The Terrorists

He was awakened by the twittering of birds. Getting to his knees, he looked at his watch. Almost half-past four. The sun was just rising; he had four more hours to wait.

Just before six, sounds began to come from inside the house. They were faint and indefinite and the man behind the wooden crate felt like pressing his ear to the wall, but dared not as he would then be visible from the road. Through a narrow slit between the two crates he could see a bit of the road and the house opposite. A car passed, and shortly afterwards he heard an engine start up nearby and then saw another car go by.

At half-past six he heard steps approaching on the other side of the wall; it sounded like someone in clogs. The thumping faded away and came back several times, and finally he heard a deep female voice saying quite clearly, ‘Bye, then. I'm going. Will you call me this evening?’

He could not make out the reply, but heard the front door open and close. He stood quite still with his eye to the crack.

The woman in clogs came into the garage. He could not see her, but heard a small click as she unlocked the bicycle and then the crunch of her steps on the gravel path leading out to the road. The only thing he saw as she cycled past was that her trousers were white and her hair long and dark.

He scanned the house across the road. The blinds were down in the only window that was within his field of vision. He clamped the iron bar under his jacket with his left arm and moved three steps away from the protection of the crates, put one ear against the wall and listened, his eye on the road outside. At first he could hear nothing, but he soon caught the sound of steps vanishing up some stairs.

The road was empty. Far away he heard a dog bark and the distant grumble of a diesel engine, but in the immediate vicinity everything was quiet and still. He pulled on his gloves, which had been rolled up inside his jacket pockets, slipped quickly along the garage wall, stepped around the corner and pressed down the handle of the front porch door.

As he had expected, it was unlocked.

He held the door ajar, heard footsteps up on the next floor, established with a swift glance that the road was still empty, and slipped inside.

The tiles of the porch were a step lower than the parquet flooring of the hall, and he stood there looking to the right, through the hall and into the large living room. He was already familiar with the layout of the house. There were three doors to the right, the middle one open – that was the kitchen. The bathroom lay behind the door to the left in the hall. Then the stairs to the upper floor. Beyond them was the part of the living room hidden from him facing the garden at the back of the house.

To his left hung a row of outdoor clothes, and on the tile floor beneath them were rubber boots and some sandals and shoes. Straight ahead of him, immediately opposite the door from the porch, was yet another door. He opened it, went in and shut it soundlessly behind him.

He found himself in a kind of combined storage and utility room. The boiler for the central heating was there. Washing machine, dryer and pump stood along one wall beyond the heating unit. Along the other wall were two large cupboards and a workbench. He glanced into the cupboards. In one hung a ski suit, a sheepskin coat and other clothing seldom used, or put away for the summer. The other held a few rolls of wallpaper and a large tin of white paint.

The sounds from above had ceased. The man held the iron bar in his right hand as he opened the door a crack and listened.

Suddenly steps could be heard coming down the stairs and he hurried to close the door, but remained standing there with his ear to the wooden door-panel. The steps could not be heard so clearly down here, probably because the person out there was either barefooted or in his stocking feet.

There was a clatter in the kitchen, as if a saucepan had fallen to the floor.

Silence.

Then steps approached and the man tightened his grip on the iron bar. But he relaxed it again when he heard the bathroom door open and then the rush of water in the toilet. He opened the door a crack again and peered out. Over the sound of rushing water, he heard the peculiar sounds that arise when someone tries to sing while brushing his teeth. This was followed by gargling, throat clearing and spitting. Then the song started up again, clearer now and with shrill power. He recognized the song despite the fact that the rendering of it was horribly out of tune and that he had not heard it sung for at least twenty-five years. ‘The Girl in Marseille’ he thought it was called.

‘… but then one dark night, in the Mediterranean moonlight, I lay dead in an alley, down by the old harbour …’ came from the bathroom as someone turned on the shower.

He stepped out and on tiptoe crept up to the half-open bathroom door. The noise of the shower did not drown the song, which was now mixed with snorts and puffings and blowings.

The man stood with the iron bar in his hand and looked into the bathroom. He looked at the reddening shiny back with two rolls of fat hanging between the round cushions over the shoulder blades and the place where the waist should have been. He looked at the sagging buttocks, trembling over dimpled thighs, and the bulging veins at the back of the knees and knobbly calves. He looked at the fat neck and the skull, which shone pink between thin strands of black hair. And as he looked and took the few steps towards the man standing in the bath, he was filled with loathing and disgust. He raised his weapon, and with the force of all his hatred, split the man's skull with one blow.

The fat man's feet slid backwards on the slippery enamel and he fell face down, his head thumping against the edge of the bath before his body came to rest with a smacking sound under the shower.

The killer leaned over to turn off the taps and saw how blood and brain tissue had mixed with the water and were swirling down the drain, which was half blocked by the dead man's big toe. Revolted, he grabbed a towel and wiped the weapon, threw the towel over the corpse's head and thrust the iron bar up the wet sleeve of his jacket. Then he closed the bathroom door and went into the living room, opening the glass doors into the garden, where the lawn bordered on the broad fields surrounding the area.

