Roseanna

'No.'

'And so, last but not least, what do we know about the culprit?'

Kollberg answered his own question in twenty seconds: 'That the person in question is a sadist and sexually twisted.'

'That the person in question is a, man,' Martin Beck added.

'Yes, most likely. And pretty strong. Roseanna McGraw was clearly not dropped off a wagon.'

'We know that he was on board the Diana.'

'Yes, if we assume that our earlier theory was correct.'

'And that he must belong in one of two categories: passengers or the crew.'

'Do we really know that?'

It was silent in the room. Martin Beck massaged his hairline with the tips of his fingers. Finally he said: 'It must be so.'

'Must it?'

'Yes.'

'All right, we'll say it is. But on the other hand, we don't have any idea what the murderer looks like or of his nationality. We have no fingerprints and nothing that can tie him to the crime. We don't know if he knew Roseanna McGraw earlier. We don't know where he came from, or where he went or where we could find him today.'

Kollberg was very serious now.

'We know damned little, Martin,' he said. 'Are we even absolutely sure that Roseanna McGraw didn't step off the boat in Gothenburg safe and sound? That someone didn't kill her afterwards? Someone who knew where she had come from and who might have transported her body back to Motala and then thrown it in?'

'I've thought of it. But it's too absurd. Things don't happen that way.'

'Since we haven't yet received the menu from the boat for those days, it is still theoretically possible. Even if it stretches the imagination. And even if we manage to prove, really prove, that she never got to Gothenburg, there is still another possibility: she could have gone ashore while the boat was in the lock chamber at Borenshult and met some nut who was wandering around in the bushes.'

'In that case we ought to have found something.' 'Yes, but 'ought to' is a weak concept. There are things in this case that almost drive me crazy. How in hell could she disappear during half the trip without anyone noticing it, not even the room steward or the waiter in the dining room?'

'The person who killed her must have stayed on board. He arranged the cabin to make it look normal and used. It was only a question of one night.'

'Where did the sheets go? And the blankets? They must have had blood on them. He couldn't very well just sit down and start doing laundry. And if he had thrown everything in the water, where did he get fresh things from?'

'There wasn't that much blood, the autopsy didn't say so. And if the person who killed her was familiar with the vessel, he could have gotten fresh bedding from the supply closet.'

'Would a passenger be that much at home on the boat? And wouldn't someone notice?'

'It isn't so hard. Have you ever been on a passenger ship at night?' 'No.'

'Everyone goes to sleep. It's completely quiet and empty. Almost all the closets and cupboards are unlocked. When this boat passed Lake Vattern, during the night watch, there were only three people who were definitely awake. Those on watch, two on the bridge and one in the engine room.'

'Shouldn't someone have noticed that she didn't get off in Gothenburg?'

'There is no set procedure for getting off when the boat lands there. They tie up at Lilla Bommen and the passengers grab their things and rush down the gangway. On this particular trip, most people were in a hurry because the ship had been delayed. In addition, contrary to usual, it was dark when they got in.'

Martin Beck stopped speaking and gazed at the wall for a while.

'What irritates me most is that the passengers in the next cabin didn't notice anything,' he said.

'I can explain that, I found out just two hours ago that a

Dutch couple had cabin A 3. Both were over seventy and nearly stone deaf.'

Kollberg turned the page and scratched his head.

'Our so-called theory of how, when and where the crime took place is mainly built on principles of probability, logical assumptions and the application of some psychology. It certainly is weak on evidence. We have to hold to it in any case because it's all we have to go on. But we must also appraise the statistics in the same way, right?'

Martin Beck leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest.

'Let's hear it,' he said.

'We know the names of eighty-six people who were on board. Sixty-eight passengers plus the eighteen that made up the crew. Thus far we have located, or in some way been in contact with all of them, with the exception of eleven. But we know the nationalities, sexes, and—with three exceptions—the ages of all of them. Now, let's use a process of elimination. First of all we have to eliminate Roseanna McGraw. That leaves eighty-five. After that, all the women, eight in the crew and thirty-seven among the passengers. That leaves forty. Among these there are four boys under ten and seven men over seventy. That leaves twenty-nine. Furthermore, there was the captain and the helmsman. They were on watch between eight o'clock and midnight, giving each other alibis. They hardly had time to murder anyone. It's a bit less clear with the people in the engine room. Deduct those two and we have a grand total of twenty-seven. We have, however, the names of twenty-seven male persons between the ages of fourteen and sixty-eight. Twelve are Swedish, seven of whom were crew members, five Americans, three Germans, one Dane, one South African, an Englishman, a Frenchman, a Scot, a Turk and a Dutchman. The geographic spread is equally terrifying. One of the Americans lives in Texas, another in Oregon. The English-man lives in Nassau in the Bahamas, the South African in Durban, and the Turk in Ankara. It's going to be one hell of a trip for whoever examines them. In addition, there are four out of this twenty-seven whom we haven't been able to locate. One Dane, and three Swedes. We haven't been able to show that any of these passengers have traveled with the canal boats earlier, in spite of the fact that Melander has plowed through passenger lists for the past twenty-five years. My own theory is that none of the passengers could have done it. Only four of them were traveling in single cabins. The others ought to have been more or less observed by their spouses or whomever they shared a cabin with. None of them really knew their way around the boat well enough or the routine on board to have done it That leaves the eight men in the crew, the helmsman, the two firemen, a cook, and three deck boys. We have already eliminated the chief engineer, he fell by the wayside because of his age. My theory is that none of them could have done it either. They were under too much observance by each other and the possibilities of fraternizing with the passengers were quite limited. So my theory says that no one murdered Roseanna McGraw. And it must be wrong. My theories are always wrong. Oh, the perils of thought.'

It was quiet for thirty seconds. Then Kollberg said:

'Now if it wasn't that creature Eriksson… Damn, but it was good luck that you got him arrested anyway… By the way, are you listening? Have you heard what I said?'

'Yes, of course,' said Martin Beck absentmindedly. 'Yes, I'm listening.'

It was true. Martin Beck had been listening. But Kollberg's voice had sounded more and more distant during the last ten minutes. Two totally different ideas had suddenly occurred to him. One was an association with something he had heard someone say, and it had immediately penetrated the bottom of his unfulfilled and forgotten thoughts. The other was more tangible, a new plan of attack that could well be worked out.

'She must have met someone on board,' he said to himself.

'Unless it was suicide,' said Kollberg with a measure of irony.

'Someone who didn't plan to kill her, at least in the beginning, and who also had no reason to keep himself hidden…'

'Sure, that's what we think, but what difference does it make when we don't…'

Martin Beck saw clearly a scene from his last July day in Motala. The ugly vessel, Juno, as she rounded the dredger and nosed in toward the harbor chamber.

He straightened up, took out the old postcard, and stared at it.

'Lennart,' he said to Kollberg. 'How many cameras were used during those days? At least twenty-five, more likely thirty, maybe even forty. At each lock, people went on shore to take pictures of the boat and of each other.