The Fire Engine That Disappeared

‘Didn’t you call a doctor?’

The man shook his head.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I thought she was already dead so there wasn’t no point in getting a doctor.’

He sat in silence for a moment. Then he said:

‘I didn’t mean her no harm. I just got annoyed. She shouldn’t have gone on so.’

Benny Skacke rose and collected his coat from the hanger by the door. He was not sure what he ought to do with the man. As he pulled on his coat, he said:

‘Why did you come here instead of going to the district police station? It’s quite near.’

Gottfridsson got up and shrugged his shoulders.

‘I thought…I thought a thing like this…murder and all that, so…’

Benny Skacke opened the door into the corridor.

‘You’d better come with me, Mr Gottfridsson.’

It took only a few minutes to get to the block where Gottfridsson lived. The man sat in silence, his hands shaking violently. He went ahead up the stairs and Skacke took the key away from him and opened the front door.

They went into a small, dark hall with three doors, all shut. Skacke looked inquiringly at Gottfridsson.

‘In there,’ said the man, pointing to the left-hand door.

Skacke took three steps across the floor and opened the door.

The room was empty.

The furniture was shabby and dusty, but seemed to be in its right place and there was no sign of a struggle of any sort. Skacke turned around and looked at Gottfridsson, who was still standing by the outer door.

‘There’s no one here,’ he said.

Gottfridsson stared at him. He raised his hand and pointed as he slowly came into the doorway.

‘But,’ he said, ‘she was lying there.’

He looked around in confusion. Then he walked straight across the hall and opened the kitchen door. The kitchen was also empty.

The third door led to the bathroom and there was nothing remarkable there either.

Gottfridsson ran his hand through his thinning hair.

‘What?’ he said. ‘I saw her lying there.’

‘Yes,’ said Skacke. ‘Perhaps you did. But she obviously wasn’t dead. How did you come to that conclusion, anyhow?’

‘I could see,’ said Gottfridsson. ‘She wasn’t moving and she wasn’t breathing. And she was cold. Like a corpse.’

‘Perhaps she just seemed dead.’

It occurred to Skacke that perhaps the man was pulling his leg and had invented the whole story. Perhaps he had no wife at all. Also, both the death of his presumed wife, and her resurrection and disappearance appeared to leave the man singularly unmoved. He eyed the floor where the dead woman, according to Gottfridsson, had lain. There was no trace of either blood or anything in particular.

‘Well,’ said Skacke. ‘She’s not here now. Perhaps we should ask the neighbours.’

Gottfridsson tried to dissuade him.

‘No, don’t do that. We’re not on very good terms. Besides, they’re not at home at this time of day.’

He went into the kitchen and sat down on a wooden chair.

‘Where the devil is the woman,’ he said.

At that moment, the outer door opened. The woman who came into the hall was short and plump. She was wearing a coverall apron and a cardigan, and had tied a check scarf around her head. She was carrying a string bag in one hand.

Skacke could not immediately find anything to say. Neither did the woman say anything. She walked swiftly past him into the kitchen.

‘Oh, yes, so you dared come back, did you, you clod?’

Gottfridsson stared at her and opened his mouth to say something. His wife dumped the string bag on the kitchen table with a bang and said:

‘And who’s that creature? Now, it’s no good you bringing your boozing pals here, you know that. You boozers can go somewhere else.’

‘Excuse me,’ said Skacke uncertainly. ‘Your husband thought you’d had an accident and—’

‘Accident,’ she snorted. ‘Accident, my foot.’

She swung around and looked at Skacke with hostility.

‘I just thought I’d scare him a bit. Coming home like that and beginning to fight after being out boozing for days. There has to be a limit.’

The woman took off her scarf. She had an insignificant bruise on her jaw, but otherwise there did not appear to be anything wrong with her.

‘How do you feel?’ said Skacke. ‘You’re not hurt, are you?’

‘Poof!’ she said. ‘But when he knocked me down, I thought I’d just lie there and pretend to have fainted.’

She turned to the man.

‘You were a bit scared, weren’t you?’

Gottfridsson glanced embarrassedly at Skacke and mumbled something.

‘Who are you, anyway?’ asked the woman.

Skacke met Gottfridsson’s eyes and said curtly: ‘Police.’

‘Police!’ cried Mrs Gottfridsson.

She put her hands on her hips and leaned over her husband, who was cowering on the kitchen chair, a miserable expression on his face.

‘Have you gone mad?’ she cried. ‘Bringing the cops here! What was that for, may I ask?’

She straightened up and looked angrily at Skacke.

‘And you. What sort of policeman are you? Pushing your way in here on to innocent people. Aren’t you supposed to show your badge at least before you come barging in on honest folk?’

Skacke hurriedly got out his identity card.

‘An assistant, eh?’

‘Assistant Inspector,’ said Skacke bleakly.

‘What did you think you’d find here, then, eh? I’ve not done nothing wrong and neither has my husband either.’

She placed herself beside Gottfridsson and protectively laid her hand on his shoulder.

‘Has he got a warrant or anything, that he can come tramping like this into our home?’ she asked. ‘Has he shown you anything, Ludde?’

Gottfridsson shook his head but said nothing. Skacke took a step forward and opened his mouth, but was immediately interrupted by Mrs Gottfridsson.

‘Well, just be off with you, then. I’ve half a mind to report you for breaking-and-entering. Off you go now, before I get angry.’

Skacke looked at the man, who was stubbornly staring down at the floor. Then he shrugged his shoulders, turned his back on the pair and returned somewhat shaken to the South police station.

Martin Beck and Kollberg had not yet returned from Kungsholmsgatan. They were still in Melander’s office and had again played back the tape on the Malm case, this time for Hammar, who had looked in during the afternoon to ask whether they had got anywhere.

The smoke from Martin Beck’s cigarettes and Hammar’s cigar lay like fog over the room, and Kollberg had added to the air pollution by lighting a bonfire of dead matches and empty cigarette packets in the ashtray. Rönn worsened the situation even more by opening the window and letting in the most polluted city air in the whole of northern Europe. Martin Beck coughed and said:

‘If we’re going to consider the arson theory at all, then everything is made much more difficult by all the witnesses being in the hospital and not available for questioning.’

‘Yes,’ said Rönn.

‘I don’t think it was arson, now,’ said Hammar. ‘But we mustn’t draw any hasty conclusions until Melander has finished at the scene of the fire and the labs have had their say.’

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