Roseanna

Ahlberg poked Martin Beck in the ribs and nodded his head toward the ladder. They climbed up to the upper deck. There were two lifeboats there, one on each side of the smokestack, and several large containers for deck chairs and blankets, but otherwise the deck was quite empty. Up on the bridge deck were two passenger cabins, a storeroom, and the captain's cabin which was behind the pilot room.

At the foot of the ladder Martin Beck stopped and took out the deck plans which he had received from the canal boat office. Following this, they went through the boat one more time. When they returned to the stern of the middle deck, the little man was still sitting on the box, looking sorrowfully at the men from the S.K.A. who were on their knees in the cabin pulling tacks out of the rug.

It was two o'clock by the tune the large, black police car drove off toward the Gothenburg road with a shower of mud spraying from its wheels. The technicians had taken everything that was loose in the cabin with them, although it wasn't very much. They didn't think it would take long for them to have the results of their analysis finished.

Martin Beck and Ahlberg thanked the man from the shipping office and he shook their hands with exaggerated enthusiasm, clearly grateful to be finally getting away from there.

When his car had disappeared round the first bend in the road, Ahlberg said: 'I am tired and rather hungry. Let's drive down to Gothenburg and spend the night there. Okay?'

About a half hour later they parked outside of a hotel on Post Street. They took single rooms, rested for an hour, and then went out to eat dinner.

While they were eating Martin Beck talked about boats and Ahlberg talked about a trip he had taken to the Faroe Islands.

Neither of them mentioned Roseanna McGraw.

11

To get from Gothenburg to Motala one takes Route 40 eastward via Borls and Ulricehamn to Jonkoping. There, one turns northward onto the European Route 3 and continues on to odeshog, and follows Route 50 from there past Tlkern and Vadstena into Motala. It is a. distance of approximately 165 miles and on this particular morning it took Ahlberg only about three and a half hours to cover it.

They had started at five-thirty in the morning, just at daybreak, while the garbage trucks were loading and newspaper women and one or two policemen were the only people to be seen on the rain-cleaned streets. A good many flat, gray miles disappeared behind the car before Ahlberg and Martin Beck broke the silence. After they had passed Hindls, Ahlberg cleared his throat and said:

'Do you really think it happened there? Inside that crowded cabin?'

'Where else?'

'With other people only a few inches away, behind the wall in the next cabin?'

'Bulkhead.'

'What did you say?'

'Behind the bulkhead, not the wall.'

'Oh,' said Ahlberg.

Six miles later Martin Beck said:

'With others so close by, he would have to keep her from screaming.'

'But how could he stop her? He must have… been at it rather long?'

Martin Beck did not answer. Each of them was thinking about the small cabin with its few Spartan conveniences. Neither of them could keep their imagination from entering the picture. Both of them were experiencing the same feeling of helpless, creeping unpleasantness. They reached in their pockets for cigarettes and smoked in silence.

When they drove into Ulricehamn, he said: 'She could have received some of the injuries after she was already dead, or at least, unconscious. There are things in the autopsy statement that suggest it could have happened that way.'

Ahlberg nodded. Without having to talk about it they both knew that such a thought made them feel better.

In Jonkoping they stopped at a cafeteria and got some coffee. It didn't sit well with Martin Beck as usual, but at the same time it perked him up a little.

At Granna, Ahlberg said what they had both been thinking for the last few hours:

'We don't know her.'

'No,' replied Martin Beck without taking his eyes from the hazy but pretty view.

'We don't know who she was. I mean…'

He was silent.

'I know what you mean.'

'You do, don't you? How she lived. How she acted. What kind of people she went around with. That kind of thing.'

'Yes.'

All that was true. The woman on the breakwater had received a name, an address and an occupation. But nothing more…

'Do you think that the technical boys will find something?'

'We can always hope.'

Ahlberg gave him a quick look. No, they didn't need fancy phrases. The only thing they could conceivably hope for from the technical report was that it would, at least, not contradict their assumption that cabin A 7 was the scene of the crime. The Diana had made twenty-four trips on the canal since the woman from Lincoln had been on board. That would mean that the cabin had been well cleaned at least as many times; that the bedclothes, towels and other paraphernalia which had been there had been washed over and over again and were hopelessly mixed together by now. It also meant that between thirty and forty people had occupied the cabin after Roseanna McGraw. All of them had naturally left their traces.

'We still haven't heard the records of witnesses' examinations,' said Ahlberg.

'Yes.'

Eighty-five people, one of whom was presumably guilty, and the rest of whom were possible witnesses, each had their small pieces that might fit into the great jig-saw puzzle. Eighty-five people, spread over four different continents. Just to locate them was a Herculean task. He didn't dare think about the process of getting testimony from all of them and collecting the reports and going through them.

'And Roseanna McGraw,' said Ahlberg.

'Yes,' said Martin Beck.

And after a while:

'I can only see one way.'

'The guy in America?'

'Yes.'

'What's his name?'

'Kafka.'

'That's a strange name. Does he seem competent?'

Martin Beck thought about the absurd telephone conversation a few days earlier and produced the first smile of that dismal day.

'Hard to say,' he replied.

Halfway between Vadstena and Motala Martin Beck said, more or less to himself:

'Suitcases. Clothing. Toilet articles, the toothbrush. Souvenirs she had bought. Her passport, money, traveler's checks.'

Ahlberg's hands gripped the wheel harder.

'I'll comb the canal carefully,' he said. 'First between Borenshult and the harbor. Then east of Boren. The locks have already been covered, but…'

'Lake Vattern?'

'Yes. We have almost no chance there and maybe not even in Boren if the dredger has buried everything there by now. Sometimes I dream about that damned apparatus and wake up in the middle of the night swearing. My wife thinks that I've gone mad. Poor thing,' he said and drove to a stop in front of the police station.