep out of the way. He was probably in a state of nonconsciousness but acted, also unconsciously, in an intelligent way and with automatic instinct of self-preservation.

'Very enlightening," Kollberg said.

A little later Gunvald Larsson arrived. He had been working independently and along lines of his own.

'Do you know how far I've driven since last evening? Three hundred and forty kilometers. In this goddam city. And slowly. I think he must be some kind of spook."

'That's one way of looking at it," Kollberg said.

Melander also had a point of view.

'The systematics disturb me. He commits one murder and then another almost immediately afterwards, then there's an interval of eight days, then a new murder and now…"

All had points of view.

The public was hysterical and panic-stricken and the police force overworked.

The general review of the situation on Wednesday morning had an air of optimism and confidence. On the surface. Deep down inside each man was just as afraid as the next.

'We need more men," Hammar said. "Get every available man from the outlying districts. Many will volunteer."

And plainclothes men, that was a recurrent theme. Plain-clothes police in key places; everyone who had a track suit or old overalls was to take himself out into the bushes.

'We must have a lot of uniformed men on patrol," Martin Beck said. "To reassure the public. To give them a sense of security."

Thinking of what he had just said, he was overcome by a bitter feeling of hopelessness and helplessness.

'Compulsory proof of identity in all liquor stores," Ham-mar said.

That was a good idea, but it did not lead to any results.

Nothing seemed to lead anywhere. The hours of Wednesday dragged past. A dozen or so alarms were received but none of them seemed very hopeful and all turned out in fact to be false.

Evening came, and a chilly night. The raids continued.

Nobody slept. Gunvald Larsson drove another three hundred kilometers at 46 öre a kilometer.

'The dogs are groggy too," he said when he came back. "They're even past biting policemen."

The morning of Thursday the twenty-second of June gave prospects of a warm but windy day.

'I'm going up to Skansen to stand there disguised as a maypole," Gunvald Larsson said.

No one had the energy to answer him. Martin Beck felt sick and his stomach heaved. When he tried to hold the paper mug to his lips his hand shook so much that he spilled coffee on Melander's blotting paper. And Melander, who was otherwise very finicky, didn't even seem to notice.

Melander was also unusually grave. He was thinking of the timetable. The timetable which showed that it was almost time for the next.

At two o'clock in the afternoon release came at last. In the form of a telephone call. Rönn answered.

'Where? In Djurgården?"

Putting his hand over the mouthpiece, he looked at the others and said:

'He's in Djurgården. Several persons have seen him."

'If we're lucky he's still in South Djurgården, and then we've got him cornered," Kollberg said in the car as they drove east, closely followed by Melander and Rönn.

South Djurgården is an island and to get there one must cross one of the two bridges across Djurgårdsbrunnsviken and the canal, unless one takes the ferry or has a boat of one's own. On the third of the island nearest to the center of town are museums, the amusement park of Gröna Lund, summer restaurants, motorboat and yacht clubs, Skansen's open-air museum and zoo, and the residential district, like a small village, known as Gamla Djurgårdsstaden. The rest of its area is covered with cultivated parkland interspersed with woods. The buildings are old but well preserved: manor houses, mansions, dignified villas and small eighteenth-century wooden houses dotted about, all surrounded by beautiful gardens.

Melander and Rönn turned off onto the Djurgården bridge while Kollberg and Martin Beck drove straight on to the Djurgården Inn. A few police cars were already drawn up in front of the restaurant.

The bridge over the canal was cordoned off by a radio patrol car and on the other side they saw another police car driving slowly in the direction of the Manilla deaf and dumb school.

A small cluster of people stood at the north end of the bridge. As Martin Beck and Kollberg approached, an elderly man detached himself from the group and went up to them.

'I take it you're the superintendents," he said.

They stopped and Martin Beck nodded.

'My name's Nyberg," the man went on. "I was the one who discovered the murderer and called the police."

'Where did you find him?" Martin Beck asked.

'Below Gröndal. He was standing in the road looking up at the house. I recognized him at once from the picture and description in the papers. At first I didn't know what to do, whether to try and nab him, but as I got closer I heard him talking to himself. It sounded so odd that I knew he must be dangerous, so I walked up to the inn as quietly -as possible and phoned the police."

'Talking to himself, was he," Kollberg remarked. "Did you hear what he said?"

'He stood there saying he was ill. He expressed himself in a very funny way, but that's what he said. That he was ill. When I'd phoned I went back but he had gone. Then I kept watch here by the bridge until the police came."

