The Terrorists (21 page)

Skacke came in with his statement before Martin Beck had finished. Melander and Gunvald Larsson followed. Rönn came last. His statement had taken him almost twenty minutes. He was no writer.

All of them had similar points of view, but Rönn’s study was the one most worth reading. He wrote:

The author wriggled as Martin Beck, without a smile, read the epistle aloud. Then Martin Beck put the document down on the top of the heap.

Rönn thought clearly, but wrote somewhat strangely. Perhaps that was why he had still not been promoted to inspector. Sometimes his reports were circulated by malicious people, causing a great deal of mocking laughter. It was true that police reports were often pure gibberish, but Rönn was an experienced detective
and should have been able to do better, people said.

Martin Beck went over to the cooler and drank a glass of water. Then he propped up his elbow again in the usual old way, scratched his head and said, “Benny, will you tell the switchboard we’re not taking any calls or receiving any visitors. Whoever they are.”

Skacke complied, but said, “What if it’s the Commissioner or Malm?”

“We’ll kick Malm out,” said Gunvald Larsson. “As for the Commissioner, he can play solitaire. There’s a pack of cards in my desk drawer. It’s Einar’s actually, and he inherited it from Åke Stenström.”

“Okay,” said Martin Beck. “First of all, Gunvald has something to tell us.”

“It’s about ULAG’s bomb technique,” said Gunvald Larsson. “Immediately after the assassination on the fifth of June, the police bomb squad, together with experts from the army, started searching for other explosive charges in the city gas mains. Eventually they found two undetonated charges. But they were so small and well hidden and cleverly placed that they didn’t find one of them for three months and the other one was only found last week. Both of them were on the planned motorcade route for the next day, and the bomb squad more or less had to dig its way forward yard by yard. The bombs were a much improved version of the explosive charges the plastic-bombers used in their day in Algeria. The radio-control arrangements were technically enormously sophisticated.”

He fell silent.

Martin Beck said, “That’s that. Now we’re going to talk about something else, and it is a detail that must definitely remain between us. Only the five of us here may know anything about it. There will be one exception, but we’ll come to that later.”

The talk went on for almost two hours. All of them had points of view.

Martin Beck felt extremely satisfied afterward. Apart from the personal views some of them had of each other, this was a good group. True, he’d had to explain himself rather often, which as usual caused him to miss Kollberg.

Skacke checked to see who had telephoned. It was a considerable
list: the National Commissioner; the Stockholm chief; the Commander of the Armed Forces; the Army Chief of Staff; the King’s Adjutant; the head of Swedish Radio; Malm; the Minister of Justice; the chairman of the Conservative party; the chief of the Regular Police; ten different newspapers; the United States ambassador; the chief of the Märsta Police; the Prime Minister’s secretary; the head of the Security Guard at the Parliament Building; Lennart Kollberg; Åsa Torell; the public prosecutor; Rhea Nielsen and eleven unknown citizens.

Martin Beck looked worriedly at the list and sighed deeply. Of course there would be trouble in one way or another, perhaps in many ways.

He ran his forefinger down the long list of names, pulled the telephone toward him and dialed Rhea’s number.

“Hi!” she said happily. “Am I disturbing you?”

“You never disturb me.”

“Are you coming home tonight?”

“Yes, but probably late.”

“How late?”

“Ten, eleven, around there.”

“What have you eaten today?” she said inquisitorially.

Martin Beck didn’t reply.

“Nothing, eh? Remember what we said about telling the truth.”

“You’re right. As usual.”

“Come back to my place then. If you have a chance, call me half an hour beforehand. I don’t want you to drop dead of starvation before that slob even lands.”

“Okay. Be good.”

“And you.”

They divided up the rest of the calls, a number of which were rapidly dealt with, while others were long and involved. Gunvald Larsson took Malm.

“What do you want?” he asked Malm brusquely when he got him on the line.

“Beck seems to be trying to blame us because a lot of policemen are being called in from rural areas. The chief of the Regular Police telephoned about the matter an hour or two ago.”

“So what?”

“Here at National Headquarters we just wish to point out that you have no reason to get mixed up in a whole lot of peripheral crimes which haven’t yet been committed.”

“Have we done that?”

“The Commissioner thinks the question of responsibility is important. If crimes are committed elsewhere, that’s not our fault. It has nothing to do with National Headquarters.”

“Extraordinary,” said Gunvald Larsson. “If I were at National HQ I’d see to it that preventive measures were taken. What do you people do up there? What do you think your job is?”

“It isn’t our responsibility, it’s the government’s.”

“Okay, then, I’ll call the Minister.”

“What?”

“You heard perfectly well what I said. Goodbye.”

Gunvald Larsson had never before spoken to a member of the government. For that matter, he had never wanted to, but now he dialed the Department of Justice with a certain gusto. He was put straight through and got the Minister of Justice on the line.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “My name’s Larsson and I’m from the police. I’m involved in security for the Senator’s visit.”

“Good afternoon. I’ve heard about you.”

“There has arisen what strikes me as an unpleasant and meaningless discussion about whose fault it is that there won’t be any policemen in, say, Enköping and Norrtälje next Thursday and Friday.”

“And?”

“I’d appreciate an answer to the question, so I can stop arguing about it with all kinds of idiots.”

“I see. Naturally, the government as a whole takes full responsibility. I can’t see any point in trying to pin the blame on some individual—whoever it was, for example, who insisted on making the invitation in the first place. I shall personally point out to the National Police Headquarters that they must do everything in their power to strengthen crime prevention in districts where there is a severe shortage of manpower.”

“Excellent,” said Gunvald Larsson. “That’s what I wanted to hear. Goodbye.”

“Just a moment,” said the Minister of Justice. “I myself telephoned to find out what the situation is on the security front.”

