The Laughing Policeman mb-4 Read online

  The hill ended where the street did. The bus was to turn at an angle of 30 degrees, on to Norra Stationsgatan, and then it had only some 300 yards left to the end of the line.

  The only person to observe the vehicle at this moment was a man who stood flattened against a house wall over 150 yards farther up Norrbackagatan. He was a burglar who was about to smash a window. He noticed the bus because he wanted it out of the way and had waited for it to pass.

  He saw it slow down at the corner and begin to turn left with its side lights blinking. Then it was out of sight. The rain pelted down harder than ever. The man raised his hand and smashed the pane.

  What he did not see was that the turn was never completed.

  The red doubledecker bus seemed to stop for a moment in the middle of the turn. Then it drove straight across the street, climbed the sidewalk and burrowed halfway through the wire fence separating Norra Stationsgatan from the desolate freight depot on the other side.

  Then it pulled up.

  The engine died but the headlights were still on, and so was the lighting inside.

  The misty windows went on gleaming cosily in the dark and cold.

  And the rain lashed against the metal roof. The time was three minutes past eleven on the evening of 13 November, 1967. In Stockholm.

  3

  Kristiansson and Kvant were radio patrol policemen in Solna.

  During their not-very-eventful careers they had picked up thousands of drunks and dozens of thieves, and once they had presumably saved the life of a six-year-old girl by seizing a notorious sex maniac who was just about to assault and murder her. This had happened less than five months ago, and although it was a fluke it constituted a feat which they intended to live on for a long time.

  On this particular evening they had not picked up anything at all, apart from a glass of beer each; as this was perhaps against the rules, it had better be ignored.

  Just before ten thirty they got a call on the radio and drove to an address at Kapellgatan in the suburb of Huvudsta, where someone had found a lifeless figure lying on the front steps. It took them only three minutes to drive there.

  Sure enough, sprawling in front of the street door lay a human being in frayed black trousers, down-at-heel shoes and a shabby pepper-and-salt overcoat. In the lit hallway inside stood an elderly woman in slippers and dressing gown. She was evidently the one who had complained. She gesticulated at them through the glass door, then opened it a few inches, stuck her arm through the crack and pointed demandingly to the motionless form.

  'A-ha, and what's all this?' Kristiansson said. Kvant bent down and sniffed.

  'Out cold,' he said with deeply-felt distaste. 'Give us a hand, Kalle.'

  'Wait a second,' Kristiansson said. 'Eh?'

  'Do you know this man, madam?' Kristiansson asked more or less politely.

  'I should say I do.' ‘Where does he live?'

  The woman pointed to a door three yards farther inside the hall. 'There,' she said. 'He fell asleep while he was trying to unlock the door.'

  'Oh yes, he has the keys in his hand,' Kristiansson said, scratching his head. 'Does he live alone?'

  'Who could live with an old bastard like that?' the lady said.

  'What are you going to do?' Kvant asked suspiciously.

  Kristiansson didn't answer. Bending down, he took the keys from the sleeper's hand. Then he jerked the drunk to his feet with a grip that denoted many years' practice, pushed open the front door with his knee and dragged the man towards the flat The woman stood on one side and Kvant remained on the outer steps. Both watched the scene with passive disapproval.

  Kristiansson unlocked the door, switched on the light in the room and pulled off the man's wet overcoat The drunk lurched, collapsed on to the bed and said, 'Thanksh, Miss.'

  Then he turned over on his side and fell asleep. Kristiansson laid the keys on a kitchen chair beside the bed, put out the light, shut the door and went back to the car.

  'Good night, madam,' he said.

  The woman stared at him with pursed lips, tossed her head and disappeared.

  Kristiansson did not act like this from love of his fellow humans, but because he was lazy.

  None knew this better than Kvant. While they were still serving as ordinary beat officers on the beat in Malmö, he had many a time seen Kristiansson lead drunks along the street and even across bridges in order to get them into the next precinct

  Kvant sat at the wheel. He switched on the ignition and said sourly, 'Siv oftentimes says I'm lazy. She should see you’

  Siv was Kvant's wife and also his dearest and often sole subject of conversation.