Martin Beck and Kollberg went on down to the bridge and spoke to the radio policemen.

The man had been seen by several witnesses between the canal and Manilla, and the witness at Gröndal was obviously the last one to have seen him. As the area had been cordoned off so quickly there was every reason to believe that the man was still in South Djurgården. No bus had crossed the bridge after the witness saw the man at Gröndal. The roads into town had been closed immediately and the man could hardly have got as far as Skansen or Djurgårdsstaden before that.

There was not much chance of taking him by surprise, he must already have noticed that the police were out in full force.

Martin Beck and Kollberg got into their car and drove across the bridge, closely followed by two prowl cars. They stopped on the road between the deaf and dumb school and the bridge and started to organize the hunt from there.

A quarter of an hour later all available men from several of Stockholm's police districts had arrived on the scene and about a hundred policemen had been sent out to cover the area between Skansen and Blockhusudden.

Martin Beck sat in the car directing the search by radio. The search groups were equipped with walkie-talkies and the roads were patrolled by squad cars. Dozens of innocent pedestrians were stopped time and again, forced to prove their identity and told to leave the area. At the roadblocks all cars on their way into town were stopped and checked.

In the park by Rosendal Manor a young man broke into a run when a policeman asked to see his identity card and in panic he ran right into the arms of two other policemen. He refused to say who he was and why he had run. When they searched him they found a loaded 9-millimeter Parabellum in his coat pocket and he was taken straight to the nearest police station.

'In this way well soon have pulled in every criminal in Stockholm except the one we want," Kollberg said.

'He's lying low somewhere," said Martin Beck. "This time he can't escape."

'Don't be so sure. We can't keep the area cordoned off indefinitely. And if he has got past Skansen…"

'He didn't have time. Unless he drove a car and that doesn't seem likely."

'Why not? He might have stolen one," Kollberg said.

A voice crackled on the radio. Martin Beck pressed the button and answered.

'Car ninety-seven, nine seven, here. We've found him. Over."

'Where are you?" Martin Beck asked.

'At Biskopsudden. Above the boat club."

'Well be right over."

It took them three minutes to drive to Biskopsudden. Three radio cars, a motorcycle policeman and several plain-clothes and uniformed policemen were standing in the road.

Between the cars and surrounded by the police stood the man. A radio policeman in a leather jacket was holding his arm bent behind his back.

The man was thin and somewhat shorter than Martin Beck. He had a big nose, blue-gray eyes, and sandy hair brushed back and rather thin on top. He was dressed in brown trousers, white shirt with no tie, and dark-brown jacket. As Martin Beck and Kollberg came towards him he said:

'What's all this?"

'What's your name?" Martin Beck asked.

'Fristedt. Wilhelm Fristedt."

'Can you prove your identity?"

'No, my driver's license is in the pocket of another coat."

'Where have you been during the last two weeks?"

'Nowhere. I mean at home. In Bondegatan. I've been ill."

'Alone at home?"

It was Kollberg who asked. He sounded sarcastic.

'Yes," the man replied.

'Your name's Fransson, isn't it?" Martin Beck said kindly.

'No, it's Fristedt. Must he grip my arm so tightly? It hurts."

Martin Beck nodded to the policeman in the leather jacket.

'Okay. Put him in the car."

He and Kollberg moved to one side and Martin Beck said:

'What do you think? Is it our man?"

Kollberg scratched his head.

'I don't know. He seems so neat and ordinary. But his appearance tallies and he has no proof of identity. I don't know."

Martin Beck went up to the car and opened the door to the rear seat.

'What are you doing here in Djurgården?"

'Nothing. Just out for a walk. What's all this about?"

'And you can't prove your identity?"

'No, unfortunately."

'Where do you live?"

'In Bondegatan. Why are you asking me all this?"

'What were you doing last Tuesday?"

'The day before yesterday? I was at home. I was ill. Today's the first time I've been out in over two weeks."

'Who can prove it?" Martin Beck asked. "Was anyone with you when you were ill?"

'No, I was alone."

Martin Beck drummed on the car roof and looked at Kollberg. Kollberg opened the door on the other side, leaned into the car and said:

'May I ask what it was you said when you were over by Gröndal half an hour ago?"

'I beg your pardon?"

'You said something when you stood 'below Gröndal earlier today."

'Oh!" the man said. "Oh, that."

He smiled and said:

I am the sick lime-tree that withers while still young.

Dry leaves I scattered to the wind when on my

crown they hung.

Is that what you mean?"

The policeman in the leather jacket was gaping at the man.

