'I am Detective Inspector Beck,' said Martin Beck. 'I am looking for Mr Sundström.'
'My husband isn't feeling well and has gone to bed to rest,' she said. 'What is it about?'
Tm sorry to have to bother you at this time of day, but unfortunately it is necessary. And it's quite urgent, so if he isn't too ill...'
'Is it about the factory?' she asked. 'No, not directly,' said Martin Beck.
He always disliked this situation. He knew very little about this woman. Perhaps she was not very happy with her existence, but she probably led a calm and normal family life. In a little while she would learn that she was married to a man who had murdered his mistress.
If only the people who murdered other people didn't have families, thought Martin Beck irrationally.
'It's a matter of a few questions that I have to discuss with your husband,' he said. 'So if...'
'Is it so important it can't wait until tomorrow?' she said.
'Yes, it is that important.'
She opened the door the rest of the way and Martin Beck stepped into the front hall.
'Wait here for a moment, I'll tell him.'
She walked up the stairs to the second floor. She held herself very straight.
Martin Beck could hear a TV from one of the rooms on the right side of the hall. He waited.
It was almost five minutes before Clark Sundström appeared.
He was wearing dark-blue flannel trousers and a Shetland jumper of the same colour. The shirt beneath the jumper was also blue and buttoned at the neck. His wife followed him down the stairs, and when they both stood in front of him, Martin Beck noticed that she was a head taller than her husband.
'Go in to the girls, Sissy,' said Clark Sundström.
She gave him a searching and somewhat uneasy glance, but opened the door beside the stairs. The TV sound grew louder, but she immediately closed the door behind her again.
Clark Sundström matched the descriptions given by Folke Bengtsson and Skacke, but Martin Beck was struck by the look of tired resignation around his mouth and eyes. He might possibly have had a suntan when Folke Bengtsson saw him earlier that year, but now his skin was greyish-yellow and flaccid. He looked worn. But his hands were large and sunburned with long, sinewy fingers.
'Yes?' he said. 'What's this all about?'
Martin Beck saw fear in the eyes behind the glasses. He couldn't disguise that.
'You know what this is all about,' said Martin Beck.
The man shook his head, but small beads of perspiration appeared at his hairline and along his upper lip.
'Sigbrit Mård,' said Martin Beck. Clark Sundström turned away and took a couple of steps towards the front door and then he stopped, with his back to Martin Beck.
'Can we go outside and talk? I think I need some fresh air.'
'Fine,' said Martin Beck and waited while Clark Sundström put on his sheepskin coat.
They went out on to the front step, and Clark Sundström began to walk slowly towards the front gate with his hands in his pockets. Halfway down the gravel path, he stopped and looked up at the sky. The stars were out He didn't say anything. Martin Beck stopped beside him.
'We have proof that you killed her,' he said. 'And we've seen the flat in Trelleborg. I have a warrant for your arrest in my pocket.'
Clark Sundström stood quite still. 'Proof?' he said after a while. 'How can you have proof?' 'Among other things, we found a rag that we can trace to you. Why did you kill her?' 'I had to.'
His voice sounded odd. Strained.
'Are you feeling all right?' said Martin Beck.
'No.'
'Wouldn't it be just as well to come in to Malmö with us, and we could talk there?' 'My wife...'
The sentence was interrupted by an ugly whimpering sound from the man's throat. He clawed at his heart, staggered, doubled over, and fell headlong into the rose-bushes. Martin Beck stared at him.
Benny Skacke came running through the gate and helped him turn the man over on his back.
'Coronary thrombosis,' Skacke said. 'I've seen it before. I'll call an ambulance.'
He ran back to the car, and Martin Beck could hear him talking on the radio.
At that moment, his wife came running out into the yard with her daughters at her heels. She must have seen what had happened through the window. She pushed Martin Beck aside, kneeled down beside her unconscious husband, and told the girls to go back in the house. They obeyed, but remained standing in the doorway, staring anxiously and uncomprehendingly at their parents and the two strange men in the garden.
The ambulance arrived seven minutes later.
