The Laughing Policeman (25 page)

Kollberg frowned.

'Can he come to the phone?'

'Sorry, no. It's against the rules. He's undergoing ...'

Kollberg's face took on a sorrowful expression. The A-l team was obviously not on duty on Christmas Eve.

'OK, I'll come,' he said and put down the phone.

His wife had heard these last words and stared at him wide-eyed.

'Have to go to Langholmen,' he said wearily. 'How the hell do you get a taxi at this hour on Christmas Eve?'

'I can drive you,' Åsa said. 'I haven't drunk anything.'

They did not talk on the way. The guard at the entrance peered suspiciously at Åsa Torell.

'She's my secretary,' Kollberg said.

'Your what? Just a moment, I must take another look at your identification card.'

Birgersson had not changed. If possible he seemed even more gende and polite than he had been two weeks earlier.

'What do you want to tell me?' Kollberg said gruffly.

Birgersson smiled.

'It seems silly,' he said. 'But I just remembered something this evening. You were asking about the car, my Morris. And -' ‘Yes? And?'

'Once when Inspector Stenström and I had a break and sat having something to eat, I told him a story. I remembered we had boiled pickled pork and mashed turnips. It's my favourite dish, and today when we had Christmas dishes ...'

Kollberg regarded the man with massive disapproval.

'A story?’ he asked.

'A story about myself, really. From the time we lived on Roslagsgatan, my -

He broke off and looked doubtfully at Åsa Torell. The prison guard over by the door yawned.

'Well, go on,' Kollberg growled.

'My wife and I, that is. We had only one room and when I was at home I always used to feel nervous and shut-in and restless. I also slept badly.'

'Un-huh,'Kollberg grunted.

He felt hot and slightly dizzy. He was very thirsty and above all hungry. Moreover, his surroundings depressed him and he longed for home. Birgersson went on talking, quietly but long-windedly.

'... so I used to go out of an evening, just so as to get away from home. This was nearly twenty years ago. I walked and walked the streets for hours, sometimes all night. Never spoke to anyone, just wandered about so as to be left in peace. After a while I'd calm down, it usually took an hour or so. But I had to occupy my thoughts with something, you see, in order to keep from worrying about everything else. Being at home and my wife and all that So I used to find things to do. To divert myself, you might say, take my mind off my troubles and keep myself from brooding.'

Kollberg looked at his watch.

'Yes, yes, I see,' he said impatiently. ‘What did you do?'

'I used to look at cars.'

'Cars?'

'Yes. I used to walk along the street and through car parks, looking at the cars that stood there. Actually I wasn't at all interested in cars, but in that way I got to know all the makes and models there were. After a time I became quite an expert. It was satisfying, somehow. I could do something. I could recognize all cars forty or fifty yards away, from whichever side I saw them. If I could have taken part in one of those quiz programmes on TV, you know when they ask you questions on one special subject, I'd have won first prize. From in front or from behind or from the side, it made no difference.'

'What about if you saw them from above?' Åsa Torell asked.

Kollberg looked at her in astonishment. Birgersson's face darkened slightly.

'Well, I never got much practice in that I mightn't have been so good at that'

He pondered for a while. Kollberg shrugged resignedly.

'But you can get a lot of pleasure out of a simple occupation like that,' Birgersson went on. 'And excitement. Sometimes I saw very rare cars like a Lagonda or Zim or EMW. That cheered me up.'

'And you told Inspector Stenström about this?' 'Yes, I'd never told anyone else.' 'And what did he say?' 'He said he thought it was interesting.' 'I see. And this is what you brought me here to say? At nine thirty in the evening? On Christmas Eve?' Birgersson looked hurt.

‘Yes,' he replied. 'You did say I was to tell you anything I remembered ...'

‘Yes, sure,' Kollberg said wearily. 'Thank you.' He stood up.

'But I haven't told you the most important part yet,' the man murmured. 'It was something that interested Inspector Stenström very much. It occurred to me since we'd been talking about a Morris.'

Kollberg sat down again.

'Yes? What?'

'Well, it had its problems, this hobby, if I may call it that. It was very hard to distinguish certain models when it was dark or if they were a long way off. For instance, Moskvitch and Opel Kadett or DKW and IFA.'

