The Laughing Policeman

'Hi. Is Lennart there?'

'Yes. Closer than you'd think.'

'What is it?' Kollberg muttered.

'Am I disturbing you?'

‘You might say that. What the hell is it now?'

'Do you remember last summer, just after the park murders?'

'Yes, what?'

'We had nothing special to do then and Hammar said we were to look through old unsolved cases. Remember?'

'Of course I damn well remember. What about it?'

'I went through the taxi murder in Boras and you worked on that old boy at Ostermalm who simply disappeared seven years ago.'

'Yes. Are you calling me just to say that?'

'No. What was Stenstrom working on? He had just got back from his vacation then.'

'I haven't the vaguest idea. I thought he told you.'

'No, he never mentioned it to me.'

'Then he must have told Hammar.'

‘Yes. Yes, of course. Yes, you're right. So long then. Sorry I woke you up.' 'Go to hell'

Martin Beck heard him slam the receiver down. He stood with the phone to his ear for a few seconds before putting it down and slouching back to the sofa bed.

He lay down again and put the light out Lay there in the dark feeling he had made a fool of himself.

₁₈

Contrary to all expectations, Friday morning brought a hopeful scrap of news.

Martin Beck received it by telephone and the others heard him say, 'What! Have you? Really?'

Everyone in the room dropped what he was doing and stared at him. Putting down the receiver he said, 'They're through with the ballistic investigation.'

'And?'

'They think they've identified the weapon.' 'Oh,' Kollberg said listlessly.

'A submachine gun,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'The army has thousands lying about in unguarded military depots. Might just as well deal them out free to the thieves and save themselves the trouble of putting on new padlocks once a week. As soon as I have half an hour to spare I'll drive into town and buy half a dozen.'

'It's not quite what you all think,' Martin Beck said, holding the slip of paper he had scribbled on. 'Model 37, Suomi type.'

'Really?' Melander asked.

'That old kind with the wooden butt,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'I haven't seen one like that since the forties.'

'Made in Finland or made here under licence?' Kollberg asked.

'Finnish,' Martin Beck said. 'The guy who called said they were almost sure. Old ammunition too. Made at Tikkakoski sewing-machine factory.'

'M-37,' Kollberg said. 'With 70-shot ammunition drum. Who's likely to have one today?'

'Nobody,' Gunvald Larsson replied. 'Today it's lying at the bottom of the harbour. A hundred feet down.'

'Presumably,' Martin Beck said. 'But who can have had one four days ago?'

'Some mad Finn,' Gunvald Larsson growled. 'Out with the Black Maria and round up all the crazy Finns in town. A hell of a nice job.'

'Shall we say anything of this to the papers?' Kollberg asked.

'No,' said Martin Beck. 'Not a whisper.'

They relapsed into silence. This was the first clue. How long would it take them to find the next?

The door was flung open and a young man came in and looked about him in curiosity. He had a brown envelope in his hand.

'Whom are you looking for?' Kollberg asked.

'Melander,' the youth said.

'Detective Inspector Melander,' Kollberg said reprimandingly. 'He's sitting over there.'

The young man went over and put the envelope on Melander's desk. As he was about to leave the room, Kollberg added, 'I didn't hear you knock.'

The youth checked himself, his hand on the door handle, but said nothing. There was silence in the room. Then Kollberg said, slowly and distinctly, as though explaining something to a child; 'Before entering a room, you knock at the door. Then you wait until you are told to come in. Then you open the door and enter. Is that dear?'

'Yes,' the young man mumbled, staring at Kollberg's feet

'Good,' Kollberg said, turning his back on him.

The young man slunk out of the door, dosing it silently behind him.

'Who was that?' Gunvald Larsson asked. Kollberg shrugged.

'Reminded me of Stenstrom actually,' Gunvald Larsson said.

Melander put down his pipe, opened the envelope and drew out some typewritten sheets bound in green covers. The booklet was about half an inch thick.

'What's that?' Martin Beck asked.

Melander glanced through it.

'The psychologists' compendium,' he replied. 'I've had it bound.'

'A-ha,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'And what brilliant theories have they come up with? That our poor mass murderer was once put off a bus during puberty because he couldn't pay his fare and that this experience left such deep scars in his sensitive ment—'

Martin Beck cut him short

'That is not amusing, Gunvald,' he snapped.

Kollberg gave him a surprised glance and turned to Melander. ‘Well, Fredrik, what have you got out of that little opus?'

Melander scratched at his pipe and emptied it on to a piece of paper, which he then folded up and threw into the wastepaper basket

'We have no Swedish precedents,' he said. 'Unless we go back as far as the Nordlund massacre on the steamer Prins Carl. So they've had to base their research on American surveys that have been made during the last few decades.'

He blew at his pipe to see if it was clear and then started to fill it as he went on. 'Unlike us, the American psychologists have no lack of material to work on. The compendium here mentions the Boston strangler; Speck, who murdered eight nurses in Chicago; Whitman, who killed sixteen people from a tower and wounded many more; Unruh, who rushed out on to a street in New Jersey and shot thirteen people dead in twelve minutes, and one or two more whom you've probably read about before.'

He riffled through the compendium.

'Mass murders seem to be an American speciality,' Gunvald Larsson said.

'Yes,' Melander agreed. 'And the compendium gives some plausible theories as to why it is so.'

'The glorification of violence,'said Kollberg. 'The career-centred society. The sale of firearms by mail order. The ruthless war in Vietnam.'

Melander sucked at his pipe to get it burning and nodded. 'Among other things,' he said.

'I read somewhere that out of every thousand Americans, one or two are potential mass murderers,' Kollberg said. 'Though don't ask me how they arrived at that conclusion.'

'Market research,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'It's another American speciality. They go around from house to house asking people if they could imagine themselves committing a mass murder. Two in a thousand say, 'Oh yes, that would be nice.''

Martin Beck blew his nose and looked irritably at Gunvald Larsson with red eyes.

Melander leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs in front of him.

'What do your psychologists have to say about the mass murderer's character?' Kollberg asked.