The Terrorists (16 page)

They had also interrogated several girls with experiences similar to those of the two girls Åsa had questioned. They had all been offered drugs, but only during visits to his office. He had definitely refused to give them any to take away with them.

Two of the girls questioned by the Narcotics Division had been in one of his films; not the great international production with Charles Bronson in the main part as Petrus had promised, but in a pornographic film with a lesbian theme. They admitted that during the filming they had been so under the influence of drugs that they had hardly known what they were doing.

“What a bastard!” Åsa had cried when she read the report.

Åsa and Skacke had been out to Djursholm and spoken to Chris Petrus again, and to the two children who were home. The younger son was still abroad and had not been heard from, although the family had cabled his last known address and had also put an advertisement into the personal column of the
International Herald Tribune
.

“Don’t worry, Mother, he’ll show up when his money runs out,” the elder son had said acidly.

Åsa had also had a talk with Mrs. Pettersson, who by and large gave one-syllable replies to all her questions. She was a faithful servant of the old school, and in the few words she actually uttered she spoke highly of the family.

“I felt like giving her a lecture on women’s liberation,” said Åsa later on to Martin Beck.

Benny Skacke had spoken to Walter Petrus’s gardener and chauffeur, Sture Hellström. He was as taciturn as the maid when it came to opinions on the Petrus family, but he was happy to talk about gardening.

Skacke also spent quite a lot of time out at Rotebro, which was really Åsa’s territory. No one really knew what he was doing out there, and one day when they were having coffee in Martin Beck’s office, Åsa said teasingly, “You haven’t gone and fallen in love with Maud Lundin, have you, Benny? Watch out for her. I think she’s a dangerous woman.”

“I think she’s pretty mercenary,” said Skacke. “But I’ve talked quite a bit to a guy out there—the sculptor who lives across the street. He makes things out of scrap iron, really nice things.”

Åsa also disappeared for long periods of the day without saying where she was going. Finally Martin Beck asked her what she was up to.

“I go to the movies. Watch dirty films. I take them in small doses, one or two a day, but I’m determined to see all of Petrus’s movies. It’ll probably make me frigid, on top of everything else.”

“What do you want to see them for?” asked Martin Beck. “What do you think you can find? One was enough for me—that
Love in the Glow of the Midnight Sun
, or whatever it was called.”

Åsa laughed. “That was nothing compared to some of the others. Some of them are considerably better from a technical point of view—color and wide screen and all that. I think he sold them to Japan. But it’s no fun to sit and watch them. Especially for a woman. You get simply furious.”

“I can understand that,” said Martin Beck sincerely. “But you didn’t answer my question about why you think you have to see them.”

Åsa ruffled her untidy hair. “Well, you see, I look at the people in the films, and then I try to find out what sort of people they are, where they live and what they do. I’ve interviewed a couple of boys who were in several of the films. One’s a professional, works at a sex club and regards it as a job. He was fairly well paid. The other one works in a men’s clothes shop and did it for fun. He got practically nothing. I’ve got a long list of people I’m going to check up on.”

Martin Beck nodded thoughtfully, giving her a doubtful look.

“Not that I know anything’ll come of it,” said Åsa, “but if you have no objections, I’m going on.”

“Do, if you can take it,” said Martin Beck.

“There’s only one more I haven’t seen,” said Åsa.
“Confessions of a Night Nurse
, I think it’s called. Horrors.”

The week went by and on the last day of July, Rhea returned.

That evening they celebrated with smoked eel, Danish cheeses and Elephant beer and aquavit she had brought back with her from Copenhagen. Rhea talked almost without stopping until she fell asleep in his arms.

Martin Beck lay for a while feeling happy that she was back, but the Elephant beer took its toll and soon he was asleep too.

Things began to happen the next day. It was the first of August, the name day was Per, and it was pouring rain.

Martin Beck awoke bright and alert, but ended up late for work anyway. Three weeks was a long time, and Rhea’s eagerness to tell him about her visit to the Danish island, combined with the food, beer and aquavit, had caused them to fall asleep before they could give expression to how much they’d missed each other. They made up for it in the morning, and as the children were still in Denmark they were undisturbed and took their time, until Rhea finally pushed him out of bed and commanded him to think about his responsibilities and his duty as chief to set a good example.

