The Laughing Policeman

going to regain consciousness at all, it should be within the next half-hour.'

'Will he pull through?'

The doctor gave Ronn a long look and said, 'It seems unlikely. He has a good physique, of course, and his general condition is fairly satisfactory.'

Ronn looked down at the patient dejectedly, wondering just how a person should look before his general condition could be regarded as not so good or just plain bad.

He had carefully thought out two questions, which for safety's sake he had written down in his notebook.

The first one was:

Who did the shooting?

And the second:

What did he look like?

He had also made one or two other preparations: set up his portable transistor tape recorder on a chair at the head of the bed, plugged in the microphone and hung it over the chairback. Ullholm had not taken part in these, contenting himself with an occasional critical glance at Ronn from his place over by the window.

The clock showed twenty-six minutes past two when the nurse suddenly bent over the injured man and beckoned the two policemen with a swift, impatient gesture, at the same time putting out her other hand and pressing the bell.

Ronn hurried over and seized the microphone.

'I think he's waking up,' the nurse said.

The injured man's face seemed to undergo some sort of change. A quiver passed through his eyelids and nostrils.

‘Yes,' the nurse said. 'Now.'

Ronn held out the microphone.

‘Who did the shooting?' he asked.

No reaction. After a moment Ronn repeated the question.

'Who did the shooting?'

Now the man's lips moved and he said something. Ronn waited only two seconds before saying, 'What did he look like?'

The injured man reacted again and this time the answer was more articulated.

A doctor entered the room.

Ronn had just opened his mouth to repeat question number two when the man in the bed turned his head to the left. The lower jaw slipped down and a slimy, bloodstreaked pulp welled out of his mouth.

Ronn looked up at the doctor, who consulted his instruments and nodded gravely.

Ullholm came up to Ronn and snapped, 'Is that really all you can get out of this questioning?'

Then he said in a loud, bullying voice, 'Now listen to me, my good man, this is Detective Inspector Ullholm speaking -'

'He's dead,' Ronn said quietly.

Ullholm stared at him and uttered one word: 'Bungler.'

Ronn pulled out the microphone plug and took the tape recorder over to the window. Turned the spool back cautiously with his forefinger and pressed the playback button.

'Who did the shooting?’

'Dnrk'

'What did he look like?’

'Koleson!

'What do you make of this?' he asked.

Ullholm glared at Ronn for at least ten seconds. Then he said, 'Make of it? I'm going to report you for breach of duty. It can't be helped. You see what I mean, don't you?'

He turned on his heel and strode energetically from the room. Ronn looked sadly after him.

₁₅

An icy gust of wind whipped a shower of needle-sharp grains of snow against Martin Beck as he opened the main door of police headquarters, making him gasp for breath. He lowered his head to the wind and hurriedly buttoned his overcoat The same morning he had at last capitulated to Inga's nagging, to the freezing temperature and to his cold, and put on his winter coat Pulling the woollen scarf higher round his neck, he started walking towards the centre of town.

When he had crossed Agnegatan he stopped, at a loss, trying to decide what bus to take. He had not yet learned all the new routes since the trams had been taken off in conjunction with the change-over to right-hand traffic in September.

A car pulled up beside him. Gunvald Larsson wound the side window down and called, 'Jump in.'

Martin Beck gratefully settled himself into the front seat.

'Ugh, what horrible weather. You hardly have time to notice there's been a summer before winter starts all over again. Where are you off to?'

'Vastmannagatan,' Gunvald Larsson replied. 'I'm going up to have a talk with the daughter of the old girl in the bus.'

'Good,' said Martin Beck. 'You can let me off outside Sabbatsberg Hospital'

They drove across Kungsbron and past the old market hall. Minute grains of snow swirled up against the windscreen.

'This sort of snow is utterly useless,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'It doesn't even lie. Just flies about blocking the view.'

Unlike Martin Beck, Gunvald Larsson liked cars and was considered a very good driver.

They followed Vasagatan to Norra Bantorget and outside Norra Latin secondary school they overtook a doubledecker bus on route 47.

'Ugh!' Martin Beck exclaimed. 'From now on we'll feel ill at the very sight of one of those buses.'

Gunvald Larsson cast a quick glance at it

'Not the same kind,' he said. 'That one's a German bus. Bussing.'

After a minute or so he said, 'Are you coming with me to see Assarsson's wife? The guy with the condoms. I'm to be there at three o'clock.'

'I don't know,' Martin Beck said.

'I thought as you're in the vicinity. It's only one block away from Sabbatsberg. Then I can drive you back afterwards.'

'Perhaps. It depends when I finish with that nurse.'

At the corner of Dalagatan and Tegnergatan they were stopped by a man in a yellow protective helmet and with a red flag in his hand. Inside the grounds of Sabbatsberg Hospital extensive rebuilding was going on; the old buildings were to be torn down and new ones were already shooting up. At present they were blasting away the high rocks toward Dalagatan. As the noise of the explosion was still echoing between the house walls, Gunvald Larsson said, 'Why don't they blow the whole of Stockholm to bits in one go instead of doing it piecemeal? They ought to do what Ronald Reagan or whatever-his-name-is said about Vietnam: cover it with Tarmac and paint on yellow stripes and make car parks of the goddamned place. It could hardly be worse than when the town planners get their way.'

Martin Beck got out of the car in front of the entrance to the part of the hospital nearest the Eastman Institute where the maternity ward and the women's clinic were located.

The turn-around area in front of the doors was empty, but as he came nearer he saw a woman in a sheepskin coat peering out at him through the glass doors. She came out and said, 'Superintendent Beck? I'm Monika Granholm.'

She seized his hand in an iron grip and squeezed it passionately. He almost seemed to hear the bones of his hand crunch and he hoped that she didn't exert the same strength when handling the newborn babies.

She was almost as tall as Martin Beck and considerably larger. Her complexion was fresh and rosy, her teeth white and strong, the light-brown hair was thick and wavy and the irises in her big beautiful eyes had the same colour as her hair. Everything about her radiated health and strength.