Cop Killer. Ларс Кеплер
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Название: Cop Killer
Автор: Ларс Кеплер
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Полицейские детективы
isbn: 9780007323425
isbn:
‘I believe she's dead,’ he said.
And that was all he said on the subject.
From a distance came the sound of heavy traffic thundering along the main road.
Allwright looked up.
‘Most of the big lorries still take this road from Malmö to Ystad,’ he said. ‘Even though the new Route 11 is a lot faster. Lorry drivers are creatures of habit.’
‘And this business with Bengtsson?’ said Martin Beck.
‘You ought to know more about him than I do.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. We got him for a sex murder almost ten years ago. After a lot of ifs and buts. He was an odd man. But what happened to him afterwards, I don't know.’
‘I know,’ Allwright said. ‘Everyone in town here knows. They declared him sane, and he spent seven and a half years in prison. Eventually he moved down here and bought a little house. He had some money, apparently, because he also got hold of a boat and an old estate car. He makes a living smoking fish. Catches some of it himself and buys some of it from people who do a little fishing on the side – non-union. It's not popular with the professional fishermen, but it's not actually illegal, either. At least not as far as I can see. Then he drives around and sells smoked herring and fresh eggs, mostly to a few steady customers. The people around here have accepted Folke as a decent person. He's never done anyone any harm. Doesn't talk much and keeps mostly to himself. Retiring type. The times I've run into him, it always seems as if he wanted to apologize for simply existing. But …’
‘Yes?’
‘But everybody knows he's a murderer. Tried and convicted. It was apparently a pretty ugly murder, too. Some harmless foreign woman.’
‘Roseanna McGraw was her name. And it really was revolting. Sick. But he was sexually provoked. The way he saw it. And we had to provoke him again in order to catch him. Myself, I can't imagine how he ever passed the psychiatric examination.’
‘Oh, come on,’ said Allwright, laugh lines spreading around his eyes like a spider web. ‘I've been in Stockholm too. The cram course in legal psychiatry. In fifty per cent of the cases the doctors are crazier than the patients.’
‘As far as I could gather, Folke Bengtsson was definitely disturbed. A combination of sadism, puritanism, and misogyny. Does he know Sigbrit Mård?’
‘Know?’ said Allwright. ‘His house isn't two hundred yards from hers. They're each other's closest neighbours. She's one of his regular customers. But that's not the worst of it.’
‘Really?’
‘The key point is that he was in the post office at the same time she was. There are witnesses who saw them talking to each other. He had his car parked in the square. He was standing behind her in line and left the place about five minutes after she did.’
There was a moment's silence.
‘You know Folke Bengtsson,’ Allwright said.
‘Yes.’
‘And would he be capable…?’
‘Yes,’ said Martin Beck.
‘To be perfectly honest, and I always am, Sigbrit's dead, and things look pretty damned bad for Folke,’ Allwright said. ‘I don't believe in coincidence.’
‘You said something about her husband?’
‘Yes, that's right. He's a ship's captain, but he drinks too much. Six years ago he got some mysterious liver disease, and they sent him home from Ecuador. They didn't fire him, but the doctors wouldn't give him a clean bill of health, so he couldn't ship out again. He came out here to live, and went on drinking, and then pretty soon they separated. Now he lives in Malmö.’
‘Do you have any contact with him?’
‘Yes. Unfortunately. Close physical contact, you might say. If you wanted to put it nicely. The fact is, she was the one who wanted the divorce. He was against it. Dead against it. But she got her way. They'd been married for a long time, but he'd been away at sea mostly. Came home once a year or so, and apparently that worked fine. But then when they tried to live together all the time, it was a complete disaster.’
‘And now?’
‘Now every time he gets well and truly plastered he comes out here to “talk it over”. But there's nothing to talk about, and he usually winds up giving her a real alarming.’
‘A what?’
Allwright laughed.
‘An alarming,’ he said. ‘Local dialect. What do you call it in Stockholm? He warms her hide for her. “Domestic disturbance” in police jargon. What a lousy expression – “domestic disturbance”. Anyway, I've had to go out there twice. The first time, I talked some sense into him. But the second time wasn't so easy. I had to hit him and bring him in to our fancy jail. Sigbrit looked pretty miserable that time. Big black eyes, and some ugly marks on her throat.’
Allwright poked at his lion-hunting hat.
‘I know Bertil Mård. He goes on binges, but I don't think he's as bad as he seems. And I think he loves Sigbrit. And so, of course, he's jealous. Though I don't think he has any real cause. I don't know anything about her sex life, supposing she has one. And if she does have one I ought to know about it. Around here, everyone pretty much knows everything about everybody. But I probably know most.’
‘What does Mård say himself?’
‘They questioned him in Malmö. He has a sort of alibi for the seventeenth. Claims he was in Copenhagen that day. Rode over on the train ferry, the Malmöhus, but…’
‘Do you know who questioned him?’
‘Yes. A Chief Inspector Månsson.’
Martin Beck had known Per Månsson for years and had great confidence in him. He cleared his throat.
‘In other words, things don't look so good for Mård either.’
Allwright scratched the dog for a while before answering.
‘No,’ he said. ‘But he's in a hell of a lot better shape than Folke Bengtsson.’
‘If, in fact, anything has happened.’
‘She's disappeared. That's enough for me. No one who knows her can think of any reasonable explanation.’
‘What does she look like, by the way?’
‘What she looks like right now is something I'd rather not think about,’ said Allwright.
‘Aren't you jumping to a conclusion?’
‘Sure СКАЧАТЬ