The Laughing Policeman (26 page)

'Yes,' Martin Beck said, pressing a button on the telephone and dialling an inter-office number.

In the room next door, Kollberg and Melander were discussing the situation.

'I've been looking through your list.'

'Did you find anything?'

'Yes, a lot. But I don't know whether it's of any use.' 'I'll soon tell you.'

'Several of those guys are recidivists. For example, Karl Andersson, Vilhelm Rosberg and Bengt Wahlberg. Thieves all three. Sentenced dozens of times. They're too old to work now.'

'Go on.'

'Johan Gran was a fence then and no doubt still is. That waiter business is sheer bluff. He did time only a year ago. And this Valter Eriksson - do you know how he became a widower?'

'No.'

'He killed his wife with a kitchen chair during a drunken brawl. Was convicted of manslaughter and got five years.' 'Well, I'll be damned.'

"There are other troublemakers besides him in this collection. Both Ove Eriksson and Bengt Fredriksson have been sentenced for assault and battery. Frederiksson no less than six times. A couple of the charges should have been for attempted manslaughter, if you ask me. And the second-hand dealer, Jan Carlson, is a shady figure. He has never been caught, but it was a close shave a couple of times. I remember Bjorn Forsberg, too. He was up to quite a few crooked dealings at one time and was fairly well known in the underworld in the last half of the forties. Then he turned over a new leaf and made a nice career for himself. Married a wealthy woman and became a respected businessman. He has only one old sentence for swindling from 1947. Hans Wennstrom also has a first-rate list of crimes, everything from shoplifting to safecracking. That's quite a CV?

'Former assistant fishmonger,' Kollberg said, looking at the list.

'I think he had a stall in the marketplace at Sundbyberg twenty-five years ago. Well, he's another one of the real old-timers. Ingvar Bengtsson calls himself a journalist nowadays. He was one of the pioneers in cheque forging. He was a pimp too, come to that. Bo Frostensson is a third-rate actor and a notorious junkie.'

'Didn't this girl ever take it into her head to sleep with any decent guys?' Kollberg said plaintively.

'Oh yes, sure. You have several on this list. For example, Rune Bengtsson, Lennart Lindgren, Kurt Olsson and Ragnar Viklund. Upper class, the whole bunch. Not a shadow on them.'

Kollberg had a good grasp of the investigation.

'No,' he said. 'They were married too, all four of them. Had a hell of a time, I expect, explaining this to their wives.'

'On that point the police were pretty discreet. When it comes to these youngsters, who were about twenty or even younger, there was nothing much wrong with them. Out of six of that age on your list there's only one, actually, that hasn't made the grade. Kenneth Karlsson, he's been picked up once or twice. Borstal and so on. Though that's some time ago and nothing very serious. Do you want me to start delving seriously in these people's past?'

'Yes, please. You can weed out the old 'uns, for instance those who are over sixty now. Likewise the youngest, from thirty-eight downward.'

'That makes eight plus seven. Fifteen. That leaves fourteen. The field is shrinking.' 'What field?'

'Hm,' said Melander. 'All these men, of course, have an alibi for the Teresa murder.'

'Bet your life they have,' Kollberg said. 'At least for the time when the body was placed at Stadshagen.'

The search for copies of the report of the Teresa investigation had been started on 28 December, but New Year's Eve and 1968 arrived before it showed any result

Not until the morning of 5 January was there a dusty pile of papers lying on Martin Beck's desk. He didn't need to be a detective to see that it had come from the innermost recesses of the files and that several years had passed since it had last been opened by human hand.

Martin Beck flicked through quickly until he came to page 1244. The text was brief. Kollberg leaned over his shoulder and they read:

Interrogation of salesmen Nils Erik Göransson, 7 August 1951.

Regarding himself, Göransson states that he was born in the Finnish parish in Stockholm on 4 Oct 1929, son of electrician Algot Erik Göransson and Benita Göransson, nee Rantanen. He is at present employed as salesman by the firm of Allimport, Hollandaregatan 10, Stockholm.

