The Laughing Policeman. Джонатан Франзен

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       5

      Martin Beck stopped in the doorway of his flat in Bagarmossen. He took off his raincoat and shook the water off it on the landing before hanging it up and closing the door.

      It was dark in the hall but he didn't bother to switch on the light. He saw a ray of light under the door of his daughter's room and he heard the radio or record player going inside. He knocked and went in.

      The girl's name was Ingrid and she was sixteen. She had matured somewhat of late, and Martin Beck got on with her much better than before. She was calm, matter-of-fact and fairly intelligent, and he liked talking to her. She was in the sixth year of the comprehensive school and had no difficulty with her schoolwork, without on that account being what in his day had been called a swot.

      She was lying on her back in bed, reading. The record player on the bedside table was going. Not pop music but something classical, Beethoven, he guessed.

      ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Not asleep yet?’

      He stopped, almost paralysed by the utter futility of his words. For a moment he thought of all the trivialities that had been spoken between these walls during the last ten years.

      Ingrid put down her book and shut off the record player.

      ‘Hi, Dad. What did you say?’

      He shook his head.

      ‘Lord, how wet your legs are,’ the girl said. ‘Is it raining so hard?’

      ‘Cats and dogs. Are Mum and Rolf asleep?’

      ‘I think so. Mum bundled Rolf off to bed right after dinner. She said he had a cold.’

      Martin Beck sat down on the bed.

      ‘Didn't he have?’

      ‘Well, I thought he looked well enough. But he went to bed without any fuss. Probably in order to get off school tomorrow.’

      ‘You seem to be hard at work, anyway. What are you studying?’

      ‘French. We've a test tomorrow. Like to quiz me?’

      ‘Wouldn't be much use. French isn't my strong point. Go to sleep now instead.’

      He stood up and the girl snuggled down obediently under the quilt. He tucked her in and before he shut the door behind him he heard her whisper, ‘Keep your fingers crossed tomorrow.’

      ‘Good night.’

      He went into the kitchen in the dark and stood for a while by the window. The rain seemed to be less heavy now, but it may have been because the kitchen window was sheltered from the wind. Martin Beck wondered what had happened during the demonstration against the American embassy and whether the papers tomorrow would describe the police's behaviour as clumsy and inept or as brutal and provocative. In any case the opinions would be critical. Since he was loyal to the force and had been so for as long as he could remember, Martin Beck admitted only to himself that the criticism was often justified, even if it was a bit one-sided. He thought of what Ingrid had said one evening a few weeks ago. Many of her schoolmates were politically active, taking part in meetings and demonstrations, and most of them strongly disliked the police. As a child, she had said, she could boast and be proud of the fact that her father was a policeman, but now she preferred to keep quiet about it. Not that she was ashamed, but she was often drawn into discussions in which she was expected to stand up for the entire police force. Silly, of course, but there it was.

      Martin Beck went into the living room, listened at the door of his wife's bedroom and heard her light snoring. Cautiously he let down the sofa bed, switched on the wall lamp and drew the curtains. He had bought the sofa recently and moved out of the common bedroom, on the pretext that he didn't want to disturb his wife when he came home late at night. She had protested, pointing out that sometimes he worked all night and therefore must sleep in the daytime, and she didn't want him lying there making a mess of the living room. He had promised on these occasions to lie and make a mess in the bedroom; she wasn't in there much in the daytime anyway. Now he had been sleeping in the living room for the past month and liked it.

      His wife's name was Inga.

      Relations between them had worsened with the years, and it was a relief not to have to share a bed with her. This feeling sometimes gave him a bad conscience, but after seventeen years of marriage there didn't seem to be much he could do about it, and he had long since given up worrying over whose fault it might be.

      Martin Beck stifled a coughing attack, took off his wet trousers and hung them over a chair near the radiator. As he sat on the sofa pulling off his socks it crossed his mind that Kollberg's nocturnal walks in the rain might be due to the fact that his marriage, too, was slipping into boredom and routine.

      Already? Kollberg had only been married for eighteen months.

      Before the first sock was off he had dismissed the thought. Lennart and Gun were happy together, not a doubt of that. Besides, what business was it of his?

      He got up and walked СКАЧАТЬ