The Locked Room

A simple lesson, which anyone could learn.

These tactics had worked. Now the Swedish police were armed to the teeth. All of a sudden, situations that formerly could have been cleared up by a single man equipped with a lead pencil and a pinch of common sense required a busload of police officers equipped with automatics and bullet-proof vests.

The long-term result, however, was something no one had quite foreseen. Violence breeds not only antipathy and hatred but also insecurity and fear.

In the end things had come to such a pass that people were going about being scared of each other and Stockholm had become a city containing tens of thousands of terrified individuals. And frightened people are dangerous people.

Many of the six hundred officers who suddenly no longer existed had in fact resigned because they were scared – yes, even though they were armed to the teeth and for the most part just sat locked inside their cars.

Many, of course, had fled from Stockholm for other reasons, either because they'd come to dislike the place in general, or because they were disgusted with the treatment they were now obliged to mete out.

The regime had backfired. As for its deepest motives, they remained shrouded in darkness – a darkness, however, in which some people detected a tint of Nazi brown.

Examples of similar manipulations abounded, and some bore witness to outright cynicism. A year ago there had been a drive against people passing bad cheques. People were overdrawing their accounts, and some money had ended up in the wrong pockets. The figures for unsolved petty fraud were regarded as discreditable, and called for radical measures. The National Police Board objected to cheques being accepted as legal tender. Everyone knew what this would mean: people would have to carry a lot of cash with them, and this would give the green light to muggers on the city's streets and squares. Which was precisely what had happened. Fraudulent cheques, of course, disappeared, and the police could boast of a questionable success. The fact that numerous citizens were daily being beaten up was of minor importance.

It was all part and parcel of the rising tide of violence, to which the only answer was ever more numerous and still better armed police.

But where were all these policemen to come from?

The official crime figures for the first six months had been a great triumph. They showed a drop of two per cent, although, as everybody knew, there had really been a massive increase. The explanation was simple. Non-existent policemen cannot expose crimes. And every overdrawn bank account had been counted as a crime in itself.

When the political police had been forbidden to bug people's telephones, the theorists of the National Police Board had hastened to their aid. Through scare propaganda and gross exaggeration Parliament had been prevailed on to pass a law permitting phones to be bugged in the struggle against drugs. Whereupon the anticommunists had calmly continued their eavesdropping, and the drugs trade had flourished as never before.

No, it was no fun, thought Lennart Kollberg, being a policeman. What could a man do as he witnessed the gradual decay of his own organization? As he heard the rats of fascism pattering about behind the skirting boards? All his adult life he had loyally served this organization.

What to do? Say what you think and get the sack? Unpleasant. There must be some more constructive line of action. And, of course, there were other police officers besides himself who saw things in the same light. But which, and how many?

No such problems afflicted Bulldozer Olsson. Life, to him, was one big jolly game, and most things as clear as crystal. ‘But there's one thing I don't get,’ he said.

‘Really?’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘What?’

‘What happened to that car? The roadblocks functioned as they ought to, didn't they?’

‘So it appears.’

‘So there should have been men on all the bridges within five minutes.’

The south of Stockholm is an island, with six points of access. The special squad had long ago devised detailed schemes by which each of the central Stockholm districts could quickly be sealed off.

‘Sure,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘I've checked with the Metropolitan Police. For once everything seems to have clicked.’

‘What kind of a car was it?’ Kollberg asked. As yet he hadn't had time to catch up on all the details.

‘A Renault 16, light grey or beige, “A”-registered, and with two threes in its number.’

‘Naturally they'd given it a false number plate,’ Gunvald Larsson put in.

‘Obviously But I've yet to hear of someone being able to respray a car between Maria Square and Slussen. And if they switched cars …’

‘Yes?’

‘Then where did the first one get to?’

Bulldozer Olsson paced the room, thumping the palms of his hands against his forehead. He was a man in his forties, chubby, well under average height, with a slightly florid complexion. His movements were as animated as his intellect. Now he was addressing himself: ‘They park the car in a garage near a metro station or a bus stop, then one of the guys hotfoots it with the loot; the other one gives the car a new number plate. Then he hotfoots it too. On Saturday the car guy comes back and does the respraying. And yesterday morning the car was ready to be driven off. But …’

‘But what?’ asked Kollberg.

