The Locked Room (30 page)

'Cop,' said the younger man with distaste.

The other said nothing, contenting himself with staring at the floor, clearing his throat, and spitting.

'How long have you been working here?' Martin Beck asked.

'Seven days,' the younger man said. 'And tomorrow it's over. I'm going back to the freight terminal. But what d'you want here?'

Martin Beck didn't reply.

Without waiting for him to speak, the man went on: 'Soon all this'll be over and done with, see? But my friend here can remember when there was twenty-five men and two bosses inside this old shack. Don't you, Grandpa?'

'Then he probably remembers a man named Svärd. Karl Edvin Svärd.'

The older man threw Martin Beck an empty glance and said: 'What of it? I don't know nothing.'

It wasn't hard to explain the old man's attitude. Someone from the office must already have told him the police were looking for people who'd known Svärd.

Martin Beck said: 'Svärd's dead and buried.'

'Oh? Dead, is he? In that case I remember him.'

'Don't sit there boasting, Grandpa,' the other man said. 'When Johansson was here asking questions the other day, you didn't remember a bloody thing about it. Anyway, you're gaga.' Obviously regarding Martin Beck as utterly harmless, he shamelessly lit another cigarette and added, by way of information: 'The old boy's gaga, that's for sure. Next week he's getting laid off, and starting in January he'll be getting his pension. If he lives that long, that is.'

'I've a very good memory,' the old man said, somewhat offended. 'You bet I remember Kalle Svärd. But no one told me he was dead.' Martin Beck said nothing.

'Even the cops can't push dead people around,' the man said philosophically.

The younger man got up and, taking the beer case he'd been sitting on with him, went over to the door. 'Isn't that damn lorry coming soon,' he snorted, 'so I can get out of this old-folks home?' He went outside and sat down in the sunshine.

'What kind of a man was Kalle Svärd?' Martin Beck asked.

The man shook his head. Again he cleared his throat and spat; but this time it wasn't by way of innuendo, though his phlegm landed only an inch or so from Martin Beck's right shoe.

'What kind of a man... is that what you want to know?'

'Yes.' .

'Sure he's dead?'

'Positive.'

'In that case I can tell you, sir, that Kalle Svärd was the biggest bloody pain in the arse I've ever met' 'How so?'

The man gave a hollow laugh. 'In every damn lousy way a man can be! I've never worked with worse, and that's saying a lot, seeing as I'm a man who's sailed the seven seas, yessir! Not even drones like that lad out there could match Kalle Svärd. And yet it's types like that who've turned a decent profession into donkey work.' He nodded towards the door.

'Was there anything special about Svärd?'

'Special? Oh, he was special, like hell he was! First and fore¬most he was the laziest bastard there ever was. No one could wriggle out of work like he did. And no one was more stingy, or less willing to stick up for his mates. He wouldn't have given a dying man a drop of water, he wouldn't.' The man fell silent Then he added slyly: 'Though he was good in some ways.'

'In which ways?'

The man's gaze wavered a little, and he hesitated before answering: 'Bah! Licking the foremen's arses, he was good at that. And letting others do his job for him. And making out he was ill. Didn't he get himself pensioned off before his time, even before they started laying people off?'

Martin Beck sat down on the beer case. "There was something else you were going to say,' he said.

'Was I?'

'Yes, what was it?'

'Is it certain Kalle's kicked the bucket?' 'Yes, he's dead. Word of honour.'

'Cops ain't got no honour, and one shouldn't really talk ill of the dead. But I've always thought it don't make no difference, much, providing a bloke stands solid with them as is alive.'

'My view exactly,' Martin Beck said. 'What was it Kalle Svärd was so good at?'

'He was dead good at breaking into the right crates, see. Though he usually did it during his overtime, so no one else didn't get nothing out of it.'

Martin Beck got up. This was news; and certainly the only news this man had to give him. To know which crates to break into had always been a matter of importance in this job - something of a professional trick and trade secret. Booze, tobacco, and foodstuffs can so easily get damaged in transit Also various saleable articles of the right size.

