Читать книгу The Man on the Balcony - Maj Sjowall, Per Wahloeoe - Страница 14

Kollberg was sweating as he walked back through Vanadis Park. The cause was neither the steep incline, the humid heat after the rain, nor his tendency to corpulence. At any rate not entirely.

Like most of those who were to deal with this case, he was jaded before the investigation started. He thought of the repulsiveness of the crime itself and he thought of the people who had been so hard hit by its blind meaninglessness. He had been through all this before, how many times he couldn't even say offhand, and he knew exactly how horrible it could turn out to be. And how difficult.

He thought too of the swift gangsterization of this society, which in the last resort must be a product of himself and of the other people who lived in it and had a share in its creation. He thought of the rapid technical expansion that the police force had undergone merely during the last year; despite this, crime always seemed to be one step ahead. He thought of the new investigation methods and the computers, which could mean that this particular criminal might be caught within a few hours, and also what little consolation these excellent technical inventions had to offer the woman he had just left, for example. Or himself. Or the set-faced men who had now gathered around the little body in the bushes between the rocks and the red fence.

He had only seen the body for a few moments, and at a distance, and he didn't want to see it again if he could help it. This he knew to be an impossibility. The mental image of the child in the blue skirt and striped T-shirt was etched into his mind and would always remain there, together with all the others he could never get rid of. He thought of the wooden-soled sandals on the slope and of his own child, as yet unborn; of how this child would look in nine years’ time; of the horror and disgust that this crime would arouse, and what the front pages of the evening papers would look like.

The entire area around the gloomy, fortress-like water tower was roped off now, as well as the steep slope behind it, right down to the steps leading to Ingemarsgatan. He walked past the cars, stopped at the cordon and looked out over the empty playground with its sandpits and swings.

The knowledge that all this had happened before and was certain to happen again was a crushing burden. Since the last time they had got computers and more men and more cars. Since the last time the lighting in the parks had been improved and most of the bushes had been cleared away. Next time there would be still more cars and computers and even less shrubbery. Kollberg wiped his brow at the thought and the handkerchief was wet through.

The journalists and photographers were already there, but fortunately only a few of the inquisitive had as yet found their way here. The journalists and photographers, oddly enough, had become better with the years, partly thanks to the police. The inquisitive would never be any better.

The area around the water tower was strangely quiet, despite all the people. From afar, perhaps from the swimming pool or the playground at Sveavägen, cheerful shouts could be heard and children laughing.

Kollberg remained standing by the cordon. He said nothing, nor did anyone speak to him.

He knew that the homicide squad had been alerted, that the search was being stabilized, that men from the technical division were examining the scene of the crime, that the vice squad had been called in, that a central office was being organized to receive tips from the public, that a special inquiry squad was being prepared to go from door to door, that the coroner was ready and waiting, that every radio patrol car was on the watch, and that no resources would be spared, even his own.

Yet he allowed himself this moment of reflection. It was summer. People were swimming. Tourists were wandering about, map in hand. And in the shrubbery between the rocks and the red fence lay a dead child. It was horrible. And it might get worse.

Still another car, perhaps the ninth or tenth, hummed up the hill from Stefan's Church and stopped. Without actually turning his head, Kollberg saw Gunvald Larsson get out and come up to him.

‘How is it going?’

‘Don't know.’

‘The rain. It poured with rain all night. Probably…’

For once, Gunvald Larsson interrupted himself. After a moment he went on:

‘If they take any footprints they're probably mine. I was here last evening. Soon after ten.’

‘Oh.’

‘The mugger. He struck down an old lady. Not fifty yards from here.’

‘So I heard.’

‘She had just shut up her fruit and confectionery kiosk and was on her way home. With the entire day's takings in her handbag.’

‘Oh?’

‘Every single penny of it. People are crazy,’ Gunvald Larsson said.

He paused again. Nodded towards the rocks and the shrubbery and the red fence and said:

‘She must have been lying there then.’

‘Presumably.’

‘It had already started raining when we got here. And the civil patrol, ninth district, had been here three quarters of an hour before the robbery. They didn't see anything either. She must have been lying here then too.’

‘They were looking for the mugger,’ Kollberg said.

‘Yes. And when he got here they were in Lill-Jans Wood. This was the ninth time.’

‘What about the old woman?’

‘Ambulance case. Rushed to hospital. Shock, fractured jaw, four teeth knocked out, broken nose. All she saw of the man was that he had a red bandanna handkerchief over his face. Lousy description.’

Gunvald Larsson paused again and then said:

‘If I'd had the dog van…’

‘What?’

‘Your admirable pal Beck said that I should send out the dog van, when he was up last week. Maybe a dog would have found…’

He nodded again in the direction of the rocks, as though unwilling to put what he meant into words.

Kollberg didn't like Gunvald Larsson particularly, but this time he sympathized with him.

‘It's possible,’ Kollberg said.

‘Is it sex?’ Gunvald Larsson asked with some hesitation.

‘Presumably.’

‘In that case I don't suppose there's any connection.’

‘No, I don't suppose there is.’

Rönn came up to them from inside the cordon and Larsson said at once:

‘Is it sex?’

‘Yes,’ Rönn said. ‘Looks like it. Pretty certain.’

‘Then there's no connection.’

‘What with?’

‘The mugger.’

‘How are things going?’ Kollberg asked.

‘Badly,’ Rönn said. ‘Everything must have been washed away by the rain. She's soaked to the skin.’

‘Christ, it's sickening,’ Larsson said. ‘Two maniacs prowling around the same place at the same time, one worse than the other.’

He turned on his heel and went back to the car. The last they heard him say was:

‘Christ, what a bloody awful job. Who'd be a cop…’

Rönn watched him for a moment. Then he turned to Kollberg and said:

‘Would you mind coming for a moment, sir?’

Kollberg sighed heavily and swung his legs over the rope.

Martin Beck did not go back to Stockholm until Saturday afternoon, the day before he was due back on duty. Ahlberg saw him off at the station.

He changed trains at Hallsberg and bought the evening papers at the station bookstall. Folded them and tucked them into his raincoat pocket and didn't open them until he had settled down on the express from Gothenburg.

He glanced at the banner headlines and gave a start. The nightmare had begun.

A few hours later for him than for the others. But that was about all.