The Abominable Man (9 page)

“Wait a minute,” he said. “Have you asked the question, Who was Nyman?”

“Who he was?”

Rönn seemed confused and Martin Beck said nothing.

“Right. Who was Nyman? Or more to the point,
what
was Nyman?”

“A policeman,” said Martin Beck finally.

“That’s not a very complete answer,” Kollberg said. “Come now, you both knew him. What was Nyman?”

“A chief inspector,” mumbled Rönn.

Then he blinked wearily.

“I have to make a couple of phone calls,” he said evasively.

“Well?” said Kollberg, when Rönn had closed the door behind him. “What was Nyman?”

Martin Beck looked him in the eye and said, reluctantly, “He was a bad policeman.”

“Wrong,” said Kollberg. “Now listen. Nyman was one
hell
of a bad policeman. He was a barbaric son of a bitch of the very worst sort.”

“You said it, I didn’t,” said Martin Beck.

“Yes. But you’ll have to admit I’m right.”

“I didn’t know him very well.”

“Don’t try to sneak out of it. You knew him well enough to know that much. I realize Einar doesn’t want to admit it, out of misdirected loyalty. But dammit,
you’ve
got to play with your cards on the table.”

“All right,” said Martin Beck. “The things I’ve heard about him aren’t exactly positive. But I never really worked with him.”

“Your choice of words isn’t very apt,” Kollberg said. “It wasn’t possible to work
with
Nyman. All you could do was take orders from him and do as you were told. Of course you could give him orders too, if you happened to be in that position. And then have them sabotaged, or simply not carried out at all.”

“You sound like an expert on Stig Nyman,” said Martin Beck, a little acidly.

“Yes, I know some things about him the rest of you don’t know. But I’ll get to that later. First of all, let’s get it straight that he was a bastard and a goddammed lousy policeman. Even today he’d be a disgrace to the force. For my part I’m ashamed to have been a policeman in the same city with him. And at the same time.”

“In that case there are a lot of people who ought to be ashamed.”

“Exactly. But there aren’t so many who have the sense to be.”

“And every policeman in London ought to be ashamed about Challenor.”

“Wrong again,” said Kollberg. “Challenor and some
of his underlings were finally brought to trial, even if they did manage to do a lot of damage beforehand. And that showed that in the long run there was some limit to what the system would tolerate in the police.”

Martin Beck massaged his temple thoughtfully.

“But Nyman’s name has never been discredited. And why not?”

Kollberg had to answer his own question.

“Because everyone knows it’s pointless to report a policeman. The general public has no legal rights vis-à-vis the police. And if you can’t win a case against an ordinary patrolman, then how in the world could you win a case against a chief inspector?”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“Not much, Martin. Not much, and you know it as well as I do. It’s just that our damned solidarity has become some kind of second nature. We’re impregnated with esprit de corps.”

“It’s important to keep up a good front in this job,” said Martin Beck. “It always has been.”

“And pretty soon it’ll be the only thing left.”

Kollberg caught his breath before he went on.

“Okay. The police stick together. That’s axiomatic. But stick together against whom?”

“The day someone answers that question …”

Martin Beck left the sentence hanging.

“Neither you nor I,” said Kollberg with finality, “will live to see that day.”

“What’s all this got to do with Nyman?”

“Everything.”

“In what way?”

“Nyman’s dead and doesn’t need to be defended any more. Whoever killed him is probably insane, a danger to himself and other people.”

“And you mean we can find him in Nyman’s past.”

“Yes. He ought to be there. The comparison you just made wasn’t so bad.”

“Which comparison?”

“With Challenor.”

“I don’t know the truth about Challenor,” said Martin Beck with a certain chill. “But maybe you do?”

“No, nobody does. But I do know a lot of people were mistreated and still more were sentenced to long prison terms because policemen perjured themselves in court. Without any reaction either from their subordinates or their superiors.”

“Their superiors out of false loyalty,” said Martin Beck. “And their subordinates out of fear of losing their jobs.”

“Worse than that. Some of those subordinates simply thought that was the way it was supposed to be. They’d never learned any other way.”

Martin Beck stood up and walked toward the window.

