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‘Well, the last time I was in Stockholm – and I hope to heaven it was the last time – I was looking for the National Police Administration and wandered into Communist Party Headquarters instead. Ran into the head of the Party himself on the stairs and wondered what the hell he was doing at the NPA. But he was very nice. Took me where I wanted to go. Walked his bicycle the whole way.’
Martin Beck laughed.
Allwright took the opportunity of joining in.
‘But that wasn't all. The next day I thought I'd go up and say hello to your Commissioner. The old one, the one who used to be in Malmö. I don't know the new one, thank God. So I went to the City Hall, and some sort of guard tried to give me a tour of the Blue Gallery. When I finally managed to tell him what I wanted, he sent me over to Scheelegatan and I wandered into the courthouse. The guard wanted to know which room my case was coming up in and what I was on trial for. By the time I finally got to the police building on Agnegatan, Lüning had gone for the day. So that took care of that. I took the night train home. Had a wonderful time all the way south. Three hundred and fifty miles. What a difference.’
He looked thoughtful.
‘Stockholm,’ he said. ‘What a miserable city. But then, of course, you like it.’
‘Lived there all my life,’ said Martin Beck.
‘Malmö's better,’ Allwright said. ‘Though not much. I wouldn't want to work there, unless they made me Commissioner or something. But let's not even talk about Stockholm.’
He laughed loudly.
‘Sigbrit Mård,’ said Martin Beck.
‘Sigbrit had the day off that day. And she'd left her car to be fixed, so she took the bus to Anderslöv. Ran some errands. Went to the bank and the post office. And then disappeared. She didn't take the bus. The driver knows her, and he knows she wasn't on board. No one's seen her since. That was the seventeenth of October. It was about one o'clock when she left the post office. Her car, a VW, is still at the garage. There's nothing there. I went over it myself. And we took some samples and sent them to the lab in Helsingborg. All negative. Not a clue, as it were.’
‘Do you know her? Personally?’
‘Yes, sure. Until this back-to-nature fad got started, I knew every soul in the district. It's not so easy any more. People live in old abandoned houses and dilapidated outbuildings. They don't register in the township, and when you drive out there, often as not they've already moved. And someone else has moved in. The only thing left is the goat and the macrobiotic vegetable garden.’
‘But Sigbrit Mård is different?’
‘Yes, indeed. She's one of the ordinary types. She's lived here for twenty years. She comes from Trelleborg, originally. She seems like a stable sort of person. Always held down a job, and all that. Highly normal. Maybe a little frustrated.’
He lit a cigarette, after inspecting it thoughtfully.
‘But then, that's normal in this country,’ he went on. ‘For example, I smoke too much. That's probably frustration too.’
‘So she could simply have run away.’
Allwright bent down and scratched the dog behind the ears.
‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘That's a possibility. But I don't believe it. This isn't the sort of place you can run away from just like that, without anyone's noticing. And people don't leave their homes completely intact. I went over the house with the detectives from Trelleborg. Everything was still there, all her papers and personal property. Jewellery and all that sort of thing. The coffee pot and her cup were still on the table. It looked as if she'd gone out for a while and expected to be right back.’
‘Then what do you believe?’
This time Allwright's answer was even longer in coming. He held his cigarette in his left hand and let the dog chew playfully on his right. Every trace of laughter was gone from his face.
‘I believe she's dead,’ he said.
And that was all he said on the subject.
From a distance came the sound of heavy traffic thundering along the main road.
Allwright looked up.
‘Most of the big lorries still take this road from Malmö to Ystad,’ he said. ‘Even though the new Route 11 is a lot faster. Lorry drivers are creatures of habit.’
‘And this business with Bengtsson?’ said Martin Beck.
‘You ought to know more about him than I do.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. We got him for a sex murder almost ten years ago. After a lot of ifs and buts. He was an odd man. But what happened to him afterwards, I don't know.’
‘I know,’ Allwright said. ‘Everyone in town here knows. They declared him sane, and he spent seven and a half years in prison. Eventually he moved down here and bought a little house. He had some money, apparently, because he also got hold of a boat and an old estate car. He makes a living smoking fish. Catches some of it himself and buys some of it from people who do a little fishing on the side – non-union. It's not popular with the professional fishermen, but it's not actually illegal, either. At least not as far as I can see. Then he drives around and sells smoked herring and fresh eggs, mostly to a few steady customers. The people around here have accepted Folke as a decent person. He's never done anyone any harm. Doesn't talk much and keeps mostly to himself. Retiring type. The times I've run into him, it always seems as if he wanted to apologize for simply existing. But …’
‘Yes?’
