The dead girl in the bus had been small and delicate and must have looked very fragile beside this roommate.
They went out towards Dalagatan.
'Do you mind if we go to the Wasahof just across the street?' Monika Granholm asked. 'I must have something inside me before I can talk.'
The lunch hour was over and there were several vacant tables in the restaurant. Martin Beck chose a window table, but Monika Granholm preferred to sit farther inside.
'I don't want anyone from the hospital to see us,' she said. 'You've no idea how they gossip.'
She confirmed this by regaling Martin Beck with choice tidbits of the gossip while she set to work heartily on a mountainous helping of meatballs and mashed potatoes. Martin Beck watched her enviously under lowered lids. As usual he was not hungry, only slightly sick, and he drank coffee in order to make his condition a little worse. He let her finish eating and was about to steer the conversation on to her dead colleague when she pushed her plate away and said, 'That's better. Now you can fire away with your questions, and I'll try to answer as well as I can. May I just ask one question first?'
'Of course,' Martin Beck replied, offering her a Florida from the pack.
She shook her head.
'I don't smoke, thanks. Have you caught that madman yet?' 'No,' Martin Beck said. 'Not yet'
'People are awfully het up, you know. One of the girls from the maternity ward doesn't dare take the bus to work any more. She's afraid the maniac will suddenly be standing there with his submachine gun. She's taken a taxi to and from the hospital ever since it happened. You must see that you catch him.'
She looked exhortingly at Martin Beck.
'We're doing our best,' he said.
She nodded.
'Good,' she said.
'Thank you,' Martin Beck replied gravely. 'What is it you want to know about Britt?' 'How well did you know her? How long had you two been flatmates?'
'I knew her better than anyone, I should think. We've been roommates for three years, ever since she started here at Sabb. She was the world's best friend and a very capable nurse. Although she was delicate she worked hard. The perfect nurse. Never spared herself.'
She took the coffee pot and filled Martin Beck's cup.
'Thank you,' he said. 'Didn't she have a boyfriend?'
'Oh yes, an awfully nice fellow. I don't think they were formally engaged, but she had already given me to understand she'd soon be moving. I've an idea they were going to get married in the new year. He already has a flat'
'Had they known each other long?'
She bit her thumbnail and thought hard.
'Ten months at least He's a doctor. Well, they say girls take up nursing just for the chance of marrying doctors, but it wasn't so with Britt anyway. She was awfully shy, and scared of men, if anything. Then she went on the sicklist last winter, she was anaemic and generally run-down, and she had to go for frequent checkups. That's how she met Bertil. It was love at first sight She used to say it was his love that made her well, not his treatment'
Martin Beck sighed resignedly.
'What's wrong with that?' she asked suspiciously.
'Nothing at all. Did she know many men?'
Monika Granholm smiled and shook her head.
'Only the ones she met at the hospital. She was very reserved. I don't think she'd ever been with a man until she met this Bertil.'
She drew patterns on the table with her finger. Then she frowned and looked at Martin Beck.
'Is it her love life you're interested in? What's that got to do with it?'
Martin Beck took his wallet out of his breast pocket and laid it in front of him on the table.
'Beside Britt Danielsson in the bus sat a man. That man was a policeman and his name was Ake Stenstrom. We have reason to suspect that he and Miss Danielsson knew one another and were together on the bus. What we're interested to know is this: Did Miss Danielsson ever mention the name Ake Stenstrom?'
He took Stenstrom's photograph out of the wallet and put it in front of Monika Granholm.
'Have you ever seen this man?'
She looked at the photo and shook her head. Then she picked it up and studied it more closely.
‘Yes,' she said. 'In the papers. Though this picture's better.'
Handing back the photograph she said, 'Britt didn't know that man. I can almost swear to that And it's quite out of the question that she would have allowed anyone but her fiance' to see her home. She just wasn't that type.'
Martin Beck put the wallet back in his pocket
'They may have been friends and -She shook her head vigorously.
'Britt was very proper, very shy and, as I said, almost afraid of men. Besides, she was head over heels in love with Bertil and would never have looked at another fellow. Neither as a friend nor anything else. What's more, I was the only person on earth she confided in, except Bertil of course. She told me everything. I'm sorry, Superintendent, but this must be a mistake.'
Opening her handbag, she took out her purse.
'I must get back to my babies. I have seventeen at the moment'
She started poking in her purse but Martin Beck put out his hand and checked her.
'This is on the national government,' he said.
When they were standing outside the hospital gates Monika Granholm said, 'It is possible they might have known each other, been childhood playmates or schoolmates and met by chance. But that's all I can think of. Britt lived in Eslov until she was twenty. Where did this policeman come from?'
'Hallstahammar,' Martin Beck replied. 'What is this doctor's name besides Bertil?'
'Persson.'
'And where does he live?' 'Gillerbacken 22, Bandhagen.'
He held out his hand with some hesitation and for safety's sake kept his glove on.
'My regards to the national government and thanks for the lunch,' Monika Granholm said, and strode off briskly down the slope.
16
Gunvald Larsson's car was parked outside Tegnergatan 40. Martin Beck looked at his watch and pushed open the street door.
The time was twenty minutes past three, which meant that Gunvald Larsson, who was always punctual, had already been with Mrs Assarsson for twenty minutes. By this time he had probably found out the main events of her husband's life ever since he started school; Gunvald Larsson's interrogation technique was to begin at the beginning and uncover eveiything step by step. While the method could be effective, often it was merely tiresome and wasted time.
The door of the flat was opened by a middle-aged man wearing a dark suit with a silver-white tie. Martin Beck introduced himself and showed his official badge. The man held out his hand.
'I'm Ture Assarsson, brother of the... of the dead man. Please come in, your colleague is already here.'
He waited while Martin Beck hung up his overcoat and then led the way through a pair of tall double doors.
'Marta, my dear, this is Superintendent Beck,' he said.
The living room was large and rather dark. In a low, oat-coloured sofa, which was over three yards long, sat a lean woman in a black jersey coat and skirt, with a glass in her hand. Putting the glass down on a black marble table in front of the sofa, she held out her hand with gracefully bent wrist, as though expecting him to kiss it Martin Beck took her dangling fingers clumsily and mumbled, 'My condolences, Mrs Assarsson.'
On the other side of the marble table stood a group of three low, pink easy chairs, and in one of them sat Gunvald Larsson, looking peculiar. Only when Martin Beck, after a condescending gesture from Mrs Assarsson, sat
