Roseanna. Henning Mankell

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ his clothes were a little too discreet.

      The air in the train was close and stuffy and he felt slightly uncomfortable as he usually did when he was on the subway. When they arrived at Central Station, he was the first one at the door with his suitcase in his hand.

      He disliked the subway. But since he cared even less for bumper-to-bumper traffic, and that ‘dream apartment’ in the centre of the city was still only a dream, he had no choice at the moment.

      The express to Gothenburg left the station at 7.30 a.m. Martin Beck thumbed through his newspaper but didn't see a line about the murder. He turned back to the cultural pages and began to read an article on the anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner but fell asleep in a few minutes.

      He awoke in good time to change trains at Hallsberg. The lead taste in his mouth had come back and stayed with him despite the three glasses of water that he drank.

      He arrived in Motala at 10.30 a.m. and by then the rain had stopped. Since it was his first visit there, he asked at the kiosk in the station the way to the City Hotel and bought a pack of cigarettes and the Motala newspaper.

      The hotel was on the main square only a few blocks from the railway station. The short walk stimulated him. Up in his room he washed his hands, unpacked, and drank a bottle of mineral water which he got from the porter. He stood by the window for a moment and looked out over the square. It had a statue in the centre which he guessed was of Baltzar von Platen. Then he left the room to go to the police station. Since he knew it was right across the street, he left his trenchcoat in the room.

      He told the officer on duty who he was and was immediately shown to an office on the second floor. The name Ahlberg was on the door.

      The man sitting behind the desk was broad and thick-set and slightly bald. His jacket was on the back of his chair and he was drinking coffee out of a container. A cigarette was burning on the corner of an ash tray which was already filled with butts.

      Martin Beck had a way of slinking through a door which irritated a number of people. Someone once said that he was able to slip into a room and close the door behind him so quickly that it seemed as if he were still knocking on the outside.

      The man behind the desk seemed slightly surprised. He pushed his coffee container away and got up.

      ‘My name is Ahlberg,’ he said.

      There was something expectant in his manner. Martin Beck had seen the same thing before and knew what this sprang from. He was the expert from Stockholm and the man behind the desk was a country policeman who had come to a standstill on an investigation. The next few minutes would be decisive for their cooperation.

      ‘What's your first name?’ said Martin Beck.

      ‘Gunnar.’

      ‘What are Kollberg and Melander doing?’

      ‘I have no idea. Something I've forgotten, I suspect.’

      ‘Did they have that we'll-settle-this-thing-in-a-flash look?’

      The local policeman ran his fingers through his thin blond hair. Then he smiled wryly and took to his familiar chair.

      ‘Just about,’ he said.

      Martin Beck sat down opposite him, drew out a pack of cigarettes and laid it on the edge of the desk.

      ‘You look tired,’ Martin Beck stated.

      ‘My vacation got shot to hell.’

      Ahlberg emptied the container of coffee, crumpled it and threw it into the wastepaper basket under the desk.

      The disorder on his desk was remarkable. Martin Beck thought about his own desk in Stockholm. It was usually quite neat.

      ‘Well,’ he said. ‘How goes it?’

      ‘Not at all,’ said Ahlberg. ‘After more than a week we don't know anything more than what the doctor has told us.’

      Out of habit he went on to the routine procedures.

      ‘Put to death by strangulation in conjunction with sexual assault. The culprit was brutal. Signs of perverse tendencies.’

      Martin Beck smiled. Ahlberg looked at him questioningly.

      ‘You said “put to death”. I say it myself sometimes. We've written too many reports.’

      ‘Yeah, isn't it hell?’

      Ahlberg sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.

      ‘We brought her up eight days ago,’ he said. ‘We haven't learned a thing since then. We don't know who she is, we don't know the scene of the crime, and we have no suspects. We haven't found a single thing that could have any real connection with her.’

       4

      ‘Death by strangulation,’ thought Martin Beck.

      He sat and thumbed through a bunch of photographs which Ahlberg had dug out of a basket on his desk. The pictures showed the locks, the dredger, its bucket in the foreground, the body lying on the embankment, and in the mortuary.

      Martin Beck placed a photo in front of Ahlberg and said:

      ‘We can have this picture cropped and retouched so that she looks presentable. Then we can begin knocking on doors. If she comes from around here someone ought to recognize her. How many men can you put on the job?’

      ‘Three at most,’ said Ahlberg. ‘We're short of men right now. Three of the boys are on vacation and one of them is in the hospital with a broken leg. Other than the Superintendent, Larsson and myself, there are only eight men at the station.’

      He counted on his fingers.

      ‘Yes, and one of them is a woman. Then too, someone has to take care of the other work.’

      ‘We'll have to help if worst comes to worst. It's going to take a hell of a lot of time. Have you had any trouble with sex criminals lately by the way?’

      Ahlberg tapped his pen against his front teeth while he was thinking. Then he reached into his desk drawer and dug up a paper.

      ‘We had one in for examination. From Västra Ny, a rapist. He was caught in Linköping the day before yesterday but he had an alibi for the entire week, according to this report from Blomgren. He's checking out the institutions.’

      Ahlberg placed the paper in a green file which lay on his desk.

      They sat quietly for a minute. Martin Beck was hungry. He thought about his wife and her chatter about regular meals. He hadn't eaten for twenty-four hours.

      The air in the room was thick with cigarette smoke. Ahlberg got up and opened the window. They could hear a time signal from a radio somewhere in the vicinity.

      ‘It's one o'clock,’ he said. ‘If you're hungry I can send out for something. I'm as hungry as a bear.’

      Martin СКАЧАТЬ