Read the book: «The Terrorists»
MAJ SJÖWALL
AND PER WAHLÖÖ
The Terrorists
Translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors' imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
This ebook first published by Harper Perennial in 2009
This Fourth Estate edition published in 2016
This translation first published by Random House Inc, New York, in 1975
Originally published in Sweden by P. A. Norstedt & Söner Forlag
Copyright text © Random House Inc 1975
Copyright introduction © Dennis Lehane 2010
Cover photograph © Shutterstock
PS Section © Richard Shephard 2007
PS™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007243006
Ebook Edition © APRIL 2009 ISBN: 9780007323418
Version: 2017-07-25
From the reviews of the Martin Beck series:
‘First class’
Daily Telegraph
‘One of the most authentic, gripping and profound collections of police procedural ever accomplished’
MICHAEL CONNELLY
‘Hauntingly effective storytelling’
New York Times
‘There's just no question about it: the reigning King and Queen of mystery fiction are Maj Sjöwall and her husband Per Wahlöö’
The National Observer
‘Sjöwall/Wahlöö are the best writers of police procedural in the world’
Birmingham Post
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Praise
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Keep Reading
About the Authors
Also by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
About the Publisher
INTRODUCTION
As one might expect from a novel entitled The Terrorists, terrorism abounds in Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo’s final Martin Beck police procedural. But the chaotic forms that terror takes are not simply that of the political assassinations that bookend the narrative (the first in Latin America, the second in Stockholm). Sjowall and Wahloo are after a much more expansive query of the very definition of terrorism. And so Martin Beck and his Murder Squad of disparate, contentious police officers don’t just engage an impending act of violent insurrection on the streets of Stockholm. They must also solve the murder of a wealthy pornographer and contend with the destruction of an eighteen-year-old naïf, Rebecka Lind, by the teeth of the social welfare system. All the while, their greatest enemy is not bullets or bombs, it’s the bureaucratic apparatus that exalts and rewards its own haplessness.
As this novel – the tenth in the series – is Martin Beck’s swan song, it’s worth noting that in the annals of realistic fictional policemen, Beck stands a full head above most. He carries plenty of psychic scars and admits to a depressive personality, but he’s not gloom laden to the point of masochistic self-pity that so often masquerades as a hard-boiled hero’s tragic worldview. Beck is a dogged worker bee entering his later middle-aged years with a healthy romantic life and no illusions about his place in the larger scheme of things. However exceptional, he is a civil servant. A great cop, yes, but in Sjowall and Wahloo’s vision, a great cop is little more than a great functionary in a hopelessly flawed system. Beck’s talents include ‘his good memory, his obstinacy, which was occasionally mule-like … his capacity for logical thought … [and finding] the time for everything that had anything to do with a case, even if this meant following up small details that later turned out to be of no significance.’ This is what makes a great cop – not the gun, not outsized emotion, not a need to tilt at windmills and otherwise rage against machines. That’s the writer’s job. The cop’s job is to persevere, to examine the evidence, collate the data, push the papers, and work the case to its end. Because what stands in the way of that approach – wholesale bureaucratic incompetence – is a constant in Sjowall and Wahloo’s Sweden of 1975. Any man who can push a vision of the truth, however colorless, however minuscule, through the thornbush of total systematic inefficiency, is a hero. And Martin Beck is that man. So much so that the icy, hypercompetent terrorist, Reinhard Heydt, finds it ‘incomprehensible that such a person would exist in a country like Sweden.’
Ah, yes, ‘a country like Sweden.’ One wonders how Sjowall and Wahloo managed to live there through the writing of the ten Martin Beck novels, so negative is their depiction of not just the failed welfare state but the physical landscape as well, a shameless myth of blonde goddesses and mineral springs that in reality gives birth every morning to a ‘dismal, dirty, gray and depressing dawn.’ It’s a late November world, compressed by a dark, swollen sky that hovers roughly four inches above your head until May. The courts don’t work, the schools produce little but rot, and the ruling class skims the cream off the top and turns its back as the poor fight over the coffee grounds.
Nowhere are the inequities of the system more heartbreakingly personified than in Rebecka Lind. Rebecka understands society so little that she walks into a bank and asks a teller for money because she’s heard banks give loans to those in need. She is not only turned down, she is arrested, and so begins her journey into the farcical justice system that Martin Beck works for. Rebecka, who ‘is not interested in politics other than that she finds society as such incomprehensible and its leaders either criminal or insane,’ is the novel’s holy fool and sacrificial lamb, cast adrift by a society that proclaims to care for her then preys upon her as soon as her isolation leads to financial need. Over the course of the novel, Rebecka will cross paths with Martin Beck and his girlfriend, Rhea, as well as with Walter Petrus, the soon-to-be-bludgeoned pornographer. The corpulent, impotent Petrus casts pubescent girls in skin flicks so low-budget sex, from film to film, takes place ‘on the same old couch, which occasionally changed covers.’ Petrus first hooks his ingénues on narcotics. Once they need the drugs and are willing to do anything to get their next fix, he reveals to them that ‘anything’ will involve having sex on film. While Rebecka Lind escapes his grasp (only to end up in the system’s callous grip), several children do not. The reader doesn’t need a map to spy the connections Sjowall and Wahloo draw between the type of terrorism in which Petrus traffics and that of both the ULAG assassins and the state.
The target of Reinhard Heydt and his band of multi-ethnic assassins is an unnamed, reactionary U.S. Senator who ‘had advised President Truman to drop the first atom bombs … and taken an active part in the “solutions” in Thailand, Korea, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.’ A man who helped push the button that bombed Hiroshima might have some moral wiggle room, but not if he did the same to Nagasaki or advocated the bombing of civilian irrigation systems in Cambodia, actions which, if they aren’t representative of state-sponsored terrorism, then nothing is.
