height, and that he had been wearing a sport cap, a gray speckled tweed jacket, gray gabardine trousers, and brownish shoes. Or, in addition, that he had a blue Monark motor bike.
The first mate, whose testimony was the most helpful, thought that he had sold a ticket to someone who reminded him of the man in the pictures. He did not know when. He wasn't even sure if it had been this past summer. It could have been one of the previous summers. He did have a weak recollection, however, that the man, if indeed it was the same one that they meant, could have had a bicycle or a motor bike with him and, in addition, some fishing equipment and other stuff which could point to the fact that he was a sport fisherman.
Ahlberg had heard this testimony himself and had pushed the witness to the boundary of the conceivable. A copy of the record was in Martin Beck's files.
AHLBERG: Is it usual to carry deck passengers on a cruise?
WITNESS : It was more usual in past years but there are always a few.
A: Where do they usually get on?
W: Wherever the boat stops, or at the locks.
A: What is the most natural stretch for deck passengers to stay on board?
W: Any part of the trip. A lot of people on bicycles or hikers get on in Motala or Vadstena to get across Lake Vattern.
A: And others?
W: Yes, what shall I say. We used to take vacationers from Stockholm to Oxelosund, and from Lidkoping to Vlnersborg, but we stopped that.
A: Why?
W: It got too crowded. The regular passengers have paid a good price. They shouldn't have to be crowded out by a bunch of old women and young people running around with their thermoses and lunch baskets.
A: Is there anything to contradict the fact that a deck passenger could have come on board at Soderkoping?
W: Not at all. He could have come on board anyplace. At any lock, too. There are sixty-five locks on the way. In addition, we tie up at several different places.
A: How many deck passengers could you take on board?
W: At one time? Nowadays, seldom more than ten. Most of the time only two or three. Sometimes none at all.
A: What kind of people are they? Are they usually Swedish?
W: No, not at all. They are often foreigners. They can be anyone at all, although most of them are the kind that like boats and take the trouble to find out what the time-table is.
A: And their names are not placed on the passenger lists?
W: No.
A: Do the deck passengers have a chance to eat meals on board?
W: Yes, they can eat like the others if they want to. Often, in an extra sitting after the others have finished. There are fixed prices for the cost of the meal. A la carte, so to speak.
A: You said earlier that you haven't the slightest recollection of the woman on this photograph, and now you say that you think you recognize this man. There was no purser on board and as the first mate, didn't you have the responsibility . to take care of the passengers?
W: I take their tickets when they come on board and I welcome them. After that they are left in peace. The idea of this trip isn't to shout out a lot of tourist information. They get enough of that in other places.
A: Isn't it odd that you don't recognize these people? You spent nearly three days with them.
W: All the passengers look alike to me. Remember, I see two thousand of them every summer. In ten years that makes twenty thousand. And while I'm working I am on the bridge. There are only two of us who can take watches. That makes twelve hours a day.
A: This trip was a special one, anyway, with unusual events.
W: I still had a watch on the bridge for twelve hours in any case. And, anyway, I had my wife with me on that trip.
A: Her name isn't on the passenger list.
W: No, why should it be? Members of the crew have the right to take their dependents along on some of the trips.
A: Then information that there were eighty-six people on board for this is not reliable. With deck passengers and dependents it could just as well have been one hundred?
W: Yes, of course.
A: Well, the man with the motor bike, the man on this picture, when did he leave the boat?
W: If I'm not even sure that I've seen him, how the devil should I know when he got off? A number of people who were in a hurry to catch trains, or planes, or other boats debarked at three o'clock in the morning as soon as we got to Lilla Bommen. Others stayed on and slept through the night and waited to debark in the morning.
A: Where did your wife get on board?
W: Here in Motala. We live here.
A: In Motala? In the middle of the night?
W: No, on the way up to Stockholm five days earlier. Then she left the boat on the next trip up, the eighth of July at four o'clock in the afternoon. Are you satisfied now?
A: How do you react when you think about what happened on that trip?
W. I don't believe that it happened as you say it did.
A: Why not?
W: Someone would have noticed it. Think about it, one hundred people on a small boat which is ninety feet long and fifteen feet wide. In a cabin which is as big as a rat trap.
A: Have you ever had anything other than a professional relationship with the passengers?
W: Yes, with my wife.
Martin Beck took the three photographs out of his inner pocket. Two of them had been made directly from the movie film, one was a partial blow-up of a black and white amateur picture from a group that Kafka had sent. They had two things in common: they depicted a tall man in a sport cap and a tweed jacket and they were both of very poor quality.
At this juncture hundreds of policemen in Stockholm, Gothenberg, Soderkoping and Linkoping had received copies of these pictures. In addition they had been sent to every public prosecutor's office and almost every police station from one end of the country to the other, and to several places in other countries.
They were poor photographs but anyone who was really acquainted with the man ought to have recognized him.
Maybe. But at their last meeting Hammar had said: 'I think it looks like Melander.'
He had also said: 'This is no case. It is a guessing contest. Have we any reason to believe that the man is a Swede?'
'The motor bike.'
'Which we are not sure was his.'
'Yes.'
'Is that all?'
'Yes.'
Martin Beck put the pictures back in his inner pocket. He took Ahlberg's record of the hearing and looked back through several answers until he found the one he was looking for:
W: Yes, they can eat like the others, if they want to. Often, in an extra sitting after the others have finished…
He thumbed through the papers and took out a list of the canal boats' personnel for the last five years. He read through the list, took his pen from the desk holder and placed a mark next to one of the names. It read:
Gota Isaksson, waitress, Polhems Street 7, Stockholm. Employed at the SHT Restaurant from October 15, 1964. The
There was no notation that either Melander or Kollberg had examined her.
Both telephone numbers for the taxi companies were busy and after he had dismissed the thought of getting