“We consider it good,” said Gunvald Larsson. “We’re working according to a definite but flexible plan.”

“Excellent.”

He really seemed quite sensible, thought Gunvald Larsson, but then the Minister of Justice had the reputation of being a shining exception among the career politicians who were busily steering Sweden down the long and evidently unavoidable slope.

The day continued with numerous conversations, most of which were largely meaningless. File clerks ran in and out in a constant stream.

At about ten in the evening, Gunvald Larsson was handed a file, whose contents caused him to sit still for almost half an hour, his head propped in his hands.

Both Skacke and Martin Beck were still there, but about to go home, and Gunvald Larsson did not want to spoil their evening, so at first he thought he would say nothing about what was in the file until the next day. Then he changed his mind and without comment handed it to Martin Beck, who equally impassively placed it in his briefcase.

Martin Beck did not reach the house in Tulegatan until twenty past eleven that night.

He opened the street door with his own key, then went up two flights and rang the bell, using their agreed signal.

Rhea had keys to his apartment, but he did not have any to hers. Martin Beck couldn’t see that he needed any, as he’d have no reason to be there if she wasn’t home. And when she was home, the door was usually unlocked.

Thirty seconds or so later she came running to open the door in her bare feet. She was looking unusually lovely, wearing nothing but a soft, fluffy blue-gray jersey that came halfway down her thighs.

“Damn,” she said. “You didn’t give me enough time. I’ve made something that has to be in the oven for half an hour.”

When he was inside, she said, “God, you look tired. Shall we take a sauna? It’ll relax you.”

The year before, Rhea had had a sauna built in the basement for her tenants. When she wanted to use it privately, she simply stuck a note on the basement door.

Martin Beck changed into an old bathrobe he kept in the bedroom wardrobe, while she went on ahead and got the sauna going. It was a good sauna—dry and very hot.

Most people sat silently and enjoyed the heat, but Rhea was not that kind of person.

“How’re things going with your peculiar job?” she asked.

“Pretty well, I think, but …”

“But what?”

“It’s hard to know for certain. I’ve never done anything like it before.”

“Imagine inviting that s.o.b.,” said Rhea. “What is it, a week now? Until he comes?”

“Not even that. Next Thursday.”

“Will it be on the radio or TV?”

“Both.”

“I’ll go down to Köpmangatan and watch.”

“Aren’t you going to demonstrate?”

“Maybe,” she said moodily. “I ought to. Maybe I’m getting a bit old for demonstrating. It was different a few years ago.”

“Have you ever heard of something called ULAG?”

“I’ve read something about it in the papers. What they stand for seems vague. Do you think they might do something here?”

“There’s the possibility.”

“They sound dangerous.”

“Very.”

“Have you had enough now?”

The thermometer showed almost a hundred degrees Celsius. She threw a few scoops of water onto the stones and an almost unbearable yet oddly pleasant heat sank from the ceiling.

They went and showered, then toweled each other down.

When they got back up to the apartment, a very promising aroma was coming from the kitchen.

“It smells done,” she said. “Can you manage setting the table?”

That was about all he could manage—except eating, of course.

The food was very good and he ate more than he had for a long time. Then he sat in silence for a while, his wineglass in his hand.

She looked at him. “You look absolutely done in. Go to bed.”

Martin Beck really was done in. The day of uninterrupted telephoning and conferring had exhausted him. But for some reason he did not want to go to bed at once. He felt too comfortable in this kitchen, with its plaits of garlic bulbs and bunches of wormwood, thyme and rowanberries. After a while he said, “Rhea?”

“Yes?”

“Do you think it was wrong of me to take on this job?”

She thought for a long time before answering, then said, “That would require quite an involved analysis. But I more than understand that friend of yours who resigned.”

“Kollberg.”

“He’s a nice man. I like his wife, too. And I think he did the right thing. He saw that the police as an organization devoted itself to terrorizing mainly two categories of people, socialists and people who couldn’t make it in our class society. He acted according to his conscience and convictions.”

“I think he was wrong. If all good policemen got out, because they take on other people’s guilt, then only the dumb ones, the dregs, would be left. We’ve talked about this before, anyhow.”

“You and I have talked about practically everything before. Have you ever thought about that?”

He nodded.

“But you asked a concrete question, and now I’ll answer it. Yes, darling, I think you were wrong. What would have happened if you’d refused?”

“I’d have been given a direct order.”

“And if you’d refused a direct order?”

Martin Beck shrugged his shoulders. He was very tired, but the conversation interested him. “I might possibly have been suspended. But to be honest, that’s unlikely. Someone else would simply have been given the job.”

“Who?”

“Stig Malm, probably, my so-called chief and immediate superior.”

“And he’d have made a worse job of it than you? Yes, most likely, but I think you should have refused all the same. That’s what I feel, I mean. Feelings are difficult to analyze. I guess what
I feel is this: Our government, which maintains it represents the people, invites a notorious reactionary to come on a visit—a man who might even have been President of the United States a few years ago. Had he been, we would probably have had a global war by now. And on top of all that, he is to be received as an honored guest. Our ministers, with the Prime Minister in the lead, will sit politely chatting with him about the recession and the price of oil and assure him that good old neutral Sweden is still the same firm bulwark against communism it has always been. He’ll be invited to a damned great banquet and be allowed to meet the so-called opposition, which has the same capitalist interests as the government, only slightly more honestly expressed. Then he’ll have lunch with our half-witted puppet king. And all the time he has to be protected so goddamn carefully that presumably he won’t be allowed to see a single demonstrator or even hear that there is any opposition, if Säpo or the CIA don’t tell him. The only thing he’ll notice is that the head of the Communist party isn’t at the banquet.”