'No, we three Turks, two - one Arab, two Spanish men, one Finnish man, and the new one, he Greek.'
'Do you eat here too?'
The Turk glided swiftly across the room and moved the pillow on one of the beds. Mansson caught a glimpse of a pornographic magazine before it was hidden by the pillow.
'Excuse, please,' the Turk said. 'Here it is ... it is not so tidy. Do we eat here? No, cooking, forbidden. Forbidden to use kitchen, forbidden to have electric hot plate in room. We not allowed to cook, not allowed to make coffee.'
'How much rent do you pay?'
'We pay 350 kronor each,' said the Turk.
'A month?'
'Yes. All months 350 kronor.'
He nodded and scratched himself in the thick black growth resembling horsehair on his chest, visible above the low-necked vest.
'I earn lot of money,' he said. 'One hundred seventy kronor a week. I am lorry driver. Before, I work restaurant and not earn so good.'
'Do you know whether Mohammed Boussie had any relations?' Mansson asked. 'Parents or brothers and sisters?' The Turk shook his head.
'No, I not know. We were much pals, but Mohammed not say much. He very afraid.'
Mansson stood by the window looking at a knot of shivering people who stood waiting for the bus at the terminus.
He turned around.
'Afraid?'
'Not afraid. What do you say? Ah yes, shuy.' 'Shy, uh-huh,' Mansson said. 'Do you know how long he lived here?'
The Turk sat down on the couch between the windows and shook his head.
'No, I not know. I come here last month and Mohammed - he already live here.'
Mansson had broken into a sweat under his thick overcoat. The air seemed thick with the smell that had oozed from the room's eight inmates.
Mansson wished fervently that he were back in Malmo, in his nice tidy flat.
Fishing his last toothpick out of his pocket, he asked, 'When will Mrs Karlsson be back?' The Turk shrugged. 'I not know. Soon.'
Mansson stuck the toothpick in his mouth, sat down at the round table and waited.
After half an hour he tossed the chewed remains of the toothpick into the ashtray. Two more of Mrs Karlsson's lodgers had arrived, but there was still no sign of the landlady herself.
The newcomers were the two Spaniards, and since their knowledge of Swedish was scant and Mansson didn't know one word of Spanish, he soon gave up trying to question them. The only information he got was that their names were Ramon and Juan and that they worked as busboys at a grill bar.
The Turk had thrown himself on the couch and was leafing idly through a German magazine. The Spaniards talked animatedly while they changed their clothes for an evening out; their plans seemed to include a girl called Kerstin, whom they were evidently discussing.
Mansson kept looking at his watch. He had made up his mind not to wait a minute longer than half-past five.
At twenty-eight minutes past five Mrs Karlsson returned.
She placed Mansson in her best sofa, offered him a glass of port and burst into a jeremiad concerning her trials as a landlady.
'It's not at all nice, I can tell you, for a poor lone woman to have the house full of men,' she whined. 'And foreigners, what's more. But what is a poor hard-up widow to do?'
Mansson made a rough estimate. The hard-up widow raked in nearly 3,000 kronor a month in rent.
'That Mohammed,' she said, pursing her lips. 'He owed me a month's rent Perhaps you could arrange for me to get it? He had money in the bank all right'
To Mansson's question about her impression of Mohammed, she replied, 'Well, for an Arab he was quite nice, really. They're usually so dirty and unreliable, you know. But he was nice and quiet and seemed to behave himself all right - he didn't drink and I don't think he brought girls in. But as I said, he owes me a month's rent'
She appeared to be well informed about the private lives of her lodgers; sure enough, Ramon was going with a slut called Kerstin, but she could tell him little about Mohammed.
He had a married sister in Paris, who used to send him letters, but she couldn't read them because they were written in Arabic.
Mrs Karlsson fetched a bundle of letters and gave them to Mansson. The sister's name and address were written on the backs of the envelopes.
All Mohammed Boussie's worldly possessions had been packed into a canvas suitcase. Mansson took this with him as well.
Mrs Karlsson reminded him once more of the unpaid rent before shutting the door after him.
'My God, what an old bitch,' Mansson mumbled to himself as he went down the stairs to the street and his car.
19
Monday. Snow. Wind. Bitter cold. 'Fine track snow’ Ronn said.
He was standing by the window, looking dreamily out over the street and the rooftops, which were only just visible in the floating white haze.
Gunvald Larsson glared at him suspiciously and said, 'Is that meant to be a joke?'
'No. I was just thinking how it felt when I was a boy.'
'Extremely constructive. You wouldn't care to do something a little more worthwhile? To help the investigation along?'
'Sure,' Ronn said. 'But...'
'But what?'
'That's just what I was going to say. But what?'
'Nine people have been murdered,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'And here you stand not knowing what to do with yourself. You're a detective, aren't you?'
'Yes.'
'Well then, detect, for Christ's sake.' 'Where?'
'I don't know. Do something.' 'What are you doing yourself?'
'Can't you see? I'm sitting here reading this psychological bilge that Melander and the doctors have concocted.' 'Why?'
'I don't know. How can I know everything?'
A week had passed since the bloodbath in the bus. The state of the investigation was unchanged and the lack of constructive ideas was making itself felt Even the spate of useless tips from the general public had begun to dry up.
The consumer society and its harassed citizens had other things to think about Although it was over a month to Christmas, the advertising orgy had begun and the buying hysteria spread as swiftly and ruthlessly as the Black Death along the festooned shopping streets. The epidemic swept all before it and there was no escape. It ate its way into houses and flats, poisoning and breaking down everything and everyone in its path. Children were already howling from exhaustion and fathers of families were plunged into debt until their next holiday. The gigantic legalized confidence trick claimed victims everywhere. The hospitals had a boom in cardiac infarctions, nervous breakdowns and burst stomach ulcers.
The police stations downtown had frequent visits from the outriders of the great family festival, in the shape of Santa Clauses who were dragged blind drunk out of doorways and public urinals. At Mariatorget two exhausted beat officers dropped a drunken Father Christmas in the gutter when they tried to get him into a taxi.
During the ensuing uproar the two policemen were hard pressed by bewildered, screaming children and furious, foul-mouthed boozers. One of the officers lost his temper when a lump of ice landed in his eye and he resorted to his truncheon. Hit out at random and struck an inquisitive old-age pensioner. It didn't look pretty and the
