The Terrorists

But now that risk had been minimized. The upper echelons of the police force appeared convinced that even if he wasn't actually crazy, he was certainly impossible to work with. So Martin Beck had become head of the National Murder Squad and would remain so until that antediluvian but singularly efficient organization was abolished.

Ironically, that very efficiency had engendered some criticism of the Squad. Some said that the Squad's extraordinary success rate was due to the fact that it had too good a staff for its relatively few cases.

In addition, there were also people in high places who disliked Martin Beck personally. One of these had even let it be known that, by various unjust means, Martin Beck had persuaded Lennart Kollberg, who had been one of the best policemen in the country, to resign from the force to become a part-time revolver sorter at the Army Museum, compelling his poor wife to take on the burden of being the family breadwinner.

Martin Beck seldom became really angry, but when he heard this gibe, he came close to going up to the person in question and slugging him on the jaw. The fact was that everyone had gained from Kollberg's resignation. Kollberg himself not only escaped from a distasteful job but also managed to see his family more often, and his wife and children very much preferred seeing more of him. Another beneficiary was Benny Skacke, who took Kollberg's place and thus could hope to collect more credits towards his great purpose in life, that of becoming chief of police. And last but by no means least to benefit were certain members of the National Police Administration who, even if they were forced to admit that Kollberg was a good policeman, never could get over the fact that he was ‘troublesome’ and ‘caused complications’. When you came down to it, there was only one person who missed Kollberg, and that was Martin Beck.

When he had come out of hospital more than two years earlier, he also had problems of a more personal nature. He had felt lonely and isolated in a way he had never felt before. The case he had been given as occupational therapy had been unique in that it seemed to come straight from the world of detective stories. It concerned a locked room, and the investigation had been mystifying and the solution unsatisfactory. He had often had the feeling that it was he himself who was seated in the locked room, instead of a rather uninteresting corpse.

He had found the murderer, although Bulldozer Olsson at the subsequent trial had chosen to have the accused charged with murder in connection with a bank robbery, of which the man in question was entirely innocent – the case that Braxén had referred to earlier in the day. Martin Beck had found things a bit difficult with Bulldozer since then, as the whole affair had been so deliberately manipulated, but their relations weren't all that bad. Martin Beck was not resentful and he liked talking to Bulldozer, even if it did amuse him to put a spoke in the public prosecutor's wheel as he had done earlier that day.

But luck had come his way again – in the shape of Rhea Nielsen. When he met her, it took him only ten minutes to realize he was extremely interested, and she had made little effort to hide her interest in him. Perhaps most meaningful to him, at least at first, was that he had made contact with not only a human being who had at once understood what he meant, but also one whose own intentions and unspoken questions had been quite clear, without misunderstandings or complications.

So it had begun. They had met often, but only at her place. She owned an apartment building in Tulegatan and ran it, more and more dejectedly during the last year, as a kind of collective.

Several weeks had gone by before she had come to the Köpmangatan apartment. She had cooked dinner that evening, because good food was one of her interests. The evening had also revealed that she had certain other interests, and that their interests on that point were more or less mutual.

It had been a good evening. For Martin Beck, perhaps the most successful ever.

They had had breakfast together in the morning, Martin Beck preparing it as he watched her dress. He had seen her naked several times before, but he had a strong feeling that it would be many years before he had looked his fill. Rhea Nielsen was strong and well built. It could be said that she was rather stocky, but also that she had an unusually functional and harmonious body – just as it could be said that her features were as irregular as they were strong and individual. What he liked most of all were five widely disparate things: her uncompromising blue eyes, her flat round breasts, her large light-brown nipples, the fair patch of hair at her loins, and her feet.

Rhea had laughed hoarsely. ‘Go on looking,’ she said. ‘Sometimes it's damned good to be looked at.’ She pulled on her panties.

Soon afterwards they were breakfasting on tea and toast and marmalade. She looked thoughtful, and Martin Beck knew why. He was troubled himself.

A few minutes later, she left, saying, ‘Thanks for one hell of a nice night.’

