'But what?'
'Have you ever thought of something? People are scared here. Ordinary decent people. If you ask for directions or ask them for a light, they practically turn and run. They're simply afraid. Feel insecure.'
'Who doesn't?' Kbllberg said.
'I don't,' Nordin replied. 'At least not as a rule. But I expect I’ll be the same before long. Have you anything for me just now?'
‘We have a weird sort of tip here,' Melander said. ‘What about?'
'The unidentified man on the bus. A woman in Hagersten. She called up and said she lives next door to a garage where a lot of foreigners collect.'
Uh-hunh.And?'
'It's usually pretty rowdy there, though she didn't put it like that 'Noisy' is what she said. One of the noisiest was a small, dark man of about thirty-five. His clothes were not unlike the description in the papers, she said, and now there hasn't been any sign of him.'
'There are tens of thousands of people with clothes like that’ Nordin said sceptically.
'Yes,' Melander agreed, 'there are. And with ninety-nine per cent certainty this tip is useless. The information is so vague that there's really nothing to check. Moreover, she didn't seem at all sure. But if you've nothing else to do ...'
He left the sentence in midair, scribbled down the woman's name and address on his notepad and tore off the sheet The telephone rang and he lifted the receiver as he handed the paper to Nordin.
'Here you are,' he said.
'I can't read it,' Nordin muttered.
Melander's handwriting was cramped and almost illegible, at least to outsiders. Kollberg took the slip of paper and looked at it
'Hieroglyphics,' he said. 'Or maybe ancient Hebrew. It was probably Fredrik who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. Though he doesn't have that much of a sense of humour. I'm his chief interpreter, however.'
He copied out the name and address and said, 'Here it is in plain writing.'
'OK,' Nordin said. 'I can take a run out there. Is there a car?' 'Yes. But with the traffic as it is, and the state of the roads, you'd better stick to the underground. Take a number 13 or 23 southbound and get off at Axelsberg.' 'So long,' Nordin said and went out.
'He didn't seem particularly inspired today,' Kollberg remarked. 'Can you blame him?' Martin Beck replied, blowing his nose. 'Hardly,' Kollberg said with a sigh. 'Why don't we let these guys go home?'
'Because it's not our business,' said Martin Beck. 'They're here to take part in the most intensive manhunt ever known in this country.'
'It would be nice to -' Kollberg began, and broke off, feeling it was superfluous to go on. It certainly would be nice to know whom one was hunting and where the hunt ought to be carried on.
'I'm merely quoting the Minister of Justice,' Martin Beck said innocently. ''Our keenest brains' - he's referring of course to Mansson and Nordin - 'are working at high pressure to corner and capture an insane mass murderer; it is of prime importance to both the community and the individual that he be put out of action.''
'When did he say that?'
'For the first time seventeen days ago. For the umpteenth time yesterday. But yesterday he was given only four lines on page 22. I bet that rankles. There's an election next year.'
Melander had finished his telephone conversation. He poked at the bowl of his pipe with a straightened paper clip and said quietly, 'Isn't it about time we took care of the insane mass murderer, so to speak?'
Fifteen seconds passed before Kollberg replied. 'Yes, it certainly is. It's also time to lock the door and shut off the telephones.'
'Is Gunvald here?' Martin Beck asked.
'Yes, Mr Larsson is sitting in there picking his teeth with the paper knife.'
'Tell them to put all calls through to him,' Martin Beck said. Melander reached for the phone.
'Tell them to send up some coffee, too,' Kollberg said. 'Three sweet rolls and a Mazarine for me, please.'
The coffee arrived after ten minutes. Kollberg locked the door.
They sat down. Kollberg slurped the coffee and started in on the sweet rolls.
'The situation is as follows,' he said with his mouth full 'The loony murderer with a lust for sensation is standing lugubriously in the police commissioner's closet. When he's needed we take him out again and dust him off. The working hypothesis is therefore this: A person armed with a Suomi submachine gun model 37 shoots nine people dead on a bus. These people have no connection with each other, they merely happen to be in the same place at the same time.'
'The gunman has a motive,' Martin Beck said.
'Yes,' Kollberg said, reaching for the Mazarine cupcake. 'That's what I've thought all along. But he can't have a motive for killing people who are together haphazardly. Therefore his real intention is to eliminate one of them.'
'The murder was carefully planned,' Martin Beck said.
'One of the nine,' Kollberg said. 'But which? Have you the list there, Fredrik?'
'Don't need it,' Melander said.
'No, of course not. Didn't think what I was saying. Let's go through it.'
Martin Beck nodded. The ensuing conversation took the form of a dialogue between Kollberg and Melander.
'Gustav Bengtsson,' Melander said. 'The bus driver. His presence on the bus was justified, we can say.'
'Undeniably.'
'He seems to have led an ordinary, normal life. No marital troubles. No convictions. Conscientious at work. Liked by his colleagues. We've also questioned some friends of the family. They say he was respectable and steady-going. He was a teetotaller. Forty-eight years old. Born here in the city.'
'Enemies? None. Influence? None. Money? None. Motive for killing him? None. Next.'
'I'm not following Ronn's numbering now,' Melander said. 'Hildur Johansson, widow, sixty-eight She was on her way home to Norra Stationsgatan from her daughter in Vastmannagatan. Born at Edsbro. Daughter questioned by Larsson, Mansson and ... ha, it doesn't matter. She led a quiet life and lived on her old-age pension. There's not much more to say about her.'
'Well, just that she presumably got on at Odengatan and only went six stops. And that no one except her daughter and son-in-law knew she would ride that particular stretch at that particular time. Go on.'
'Johan Kallstrom, who was fifty-two and born in Vasteras. Foreman at a garage, Gren's on Sibyllegatan. He had been working overtime and was on his way home, that's dear. He, too, was happily married. His chief interests, his car and summer cottage. No convictions. Earned good money, but no more. Those who know him say he probably took the underground from Ostermalmstorg to Central Station, where he changed to the bus. Should therefore have come up at the Drottninggatan exit and boarded the bus outside Ahlens department store. His boss says he was a skilled workman and a good foreman. The mechanics at the garage say that he was -'
'... a slavedriver to those he could bully and a bootlicker to his bosses. I went and talked to them. Next'
'Alfons Schwerin was forty-three and born in Minneapolis, in the USA, of Swedish-American parents. Came to Sweden just after the war and stayed here. He had a small business that imported Carpathian spruce for sounding boards, but he went bankrupt ten years ago. Schwerin drank. He had two spells at Beckomberga in the alcoholic clinic and was sentenced to three months at Bogesund for drunken driving. That was three years ago. When his business went to pot he became a labourer. He was working for the local council. On the evening in question he had been at Restaurant Pilen on Bryggargatan and was on his way home. He hadn't had much to drink, presumably because he was broke. His lodgings were mean and shabby. He probably walked from the restaurant to the bus stop on Vasagatan. He was a bachelor and had no relations in Sweden, his fellow workers liked him. Say he was pleasant and good-tempered, could hold his liquor and hadn't an enemy in the world.'
'And he saw the killer and said something unintelligible to Ronn before he died. Have we had the expert's report on the tape?'
'No. Mohammed Boussie, Algerian, worked at a restaurant, thirty-six, born at some unpronounceable place the name of which I've forgotten.'
