The Man Who Went Up in Smoke

and said, 'Now we can go. I'll be having a visitor soon, and would be grateful if…'

He smiled and left the sentence unfinished. Martin Beck remained seated.

'We're in no special hurry,' he said.

Kollberg came in from the bedroom.

'The trousers and the blue blazer are still hanging in the wardrobe,' he said.

Martin Beck nodded. Gunnarsson walked back and forth across the room. He was moving more nervously now, but his expression was as unshakably calm as before.

'Perhaps it's not so bad as it seems,' said Kollberg in a friendly way. 'You don't have to be so resigned.'

Martin Beck glanced at his colleague quickly, then looked at Gunnarsson again. Of course, Kollberg was right. The man had given up. He knew the game was up and he had known it the moment they'd stepped over the threshold. Presumably he was now enveloped in this feeling as if in a cocoon. But still not completely invulnerable. Nevertheless, what had to be done was very unpleasant.

Martin Beck leaned back in the basket chair and waited. Kollberg stood silent and immobile by the bedroom door. Gunnarsson had remained standing in the middle of the floor. He looked at his watch again but said nothing.

A minute went past. Two. Three. The man again looked at his wristwatch. Probably a purely reflex action, and it was clear that it annoyed him. After two minutes more he did it again, but this time tried to mask his maneuver by running the back of his left hand over his face as he glanced down at his wrist. The door of a car slammed somewhere down on the street.

He opened his mouth to say something. Only one word came out.

'If…'

Then he was sorry, took two quick steps toward the telephone and said, 'Excuse me, I have to call someone.'

Martin Beck nodded and looked stubbornly at the telephone. 018. The area code for Uppsala. Everything fitted in. Six figures. Answer on the third ring.

'Hello. This is Ake. Has Ann-Louise left?'

'Oh. When?'

Martin Beck thought he heard a woman's voice say, 'About a quarter of an hour ago.'

'Oh, yes. Thanks very much. Good-bye.'

Gunnarsson replaced the receiver, looked at his watch and said in a light voice, 'Well, shall we go now?'

No one replied. Ten long minutes went by. Then Martin Beck said, 'Sit down.'

The man obeyed very hesitantly. Although he seemed to be making an effort to sit still, the basket chair did not stop creaking. The next time he looked at his watch, Martin Beck saw that his hands were trembling.

Kollberg yawned, much too studiedly or else from ner vousness. It was hard to determine which. Two minutes later, the man called Gunnarsson said, 'What are we waiting for?'

For the first time there was a trace of uncertainty even in his voice.

Martin Beck looked at him. He said nothing. He wondered what would happen if the man on the other side of the desk suddenly realized that the silence was just as much of a strain on them as it was on him. It probably wouldn't be of much help to him. In some way they were all in the same boat now.

Gunnarsson looked at his watch, picked up a pen that was lying on the desk and at once put it down again in exactly the same place.

Martin Beck looked away and at the photograph, then glanced at his watch. Twenty minutes had gone by since the phone call. At worst, they had half an hour at their disposal.

He again looked at Gunnarsson and caught himself thinking about everything they had in common. The giant creaking bed. The view. The boats. The room key. The damp heat from the river.

He looked at his watch quite openly. Something about this seemed to irritate the other man considerably— perhaps the reminder that they did in fact have a common interest.

Martin Beck and Kollberg looked at each other for the first time in practically half an hour. If they were right, the end should be very near.

Disintegration came thirty seconds later. Gunnarsson looked from the one man to the other and said in a clear voice, 'O.K. What do you want to know?'

No one answered.

'Yes, you're right, of course. It was me.'

'What happened?'

'I don't want to talk about it,' said the man thickly.

He was staring stubbornly down at the desk now. Kollberg looked at him with a frown, glanced over at Martin Beck and nodded.

Martin Beck drew a deep breath.

'You must realize that we'll find out everything anyhow,' he said. 'There are witnesses down there who can identify you. We'll find the taxi driver who drove you here that night. He'll remember whether you were alone or not. Your car and flat will be examined by experts. The burnt-out house in Hagalund as well. If a body has been lying there, there'll be enough left of it. That doesn't matter now. Whatever happened to Alf Matsson and wherever he went, we'll find him. You won't be able to hide very much—nothing important, anyway.'

Gunnarsson looked straight at him and said, 'In that case, I don't understand the point of all this.'

Martin Beck knew that he would remember that remark for years, perhaps for the rest of his life.

It was Kollberg who saved the situation. He said foneless-ly, 'It is our duty to tell you that you are suspected of manslaughter, or possibly murder. Naturally you have the right to legal representation during the formal hearing.'

'Alf came with me in the taxi. We came here. He knew I had a bottle of whisky at home and insisted that we should finish it off.'

'And?'

'We had already drunk a good deal. We quarreled.'

He fell silent. Shrugged his shoulders.

'I'd rather not talk about it.'

'Why did you quarrel?' said Kollberg.

'He… he made me mad.'

'In what way?'

A swift change in those blue eyes. Uncontrolled and anything but harmless.

'He behaved like a… well, he said certain things.

'About my fiancee. Just a moment—I can explain how it started. If you look in the top right-hand drawer… there are some photographs there.'

Martin Beck pulled out the drawer and found the photographs. He held them carefully between his fingertips. They had been taken on a beach somewhere, and were just the sort of pictures people in love might take on a beach, provided they were quite undisturbed. He went through them swiftly, almost without looking at them. The bottom one was bent and damaged. The woman with the light-colored eyes smiled at the photographer.

'I had been in the bathroom. When I came back, he was standing there rummaging in my drawers. He'd found… those pictures. He tried to put one in his pocket. I was already angry with him, but then I became… furious.'

The man paused briefly and then said apologetically, 'Unfortunately I can't remember those particular details very clearly.'

Martin Beck nodded.

'I took the photograph away from him, although he resisted. Then he began shouting filthy things about, well, about Ann-Louise. Of course, I knew that every last word was a lie, but I couldn't bear listening to him. He was talking very loudly. Almost yelling. I think I was afraid the neighbors would wake up too.'

The man lowered his eyes again. He looked at his hands and said, 'Well, that wasn't all that important. But it probably entered in, I don't know. Do I have to try to repeat…'

'Forget the details for the time being,' said Kollberg. 'What happened?'