‘Thanks yourself.’

‘I'll call you,’ said Rhea. ‘If you think too long's gone by, then call me.’ She looked thoughtful and troubled again, then thrust her feet into her red clogs and said abruptly, ‘So long then. And thanks again.’

Martin Beck was free that day. After Rhea had gone, he took a shower, put on his bathrobe and lay down on the bed. He still felt troubled. He got up and looked at himself in the mirror. It had to be admitted that he did not look forty-nine, but it also had to be admitted that he was. As far as he could see, his features hadn't altered markedly for a number of years. He was trim and tall, a man with slightly yellow skin and a broad jaw. His hair showed no signs of going grey. No receding at the temples, either.

Or was that all an illusion? Just because he wanted it to be that way?

He went back to the bed, lay down on his back and clasped his hands behind his head.

He had had the best hours of his life. At the same time, he had created a problem that appeared insoluble. It was damned good sleeping with Rhea. But what was she really like? He was not sure he wanted to put it into words, but maybe he should. What was it someone had said once in the house on Tulegatan? Half girl and half ruffian?

Stupid, but it fitted somehow.

What had it been like last night?

The best in his life. Sexually. But he hadn't had a great deal of experience in that field.

What was she like? He would have to answer. Before he got to the central question.

She had thought it was fun. She had laughed sometimes. And sometimes he had thought she was crying.

So far so good, but then his thoughts took a different turn.

It won't work.

There's too much against it.

I'm thirteen years older. We're both divorced.

We have children, and even if mine are grown up, Rolf nineteen and Ingrid soon twenty-three, hers are still pretty young.

When I'm sixty and ready to retire she'll be only forty-seven.

It won't work.

Martin Beck did not call her. The days went by, and over a week had passed since that night, when his own telephone shrilled at half-past seven in the morning.

‘Hi,’ said Rhea.

‘Hi. Thanks for last week.’

‘Same to you. Are you busy?’

‘Not at all.’

‘God, the police must be busy,’ said Rhea. ‘When do you work, by the way?’

‘My department is having a quiet time at the present. But go into town and you'll find a different story.’

‘Thanks, I know what the streets are like.’

She paused briefly, coughed hoarsely, then said, ‘Is it talking time?’

‘I suppose.’

‘Okay. I'll put in an appearance whenever you say. It'd be best at your place.’

‘Maybe we could go out and eat afterwards,’ said Martin Beck.

‘Yes,’ she said hesitantly, ‘we could. Can you eat out in clogs these days?’

‘Sure.’

‘I'll be there at seven then.’

It was an important conversation for them both, despite the brevity. Their thoughts seemed always to run along roughly the same tracks, and there was no reason to suppose they had not done so this time. More than likely they had come to similar conclusions in a matter that was of undeniable significance.

Rhea came at exactly seven o'clock. She kicked off her red clogs and stood on tiptoe to kiss him.

‘Why didn't you call me?’ she asked.

Martin Beck did not answer.

‘Because you'd finished thinking,’ she said. ‘And weren't pleased with the result?’

‘Roughly.’

‘Roughly?’

‘Exactly,’ he said.

‘So we can't move in together or marry or have any more children or any other stupid thing. Then everything would become too complicated and muddled and a good relationship would have considerable chances of going to hell. Chewed to pieces and worn through.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You're probably right. However much I'd like to deny it.’

She gazed straight at him with her strange, peering, clear blue eyes and said, ‘Do you want to deny it very much?’

‘Yes, but I won't.’

For a moment she seemed to lose control. She walked over to the window, struck aside the curtain and said something in such a muffled voice that he could not catch the words. A few seconds later she said, still without turning her head, ‘I said I love you. I love you now, and I'll probably go on loving you for quite a long time.’

Martin Beck felt bewildered. Then he went over and put his arms around her. Soon afterwards she raised her face from his chest and said, ‘What I mean is, I'm staking a claim and will go on doing so as long as both of us do. Does that make sense?’

‘Yes,’ said Martin Beck. ‘Shall we go and eat now?’