‘But everybody knows he's a murderer. Tried and convicted. It was apparently a pretty ugly murder, too. Some harmless foreign woman.’
‘Roseanna McGraw was her name. And it really was revolting. Sick. But he was sexually provoked. The way he saw it. And we had to provoke him again in order to catch him. Myself, I can't imagine how he ever passed the psychiatric examination.’
‘Oh, come on,’ said Allwright, laugh lines spreading around his eyes like a spider web. ‘I've been in Stockholm too. The cram course in legal psychiatry. In fifty per cent of the cases the doctors are crazier than the patients.’
‘As far as I could gather, Folke Bengtsson was definitely disturbed. A combination of sadism, puritanism, and misogyny. Does he know Sigbrit Mård?’
‘Know?’ said Allwright. ‘His house isn't two hundred yards from hers. They're each other's closest neighbours. She's one of his regular customers. But that's not the worst of it.’
‘Really?’
‘The key point is that he was in the post office at the same time she was. There are witnesses who saw them talking to each other. He had his car parked in the square. He was standing behind her in line and left the place about five minutes after she did.’
There was a moment's silence.
‘You know Folke Bengtsson,’ Allwright said.
‘Yes.’
‘And would he be capable…?’
‘Yes,’ said Martin Beck.
5 (#ulink_43dbdacc-c934-5145-8462-ffec94c00a00)
‘To be perfectly honest, and I always am, Sigbrit's dead, and things look pretty damned bad for Folke,’ Allwright said. ‘I don't believe in coincidence.’
‘You said something about her husband?’
‘Yes, that's right. He's a ship's captain, but he drinks too much. Six years ago he got some mysterious liver disease, and they sent him home from Ecuador. They didn't fire him, but the doctors wouldn't give him a clean bill of health, so he couldn't ship out again. He came out here to live, and went on drinking, and then pretty soon they separated. Now he lives in Malmö.’
‘Do you have any contact with him?’
‘Yes. Unfortunately. Close physical contact, you might say. If you wanted to put it nicely. The fact is, she was the one who wanted the divorce. He was against it. Dead against it. But she got her way. They'd been married for a long time, but he'd been away at sea mostly. Came home once a year or so, and apparently that worked fine. But then when they tried to live together all the time, it was a complete disaster.’
‘And now?’
‘Now every time he gets well and truly plastered he comes out here to “talk it over”. But there's nothing to talk about, and he usually winds up giving her a real alarming.’
‘A what?’
Allwright laughed.
‘An alarming,’ he said. ‘Local dialect. What do you call it in Stockholm? He warms her hide for her. “Domestic disturbance” in police jargon. What a lousy expression – “domestic disturbance”. Anyway, I've had to go out there twice. The first time, I talked some sense into him. But the second time wasn't so easy. I had to hit him and bring him in to our fancy jail. Sigbrit looked pretty miserable that time. Big black eyes, and some ugly marks on her throat.’
Allwright poked at his lion-hunting hat.
‘I know Bertil Mård. He goes on binges, but I don't think he's as bad as he seems. And I think he loves Sigbrit. And so, of course, he's jealous. Though I don't think he has any real cause. I don't know anything about her sex life, supposing she has one. And if she does have one I ought to know about it. Around here, everyone pretty much knows everything about everybody. But I probably know most.’
‘What does Mård say himself?’
‘They questioned him in Malmö. He has a sort of alibi for the seventeenth. Claims he was in Copenhagen that day. Rode over on the train ferry, the Malmöhus, but…’
‘Do you know who questioned him?’
‘Yes. A Chief Inspector Månsson.’
Martin Beck had known Per Månsson for years and had great confidence in him. He cleared his throat.
‘In other words, things don't look so good for Mård either.’
Allwright scratched the dog for a while before answering.
‘No,’ he said. ‘But he's in a hell of a lot better shape than Folke Bengtsson.’
‘If, in fact, anything has happened.’
‘She's disappeared. That's enough for me. No one who knows her can think of any reasonable explanation.’
‘What does she look like, by the way?’
‘What she looks like right now is something I'd rather not think about,’ said Allwright.