Benny Skacke followed it closely all the way into Malmö General Hospital, and when it came to a stop outside the emergency room, he was only a few yards behind.
Martin Beck sat in the car and watched the attendants hurry in with the stretcher. Mrs Sundström followed it in, and the doors slammed behind them.
'Aren't you going in?' Skacke said.
'Yes,' said Martin Beck. 'But there isn't any rush. They'll treat him for shock and massage his heart and put him in a respirator. If he makes it that far, he could recover pretty quickly. And if he doesn't...'
He sat silently and stared at the closed door. After a while, the attendants came out with the rolling stretcher, pushed it back into the ambulance, and closed the doors. Then they climbed into the front seat and drove away.
Martin Beck straightened up.
'I'd better go in and see how they're coming along.'
'Shall I go with you or shall I wait here?' Skacke asked.
Martin Beck opened the car door and stepped out. He leaned down towards Skacke.
'It's possible he'll come round and the doctors will let me talk to him. It would be nice to have a tape recorder.'
Skacke turned the key in the ignition switch.
'I'll go get one right away,' he said.
Martin Beck nodded, and Skacke drove away. -
Clark Sundström had been taken to the intensive care unit, and Martin Beck could see his wife through the glass panel in the door to the waiting room. She was standing by the window with her back to the door, very straight and still.
Martin Beck waited in the corridor. A little while later, he heard the clatter of wooden shoes, and a woman in a white coat and jeans came towards him, but she turned and disappeared through a door before he had a chance to say anything. He walked over to the door. There was a sign on it reading Duty Office, and he knocked and opened it without waiting for an answer.
The woman was standing by a desk shuffling through a stack of case reports. She found the paper she was looking for, wrote something on it, attached it to a clipboard, and put it down on a shelf behind her. Then she looked enquiringly at Martin Beck, and he showed her his identity card and stated his business.
I can't tell you anything yet,' she said. 'He's being given heart massage right now. But you can wait here if you like.'
She was young, with sprightly brown eyes and dark blonde hair in a braid down her back.
'I'll see to it that you're kept informed,' she said and hurried out of the room.
Martin Beck walked over and read the case report on the shelf. It was not about Clark Sundström.
There was a small device like a TV set on the wall, and a bright green dot was rushing across the screen from left to right. Halfway across, it bounced up with a short, high whistle. The green dot described a constant curve, and the whistling sound recurred with monotonous regularity. Someone's heart was beating normally. Martin Beck assumed that this was not Clark Sundström's electrocardiogram.
After an uneventful quarter of an hour, Martin Beck saw Skacke drive up outside. He went out and collected the tape recorder and told Skacke to go on home. He looked a little disappointed, as if he would rather have stayed, but Martin Beck had no need for him.
At ten-thirty, the woman with the braid came back. It seemed she was the resident on duty.
Sundström had survived the crisis, had regained consciousness, and, under the circumstances, his condition was good. He had talked to his wife for a few minutes, and she had left the hospital. He was now sleeping and couldn't be disturbed.
'But come back tomorrow and we'll see,' she said.
Martin Beck explained the situation, and in the end she reluctandy agreed to let him talk to Clark Sundström as soon as he woke up. She showed him to an examination room where he could wait
The room contained a cot covered with green vinyl, a stool, and a magazine rack with three religious periodicals that had been thumbed to pieces. Martin Beck put the tape recorder on the stool, lay down on the cot, and stared at the ceiling.
He thought about Clark Sundström and his wife. She had given him the impression of being a strong woman. Psychologically strong. Or maybe that was nothing but a practical manner, or emotional reserve. He thought about Folke Bengtsson, but not for very long. Then he thought about Rhea, and after a while he went to sleep.
When the doctor woke him, it was five-thirty in the morning, and her brown eyes were no longer so sprightiy.
'He's awake now,' she said. 'But keep it as short as you can.'
Clark Sundström was lying on his back staring towards the door. A young man in a white coat and white trousers sat on a chair at the foot of the bed biting his nails. He stood up when Martin Beck came in.
