which was coming in. Then he got underway and turned up Regering Street between a green Volvo and a beige Volkswagen. Martin Beck supported his arms on his knees and stared out at the cold gray drizzle. He was excited and alert both mentally and physically but felt collected and well prepared like a well trained athlete before a try for a new record.
Two seconds later the green Volvo ahead of them collided with a small delivery truck which came out of a one-way street, the wrong way. The Volvo swung sharply to the left one second before the collision and Kollberg, who had already started to pass, was also forced to turn to the left. He reacted quickly and didn't even touch the car in front of him but the other cars came to a stop right across the intersection and very close to each other. Kollberg had already put his car in reverse when the beige Volkswagen smashed into their left front door. The driver had stopped suddenly, which was a grave error in terms of the congestion at the intersection.
It was not a serious accident. In ten minutes several traffic policemen would be there with their tape measures. They would write down the names and the license numbers, ask to see drivers' licenses, identity cards and radio licenses. Then they would write 'body damage' in their official books, shrug their shoulders and go away. If none of the drivers who were now yelling and shaking their fists at one another smelled of whisky, they would then get back into their cars and drive off in their own directions.
Ahlberg swore. It took ten seconds for Martin Beck to understand why. They couldn't get out. Both doors were blocked as effectively as if they had been soldered together.
In the same second that Kollberg took the desperate decision to back out of the confusion, a number 55 bus stopped in back of them. With that, the only way of retreat was cut off. The man in the beige Volkswagen had come out into the rain, clearly furious and loaded with arguments. He was out of sight and was probably somewhere behind the other two cars.
Ahlberg pressed both of his feet against the door and pushed until he groaned, but the beige colored car was still in gear and couldn't be budged.
Three or four nightmare-like minutes followed. Ahlberg yelled and waved his arms. The rain lay like a frozen gray membrane over the back window. Outside a shadowy policeman could be seen in a shining dark raincoat.
Finally several observers seemed to understand the situation and began to push the beige Volkswagen away. Their movements were fumbling and slow. A policeman tried to stop them. Then, after a minute he tried to help them. Now there was a distance of three feet between the cars but the hinge had stuck and the door wouldn't move. Ahlberg swore and pushed. Martin Beck felt the perspiration run from his neck, down under his collar, and collect in a cold runnel between his shoulder blades.
The door opened, slowly and creakingly.
Ahlberg tumbled out. Martin Beck and Kollberg tried to get out of the door at the same time and somehow managed to do so.
The policeman stood ready with his pad in his outstretched hand.
'What happened here?'
'Shut up,' Kollberg screamed.
Fortunately he was recognized.
'Run,' yelled Ahlberg, who was already fifteen feet ahead of them.
Groping hands tried to stop them. Kollberg ran into an old man selling frankfurters from a box resting on his stomach.
Four hundred and fifty yards, Martin Beck thought That would take a trained sportsman only a minute. But they weren't trained sportsmen. And they weren't running on a cinder track, but on an asphalt street in below freezing rain. Ahlberg was still fifteen feet ahead of them at the next corner when he tripped and nearly fell. That cost him his lead and they continued, side by side down the slope. Martin Beck was beginning to see stars. He heard Kollberg's heavy panting right behind him.
They turned the corner, crashed through the low shrubbery, and saw it, all three of them at the same time. Two flights up in the apartment house on Runeberg Street the weak, light rectangle which showed that the lamp in the bedroom was on and the shades were drawn.
The red stars before his eyes had disappeared and the pain in his chest was gone. When Martin Beck crossed the street he knew that he was running faster than he had ever run in his life even though Ahlberg was nine feet ahead of him and Kollberg by his side. When he got to the house, Ahlberg already had the downstairs door open.
The elevator was not on the ground floor. They hadn't thought about using it anyway. On the first flight landing he noted two things: he no longer was getting air in his lungs and Kollberg was not at his side. The plan worked, the damned perfect plan, he thought as he climbed the last stairs with the key already in his hand.
The key turned once in the lock and he pushed against the door which opened a few inches. He saw the safety chain stretched across the crevice and from inside the apartment heard no human sound, only a continuous, peculiarly metallic telephone signal. Time had stopped. He saw the pattern on the rug in the hall, a towel and a shoe.
'Move away,' said Ahlberg hoarsely but surprisingly calmly.
It sounded as if the whole world had cracked into pieces when Ahlberg shot through the safety chain. He was still pushing against the door and fell, rather than rushed, through the hall and the living room.
The scene was as unreal and as static as a tableau in Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors. It seemed as immutable as an overexposed photograph, drowned in flooding white light, and he took in every one of its morbid details.
The man still had his overcoat on. His brown hat lay on the floor, partly hidden by the torn, blue and white dressing gown.
This was the man who had killed Roseanna McGraw. He stood bent forward over the bed with his left foot on the floor and his right knee on the bed, pressed heavily against the woman's left thigh, just above her knee. His large, sunburned hand lay over her chin and mouth with two fingers pressed around her nose. That was his left hand. His right hand rested somewhat lower down. It sought her throat and had just found it.
The woman lay on her back. Her wide-open eyes could be seen through his outstretched fingers. A thin stream of blood ran along her cheek. She had brought up her right leg and was pressing against his chest with the sole of her foot. She was naked. Every muscle in her body was straining. The tendons in her body stood out as clearly as on an anatomical model.
A hundredth of a second, but long enough for each detail to become etched into his consciousness and remain there always. Then the man in the overcoat let go his grip, jumped to his feet, balanced himself and turned around, all in a single, lightning quick movement.
Martin Beck saw, for the first time, the person be had hunted for six months and nineteen days. A person called Folke Bengtsson who only slightly reminded him of the man he had examined in Kollberg's office one afternoon shortly before Christmas.
His face was stiff and naked; his pupils contracted; his eyes flew back and forth like those of a trapped animal. He stood leaning forward with his knees bent and his body swaying rhythmically.
But once again—only a tenth of a second—he cast himself forward with a choked, gurgling sob. At the same moment Martin Beck hit him on the collarbone with the back side of his right hand and Ahlberg threw himself over him from behind and tried to grab his arms.
Ahlberg was hindered by his own pistol and Martin Beck was caught unawares by the strength of the attack, partly because the only thing he could think about was the woman on the bed who didn't move and just lay there, stretched out and limp, with her mouth open and her eyes half-closed.
The man's head hit him in the diaphragm with an amazing force and he was thrown backwards against the wall at the same time as the madman broke out of Ahlberg's incomplete grip and rushed for the door, still crouching and with a speed in his long stride that was just as unbelievable as everything else in this absurd situation.
The entire time the unceasing telephone signal continued.
Martin Beck was never nearer to him than a half a flight of stairs and the distance kept increasing.
Martin Beck heard the fleeing man below him but didn't see him at all until he reached the ground floor. By that time the man had already gone through the glass door near the entry and was very close to the relative freedom of the street.
But Kollberg was there. He took two steps away from the wall and the man in the overcoat aimed a powerful blow at his face.