‘But I had our people check every single Renault leaving the south side right up to one a.m. last night.’

‘So either it had time to get away, or else it's still here,’ said Kollberg.

Gunvald Larsson said nothing at all. Instead he scrutinized Bulldozer Olsson's attire and felt an intense antipathy. A crumpled light blue suit, a piggy-pink shirt, and a wide flowery tie. Black socks and pointed brown shoes with stitching – notably unbrushed.

‘And what do you mean by the car guy?’

‘They never fix the cars themselves. They always hire a special guy, who leaves them in some prearranged spot and gets them afterwards. Often he comes from some completely different town, Malmö or Göteborg, for example. They're always very careful about the getaway cars.’

Kollberg, looking even more pensive, said: ‘They? Who's they?’

‘Malmström and Mohrén, of course.’

‘And who are Malmström and Mohrén?’

Bulldozer Olsson gazed at him, dumbfounded. But then his gaze cleared. ‘Ah yes, of course. You're new to the squad, aren't you? Malmström and Mohrén are two of our most cunning bank robbers. It's four months now since they got out. And this is their fourth job since. They beat it from Kumla Prison at the end of February.’

‘But Kumla's supposed to be escape-proof,’ Kollberg said.

‘Malmström and Mohrén didn't escape. They just failed to return from weekend parole. As far as we can see, they didn't do any jobs until the end of April – before which they must certainly have gone on holiday to the Canaries or Gambia. Probably a fourteen-day round trip.’

‘And then?’

‘Then they equipped themselves. Weapons and so forth. They usually do that in Spain or Italy.’

‘But it was a woman who raided that bank last Friday, wasn't it?’ Kollberg remarked.

‘Disguised,’ said Bulldozer Olsson didactically. ‘Disguised in a blonde wig and falsies. But I'm dead sure it was Malmström and Mohrén who did it. Who else would have had the nerve, or been smart enough to make such a sudden move? This is a special job, don't you see? Hellish intriguing really. Frightfully exciting. Actually it's like …’

‘… playing a game of postal chess with a champ,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘But champ or not, both Malmström and Mohrén are as big as oxes, and that's something you can't talk yourself out of. Each weighs fifteen stone, wears size twelve shoes, and has hands like hams. Mohrén is forty-six inches around the chest – that's five more than Anita Ekberg in her prime. I find it difficult to imagine him fitted out in a dress, wearing falsies.’

‘Wasn't the woman wearing trousers anyway?’ asked Kollberg. ‘And rather on the small side?’

‘Naturally they sent in someone else,’ Bulldozer Olsson said placidly. ‘One of their usual tricks.’ Running over to one of the desks he grabbed a slip of paper. ‘How much loot have they got hold of?’ he asked himself. ‘Fifty thousand in Borås, forty in Gubbängen, twenty-six in Märsta, and now ninety. That makes over two hundred thousand! So they'll soon be ready.’

‘Ready?’ Kollberg asked. ‘Ready for what?’

‘Their big haul. Big with a capital “H”. All these other jobs are just to get some finance. But any time now it'll be the big bang.’ Seemingly beside himself with enthusiasm, he practically flew around the room. ‘But where, gentlemen? Where? Let me see, let me see. We must think. If I were Werner Roos now, what move would I make? How would I attack his king? How would you do it? And when?’

‘Who the hell's Werner Roos?’ Kollberg enquired again.

‘He's an airline purser,’ said Gunvald Larsson.

‘First and foremost he's a criminal,’ Bulldozer Olsson shouted. ‘In his own way Werner Roos is a genius. He's the one who plots out everything down to the last detail. Without him Malmström and Mohrén would be mere nonentities. It's he who does all the thinking. Without him plenty of others would be out of work. And he's the biggest skunk of the lot! He's a sort of professor of –’

‘Don't shout so damn loud,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘You're not in the district court.’

‘We'll get him,’ Bulldozer Olsson said, as if he'd just hit on some genial idea. ‘We'll nab him now, right away.’

