Per Wahloo – Murder at the Savoy (страница 9)

Martin Beck felt very satisfied with the results of his efforts. Now only the guests were missing.

Åsa Torell arrived first. Martin Beck mixed two Campari sodas for them and she made a tour of inspection, drink in hand.

The flat consisted of a bedroom, living room, kitchen, bathroom and hall. The rooms were small, but easy to take care of and comfortable, too.

‘I don't really have to ask if you like it here,’ Åsa Torell said.

‘Like most native Stockholmers, I've always dreamed of having a flat in Gamla Stan,’ Martin Beck said. ‘It's great to get along on my own, too.’

Åsa nodded. She was leaning against the window frame, her ankles crossed, holding the glass with both hands. Small and delicate, she had big brown eyes, short dark hair and tanned skin, and she looked healthy, calm and relaxed. It made Martin Beck happy to see her so, for it had taken her a long time to get over Åke Stenström's death.

‘How about you?’ he asked. ‘You moved not very long ago, too.’

‘Come see me sometime and I'll show you around,’ said Åsa.

After Stenström's death, Åsa had lived with Gun and Lennart Kollberg for a while, and since she didn't want to return to the flat where she'd lived with him, she'd exchanged it for a one-room flat on Kungsholmsstrand. She had also quit her job at a travel agency and started studying at the Police Academy.

Dinner was a great success. Despite the fact that Martin Beck didn't eat much himself (he did so seldom, if ever), the food was disposed of rapidly. He wondered anxiously if he'd underestimated their appetites, but when the guests stood up from the table, they seemed full and content, and Kollberg discreetly unbuttoned the waistband of his trousers. Åsa and Gun preferred schnapps and beer to wine, and when the dinner was over, the Løjtens bottle was empty.

Martin Beck served cognac with coffee, raised his glass and said, ‘Now let's all get a really good hangover tomorrow, when we have time off on the same day for once.’

‘I don't have time off,’ Gun said. ‘Bodil comes and jumps on my stomach at five and wants breakfast.’

Bodil was the Kollbergs' almost two-year-old daughter.

‘Don't think about it,’ Kollberg said. ‘I'll take care of her tomorrow, hungover or not. And don't talk about work. If I'd been able to get a decent job, I'd have quit after that incident a year ago.’

‘Don't think about it now,’ Martin Beck said.

‘It's damned hard not to,’ Kollberg said. ‘The whole police force here is going to fall apart sooner or later. Just look at those poor clods from the country, who meander around in their uniforms and don't know what to do with themselves. And what an administration!’

‘Oh, well,’ Martin Beck said to divert him and grasped his cognac.

Even he was very worried, most of all by the way in which the force had been politicized and centralized after the recent reorganization. That the quality of the personnel on patrol was getting lower all the time hardly improved things. But this was hardly the proper occasion to discuss the matter.

‘Oh, well,’ he repeated wistfully and lifted his glass.

After coffee Åsa and Gun wanted to wash the dishes. When Martin Beck protested, they explained that they loved to wash dishes anywhere but at home. He let them have their way and carried in whisky and water.

The telephone rang.

Kollberg looked at the clock.

‘A quarter past ten,’ he said. ‘I'll be damned if it isn't Malm telling us that we have to work tomorrow anyway. I'm not here.’

Malm was Chief Superintendent of Police and had succeeded Hammar, their previous chief, who had recently retired. Malm had come from nowhere, that is to say from the National Police Board, and his qualifications appeared to be exclusively political. Anyway, it seemed a bit mysterious.

Martin Beck picked up the receiver.

Then he grimaced eloquently.

Instead of Malm, it was the National Chief of Police, who said gratingly, ‘Something's happened. I have to ask you to go to Malmö first thing tomorrow morning.’

Then he added, somewhat belatedly, ‘Please excuse me if I'm disturbing you.’

Martin Beck didn't respond to that, but said, ‘To Malmö? What's happened?’

Kollberg, who'd just mixed a highball for himself, raised his eyes and shook his head. Martin Beck gave him a took of defeat and pointed to his glass.

‘Have you heard of Viktor Palmgren?’ said the Chief of Police.

‘The executive? The VIP?’

‘Yes.’

‘Of course I've heard of him, but I don't know much about him other than that he has a million different companies and he's loaded. Oh, yeah, he also has a beautiful young wife who was a model or something. What's wrong with him?’

‘He's dead. He died tonight at the neurosurgical clinic in Lund after he was shot in the head by an unknown assailant in the dining room of the Savoy in Malmö. It happened last night. Don't you have newspapers out in Västberga?’

Martin Beck again refrained from replying. Instead he said, ‘Can't they take care of it themselves down in Malmö?’

He took the glass of whisky Kollberg offered him and took a drink.

‘Isn't Per Månsson on duty?’ he continued. ‘He surely ought to be capable of …’

The Chief of Police cut him off impatiently.

‘Of course Månsson is on duty, but I want you to go down and help him. Or rather to take charge of the case. And I want you to leave as soon as you can.’

Thanks a lot, thought Martin Beck. A plane did leave Bromma at a quarter to one in the morning, but he didn't plan to be on it.

‘I want you to leave early tomorrow,’ the Chief of Police said.

Obviously he didn't know the schedule.

‘This is an extremely complicated, sensitive matter. And we have to solve it without delay.’

It was quiet for a moment. Martin Beck sipped his drink and waited. Finally the other man continued, ‘It's the wish of someone higher up that you take charge of this.’

Martin Beck frowned and met Kollberg's questioning look.

‘Was Palmgren that important?’ he said.

‘Obviously. There were strong vested interests in certain areas of his operations.’

Can't you skip the clichés and come out with it? Martin Beck thought. Which interests and which certain areas of which operations?

Evidently it was important to be cryptic.

‘Unfortunately I don't have a clear idea of what kind of operations he was engaged in,’ he said.

‘You'll be informed about all that eventually,’ the Chief of Police said. ‘The most important thing is that you get to Malmö as quickly as possible. I've talked to Malm, and he's willing to release you. We have to do our utmost to apprehend this man. And be careful when you talk to the press. As you can well understand, there's going to be a good deal written about this. Well, when can you leave?’

‘There's a plane at nine-fifty in the morning, I think,’ Martin Beck said hesitantly.

‘Fine. Take it,’ said the Chief of Police and hung up.

5

Viktor Palmgren died at seven thirty-three on Thursday evening. As recently as half an hour before the official declaration of death, the doctors involved in his case had said that his constitution was stable and the much-discussed general condition not so serious.

On the whole, the only thing wrong with him was that he had a bullet in his head.

Present at the instant of death were his wife, two brain surgeons, two nurses and a first assistant detective from the police in Lund.

There had been general consensus that an operation would have been much too risky, which seemed fairly sensible, even to a layman. For the fact remained that Palmgren had been conscious from time to time and on one occasion in such good shape that they could communicate with him.

The detective, who felt more dead than alive by this time, had asked him a couple of questions: ‘Did you get a good look at the man who shot you?’ And, ‘Did you recognize him?’

The answers had been unambiguous, positive to the first question and negative to the second. Palmgren had seen the would-be killer, but for the first and last time in his life.

That didn't exactly make it any more comprehensible. In Malmö, Månsson's face was creased with heavy lines of misgiving, and he yearned for his bed, or at least for a clean shirt.

It was an unbearably hot day, and the main police station was by no means air-conditioned.

The only small lead he'd had to go on had been bungled.

Those Stockholmers, Månsson thought.