Göransson owns to having known Teresa Camarão, who periodically moved in the same circles as he did, though not during the months immediately prior to her death. Göransson owns further than on two occasions he had intimate sexual relations (intercourse) with Teresa Camarão. On the first occasion in a flat in Svartmansgatan here in town, when several other persons were also present. Of these he says he remembers only one Karl Åke Birger Svensson-Rask. On the second occasion the meeting took place in a cellar at Holländaregatan here in town. On this occasion too Svensson-Rask was present and he also had intimate sex relations (intercourse) with Mrs Camarão. Göransson says he does not remember the exact dates but thinks the events must have taken place at an interval of several days at the end of November and/or beginning of December the previous year, i.e. 1950. Göransson says he knows nothing of Mrs Camarão's acquaintances otherwise.

From June 2-13 Göransson was in Eksjö, to which he drove in an automobile with registration number A 6310 for the purpose of the sale of clothes for the firm where he is employed. Göransson is the owner of automobile A 6310, a 1949 model Morris Minor. This statement read out and approved.

(Signed)

It can be added that the above-mentioned Karl Åke Birger Svensson-Rask is identical with the man who first informed the police that Göransson had had intimate sexual relations (intercourse) with Mrs Camarão. Göransson's account of his visit to Eksjö is confirmed by the staff of the City Hotel at that place. Questioned in detail about Göransson's movements on the evening of 10 June, Sverker Johnsson, waiter at the said hotel, states that Göransson sat the whole evening in the hotel dining room, until this was closed at 11.30 p.m. Göransson was then the worse for drink. Sverker Johnsson's statements should be credited, the more so as they are confirmed by items on Göransson's hotel bill.

'Well, that’s that; Kollberg said. 'So far.' ‘What are you going to do now?' ‘What Stenström didn't have time for. Go down to Eksjö.' 'The pieces of the puzzle are beginning to fit together,' Martin Beck said.

‘Yes,' Kollberg agreed. 'By the way, where's Månsson?'

'At Hallstahammar, I think, looking for that piece of paper. At Stenström's mother's place.'

'He's not one to give up easily,' Kollberg said. 'Pity. I was going to borrow his car. Mine has something wrong with the ignition.'

Kollberg arrived in Eksjö on the morning of 8 January. He had driven down during the night, 208 miles in a snowstorm and on icy roads, but did not feel particularly tired even so. The City Hotel was in the main square and was a handsome, old-fashioned building which blended perfectly into the idyllic setting of this little Swedish country town. The waiter called Sverker Johnsson had died ten years ago, but a copy of Nils Erik Göransson's hotel bill existed. It took several hours to fish it out of a dusty cardboard box in the loft.

The bill seemed to confirm that Göransson had stayed at the hotel for eleven days. He had had all his meals and done all his drinking in the hotel dining room, and signed the bills, after which the amounts had been transferred to his hotel bill. There were also a number of other expenses, including telephone calls, but the numbers Göransson had called were not recorded. Another item, however, caught Kollberg's eye.

On 6 June 1951, the hotel had paid out 52 kronor and 25 ore to a garage on the guest's behalf. The amount was for 'towing and repairs'.

'Does this garage still exist?' Kollberg asked the hotel owner. 'Oh, indeed it does, and the same owner the last twenty-five years. Just follow the road out toward Langanas and ...'

Actually the man had had the garage for twenty-seven years.

He stared incredulously at Kollberg and said, 'Sixteen and a half years ago? How the hell can I remember that?' 'Don't you keep books?'

'You bet I do,' the man said indignantly. 'This is a properly run place.'

It took him an hour and a half to find the old ledger. He wouldn't let it out of his hands but turned the pages slowly and carefully until he came to the day in question.

'The sixth of June,' he murmured. 'Here it is. Picked up from hotel, that's right. The throttle cable had gone haywire. It cost 52:25, the whole business. With towing and all.'

Kollberg waited.

'Towing,' muttered the man. 'What an idiot Why didn't he hook up the throttle cable with something and drive here himself?'

'Have you any particulars about the car?' Kollberg asked.

'Yes. Registration number A ... something. I can't read it. Someone's put an oily thumb over the figures. Evidently a Stockholmer, anyway.'

'You don't know what sort of car it was?'

'Sure I do. A Ford Vedette.'

'Not a Morris Minor?'

'If it says Ford Vedette here, then a Ford Vedette it damn well was,' the garage owner said testily. 'Morris Minor? There's a slight difference, isn't there.'

Kollberg took the ledger with him, after a good half hour's threats and persuasions. When finally he was on his way, the workshop owner said, 'Well, anyway, that explains why he wasted money on towing.'

