'Can't I go?' the girl asked. 'You did promise.'
'Yes,' Melander answered. 'Of course you can go. We just have to check up first that you're right. For your own sake. Oh, one thing more.'
'Yes. What?'
'He's not alone in the room, eh?'
'No,' the girl said very quietly.
'What's your name, by the way?' Gunvald Larsson asked.
'None of your damn business.'
'Take her away,' Gunvald Larsson said.
Melander got up, opened the door to the next room and said:
'Ronn, we have a lady here, do you mind if she sits with you for a while?'
Ronn appeared in the doorway. His eyes and nose were red. He took in the scene.
'Not at all.'
'Blow your nose,' Larsson said.
'Shall I give her some coffee?'
'Good idea,' Melander said.
He held the door for her and said politely:
'This way, please.'
The girl got up and went out. In the doorway she stopped and gave Gunvald Larsson and Martin Beck a cold, hard stare. Evidently they had not succeeded in making her like them. Something wrong with our basic psychological training, Martin Beck thought.
Then she looked at Melander and said slowly:
'Who's going to get him?'
'We are,' Melander said kindly. 'That's what the police are for.'
She didn't move, but went on looking at Melander. At last she said:
'He's dangerous.'
'How dangerous?'
'Very dangerous. He shoots. He'll probably shoot me too.'
'Not for a long time,' Gunvald Larsson said.
She ignored him.
'He has two submachine guns in the room. Loaded. And an ordinary pistol. He has said…'
Martin Beck said nothing, but waited for Melander's reply, hoping that Gunvald Larsson would keep quiet.
'What has he said?' Melander asked.
'That he'll never let himself be taken alive. I know he means it.'
She still went on standing there.
'That's all,' she said.
'Thank you,' Melander said, closing the door after her.
'Huh,' Gunvald Larsson said.
'Fix the warrant,' Martin Beck said as soon as the door was shut. 'And out with the town plan.'
The blueprint of the town plan was on the desk before Me lander had finished making the short phone call that gave them the legal right to do what they were about to do.
'It might be pretty tough,' Martin Beck said.
'Yes,' Gunvald Larsson agreed.
He opened a drawer, took out his service pistol and weighed it for a moment in his hand. Martin Beck, like most Swedish plainclothes policemen, carried a pistol in a shoulder holster in case he had to use it when on duty. Gunvald Larsson, on the other hand, had got himself a special clip with which he could fasten the holster to the waistband of his trousers. Slinging the pistol so that it hung by his right hip he said:
'Okay, I'll grab him myself. Coming?'
Martin Beck looked thoughtfully at Gunvald Larsson, who was a good half head taller than himself and looked gigantic now that he was standing up.
'It's the only way,' Larsson said. 'How else can we do it? Just imagine a horde of guys with submachine guns and tear-gas bombs and bullet-proof vests running in through that entrance and across the yard with him firing like a madman through the windows and out onto the staircase. Or are you yourself or the police commissioner or the prime minister or the king going to stand and shout through a megaphone, 'You're surrounded. Better give yourself up.''
'Tear gas through the keyhole,' Melander said.
'That's an idea,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'But it doesn't appeal to me. Presumably the key's on the inside. No, plain-clothes men in the street and two men go in. Coming?'
'Sure,' Martin Beck said.
He would rather have had Kollberg with him, but the mugger was without doubt Gunvald Larsson's man.
Luntmakargatan lies in the part of Stockholm known as Norrmalm. A long narrow street with mainly old buildings. It stretches from Brunnsgatan in the south to Odengatan in the north, with a lot of workshops on the street level and shabby dwellings in the houses across the yard.
They were there in less than ten minutes.
14
'PITY YOU DON'T have the computer with you,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'You could break the door down with it.'
'Yes,' Martin Beck said.
They parked the car in Radmansgatan, went around the corner and saw several colleagues on the sidewalks near the entrance to number 57.
The arrival of the police did not seem to have attracted anyone's attention.
'We'll go in…' Gunvald Larsson began, and checked himself.
Perhaps he remembered his lower rank, for he looked at his wrist watch and said:
'I suggest I go in with you half a minute behind me.'
Martin Beck nodded, crossed the street, stood in front of the shop window of Gustaf Blomdin's jeweler's shop and watched an unusually beautiful old grandfather clock tick away thirty seconds. Then he turned on his heel, crossed the road diagonally without bothering about the traffic and entered the main doorway of number 57.
He crossed the yard without looking up at the windows, opened the door onto the staircase and went swiftly and quietly up the stairs. From the workshop on the main floor came the muffled pounding of machinery.
The paint had flaked off the door of the apartment; sure enough, it bore the name Simonsson. Not a sound could be heard from inside, nor from Gunvald Larsson, who was standing, quite still and straight, to the right of the door. He passed his fingers lightly across the cracked paneling.
Then he glanced inquiringly at Martin Beck.
Martin Beck regarded the door for a second or two and nodded. He stood to the left of it, tense and with his back to the wall.
Despite his height and weight, Gunvald Larsson moved very quickly and silently in his rubber-soled sandals. Supporting himself with his right shoulder against the wall opposite the door, he stood tensed for a few seconds. He had evidently made sure that the key was in the lock on the inside, and it was obvious that Rolf Lundgren's private world would not remain private much longer. Martin Beck barely had time to think this before Gunvald Larsson flung his two hundred pounds against the door, crouching slightly and with his left shoulder forward.
The door flew open with a crash, wrenched off both lock and upper hinge, and Gunvald Larsson followed it into the room through a cascade of dry splinters. Martin Beck was only half a yard behind him, striding smoothly and swiftly. His pistol was raised.
The mugger was lying on his back in bed with his right arm locked under a woman's neck, but he managed to get free, spin around and fling his upper body towards the floor and thrust his hand under the bed. When Gunvald Larsson struck him he was already kneeling with the submachine gun resting on the floor but with his right hand closed around the extended metal frame.
Gunvald Larsson struck him only once, with open hand and not very hard, but it was enough to make the
