Cop Killer (10 page)

Kollberg had been married to Gun for seven years. They had two children, a girl six and a boy three, and Martin Beck had always looked on their marriage as ideal. Before he himself met Rhea Nielsen, he had envied Kollberg. Gun was clever and full of vitality; she had warmth and a sense of humour and was a good companion and, as far as he could see, a marvellous mother. Moreover, she was pretty and looked younger than her thirty-five years. He could imagine Gun running courses in Spanish or jazz ballet or whatever she and the other wives in a place like Anderslöv might think up. She would undoubtedly find something to occupy her time, but, like Kollberg, she wouldn't be happy. She too was a dyed-in-the-wool Stockholmer.

A yellow distribution van with KVALLSPOSTEN in red letters on the side swung away from the kerb in front of the Co-op. As it drove on up the hill, a woman came out of the newspaper kiosk and put up a placard with the headlines.

Half the placard was taken up by the words WOMAN MURDERED on two lines, and under that, in smaller type, it said: in Anderslöv?

Kollberg took Martin Beck by the arm and stepped but into the street, but Martin Beck nodded towards the newspaper van, which had now stopped outside the chemist's across the street from the inn.

'I usually buy the paper at the tobacconist's in the square,' he said.

'Usually?' Kollberg said. 'Have you already developed habits around here?'

'Well it's a nice shop,' said Martin Beck. 'A village shop, well stocked. They've even got toys, if you want to buy something for Bodil and Joshua.'

The shop owner was standing behind the counter with the news placard in her hand.

'So you've found Sigbrit,' she said.

Martin Beck was already well known.

'Poor thing,' she said.

'Don't believe everything you read in the papers,' Kollberg said. 'She's still only missing. There is a question mark down there, as a matter of fact, although it's pretty small.'

'Well, can you beat that,' the woman said. 'The way the newspapers are these days, a person hardly wants to sell them. Nothing but lies and filth and misery.'

They bought Kvällsposten and Trelleborgs Allehanda, and Kollberg had a look at the toy department, which really was well stocked. He found a couple of things he had never seen at NK, PUB, Åhléns, or any of the other big department stores in Stockholm, and decided to come back later and buy them for his children.

Next to Kollberg's car stood an open sportscar, parked with its rear end towards the state alcohol shop. It was an older model, with clean, straight lines. It looked well cared for, and the bottle-green enamel sparkled in the sun. Martin Beck, who was not usually the least bit interested in cars, stopped to look.

'A Singer,' Kollberg said. 'At least twenty-five years old. Nice car, but cold as hell in the winter.'

Kollberg's speciality was knowing almost everything.

They went into the dining room at the inn. It was lunchtime, and several tables were occupied. They sat down at a corner table near the veranda and opened their papers.

Trelleborgs Allehanda had a brief two-column story on the front page about the disappearance of Sigbrit Mård. The text was objective and accurate and bore the impress of Allwright's statements to the press. The article contained only the names of the missing woman, Allwright, and Martin Beck. Although the lead and the body of the text both reported that the National Murder Squad had been called in on the case, the reporter had taken pains not to present his readers with any presuppositions, and the words 'murdered' and 'murderer' were not mentioned. The story was illustrated with the passport photo, and the caption was a request for information from anyone who might have seen the woman since the time of her disappearance.

Kvällsposten was not so restrained. The front page carried a two-column picture of a twenty-year-old Sigbrit Mård with a pony tail and big white earrings. There were additional pictures inside the paper - Sigbrit Mård's house and the house of the Roseanna murderer, the bus stop where she was last seen, an eight-year-old shot of Folke Bengtsson in a police car looking frightened, and a picture of Martin Beck with his mouth open and his hair ruffled.

The story made a great deal of the fact that Sigbrit Mård lived next door to a sex murderer, and there was a special article recounting the Roseanna case of nine years before. There were comments from a couple of Anderslöv residents, giving their opinions of the missing woman ('a bright, pleasant girl, who always had a smile and a friendly word for everyone') and of Folke Bengtsson ('an odd one, a loner, he put people off'). Mrs Signe Persson, 'perhaps the second-to-last person to see Mrs Mård alive', gave a lively description of how she had seen her standing at the bus stop and then 'presumably' climb into Bengtsson's car.