“Tell me what it is you know about Nyman that other people don’t know,” he said.

“Nyman was also in a position to give orders directly to a lot of young policemen, by and large pretty much as he pleased.”

“That’s a long time ago now,” said Martin Beck.

“Not so long ago but what a lot of people on the force today learned most of what they know from him. Do you realize what that means? Over the years he managed to corrupt scores of young policemen. Who consequently had a warped attitude toward their jobs right from the beginning. And a lot of them out and out admired him, and hoped they could be like him some day. Just as hard and high-handed. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Martin Beck wearily. “I see what you
mean. You don’t have to spell it out again and again.”

He turned and looked at Kollberg.

“But that doesn’t mean I believe it. Did you know Nyman?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever work under him?”

“Yes.”

Martin Beck raised his eyebrows.

“And when was that, pray tell?” he said suspiciously.

“The abominable man from Säffle,” said Kollberg to himself.

“What was that?”

“The abominable man from Säffle. That’s what we called him.”

“Where?”

“In the army. During the war. A lot of what I know I learned from Stig Nyman.”

“For example?”

“That’s a good question,” said Kollberg absently.

Martin Beck looked at him searchingly.

“Like what, Lennart?” he asked quietly.

“Like how to cut off a pig’s penis without its squealing. Like how to cut the legs off the same pig also without its squealing. Like how to gouge its eyes out. And finally how to cut it to pieces and flay it, still without a sound.”

He shivered.

“Do you know how?” he said.

Martin Beck shook his head.

“It’s easy. You start by cutting out its tongue.”

Kollberg looked out through the window, up toward the cold blue sky above the roofs on the other side of the street.

“Oh, he taught me a great deal. How to cut a sheep’s throat with piano wire before it has a chance to bleat. How to handle a full-grown wildcat you’re locked up in a
closet with. The way to bellow when you charge a cow and stick a bayonet in its belly. And what happens if you don’t bellow properly. Fill your pack with bricks and climb the ladder on the training tower. Fifty times up and fifty times down. You weren’t allowed to kill the wildcat, by the way, it had to be used again. Know what you did?”

“No.”

“You nailed it to the wall with your sheath knife. Through its skin.”

“You were a paratrooper, weren’t you?”

“Yes. And Nyman was my instructor in hand-to-hand combat. Among other things. He taught me how it feels to lie buried in the guts of freshly slaughtered animals, and he taught me to eat my own vomit when I’d thrown up inside a gas mask, and my own shit to avoid leaving a track.”

“What was his rank?”

“He was a sergeant. A lot of the things he taught couldn’t be learned in the classroom. For example how to break an arm or a leg or crush a larynx or press eyes out with your thumbs. You can only learn that by doing it, on something that’s alive. Sheep and pigs were convenient. We also tested different kinds of ammunition on live animals, particularly pigs, and by God there wasn’t any crap about anesthetizing them first like they do these days.”

“Was that normal training?”

“I don’t know. For that matter, what do you mean? Can you ever call that sort of thing
normal?”

“Maybe not.”

“But even if you suppose that for some ridiculous reason all of that was necessary, it wasn’t necessary to do it with joy and pride.”

“No. But Nyman did, you mean?”

“I’ll say. And he taught his craft to a lot of kids. To brag about brutality, to enjoy cruelty. Some people have a gift for it.”

“In other words he was a sadist.”

“In the highest degree. He called it ‘hardness’ himself. He was naturally hard. And for a real man, the only thing that mattered was being hard. Physically and mentally. He always encouraged bullying. Said it was part of a soldier’s education.”

“That doesn’t necessarily make him a sadist.”

“He exposed himself in a lot of ways. He was a tremendous disciplinarian. Maintaining discipline is one thing, but dealing out your own punishments is another. Nyman nailed someone or several people every day, for trifles. A lost button, that sort of thing. And the men he caught always had to choose.”

“Between what?”

“A report or a beating. A report meant three days in the brig and a black mark on your military record. So most people chose the beating.”

“What did that involve?”

