The Terrorists (5 page)

This was true. The banks did not wish to run the risk of paying out life insurances and expensive damages to employees who were injured.

A clap of thunder seemed to shake the venerable courtroom. In fact it was Hedobald Braxén belching. This did not happen all that seldom and was one of the many reasons for his nickname.

“Has the defense any questions?”

Crasher shook his head. He was busy writing something down on a piece of paper.

Bulldozer called his next witness.

Kenneth Kvastmo stepped up and laboriously repeated the oath. His testimony began with the usual litany: occupation police assistant, born in Arvika in nineteen hundred and forty-two; first served in patrol cars in Solna and later in Stockholm.

Bulldozer said, foolishly, “Tell us in your own words.”

“What?”

“What happened, of course.”

“Yes,” said Kvastmo. “She was standing there, the murderess. Well, she didn’t manage to murder nobody, of course. Karl didn’t do nothing, as usual, of course, so I threw myself on her like a panther.”

The image was unfortunate. Kvastmo was a large, shapeless man with a fat bottom, a bull neck and fleshy features.

“I got hold of her right hand just as she was trying to pull out the knife, and then I told her she was under arrest and then I just arrested her. I had to carry her out to the car and in the back seat she resisted arrest violently and then it turns out she was assaulting an officer of the law because one of my shoulder flaps almost come off and my wife was furious when she had to sew it on because there was something on TV she was going to watch and also a button had almost came off my uniform and she didn’t have no blue thread, Anna-Greta, my wife, I mean.
And when we was done in the bank, then Karl drove us to the station. There wasn’t nothing else after that except she called me a pig, but that’s not really insulting a policeman. A pig don’t cause no disrespect or contempt of the force, I mean neither to the individual officer which in this case was me, or to the force as a whole does it? She’s the one, over there, that said it.” He pointed to Rebecka Lind.

While the policeman was revealing his narrative abilities, Bulldozer was watching the woman spectator, who had been busily taking notes and was now sitting with her elbows on her thighs, her chin in her hands, as she attentively watched both Braxén and Rebecka in turn. Her face looked troubled, or rather expressed profound unease. She bent down and scratched an ankle with one hand as she chewed a nail on the other hand. Now she was looking at Braxén again and her half-closed blue eyes expressed a mixture of resignation and hesitant hope.

Hedobald Braxén appeared to be only just physically present, and there was no indication whatsoever that he had heard a word of the evidence.

“No questions,” he said.

Bulldozer Olsson was satisfied. The case was open-and-shut, exactly as he had said from the start. The only fault was that it had taken so long. Now when the judge suggested an hour’s adjournment, he nodded his approval enthusiastically and rushed toward the door with short, bouncing steps.

Martin Beck and Rhea Nielsen used the break to go to the Amarante. After open sandwiches and beer, they finished off with coffee and brandy. Martin Beck had had several boring hours. He had gone up to the station for a spell with Rönn and Strömgren, but that had not been particularly rewarding. He had never liked Strömgren and his relationship with Rönn was complicated. The simple truth was that he no longer had any friends left at the station on Kungsholmsgatan; both there and at the National Police Administration there were a number of people who admired him, others who detested him, and a third group, the largest, who quite simply envied him. Out at Västberga, too, he had no friends since Lennart Kollberg had left. Benny Skacke had applied for the job and got it, on Martin
Beck’s recommendation. Their relationship was fairly good, but from that to genuine warmth was a long step. Sometimes he just sat and stared into space, wishing Kollberg were back; to be perfectly honest—and he found that easy nowadays—he mourned for him the way you mourn for a child or a lost love.

He sat chatting for a while in Rönn’s room, but not only was Rönn indifferent company, he also had a lot to do.

“Wonder how things are with Gunvald,” said Rönn. “I wouldn’t mind trading places with him. Bullfights and palm trees and expense-account dinners, boy oh boy!”

Rönn specialized in giving Martin Beck a guilty conscience. Why couldn’t he have been offered that trip, he who certainly needed more encouragement than anyone else?

