The Laughing Policeman. Джонатан Франзен

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      Martin Beck glanced up at the dismal blocks of flats on the other side of the street. Figures were silhouetted in several of the lit windows, and behind rain-streaked panes, like blurred white patches, he saw faces pressed against the glass. A bare-legged woman in boots and with a raincoat over her nightdress came out of an entrance obliquely opposite the scene of the accident. She got halfway across the street before being stopped by a policeman, who took her by the arm and led her back to the doorway. The constable strode along and she half ran beside him while the wet white nightdress twisted itself around her legs.

      Martin Beck could not see the doors of the bus but he saw people moving about inside, and presumed that men from the forensic laboratory were already at work. He couldn't see any of his colleagues from the homicide squad, either, but guessed that they were somewhere on the other side of the vehicle.

      Involuntarily he slowed his steps. He thought of what he was soon to see and clenched his hands in his coat pockets as he gave the forensic technicians' grey vehicle a wide berth.

      In the glow from the doubledecker's open middle doors stood Hammar, who had been his boss for many years and was now a chief superintendent. He was talking to someone who was evidently inside the bus. He broke off and turned to Martin Beck.

      ‘There you are. I was beginning to think they'd forgotten to call you.’

      Martin Beck made no answer but went over to the doors and looked in.

      He felt his stomach muscles knotting. It was worse than he had expected.

      The cold bright light made every detail stand out with the sharpness of an etching. The whole bus seemed to be full of twisted, lifeless bodies covered with blood.

      He would have liked to have turned and walked away and not had to look, but his face did not betray his feelings. Instead, he forced himself to make a systematic mental note of all the details. The men from the laboratory were working silently and methodically. One of them looked at Martin Beck and slowly shook his head.

      Martin Beck regarded the bodies one by one. He didn't recognize any of them. At least not in their present state.

      ‘The one up there,’ he said suddenly, ‘has he …’

      He turned to Hammar and broke off short.

      Behind Hammar, Kollberg appeared out of the dark, bareheaded and with his hair stuck to his forehead.

      Martin Beck stared at him.

      ‘Hi,’ said Kollberg. ‘I was beginning to wonder what had happened to you. I was about to tell them to call you again.’

      He stopped in front of Martin Beck and gave him a searching look.

      Then he gave a swift, nauseated glance at the interior of the bus and went on, ‘You need a cup of coffee. I'll get one for you.’

      Martin Beck shook his head.

      ‘Yes,’ Kollberg said.

      He squished off. Martin Beck stared after him, then went over to the front doors and looked in. Hammar followed with heavy steps.

      The bus driver lay slumped over the wheel. He had evidently been shot through the head. Martin Beck regarded what had been the man's face and was vaguely surprised that he didn't feel any nausea. He turned to Hammar, who was staring expressionlessly out into the rain.

      ‘What on earth was he doing here?’ Hammar said tonelessly. ‘On this bus?’

      And at that instant Martin Beck knew to whom the man on the phone had been referring.

      Nearest the window behind the stairs leading to the top deck sat Åke Stenström, detective sub-inspector on the homicide squad and one of Martin Beck's youngest colleagues.

      ‘Sat’ was perhaps not the right word. Stenström's dark-blue poplin raincoat was soaked with blood and he sprawled in his seat, his right shoulder against the back of a young woman who was sitting next to him, bent double.

      He was dead. Like the young woman and the six other people in the bus.

      In his right hand he held his service pistol.

       7

      The rain kept on all night and although the sun, according to the almanac, rose at twenty minutes to eight the time was nearer nine before it was strong enough to penetrate the clouds and disseminate an uncertain, hazy light.

      Across the pavement on Norra Stationsgatan stood the red doubledecker bus just as it had stopped ten hours previously.

      But that was the only thing that was the same. By now about fifty men were inside the extensive cordons, and outside them the crowd of curious onlookers got bigger and bigger. Many had been standing there ever since midnight, and all they had seen was police and ambulance men and wailing emergency vehicles of every conceivable kind. It had been a night of sirens, with a constant stream of cars roaring along the wet streets, apparently going nowhere and for no reason.

      Nobody knew anything for sure, but there were two words that were whispered from person to person and soon spread in concentric circles through the crowd and the surrounding houses and city, finally taking more definite shape and being flung out across the country as a whole. By now the words had reached far beyond the frontiers.

      Mass murder.

      Mass murder in Stockholm.

      Mass murder in a bus in Stockholm.

      Everybody thought they knew this much at least.

      Very little more was known at police headquarters on Kungsholmsgatan. It wasn't even known for certain who was in charge of the investigation. The confusion was complete. Telephones rang incessantly, people came and went, floors were dirtied and the men who dirtied them were irritable and clammy with sweat and rain.

      ‘Who's working on the list of names?’ Martin Beck asked.

      ‘Rönn, I should think,’ said Kollberg without turning round. He was busy taping a plan to the wall. The sketch was over three yards long and more than half a yard wide and was awkward to handle.

      ‘Can't someone give me a hand?’ he said.

      ‘Sure,’ said Melander calmly, putting down his pipe and standing up.

      Fredrik Melander was a tall, lean man of grave appearance and methodical disposition. He was forty-eight years old and a detective inspector on the homicide squad. Kollberg had worked together with him for many years. He had forgotten how many. Melander, on the other hand, had not. He was known never to forget anything.

      Two telephones rang.

      ‘Hello. This is Superintendent Beck. Who? No, he's not here. Shall I ask him to call? Oh, I see.’

      He put the phone down and reached for the other one. An almost white-haired man of about fifty opened the door cautiously and stopped doubtfully on the threshold.

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