“I took the bait just once. I was late back to camp one Saturday night. Climbed over the fence. Nyman caught me, of course. And I chose the beating. What it involved in my case was that I stood at attention with a bar of soap in my mouth while he broke two of my ribs with his fists. Then he treated me to a cup of coffee and a piece of cake and told me he thought I could probably get to be really hard, a real soldier.”

“And then?”

“As soon as the war was over I saw to it that I got drummed out of the army, quickly and neatly. Then I came here and became a cop. And one of the first people I saw was Nyman. He was already a sergeant.”

“And you mean to say he went on using the same methods as a policeman?”

“Maybe not the same. He could hardly get away with that. But he’s probably committed hundreds of outrages of one kind and another. Toward his subordinates and toward arrestees. I’ve heard various stories over the years.”

“He must have been reported now and then,” said Martin Beck thoughtfully.

“I’m sure. But because of our esprit de corps I’m also sure that none of those reports are still around. They all wound up in wastepaper baskets naturally—most of them no doubt dismissed out of hand. So we won’t find out anything around here.”

Martin Beck suddenly had a thought.

“But the Justice Department Ombudsman,” he said. “Some of the people who really were mistreated must have lodged complaints with the J.O.”

“To no avail,” Kollberg said. “A man like Nyman always sees to it that there are policemen ready to take an oath that he hadn’t done anything. Young fellows, whose jobs would be hell if they refused. And the kind of men who are already so indoctrinated they figure they’re only doing what loyalty demands. No one outside the force can get at a chief inspector.”

“True enough,” said Martin Beck. “But the J.O. doesn’t throw away his reports, even when they don’t lead to any action. They’re filed away, and they’re still there.”

“That’s an idea,” said Kollberg slowly. “Not a bad idea at all. You have your moments.”

He thought about it for a while.

“Best of all would be if we had a civilian review board that recorded every case of police misconduct. Unfortunately,
there is no such thing in this country. But maybe the J.O. can give us something.”

“And the murder weapon,” Martin Beck said. “A carbine bayonet must come from the army. Not everybody has a chance to get his hands on one of those. I’ll put Rönn on that detail.”

“Yes, do. And then take Rönn with you and go to the J.O.’s archive.”

“What are you planning to do?”

“Actually I’m thinking of going over and having a look at Nyman,” Kollberg said. “Larsson’s there, of course, but I don’t care. I’m doing it mostly for my own sake, want to see how I react. Maybe I’ll get sick, but at least no one can make me eat my vomit.”

Martin Beck no longer looked quite so tired. He straightened up.

“Lennart?”

“Yeah?”

“What was it you called him? The abominable man from Säffle?”

“That’s right. He came from Säffle, and he never stopped telling us about it. Men from Säffle were really hard, he’d say. Real men. And like I said he was certainly abominable. One of the most sadistic men I’ve ever met.”

Martin looked at him for a long time.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said.

“There’s a chance. Good luck. I hope you find something.”

Again Martin Beck had an indefinable sense of danger.

“I think this is going to be a rough day.”

“Yes,” said Kollberg. “It’s got all the makings. Do you feel a little cured of your loyalty?”

“I think so.”

“Remember Nyman doesn’t need any gratuitous loyalty any more. Which reminds me, by the way, that he had an unswervingly faithful sidekick all these years. Guy named Hult. He ought to be a captain by now, if he’s still around. Somebody ought to talk to him.”

Martin Beck nodded.

Rönn scratched at the door and came in. He was unsteady on his feet and looked all done in from exhaustion. His eyes were red and sticky from the lack of sleep.

“What do we do now?” he said.

“We’ve got a lot of work in front of us. Can you make it?”

“Well yes, I guess I can,” Rönn said, and stifled a yawn.

Martin Beck had no trouble gathering biographical data on the man Kollberg described as Nyman’s faithful sidekick. His name was Harald Hult, and he’d been a policeman all of his adult life. His career was easily followed in the department’s own archives.

He’d started out, at nineteen, as a deputy constable in Falun and was now a captain. As far as Martin Beck could see, Hult and Nyman had first served together in 1936 and 1937 when they’d been patrolmen in the same Stockholm precinct. In the middle of the forties they’d been reunited in another downtown precinct. The somewhat younger Nyman was by then a lieutenant, while Hult was still only a patrolman.