The assassins hardly come off as a romantic band of freedom-fighting anarchists. They are cold, vicious, and no more dedicated to any real cause or any universal truth than the U.S. Senator. Like him, the only truth they seem to represent is that might equals right. They believe in the primacy of homicide in bending the will of the people to the point where the people realize their will is irrelevant. Their terrorism – like Petrus’s, like the Senator’s, like the Swedish PM’s – is all the more scary because it is so colorless, so passionless, so instinctually banal. The ferocity of destructive acts in the novel is terrifying precisely because those who wield it feel no ferocity. They feel nothing. Those who do feel – Rebecka Lind, the father of one of Petrus’s victims, Beck’s ex-partner, Kollberg – get run over or choose to step off the highway for good.
So what is the solution? By ending the book – and the series – on the word Marx, Sjowall and Wahloo seem to be making their case for communism. But it feels no more a well-conceived solution than, say, Sarah Palin thirty-four years later, crowing about the free market as a solution to all capitalism’s ills. Luckily Sjowall and Wahloo the novelists are savvier than Sjowall and Wahloo the polemicists. They write of modern violence with clarity so fluid, it achieves a kind of musical grace. The opening assassination in Latin America is a model of perfectly chosen detail and near-comic narrative distance. Much later, the Senator’s motorcade winding through Stockholm is rendered with crisp, elegant prose and tension so thick the reader could crack a tooth. The stunning murder of a local politician evokes Oswald, Ruby, and Sirhan Sirhan in a single sentence without ever mentioning any of them. And Reinhard Heydt’s stalking of Martin Beck is as perversely playful and traumatic as anything Hitchcock or Highsmith ever devised.
Midway through the novel, Rhea says to Beck, ‘You’re terrific, Martin. But you’ve got a hell of a job. What sort of people are they you get for murder and other horrors? Like the last one – some poor working slob who tried to hit back at the capitalist bastard who had destroyed his life.’ It’s a damning indictment, one that Kollberg repeats at the novel’s end when he tells Beck he’s got ‘the wrong job. At the wrong time. In the wrong part of the world. In the wrong system.’
That system has soiled all who touch it. The innocents are destroyed. So are many of their exploiters. In the soul-carnage that erupts in the wake of the novel’s events, few people – good or bad – are left unscathed. Only the system itself, in all its grime and stupidity, grinds on, inviolate, with the smart, dogged, melancholic Martin Beck bearing its standard.
Dennis Lehane
1
The National Commissioner of Police smiled.
He usually reserved his smile, boyish and charming, for the press and television and only seldom bestowed it on such members of the inner circle as Superintendent Stig Malm, of the National Police Administration, Eric Möller, chief of Security Police, and Martin Beck, chief of the National Murder Squad.
Only one of the three men smiled back. Stig Malm had beautiful white teeth and liked smiling to show them off. Over the years he had quite unconsciously acquired a whole register of smiles. The one he was using now could only be described as ingratiating and fawning.
The chief of the Security Police suppressed a yawn and Martin Beck blew his nose.
It was only half-past seven in the morning, the National Commissioner's favourite time for calling sudden meetings, which in no way meant that he was in the habit of arriving at the station at that time. He often did not appear until late in the morning and even then he was usually inaccessible even to his closest colleagues. ‘My office is my castle’ might well have been inscribed on the door, and indeed it was an impenetrable fortress, guarded by a well-groomed secretary, quite rightly called ‘The Dragon’.
This morning he was showing his breezy and benign side. He had even had a Thermos of coffee and real china cups brought in, instead of the usual plastic mugs.
Stig Malm got up and poured out the coffee.
Martin Beck knew that before he sat down again he would first pinch the crease in his trousers and then carefully run his hand across his well-cut wavy hair.
Stig Malm was his immediate superior and Martin Beck had no respect for him whatsoever. His self-satisfied coquettishness and insinuating officiousness towards senior potentates were characteristics that Martin Beck had ceased to be annoyed by and nowadays found simply foolish. What did irritate him, on the other hand, and often constituted an obstacle to his work, was the man's rigidity and lack of self-criticism, a lack just as total and destructive as his ignorance of everything to do with practical police work. That he had risen to such a high position was due to ambition, political opportunism and a certain amount of administrative ability.
The chief of the Security Police put four lumps of sugar into his coffee, stirred it with a spoon and slurped as he drank.
Malm drank his without sugar, careful as he was of his trim figure.
Martin Beck was not feeling well and did not want coffee this early in the morning.
The National Commissioner took both sugar and cream and crooked his little finger as he raised his cup. He emptied it in one gulp and pushed it away from him, simultaneously pulling towards him a green file that had been lying on the corner of the polished conference table.
‘There,’ he said, smiling again. ‘Coffee first and then on with the day's work.’
Martin Beck looked gloomily at his untouched cup of coffee and longed for a glass of cold milk.
‘How are you feeling, Martin?’ said the Commissioner, with feigned sympathy in his voice. ‘You don't look well. You're not planning to be ill again, are you? You know we can't afford to be without you.’
Martin was not planning to be ill. He already was ill. He had been drinking wine with his twenty-two-year-old daughter and her boyfriend until half-past three in the morning and knew that he looked awful as a result. But he had no desire to discuss his self-inflicted indisposition with his superior, and moreover he didn't think that the ‘again’ was really fair. He had been away from his work with the flu and a high temperature for three days at the beginning of March and it was now the seventh of May.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I'm fine. A bit of a cold, that's all.’
‘You really don't look good,’ said Stig Malm. There was not even feigned sympathy in his voice, only reproach. ‘You really don't.’
He looked piercingly at Martin Beck, who feeling his irritation rising said, ‘Thanks for your concern, but I'm fine. I assume we're not here to discuss my appearance or the state of my health.’
‘Quite right,’ said the Commissioner. ‘Let's get down to business.’
He opened the green file. Judging by the contents – three or four sheets of paper at the most – there was some hope that today's meeting would not drag on for too long.
On top lay a typed letter with the mark of a large green rubber stamp beneath the scrawled signature and a letterhead that Martin Beck could not make out from where he was sitting.