Benny Skacke had been waiting for him impatiently for two hours. Before Martin Beck had time to sit down, he was in the office, shuffling his feet.

“Morning, Benny,” said Martin Beck. “How’re things with you?”

“Fine, I think.”

“Do you still suspect that scrap-iron artist?”

“No, that was only at first. He lived so close-by and his workshop was full of iron bars and pipes and things, I thought he seemed like a good bet. He knew Maud Lundin quite well and he would only have had to run across the road with one of his iron bars or lead pipes and kill the old man, after he’d seen Maud Lundin go off to work. It looked obvious.”

“But he had an alibi, didn’t he?”

“Yes, a girl was with him all night and went into town with him in the morning. Anyway, he’s a nice guy and had nothing to do with Petrus. His girl seems straight, too. She says she
sleeps badly, so was reading after he’d fallen asleep, and she says he slept like a log until ten in the morning.”

Martin Beck looked at Skacke’s eager face with amusement. “So what have you found now?”

“Well, I’ve been out there quite a bit, walking and looking around and sitting talking to that sculptor. Yesterday I was out there and we were having a beer together, and I sat there looking at those big crates standing in Maud Lundin’s garage. They’re his crates—he uses them for packing his sculptures when he sends them to exhibitions. He hasn’t got room for them in his garage, so Maud Lundin let him put them in hers. They’ve been there since March and no one has touched them since. It occurred to me that whoever killed Petrus could have gone to the house that night, when there wasn’t any risk of being seen, and waited behind those crates until the old man was alone.”

“But then he walked right across the field where everyone could see him,” said Martin Beck.

“Yes, I know. But if he did hide behind the crates, it must have been because Walter Petrus used to leave the house shortly after Maud Lundin, so he had to make use of that brief period when the old man was alone in the house. And from his hiding place behind the crates, he could hear when she left.”

Martin Beck rubbed his nose. “Sounds plausible,” he said. “Have you checked whether it’s actually possible to hide in there? Aren’t they right up against the wall?”

Benny Skacke shook his head. “No. There’s a space just large enough. Kollberg might not be able to squeeze in there with his stomach, maybe, but a person of normal build could.”

He fell silent. Negative statements about Kollberg didn’t go over too well with Martin Beck, but he didn’t seem offended, so Skacke went on.

“I looked behind the crates. There’s quite a lot of sand, dust and loose earth on the floor. Couldn’t we do some lab work? Spray for footprints and sieve the soil and see if we can find anything?”

“Not a bad idea,” said Martin Beck. “I’ll get somebody on it right away.”

When Skacke had gone, Martin Beck phoned to request an
immediate technical examination of Maud Lundin’s garage.

As he put the receiver down, Åsa Torell came into his office without knocking. She was as breathless and eager as Skacke had been.

“Take a seat and calm down,” said Martin Beck. “Have you been to another blue movie? What were the night nurse’s confessions like, anyhow?”

“Awful. And her patients were really something. Surprisingly healthy, I must say.”

Martin Beck laughed.

“I hope that’s the last skin flick I ever have to watch,” said Åsa. “But now listen.”

Martin put his elbows on the desk and adopted a listening attitude with his chin in his hands.

“You know that list I told you about?” said Åsa. “The one I made of all the people who were in Petrus’s films?”

Martin Beck nodded and Åsa went on.

“In some of the worst films—I think you saw some of them yourself—black-and-white shorts of people screwing on an old sofa and that kind of thing—there was a girl called Kiki Hell. I tried to get hold of her, but it turned out she was no longer in Sweden. But I got hold of a friend of hers and learned quite a lot. Kiki Hell’s real name is Kristina Hellström and a few years ago she lived in Djursholm on the same street as Walter Petrus. What do you say to that?”

Martin Beck sat up straight and struck his forehead. “Hellström,” he said. “The gardener.”

“Exactly,” said Åsa. “Kiki Hellström is the daughter of Walter Petrus’s gardener. I haven’t managed to find out much about her yet. It seems she left Sweden a few years ago and no one knows where she is now.”

