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The Fire Engine That Disappeared
Colin Dexter
Maj Sjowall
Per Wahloo
The excellent fifth classic installment in the Martin Beck detective series from the 1960s – the novels that have inspired all Scandinavian crime fiction.Widely recognised as the greatest masterpieces of crime fiction ever written, these are the original detective stories that pioneered the detective genre.Gunvald Larsson sits carefully observing the dingy Stockholm apartment of a man under police surveillance. He looks at his watch: nine minutes past eleven in the evening. He yawns, slapping his arms to keep warm. At the same moment the house explodes, killing at least three people.Chief Inspector Martin Beck and his men don't suspect arson or murder until they discover a peculiar circumstance and a link is established between the explosion and a suicide committed that same day, in which the dead man left a note consisting of just two words: Martin Beck.Written in the 1960s, they are the work of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo – a husband and wife team from Sweden. The ten novels follow the fortunes of the detective Martin Beck, whose enigmatic, taciturn character has inspired countless other policemen in crime fiction. The novels can be read separately, but do follow a chronological order, so the reader can become familiar with the characters and develop a loyalty to the series. Each book has a new introduction in order to help bring these books to a new audience.
The Fire Engine that Disappeared
MAJ SJÖWALL AND PER WAHLÖÖ
Translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate
Copyright (#ulink_8d869aa8-672e-5847-8385-cf2a5035dd53)
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
4th Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
This ebook first published by Harper Perennial in 2007
This 4th Estate edition published in 2016
This translation first published by Random House Inc, New York, in 1971
Originally published in Sweden by P. A. Norstedt & Söners Forlag
Copyright text © Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö 1969
Copyright introduction © Colin Dexter 2007
Cover photograph © Shutterstock
Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007242955
Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2009 ISBN: 9780007343492
Version: 2018-14-05
Praise (#ulink_939eeb55-6361-534c-b407-402f3e8d61e8)
From the reviews of the Martin Beck series:
‘First class’
Daily Telegraph
‘One of the most authentic, gripping and profound collections of police procedural ever accomplished’
MICHAEL CONNELLY
‘Hauntingly effective storytelling’
New York Times
‘There’s just no question about it: the reigning King and Queen of mystery fiction are Maj Sjöwall and her husband Per Wahlöö’
The National Observer
‘Sjöwall/Wahlöö are the best writers of police procedural in the world’
Birmingham Post
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Contents
Title Page (#u50de0167-2b46-5629-b09a-729814d60d0e)
Copyright (#u6d328f13-255c-56ff-828f-4e4188fd4004)
Praise (#ua43abdec-0e47-513a-b231-0f3aa4b82d91)
Introduction (#ubff1f52b-d487-528c-b41a-b3c2441f9267)
Chapter 1 (#udf2ab03a-69d2-5ca4-ac8a-dc581e62cba5)
Chapter 2 (#uaec6ca93-d2fc-57ef-9d2c-06cb30839d2d)
Chapter 3 (#u9b056339-dd04-5821-8cce-117a316a5f01)
Chapter 4 (#u5ea90d95-6edf-58df-82c6-d42a9520636e)
Chapter 5 (#u96e25e51-0003-590a-bd88-5e0d3b0cf9b0)
Chapter 6 (#u9b260107-aae9-5dc6-a27a-84abeb72d641)
Chapter 7 (#u464e537e-e7ed-55cf-8f9d-558bea9e499c)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Authors (#litres_trial_promo)
Other Books By (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Introduction (#ulink_e1d47657-6d51-5d59-9e8c-2d8e49ef970b)
Let me be completely honest from the outset. When I was invited to write the introduction to The Fire Engine that Disappeared, I somewhat guiltily realized that I had never read a single word written by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. I had frequently read articles about the famous pair, and learnt from many knowledgeable critics that they were among the very finest writers of modern crime fiction. But such literature amounted to little more than books about the books, and not the books themselves; and with me, as with many others, the epithet ‘famous’ more often than not signifies ‘unread’.
Why was this?