He paused, and then said emphatically, 'Very, very hard. Just small details.'

'What has this to do with Stenström and your Morris 8?'

'No, not my Morris,' Birgersson replied. 'What interested the Inspector so much was when I told him that the hardest of all was to see the difference between a Morris Minor and a Renault CV-4 from in front. Not from the side or the back, that was easy. But from straight in front or obliquely in front - that was very difficult indeed. Though I learned in time and seldom made a mistake. It did happen, of course.'

‘Wait a moment,' Kollberg said. 'Did you say Morris Minor and Renault CV-4?'

'Yes. And I remember that Inspector Stenström gave quite a start when I told him. All the time I was talking he had just sat there nodding, and I didn't think he was listening. But when I said that he was terribly interested. Asked me about it several times.'

'From in front, you said?'

'Yes. He asked that too, several times. From in front or obliquely in front. Very difficult'

When they were sitting in the car again, Åsa Torell asked, 'What's this all about?'

'I don't know yet. But it might mean quite a lot'

'About the man who killed Åke?'

'Don't know. At any rate it explains why he wrote down the name of that car in his book.'

'I've also remembered something,' she said. 'Something Åke said a couple of weeks before he was killed. He said that as soon as he could take two days off he'd go down to Smaland and investigate something. To Eksjö, I think. Does that tell you anything?'

'Not a thing,' Kollberg replied.

The city lay deserted. The only signs of life were two ambur lances, a police car, and a few Santa Clauses staggering about, delayed in the exercise of their profession and handicapped by far too many glasses in far too many hospitable homes. After a while Kollberg said, 'Gun told me you're leaving us in the new year.'

'Yes. I've exchanged the flat for a smaller one at Kungsholms Strand. I'm selling the furniture, lock, stock and barrel, and buying new stuff. I'm going to get a new job, too.'

'Where?'

'I haven't quite decided. But I've been thinking it over.' She was silent for a few seconds. Then she said, 'What about the police force? Are there any vacancies?' 'I'll say there are,' Kollberg replied absendy. Then he started and said, 'What! Are you serious?' 'Yes,' she replied. 'I am serious.'

Åsa Torell concentrated on her driving. She frowned and peered out into the whirling snow.

When they got back to Palandergatan, Bodil had fallen asleep, and Gun was curled up in a armchair reading. There were tears in her eyes.

'What's wrong?' he asked.

'That damn dinner,' she said. 'It's ruined.'

'Not at all. With your appearance and my appetite you could put a dead cat on the table and make me overjoyed.'

'And that hopeless Martin called up. Half an hour ago.'

'OK,' Kollberg said jovially. 'I'll give him a bell while you're getting the grub.'

He took off his jacket and tie and went to the phone.

'Hello. Beck.'

'Who's doing all that howling?' Kollberg asked suspiciously.

'The laughing policeman.'

'What?'

'A phonograph record.'

'Oh yes, now I recognize it. An old music hall tune. Charles Penrose, isn't it? Goes back to before the First World War.' A roar of laughter was heard in the background.

'It makes no difference,' Martin Beck said joylessly. 'I called you because Melander called me.' 'What did he want?'

'He said that at last he had remembered where he had seen the name Nils Erik Göransson.' ‘Where?'

'In the investigation concerning Teresa Camarão.'

Kollberg unlaced his shoes. Thought for a moment. Then said, 'Then you can tell him from me that he's wrong for once. I've just read the whole pile, every damn word. And I'm not so dumb that I wouldn't have noticed a thing like that'

'Have you the papers at home?'

'No. They're at Västberga. But I'm sure. Dead sure.'

'OK. I believe you. What did you do at Långholmen?'

'Got some information. Too vague and complicated for me to explain now, but if it's right -'

'Yes?'

'Then you can use every single sheet of the Teresa investigation as toilet paper. Merry Christmas.' He put down the phone.

'Are you going out again?' his wife asked suspiciously. 'Yes. But not until Wednesday. Where's the akvavit?'

It took a lot to depress Melander, but on the morning of the twenty-seventh he looked so miserable and puzzled that even Gunvald Larsson brought himself to ask, 'What's with you?'

'It's just that I don't usually make a mistake.'