‘As you will remember, we have discussed our to some extent imperfect experience when it comes to the security measures to be taken during state visits and in similar delicate situations – occasions when one can expect demonstrations of a particularly aggressive nature and well- and less-well-planned attempts at assassination,’ the Commissioner began, falling automatically into the pompous style that usually characterized his public appearances.
Stig Malm mumbled in agreement, Martin Beck said nothing, but Eric Möller objected.
‘Well, we're not that inexperienced, are we? Khrushchev's visit went off fine, except maybe for that red-painted pig someone let loose in front of Logård steps. So did Kosygin's, organizationally as well as security-wise. And the Environmental Conference, to take a maybe slightly different example.’
‘Yes, of course, but this time we're faced with a more difficult problem. What I'm referring to is the visit by this senator from the United States at the end of November. It could turn out to be a hot potato, if I may use that expression. We've never been confronted with the problem of VIPs from the States before, but now we are. The date's been set and I've already received certain instructions. Our preparations must be made well ahead of time and be extremely thorough. We have to be prepared for anything.’
The National Commissioner was no longer smiling. ‘We'll probably have to be prepared for something more violent than egg-throwing this time,’ he added grimly. ‘You should bear that in mind, Eric.’
‘We can take preventive measures,’ said Möller.
The Commissioner shrugged. ‘To some extent, yes,’ he said. ‘But we can't eliminate and look up and intern everyone who might make trouble. You know that as well as I do. I've got my orders to go by and you'll be getting yours.’
And I've got mine, thought Martin Beck gloomily. He was still trying to read the letterhead on the letter in the green file. He thought he could discern the word ‘police’ or possibly ‘policia’. His eyes ached and his tongue felt as rough and dry as sandpaper. Reluctantly he sipped at the bitter coffee.
‘But all that will come later,’ said the Commissioner. ‘What I want to discuss today is this letter.’ He tapped the paper in the open file with his forefinger. ‘It is in every way relevant to the problem at hand,’ he said. He gave the letter to Stig Malm, to pass around the table before he continued.
‘It is, as you see, an invitation, in response to our request to be allowed to send an observer during an impending state visit. As the visiting president is not particularly popular in the host country, they will be taking all possible measures to protect him. As in many other Latin American countries, they have had to deal with a number of assassination attempts – of both native and foreign politicians. Consequently, they have considerable experience, and I would think that their police force and security services are the best qualified in that area. I'm convinced that we could learn much by studying their methods and procedures.’
Martin Beck glanced through the letter, which was written in English in very formal and courteous terms. The president's visit was to take place on the fifth of June, hardly a month away, and the representative of the Swedish police was welcome to arrive two weeks earlier, so that he could study the most important phases of the preparatory work. The signature was elegant and totally illegible, but elucidated in typescript. The name was Spanish, long, and appeared in some way to be noble and distinguished.
When the letter had been returned to the green file, the Commissioner said, ‘The problem is, who shall we send?’
Stig Malm thoughtfully raised his eyes to the ceiling, but said nothing.
Martin Beck feared that he himself might be suggested. Five years earlier, before he had broken out of his unhappy marriage, he would have been delighted to undertake an assignment that would take him away from home for a while. But now, the last thing he wanted to do was to go abroad, and he hastened to say, ‘This is more of a Security Services job, isn't it?’
‘I can't go,’ said Möller. ‘In the first place, I can't be absent from the department – we've got some reorganizational problems in Section A that will take some time to clear up. In the second place, we're already experts on these matters and it would be more useful if someone went who was unfamiliar with security questions. Someone from the Criminal Investigation Bureau, or maybe someone from the regular police. Whoever goes will pass on what he learns to the rest of us when he gets back, so everyone will benefit anyway.’
The Commissioner nodded. ‘Yes, there's something in what you say, Eric,’ he said. ‘And, as you point out, we can't spare you at the moment. Nor you, Martin.’
Martin Beck inwardly sighed with relief.
‘In addition, I cannot speak Spanish,’ said the chief of Security Police.
‘Who the hell can?’ said Malm, smiling. He was aware of the fact that the Commissioner had not mastered the Castilian language, either.
‘I know someone who can,’ said Martin Beck.
Malm raised his eyebrows. ‘Who? Someone in Criminal Investigation?’
‘Yes, Gunvald Larsson.’
Malm raised his eyebrows yet another millimetre, then smiled incredulously and said, ‘But we can't send him, can we now?’
‘Why not?’ said Martin Beck. ‘I think he'd be a good man to send.’
He noticed that he sounded slightly angry. He did not usually speak up for Gunvald Larsson, but Malm's tone of voice had annoyed him and he was so used to disagreeing with Malm that he opposed him almost automatically.
‘He's a bungler and totally unrepresentative of the force,’ said Malm.
‘Does he really speak Spanish?’ asked the Commissioner doubtfully. ‘Where did he learn it?’
‘He was in a lot of Spanish-speaking countries when he was a sailor,’ said Martin Beck. ‘The city we're talking about is a large port, so he's almost certainly been there before. He speaks English, French and German, too, all fluently. And a little Russian. Look in his file and you'll see.’
‘He's a bungler all the same,’ insisted Stig Malm.
The Commissioner looked thoughtful. ‘I'll look at his qualifications,’ he said. ‘I thought of him myself, as a matter of fact. It's true he has a tendency to behave somewhat boorishly, and he's much too undisciplined. But he's undeniably one of our best inspectors, even if he does find it difficult to obey orders and stick to regulations.’
He turned to the chief of the Security Police. ‘What do you say, Eric? Do you think he'd be suitable?’
‘Well, I don't like him much, but generally speaking I've no objections.’
Malm looked unhappy. ‘I think it would be extremely inappropriate to send him,’ he said. ‘He would disgrace the Swedish force. He behaves like a boor and uses language more suited to a docker than a former ship's officer.’
‘Perhaps not when he's speaking Spanish,’ said Martin Beck. ‘Anyway, even if he does express himself a little crudely sometimes, at least he chooses his moments.’
