looked at his exemplary colleagues who, eternally silent, sat directly opposite each other, their heads heavy with profound thoughts.
He looked at the clock. Five to ten. Yawning again, he got up stiffly and went out to the toilet. He washed his hands, rinsed his face with cold water, and went back.
Three steps from the door he heard the telephone ring. Kollberg had already finished the conversation and hung up.
'Has he…?'
'No,' said Kollberg. 'But he's standing outside on the street.'
This was unexpected, but actually, it changed nothing. During the next three minutes Martin Beck analyzed the plan in detail. Bengtsson couldn't force the downstairs door and even if he managed to, he would hardly have time to get upstairs before they got there. 'We had better be careful.' 'Yes,' said Kollberg.
They drove to a fast stop in front of the Little Theater. They separated.
Martin Beck stood, watched Ahlberg go through the door, and looked at his watch. It was exactly four minutes since she had called. He thought about- the woman alone in the apartment two flights above. Folke Bengtsson was not in sight.
Thirty seconds later a light was turned on in a window on the third floor. Someone came to the window and seemed to look out, but disappeared almost immediately. The light went off. Ahlberg was in his place. They waited in silence by the bedroom window. The room was dark but a narrow stream of light came through the door. The lamp in the living room was lit to show that she was home. The living room window looked out on the street and from the bedroom they could see several of the cross streets leading to the intersection.
Bengtsson stood by the bus stop directly across the street. He looked up at her window. He was the only person there and after he had stood for a while he looked up and down the block. Then he walked slowly to the island that separated the street's traffic. He disappeared in back of a telephone booth.
'Here it comes,' said Ahlberg and motioned in the dark.
But the telephone didn't ring and after several minutes Bengtsson could be seen walking up the street.
Along the sidewalk there was a low, stone wall which ran all the way to the building below her window. In back of it was an area planted with grass and low shrubbery which led to the house.
Once again, the man stopped on the sidewalk and looked up toward her house. Then he began to walk toward her door slowly.
He disappeared out of sight and Ahlberg stared out over the square until he caught sight of Martin Beck who stood completely still by a tree in the planted area. A trolley on Birger Jarls Street hid him for several seconds and after it had passed, he was gone.
Five minutes later they saw Bengtsson again.
He had been walking so close to the wall that they hadn't seen him until he stepped out into the street and began to walk toward the trolley stop. At a kiosk, he stopped and bought a frankfurter. While he ate it, he leaned against the kiosk and stared up at her window constantly. Then he began to pace back and forth with his hands in his pockets. Now and then he looked up at her window.
Fifteen minutes later Martin Beck was behind the same tree again.
The traffic was heavier now and a stream of people crowded the streets. The movie had ended.
They lost sight of Bengtsson for a few minutes but then saw him in the midst of a group of moviegoers on the way home. He walked toward the telephone booth but stopped again a few feet from it. Then suddenly, he walked briskly toward the planted area. Martin Beck turned his back and slowly moved away.
Bengtsson passed the little park, crossed the street toward the restaurant and disappeared down Tegner Street. After a few minutes he appeared again on the opposite sidewalk and began to walk around Eriksberg Square.
'Do you think that he's been here before?' asked the woman in the cotton dressing gown. 'I mean, it's only pure chance that I saw him tonight.'
Ahlberg stood with his back against the wall near the window and smoked a cigarette. He looked at the girl beside him who was turned toward the window. She stood with her feet apart and had her hands in her pockets. In the weak light reflected from the street, her eyes looked like dark holes in her pale face.
'Maybe he's been here every night,' she said.
When the man below had completed his fourth swing around the square, she said: 'If he's going to tramp around like this the whole night I'll go crazy and Lennart and Martin will freeze to death.'
At 12:25 he had gone around the square eight times, each time moving faster. He stopped below the steps leading to the park, looked up at the house, and half-ran across the street to the trolley stop.
A bus drove in to the bus stop, and when it moved on, Bengtsson was no longer there.
'Look. There's Martin,' Sonja Hansson said.
Ahlberg jumped at the sound of her voice. They had been whispering to one another all along and now she spoke in her normal voice for the first time in two hours.
He saw Martin Beck hurry across the street and jump into a car which had been waiting in front of the theater. The car started even before he managed to close the door and drove off in the same direction as the bus.
'Well, thanks for your company tonight,' Sonja Hansson said. 'I think I'll go to sleep now.'
'Do that,' said Ahlberg.
He would have liked some sleep too. But ten minutes later he walked through the door at Klara Police Station. Kollberg arrived shortly after.
They had made five moves in their chess game when Martin Beck came in.
'He took the bus to St. Erik's Square and went home. He put out the light almost immediately. He's probably asleep by now.'
'It was mere chance that she caught sight of him,' said Ahlberg. 'He could have been there several times before.'
Kollberg studied the chess board.
'And if he was? That wouldn't prove anything.'
'What do you mean?'
'Kollberg's right,' Martin Beck answered.
'Sure,' said Kollberg. 'What would it prove? Even I have roamed around like an alley cat outside of the houses of willing girls.'
Ahlberg shrugged his shoulders.
'Although I was younger, a lot younger.'
Martin Beck said nothing. The others made a half-hearted attempt to concentrate on their game. After a while, Koll-berg repeated a move which caused a draw, in spite of the fact that he had been winning.
'Damn,' he said. 'That chatter makes me lose my train of thought. How much are you leading by?'
'Four points,' said Ahlberg. 'Twelve and a half to eight and a half.'
Kollberg got up and paced around the room.
'We'll bring him in again, make a thorough search of his house, and rough him up as much as we can,' he said.
No one answered.
'We ought to tail him again, with new guys.'
'No,' said Ahlberg.
Martin Beck continued biting on his index finger knuckle. After a while he said: 'Is she getting frightened?'
'It doesn't seem so,' Ahlberg answered. 'That girl doesn't get nervous easily.'
'Neither did Roseanna McGraw,' Martin Beck thought.
They didn't say much more to one another but were still wide awake when the noise of the morning traffic on Regering Street indicated that although their work day had ended, it was just beginning for others.
Something had happened, but Martin Beck didn't know exactly what.
Another twenty-four hours passed. Ahlberg increased his lead by another point. That was all.
The following day was a Friday. Three days were left before the end of the month and the weather was still mild. It had been rainy and misty most of the time and at twilight the fog had rolled in.
