The Laughing Policeman (28 page)

Still supporting himself against the desk with his left hand, he raised the barrel of the pistol towards his open mouth, pushed it in as far as he could, closed his hps round the shiny, blue-black steel and pulled the trigger. He looked steadily at Martin Beck the whole time. His eyes were still almost cheery.

All this happened so quickly that Martin Beck and Melander were only halfway across the room when Björn Forsberg collapsed sprawling over the desk.

The pistol had been cocked and a sharp click had been heard as the hammer fell against the chamber. But the bullet that was to have rotated through the bore, shattered the roof of Björn Forsberg's mouth and flung most of his brains out through the back of his head never left the barrel. It was still in its brass casing inside the cartridge that lay in Martin Beck's right trouser pocket, together with the other five that had been in the magazine.

Martin Beck took out one of the cartridges, rolled it between his fingers and read the text punched around the copper envelope of the percussion cap: METALLVERKEN 38 SPL. The cartridge was Swedish but the pistol American, a Smith and Wesson 38 Special, made in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Björn Forsberg lay with his face pressed against the smooth desktop. His body was shaking. After a few seconds he slipped to the floor and began to scream.

'We'd better call an ambulance,' Melander said.

So Rönn was sitting once more with his tape recorder in an isolation ward at Karolinska Hospital. This time not in the surgical department but at the mental clinic, and in his company he had Gunvald Larsson instead of the detested Ullholm.

Björn Forsberg had been given various treatments with tranquillizing injections and a lot of other things, and the doctor concerned with his mental recovery had already been in the room for several hours. But the only thing the patient seemed able to say was, 'Why didn't you let me die?'

He had repeated this over and over again and now he said it once more, ‘Why didn't you let me die?'

'Yes, why didn't we?' Gunvald Larsson mumbled, and the doctor gave him a stern look.

They would not have been here at all if the doctors had not said that there was a certain risk that Forsberg really would die. They had explained that he had been subjected to a shock of enormous intensity, that his heart was weak and his nerves had gone to pieces; they rounded off the diagnosis by saying that his general condition was not so bad. Except that a heart attack might be the end of him at any moment.

Rönn pondered over this remark about his general condition.

'Why didn't you let me die?' Forsberg repeated.

'Why didn't you let Teresa Camarão live?' Gunvald Larsson retorted.

'Because I couldn't, I had to get rid of her.' 'Oh,' Rönn said patiently. 'Why did you have to?' 'I had no choice. She would have ruined my life.' 'It seems to be pretty well ruined in any case,' Gunvald Larsson said.

The doctor gave him another stern look.

'You don't understand’ Forsberg complained. 'I had told her never to come back. I'd given her money even though I was badly off. And still —

'What are you trying to say?' Rönn said kindly.

'Still she pursued me. When I got home that evening she was lying in my bed. Naked. She knew where I used to keep my spare key and had let herself in. And my wife... my fiancée was coming in fifteen minutes. There was no other way.'

'And then?'

'I carried her down into the cold-storage room where the furs were.'

‘Weren't you afraid that someone might find her there?'

'There were only two keys to it I had one and Nisse Göransson the other. And Nisse was away.'

'How long did you let her lie there?' Rönn asked.

'For five days. I wanted to wait for rain.'

Yes, you like rain’ Gunvald Larsson put in.

'Don't you understand? She was crazy. In one minute she could have ruined my whole life. Everything I had planned.'

Rönn nodded to himself. This was going well.

'Where did you get the submachine gun from?' Gunvald Larsson asked out of the blue.

'I brought it home from the war.'

Forsberg lay silent for a moment Then he added proudly, 'I killed three Bolsheviks with it'

'Was it Swedish?' Gunvald Larsson asked.

'No, Finnish. Suomi model 37.'

'And where is it now?'

'Where no one will ever find it'

'In the water?'

Forsberg nodded. Seemed to be deep in thought 'Did you like Nils Erik Göransson?' Rönn asked after a while. 'Nisse was fine. A good kid. I was like a father to him.' 'Yet you killed him?'