  'Why should I get puked on for nothing?' Kristiansson said philosophically.

  Kristiansson and Kvant were similar in build and appearance. Both were 6 feet 1 inch tall, fair, broad-shouldered and blue-eyed. But they had widely different temperaments and didn't always see eye to eye. This was one of the questions upon which they were not in agreement.

  Kvant was incorruptible. He never compromised over things he saw, but on the other hand he was an expert at seeing as little as possible.

  He drove slowly, in glum silence, following a twisting route from Huvudsta that led past the Police Training College, then through an area of communal garden plots, past the railway museum, the National Bacteriological Laboratory, the School for the Blind, and then zigzagging through the extensive university district with its various institutions, finally emerging via the railway administration buildings on to Tomtebodavågen.

  It was a brilliantly thought-out course, leading through areas which were almost guaranteed to be empty of people. They met not a single car the whole way and saw only two living creatures, first a cat and then another cat.

  When they reached the end of Tomtebodavågen, Kvant stopped the car with the radiator one yard from the Stockholm city limit and let the engine idle while he considered how to arrange the rest of their shift

  I wonder if you've got the cheek to turn around and drive back the same way. Kristiansson thought. Aloud he said, 'Can you lend me 10 kronor?'

  Kvant nodded, took his wallet out of his breast pocket and handed the note to his colleague without even a glance at him. At the same instant he made a quick decision. If he crossed the city limits and followed Norra Stationsgatan for some five hundred yards in a north-easterly direction they would only need to be in Stockholm for two minutes. Then he could turn in to Eugeniävagen, drive across the hospital area and continue through Haga Park and along by the Northern Cemetery, finishing up finally at police headquarters. By that time their shift would be over and the chance of seeing anyone on the way should be infinitesimal.

  The car drove into Stockholm and turned left onto Norra Stationsgatan.

  Kristiansson tucked the 10 kronor into his pocket and yawned. Then he peered out into the pouring rain and said, 'Over there, running this way's a bastard.'

  Kristiansson and Kvant were from Skane, in the far South, and their sense of word order left much to be desired.

  'He has a dog, too,' Kristiansson said. 'And he's waving at us.'

  'It's not my table,' Kvant said.

  The man with the dog, an absurdly small dog which he practically dragged after him through the puddles, rushed out into the road and planted himself right in front of the car.

  'God damn!' Kvant swore, jamming on the brakes.

  He wound the side window down and roared, 'What do you mean by running out into the road like that?'

  'There's ... there's a bus over there,' the man gasped out, pointing along the street.

  'So what?' Kvant said rudely. 'And how can you treat the dog like that? A poor dumb animal?'

  'There's ... there's been an accident.'

  'All right, we'll look into it,' Kvant said impatiently. 'Move aside.'

  He drove on.

  'And don't do that again!' he shouted over his shoulder.

  Kristiansson stared through the rain.

  'Yes,' he said resignedly
. 'A bus has driven off the road. One of those doubledeckers.'

  'And the lights are on,' Kvant said. 'And the door in front is open. Hop out and take a look, Kalle.'

  He pulled up at an angle behind the bus. Kristiansson opened the door, straightened his shoulder belt automatically and said to himself, 'A-ha, and what's all this?'

  Like Kvant, he was dressed in boots and leather jacket with shiny buttons and carried a truncheon and pistol at his belt.

  Kvant remained sitting in the car, watching Kristiansson, who moved leisurely towards the open front door of the bus.

  Kvant saw him grasp the rail and lazily heave himself up on to the step to peer into the bus. Then he gave a start and crouched down quickly, while his right hand flew to the pistol holster.

  Kvant reacted swiftly. It took him only a second to switch on the red lamps, the searchlight and the orange flashing light of the patrol car.

  Kristiansson was still crouching down beside the bus when Kvant flung open the car door and rushed out into the downpour. All the same, Kvant had drawn and cocked his 7.65 mm Walther and had even cast a glance at his watch.

