5

      Martin Beck had said he was curious about the contents of the red file; but this was not really the truth. Actually it was of no interest to him whatever. Why, then, had he chosen to give an evasive and misleading answer to the question? To make Kollberg happy? Hardly. To deceive him? Even more far-fetched. For one thing, there was no reason to do so; and anyway it was impossible. They'd known one another far too well and for too many years. Besides which Kollberg was one of the least gullible men he'd ever met. Maybe to deceive himself? Even this thought was absurd.

      Martin Beck went on chewing over this question as he completed his inspection of his office. When he'd finished with the drawers he passed on to the furniture, moved the chairs around, turned the desk to another angle, shoved the filing cabinet a few inches nearer to the door, unscrewed the office lamp and placed it on the right-hand corner of his desk. Obviously his deputy had preferred to have it on the left, or else it had just gotten that way. In little things Kollberg often acted haphazardly. But where important matters were concerned he was a perfectionist. For example, he'd waited till he was forty-two to get married, with the explicit motivation that he wanted a perfect wife. He'd waited for the right one.

      Martin Beck, on the other hand, could look back at almost two decades of unsuccessful marriage, to a person who certainly didn't seem to have been the right one. Anyway he was divorced now; he supposed he must have lingered until it was too late.

      Sometimes in the last six months he'd caught himself wondering if the divorce, all things considered, hadn't been a mistake. Maybe a nagging, boring wife was at least more exciting than no wife at all?

      Well, that was of no consequence. He took the vase of flowers and carried it in to one of the secretaries. This seemed to cheer her. Martin Beck sat down at his desk and looked about him. Order had been restored.

      Was it that he wanted to convince himself nothing had changed? A pointless question, and to forget it as soon as possible he pulled the red file towards him. The plastic was transparent, and he saw immediately that it concerned a murder. That was okay. Murder was part and parcel of his profession. But where had it happened? Bergsgatan 57. Almost on the very doorstep of the police headquarters.

      Usually he would have said it was no concern of his, or of his department, but of the Stockholm Criminal Investigation Department. For a second he felt tempted to pick up the phone, call up someone on Kungsholmen, and ask what all this was actually about. Or quite simply to stuff it all into an envelope and return it to its sender. He felt an urge to be rigid and formal – an urge so strong that he had to exert all his strength to suppress it. He looked at the clock in order to distract himself. Lunchtime already. But he wasn't hungry.

      Martin Beck got up, went out into the men's room, and drank a mug of lukewarm water.

      Coming back he noticed the air in his office was warm and foetid. Yet he did not take off his jacket or even loosen his collar. He sat down, took out the papers, and started to read.

      Twenty-eight years as a policeman had taught him a lot of things, among them the art of reading reports and rapidly sifting through repetitions and trivialities – the capacity to discern a pattern, if any existed.

      It took him less than an hour to read conscientiously through the document. Most of it was ill-written, some was downright incomprehensible, and some sections were formulated particularly badly. He immediately recognized the author. Einar Rönn, a policeman who, stylistically speaking, seemed to take after that comrade in officialdom who in his celebrated traffic regulations had declared, among much else, that darkness falls when the streetlights are lit.

      Martin Beck leafed through the papers once again, stopping here and there to check certain details. Then he laid down the report, put his elbows on the desk and his forehead into the palms of his hands. Frowning, he thought through the apparent course of events.

      The story fell into two parts. The first part was mundane and repulsive.

      Fifteen days ago, viz., on Sunday, 18th June, a tenant at Bergsgatan 57 on Kungsholmen had called the police. The conversation had been registered at 2.19 p.m., but not until two hours later had a patrol car with two officers arrived at the place. At most the house on Bergsgatan was no more than nine minutes' walk from the Stockholm Police Headquarters; but the delay was easily explained. The capital was suffering from an atrocious shortage of policemen; besides which it was the summer holidays, and a Sunday to boot. Moreover, nothing had indicated that the call was particularly urgent. Two constables, Karl Kristiansson and Kenneth Kvastmo, had entered the building and talked to the caller, a woman living two flights up in the part