'He was threatening my existence. My family. Everything I live for. Eveiything I had to live for. He couldn't help it. But I gave him a quick and painless end. I didn't torment him as you're tormenting me.'

'Did Nisse know that it was you who murdered Teresa?' Rönn asked. He spoke quietly and kindly the whole time.

'He figured it out,' Forsberg replied. 'Nisse wasn't stupid. And he was a good pal. I gave him 10,000 kronor and a new car after I was married. Then we parted forever.'

'Forever?'

'Yes. I never heard from him again, not until last autumn. He called me and said that someone was shadowing him day and night. He was scared and he needed money. I gave him money. I tried to get him to go abroad.'

'But he didn't?'

'No. He was too down. And scared stiff. Thought it would look suspicious.'

'And so you killed him?'

'I had to. The situation gave me no choice. Otherwise he would have ruined my existence. My children's future. My business. Everything. Not deliberately, but he was weak and unreliable and scared. I knew that sooner or later he would come to me for protection. And thereby ruin me. Or else the police would get him and force him to talk. He was a drug addict, weak and unreliable. The police would torture him till he told eveiything he knew.'

'The police are not in the habit of torturing people,' Rönn said gently.

For the first time, Forsberg turned his head. His wrists and ankles were strapped down. He looked at Rönn and said, 'What do you call this?'

Rönn dropped his eyes.

‘Where did you board the bus?' Gunvald Larsson asked. 'On Klarabergsgatan. Outside Åhléns.' 'How did you get there?'

'By car. I parked at my office. I have a reserved space there.'

'How did you know which bus Göransson would take?'

'He called and was given instructions.'

'In other words, you told him what he was to do in order to be murdered,' Gunvald Larsson said.

'Don't you understand that he gave me no choice? Anyway, I did it humanely, he never knew a thing.'

'Humanely? How do you make that out?'

'Can't you leave me in peace now?'

'Not just yet. Explain about the bus first'

'Very well. Will you go then? Promise?'

Rönn glanced at Gunvald Larsson, then said, 'Yes. We will.'

'Nisse called me at the office on Monday morning. He was desperate and said that that man was following him wherever he went. I realized he couldn't hold out much longer. I knew that my wife and the maid would be out in the evening. And the weather was suitable. And the children always go to sleep early, so I...'

'Yes?'

'So I said to Nisse that I wanted to have a look myself at the man who was shadowing him. That he was to entice him out to Djurgården and wait until a doubledecker bus came and to take it from there at about ten o'clock and stay on until the end of the line. Fifteen minutes before he left he was to call my direct number to the office. I left home soon after nine, parked the car, went up to the office and waited. I did not put the light on. He called as agreed and I went down and waited for the bus.'

'Had you decided on the place beforehand?'

'I chose it earlier in the day when I'd taken the bus all the way there. It was a good spot -1 didn't think there would be anyone in the vicinity, especially if the rain kept up. And I reckoned that only very few passengers would go all the way to the last stop. It would have been best if only Nisse and the man who was shadowing him and the driver and one other had been sitting in the bus.'

'One other?' Gunvald Larsson remarked. 'Who would that be?'

'Anybody. Just for the sake of appearances.'

Rönn looked at Gunvald Larsson and shook his head. Then, turning to the man on the stretcher, he said, 'How did it feel?'

'Making difficult decisions is always a trial. But once I've made up my mind to carry something out -'

He broke off.

'Didn't you promise to go now?' he asked.

'What we promise and what we do are two different things,' Gunvald Larsson said.

Forsberg looked at him and said bitterly, 'All you do is torture me and tell lies.'

'I'm not the only one in this room telling lies,' Gunvald Larsson retorted. 'You had decided to kill Göransson and Inspector Stenström weeks beforehand, hadn't you?'

‘Yes.'

'How did you know that Stenström was a policeman?'

'I had observed him earlier. Without Nisse's noticing.'

'How did you know he was working alone?'

'Because he was never relieved. I took it for granted that he was working on his own account. To make a career for himself.'

Gunvald Larsson was silent for half a minute.

'Had you told Göransson not to have any identification papers on him?' he said at last.

'Yes. I gave him orders about that the very first time he called up.'