Though they seldom went out to eat, they had gone to an expensive restaurant where the headwaiter had looked at Rhea's clogs with distaste. Afterwards they had walked home and lain in the same bed, which neither of them had planned on.

Since then almost two years had gone by and Rhea Nielsen had been to Köpmangatan innumerable times. Naturally she had to some extent left her mark on the apartment, especially in the kitchen, which was wholly unrecognizable. She had also stuck a poster of Mao Tse-Tung above the bed. Martin Beck never expressed opinions on political matters and said nothing this time, either. But Rhea had said, ‘If anyone wanted to do an “At Home With …” article, you'd probably have to take it down. If you were too cowardly to leave it up.’

Martin Beck had not answered, but the thought of the tremendous dismay the poster would cause in certain circles decided him at once to leave it there.

When they went into Martin Beck's apartment on the fifth of June, 1974, Rhea began at once to take off her sandals.

‘These damned straps rub,’ she said. ‘But they'll be all right in a week or two.’ She flung the sandals aside. ‘What a relief,’ she said. ‘You did a good job today. How many policemen would have agreed to testify and answer those questions?’

Martin Beck continued to say nothing.

‘Not one,’ said Rhea. ‘And what you said turned the whole case. I could tell right away.’ She studied her feet and said, ‘Pretty sandals, but they rub like hell. It's nice to get them off.’

‘Take everything else off if you like it,’ said Martin Beck. He had known this woman long enough to know exactly how the situation might develop. Either she would immediately fling off all her clothes, or she would start talking about something completely different.

Rhea glanced at him. Sometimes her eyes looked luminous, he thought. She opened her mouth to say something and at once closed it again. Instead she flung off her shirt and jeans, and before Martin Beck had time to unbutton his jacket, her clothes were lying on the floor and she herself lay naked on the bed.

‘God, how slowly you undress,’ she said, with a snort. Her mood had suddenly changed. This showed too in that she lay flat on her back almost throughout, her legs wide apart and straight up, the way she thought was the most fun, which was not to say that she always or even usually thought it was the best way.

They came simultaneously and that had to be that for the day.

Rhea rummaged in the wardrobe and extracted a long lilac woollen jumper, which was clearly her favourite piece of clothing and which she had found as difficult to leave behind at Tulegatan as her personal integrity. Before she had even put it on, she began to talk about food.

‘A hot sandwich or maybe three, or five, how does that sound? I've bought all sorts of goodies, ham and pâté, the best Jarlsberg cheese you've ever tasted.’

‘I believe you,’ said Martin Beck. He was standing over by the window, listening to the wolf howls of police cars, which could be heard very clearly, although in fact he lived in a very secluded spot.

‘It'll be ready in five minutes,’ said Rhea.

It was the same every time they slept together. She at once became extremely hungry. Sometimes it was so urgent that she rushed stark-naked out to the kitchen to start cooking. Her preference for hot food didn't make things easier.

Martin Beck had no such problems – on the contrary. True, his stomach trouble seemed to have left him as soon as he left his wife. Whether the trouble had been due to her erratic cooking or whether it had had psychosomatic origins was not easy to say. But he could still easily satisfy his caloric needs – especially when on duty or when Rhea was not within reach – with a couple of cheese sandwiches and a glass or two of milk.

But Rhea's hot open sandwiches were very difficult to resist. Martin Beck ate three of them and drank two bottles of Hof. Rhea devoured seven, drank half a bottle of red wine and was still hungry enough fifteen minutes later to go foraging in the refrigerator for more.

‘Are you staying over?’ Martin Beck asked.

‘Yes, please,’ she said. ‘It seems to be that sort of day.’

‘What sort of day?’

‘The sort of day that suits us, of course.’

‘Oh, that sort of day.’

‘We could celebrate Swedish Flag Day, for instance. And the King's name day. We'll have to think up something original when we wake up.’

‘Oh, I expect that can be arranged.’

