Roseanna

She was frightened.

He stayed in the flowery chair and tried to get her to talk. But now, she said nothing at all, only sat stiffly on the sofa and peeled pieces of orange colored nail polish off her fingernails. Finally she got up and walked back and forth across the room. After a while Martin Beck also got up, took his hat, and said goodbye. She didn't answer. She stood there stiff and dismissing with her back turned toward him.

'You will hear from me again,' he said.

Before he left he laid his card on the table.

It was evening before he got back to Stockholm. He went directly to the subway and went home.

The next morning he telephoned Gota Isaksson. She wasn't going to work until the afternoon shift so that he was welcome to stop by whenever he wanted. One hour later he sat in her small apartment. She made some coffee in the kitchenette and when she had poured it and sat down opposite him, he said:

'I went down to Vaxjo yesterday and talked with your colleague. She denied that she had known the man. And she seemed frightened. Do you know why she won't admit that she knew him?'

'I have no idea. I actually know very little about her. She wasn't particularly talkative. We did work together for three summers but she seldom said anything about herself.'

'Do you remember if she used to talk about men during the time you were together?'

'Only one. I remember that she said she had met a nice man on the boat. That must have been the second summer we worked together.'

She cocked her head and counted to herself.

'Yes, it must have been the summer of '61.'

'Did she speak about him often?'

'She mentioned him from time to time. It seemed as if she was seeing him too now and then. He must have been on several trips or else have met her in Stockholm or Gothenburg. Maybe he was a passenger. Maybe he was there because of her. What do I know?'

'You never saw him?'

'No. I've really never thought about it until now when you started asking questions. It could have been the same man as the one in the picture although it seemed as if she hadn't met him until two summers ago. And then she never said anything.'

'What did she say about him the first summer? 1961?'

'Oh, nothing special. That he was nice. I think that she said that he was refined in some way. I suspect that she meant that he was well mannered and polite and so forth, as if ordinary people weren't good enough for her. But then she stopped talking about him. I think it was over or else something happened between them because she seemed rather depressed toward the end of that summer.'

'The following summer, did you see each other then?'

'No, she was still on the Diana then and I was working on the Juno. We saw each other a few times in Vadstena, I think. The boats meet there, but we never spoke. Won't you have some more coffee?'

Martin Beck could feel his stomach reacting but he couldn't bring himself to say no.

'Has she done anything? I mean, you're asking so many questions.'

'No,' said Martin Beck. 'She hasn't done anything but we want to get hold of the man in the photograph. Do you remember if she said or did anything the summer before last which could have any connection with the man in this picture?'

'No, not that I remember. We shared a cabin and she was sometimes out at night. I suspect that she was meeting some man, but I'm not the type that meddles in other people's business. But I know that she wasn't particularly happy. I mean that if she was in love with someone, she should have seemed happy. But she wasn't. To the contrary, she was nervous and sad. Almost a bit strange. But that could have been because she was sick. She quit before the end of the season, a month early, I think. She just didn't show up one morning and I had to work alone the whole day before they found a replacement. They said that she had gone to the hospital, but no one knew what was wrong with her. She didn't come back that summer in any event. I haven't seen her since.'

She poured some more coffee and offered Martin Beck some cookies, while she continued to talk, freely and a great deal, about her work routine, her fellow employees, and some passengers she remembered. It was another full hour

? before he left there.

The weather had gotten better. The streets were nearly dry and the sun shone down from a clear sky. Martin Beck didn't feel too well, due to the coffee, and he walked back to his office at Kristineberg. While he walked along the water at North Malarstrand he thought about what he had learned of the two waitresses.

He hadn't learned anything at all from Karin Larsson but the visit to Vaxjo had convinced him that she knew the man but didn't dare talk about it.

From Gota Isaksson he had learned that:

Karin Larsson had met a man on board the Diana during the summer of 1961. Probably a deck passenger, who had possibly traveled with the boat several times that summer.

That two summers later, the summer of 1963, she had met a man, probably a deck passenger, who traveled with the boat now and then. The man could well have been identical to the one on the photograph, according to Gota Isaksson.

That she had seemed depressed and nervous that summer and had quit her job before the end of the season sometime at the beginning of August, and had gone into the hospital.

He didn't know why. Nor did he know which hospital she had gone to and how long she had stayed. The only chance seemed to be to ask her directly.

He dialed the number in Vaxjo as soon as he got back to his office but didn't get any answer. He suspected that she was asleep or else was working on an early shift.

During the course of the afternoon he called again several times and also a few times during the evening.

On his seventh attempt at two o'clock in the afternoon the following day, a voice which he thought belonged to the large woman in the blue bathrobe answered.

'No, she's away.'

'When?'

'She left last night. Who's calling?'

'A good friend. Where did she go?'

'She didn't say. But I heard her call and ask about the trains to Gothenburg.'

'Did you hear anything else?'

'It sounded as if she was thinking about working on some boat.'

'When did she decide to go?'

'She must have decided awfully quickly. There was some man here yesterday morning and right after that she made up her mind to leave. She seemed changed.'

'Do you know which boat she was going to begin working on?'

'No, I didn't hear.'

'Will she be gone long?'

'She didn't say. Can I give her any message if I hear from her?'

'No, thank you.'

She had gone away, in a great hurry. He was sure that she was already on some boat going far out of reach. And now he was certain of what had before been only a guess.

She was frightened to death of someone or something and he had to find out why.

21

The office at the Vaxjo hospital was quick in getting the information.

'Larsson, Karin Elisabeth, yes, that's right, someone by that name did enter the women's clinic on August 9 and stayed until October 1 last year. For what? You will have to talk to the doctor about that.'

The doctor at the women's clinic said: 'Yes, it's quite possible that I remember. I'll call you back after I've looked at the records.'

While Martin Beck waited he looked at the photographs and read through the description which they had