The Locked Room (29 page)

As he paid his bill, he had cause to note that this was his first restaurant meal for some time. During his period of abstinence the prices, already exorbitant, had become ridiculous.

Home again, he felt more restless than ever and wandered about the little flat for a long while before retiring with a book; a book that was neither boring enough to send him to sleep nor inter¬esting enough to keep him awake. About three o'clock he got up and took a couple of sleeping pills, something from which he usually abstained. They quickly knocked him out, and when he woke up he still felt groggy. Yet he had long overslept his usual hour and hadn't dreamt at all.

Once back in his office he began the day's investigations by thoroughly reading through his own notes. This kept him busy until lunch, which consisted of a cup of tea and some dry toast

Then he went to the bathroom and washed his hands. When he came back, something happened: the phone rang.

'Inspector Beck?'

'Yes.'

"This is Handelsbanken.' The man said which branch of the bank he worked at and went on: 'We received an inquiry from you about a client called Karl Edvin Svärd.'

'Yes?'

'He has an account with us.' 'Is there any money in it?'

'Yes. A considerable sum.' 'How much?'

'About sixty thousand. It's...' The man fell silent.

'What were you about to say?' Martin Beck asked.

‘Well, in my opinion there's something odd about this account.'

'Have you got the papers there?'

'Certainly.'

'Then I can come and look at them at once?' 'Naturally. Just ask for me. My name is Bengtsson. I'm the manager.'

It was a relief to get moving. The bank was on the corner of Odengatan and Sveavägen. In spite of all the traffic he was there in less than half an hour.

The manager was right. There was something odd about Svärd's account

Martin Beck sat at a table behind the counter, studying the documents and for once feeling grateful for a system that gave the police and other authorities unrestricted access to people's private affairs.

The bank manager said: 'The striking thing about it, of course, is that this client has a current account It would have been more natural for him to have, for instance, a savings account, which yields a higher rate of interest'

This observation was correct. But even more striking was the regularity with which the sum of seven hundred and fifty kronor had been deposited. The entries were always made between the fifteenth and the twentieth of every month.

'As far as I can see,' Martin Beck said, 'this money was not paid in directly to this branch.'

'No, never. The deposits were always made somewhere else. If you'll take a look, Inspector, you'll see they were always made at other branches, often branches of banks other than ours. Technically it makes no difference, since the money always ended up in Svärd's current account here with us. But there almost seems to be a system behind these constant changes.'

'You mean Svärd put the money in himself but didn't want to be recognized?'

'Well, that would be the first thing one would think of, yes. When you put money into your current account, after all, you don't have to state who made the deposit'

'Though you have to fill in a deposit slip, don't you?'

'Not necessarily. Plenty of people are unfamiliar with the system, and in that case the teller usually fills in the name, the account number, and the number of the branch. It's all part of our service to our clients.'

'But what happens to the slip?'

'The client gets a copy, which is his receipt. When the payment is made into the client's own account the bank doesn't send him any notification. Notifications are only sent when asked for.'

'Then where are all the originals?'

'They are filed centrally.'

Martin Beck let his finger run down the rows of figures. Then he said: 'Didn't Svärd ever take out any money?'

'No, and in my view that's the oddest thing of all. He has never drawn a single cheque on this account, and now that I've looked into the matter it also appears he never even had a chequebook. At least not for years.'

Martin Beck rubbed his nose energetically. No chequebook had been found at Svärd's place, nor were there any copies of deposit slips or notifications from the bank.

'Was Svärd known by sight here?'

'No. None of us had ever seen him.'

'How old is this account?'

'It seems to have been opened in April, 1966.'

'And since then seven hundred and fifty kronor have been coming in every month?'

'Yes. Though the last deposit is dated 16th March.' The man looked at his calendar. 'That was a Thursday. The next month no money came in.'

'The explanation is quite simple,' Martin Beck said. 'It was about then that Svärd died.'

'Oh? We've had no notification to that effect. In such cases the. deceased's relatives usually communicate with us.'

'He doesn't seem to have had any.'

The bank manager looked bewildered.

'Until now,' Martin Beck said. 'Good morning.'

He realized he'd better get going before the bank was robbed. If that were to happen while he was on the premises he could hardly help becoming entangled in the activities of the special squad. And that kind of entanglement he'd certainly rather avoid.

New aspects to the case. Seven hundred and fifty a month for six years! That was a singularly regular income, and since Svärd had never taken anything out, quite a large sum of money had gradually accumulated in the mysterious account: fifty-four thou¬sand kronor.

To Martin Beck that was a lot of money. For Svärd it must have been even more, almost a fortune.

So Rhea had not been that far from the truth when she'd talked about money in his mattress. The only difference was that Svärd had been more rational; he had kept up with the times.

This new development spurred Martin Beck to fresh activity. The next step would be to have a word with the tax authorities, for one thing; and, for another, to take a look at such deposit slips as might have been filed.

The Internal Revenue people knew nothing of Svärd. There he had been regarded as a pauper, and the authorities had contented themselves with that refined form of exploitation called value-added tax on foodstuffs - a tax that has been arranged with a special view to hitting those who have already been knocked out.

Well, Svärd had certainly not earned his money by hard work, and the notion that anyone in his position could have saved it from his pension was absurd.

And the deposit slips, then?

The head office of the bank quickly produced the last twenty-two of them - all in all there should have been seventy-two, if he had counted correctly - and that same afternoon Martin Beck was already sitting and staring at them. They all came from various branch offices, and they all looked as if they had been written in different handwritings, accepted without question by as many different cashiers. By and by it would of course be possible to visit these people and ask whether they remembered the client But this would consume an enormous amount of time, without any great likelihood of yielding results.