‘Aren't you jumping to a conclusion?’
‘Sure I am. But I'm only telling you what I think. Normally she looks like this.’
He put his hand in his back pocket and took out two photographs – a passport photo and a folded colour enlargement.
He glanced at the pictures before handing them over.
‘They're both good,’ he commented. ‘I'd say she was of normal appearance. She looks the way most people look. Pretty attractive, of course.’
Martin Beck studied them for a long time. He doubted that Allwright was capable of seeing them with his eyes, which, of course, for that matter, was a technical impossibility.
Sigbrit Mård was not pretty attractive. She was a rather plain and ungainly woman. But she undoubtedly did her best to improve her looks, which often produces unfortunate results. Her features were irregular, narrow, and sharp, and her face was hopelessly careworn. Unlike most such pictures these days, the passport photo had not been taken with a Polaroid or in an automatic booth. It was a typical studio portrait. She had taken great pains with her make-up and her hairdo, and the photographer had no doubt given her a whole page of proofs to choose among. The other one was an amateur photograph, but not a machine-made copy. It had been enlarged and retouched by hand, a full-length portrait. She was standing on a pier, and in the background was a white passenger liner with two funnels. She was gazing up at the sun unnaturally, holding a pose that she presumably thought did her justice. She was wearing a thin green sleeveless blouse and a blue pleated skirt. She was barelegged and had a large orange and yellow summer handbag over her right shoulder. On her feet she was wearing sandals with platform soles. She was holding her right foot slightly forward, the heel off the ground.
‘That one's recent,’ Allwright said. ‘Taken last summer.’
‘Who took it?’
‘A girlfriend. They went on a trip together.’
‘To Rügen apparently. That's the train ferry Sassnitz in the background, isn't it?’
Allwright seemed vastly impressed.
‘Now how on earth did you know that?’ he said. ‘I've had duty in passport control when they were shorthanded, and even I can't tell those boats apart. But you're right. That is the Sassnitz, and they made an excursion to Rügen. You can go have a look at the chalk cliffs and stare at the Communists and that sort of thing. They're very ordinary looking. A lot of people are disappointed. The one-day cruise only costs a few kronor.’
‘Where did you get this picture?’
‘I took it out of her house when we went through it. She had it taped up on the wall. I suppose she thought it was pretty good.’
He put his head on one side and peered at the photograph.
‘By golly, it is pretty good. That's just what she looks like. Nice gal.’
‘Haven't you ever been married?’ Martin Beck asked suddenly.
Allwright was delighted.
‘Are you going to start questioning me?’ he said, laughing. ‘Now that's what I call thorough.’
‘Sorry,’ said Martin Beck. ‘Stupid thing to say. An irrelevant question.’
That was a lie. The question was not irrelevant.
‘But I don't mind answering it. I went with a lass from down in Abbekås one time. We were engaged. But I'll be damned, she was like a flesh-eating plant. After three months I'd had plenty, and after six months she still hadn't had enough. Since then I've stuck to dogs. Take it from someone who knows. A man doesn't need a wife. Once you get used to it, it's a huge relief. I feel it every morning when I wake up. She's made life miserable for three men. Of course, she's a grandmother several times over by now.’
He sat silently for a moment.
‘It does seem a little sad not having any children,’ he said then. ‘At times. But other times I feel just the opposite. Even if conditions are pretty good right here, still there's something wrong with society as a whole. I wouldn't have wanted to try and raise kids here. The question is whether it can be done at all.’
Martin Beck was silent. His own contribution to child-rearing had consisted mostly of keeping his mouth shut and letting his children grow up more or less naturally. The result had been only a partial success. He had a daughter who had become a fine, independent human being, and who seemed to like him. On the other hand, he had a son he had never understood. To be perfectly frank, he didn't like him much, and the boy, who was just eighteen, had never treated him with anything but mistrust, deception, and, in recent years, open contempt.
The boy's name was Rolf. Most of their attempts at conversation ended with the line, ‘Jesus Christ, Dad, there's just no point in talking to you, you never get what I mean anyway.’ Or: ‘If I were fifty years older, maybe we'd have a chance, but this isn't the nineteenth century any more, you know.’ Or: ‘If only you weren't a fucking cop!’
Allwright had been busy with the dog. Now he looked up.
‘May I ask you a question?’ he said with a little smile.
‘Sure.’
‘Why did you want to know if I'd ever been married?’