‘And release him tomorrow,’ said Gunvald Larsson.

‘Never mind. It'll be a surprise. Catch him off his guard.’

‘You think so? It'll be the fifth time this year.’

‘No matter,’ said Bulldozer Olsson, making for the door.

Actually Bulldozer Olsson's first name was Sten. But this was something everyone, except possibly his wife, had long ago forgotten. She, on the other hand, had very likely forgotten what he looked like.

‘There seem to be a lot of things I don't understand,’ Kollberg complained.

‘Where Roos is concerned, Bulldozer's probably right,’ Gunvald Larsson said. ‘He's a smart devil who's always got an alibi. Fantastic alibis. Whenever anything happens he's always away in Singapore or San Francisco or Tokyo.’

‘But how does Bulldozer know these Malmström and Mohrén guys are behind this particular job?’

‘Some sort of sixth sense, I expect.’

Gunvald Larsson shrugged and said: ‘But where's the sense in it? Here are Malmström and Mohrén, known to be a couple of gangsters, who, though they never confess, have been inside any number of times. And now, when at last they're under lock and key in Kumla, they're granted weekend parole!’

‘Well, we can't really keep people locked up in one room with a TV set for all eternity, can we?’

‘No,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘That's true enough.’

For a while they sat silent. Both men were thinking the same thing: how it had cost the state millions to build Kumla Prison and equip it with every conceivable refinement designed to insulate social misfits from society. Foreigners with experience in penal institutions from far and wide had said that Kumla's internment department was probably the most inhuman and personality-deadening in the whole world. Lack of lice in the mattresses or maggots in the food is no substitute for human contact.

‘As for this murder on Hornsgatan …’ Kollberg began.

‘That wasn't murder. Probably just an accident. She fired by mistake, maybe didn't even realize the gun was loaded.’

‘Sure it was a girl?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What about all this talk of Malmström and Mohrén, then?’

‘Well, it's just possible they sent in a girl …’

‘Weren't there any fingerprints? As far as I know, she wasn't even wearing gloves.’

‘Sure there were fingerprints. On the doorknob. But before we had time to lift them one of the bank people had been there and messed it all up. So we couldn't use them.’

‘Any ballistic investigation?’

‘You bet your life there was. The experts got both the bullet and the cartridge. They say she shot him with a forty-five, presumably a Llama Auto.’

‘Big gun … especially for a girl.’

‘Yeah. According to Bulldozer that's another bit of evidence on this Malmström and Mohrén and Roos gang. They always use big, heavy weapons, to cause alarm. But …’

‘But what?’

‘Malmström and Mohrén don't shoot people. At least they've never done so yet. If someone causes trouble they just put a bullet in the ceiling, to restore order.’

‘Is there any point in holding this Roos guy?’

‘Hmm, well I suspect Bulldozer's reasoning goes like this: If Roos has one of his usual perfect alibis – for instance, if he was in Yokohama last Friday – then we can be dead sure he planned the job. On the other hand, if he was in Stockholm, then the thing's more doubtful.’

‘What does Roos say himself? Doesn't he get angry?’

‘Never. He says it's true Malmström and Mohrén are old chums of his and he thinks it's sad things should have turned out so badly for them in life. Last time he asked if we thought he could help his old chums in some way. Malm happened to be there. He almost had a brain haemorrhage.’

‘And Olsson?’

‘Bulldozer just roared. He loved it.’

‘What's he waiting for, then?’

‘The next move, didn't you hear? He thinks Roos is planning a major job which Malmström and Mohrén are going to carry out. Presumably Malmström and Mohrén want to scrape enough money together to emigrate quietly and live the rest of their lives on the proceeds.’

‘And it's got to be a bank robbery?’

‘Bulldozer thinks everything except banks can go to the devil,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘It's his orders, so they say.’

‘What about the witness?’

‘Einar's?’

‘Yeah.’

‘He was here this morning, looking at pictures. Didn't recognize anyone.’

‘But he's sure of the car?’

‘Damn right.’