‘I’ll go get a cup of coffee,' he said. 'Push the buzzer before you go.'
On a shelf over the head of the bed was a device like the one Martin Beck had seen in the Duty Office. Three thin wires of three different colours connected the apparatus to round electrodes that were attached to Clark Sundström's chest with strips of tape. The green dot registered the electrocardiogram, but the whistling sound was very faint.
'How do you feel?' said Martin Beck.
Clark Sundström plucked at the sheet.
'All right,' he said. 'I don't know. I don't remember what happened.'
He was not wearing his glasses, and his face looked younger and softer without them.
'Do you remember me?' said Martin Beck.
'I remember your coming, and then we went outside. Nothing else.'
Martin Beck pulled out a low stool that was under the bed, put the tape recorder on it, and fastened the microphone to the edge of the sheet. He moved up the chair and sat down.
'Do you remember what we were talking about?' he asked.
Clark Sundström nodded.
'Sigbrit Mård,' said Martin Beck. 'Why did you kill her?' The man in the bed closed his eyes for a few moments and then opened them again.
'I'm sick. I'd rather not talk about it.' 'How did you get to know her?' 'You mean how did we meet?' 'Yes. Tell me.'
'We met at the pastry shop where she worked. I used to go there sometimes in those days for a cup of coffee.' 'When was this?' 'Three, four years ago.'
'Yes? And then?'
'I saw her in town one day and asked her if she wanted a ride. She asked me if I could drive her home to Domme, because she'd just left her car at the garage. I drove her home. Later on, she told me she just made up that story about the car, because she wanted to get to know me. She left her car in Trelleborg and took the bus in the next day.'
'Did you go into the house when you drove her home?' asked Martin Beck.
'Yes, and we went to bed together too. That's what you wanted to know.'
Clark Sundström looked at Martin Beck for a moment, then turned his head and looked out of the window.
'Did you go on meeting at her place?'
'A few times, yes. But it was too risky. I was married, after all, and even if she was divorced, people gossip so much. Especially out there where she lived. So I rented a little place in Trelleborg where we could meet.'
'Were you in love with her?'
Clark Sundström snorted.
'In love? No. But she really turned me on. I wanted to go to bed with her. My wife wasn't very interested any more. She never was, for that matter. I sort of felt I had the right to have a mistress. But my wife would go mad if she found out. She'd want a divorce on the spot.'
'Was Sigbrit Mård in love with you?'
'I suppose she was. At first I thought she just wanted someone to go to bed with, like me, but then she started talking about how we ought to move in together.'
'When did she start talking about that?'
'Last spring. Everything was going along fine. We'd meet once a week at the flat. And then all of a sudden she starts in about how we ought to get married and how she wants to have kids. The fact that I was already married and had children didn't seem to make any difference to her. All I had to do was get a divorce, she said.'
'You didn't want that?'
'Christ, no. In the first place, we've got a pretty good life, my wife and I and the kids. And in the second place, it would have been a financial catastrophe. The house we live in belongs to my wife, and the factory belongs to her too, even if I do run it. If we got divorced, I'd be penniless and out of a job. I'm fifty-two years old. I've worked like a dog for that factory. Sigbrit was insane to think I'd leave all that for her sake. She was after money too.'
Talking had put a little colour back in his cheeks, and his eyes were no longer so exhausted.
'Besides, I was beginning to get tired of her,' he said. 'Even last winter I was trying to think of some nice way to get out of it.'
The way you chose was not especially nice, thought Martin Beck.
'What happened? Did she get too troublesome?'
'She started threatening me,' Sundström said. 'She said she was going to talk to my wife. I had to promise her I'd mention the divorce myself, which, of course, I never meant to do. I didn't know what to do. I lay awake nights...'
He stopped talking and put his arm over his eyes.
'Couldn't you have told your wife...?'
'No, that was out of the question. She could never accept or forgive a thing like that. She's incredibly principled about that sort of thing, and rigidly moralistic. And she's terribly afraid of what people will say too, and very careful about keeping up appearances. No, there was only... There wasn't any way out.'