'There's always a first time,' Rönn said consolingly.

'Yes. But I don't understand, all the same.'

Martin Beck had knocked on the door and before anyone had time to react he was in the room, standing there tall and grave, coughing slightly.

'What is it you don't understand?'

'About Göransson. That I could make a mistake.'

'I've just been out at Västberga,' said Martin Beck. 'And I know something that might cheer you up.'

'What is that?'

'There's a page missing from the Teresa investigation. Page 1244, to be exact.'

At three o'clock in the afternoon Kollberg was standing outside a car showroom in Södertälje. He had already got through a lot this day. For one thing, he had made sure that the three witnesses who had observed a car at Stadshagen sports ground sixteen and a half

years earlier must have seen the vehicle from in front or possibly from obliquely in front For another, he had supervised some photographic work, and rolled up in his inside pocket he had a dark-toned, slightly retouched advertising picture of a Morris Minor 1950 model Of the three witnesses two were dead, the police sergeant and the mechanic. But the real expert, the workshop foreman, was still hale and hearty. And he worked here in Södertälje. He was not a foreman any more but something grander and sat in an office with glass walls, talking on the phone. When the call was finished Kollberg went in to him, without knocking and without in any way saying who he was. He merely laid the photograph on the desk in front of the man and said, 'What make of car is this?'

'A Renault CV-4. An old job.'

'Are you sure?'

'Bet your life, I'm sure. I'm never wrong.' 'Positive?'

The man glanced again at the picture.

'Yes,' he said. 'It's a CV-4. Old model.'

'Thanks,' Kollberg said, reaching for the photograph.

The man gave him a puzzled look and said, 'Wait a sec. Are you trying to trick me?'

He examined the picture thoroughly. After a good fifteen seconds he said slowly, 'Na. This isn't a Renault. It's a Morris. A Morris Minor model '50 or '51. And there's something wrong with the picture.'

'Yes,' Kollberg said. 'It has been touched up and made to look as if it were taken in a bad light and in the rain, for instance on a summer evening.'

The man stared at him.

'Look here, who are you anyway?'

'Police,' Kollberg replied.

'I might have known it,' the man said. 'There was a policeman here early last autumn who ..

Shortly before five thirty the same afternoon Martin Beck had assembled his immediate colleagues for a briefing at investigation headquarters. Nordin and Månsson had returned from Christmas leave, and the force was complete. The only one missing was Hammar, who had gone away for the holidays. He knew how little had happened during forty-four intensive days of investigation and thought it unlikely that there would be any new development between Christmas and New Year, a time when both hunters and hunted mostly sit at home belching and wondering how to make ends meet until January.

'Oh, so a page was missing’ Melander said with satisfaction. 'Who can have taken it?'

Martin Beck and Kollberg exchanged a quick glance.

'Does anyone consider himself a specialist in house-searches?' Martin Beck asked.

‘I’m good at searching’ Månsson said listlessly from his seat over by the window. 'If there's anything to be found, I'll find it'

'Good’ Martin Beck said, 'I want you to comb through Åke Stenström's flat on Tjärhovsgatan.'

'What shall I look for?'

'A page out of a police report/ Kollberg said. 'It should be numbered 1244 and it's possible that the name Nils Erik Göransson occurs in the text'

'Tomorrow’ Månsson said. 'It's always easier in daylight'

'OK, that's fine’ Martin Beck said.

'I’ll give you the keys in the morning’ Kollberg informed him.

He already had them in his pocket but wanted to remove one or two traces of Stenström's photography before Månsson set to work.

At two o'clock the next afternoon the phone on Martin Beck's desk rang.

'Greetings. It's Per.'

'Per who?'

'Månsson.'

'Oh, it's you. Well?'

'I'm in Stenström's flat. The sheet of paper isn't here.'

'Are you sure?'

'Sure?'

Månsson sounded deeply offended.

'Of course I'm bloody sure. But are you sure he's the one who took that page?'

'We think so, anyway.'

'Oh, well, I'd better go on looking somewhere else.'

Martin Beck massaged his scalp.

'What do you mean by somewhere else?' he asked.

But Månsson had already put the phone down.

'There must be a copy in the central files, for Christ's sake,' Gunvald Larsson growled.