I really ought to have been more kindly disposed towards the Swedes since they had been the very first nation to translate my own books; and from quite early on I had attended crime conferences in Stockholm and in Göteborg, where my most abiding memory is of the high price of alcohol. But the names of our two authors did not trip off the tongue with the easy familiarity of other foreign crime-writers, like Simenon or Dürrenmatt, and I got to read neither of them. A bigger factor, I am sure, was the view I’ve held for most of my life that the best definition of poetry is ‘what gets lost in translation’; and I have usually assumed (maybe correctly?) that ‘style’ in prose-writing also falls victim to the same potential malaise. And talking of translation and pronunciation, the reader of this novel must occasionally—surely!—feel a little intimidated by such topographical polysyllables as, for example, ‘Karlviksgatan is a street running from Norr Mälarstrand to Hantverkargatan, quite near Fridhemsplan’ (ch. 27). All a bit off-putting, isn’t it? But I took heart from the Sunday Telegraph quote for the blurb: ‘If you haven’t read Sjöwall and Wahlöö, start now.’ So I started, although with considerable clutter in my mind about what to expect.
My first preconception was that this husband-and-wife team, with a political stance well to the left, had become rather too bitterly critical in the sixties and seventies of what they saw as the betrayal of many of their Socialist ideas and ideals. My second was that their modus scribendi was deeply influenced by the 87th Precinct books of Ed McBain, with real-life crime found predominantly in cities rather than in sleepy English villages. Third, that during these same years, Sweden had become so liberal-minded about sex and sexuality that any sensitive soul might well have to be prepared for (or to hope for) a few paragraphs of explicit titillation.
Unexpectedly, it was none of these factors that struck me first. What struck me was the gently underplayed humour of the writing. Let me give some examples. An apartment building in Stockholm blows up spectacularly in the opening pages and is burnt to the ground. Melander is one of the investigating team, and the question of the cause of the fire was his particular headache, ‘apart from the fact that he had never had a headache’. Another of the team, and the hero of the rescue attempts, Gunvald Larsson, is being treated in hospital and being dressed in regulation clothing when we find him looking down at his feet ‘inserted into a pair of black, wooden-soled shoes, which either had been made for Goliath, or had been intended as a sign to hang outside some clog-maker’s’. One further example? ‘It took Martin Beck less than thirty seconds to open the door, which was considered a long time, as he had already got the key from the real-estate agent.’ All quite delightful.
Clearly then we are not going to be confronted by a couple of po-faced Marxists, and the first of my earlier preconceptions is in need of modification. What then am I now to say about any signs of disillusionment with those womb-to-tomb aspirations of what is unsympathetically termed the ‘nanny’ state? I found little or nothing in the novel that could be called tub-thumping propaganda. Instead, I came across a few rather muted and humane reflections on those laudable intentions which somehow had failed to materialize. As early as the first chapter, for example, Martin Beck, on a visit to his mother in an old people’s home, ‘walked past one of the dreary small sitting rooms in which he had never seen anyone sitting, and continued along the gloomy corridor’. All very gentle. Yet we do come across some bitter social commentary, albeit not given any third-person authorial imprimatur, but spoken by the discomfited mother of one of the villains: ‘It’s an accepted fact now that our reform schools and institutions act as a sort of introduction to drug-taking and crime. What you call treatment isn’t worth a cent.’ Pretty polemical!
My second preconception proved fully corroborated. The influence of the venerable McBain abounds, and this novel is a ‘police procedural’ from the top drawer. What a curious team of detectives we meet, each invested with a sharp individuality, each contributing, well, at least something to the novel’s dramatic dénouement; and, above all, every one of them is interesting as a human being, with their varied responsibilities, and their equally varied wives. Melander, for example, not only possesses a phenomenal memory, he is also a pipe-smoking, unflappable fellow, who has obviously followed a life-long philosophy of never turning round when being shouted at from behind. Martin Beck, who gives his name to the series, plays a comparatively minor role, rather like a cricket-captain who, as the sports pages would report, is having a quiet game. But for me, the most fascinating member of the team is Kollberg, a fat, sedentary figure, to whom I took an instant dislike. He takes much of the limelight, and proves to be a man of strong views and somewhat irrational prejudices, thoroughly detesting one of his colleagues, and steadily digging his own grave with a knife and fork. Yet I finished the book admiring him; and it is the mark of exceptional writing for any author(s) not only to characterize a particular protagonist but to re-characterize him. A good deal of interest, too, settles around a trio of comparatively junior members of the team, who exhibit amusing degrees of inexperience and incompetence during this complex and baffling story. Indeed, one of them is sent on an assignment ‘that might possibly strengthen his leg muscles but was otherwise quite useless’. Yet each of the three plays his part in the unfolding of the story.