'Sure, sure,' said the old man. 'So that slipped out of me, did it? And I suppose that's what you wanted to know. And now you can hop it. So long, comrade.'

Karl Edvin Svärd might not have been popular, but no one could say his mates hadn't stood up for him, at least as long as he was alive.

'Good-bye,' the man said. 'Good-bye, good-bye.'

Martin Beck had taken a step towards the door and was already opening his'mouth to say 'thanks very much' or something of that sort Instead he halted and went back to the case. 'I think I'll just sit here and talk awhile,' he said.

'What's that?' said the man, looking up.

'Pity we haven't a couple of beers. But I can go and get some.'

The old man stared at him. Gradually the resignation drained from his eyes and was replaced by astonishment. 'What's that?' he said again, suspiciously. 'You want to sit and talk with me?'

'Sure.'

'I've got some,' the man said. 'Beer, that is. Under that case you're sitting on.'

Martin Beck got up, and the man took out a couple of cans of beer.

'Is it okay if I pay?' Martin Beck asked.

'It sounds bloody okay to me. Though it's all the same.'

Martin Beck took out a five-kronor bill, handed it over, sat down, and said: 'So you've been at sea, you said. When did you first sign on?'

'Nineteen twenty-two, in Sundsvall. On a schooner called Fram. Skipper's name was Jansson - a bastard, if ever there was one.'

After they'd chatted awhile, and each had opened another can of beer, the younger man came back, stared at them in amaze¬ment, and said: 'Are you really a cop?'

Martin Beck didn't reply.

'You ought to be bloody well reported,' he said and went back to his place in the sun.

Martin Beck didn't leave until the lorry had arrived, more than an hour later. Their talk had been rewarding. It was often interesting, listening to old workers, and Martin Beck couldn't understand why almost no one took time to do so. This man had seen a lot of things, both ashore and at sea. Why didn't such people ever get a word in on the mass media? Didn't politicians and technocrats ever listen to what they had to say? Certainly not; for if they did, many fateful errors in matters to do with employment and the environment could have been avoided.

As for the Svärd case, here was another loose end for him to look into. But at this particular moment Martin Beck didn't feel up to it. He wasn't used to drinking three cans of beer before lunch, and already they had begun to take effect in a faint dizzi¬ness and an aching head.

At Slussen he took a taxi to the Central Baths, where he sat in the sauna for fifteen minutes, then for ten more, and took two snorting headers into the cooling bath - concluding these exer¬cises by sleeping for an hour on the pallet in his cubicle.

The cure had the desired effect When, shortly after lunch, he arrived at the forwarding agent's office on Skeppsbron, he was once again perfectly lucid. He had a request to make, a request he didn't expect anyone to understand. And in fact they reacted as he'd expected.

'Damages in transit?'

'Precisely.'

'Well, of course things get damaged in transit Naturally! Do you know how many tons of goods we handle every year?'

A rhetorical question. All they wanted was to get rid of him as quickly as possible. But he wasn't letting go.

'Nowadays of course, with the new systems, much less gets damaged, though when it does happen it's more costly. Container traffic...'

Martin Beck wasn't interested in container traffic. What he was curious about was the goings-on in Svärd's day. 'Six years ago?'

'Yes, or earlier. Let's say during nineteen sixty-five and sixty-six.'

'It's very unreasonable of you to expect us to answer questions like that. As I've said, goods were much more often damaged in the old warehouses. Sometimes whole cases got smashed, though of course the insurance always took care of the losses. It was rare for any individual warehouseman to be called to account. Now and again, I suppose, someone was fired, though usually it was the temporary hands. Anyway, accidents simply couldn't be avoided.'

Nor did he want to know whether anyone had been fired. Instead, he asked whether any record had been kept of the damages that had occurred, and if so by whom.

'Sure. By the foreman, of course. He made a note of it in the warehouse daybook.'

'Do you still have these daybooks?'

'Possibly.'

'In that case, where?'

'In some old box up in the attic. It would be impossible to find them, at least not straight off the cuff like this.'