That was not strictly true. Martin Beck had recently heard Gunvald Larsson call Malm ‘that magnificent arsehole’ in the man's presence, but fortunately Malm had not realized that the epithet was intended for him.
The Commissioner did not seem to take much notice of Malm's objections. ‘It's perhaps not a bad idea,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I don't think his tendency to uncivilized behaviour will be much of a problem in this case. He can behave well if he wants to. He has a better background than most. He comes from a wealthy and cultured family, he's had the best possible education and an upbringing that has taught him how to behave correctly in all possible circumstances. That shows, even if he does his best to conceal it.’
‘You can say that again,’ mumbled Malm.
Martin Beck sensed that Stig Malm would very much have liked the assignment and that he was annoyed at not even being asked. He also thought it would be good to be rid of Gunvald Larsson for a while, as he was not much liked by his colleagues and had an unusual capacity for causing rows and complications.
The Commissioner did not seem wholly unconvinced even by his own reasoning, and Martin Beck said encouragingly, ‘I think we should send Gunvald. He has all the qualifications needed for the job.’
‘I've noticed that he's careful of his appearance,’ said the Commissioner. ‘His way of dressing shows good taste and a feeling for quality. That undoubtedly makes an impression.’
‘Exactly,’ said Martin Beck. ‘It's an important detail.’ He was conscious of the fact that his own clothing could hardly be called tasteful. His trousers were creased and baggy, the collar of his polo shirt was wide and limp from many washings, his tweed jacket was worn and missing a button.
‘The Violent Crimes Squad is well-staffed and ought to be able to manage without Larsson for a few weeks,’ said the Commissioner. ‘Or does anyone have any other suggestion?’
They all shook their heads. Even Malm appeared to have perceived the advantage of having Gunvald Larsson at a safe distance for a while, and Eric Möller yawned again, apparently pleased that the meeting was drawing to a close.
The National Commissioner rose to his feet and closed the file. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Then we are agreed. I shall personally inform Larsson of our decision.’
Gunvald Larsson received the information without much enthusiasm, nor was he especially flattered by the assignment. His self-esteem was pronounced and imperturbable, but he was not entirely unaware that some of his colleagues would heave a sigh of relief when he left, and regret only that he was not leaving for good. He was aware that his friends on the force could be easily counted. As far as he knew, there was only one. He also knew that he was regarded as insubordinate and troublesome, and that his job often hung by a thread.
This fact did not disturb him in the slightest. Any other policeman of his rank and salary grade would at least have felt some anxiety over the constant threat of being suspended or actually dismissed, but Gunvald Larsson had never spent a sleepless night over the prospect. Unmarried and childless, he had no dependants, and he had long since broken off all communication with his family, whose snobbish upper-class existence he despised. He did not worry much about his future. During his years as a policeman, he had often weighed the possibility of returning to his old profession. Now he was nearly fifty and he realized that he would probably never again go to sea.
As the day of his departure approached, Gunvald Larsson discovered that he was genuinely pleased about the assignment, which, while regarded as important, could hardly be expected to be especially difficult. It involved at least two weeks' change in his daily routine, and he began to look forward to the journey as if to a holiday.
On the evening before his departure, Gunvald Larsson was standing in his bedroom in Bollmora, clad in nothing but underpants, looking at his reflection in the long mirror on the inside of his wardrobe door. He was delighted with the pattern on the underpants, yellow moose against a blue background, and he owned five more pairs. Half a dozen of the same kind, though green with red moose, were already packed in the large pigskin case that lay open on his bed.
Gunvald Larsson was six feet tall, a powerful and muscular man with large hands and feet. He had just showered and routinely stepped on to the bathroom scales, which registered sixteen stone. During the last four years, or perhaps it was five, he had put on about a stone and a half, and he looked with displeasure at the roll of fat above the elastic of his underpants.
He pulled in his stomach and it occurred to him that he ought to visit the station gym more often. Or begin swimming when the pool was completed.
Except for the spare tyre, though, he was really quite pleased with his appearance.
He was forty-nine years old, but his hair was thick and abundant and his hairline had not crept back and made his forehead higher. It was low, with two marked lines across it. His hair was cut short and so fair that the grey in it didn't show. Now that it was wet and newly combed, it lay smooth and shiny across his broad skull, but when it had dried it would rise and look bristly and untidy. His eyebrows were bushy and of the same fair colour as his hair, and his nose was large and well formed, with wide nostrils. His pale china-blue eyes looked small in that rugged face and were a trifle too close together, which sometimes, when they were empty of expression, made him look deceptively stupid. When he was angry – and that was often – a furious crease appeared between his eyes, and his light-blue eyes could strike terror into the most hardened criminals, as well as into the hearts of subordinates.
The only person who had never been on the receiving end of Gunvald Larsson's fury was Einar Rönn, a colleague in the Stockholm Violent Crimes Squad and his only friend. Rönn was a placid and taciturn northerner with a perpetually running red nose, which dominated his face to such a degree that one hardly noticed the other details of his appearance. He carried about within him an inextinguishable longing for his home district around Arjeplog in Lapland.
As Gunvald Larsson and Rönn served in the same department, they saw each other nearly every day, but they also spent a good deal of their spare time together. When possible, they took their annual leave at the same time and went to Arjeplog, where they mostly devoted themselves to fishing. None of their colleagues was able to understand this friendship between two such different personalities, and many wondered how Rönn, with stoic calm and few words, could turn a raging Gunvald Larsson into a meek and mild lamb.
Now Gunvald Larsson inspected the row of suits in his well-filled closet. He was well acquainted with the climate of the country he was to visit, and he remembered several suffocatingly hot spring weeks in that port many years before. If he was to endure the heat he would have to be lightly clothed, and he had only two suits that were sufficiently cool. For safety's sake, he tried them on and discovered to his dismay that he couldn't get the first on and that the trousers of the second would only just fasten if he made an effort and inhaled deeply. They were also tight across the thighs. At least he could button the jacket without difficulty, but it was tight across the shoulders and either it would limit his freedom of movement or the seams would split.