'Really. Why?'

'He was a Stockholmer, wasn't he?'

When Kollberg got back to the City Hotel in Eksjö it was already evening. He was hungry, cold and tired, and instead of starting the long drive north he took a room at the hotel Had a bath and

ordered dinner. While he was waiting for the food to be prepared he made two phone calls. First to Melander.

'Will you please find out which of the guys on the list had a car in June 1951? And what make?'

'Sure. Tomorrow morning.'

'And the colour of Göransson's Morris?'

'Yes.'

Then Martin Beck.

'Göransson didn't bring his Morris here. He was driving another car.'

'So Stenström was right'

'Can you put somone on to finding out who owned that firm in Holländaregatan where Göransson was employed, and what it did?'

'Sure.'

'I should be back in town about midday tomorrow.'

He went down into the dining room and had dinner. As he sat there it suddenly dawned on him that he had in fact stayed at this hotel exactly sixteen years ago. He had been working on a taxi murder. They had cleared it up in three or four days. If he had known then what he knew now he could probably have solved the Teresa case in ten minutes.

Rönn was thinking about Olsson and about the restaurant bill he had found among the rubbish in Göransson's paper shopping bag. On Tuesday morning he got an idea and as usual when something was weighing on his mind he went to Gunvald Larsson. Despite the far from cordial attitude they adopted towards each other at work, Rönn and Gunvald Larsson were friends. Very few outsiders knew this, and they would have been even more surprised had they known that the two had in fact spent both Christmas and New Year's Eve together.

'I've been thinking about the bit of paper with the initials BF,' Rönn said. 'On that list that Melander and Kollberg are messing about with are three persons with those initials. Bo Frostensson, Bengt Fredriksson and Björn Forsberg.' 'Well?'

'We could take a cautious look at them and see if any of them resembles Olsson.'

'Can you track them down?' 'I expect Melander can.'

Melander could. It took him only twenty minutes to find out that Forsberg was at home and would be at his city-centre office after lunch. At twelve o'clock he was to have lunch with a client at the Ambassador. Frostensson was in a film studio out at Solna, playing a small part in a film by Arne Mattsson.

'And Fredriksson is presumably drinking beer at the Café Ten Spot. He's usually to be found there at this hour of day.'

'I'll come with you,' Martin Beck said surprisingly. 'We'll take Månsson's car. I've given him one of ours instead.'

Sure enough Bengt Fredriksson, artist and brawler, was hard at it drinking beer in the beer hall in the Old Town. He was very fat, had a bushy, unkempt red beard and lank grey hair. He was already drunk.

Out at Solna the production manager piloted them through long, winding corridors to a corner of the big film studio.

'Frostensson is to play a scene in five minutes,' he said. 'It's the only line he has in the film.'

They stood at a safe distance but in the mercilessly strong spotlights they clearly saw the set behind a jumble of cables and shifted scenery. It was evidently meant to be the interior of a little grocer's shop.

'Stand by!' the director shouted. 'Silence! Camera! Action!' A man in a white cap and coat came into the stream of light and said, 'Good morning, madam. May I help you?' 'Cut!'

There was a retake, and another. Frostensson had to say the line five times. He was a lean, bald man with a stammer and a nervous twitch around his mouth and the corners of his eyes.

Half an hour later Gunvald Larsson braked the car twenty-five yards from the gates of Björn Forsberg's house at Stocksund. Martin Beck and Rönn crouched in the back. Through the open garage door they could see a black Mercedes of the largest type.

'He should be leaving now’ Gunvald Larsson said. 'If he doesn't want to be late for his lunch appointment'

They had to wait fifteen minutes before the front door opened and a man appeared on the steps together with a blonde woman, a dog and a litde girl of about seven. He kissed the woman on the cheek, lifted the child up and kissed her. Then he strode down to the garage, got into the car and drove off. The little girl blew him a kiss, laughed and shouted something.

Björn Forsberg was tall and slim. His face, with regular features and candid expression, was strikingly handsome, as though drawn from the illustration for a short story in a woman's magazine. He was suntanned and his bearing was relaxed and sporty. He was bareheaded and was wearing a loose-fitting, grey overcoat. His hair was wavy and brushed back. He looked younger than his forty-eight years.