There was also a special box about Martin Beck, 'the well-known detective and Chief of the National Murder Squad', but when Martin Beck reached the words 'Sweden's Maigret', he threw down the newspaper in the empty chair beside him.

'Ugh,' he said with emphasis and looked around for the waitress.

'You can say that again,' Kollberg said. 'And now we'll have Expressen and Aftonbladet and the whole lot, and they're all going to pounce on you wanting statements.'

'I'm not planning to make any statements,' said Martin Beck. 'But eventually I suppose we'll have to hold some kind of press conference.'

The waitress came, and they ordered Skånsk beef stew with beets and pickles.

They ate in silence. Kollberg finished first, as he always did. He wiped his mouth and looked around the room, which by now was almost empty.

Besides himself and Martin Beck, there was only one other person left - a man sitting at a table by the door to the kitchen.

There was a bottle of mineral water and a glass on the table in front of him. The man was smoking a pipe and flipping through a newspaper, and every now and then he threw a glance at the two detectives.

Kollberg had a vague feeling that he recognized him and studied him surreptitiously.

He looked to be in his forties and had lots of dark blond hair, so long in the back that it hung down over the collar of his light-brown suede jacket. He was wearing steel-rimmed glasses and was smooth-shaven, except for his thick, curly sideburns. His face was thin, with prominent cheekbones, and the lines around his mouth were bitter, or possibly cynical. He wrinkled his brow as he scraped out his pipe into the ashtray in front of him.

He had long, sinewy fingers.

All of a sudden he lifted his head and looked straight into Kollberg's eyes. His gaze was calm and steady and very blue. Kollberg didn't have time to look away, and for a moment they stared at each other.

Martin Beck pushed away his plate and emptied his glass of beer. As he set down the glass, the man folded his newspaper, stood up, and walked over to their table.

'I don't know if you recognize me,' he said.

Martin Beck looked at the man searchingly and shook his head.

Kollberg waited.

'Åke Gunnarsson. Although now my name is Boman.'

They remembered him very well. Six years earlier he had killed a man in a fight - a fellow reporter his own age named Alf Matsson. They had both been drunk. Matsson had given him plenty of provocation, and the death could almost be characterized as accidental. When Gunnarsson recovered from the immediate shock, he had acted coldly and intelligently to cover the traces of what he had done. Martin Beck had been in charge of the investigation, and, among other things, had spent a week in Budapest before picking up Gunnarsson's trail. Kollberg had also been present at the arrest, which had not seemed especially gratifying to either one of them. They had developed a certain sympathy for Gunnarsson, whom they regarded as the victim of unfortunate circumstances rather than as a cold-blooded murderer.

Gunnarsson had had a beard and short hair in those days and had been rather fat.

'Sit down,' said Martin Beck, moving the newspaper off the chair.

'Thank you,' the man said, and sat down.

'You've changed,' Kollberg said. 'Lost weight, for one thing.'

'It wasn't intentional. But for that matter I've deliberately tried to alter my appearance, and I suppose I can congratulate myself on the fact that neither of you recognized me. Although maybe you wouldn't have recognized me anyway.'

'Why "Boman"?' Kollberg wondered.

'It was my mother's name before she married. It seemed the best thing to do. Now I'm used to it, and I've almost forgotten my old name. I'd be grateful if you'd forget it too.'

'Okay, Boman,' Kollberg said.

Martin Beck thought about the curious coincidence that had suddenly brought him and Kollberg and two people who were the cause of two of their most difficult cases together again after so many years, in a place like Anderslöv.

'What are you doing in Anderslöv?' he asked. 'Do you live here?'

'No,' said Åke Boman. 'As a matter of fact, I'm here to try and get an interview with you. I live in Trelleborg and I work for Trelleborgs Allehanda. I wrote that piece on the front page that you were reading a little while ago.'

'Didn't you write about cars?' Kollberg said.

'Yes, but on a provincial paper you have to do a little of everything. I was lucky to get this job. It was my parole officer who fixed it up.'