He hung the useless suit back in the wardrobe and laid the other one across the lid of his case. It would have to do. He had had it made for him four years earlier, from thin Egyptian cotton, nougat-coloured with narrow white stripes.
He completed his packing with three pairs of khaki trousers, a shantung jacket and the suit that was too tight. In the pocket on the inside of the lid, he put one of his favourite novels. Then he closed the lid, fastened the brass buckles on the wide straps, locked the case and took it into the hall.
He cared about his own EMW too much to let it stand in the airport parking lot, so Einar Rönn was to pick him up in his car the next morning and drive him to Stockholm's Arlanda Airport. Like most Swedish airports, Arlanda was a dismal and misplaced establishment and succeeded excellently in giving expectant visitors an even more distorted view of Sweden than the country deserved.
Gunvald Larsson threw the blue-and-yellow moose underpants into the hamper in the bathroom, put on his pyjamas and went to bed. He did not suffer from travel fever and fell asleep almost immediately.
2
The security expert did not reach even to the middle of Gunvald Larsson's upper arm, but he was very neat and elegant in his light-blue suit with its flared and beautifully pressed trousers. With the suit, he wore a pink shirt, shiny torpedo-toed black shoes and a lilac tie. His hair was almost black, his skin light brown and his eyes olive-coloured. The only discordant note was the pistol holster bulging under his left armpit. The security expert's name was Francisco Bajamonde Cassavetes y Larrinaga; he came from an extremely distinguished family.
Francisco Bajamonde Cassavetes y Larrinaga spread the security plan out on the balustrade, but Gunvald Larsson was looking instead at his own suit; it had taken the police tailor seven days to make it, and the result was excellent, as this was a country where the level of the art of tailoring was still high. Their only difference of opinion had been over the space for a shoulder holster, which the tailor had taken for granted. But Gunvald Larsson never used a shoulder holster. He carried his pistol in a clip in his belt. Here abroad, of course, he was not armed, but he would be using the suit in Stockholm. There had been a brief dispute and naturally he had had his way. What else? With deep satisfaction he glanced down at his well-tailored legs, sighed contentedly and looked around at his surroundings.
They were standing on the eighth floor of the hotel, a spot chosen with great care. The motorcade would pass below the balcony and stop at the provincial palace a block away. Gunvald Larsson glanced politely at the plan, but without much enthusiasm, as by now he knew it all by heart. He knew that the harbour had been closed to all traffic that morning and the civilian airport had been closed since the presidential plane had landed.
Straight ahead lay the harbour and the azure-blue sea. Several large passenger liners and cargo boats were anchored at its outer edges. The only ships moving were a warship, a frigate and a few police boats in the inner harbour. Below them lay the paseo, edged with palms and acacias. Across the street was a rank of taxis, and beyond that a row of colourful horse-drawn cabs. All these had been thoroughly checked.
Every person in the area, apart from the military and civilian police forming an arm's-length barrier along each side of the paseo, had passed through metal detectors of the kind with which most larger airports were now equipped.
The civilian police wore green uniforms, while the military police wore blue-grey. The civilian police wore boots, the military police high-top shoes.
Gunvald Larsson suppressed a sigh. He had done a dummy run along this stretch at the rehearsal that morning. Everything had been in its place except the President himself.
The motorcade was made up as follows. First, a motorcycle party of fifteen specially trained security police. After that, an equal number of motorcycle police from the regular force, followed by two cars loaded with security men. Then came the presidential car, a black Cadillac with bulletproof blue glass. (During the dummy run, Gunvald Larsson had sat in the back seat as a stand-in, unquestionably an honour.) Next came an open car full of security men, on the American model. And finally, more motorcycle police, followed by the radio reporters' bus and cars full of other authorized journalists. In addition, civilian security men were spread along the road from the airport.
All the street lamps were decorated with pictures of the President. The route was fairly long, indeed very long, and Gunvald Larsson had had time to become quite bored with that bull-necked head, puffy face and black enamel steel-framed glasses.
That was the ground protection. The airspace was dominated by army helicopters at three levels, with three choppers in each group. In addition, a division of Starfighters was sweeping back and forth, guarding the upper airspace.
The entire operation was organized with such perfection that unpleasant surprises ought to be fairly unthinkable.
The heat at this time of the afternoon was, to put it mildly, oppressive. Gunvald Larsson was sweating, but not excessively. He could not imagine that anything could go wrong. Preparations had been singularly detailed and thorough, and planning had been going on for several months. A special group had been assigned to look for faults in the planning, and a number of corrections had been made. Add to this the fact that every attempted assassination in this country – and there had been quite a few – had failed. The National Commissioner had probably been right when he said that they were the world's greatest experts in their field.
At a quarter to three in the afternoon, Francisco Bajamonde Cassavetes y Larrinaga glanced at his watch and said, ‘Twenty-one minutes to go, I presume.’
There had been no need for a Spanish-speaking delegate. The security man spoke the Queen's English as used in the most sophisticated clubs of Belgravia.
Gunvald Larsson looked at his own chronograph and nodded. At that moment, to be more precise, it was exactly thirteen minutes and thirty-five seconds to three on Wednesday the fifth of June, nineteen hundred and seventy-four.
Outside the harbour entrance, the frigate was turning to sound the welcoming salute, which was its only real assignment. High above the paseo the eight fighter planes drew white zigzag lines in the bright blue sky.
Gunvald Larsson looked around. Down the paseo was a huge brick bullring with curved arcades plastered in red and white. In the other direction they were just turning on the multicoloured sprays of a tall fountain; there had been a severe drought all year and the fountains – this was not the only one – were only set going on especially grand occasions.
Now they could hear the drone of helicopters and the sirens on the motorcycles. Gunvald Larsson checked the time. The motorcade seemed to be ahead of schedule. Then his china-blue gaze swept the harbour and noted that all the police boats were now in action. The harbour installations themselves were much the same as when he had been at sea, only the ships were completely different. Supertankers, container ships, huge ferries on which cars were more important than passengers – they were all unfamiliar to him from his own years at sea.