Gunvald Larsson sat silent, tugging at his fingers one after the other until the joints cracked. After a long while he said: ‘There's something about that car that doesn't jell.’

11

The day looked as if it was going to be a hot one, and Martin Beck took his lightest suit out of the closet. It was pale blue. He'd bought it a month ago and only worn it once. As he pulled on his trousers a big, sticky chocolate mark on the right trouser knee reminded him how, on that particular occasion, he'd been chatting with Kollberg's two kids and how they'd indulged in an orgy of lollipops and Mums-Mums chocolate balls.

Martin Beck climbed out of his trousers again, took them into the kitchen, and soaked one corner of a towel in hot water. Then he rubbed the towel against the stain, which immediately spread. Yet he didn't give up. As he gritted his teeth and went on working away at the material he thought to himself it was really only in such situations that he missed Inga – which said a good deal about their former relationship. At least one of the trouser legs was thoroughly soaked, and the stain seemed at least partially to have disappeared. Squeezing his thumb and forefinger along the crease, he hung his trousers over a chair in the sunshine which was flooding in through the open window.

It was only eight o'clock, but already he'd been awake for several hours. In spite of everything, he'd fallen asleep early the previous evening, and his sleep had been unusually calm and free of dreams. True, though it had been his first real working day in a long time, it had not been a particularly strenuous one; even so, it had left him exhausted.

Martin Beck opened the refrigerator door, inspected the milk carton, the stick of butter, and a solitary bottle of Ramlosa – reminding himself that on his way home tonight he must make some purchases, beer and yoghurt. Or maybe he ought to stop having yoghurt in the mornings; it really didn't taste all that good. On the other hand, that would mean he'd have to think up something else for his breakfast. The doctor had said he must put back on every pound he'd lost since he'd come out of the hospital, and preferably a few more.

The telephone in the bedroom rang. Martin Beck closed the refrigerator, and going in, picked up the receiver. It was Sister Birgit at the old people's home.

‘Mrs Beck is worse,’ she said. ‘This morning she had a high temperature, well over 101. I thought you'd want to know, Inspector.’

‘Sure. Of course. Is she awake now?’

‘She was, five minutes ago. But she's very tired.’

‘I'll be over immediately,’ Martin Beck said.

‘We've had to move her into a room where we can have her under better observation,’ Sister Birgit said. ‘But come to my office first.’

Martin Beck's mother was eighty-two and had spent the last two years in the sick ward of the old people's home. Her illness had been of long duration. Its first signs had been slight attacks of dizziness. As time had gone by, these had become more severe and occurred at closer intervals. In the end she'd become partially paralysed. All last year she'd only been able to sit up in a wheelchair, and since the end of April hadn't left her bed.

Martin Beck had visited her quite often during his own convalescence, but it pained him to see her slowly wasting away as her age and illness dazed her. The last few times he'd been to see her she'd taken him for her husband. His father had been dead twenty-two years.

To see how lonely she'd become in her sickroom, and how utterly cut off from the outside world too, had pained him. Right up to the time when the spells of dizziness had started she'd gone out, even gone into town, just to visit shops and see people around her, or to call on those few of her friends who were still alive. Often she'd gone out to see Inga and Rolf in Bagarmossen or visited her granddaughter Ingrid, who lived by herself out at Stocksund. Naturally, even before her illness, she'd often been bored and lonely in the old people's home, but as long as she'd been healthy and on her feet she still had an occasional chance to see something besides invalids and old people. She'd still read the papers, watched TV, and listened to the radio – occasionally she had even gone to a concert or the cinema. She had kept in touch with the world around her and been able to interest herself in what was going on in it. But once isolation had been forced upon her, there had been rapid mental deterioration.

Martin Beck had watched her becoming slow-witted, ceasing to interest herself in life outside the sickroom walls, until in the end she'd lost all touch with reality and the present. It must be some defence mechanism of her mind, he assumed, which nowadays tied her consciousness to the past: there was nothing heartening about her present reality.

