fair hair was tied in a pony tail and swung against her back. When she got to the end of the block she turned the corner and disappeared.
The time was three minutes to eight. The man turned around, went inside and into the kitchen. There he drank a glass of water, rinsed the glass, put it on the rack and went out again onto the balcony.
He sat down on the folding chair and laid his left arm on the rail. He lighted a cigarette and looked down into the street while he smoked.
2
THE TIME by the electric wall-clock was five minutes to eleven and the date, according to the calendar on Gunvald Larsson's desk, was Friday, June 2, 1967.
Martin Beck was only in the room by chance. He had just come in and put down his case on the floor inside the door. He had said hello, laid his hat beside the carafe on the filing cabinet, taken a glass from the tray and filled it with water, leaned against the cabinet and was about to drink. The man behind the desk looked at him ill- humoredly and said:
'Have they sent you here too? What have we done wrong now?'
Martin Beck took a sip of water.
'Nothing, as far as I know. And don't worry. I only came up to see Melander. I asked him to do something for me. Where is he?'
'In the lavatory as usual.'
Melander's curious capacity for always being in the lavatory was a hackneyed joke, and although there was a grain of truth in it Martin Beck for some reason felt irritated.
Mostly, however, he kept his irritation to himself. He gave the man at the desk a calm, searching look and said:
'What's bothering you?'
'What do you think? The muggings of course. There was one in Vanadis Park last night again.'
'So I heard.'
'A pensioner who was out with his dog. Struck on the head from behind. A hundred and forty kronor in his wallet. Concussion. Still in hospital. Heard nothing. Saw nothing.' Martin Beck was silent.
'This was the eighth time in two weeks. That guy will end by killing someone.'
Martin Beck drained the glass and put it down. 'If someone doesn't grab him soon,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'Who do you mean by someone?'
'The police, for Christ's sake. Us. Anybody. A civil patrol from the protection squad in ninth district was there ten minutes before it happened.'
'And when it happened? Where were they then?' 'Sitting over coffee at the station. It's the same all the time. If there's a policeman hiding in every bush in Vanadis Park, then it happens in Vasa Park, and if there's a policeman hiding in every bush in both Vanadis Park and Vasa Park, then he pops up in Lill-Jans Wood.'
'And if there's a policeman in every bush there too?' 'Then the demonstrators break up the US Trade Center and set fire to the American embassy. This is no joking matter,' Gunvald Larsson added stiffly.
Keeping his eyes fixed on him, Martin Beck said: 'I'm not joking. I just wondered.'
'This man knows his business. It's almost as if he had radar. There's never a policeman in sight when he attacks.'
Martin Beck rubbed the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. 'Send out…' Larsson broke in at once.
'Send out? Whom? What? The dog van? And let those goddamn dogs tear the civil patrol to pieces? Yesterday's victim had a dog, come to that. What good was it to him?' 'What kind of dog?'
'How the hell do I know? Shall I interrogate the dog perhaps? Shall I get the dog here and send it out to the lavatory so that Melander can interrogate it?'
Gunvald Larsson said this with great gravity. He pounded the desk with his fist and went on:
'A lunatic prowls about the parks bashing people on the head and you come here and start talking about dogs!' 'Actually it wasn't I who…' Again Gunvald Larsson interrupted him.
'Anyway, I told you, this man knows his business. He only goes for defenseless old men and women. And always from behind. What was it someone said last week? Oh yes, 'he leaped out of the bushes like a panther.''
'There's only one way,' Martin Beck said in a honeyed voice.
'What's that?'
'You'd better go out yourself. Disguised as a defenseless old man.'
The man at the desk turned his head and glared at him.
Gunvald Larsson was six foot three and weighed 216 pounds. He had shoulders like a heavyweight boxer and huge hands covered with shaggy blond ban-. He had fair hair, brushed straight back, and discontented, clear blue eyes. Kollberg usually completed the description by saying that the expression on his face was that of a motorcyclist.
Just now the blue eyes were looking at Martin Beck with more than the usual disapproval.
Martin Beck shrugged and said:
'Joking apart…'
And Gunvald Larsson interrupted him at once.
'Joking apart I can't see anything funny in this. Here am I up to my neck in one of the worst cases of robbery I've ever known, and along you come driveling about dogs and God knows what.'
Martin Beck realized that the other man, no doubt unintentionally, was about to do something that only few succeeded in: to annoy him to the point of making him lose his temper. And although he was quite well aware of this, he could not help raising his arm from the cabinet and saying:
'That's enough!'
At that moment, fortunately, Melander came in from the room next door. He was in his shirtsleeves, and had a pipe in his mouth and an open telephone directory in his hands.
'Hello,' he said.
'Hello,' said Martin Beck.
'I thought of the name the second you hung up,' Melander said. 'Arvid Larsson. Found him in the telephone directory too. But it's no good calling him. He died in April. Stroke. But he was in the same line of business up to the last. Had a rag-and-bone shop on the south side. It's shut now.'
Martin Beck took the directory, looked at it and nodded. Melander dug a matchbox out of his trouser pocket and began elaborately lighting his pipe. Martin Beck took two steps into the room and put the directory down on the table. Then he went back to the filing cabinet.
'What are you busy on, you two?' Gunvald Larsson asked suspiciously.
'Nothing much,' Melander said. 'Martin had forgotten the name of a fence we tried to nail twelve years ago.' 'And did you?' 'No,' said Melander. 'But you remembered it?' 'Yes.'
Gunvald Larsson pulled the directory towards him, riffled through it and said:
'How the devil can you remember the name of a man called Larsson for twelve years?'
'It's quite easy,' Melander said gravely. The telephone rang. 'First division, duty officer. 'Sorry, madam, what did you say? 'What?
'Am I a detective? This is the duty officer of the first division, Detective Inspector Larsson. 'And your name is…?'
Gunvald Larsson took a ball-point pen from his breast pocket and scribbled a word. Then sat with the pen in midair.
'And what can I do for you? 'Sorry, I didn't get that 'Eh? A what? 'A cat?
'A cat on the balcony?'
'Oh, a man.
'Is there a man standing on your balcony?' Gunvald Larsson pushed the telephone directory aside and drew a memo pad towards him. Put pen to paper. Wrote a few words.
'Yes, I see. What does he look like, did you say? 'Yes, I'm listening. Thin hair brushed straight back. Big nose. Aha. White shirt. Average height. Hm. Brown trousers. Unbuttoned. What? Oh, the shirt. Blue-gray eyes.
'One moment, madam. Let's get this straight You mean he's standing on his own balcony?'