'How did you learn to operate the bus doors?'

'I had watched carefully what the drivers did. Even so, there was nearly a hitch. It was the wrong sort of bus.'

'Whereabouts in the bus did you sit? Upstairs or down below?'

'Upstairs. I was soon the only one there.'

'And then you went down the stairs with the submachine gun at the ready?'

‘Yes. I kept it behind my back so that Nisse and the others sitting at the rear wouldn't see it. Even so, one of them managed to stand up. You have to be prepared for things like that'

'Supposing it had jammed? In my day those old things often misfired.'

'I knew it was in working order. I was familiar with my weapon and I had checked it carefully before taking it to the office.' 'When did you take the submachine gun to the office?' 'About a week beforehand.'

'Weren't you afraid that someone might find it there?' 'No one would dare go to my drawers,' Forsberg said haughtily. 'Besides, I had locked it up.' 'Where did you keep it previously?'

'In a locked suitcase in the attic. Together with my other trophies.'

'Which way did you go after you had killed all those people?'

'I walked eastward along Norra Stationsgatan, took a taxi at Haga air terminal, collected my car outside the office and drove home to Stocksund.'

'And chucked the submachine gun away en route,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'Don't worry. We'll find it.'

Forsberg didn't answer.

'How did it feel?' Rönn repeated gentiy. 'When you fired?'

'I was defending myself and my family and my home and my firm. Have you ever stood with a gun in your hands, knowing that in fifteen seconds you will charge down into a trench full of the enemy?'

'No,' Rönn replied. 'I haven't'

'Then you don't know anything!' Forsberg shouted. 'You've no right to speak! How could an idiot like you understand me!'

"This won't do,' the doctor said. 'He must be given treatment now.'

He pressed the bell. A couple of orderlies came in. Forsberg went on raving as the bed was rolled out of the room. Rönn started packing up the tape recorder.

'How I loathe that bastard,' Gunvald Larsson muttered suddenly. 'What?'

'I'll tell you something I've never said to anyone else,' Gunvald Larsson confided. 'I feel sorry for nearly everyone we meet in this job. They're just a lot of scum who wish they'd never been born. It's not their fault that everything goes to hell and they don't understand why. It's types like this one who wreck their lives. Smug swine who think only of their money and their houses and their families and their so-called status. Who think they can order others about merely because they happen to be better off. There are thousands of such people and most of them are not so stupid that they strangle Portuguese whores. And that's why we never get at them. We only see their victims. This guy's an exception.'

'Hm, maybe you're right,' Rönn said.

They left the room. Outside a door farther down the corridor stood two police officers in uniform, legs apart and arms folded.

'Huh, so it's you two,' Gunvald Larsson said morosely. 'Oh yes, of course, this hospital is in Solna.'

'You got him in the end, anyway,' Kvant said.

'Yes,' Kristiansson chimed in.

'We didn't,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'It was really Stenström himself who fixed it.'

About an hour later Martin Beck and Kollberg sat drinking coffee in one of the rooms at Kungsholmsgatan.

'It was really Stenström who cleared up the Teresa murder,' Martin Beck said.

'Yes,' Kollberg said. 'But he went about it in a silly way all the same. Working on his own like that. And not leaving so much as a piece of paper behind him. Funny, that lad never grew up.'

The phone rang. Martin Beck answered.

'Hello, it's Månsson.'

'Where are you?'

‘I’m out at Västberga at the moment I've found that sheet of paper.' ‘Where?'

'On Stenström's desk. Under the blotter.' Martin Beck said nothing.

'I thought you said you'd looked here,' Månsson said reproachfully,'And-' 'Yes?'

'He's made a couple of notes on it in pencil. In the top right-hand corner it says: "To be replaced in the Teresa file." And at the bottom of the page he has written a name. Björn Forsberg. And then a question mark. Does that tell us anything?'

Martin Beck made no reply. He just sat there with the receiver in his hand. Then he began to laugh.

Unlike the hot, sultry summer of the previous book, this is set in the winter, near Christmas, with lots of rain and cold winds. How important was the weather as a backdrop to the events in the novels?