Rhea curled up in the armchair. Most people would probably have thought she looked comical in her strange position and that mysterious long jumper. But Martin Beck did not think so. After a while it looked as if she had fallen asleep, but at that moment she said, ‘Now I remember what it was I was going to say just as you raped me.’

‘Yes? What was it?’

‘That girl, Rebecka Lind, what'll happen to her?’

‘Nothing. They released her.’

‘Sometimes you really do say stupid things. I know they released her. The question is what might happen to her psychologically. Can she look after herself?’

‘Oh, I think so. She isn't as apathetic and passive as a lot of her contemporaries. And as far as the trial –’

‘Yes, the trial. What did she learn from it? Presumably that it's possible to be arrested and maybe sent to prison without ever having done anything.’ Rhea frowned. ‘I'm worried about that girl. It's difficult to manage on your own in a society you don't understand at all, when the system is alien to you.’

‘From what I could gather that American boy is okay and really does want to take care of her.’

‘Maybe he just can't,’ said Rhea, shaking her head.

Martin Beck looked silently at her for a while, then said, ‘I'd like to disagree with you, but the fact is I was worried myself when I saw that girl. Another fact is that unfortunately we can't do much to help her. Of course we could help her privately, with money, but I don't think she'd accept that kind of help and anyway I don't have any money to give away.’

Rhea scratched the back of her neck for a while. ‘You're right,’ she said. ‘I think she's the type who wouldn't accept charity. She'll never even go willingly to the welfare office. Perhaps she'll try to get herself a job, but she'll never find one.’ She yawned. ‘I haven't the energy to think any more,’ she said. ‘But one thing seems clear. Rebecka Lind will never become a noted citizen in the land.’

She was wrong there, and soon afterwards fell asleep.

Martin Beck went out to the kitchen, did the dishes and put things away. He was still there when Rhea woke up and he heard her switch on the TV. She had decided not to have a set of her own, presumably for the sake of the children, but she occasionally liked to watch his. He heard her call something, put down what he was doing and went into the room.

‘There's a special news bulletin,’ she said.

He had missed the actual beginning, but there was no doubt about the subject matter. The newscaster's voice sounded dignified and serious.

‘… the assassination occurred before the arrival at the palace. An explosive charge of very great force was detonated beneath the street just as the motorcade was passing. The President and the others in the bulletproof car were killed immediately and their bodies badly mutilated. The car itself was thrown over a nearby building. A number of other people were killed by the explosion, among them several security men and civilians in the area. The chief of the city police announced that sixteen people had definitely been killed, but the final number may be considerably higher. He also emphasized that security measures for the state visit had been the most comprehensive ever undertaken in the history of the country. In a broadcast from France immediately after the assassination, it was said that an international terrorist group called ULAG had accepted responsibility for the act.’

The newsreader lifted his telephone receiver and listened for a few seconds, then said, ‘We now have a film transmitted by satellite and made by an American television company covering this state visit that has come to such a tragic end.’

The broadcast was of poor quality, but nevertheless so revolting that it should never have been shown.

At first there were a few pictures of the arrival of the President's plane and the noble gentleman himself, rather foolishly waving at the reception committee. Then he unenthusiastically inspected the honour guard and greeted his hosts with a smile plastered on his face. There followed a few pictures of the motorcade. The security measures seemed singularly reassuring.

Then came the climax of the broadcast. The television company appeared to have had a cameraman very strategically, or perhaps fortunately, placed. If the man had been fifty yards nearer, he would probably no longer be alive. If on the other hand he had been fifty yards further away, he would probably not have had any pictures to show. Everything happened very quickly; first an enormous pillar of smoke, cars, animals and people all thrown high into the air, bodies torn apart, swallowed up in a cloud of smoke that looked almost like the mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb. Then the cameraman panned around the surroundings, which were very beautiful; a fountain playing, a wide palm-lined street. And then came the terrible paroxysms beside a heap of metal that might once have been a car, and something which a short time before had probably been a living human being.

Throughout the film the reporter kept up a ceaseless commentary in that eager, exalted tone that only American news reporters seem to achieve. It was as if he had – with enormous pleasure – just witnessed the end of the world.