The waitress came over and cleared the table. 'Shall we have some coffee?' Kollberg said. 'Okay,' said Åke Boman and Martin Beck together. 'Maybe you'd like a cognac?'

Åke Boman shook his head, and the waitress went out to the kitchen.

'Don't drink on the job?' said Kollberg.

'I don't drink at all,' said Åke Boman. 'Not since...'

He didn't finish the sentence, but took out a tin of Capstan and started to fill his pipe.

'How long have you been working on the paper?' asked Martin Beck.

'A year and a half now. I was sentenced to six years, as you may know. Second degree murder. I spent three years in prison and then I got an automatic reduction in sentence and a parole. Those first few months on the outside were God-awful. Almost worse than prison, and that was indescribable. I didn't know where to go. All I knew for sure was that I had to stay away from Stockholm. Partly because so many people knew me up there, and partly because the whole merry-go-round would have started again, with the booze and the bars ... well, you know. I eventually got a job in a garage in Trelleborg and a parole officer who was marvellous. She convinced me to start writing again, and then I got this job.

There's only the editor and a couple of other people in town who know.. .I've been damned lucky, as a matter of fact.'

But he did not look particularly glad or happy.

They drank their coffee in silence for a while.

'Is that your Singer parked out there?' Kollberg asked.

Åke Boman beamed with pride as he answered.

'Yes, that was a piece of good luck too. It was standing in the barn on an estate up near Önnestad where I was on an assignment last summer. The man who owned it had been dead for a year, and his widow had just let it sit.'

He puffed on his pipe.

'It looked pretty scruffy, but that was easily fixed. I bought it on the spot I do a little writing on the side now and then - special articles for sports car magazines and a short story once in a while - so I had a little money put away.'

'Are you still on parole?' asked Martin Beck.

'No, not since September,' said Åke Boman. 'But I still see my parole officer occasionally. And her family. She has me to dinner every now and then. You know, I'm a bachelor and she assumes I can't cook for myself.'

Martin Beck remembered a photograph he had seen in Boman's flat six years before. A young, blonde woman he had been planning to marry.

Åke Boman puffed on his pipe and stared thoughtfully at Martin Beck.

'The fact is, the paper sent me here to pump you about this disappearance,' he said apologetically. 'And here I've been sitting talking about myself the whole time.'

‘We don't have much to add to what you've already printed,' said Martin Beck. 'You did speak to Herrgott Allwright, didn't you?'

'Yes, but the very fact that you two are here at all must mean you suspect something,' said Åke Boman. 'Seriously now, do you think Folke Bengtsson has murdered her?'

'We don't think anything yet,' said Martin Beck. 'We haven't even talked to Bengtsson. The only thing we know for sure is that Sigbrit Mård hasn't been home since the seventeenth of October, and that no one seems to know where she is.'

'You've read the evening papers,' said Åke Boman.

'Yes, but they'll have to be responsible for their own speculations,' Kollberg said. 'You seem to work for a decent newspaper, in any case.'

'We're thinking of holding a press conference by and by,' said Martin Beck. 'It would be pointless at the moment, because there still isn't anything to say. But if you can take it easy for a while, I'll call and let you know as soon as there's anything new. Is that okay?'

'Okay,' said Åke Boman.

They both had the feeling they owed him something. What it was, and why, they didn't know.

Martin Beck couldn't stop thinking about Bertil Mård's hands, and after lunch he decided to go down to Trelleborg and send a telex query on Mård to Interpol in Paris.

Most people, even most policemen, are under the impression that Interpol is a rather ineffective international agency, unwieldy and bureaucratic, primarily a facade, behind which there is essentially nothing to be found.

The case of Bertil Mård gave the lie to all such notions. Martin Beck had not been able to think up any clever questions. He merely asked if Mård had ever been booked anywhere, and if so, what for.

He had his answer within six hours, a fairly detailed answer at that

They sat in Allwright's flat that same evening and pondered the document, not without a certain astonishment

They were having sandwiches and beer.

At Allwright's they still had a chance of being left more or less in peace, since the police station was, as usual, closed at this time of day.