He had to walk a long stretch across open fields to reach the edge of the woods on the other side. A beaten path ran diagonally across the field and he began to follow it. Further on, the ground was cultivated and green with sprouting seed. He did not turn around, but out of the corner of his left eye he sensed the long rows of houses with their angled roofs and shining windows in the pointed gables. Every window was an eye staring coldly at him.

As he approached the first group of trees on a small rocky slope surrounded by thick bushes, he turned off the path. Before he pushed his way through the prickly blackthorn bushes to vanish among the trees, he let the iron bar slide out of his sleeve and vanish into the tangled undergrowth.

* * *

Martin Beck was sitting alone at home, leafing through an issue of Longitude as he listened to one of Rhea's records. Rhea and he did not really have the same tastes in music, but they both liked Nannie Porres and often played her records.

It was a quarter to eight in the evening and he had considered going to bed early. Rhea was at a meeting of the parent-teacher association of her children's school, and anyway they had already celebrated Swedish Flag Day in a satisfactory manner that morning.

The telephone rang in the middle of ‘I Thought About You’, and as he knew it could hardly be Rhea, he was in no hurry to answer it. It turned out to be Chief Inspector Pärsson in Märsta district, known to some people as Märsta-Pärsta. Martin Beck considered the nickname infantile and always thought of him as Pärsson in Märsta.

‘I called the duty officer first,’ Pärsson said, ‘and he thought it'd be okay to call you at home. We've got a case out here in Rotebro which is clearly murder. The man's had his skull bashed in with a powerful blow to the back of his head.’

‘Where and when was he found?’

‘In a terraced house on Tennisvägen. The woman who lives in the house and appears to be his mistress came home at about five and found him dead in the bath. He was alive when she left the house at half-past six in the morning, she says.’

‘How long have you been there?’

‘She called us at five thirty-five,’ said Pärsson. ‘We got here almost exactly two hours ago.’

He paused for a moment and then went on. ‘I imagine it's a case we could manage on our own, but I thought I'd better inform you as soon as possible. It's difficult at this stage to decide just how complicated the investigation will be. The weapon hasn't been found.’

‘So you want us to come in on it?’ said Martin Beck.

‘If I hadn't known that you weren't actually working on a case at the moment, I wouldn't have bothered you at this stage. But I wanted your advice, and I'm told you usually like to come on a case when it's reasonably fresh.’

Pärsson sounded slightly uncertain. He admired all high-ranking officers, and Martin Beck could be considered one of those, but most of all he respected his professional skill.

‘Of course,’ said Martin Beck. ‘You're quite right. I'm glad you called me up so soon.’

It was true. Often the police in country areas waited too long before calling in the Murder Squad, either because they overestimated their own resources and skills or misjudged the scope of the investigation, or because they themselves wanted to rap the experts in Stockholm over the knuckles and have the honour of solving a murder. When they finally had to admit their limitations and Martin Beck and his men went to the place, they were often faced with a situation in which all the clues had been destroyed, all reports were illegible, witnesses had lost their memories, and the culprit had already established residence in Tahiti or had died of old age.

‘When can you come?’ said Pärsson, noticeably relieved.

‘I'll get started right away. I'll just call Koll—… Skacke, and see if he can drive me out.’

Martin Beck thought of calling Kollberg in situations like this out of habit. He supposed it was because his subconscious would not accept the fact that they were no longer working together. During the first few months after Kollberg resigned, he had actually called him several times in emergencies.

Benny Skacke was at home and as usual sounded eager and enthusiastic. He lived in southern Stockholm with his wife Monica and their one-year-old daughter. He promised to be at Köpmangatan within seven minutes, and Martin Beck went down to the street to wait for him. Exactly seven minutes later Skacke arrived in his black Saab.

On the way out to Rotebro he said, ‘You heard about Gunvald, didn't you? That he got hit in the stomach by the President's head?’

Martin Beck had heard and said, ‘He was lucky to get away with just that.’

Benny Skacke drove for a while in silence, then said, ‘I was thinking about Gunvald's clothes. He's always so careful about them and always gets them ruined. He must have gotten absolutely covered with blood.’

‘Must have,’ said Martin Beck. ‘But he got out of it alive, so he's still ahead of the game.’

‘Ahead is right!’ said Skacke with a snort of laughter.

Benny Skacke was thirty-five and during the last six years had often worked with Martin Beck. He reckoned he had gained all his basic knowledge of criminal work by observing and studying the work of Lennart Kollberg and Martin Beck. He had also noted the special rapport that existed between the two men and had been amazed how easily they read each other's thoughts. He realized that such rapport would never arise between himself and Martin Beck, and he was aware that in Martin Beck's eyes he was a poor substitute for Kollberg. This insight often made him unsure of himself in Martin Beck's company.

For his part, Martin Beck understood very well how Skacke felt and did his best to encourage him and show that he appreciated his efforts. He had watched Skacke mature during the years he had known him and he knew Skacke worked hard, not only to do well in his career but also to become a really good policeman. He regularly spent his free time building up his physique and practising on the firing range, and he studied constantly – law, sociology and psychology – and he also kept himself well informed on what was happening within the force, both technically and organizationally.

Skacke was also a good driver and had a better knowledge of Stockholm and all its new suburbs than any taxi driver. He had no difficulty finding the address in Rotebro and stopped at the end of the row of parked cars on Tennisvägen.

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