Roseanna

One second later Martin Beck knew that the end was finally here. He heard very clearly the short, wild scream of pain when Kollberg grabbed the man's arm and bent it all the way up to his shoulder with a fast, merciless twist. The man in the overcoat lay powerless on the marble floor.

Martin Beck stood leaning against the wall and listened to the police sirens which seemed to be coming from several directions at the same time. A picket had already been set up and out on the sidewalk several uniformed policemen were warding off the stubborn group of curious bystanders.

He looked at the man called Folke Bengtsson who was half lying where he had fallen with his face against the wall and the tears streaming down his cheeks.

'The ambulance is here,' said Stenstrom.

Martin Beck took the elevator up. She sat in one of the easy chairs dressed in corduroy slacks and a woolen sweater. He looked at her unhappily.

'The ambulance is here. They'll be right up.'

'I can walk myself,' she said, tonelessly.

In the elevator she said, 'Don't look so miserable. It wasn't your fault. And there's nothing seriously wrong with me.'

He wasn't able to look her in the eye.

'Had he tried to rape me I might have been able to cope with him. But it wasn't a question of that. I had no chance, none at all.'

She shook her head.

'Ten or fifteen seconds more and… Or if he hadn't started to think about the downstairs telephone, that disturbed him. Broke the isolation in some way. Ugh! God, it's awful.'

When they went out to the ambulance she said: 'Poor man.'

'Who?'

'Him.'

Fifteen minutes later only Kollberg and Stenstrom were left outside the house on Runeberg Street.

'I came just in time to see how you fixed him. Stood on the other side of the street. Where did you learn to do that?'

'I was a parachute jumper. I don't use it very often.'

'That's the best I've ever seen. You can take anyone with that.'

'In August was the jackal born, The rains fell in September. 'Now such a fearful flood as this,' Says he, 7 can't remember!''

'What is that?'

'A quote,' said Kollberg. 'Someone named Kipling.'

30

Martin Beck looked at the man who sat slouched before him with one arm in a sling. He kept his head bowed and didn't look up.

This was the moment he had waited for for six and a half months. He leaned over and turned on the tape recorder.

'Your name is Folke Lennart Bengtsson, born in Gustaf Vasa's parish on the sixth of August, 1926, now living at Rorstand Street in Stockholm. Is that correct?'

The man nodded almost imperceptibly.

'You must answer out loud,' Martin Beck said.

'Yes,' said the man called Folke Bengtsson. 'Yes that's correct.'

'Do you admit that you are guilty of murder and sexual assault of the American citizen Roseanna McGraw on the night of July 4-5 last year?'

'I haven't murdered anyone,' Folke Bengtsson said.

'Speak up.'

'No, I didn't do it.'

'Earlier you have admitted that you met Roseanna McGraw on July 4 last year on board the passenger ship Diana. Is that correct?'

'I don't know. I didn't know what her name was.'

'We have evidence that you were with her on July 4. That night you killed her in her cabin and threw her body overboard.'

'No, that's not true!'

'Killed her the same way you tried to kill the woman on Runeberg Street?'

'I didn't want to kill her.'

'Who didn't you want to kill?'

'That girl. She came to me several times. She asked me to come to her apartment. She didn't mean it seriously. She only wanted to humiliate me.'

'Did Roseanna McGraw also want to humiliate you? Was that why you killed her?'

'I don't know.'

'Were you inside her cabin?'

'I don't remember. Maybe I was. I don't know.'

Martin Beck sat quietly and studied the man. Finally he said: 'Are you very tired?'

'Not really.'

'Does your arm hurt?'

'Not any more. They gave me a shot at the hospital.'

'When you saw that woman last night, didn't she remind you of the woman last summer, the woman on the boat?'

'They aren't women.'

'What do you mean? Of course they're women.'

'Yes but… like animals.'

'I don't understand what you mean.'

'They are like animals, completely given over to…'

'Given over to what? To you?'

'For God's sake don't mock me. They were given over to their lust. To their shamelessness.'

Thirty seconds of silence.

'All true human beings must think so, except for the most decadent and depraved.'

'Didn't you like those women? Roseanna McGraw and the girl on Runeberg Street, whatever her name was…'

'Sonja Hansson.'

He spat out the name.

'Yes, that's right. Didn't you like her?'

'I hate her. I hated the other one too. I don't remember very well. Don't you see how they act? Don't you understand what it means to be a man?'

He spoke quickly and eagerly.

'No. What do you mean?'

'Ugh! They're disgusting. They sparkle and exult with their decadence, and later they're insolent and offensive.'

'Do you visit prostitutes?'

'They aren't as disgusting, not as shameless. And then they take money. At least there's a certain honor and honesty about them.'

'Do you remember what you answered when I asked you the same question the last time?' The man seemed confused and anxious.

'No…'

'Do you remember that I asked you if you went to prostitutes?'

'No, did you do that?'

Martin Beck sat quietly for a moment again. He rubbed his nose.

'I want to help you,' he said finally.