some horses were grazing behind a fence. A group of people were walking along the path.
Ahlberg spoke before the County Superintendent had a chance to.
'This is west of Roxen now. The boat has passed Berg's locks. The photographer must have gone ahead to Ljungsbro during that time. There is the last lock before the one at Borensberg. It's about seven o'clock in the evening now.'
The white bow with the Gothenburg flag appeared in the foreground far ahead. The people on the path came nearer.
'Thank God,' said Ahlberg.
Only Martin Beck knew what he meant. The man who took the movie had an alternative. He could have gotten off the boat and gone with a guide who showed people around a monastery in Vreta during the time the boat was in the lock chamber.
Now there was a shot of the entire boat, moving slowly along the canal, inertly, with a gray-white plume of smoke which was reflected against the evening light.
But no one in the projection room looked at the boat any longer. The group of passengers on the path had come so close that separate individuals could be discerned. Martin Beck immediately identified Gunes Fratt, the twenty-two year old medical student from Ankara. He walked ahead of the others, waving to the person who was following him.
Then he saw her.
About forty-five feet behind the main group there were two figures. One of them was Roseanna McGraw, still wearing light slacks and a dark sweater. Beside her, taking long steps, walked the man in the sport cap.
They were still quite far away.
'Let there be enough film,' thought Martin Beck.
They came nearer. The position of the camera did not change.
Could they make out the faces?
He saw the tall man take her by the arm, as if to help her past a puddle of water in the path.
Saw them stop and look at the boat, which passed by and began to hide them from view. They were gone. But Mr. Bellamy from Klamath Falls was more stubborn than ever and held the position of his camera. Roseanna McGraw passed the boat, could be seen completely and clearly down on the path. She stopped walking and nodded her head, stretched out her right arm toward the person who was still bidden, but who then appeared. There.
The change of scene came as a shock. The sluice gate in the foreground, around and about, on the periphery, observers' legs. He thought he saw a pair of light trousers, feet in sandals and a pair of low shoes right beside them.
The picture was gone. It flickered slightly. Several people sighed. Martin Beck twisted his handkerchief between his fingers.
But it wasn't over yet. A somewhat underexposed shot of a face with violet lips and sunglasses filled the screen, and then disappeared to the right. Along the post side of A deck a waitress in a white blouse banged on a gong. Roseanna McGraw stepped out from behind her coming from the door to the dining room, wrinkled her forehead, looked up at the sky, laughed, and turned toward someone who was hidden. Not completely. They could see an arm in speckled tweed, a bit of a shoulder. Then came the white spots, and then the film faded and ended in gray, gray, gray.
She had laughed. He was certain of it. At seven o'clock on the evening of the fourth of July. Ten minutes later she had eaten beefsteak, fresh potatoes, strawberries and milk, while a Swedish colonel and a German major had exchanged viewpoints on the siege of Stalingrad.
The screen was flooded with light. More locks. A blue sky with floating clouds. The captain with his hand on the telegraph machine.
'Sjotorp,' said Ahlberg. 'Twelve o'clock the next day. Soon they'll be out in Lake Vlnern.'
Martin Beck remembered all the details. One hour later it had stopped raining. Roseanna McGraw was dead. Her body had been lying naked and violated in the mud near the breakwater at Borenshult for nearly twelve hours.
On the canal boat's deck people were stretched out in deck chairs, talking, laughing, and looking up at the sun. A wrinkled, upper class woman from Klamath Falls, Oregon, smiled violently toward the camera.
Now they were in Lake Vanern. People moved about here and there. The repulsive young man from the examination room in Motala emptied a sack of ashes into the lake. His face was sooty and he looked angrily at the photographer.
No woman in a dark sweater and light pants and sandals.
No tall man in a tweed jacket and a sport cap.
Roll after roll of film went by. Vanersborg in the evening sun. The
'There's a motor bike on the forward deck,' said Ahlberg.
The boat lay tied up at Lilla Bomen in Gothenburg in the clear morning sun, at the stern of the full rigger, the
Another shot, the woman with the violet lips sitting stiffly in one of Gothenburg's sightseeing boats, a pan over the Garden Association's flowers, white spots running vertically over the screen.
Fade-out. The end. The lights turned on.
After fifteen seconds of total silence Commissioner Ham-mar got out of his chair, looked from the County Police Superintendent to the Public Prosecutor and over at Larsson.
'Lunchtime, gentlemen. You are guests of the government.'
He looked blandly at the others and said: 'I guess that you will want to remain here for a little while.'
Stenstrom left too. He was actually working on a different case.
Kollberg looked questioningly at Melander.
'No, I've never seen that man before.'
Ahlberg held his right hand in front of his face.
'A deck passenger,' he said.
He turned around and looked at Martin Beck.
'Do you remember the man that showed us around the boat in Bohus? The draperies that could be drawn if any of the deck passengers wanted to sleep on one of the sofas?'
Martin Beck nodded.
'The motor bike wasn't there in the beginning. The first time I saw it was in the locks after Soderkoping,' said Melander.
He took his pipe out of his mouth and emptied it.
'The guy in the sport cap could be seen there too,' he said. 'Once, from the back.'
When they ran the film the next time, they saw that he was right.
The first snow of winter had begun to fall. It flew against the windows in large, white flakes which melted immediately and ran down the window panes in broad rills. It murmured in the rain gutters and heavy drops splashed against the metal window sills.
In spite of the fact that it was twelve noon, it was so dark in the room that Martin Beck had to turn on his reading light. It spread a pleasant light over his desk and the open file in front of him. The rest of the room lay in darkness.
Martin Beck put out his last cigarette, lifted up the ash tray and blew the ashes from the top of his desk.
He felt hungry and regretted that he had not gone to the cafeteria with Kollberg and Melander.
Ten days had passed since they had seen Kafka's film and they were still waiting for something to happen. Just as everything else in this case had, the new clue had disappeared in a jungle of question marks and doubtful testimony. Examination of witnesses had been conducted almost completely by Ahlberg and his staff, very carefully and with a great deal of energy. But the results had been meager. The most positive thing that could be said was that they had not heard anything to negate their theory that a deck passenger had come on board the boat in Mem, Soderkoping or Norsholm, and had stayed on the boat all the way to Gothenburg. Nor was there anything to contradict their assumption that this deck passenger had been a man of average build, somewhat above average