When he had realized how her days passed, even as long as she'd still been able to sit up in a wheelchair, he'd been shocked – even though she had seemed happy to see him and aware of his visits. Every morning she was washed and dressed, put into her wheelchair, and given her breakfast. Then she just sat there all alone in her room. Since her hearing had deteriorated she no longer listened to the radio. Reading had become too strenuous, and her hands had become too weak to hold any needlework. At noon she was given her lunch, and at three the attendants finished their working day by undressing her and putting her back to bed. Later she was given a light evening meal, but she had no appetite and often refused to eat at all. Once she'd told him the attendants were cross with her for not eating. But it didn't matter. At least it had meant someone had come and talked to her.

Martin Beck knew that a lack of staff constituted a difficult problem for the old people's home, not least the shortage of nurses and ward assistants. He also knew that such personnel as did exist were friendly and considerate to the old folk – despite wretchedly low wages and inconveniently long working hours – and that they did their best for them. He'd given a great deal of thought to how he could make existence more tolerable for her, maybe by having her moved to a private nursing home where people would devote more time and attention to her; but he'd quickly come to the conclusion that she could not expect much better care than where she was already. All he could do for her was to visit her as often as possible. During his examination of the possibilities for improving his mother's situation he'd discovered how much worse off an incredible number of other old people were.

To grow old alone and in poverty, unable to look after oneself, meant that after a long and active life one was suddenly stripped of one's dignity and identity – fated to await the end in an institution in the company of other old people, equally outcast and annihilated.

Today they were not even called ‘institutions’, or even ‘old people's homes’. Nowadays they were called ‘pensioners' homes’, or even ‘pensioners' hotels’, to gloss over the fact that in practice most people weren't there voluntarily, but had quite simply been condemned to it by a so-called Welfare State that no longer wished to know about them. It was a cruel sentence, and the crime was being too old. As a worn-out cog in the social machine, one was dumped on the rubbish heap.

Martin Beck realized that in spite of everything his mother was better off than most of the other old and sick people. She had saved and stinted and put aside money in order to be secure in her old age and not become a burden to anyone. Although inflation had catastrophically devalued her money, she still received medical care, fairly nutritious food, and, in her large and airy sickroom, which she was spared from sharing with anyone else, she still had her own intimate belongings around her. This much at least she had been able to buy with her savings.

Now his trousers had dried slowly in the sunny window and the stain had disappeared almost completely. He dressed and rang for a taxi.

The park around the old people's home was spacious and well kept, with tall, leafy trees and cool, shady paths winding between the arbours, flowerbeds, and terraces. Before his mother had fallen sick she had liked to walk there, leaning on his arm.

Martin Beck went straight to the office; but neither Sister Birgit nor anyone else was there. In the corridor he met a maid carrying a tray with thermos bottles. He asked after Sister Birgit, and the assistant informed him in sing-song Finnish-Swedish that Sister Birgit was occupied at the moment with a patient. He asked her which was Mrs Beck's room. She nodded towards a door further down the corridor and went off with her tray.

Martin Beck looked in at the door. The room was smaller than the one his mother had had before and looked more like a sickroom. Inside, everything was white except the bouquet of red tulips he'd given her two days ago, which were now standing on a table beside the window. His mother was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling with eyes that seemed to grow larger every time he visited her. Her skinny hands plucked at the bedspread. Standing by the bed, he took her hand, and she moved her eyes slowly up to his face. ‘Have you come all this way?’ she whispered in a scarcely audible voice.

‘Don't tire yourself by talking, Mum,’ Martin Beck said, releasing her hand. He sat looking at the tired face with the wide feverish eyes. ‘How are you, Mum?’ he asked.

She didn't answer immediately – just looked at him and blinked once or twice, as though her eyelids were so heavy it was an effort to lift them. ‘I'm cold,’ she said at last.

Martin Beck looked around the room. A blanket lay on a chair at the foot of the bed. He picked it up and spread it over her.

‘Thank you, my dear,’ she whispered.

Again he sat quiet, looking at her. Not knowing what to say, he just held her thin, cold hand in his.

There was a faint rattle in her throat as she breathed. Gradually her breathing became more calm, and she closed her eyes. He went on sitting there, holding her hand. A blackbird sang outside the window. Otherwise all was quiet.