'Fröding," Kollberg said.

'Yes," the man said. "Our great poet Fröding. He was living at Gröndal when he died. Not so old but out of his mind."

'What's your job?" Martin Beck asked.

'I'm a butcher," the man replied.

Martin Beck straightened up and looked at Kollberg over the car roof. Kollberg shrugged. Martin Beck lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. Then he bent down and looked at the man.

'Okay," he said. "Let's start again. What's your name?"

The sun beat down on the car roof. The man in the back seat mopped his brow and said:

'Wilhelm Fristedt."

30

ONE MIGHT take Martin Beck for a greenhorn from the country and Kollberg for a sex murderer. One could put a false beard on Rönn and get someone to believe he was Santa Claus, and a confused witness might say that Gunvald Larsson was Chinese. One could no doubt dress up the assistant commissioner as a laborer and the commissioner as a tree. One could probably persuade someone that the minister for home affairs was a policeman. One could, like the Japanese during the Second World War and certain monomaniac photographers, disguise oneself as a bush and make pretense at not being found out One could hoodwink people about 'almost anything at all.

But nothing in this world could make people be mistaken about Kristiansson and Kvant

Kristiansson and Kvant were dressed in uniform caps and leather jackets with gilded buttons. Their belts were attached to straps diagonally across their chests and they carried pistols and truncheons. Their dress was due to the fact that they felt cold as soon as the temperature dropped below 70°.

They were both from the province of Skåne, in the far south.

Both were six foot two and had blue eyes. Both were broad-shouldered and fair-haired and weighed about 180 pounds. They drove a black Plymouth with white mudguards. It had a searchlight and radio mast a rotating orange flash light and two red lights on the roof. In addition, the word POLICE was painted in white block letters on four places: over the doors, on the hood and across the back. Kristiansson and Kvant were radio police. Before joining the force they had -both been regular sergeants in the South Skåne Infantry Regiment at Ystad. Both were married and each had two children. They had worked together for a long time and knew each other as well as only two men in a radio car can do. They! applied for transfer at the same time and got on badly with* everyone except each other.

Yet they were not really alike and they often got on each other's nerves. Kristiansson was gentle and conciliatory, Kvant hot-tempered and truculent. Kristiansson never mentioned his wife, Kvant talked of hardly anything else but his. By this tune Kristiansson knew everything about her; not only what she said and did, but the most intimate details regarding her body and general behavior.

They were regarded as complementing each other perfectly.

They had pulled in many thieves and thousands of drunks and they had put a stop to hundreds of apartment rows; Kvant had even started a few rows himself, since he took it for granted that people always got noisy and troublesome when they suddenly found two policemen standing in their hall.

They had never made a spectacular scoop of any kind or had then- names in the papers. Once, while serving in Malmö, they had driven a drunken journalist, who was murdered six months later, to the casualty department of the hospital. He had cut his wrists. This was the nearest they had ever come to fame.

The radio car was their second home, with its faint reek of liquor fumes left by all the drunks and with its atmosphere, hard to define, of stale intimacy.

Some people thought they were stuck-up because they spoke with a Skåne accent, and they themselves were annoyed when certain persons with no feeling for the sound and quality of the dialect tried to mimic them.

Kristiansson and Kvant did not even belong to the Stockholm police. They were radio police in Solna, outside the city boundary, and knew very little more about the park murders than what they had read in the papers and heard on the radio.

Soon after half past two on Thursday the twenty-second of June they were right in front of the military academy at Karlberg, with only twenty minutes of their shift to go.

Kristiansson, who was at the wheel, had just reversed the car on the old parade ground and was now driving westwards along Karlberg Strand.

'Stop a moment," Kvant said.

'Why?"

'I want to have a look at that boat."

After a while Kristiansson said with a yawn:

'Had a good look?"

'Yes."

They drove on slowly.

'The park murderer has been caught," Kristiansson said. "They've got him surrounded at Djurgården."

'So I heard," Kvant said.

'Good thing the kids are down in Skåne."

'Yes. Funny thing, you know…"

He broke off. Kristiansson said nothing.

'Funny thing," Kvant went on. "Before I married Siv I was always after the girls. One chick after the other, couldn't stop. Virile, as they say. In fact, I was goddam randy."

'Yes, I remember," Kristiansson said, yawning.

'But now—why, now I feel like an old horse that's been put out to graze. Fall dead asleep the minute I get into bed. And all I think of when I wake up is cornflakes and milk."

He made a short, pregnant pause and added:

'Must be old age creeping on."