The firm was antediluvian. Its head offices had always been in this building in the Old City. They must have tons of old papers stowed away. But Martin Beck went on insisting. He quickly became highly unpopular. It was a price he didn't mind paying. After another brief altercation concerning the exact meaning of the word 'impossible', the people in the office realized that probably the simplest way to get rid of him was to do as he asked. A young man was sent up to the attic. Almost immediately he returned empty-handed and with a look of resignation on his face. Martin Beck noticed that the young man's jacket wasn't even dusty. He offered to accompany him personally on his next foray.

It was extremely hot up in the attic, and the dust swirled around them like fog. Otherwise it all went easily enough. After half an hour they'd found the right box. The daybooks and ledgers were of the old-fashioned cloth-bound type, with cracked cardboard covers. Their labels bore the numbers of the various warehouses as well as the years. All in all they found five volumes with the right numbers and dates - from the second half of 1965 and the first six months of 1966.

The young clerk did not look so tidy now. His jacket was ripe for the cleaners, and his face was streaked with dust and sweat.

Down in the office everyone looked at the daybooks with amazement and distaste. No, they didn't want a receipt for them; indeed they couldn't care less whether they ever saw them again.

'I do hope I've been no trouble,' Martin Beck said blithely.

They stared speechlessly after him as he departed, his booty under his arm.

He made no pretence of having increased the popularity of the country's 'largest public service organization', as the National Police Commissioner, in a statement that - even within the force - had aroused an amazement bordering on dismay, had recently called the police.

At Västberga Martin Beck took the volumes to the men's room and wiped them off. Then he washed himself, went to his office, and sat down to read them. It was three o'clock when he began, and five when he felt he'd finished.

Though largely incomprehensible to any uninitiated person, the warehouse ledgers had been fairly well kept. The jottings went on from day to day, noting in abbreviated terminology the quan¬tities of goods handled.

But what Martin Beck was looking for was there too. At irregu¬lar intervals there were notes of goods damaged. For example:

Gds dmgd in transit, 1 case cans of soup, fr recptn Svanberg Wholesalers, Huvudstagat. 16, Solna.

Such a note always indicated the type of merchandise and who it was for. On the other hand, there was never any note of the extent of the damage, its nature, or who had caused it.

Admittedly, such accidents had not happened very often. But alcohol, foodstuffs, and other consumer items constituted the over¬whelming majority.

Martin Beck transferred all the damage reports into his own notebook. And their dates. Altogether they added up to some fifty entries. When he'd done with the ledgers, he carried the whole pile out to the office and wrote on a slip of paper that they were to be posted back to the forwarding agents. On top of it all he put one of the white police correspondence cards with the message: 'Thanks for your help! Beck.'

On his way to the metro station he reflected that this would give the forwarding agency another shipment to handle, a sadistic thought that he was surprised to note aroused in him a certain childish glee.

While waiting for a vandalized metro train he reflected on modern container traffic. To lose a steel container full of bottles of cognac and then smash it in order to lovingly gather up the fragments that remained in buckets and jerry cans was now out of the question. In containers, on the other hand, today's gang¬ster syndicates could smuggle in literally anything, and were daily doing so. The Customs Office had lost all control over these events and therefore occupied itself with senselessly persecuting indi¬vidual travellers who might have a few packs of cigarettes or an undeclared botde of whisky in their baggage.

He changed trains at Central Station and got off at the College of Commerce.

In the state alcohol shop on Surbrunnsgatan the woman behind the counter stared suspiciously at his jacket, dusty and crumpled from his foray into the attic.

'I'd just like a couple of bottles of red wine, please,' he said.

Instantly her hand went under the counter to press the button that lit up the red control light 'Your identity card, please,' she said grimly.

He showed his card, and she blushed slightly, as if victimized by an unusually stupid and indecent practical joke. Then he went home to Rhea.

After pulling the bell rope once, Martin Beck felt if the door was open. It was locked. But inside the lobby the light was on, and after half a minute or so he tried again.

She came and opened the door. Today she was wearing brown corduroy trousers and a funny sort of pale-mauve shift that reached halfway down her thighs. 'Oh, it's you, is it?' she said grumpily.