Who could be expected to remember a person who had deposited seven hundred and fifty kronor into his own current account many months before? The answer was simple: no one.

A little later Martin Beck was home again, drinking tea out of his 1919 Peace Mug. He looked at it and thought that if the mys¬terious man who had made all these payments into his account looked like Field Marshal Haig, anyone would have been able to recognize him. But who looked like Haig? No one, not even in the most pretentious films or plays.

This evening, again, things were somehow different. He was still restless and unsatisfied, but this time it was due in some way to his not being able to tear his thoughts away from his job: Svärd; that idiotic locked room; the mysterious man who had paid in all that money.

Who was he? Could it have been Svärd himself, in spite of everything? No. It seemed most improbable that Svärd should have put himself to all that trouble. And it also seemed improbable that Svärd himself, a mere warehouseman, would ever have hit on the idea of opening a current account.

No, the money had been paid in by someone else. Probably a man, since it was less likely that a woman had gone into the bank, given her name as Karl Edvin Svärd, and said she wanted to put seven hundred and fifty kronor into her own current account...

But why should anyone want to give Svärd money, anyway? That was a question he must leave temporarily unanswered.

Then there was another misty figure he had to reckon with. The mysterious nephew.

And least tangible of all was the person who - sometime in April or early May - had managed to shoot Svärd, even though the latter was in a veritable fortress, a room locked from the inside.

Was it possible, perhaps, that these three had all been the same person? The man who had made the payments, the nephew, and the murderer? Well, that was a question worth brooding on at some length.

He put aside his mug and looked at the clock. Time had passed quickly - half past nine already. Too late to go anywhere. Anyway, where had he been thinking of going?

Martin Beck picked out a Bach record and turned on the record player. Then he decided to lie down for a while.

He carried on thinking. If all gaps and question marks were ignored, a story could be assembled out of what he now knew. The nephew, the man who had paid in the money, and the murderer were one and the same person. Svärd was a petty blackmailer who for six years had been forcing this person to pay him seven hundred and fifty kronor a month. But being pathologically stingy, Svärd had never used any of the money, and his victim had gone on paying, year after year. But in the end the latter had had enough.

Martin Beck found no particular difficulty in imagining Svärd as a blackmailer. But a blackmailer must have something on his victim, must constitute a latent threat to the person he extorts money from. In his own flat Svärd had had nothing that could incriminate anyone. Of course, he might have rented a safe-deposit box in some bank. In which case it would soon come to the atten¬tion of the police.

In any case, a blackmailer had to be in possession of some kind of information. Where could a warehouseman get such informa¬tion? Where he worked. Possibly in the house he lived in. As far as anyone knew, these were the only two places where Svärd had any human contact. At home and at his job.

But Svärd had stopped working in June, 1966; two months earlier the first payment had been made into his current account. All this had happened more than six years ago. What had Svärd been doing since?

The record was still going around and around when he woke up. If he'd dreamed anything, he'd forgotten it.

Wednesday - and he was quite clear how his work should start: with a walk.

But not to the metro. His office at Västberga did not attract him, and today he felt he had excellent reasons for not going to it. Instead, he thought he'd take a little stroll along the quays, and began by walking southwards along Skeppsbron, across Slussen and on eastwards along Stadsgården Quay.

This was the part of Stockholm he'd always been fondest of. Particularly when he was a child - when all the ships had tied up here with their cargoes from near and far. Nowadays the real ships were few and far between, their day was past, and the Aland ferries, with their bars and drunks, had replaced them. A poor substitute. The old guard of dockers and seamen, too, who in those days had given this part of the harbour much of its charm, were beginning to die out

Today, again, he was feeling a little different. He enjoyed, for example, walking in the fresh air, walking briskly, knowing where he was going and letting his thoughts run free.

He reflected on the persistent rumours about his own promo¬tion and felt more troubled by them than before. Right up to his wretched mistake, fifteen months ago, Martin Beck had been afraid of precisely this: that he'd be given a job that would tie him to his desk. He'd always liked working out in the field - or at least to be able to come and go as he wished.

The thought of an office with a conference table, two 'genuine oil paintings', a swivel chair, armchairs for visitors, a cheap rug, and his own private secretary, all this was a good deal more terri¬fying today than it had been a week ago. Not because the rumours struck him as well founded, but because he had begun to think about the consequences. Perhaps, in spite of everything, what he made of his life wasn't entirely meaningless?

Half an hour of brisk walking and he reached his goal. The warehouse was an old one. Not being designed for container traffic or suitable to modern requirements, it was soon to be torn down.

Inside, very little was going on. The office where the chief ware¬houseman should have been sitting was empty, and the glass panes through which that important personage had formerly supervised the work were dusty. One was broken, in fact, and the calendar on the wall was two years out of date.

A forklift lorry was standing beside a not very impressive stack of merchandise, and behind it were two men - one wearing orange overalls and the other a grey coat

Each was sitting on a plastic beer case, and another case, upside down, stood between them. One of the two men was quite young; the other looked as if he might be about seventy, though that seemed improbable. The younger man was reading yesterday's evening paper as he smoked a cigarette. The older was doing nothing at all.

Both looked up at Martin Beck lackadaisically, and the younger marked his arrival by dropping his cigarette on the floor and stamping it out with his heel.

'Smoking in the warehouse,' said the older man, shaking his head. 'That would have been...'

'In the old days...' the younger man said, bored. 'But we aren't living in the old days, now; haven't you got that yet, you old thief?' Turning to Martin Beck, he said in an unfriendly voice: 'What do you want? This is private property. It's even written on the door. Can't you read?'

Martin Beck took out his wallet and showed his card.