made up after his conversation with Gota Isaksson. It was imperfect but a great deal better than the one they had a few hours earlier.
Height: approximately 6'
The phone call came an hour later. The doctor had located the records.
'Yes, it was just as I thought. She came here on her own the evening of August 9. I remember that I was just going to go home when they called me to take a look at her. They had taken her into the examining room and she was bleeding pretty heavily from her genitals. She had obviously been bleeding heavily for quite a while because she had lost a lot of blood and was in pretty bad shape. No direct danger of course. When I asked her what had happened, she refused to answer. It is not unusual in my department that the patient won't discuss the reason for their bleeding. You can figure the reason out yourself and anyway, it usually comes out sooner or later. But this one didn't say anything at all in the beginning and later on she lied. Do you want me to read directly from the record for you? Otherwise I can tell you in layman's language.'
'Yes, please do,' said Martin Beck. 'My Latin isn't very good.'
'Mine neither,' said the doctor.
He came from southern Sweden and spoke calmly, evenly and methodically.
'As I said, she bled profusely and had pain, so we gave her an injection. The bleeding came partially from the mouth of the uterus and partly from a wound in the vagina. At the mouth of the uterus and on the back part of the walls of the vagina were wounds which must have been made by a hard, sharp object. Around the muscles at the opening of the vagina there were splits which showed that the instrument must also have been terribly coarse. It isn't unusual for a woman who has undergone a careless or badly performed abortion, or has tried to do the abortion herself, to end up with bad wounds. But I can state that I have never seen anything like her condition in connection with an abortion. It seems totally impossible that she could have made such an attack on herself.'
'Did she say that she had, that she had done it herself?'
'Yes, that's what she claimed when she finally said something. I tried to get her to tell me how it had happened but she kept on saying that she had done it herself. I didn't believe her and she knew that I didn't believe her and finally she didn't even try to convince me but just kept repeating what she had already said; 'I did it myself, I did it myself like a broken phonograph record. The strange part of it was that she hadn't even been pregnant. The uterus was damaged but if she had been pregnant it must have been in such an early stage that she couldn't possibly have known it herself.'
'What do you think had happened?'
'Some perverse maniac. It sounds crazy to say it right out but I am almost sure she was trying to protect someone. I was worried about her so we kept her here until October 1 although we could well have let her go earlier. In addition, I hadn't given up hope that she might speak up and tell us about it. But she kept on denying everything else and finally we had to let her go home. There was nothing more I could do. I did speak about it to some acquaintances in the police force here, and they must have done something, but never came up with anything.'
Martin Beck said nothing.
'As I told you I don't know exactly what happened,' said the doctor. 'But it was some kind of a weapon, it's not easy to say what. Maybe a bottle. Has something happened to her?'
'No, I only wanted to talk with her.'
'That isn't going to be particularly easy.'
'No,' said Martin Beck. 'Thank you for the help.'
He put his pen back in his pocket without having made a single note.
Martin Beck rubbed his hairline with the tips of his fingers while he looked at the picture of the man in the sport cap.
He thought about the woman in Vaxjo whose fear had caused her to hide the truth so stubbornly and carefully and had now driven her to flee from all questions. He stared at the photograph and mumbled, 'Why?' But he knew already that there was only one answer to that question.
The telephone rang. It was the doctor.
'I forgot something that might be of interest to you. The patient in question had been in the hospital earlier, at the end of December 1962, to be exact. I forgot it, partly because I was on vacation then, partly because she was in another section of the hospital. But I read about it in her record when I took care of her. That time she had broken two fingers, the index finger and the middle finger on her left hand. That time, too, she refused to say how it had happened. Someone asked her if she had fallen down some stairs and at first she had replied that it had happened that way. But according to the doctor who took care of her at the time, that wasn't likely. The fingers had been broken backwards, toward the back side of her hand, but otherwise there were no other wounds at all. I don't know much more than that. She was treated as usual with gypsum and the like and she healed normally.'
Martin Beck thanked him and hung up the receiver. He picked it up immediately again and dialed the number of the SHT Restaurant. He heard a lot of noise from the kitchen and someone calling out 'Three beef l la Lindstrom!' right next to the receiver. A few minutes later Gota Isaksson answered.
'It's so noisy here,' she said. 'Where were we when she got sick? Yes, I do remember that. We were in Gothenburg then. She wasn't there when the boat left in the morning and then they didn't get a replacement for her until we got into Toreboda.'
'Where did you stay in Gothenburg?'
'I used to stay at the Salvation Army Hotel on Post Street but I don't know where she stayed. Presumably on board or at some other hotel. I'm sorry but I have to go now. The customers are waiting.'
Martin Beck called Motala and Ahlberg listened silently.
'She must have gone to the hospital in Vaxjo directly from Gothenburg,' he said, finally. 'We had better find out where she stayed on the night of the eighth and ninth of August. It must have happened then.'
'She was in pretty bad shape,' said Martin Beck. 'It's strange that she could get herself to Vaxjo in that condition.'
'Maybe the man that did it lived in Gothenburg. In that case it must have happened in his house.'
He was silent for a moment. Then he said:
'If he does it one more time, we'll get him. Even though she wouldn't say who he was, she knew his name.'
'She's frightened,' said Martin Beck. 'Frightened to death as a matter of fact.'
'Do you think it's too late to get hold of her?'
'Yes,' replied Martin Beck. 'She knew what she was doing when she ran off. As far as we are concerned she can be out of reach for years. We also know what she did.'
'What did she do?' asked Ahlberg.
'She fled for her life,' said Martin Beck.
The trampled, dirty snow was packed on the streets. Melting snow fell from the rooftops and dropped from the large, yellow star which hung between the buildings on either side of Regering Street. The star had been hanging there for a few weeks in spite of the fact that Christmas was still almost a month away.
Hurried people crowded the sidewalks and a steady stream of traffic filled the streets. Now and then a car would increase its speed and sneak into an opening in the line of cars, spraying muddy snow with its wheels.
Patrolman Lundberg seemed to be the only person who was not in a hurry. With his hands behind his back he walked down Regering Street toward the south staying close to the rows of Christmas decorated windows. Melting snow from the rooftops fell in heavy drops on his patrolman's hat and the slush squeaked under his galoshes. -Near NK, he turned off onto Smlland Street where the crowds and the traffic weren't as heavy. He walked carefully down the hill and outside of the house where the Jakob Police Station once stood. He stopped and shook the water from his hat. He was young and new to the police force and didn't remember the old police station which had been torn down several years ago and whose district is now part of the Klara Police Station.
Constable Lundberg belonged to the Klara police force and had an errand on Smlland Street. At the corner of Norrland Street was a cafe. He entered it. He had been told to collect an envelope from one of the waitresses there.
While he waited, he leaned against the counter and looked around. It was ten o'clock in the morning and only