It was impossible to tell Rönn the truth—that he had actually been discriminated against simply because they considered it impossible to send out a runny-nosed northerner, a man with a notably unrepresentative appearance who could only with the greatest goodwill be said to speak passable English.

But Rönn was a good detective. He had been nothing much to start with, but now he was undoubtedly one of the section’s greatest assets.

As usual, Martin Beck tried but failed to find something encouraging to say, and shortly he left.

Now he was sitting with Rhea, and that in truth was quite a different matter. The only trouble was that she seemed sad.

“This trial,” she said. “Christ, it’s depressing! And the people who decide things! The prosecutor is just a buffoon. And the way he stared at me, as if he’d never seen a girl before.”

“Bulldozer,” said Martin Beck. “He’s seen lots of girls and anyhow he’s not your type.”

“And the defense lawyer doesn’t even know his client’s name! That girl hasn’t a hope in heaven.”

“It’s not over yet. Bulldozer wins almost all his cases, but if he does lose one occasionally, it’s always to Braxén. Do you remember that Swärd business?”

“Do I remember!” said Rhea. She laughed hoarsely. “When you came and stayed at my place the first time. The locked room and all that. Two years ago almost. How could I not remember?”

She looked happy, and nothing could have made him happier. They had had good times since then, full of talk, jealousy, friendly quarrels and, not least, good spells of sex, trust and companionship. Although he was over fifty and thought he had experienced most things, he had still opened up with her. Hopefully, she shared his feelings about the relationship, but on that point he was more uncertain. She was physically stronger and the more free-thinking of the two of them, presumably also more intelligent, anyhow quicker-thinking. She had plenty of bad points, among others that she was often cross and irritable, but he loved them. Perhaps that expression was stupid or far too romantic, but he could find no better one.

He looked at her and became aware that he had stopped being jealous. Her large nipples were thrusting out beneath the material, her shirt was carelessly buttoned, she had taken off her sandals and was rubbing her naked feet against each other under the table. Now and again she bent down and scratched her ankles. But she was herself and not his; perhaps that was the best thing about her.

Her face became troubled at this moment, the irregular features set in an expression of anxiety and distaste. “I don’t understand much about the law,” she said, with little truth, “but this case appears lost. Can’t you say something to change it when you testify?”

“Hardly. I don’t even know what he wants out of me.”

“The other defense witnesses seem useless. A bank director and a home economics teacher and a policeman. Were any of them even there?”

“Yes, Kristiansson. He was driving the patrol car.”

“Is he as dumb as the other cop?”

“Yes.”

“And I don’t suppose the case can be won on the closing argument, the defense’s, I mean?”

Martin Beck smiled. He should have known she would get this seriously involved.

“No, it doesn’t seem likely. But are you sure the defense ought to win and that Rebecka isn’t guilty?”

“The investigation is a load of rubbish. The whole case ought to be turned back over to the police—nothing’s been properly
investigated. I hate the police on that score alone. They hand over cases to the prosecutor’s office that aren’t even half completed. And then the prosecutor struts around like a turkey cock on a garbage heap and the people who are supposed to judge are only sitting there because they’re politically useless and no good for anything else.”

In many ways she was right. The jurymen were scraped from the bottom of the political party barrels, they were often friends of the prosecutor, or let themselves be dominated by strong-willed judges who fundamentally despised them.

“It may sound odd, I know,” said Martin Beck, “but I think you underestimate Braxén.”

On the short walk back to the courthouse, Rhea suddenly took his hand. That seldom happened and always meant that she was worried or in a state of great emotional tension. Her hand was like everything else about her, strong and reliable.

Bulldozer came into the foyer at the same time as they did, one minute before the court was to reconvene. “That bank robbery on Vasagatan is all cleared up,” he said breathlessly. “But we’ve got two new ones instead, and one of them …”

His gaze fell on Kvastmo and he set off without even finishing the sentence. “You can go home,” he told Kvastmo. “Or back on duty. I would take it as a personal favor.”

This was Bulldozer’s way of bawling someone out.

“What?” said Kvastmo.

“You can go back on duty,” said Bulldozer. “Every man is needed at his post.”