Kristiansson and Kvant had just turned thirty.

'Yes," Kristiansson said

He drove past Karlberg bridge and was now only twenty-five yards from the city boundary. Had the park murderer not been surrounded at Djurgården he would probably have swung up to the right to Ekelundsvägen and had a look at what was left of the woods there after the new apartment houses had gone up. But there was no reason to now, and anyway he'd rather not see the National Police College twice in the same day if he could help it So he continued westwards along the winding road by the water.

They drove past Talludden and Kvant looked sourly at the teenagers hanging about outside the cafe and around the cars in the parking lot.

'By rights we ought to stop and take a look at their goddam rattletraps."

'That's the traffic boys' headache," Kristiansson said. "We're due back at the station in fifteen minutes."

They sat for a while in silence.

'Good thing they've pulled in that sex maniac," Kristiansson said.

'If only you could once say something I haven't heard twenty times already."

'It's not so easy."

'Siv was in a stinking temper this morning," Kvant said. "Did I tell you about that lump she thought she had on her left breast? The one she thought might be cancer?"

'Yes, you did."

'Oh. Well, anyway, I thought now she's been nagging so | long about that lump so I'll have a good feel myself. She was lying there like a dead fish when the alarm went off and of course I woke up before she did. So I…"

'Yes, you told me."

They had come to the end of Karlberg Strand, but instead of turning up towards the Sundbyberg road—which was the shortest way to the police station—Kristiansson drove straight on and along Huvudsta Allé, a road seldom used by anybody nowadays.

Later, many people were to ask him why he took that particular road, but that was a question he could not answer. He ] just took it, and that was that. In any case, Kvant did not; react. He had been a radio policeman far too long to ask useless questions. Instead, he said thoughtfully:

'No, I just can't make out what has got into her. Siv, I mean."

They passed Huvudsta Castle.

Not much of a castle, come to that, Kristiansson thought | for perhaps the five-hundredth time. At home in Skåne there are real castles. With counts and barons in them. Aloud he; said:

'Can you lend me twenty kronor?"

Kvant nodded. Kristiansson was chronically short of money.

They drove slowly on. To the right lay a newly built residential area with tall apartment houses, to the left was a narrow but densely wooded strip of land between the road and the Ulvsunda Lake.

'Stop a minute," Kvant said.

'Why?"

'Call of nature."

'We're nearly there."

'Can't be helped."

Kristiansson turned left and let the car glide slowly into one of the clearings. Then he stopped. Kvant got out and walked around the car, over to some low bushes, placed his legs wide apart and whistled as he pulled down the zipper of his fly. He looked over the bushes. Then he turned his head and saw a man standing only five or six yards away, evidently on the same business as himself.

'Sorry," Kvant said, turning politely the other way.

He adjusted his clothes and went towards the car. Kristiansson had opened the door and sat there looking out

While still two yards from the car Kvant stopped dead and said:

'But that man looked like… and behind was sitting…"

At the same time Kristiansson said:

'I say, that fellow there…"

Kvant swung around and strode towards the man by the bushes.

Kristiansson started to get out of the car.

The man was dressed in a beige-colored corduroy jacket, grubby white shirt, crumpled brown trousers and black shoes. He was of medium height, with a big nose and thin hair brushed straight back. And he had still not adjusted his clothes.

When Kvant was only two yards from him the man raised his right arm to his face and said:

'Don't hit me."

Kvant gave a start

'What!" he said.

Only that morning his wife had told him he was a clumsy great lout and no one could help noticing it, but still, this was the limit. Controlling himself he said:

'What are you doing here?"

'Nothing," the man said.

He gave a shy, awkward smile. Kvant eyed his clothes.

'Have you proof of identity?"

'Yes, I've my pension card in my pocket."

Kristiansson came up to them. The man looked at him and said:

'Don't hit me."

'Isn't your name Ingemund Fransson?" Kristiansson asked.

'Yes," the man replied.

'I think you'd better come with us," Kvant said, taking him by the arm.

The man willingly let himself be led over to the car.

'Get into the back seat," Kristiansson said.

'And do up your fly," Kvant ordered.

The man hesitated a moment. Then he smiled and obeyed. Kvant got into the back seat and sat beside him.

'Let's have a look at that pension card," Kvant said.

The man put his hand into his hip pocket and drew out the pension warrant.

Kvant looked at it and passed it to Kristiansson.

'Doesn't seem any doubt," Kristiansson said.

Kvant stared incredulously at the man and said:

'No, it's him all right."