Gunvald Larsson was not alone in his observation that the order of events was ahead of the prescribed schedule. Cassavetes y Larrinaga spoke swiftly but calmly into his radio, smiled at his fair-haired guest and looked out over the sparkling fountains, where the first motorbike formation of specially trained security police was already appearing between the lines of green-uniformed police officers.
Gunvald Larsson shifted his gaze. Immediately below them a cigar-smoking security man was strolling along the middle of the street keeping an eye on the police marksmen posted on the surrounding roofs. Behind the line of policemen was the row of taxicabs with blue lines along their sides, and in front of them an open yellow-and-black horse-drawn carriage. The man on the box was also dressed in yellow and black, and the horse had yellow-and-black plumes in the band round its forehead.
Behind all this were the palms and acacias and a few lines of curious people. A handful of them carried the only sign approved by the authorities, a picture of that bull-necked head, puffy face and black enamel steel-framed glasses. The President was not a particularly popular visitor.
The motorcade was moving very quickly. The first of the Security Service cars was already below the balcony. The security expert smiled at Gunvald Larsson, nodded assuringly and began to fold up his papers.
At that moment, the ground opened, almost directly beneath the bulletproof Cadillac.
The pressure waves flung both men backwards, but if Gunvald Larsson was nothing else, he was strong. He grabbed the balustrade with both hands and looked upward.
The roadway had opened like a volcano from which smoking pillars of fire were rising to a height of a hundred and fifty feet. Atop the flaming pillars were diverse objects. The most prominent were the rear section of the bulletproof Cadillac, an overturned black cab with a blue line along its side, half a horse with black-and-yellow plumes in the band round its forehead, a leg in a black boot and green uniform material, and an arm with a long cigar between the fingers.
Gunvald Larsson ducked as a mass of flammable and nonflammable objects began to rain down on him. He was just thinking about his new suit when something struck him in the chest with great force and hurled him backwards on to the marble tiles of the balcony.
The roar of the explosion finally faded away, and there were sounds of cries, desperate calls for help, someone weeping and another person screaming hysterical curses, before all human sounds were drowned by the sirens of ambulances and the wail of a fire engine.
Gunvald Larsson got to his feet, found himself not seriously hurt and looked about to see what it was that had knocked him down. The object lay at his feet. It had a bull neck and a puffy face, and strangely enough, the black enamel steel-framed glasses were still on.
The security expert scrambled to his feet, clearly unhurt, even if some of his elegance had been dissipated. He stared incredulously at the head and crossed himself.
Gunvald Larsson looked down at his suit. It was ruined. ‘Goddammit,’ he said.
Then he looked at the head lying at his feet. ‘Maybe I ought to take it home,’ he said to himself. ‘As a souvenir.’
Francisco Bajamonde Cassavetes y Larrinaga looked questioningly at his guest. ‘Catastrophe,’ he said.
‘Yes, you could say that,’ said Gunvald Larsson.
Francisco Bajamonde Cassavetes y Larrinaga looked so unhappy that Gunvald Larsson felt duty-bound to add, ‘But no one could really blame you. And anyhow, he had an unusually ugly head.’
3
The same day that Gunvald Larsson had his strange experience on the balcony with the lovely view, an eighteen-year-old girl named Rebecka Lind was being tried in Stockholm city court on a charge of armed robbery of a bank.
The public prosecutor in her case was Bulldozer Olsson, who for some years had been the judiciary's expert in armed robberies, which were spreading across the land like a plague. He was, as a result, an extremely harried man with so little time to spend at home that it had taken him three weeks, for instance, to discover that his wife had left him for good and been replaced by a laconic message on his pillow. This had not made all that much difference, as with his usual swiftness of action he had found himself another within three days. His new life partner was one of his secretaries who admired him unreservedly and devotedly, and certainly his suits appeared to be slightly less rumpled from that day on.
On this day he arrived breathlessly, two minutes before the trial was to begin. He was a corpulent but light-footed little man with a joyous countenance and lively movements. He always wore bright pink shirts, and his ties were in such indescribably bad taste that they had driven Gunvald Larsson almost insane when he had worked in Bulldozer's special group.
He looked round the bare and ill-heated anteroom of the court and discovered a group of five people, among them his own witnesses, and a person whose presence surprised him enormously. It was, in fact, the chief of the Murder Squad.
‘What on earth are you doing here?’ he said to Martin Beck.
‘I've been called as a witness.’
‘By whom?’
‘The defence.’
‘The defence? What does that mean?’
‘Braxén, counsel for the defence,’ said Martin Beck. ‘He drew this case, apparently.’
‘Crasher,’ said Bulldozer, clearly upset. ‘I've already had three meetings and two arrests today, and now I'll have to sit and listen to Crasher for the rest of the afternoon, I suppose. Do you know anything about this case?’
‘Not much, but Braxén's argument convinced me I ought to come. And I don't have anything special on at the moment.’
‘You people in the Murder Squad don't know what real work is,’ said Bulldozer Olsson. ‘I've got thirty-nine cases on the books and just as many on ice. You should work with me for a while, then you'd find out.’
Bulldozer Olsson won all his cases, with very few exceptions indeed. This, to put it delicately, was not especially flattering to the judiciary.
‘But you'll have an amusing afternoon,’ said Olsson. ‘Crasher'll give you a good show, for sure.’
Their discussion was interrupted by the case being called, and those involved, with one important exception, filed into the courtroom, a singularly dismal sector of the principal city courthouse. The windows were large and majestic, which in no way excused but possibly explained why they clearly had not been cleaned for a very long time.
The judge, assistant judge and seven jurymen on a platform behind a long connecting pulpit were staring with dignity out into the courtroom.
The accused was brought in through a small side door, a girl with shoulder-length fair hair, a sulky mouth and distant brown eyes. She was wearing a long, pale-green embroidered dress of some light, thin material and had black clogs on her feet.
The court was seated.