What of my third preconception? Sex plays only a very small part in the novel; and what sex we do find is handled with an almost serene simplicity. The one brief (extraordinarily brief!) incident that I remember with great pleasure occurs when a police contact in Denmark is interviewing, and rather brusquely interviewing, a sculptor in her Copenhagen studio:
‘Do you want to sleep with me?’ she said suddenly.
‘Yes,’ said Månsson. ‘Why not?’
‘Good. It’ll be easier to talk afterward.’
Let me, at last, come to the story—although not too much about the story. The blurbs of some books occasionally, albeit inadvertently, give too many hints about the twists and turns of a plot, sometimes even about the guilty party. Such lapses are irritating, and in the US particularly may provide mines of unwanted and unnecessary information. Why not allow readers to discover for themselves exactly what is going to happen? So let me be brief. We know about the fire already, and it is no secret from the first few pages that we are going to be teased about the respective merits of accident, arson, and wilful murder. Expertly, the theories are juggled in front of our eyes as clues emerge to point the way to shady and deadly dealings in car theft and drugs, with the action shifting eventually from Stockholm down to Malmö in the south and the short crossing to Denmark. It is pleasing, at least for me, to reveal that as the plot develops the reader is not encumbered, as in many crime novels these days, with so much technical forensic detail, often to me unintelligible, that one needs the company of Gray’s Anatomy. Although the autopsies and post-mortems carried out here are of crucial importance, their results are reported with succinct clarity, and no degree in pathology is required to follow them.
For me, the best criterion of a good read is to wish that it had gone on a bit longer. I felt that here. If I am truthful, I cannot pretend that my life has been unduly influenced by the right-wing Sunday Telegraph—just as the lives of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö would not have been, either. But now I can only feel grateful to the crime critic of that newspaper, upon whose recommendation I have started to read the Martin Beck Series.
Colin Dexter
1 (#ulink_120e3049-1af7-5086-bd7d-1ca29d514206)
The man lying dead on the tidily made bed had first taken off his jacket and tie and hung them over the chair by the door. He had then unlaced his shoes, placed them under the chair and stuck his feet into a pair of black leather slippers. He had smoked three filter-tipped cigarettes and stubbed them out in the ashtray on the bedside table. Then he had lain down on his back on the bed and shot himself through the mouth.
That did not look quite so tidy.
His nearest neighbour was a prematurely retired army captain who had been injured in the hip during an elk hunt the previous year. He had suffered from insomnia after the accident and often sat up at night playing solitaire. He was just getting the deck of cards out when he heard the shot on the other side of the wall and he at once called the police.
It was twenty to four on the morning of the seventh of March when two radio police broke the lock on the door and made their way into the flat, inside which the man on the bed had been dead for thirty-two minutes. It did not take them long to establish the fact that the man almost certainly had committed suicide. Before returning to their car to report the death over the radio, they looked around the flat, which in fact they should not have done. Apart from the bedroom, it consisted of a living room, kitchen, hall, bathroom and wardrobe. They could find no message or farewell letter. The only written matter visible was two words on the pad by the telephone in the living room. The two words formed a name. A name which both policemen knew well.
Martin Beck.
It was Ottilia’s name day.
Soon after eleven in the morning, Martin Beck left the South police station and went and stood in the line at the off-licence in Karusellplan. He bought a bottle of Nutty Solera. On the way to the metro, he also bought a dozen red tulips and a can of English cheese biscuits. One of the six names his mother had been given at baptism was Ottilia and he was going to congratulate her on her name day.