Kristiansson went around the car, opened the door on the other side and started going through the man's jacket pockets.

Now, at close range, he saw that the man's cheeks were sunken and that his chin was covered with gray stubble that must have been several days old.

'Here," Kristiansson said, pulling something out of the inside pocket of the jacket.

It was a pair of little girls' pants, light-blue.

'Hm. That settles it, doesn't it?" Kvant said. "You've killed three little girls, haven't you? Eh?"

'Yes," the man said.

He smiled and shook his head.

'I had to," he said.

Kristiansson was still standing outside the car.

'How did you get them to go with you?" he asked.

'Oh, I've a way with children. Children always like me. I show them things. Flowers and so on." Kristiansson pondered for a moment. Then he said: "Where did you sleep last night?" "The northern cemetery," the man said.

'Have you slept there all the time?" Kvant asked.

'No, in other cemeteries too. I don't really remember."

'And in the daytime," Kristiansson said. "Where have you been in the daytime?"

'Oh, various places. In the churches a lot. It's so beautiful there. So quiet and still. You can sit there for hours…"

'But you made goddam sure you didn't go home, didn't you, eh?" Kvant said.

'I did go once. I had got something on my shoes. And…"

'Yes?"

'I had to change them and put on my old sneakers. Then of course I bought new shoes. Very expensive. Outrageously expensive, I don't mind saying."

Kristiansson and Kvant stared at him.

'And then I fetched my jacket."

'I see," said Kristiansson.

'It really gets quite chilly when you have to sleep out of doors at night," the man said conversationally.

They heard the sound of quick footsteps, and a young woman in a blue smock and wooden-soled shoes came running along. She caught sight of the radio car and stopped dead.

'Oh," she said, panting. "I suppose you haven't… My little girl… I can't find her… I turned my back for a few minutes and she was gone. You haven't seen her, have you? She is wearing a red dress…"

Kvant wound the window down to say something. Then he thought better of it and said politely:

'Yes, madam. She's sitting behind the bushes over there playing with a doll. She's all right. I saw her a few moments ago."

Kristiansson instinctively kept the light-blue pants behind his back and tried to smile at the woman. The result was horrible.

'Not to worry," he said feebly.

The woman ran over to the bushes and a moment later they heard a little girl's clear voice:

'Hello, Mommy!"

Ingemund Fransson's features flattened out and his eyes grew dull and staring.

Kvant gripped his arm tightly and said:

'Let's get moving, Kalle."

Kristiansson banged the door, climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine. As he backed up towards the road he said:

'I'm just wondering…"

'What?" Kvant asked.

'Who's the man they've pulled in at Djurgården?"

'Hell, yes, I wonder…" Kvant said.

'Please don't grip so hard," said the man called Ingemund Fransson. "You're hurting me."

'Shut up," said Kvant

Martin Beck was still standing at Biskopsudden in Djurgården, almost five miles from Huvudsta Allé. He stood quite still, chin in hand, looking at Kollberg, who was red in the face and sweating all over. A motorcycle policeman in a white helmet and with a walkie-talkie on his back had just saluted and roared off.

Two minutes earlier Melander and Rönn had driven the man who said his name was Fristedt home to Bondegatan to give him a chance of proving his identity. But this was only a formality. Neither Martin Beck nor Kollberg doubted any longer that they had been on the wrong track.

Only one radio car was left. Kollberg was standing by the open door near the driver, Martin Beck a few yards away.

'Here's something," said the man in the radio car. "Something on the radio."

'What?" Kollberg asked glumly.

The policeman listened.

'A radio patrol at Solna."

'Well?"

'They've caught him."

'Fransson?"

'Yes, they've got him in the car."

Martin Beck came up. Kollberg bent down to hear better.

'What are they saying?" Martin Beck asked.

'No doubt whatever," said the man in the radio car. "Identity established. He has even confessed. What's more he had a pair of little girls' light-blue pants in his pocket Caught red-handed."

'What!" Kollberg exclaimed. "Red-handed? Has he…"

'No, they got there in time. The girl's unharmed."

Martin Beck leaned his forehead against the edge of the car roof. The metal was hot and dusty. "Good God, Lennart," he said, "it's over." "Yes," Kollberg replied. "For this time."

Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, his wife and co-author, wrote ten Martin Beck mysteries. Mr. Wahlöö, who died in 1975, was a reporter for several Swedish newspapers and magazines and wrote numerous radio and television plays, film scripts, short stories and novels. Maj Sjöwall is also a poet.