  It showed exactly thirteen minutes past eleven.

  4

  The first senior policeman to arrive at Norra Stationsgatan was Gunvald Larsson.

  He had been sitting at his desk at police headquarters at Kungsholmen, thumbing through a dull and wordy report, very listlessly and for about the umpteenth time, while he wondered why on earth people didn't go home.

  In the category of 'people' he included the police commissioner, a deputy commissioner and several different superintendents and inspectors who, on account of the happily concluded riots, were trotting about the staircases and corridors. As soon as .these persons thought fit to call it a day and take themselves off, he would do so himself, as fast as possible.

  The phone rang. He grunted and picked up the receiver. 'Hello. Larsson.'

  'Radio Central here. A Solna radio patrol has found a whole bus full of dead bodies on Norra Stationsgatan.'

  Gunvald Larsson glanced at the electric wall clock, which showed eighteen minutes past eleven, and said, 'How can a Solna radio patrol find a bus full of dead bodies in Stockholm?'

  Gunvald Larsson was a detective inspector in the Stockholm homicide squad. He had a rigid disposition and was not one of the most popular members of the force.

  But he never wasted any time and so he was the first one there.

  He braked the car, turned up his coat collar and stepped out into the rain. He saw a red doubledecker bus standing right across the pavement; the front part had broken through a high wire fence. He also saw a black Plymouth with white mudguard, and the word POLICE in white block letters across the doors. It had its emergency lights on and in the cone of the searchlight stood two uniformed patrolmen with pistols in their hands. Both looked unnaturally pale. One of them had vomited down the front of his leather jacket and was wiping himself in embarrassment with a sodden handkerchief.

  'What's the trouble?' Gunvald Larsson asked.

  'There ... there are a lot of corpses in there,' said one of the policemen. .

  'Yes,' said the other. 'Yes, that's right. There are. And a lot of cartridges.'

  'And a man who shows signs of life.' 'And a policeman.'

  'A policeman?' Gunvald Larsson asked. 'Yes. A CID man.'

  ‘We recognize him. He works at Västberga. On the homicide squad.'

  'But we don't know his name. He has a blue raincoat. And he's dead.'

  The two radio police both talked at once, uncertainly and quietly.

  They were anything but small, but beside Gunvald Larsson they did not look very impressive.

  Gunvald Larsson was 6 feet 5 inches tall and weighed nearly sixteen stone. His shoulders were as broad as those of a professional heavyweight boxer and he had huge, hairy hands. His fair hair, brushed back, was already dripping wet

  The sound of many wailing sirens cut through the splashing of the rain. They seemed to be coming from all directions. Gunvald Larsson pricked up his ears and said, 'Is this Solna?'

  'Right on the city limits,' Kvant replied slyly.

  Gunvald Larsson cast an expressionless blue glance from Kristiansson to Kvant Then he strode over to the bus.

  'It looks like ... like a shambles in there,' Kristiansson said.

  Gunvald Larsson didn't touch the bus. He stuck his head in through the open door and looked around.

  'Yes,' he said calmly. 'So it does.'

  5

  Martin Beck stopped in the doorway of his flat in Bagarmossen. He took off his raincoat and shook the water off it on the landing before hanging it up and closing the door.

  It was dark in the hall but he didn't bother to switch on the light. He saw a ray of light under the door of his daughter's room and he heard the radio or record player going inside. He knocked and went in.

  The girl's name was Ingrid and she was sixteen. She had matured somewhat of late, and Martin Beck got on with her much better than before. She was calm, matter-of-fact and fairly intelligent, and he liked talking to her. She was in the sixth year of the comprehensive school and had no difficulty with her schoolwork, without on that account being what in his day had been called a swot

  She was lying on her back in bed, reading. The record player on the bedside table was going. Not pop music but something classical, Beethoven, he guessed.

  'Hello,' he said. 'Not asleep yet?'

  He stopped, almost paralysed by the utter futility of his words. For a moment he thought of all the trivialities that had been spoken between these walls during the last ten years.