‘Oh, God,’ said Rhea, burying her face in the chair cushion. ‘What a damned awful world we live in.’

But for Martin Beck it was going to be slightly more difficult.

The Swedish newsreader reappeared and said, ‘We have just learned that the Swedish police had a special observer at the site of the assassination, Inspector Gunvald Larsson, from the Violent Crimes Squad in Stockholm.’

The screen was filled with a still picture of Gunvald Larsson looking mentally deficient, his name, as usual, misspelled.

‘Unfortunately there is no news at the moment of what has happened to Inspector Larsson. The next newscast will be the regularly scheduled news on the radio.’

‘Dammit,’ said Martin Beck. ‘Dammit to hell.’

‘What's the matter?’ asked Rhea.

‘Gunvald. He's always right there when the shit hits the fan.’

‘I thought you didn't like him.’

‘But I do. Even if I don't say so very often.’

‘You should say what you think,’ said Rhea. ‘Come on, let's go to bed.’

Twenty minutes later he had fallen asleep with his cheek against her shoulder.

Her shoulder soon grew numb, and then her arm. She didn't move, but just lay awake in the dark, liking him.

5

The last commuter train of the night from Stockholm's Central Station stopped at Rotebro and dropped a single passenger.

The man, wearing a dark blue denim suit and black trainers, walked briskly along the platform and down the steps, but as he left the bright lights of the station behind him, he slowed down. He continued unhurriedly through the older villa section of the suburb, past the fences, low walls and well-cut hedges that surrounded the gardens. The air was chilly, but still and full of scents.

It was the darkest part of the night, but it was only two weeks to the summer solstice and the June sky arched deep blue above his head.

The houses on either side of the road lay dark and silent, the only sound that of the man's rubber soles against the pavement.

During the train journey, he had been uneasy and nervous, but now he was feeling calm and relaxed, his thoughts wandering their own ways. A poem by Elmer Diktonius came to his mind, its cadence matching his steps.

Walk carefully along the road

But never count your steps,

For fear will kill them.

From time to time he had tried to compose poetry himself, with indifferent results, but he liked reading poetry and had learned by heart many poems written by his favourite poets.

As he walked he kept his hand firmly clenched around the solid iron bar, over a foot long, that he was carrying thrust up the right sleeve of his denim jacket.

When the man had crossed Holmbodavägen and was approaching a street of terraced houses, his movements grew more cautious and his stance more alert. Up to now he had met no one and he was hoping his luck would hold for the short stretch remaining before he reached his goal. He felt more exposed here, the gardens were behind the houses, and the vegetation in the narrow strip between the fronts of houses and the pavement consisted of flower beds, bushes and hedges that were too low to offer any protection.

The houses along one side of the road were painted yellow, those opposite red. This appeared to be the only difference; their exteriors were otherwise identical, two-storey houses of wood, with mansard roofs. Between the houses were garages or tool-sheds, squeezed in as if to link the houses together as well as to separate them.

The man was on his way to the furthest row of houses, beyond which the buildings ceased and fields and meadows took over. He slipped swiftly and silently up to the garage next to one of the houses on the corner, as his eyes swept the terraces and the road. There was no one to be seen.

The garage had no doors, and there was no car inside, only a woman's bicycle leaning against the wall just inside the entrance, and opposite that a dustbin. Furthest in, by the far wall, were two large rectangular wooden crates standing on end. He had been worried that someone might have moved them away. The hiding place had been decided on beforehand and he would have found it difficult to find another one as good.

The space between the packing cases and the wall was narrow,but wide enough for him to squeeze into. He wriggled in behind the crates, which were solidly constructed of rough pine and about the same size as coffins. When he had assured himself that he was completely hidden he drew the iron bar out of his sleeve. He lay face down on the damp, cold cement floor, his face buried in the crook of his arm. In his right hand was the iron bar, still warm from the heat of his body. Now he had only to wait as the summer night outside gradually grew lighter.