“It does sound as if you’ve got something there, Åsa. Do you have your car here?”

Åsa nodded. “It’s in the parking lot. Shall we go out to Djursholm?”

“Right away,” said Martin Beck. “We can talk on the way.”

In the car Åsa said, “Do you think it’s him?”

“Well, he’s got plenty of reason to dislike Walter Petrus.”
said Martin Beck. “If what I suspect is true. Petrus used the gardener’s daughter in his films and when her dad found out, he can’t have been all that pleased. How old is she?”

“She’s nineteen now. But the films are four years old, so she was only fifteen when they were made.”

After a spell of silence, Åsa said, “Suppose it was the other way around?”

“What do you mean?”

“That her dad encouraged her to be in the films to get money out of Petrus.”

“You mean he sold his own daughter? Åsa, watching all that filth has given you a dirty mind.”

They parked the car at the edge of the road and walked through the gate to the house next door to the Petruses’. There were no photocells in the gateposts there. A wide gravel path led to the left along the hedge up to a garage and a yellow stucco bungalow. Between the bungalow and the garage was a smaller building which seemed to be some kind of workshop or toolshed.

“That must be where he lives,” said Åsa, and they began to walk toward the yellow house. The garden seemed enormous, and the house itself, which they had seen from the gateway, was here quite hidden by tall trees.

Hellström must have heard their footsteps on the gravel through the open door of the toolshed. He came to the doorway and watched them guardedly as they approached.

He looked about forty-five, tall and powerfully built, and was standing quite still, his feet apart, his back slightly bowed.

His eyes were blue and half-closed, his features heavy and serious. His dark untidy hair was streaked with gray and his short sideburns were almost white. He was holding a plane in one hand and some curls of light wood clung to the dirty blue of his coverall.

“Are we interrupting your work, Mr. Hellström?” said Åsa.

The man shrugged his shoulders and glanced behind him. “No,” he said. “I was just planing some moldings. They can wait.”

“We’d like to talk to you,” said Martin Beck. “We’re from the police.”

“A policeman’s already been here,” said Hellström. “I don’t think I’ve got anything else to say.”

Åsa got out her identification, but Hellström turned around without looking at it, went over and put the plane down on a workbench inside the door.

“There’s very little to say about Mr. Petrus,” he said. “I hardly knew him, just worked for him.”

“You have a daughter, haven’t you?” said Martin Beck.

“Yes, but she doesn’t live here anymore. Has anything happened to her?” He was standing half-turned away from them, fiddling with the tools on the bench.

“Not that we know of. We’d just like to talk with you about her,” said Martin Beck. “Is there anywhere we can go to talk in peace and quiet?”

“We can go to my place,” said Hellström. “I’ll just get this thing off.”

Åsa and Martin Beck waited while the man took off his coverall and hung it up on a nail. Under the coverall he was wearing blue jeans and a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He had a wide leather belt round his hips, with a large brass buckle in the shape of a horseshoe.

It had stopped raining, but heavy drops were splashing through the branches of a large chestnut tree by the house.

The outside door was not locked. Hellström opened it and waited on the steps while Åsa and Martin Beck stepped into the hall. Then he went ahead of them into the living room.

The room was not large and they could see into the bedroom through a half-open door. Apart from the little kitchen, which they had seen from the hall, the house had no more rooms. A sofa and two unmatched armchairs filled almost the whole of the living room. An old-fashioned television set stood in the corner, and along one wall was a home-made bookcase, half-filled with books.

While Åsa went over and sat on the sofa and Hellström vanished into the kitchen, Martin Beck looked at the titles of the books. There were a number of classics, among them Dostoyevsky, Balzac and Strindberg, as well as a surprising amount
of poetry—several anthologies and poetry-club editions, but also hardback editions of authors like Nils Ferlin, Elmer Diktonius and Edith Södergran.

Hellström turned on the taps in the kitchen and a few moments later appeared in the doorway, wiping his hands on a dirty kitchen towel. “Shall I make some tea?” he said. “It’s all I have to offer. I don’t drink coffee myself, so there isn’t any here.”