  Ingrid put down her book and shut off the record player. 'Hi, Dad. What did you say?He shook his head.

  'Lord, how wet your legs are,' the girl said. 'Is it raining so hard?'

  'Cats and dogs. Are Mum and Rolf asleep?' 'I think so. Mum bundled Rolf off to bed right after dinner. . She said he had a cold.'

  Martin Beck sat down on the bed. 'Didn't he have?'

  ‘Well, I thought he looked well enough. But he went to bed without any fuss. Probably in order to get off school tomorrow.'

  'You seem to be hard at work, anyway. What are you studying?'

  'French. We've a test tomorrow. Like to quiz me?'

  'Wouldn't be much use. French isn't my strong point Go to sleep now instead.'

  He stood up and the girl snuggled down obediently under the quilt He tucked her in and before he shut the door behind him he heard her whisper, 'Keep your fingers crossed tomorrow.'

  'Good night'

  He went into the kitchen in the dark and stood for a while by the window. The rain seemed to be less heavy now, but it may have been because the kitchen window was sheltered from the wind. Martin Beck wondered what had happened during the demonstration against the American embassy and whether the papers tomorrow would describe the police's behaviour as clumsy and inept or as brutal and provocative. In any case the opinions would be critical. Since he was loyal to the force and had been so for as long as he could remember, Martin Beck admitted only to himself that the criticism was often justified, even if it was a bit one-sided. He thought of what Ingrid had said one evening a few weeks ago. Many of her schoolmates were politically active, taking part in meetings and demonstrations, and most of them strongly disliked the police. As a child, she had said, she could boast and be proud of the fact that her father was a policeman, but now she preferred to keep quiet about it Not that she was ashamed, but she was often drawn into discussions in which she was expected to stand up for the entire police force. Silly, of course, but there it was.

  Martin Beck went into the living room, listened at the door of his wife's bedroom and heard her light snoring. Cautiously he let down the sofa bed, switched on the wall lamp and drew the curtains. He had bought the sofa recently and moved out of the common bedroom, on the pretext that he didn't want to disturb his wife when he came home late at night She had protested, pointing out that sometimes he worked all night and ther
efore must sleep in the daytime, and she didn't want him lying there making a mess of the living room. He had promised on these occasions to lie and make a mess in the bedroom; she wasn't in there much in the daytime anyway. Now he had been sleeping in the living room for the past month and liked it

  His wife's name was Inga.

  Relations between them had worsened with the years, and it was a relief not to have to share a bed with her. This feeling sometimes gave him a bad conscience, but after seventeen years of marriage there didn't seem to be much he could do about it, and he had long since given up worrying over whose fault it might be.

  Martin Beck stifled a coughing attack, took off his wet trousers and hung them over a chair near the radiator. As he sat on the sofa pulling off his socks it crossed his mind that Kollberg's nocturnal walks in the rain might be due to the fact that his marriage, too, was slipping into boredom and routine.

  Already? Kollberg had only been married for eighteen months.

  Before the first sock was off he had dismissed the thought Lennart and Gun were happy together, not a doubt of that Besides, what business was it of his?

  He got up and walked naked across the room to the bookshelf. He looked over the books for a long time before choosing one. It was written by the old English diplomat Sir Eugene Millington-Drake and was about the Graf Spee and the Battle of La Plata. He had bought it secondhand about a year ago but hadn't yet taken the time to read it. He crawled down into bed, coughed guiltily, opened the book and found he had no cigarettes. One of the advantages of the sofa bed was that he could now smoke in bed without complications.

  He got up again, took a damp and flattened pack of Floridas out of his raincoat pocket, laid out the cigarettes to dry on the bedside table and lit the one that seemed most likely to burn. He had the cigarette between his teeth and one leg in bed when the telephone rang.

  The telephone was out in the hall. Six months ago he had ordered an extra extension to be installed in the living room, but knowing the normal working speed of the Telephone Service, he imagined he'd be lucky if he had to wait only another six months before the extension was installed.