The judge turned to the girl, who was sitting to the left of the bench, and said, ‘The accused in the case is Rebecka Lind. Are you Rebecka Lind?’
‘Yes.’
‘May I ask you to speak a little louder?’
‘Yes.’
‘You were born on the third of January, nineteen hundred and fifty-six?’
‘Yes.’
‘I must ask the accused to speak louder.’ He said this as if it had to be said ritualistically, which was true, as the acoustics in the courtroom were singularly poor.
‘Counsel for the defence Hedobald Braxén appears to have been delayed,’ he went on. ‘In the meantime, we can summon the witnesses. Counsel for the prosecution has called two witnesses – Kerstin Franzén, bank cashier, and Kenneth Kvastmo, police constable. The defence has called the following: Martin Beck, chief inspector, Murder Squad; Karl Kristiansson, police constable; Rumford Bondesson, bank director; and Hedy-Marie Wirén, home economics teacher. Counsel for the defence has also called Walter Petrus, business executive, to testify, but he has declared himself unable to attend and has also declared that he has nothing whatsoever to do with the case.’
One of the jurymen sniggered.
‘The witnesses may now leave the court.’
The two policemen – as always on these occasions wearing uniform trousers and black shoes plus dreary blazers – Martin Beck, the bank director, the home economics teacher and the bank cashier all trooped out into the foyer. Only the accused, her guard and one spectator remained in the courtroom.
Bulldozer studied his papers busily for about two minutes, then looked curiously at the spectator, a woman Bulldozer reckoned to be about thirty-five. She was sitting on one of the benches with a shorthand pad open in front of her. She was of below average height and had dead-straight blonde hair, not especially long. Her clothes consisted of faded jeans, a shirt of indefinite colour and strap sandals. She had broad, sunburnt feet with straight toes, flat breasts with large nipples that could be seen quite clearly through her shirt. The most remarkable thing about her was her small, angular face with its strong nose and piercing blue gaze, which she directed in turn on those present. Her gaze rested especially long on the accused and Bulldozer Olsson; in the latter case so piercingly that the public prosecutor rose to pour himself a glass of water and moved into a position behind her. She at once turned and caught his eye.
Sexually she was not his type, if he even had a type, but he was intensely curious about who she could be. Viewed from behind, he could see that she was compactly built, without being in the least plump.
If he had asked Martin Beck, who was standing around in a corner of the foyer, he might have learned something. For instance, that she was not thirty-five but thirty-nine, that she had a considerable background in sociology, and that at present she was working for social services. Martin Beck knew a great deal about her in fact, but had very little information he wished to proffer, as most of it was of a personal nature. Possibly he would have said, if anyone had asked him, that her name was Rhea Nielsen.
Twenty-two minutes after the prescribed time, the doors were thrown open and Crasher appeared. He was carrying a smouldering cigar in one hand and his papers in the other. He studied the documents phlegmatically and the judge had to clear his throat meaningfully three times before he absently handed the cigar to the court official to remove from the courtroom.
‘Mr Braxén has now arrived,’ said the judge acidly. ‘May we ask whether there is any further objection to starting the case?’
Bulldozer shook his head and said, ‘No, certainly not. Not as far as I'm concerned.’
Braxén rose and walked to the middle of the floor. He was considerably older than anyone else in the room, a man of authority with an impressive stomach. He was also remarkably badly and unfashionably dressed, and a none too squeamish cat could have made a good meal from the food stains on his waistcoat. After a long silence, during which he fixed Bulldozer with a peculiar look, he said, ‘Apart from the fact that this little girl should never have been brought to court, I have no judicial objections. Speaking purely technically.’
‘Would the counsel for the prosecution now introduce the case,’ said the judge.
Bulldozer leaped up from his chair and with his head down began plodding round the table on which his papers lay.
‘I maintain that Rebecka Lind on Wednesday the twenty-second of May this year committed armed robbery of the PK Bank's branch in Midsommarkransen, and thereafter was guilty of assaulting an official in that she resisted the policemen who came to take her into custody.’
‘And what does the accused say?’
‘The accused pleads not guilty,’ said Braxén. ‘And so it is my duty to deny all of this … drivel.’
He turned to Bulldozer again and said in melancholy tones: ‘What does it feel like to persecute innocent people? Rebecka is as innocent as the carrots in the ground.’
Everyone appeared to ponder this novel image. Finally the judge said, ‘It is for the Court to decide that, is it not?’
‘Unfortunately,’ said Crasher.
‘What is meant by that remark?’ said the judge, with a certain sharpness. ‘Would Mr Olsson please now state his case?’
Bulldozer looked at the spectator, who, however, returned his gaze so directly and demandingly that after a brief glance at Braxén, he let his gaze wander over the judge, the assistant judge and the jury, after which he fixed it on the accused. Rebecka Lind's own gaze seemed to be fixed in space, far from crazy bureaucrats and all other possible good and evil.
Bulldozer clasped his hands behind his back and began walking back and forth. ‘Well, Rebecka,’ he said in a friendly way, ‘what has happened to you is unfortunately something that happens to many young people today. Together we will try to help you … I suppose I may use your first name?’
The girl did not seem to have heard the question, if it was one.
‘Technically speaking, this is an open-and-shut case, about which there can be little discussion. As was evident at the arraignment –’
Braxén had appeared to be sunk in his thoughts, but now he suddenly jerked a large cigar out of his inside pocket, pointed it at Bulldozer's chest and cried, ‘I object! Neither I nor any other lawyer was present at the arraignment. Was this girl Camilla Lund even informed of her right to counsel?’
‘Rebecka Lind,’ said the assistant judge.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Crasher impatiently. ‘That makes her arrest illegal.’
‘Not at all,’ said Bulldozer. ‘Rebecka was asked and she said it didn't matter. It didn't, either. As I will shortly show, the case was crystal clear.’
‘The very arraignment was illegal,’ said Crasher conclusively. ‘I would like my objection to be entered in the record.’
