No answer.
'I have a right to my own life.'
'Yes, but not to the lives of others. Last night I saw with my own eyes how you nearly killed another human being.'
'You did not. I didn't do anything.'
'I never say anything I'm not sure of. You tried to kill her. If we hadn't gotten there in time, you would have had a human life on your conscience now. You would have been a murderer.'
Strangely enough this made a strong impression on him. He moved his lips for a long time. Finally he said, almost inaudibly:
'She deserved it. It was her fault, not mine.'
'Sorry, I didn't hear you.'
Silence.
'Will you please repeat what you said.'
The man looked sulkily at the floor.
Suddenly Martin Beck said: 'You're lying to me.'
The man shook his head.
'You say that you only buy magazines about sports and fishing. But you also buy magazines with pictures of naked women in them.'
'That's not true.'
'You forget that ,' never lie.'
Silence.
'There are over one hundred such magazines stuffed in the back of your closet.'
His reaction was very strong.
'How do you know that?'
'We've had men searching your apartment. They found the magazines in the back of your closet. They found a lot of other things also, for example, a pair of sunglasses that actually belonged to Roseanna McGraw.'
'You break into my home and violate my private life. What's the reason for that?'
After a few seconds he repeated his last sentence and added: 'I don't want to have anything to do with you. You're detestable.'
'Well, it isn't forbidden to look at pictures,' said Martin Beck. 'Not at all. There's nothing wrong with that. The women in these magazines look like any other women.
There's no great difference. If the pictures had shown, for example, Roseanna McGraw or Sonja Hansson or Siv Lindberg…'
'Be quiet,' the man screamed. 'You shouldn't say that. You have no right to mention that name.'
'Why not? What would you do if I told you that Siv Lindberg has been photographed in magazines like that?'
'You lying devil.'
'Remember what I said before. What would you do?'
'I would punish… I would kill you also because you had said it…'
'You can't kill me. But what would you do with that woman, what is her name now, oh yes, Siv…'
'Punish, I would, I would…'
'Yes?'
The man opened and closed his hands time after time.
'Yes, that's what I would do,' he said.
'Kill her?'
'Yes.'
'Why?'
Silence.
'You shouldn't say that,' the man said.
A tear ran down his left cheek.
'You destroyed many of the pictures,' said Martin Beck quietly. 'Cut them with a knife. Why did you do that?'
'In my home… you have been inside my home. Searched and snooped…'
'Why did you cut up the pictures?' Martin Beck said very loudly.
'That's none of your business,' said the man hysterically. 'You devil! You debauched swine!'
'Why?'
'To punish. And I'll punish you too.'
Two minutes of silence followed. Then Martin Beck said in a friendly tone: 'You killed the woman on the boat. You don't remember it yourself but I shall help you remember. The cabin was small and narrow. It was poorly lit inside. The boat was going through a lake, isn't that right?'
'It was at Boren,' said the man.
'And you were in her cabin and you took off her clothes.'
'No. She did that herself. She began to undress. She wanted to infect me with her dirtiness. She was disgusting.'
'Did you punish her?' said Martin Beck calmly.
'Yes. I punished her. Don't you understand? She had to be punished. She was debauched and shameless.'
'How did you punish her? You killed her, didn't you?'
'She deserved to die. She wanted to make me dirty too. She gloried in her shamelessness. Don't you understand,' he screamed. 'I had to kill her. I had to kill her dirty body.'
'Weren't you afraid that someone would see you through the ventilator?'
'There wasn't any ventilator. I wasn't afraid. I knew that I was doing the right thing, she was guilty. She deserved it.'
'After you had killed her? What did you do then?'
The man sank into his chair and mumbled.
'Don't plague me any more. Why do you have to talk about it all the tune. I don't remember.'
'Did you leave the cabin when she was dead?'
Martin Beck's voice was soft and calm.
'No. Yes. I don't remember.'
'She lay naked on the bunk, didn't she? And you had killed her. Did you remain in the cabin?'
'No, I went out. I don't remember.'
'Where on the boat was the cabin located?'
'I don't remember.'
'Was it far below decks?'
'No, but it was quite far back… farthest back… the last one toward the stern on the deck.'
'What did you do with her after she was dead?'
'Don't ask me about that all the time,' he said, whining like a little child. 'It wasn't my fault. It was her fault.'
'I know that you killed her and you have said that you did it. What did you do with her afterwards?' asked Martin Beck in a friendly voice.
'I threw her in the lake. I couldn't stand to look at her,' the man screamed loudly.
Martin Beck looked at him calmly.
'Where?' he said. 'Where was the boat then?'
'I don't know. I only threw her in the lake.'
He collapsed in his chair and began to cry.
'I couldn't stand to look at her. I couldn't stand looking at her,' he said in a monotone with the tears running down his cheeks.
Martin Beck turned off the tape recorder, picked up the telephone and called for a police constable.
When the man who had killed Roseanna McGraw was taken away, Martin Beck lit a cigarette. He sat