“My evidence took care of that gangster dame, didn’t it?” said Kvastmo.

“Yes,” said Bulldozer. “It was brilliant.”

Kvastmo left to carry on his struggle against the gangster community in other arenas.

The court reconvened and the case continued.

Braxén called his first witness, Rumford Bondesson, bank director. After the formalities, Braxén suddenly pointed at the witness with his unlit cigar and said inquisitorially, “Have you ever met Rebecka Lind?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“About a month ago. The young lady came to the head office of the bank. She was dressed in the same clothes as now, but she was carrying an infant in some kind of harness on her chest.”

“And you received her?”

“Yes. I had a few moments to spare, as it happened, and I am also interested in modern young people.”

“Especially the female kind?”

“Yes. I don’t mind admitting it.”

“How old are you, Mr. Bondesson?”

“Fifty-nine.”

“What did Rebecka Lind want?”

“To borrow money. Clearly she had no idea whatsoever about the simplest financial matters. Someone had told her that banks lend money, so she went to the nearest big bank and asked to speak to the manager.”

“And what did you reply?”

“That banks were commercial enterprises which didn’t lend money without interest and security. She replied that she had a goat and three cats.”

“Why did she want to borrow money?”

“To go to America. Just where in America she didn’t know, and neither did she know what she was going to do when she got there. But she had an address, she said.”

“What else did she say?”

“She asked if there was a bank that was not so commercial, that was owned by the people and to which ordinary people could go when they needed money. I replied, mostly in fun, that the Credit Bank, or the PK Bank as it is called nowadays, was at least officially owned by the state, and so by the people. She appeared to be satisfied with that answer.”

Crasher went up to the witness, jabbed the cigar against his chest and asked, “Was anything else said?”

Mr. Bondesson did not reply, and finally the judge said, “You’re under oath, Mr. Bondesson. But you do not have to answer questions which reveal criminal activities on your part.”

“Yes,” said Bondesson, with obvious reluctance. “Young girls are interested in me and I in them. I offered to solve her short-term problems.”

He looked around and caught an annihilating look from Rhea
Nielsen and the glint of a bald head from Bulldozer Olsson, who was deep in his papers.

“And what did Rebecka Lind say to that?”

“I don’t remember. Nothing came of it.”

Crasher had returned to his table. He rummaged around in his papers and said, “At the police interrogation, Rebecka said that she had made the following remarks: ‘I loathe dirty old men’ and ‘I think you’re disgusting.’ ” Crasher repeated in a loud voice: “Dirty old men.” With a gesture of his cigar, he implied that as far as he was concerned the interrogation was over.

“I do not understand at all what this has to do with the case,” said Bulldozer without even looking up.

The witness stepped down with an injured air.

Then it was Martin Beck’s turn. The formalities were as usual, but Bulldozer was now more attentive and followed the defense’s questions with obvious interest.

“Yesterday,” said Crasher when the preliminaries were over, “I received word that a certain Filip Trofast Mauritzon had been refused the right to appeal to the High Court. As you may remember, Chief Inspector Beck, Mauritzon was convicted over eighteen months ago of murder in connection with armed robbery of a bank. The prosecutor in the case was my perhaps not-all-that-learned friend, Sten Robert Olsson, who at that time went under the title of Royal Prosecutor. I myself had the thankless and for my profession often morally burdensome task of defending Mauritzon, who undoubtedly was what we call in everyday speech a ‘criminal.’ I would now like to ask one single question: Do you, Chief Inspector Beck, consider that Mauritzon was guilty of the bank robbery and the murder connected with it, and that the investigation presented by present counsel for the prosecution, Mr. Olsson, was satisfactory from a police viewpoint?”

“No,” said Martin Beck.

Although Bulldozer’s cheeks had suddenly taken on a pink tone which matched his shirt and enhanced even further his monstrous tie with its golden mermaids and hula-hula dancers, he smiled happily and said, “I, too, would like to ask a question.
Did you, Chief Inspector Beck, take any part in the investigation of the murder at the bank?”

“No,” said Martin Beck.

Bulldozer slapped his hands together in front of his face and nodded in a self-satisfied way.