‘So, Rebecka,’ continued Bulldozer, with that winning smile that was one of his main assets. ‘Let us now, clearly and truthfully, try to clarify the actual course of events, what happened to you on the twenty-second of May and why it happened. You robbed a bank, certainly out of desperation and thoughtlessness, and then assaulted a policeman.’
‘I object to counsel's choice of words,’ said Crasher. ‘I object to counsel for the prosecution's attitude towards both myself and this girl.’
Bulldozer for once appeared put out. But he soon collected himself and, in as good form as ever, gesticulating and smiling, pursued his case to its conclusion, despite the fact that Braxén interrupted him no fewer than forty-two times, often with totally incomprehensible objections.
Briefly, the case was as follows: Shortly before two o'clock on the twenty-second of May, Rebecka Lind had walked into the PK Bank's branch in Midsommarkransen and gone up to one of the cashiers. She had been carrying a large shoulder bag, which she placed on the counter. She then demanded money. The cashier noticed that she was armed with a large knife and set off the police alarm with her foot as she began to fill the bag with bundles of notes, amounting to a sum of five thousand Swedish kronor. Before Rebecka Lind had time to leave the bank with her booty, the first of the radio patrol cars arrived. Two policemen with guns drawn went into the bank and disarmed the robber, at which a certain tumult arose, during which the notes were scattered over the floor. The police arrested the robber, and the prisoner offered violent resistance, inflicting on the policemen damage to their uniforms. They drove her to the station on Kungsholm. The robber, who turned out to be eighteen-year-old Rebecka Lind, was taken first to the Criminal Division duty office and was then transferred to the special department concerned with bank robberies. She was immediately charged with suspected armed robbery of a bank and assault of a policeman, and the following day was formally arraigned at a singularly brief transaction before the Stockholm assize court.
Bulldozer admitted that certain judicial formalities had not been observed in connection with the arraignment, but pointed out that, technically speaking, these were of no importance. Rebecka Lind had herself been quite uninterested in her defence, and she had also immediately confessed that she had gone to the bank to get money.
Everyone began to glance at the clock, but Bulldozer Olsson did not approve of adjournments and promptly called his first witness, Kerstin Franzén, the bank cashier. Her testimony was short and confirmed in all respects what had already been said.
Bulldozer asked: ‘When did you realize that this was a holdup?’
‘As soon as she threw her bag on the counter and demanded money. And then I saw the knife. It looked awfully dangerous. A kind of dagger.’
‘Why did you hand over the money?’
‘We've had instructions not to offer resistance in situations like this, but to do what the robber says.’
This was true. The banks did not wish to run the risk of paying out life insurance and expensive damages to employees who were injured.
A clap of thunder seemed to shake the venerable courtroom. In fact it was Hedobald Braxén belching. This did not happen all that seldom and was one of the many reasons for his nickname.
‘Has the defence any questions?’
Crasher shook his head. He was busy writing something down on a piece of paper.
Bulldozer called his next witness.
Kenneth Kvastmo stepped up and laboriously repeated the oath. His testimony began with the usual litany: occupation police constable, born in Arvika in nineteen hundred and forty-two; first served in patrol cars in Solna and later in Stockholm.
Bulldozer said, foolishly, ‘Tell us in your own words.’
‘What?’
‘What happened, of course.’
‘Yes,’ said Kvastmo. ‘She was standing there, the murderess. Well, she didn't manage to murder nobody, of course. Karl didn't do nothing, as usual, of course, so I threw myself on her like a panther.’
The image was unfortunate. Kvastmo was a large, shapeless man with a fat bottom, a bull neck and fleshy features.
‘I got hold of her right hand just as she was trying to pull out the knife, and then I told her she was under arrest and then I just arrested her. I had to carry her out to the car and in the back seat she resisted arrest violently and then it turns out she was assaulting an officer of the law because one of my shoulder flaps almost come off and my wife was furious when she had to sew it on because there was something on TV she was going to watch and also a button had almost came off my uniform and she didn't have no blue thread, Anna-Greta, my wife, I mean. And when we was done in the bank, then Karl drove us to the station. There wasn't nothing else after that except she called me a pig, but that's not really insulting a policeman. A pig don't cause no disrespect or contempt of the force, I mean neither to the individual officer which in this case was me, or to the force as a whole, does it? She's the one, over there, that said it.’ He pointed to Rebecka Lind.
While the policeman was revealing his narrative abilities, Bulldozer was watching the woman spectator, who had been busily taking notes and was now sitting with her elbows on her thighs, her chin in her hands, as she attentively watched both Braxén and Rebecka in turn. Her face looked troubled, or rather expressed profound unease. She bent down and scratched an ankle with one hand as she chewed a nail on the other hand. Now she was looking at Braxén again and her half-closed blue eyes expressed a mixture of resignation and hesitant hope.
Hedobald Braxén appeared to be only just physically present, and there was no indication whatsoever that he had heard a word of the evidence.
‘No questions,’ he said.
Bulldozer Olsson was satisfied. The case was open-and-shut, exactly as he had said from the start. The only fault was that it had taken so long. Now when the judge suggested an hour's adjournment, he nodded his approval enthusiastically and rushed towards the door with short, bouncing steps.
Martin Beck and Rhea Nielsen used the break to go to the Amarante. After open sandwiches and beer, they finished off with coffee and brandy. Martin Beck had had several boring hours. He had gone up to the station for a spell with Rönn and Strömgren, but that had not been particularly rewarding. He had never liked Strömgren and his relationship with Rönn was complicated. The simple truth was that he no longer had any friends left at the station on Kungsholmsgatan; both there and at the National Police Administration there were a number of people who admired him, others who detested him and a third group, the largest, who quite simply envied him. Out at Västberga, too, he had no friends since Lennart Kollberg had left. Benny Skacke had applied for the job and got it, on Martin Beck's recommendation. Their relationship was fairly good, but from that to genuine warmth was a long step. Sometimes he just sat and stared into space, wishing Kollberg were back; to be perfectly honest – and he found that easy nowadays – he mourned for him the way you mourn for a child or a lost love.
The free sample has ended.
