The Laughing Policeman

worth about one million Swedish kronor.

Gunvald Larsson got home to his flat at Bollmora at three o'clock on Sunday morning. He was a bachelor and lived alone. As usual he spent twenty minutes in the bathroom before putting on his pyjamas and getting into bed. He picked up the novel by Ovre

Richter-Frich that he was reading, but after only a minute he put it down and reached for the telephone.

The phone was a white Ericofon. Turning it upside down, he dialled Martin Beck's number.

Gunvald Larsson made it a rule never to think of his work when he was at home, and he could not recall ever before having made an official call after he had gone to bed.

Martin Beck answered after only the second ring.

'Hi. Did you hear about Assarsson?'

'Yes.'.

'Something has just occurred to me.' 'What?'

'That we might have been making a mistake. Stenstrom was of course shadowing Gosta Assarsson. And the murderer killed two birds with one stone - Assarsson and the man who was shadowing him.'

'Yes,' Martin Beck agreed. 'There may be something in what you say'

Gunvald Larsson was wrong. Nevertheless, he had just put the investigation on to the right track.

₂₄

For three evenings in succession Ulf Nordin trudged about town trying to make contact with Stockholm's underworld, going in and out of the beerhalls, coffeehouses, restaurants and dance halls that Blonde Malin had given as Goransson's haunts.

Sometimes he took the car, and on Friday evening he sat in the car staring out over Mariatorget without seeing anything of more interest than two other men sitting in a car and staring. He didn't recognize them but gathered they belonged to the district's patrol of plainclothesmen or drug squad.

These expeditions did not provide one new fact about the man whose name had been Nils Erik Goransson. In the daytime, however, he managed to supplement Blonde Malin's information by consulting the census bureau, parish registers, seamen's employment exchanges and the man's ex-wife, who lived in Boras and said she had almost forgotten her former husband. She had not seen him for nearly twenty years.

On Saturday morning he reported his lean findings to Martin Beck. Then he sat down and wrote a long, melancholy and yearning letter to his wife in Sundsvall, now and then casting a guilty look at Ronn and Kollberg, who were both hard at work at their typewriters.

He had not had time to finish the letter before Martin Beck entered the room.

'What idiot sent you out into town,' he said fretfully.

Nordin quickly slipped a copy of a report over the letter. He had just written '... and Martin Beck gets more peculiar and grumpy every day.'

Pulling the paper out of the typewriter, Kollberg said, You.’

'What? I did?'

‘Yes, you did. Last Wednesday after Blonde Malin had been here.'

Martin Beck looked disbelievingly at Kollberg.

'Funny, I don't remember that. It's idiotic all the same to send out a northerner who can hardly find his way to Stureplan on a job like that.'

Nordin looked offended, but had to admit to himself that Martin Beck was right

'Ronn,' Martin Beck said. 'You'd better find out where Goransson hung out, whom he was with and what he did. And try and get hold of that guy Bjork, the one he lived with.'

'OK,' Ronn said.

He was busy making a list of possible interpretations of Schwerin's last words. At the top he had written: Dinner record. At the bottom was the latest version: Didn't reckon.

Each was busier than ever with his own particular job.

Martin Beck got up at six thirty on Monday morning after a practically sleepless night He felt slightly sick and his condition was not improved by his drinking cocoa in the kitchen with his daughter. There was no sign of any other member of the family. His wife slept like a log in the mornings, and the boy had evidently taken after her; he was nearly always late for school But Ingrid rose at six thirty and shut the front door behind her at a quarter to eight. Invariably. Inga used to say that you could set the clock by her.

Inga had a weakness for cliches. You could make a collection of the expressions she used in daily speech and sell it as a phrase-book for budding journalists. A kind of pony. Call it, of course, If You Can Talk, You Can Write. Thought Martin Beck.

'What are you thinking about, Daddy?' Ingrid asked.

'Nothing,' he said automatically.

'I haven't seen you laugh since last spring.'

Martin Beck raised his eyes from the Christmas brownies dancing in a long line across the oilcloth table cover, looked at his daughter and tried to smile. Ingrid was a good girl, but that wasn't much to laugh at either. She left the table and went to get her books. By the time he had put on his hat and coat and galoshes she was standing with her hand on the door handle, waiting for him. He took the Lebanese leather bag from her. It was the worse for wear and had gaudy FNL labels stuck all over it

This, too, was routine. Nine years ago he had carried Ingrid's bag on her first day at school, and he still did so. On that occasion he had taken her hand. A very small hand, which had been warm and moist and trembling with excitement and anticipation. When had he given up taking her hand? He couldn't remember.

'On Christmas Eve you're going to laugh, anyway,' she said. 'Really?'

‘Yes. When you get my Christmas present'

She frowned and said, 'Anything else is out of the question.'

'What would you like yourself, by the way?'

'A horse.'

'Where would you keep it?'

'I don't know. I'd like one all the same.'

'Do you know what a horse costs?'

'Yes, unfortunately.'

They parted.

At Kungsholmsgatan Gunvald Larsson was waiting, and an investigation which didn't even deserve to be called a guessing game. Hammar had been kind enough to point this out only two days ago.

'How is Ture Assarsson's alibi?' Gunvald Larsson asked.

'Ture Assarsson's alibi is one of the most watertight in the history of crime,' Martin Beck replied. 'At the time in question he was at the City Hotel in Sodertalje making an after-dinner speech to twenty-five people.'

'Hmm,' Gunvald Larsson muttered darkly.

'What's more, if I may say so, it's not very logical to imagine that Gosta Assarsson would not notice his own brother getting on the bus with a submachine gun under his coat.'

'Yes, the coat,' said Gunvald Larsson. 'It must have been pretty wide if he could have an M-37 under it If he wasn't carrying it in a case, that is.'

'You're right, there,' Martin Beck said.

'It does sometimes happen that I'm right'

'Lucky for you,' Martin Beck retorted. 'If you'd been wrong the night before last we'd have been sitting pretty now, I don't think.'

Pointing his cigarette at the other man he said, 'You're going to get it one of these days, Gunvald.'

'I doubt it'

And Gunvald Larsson stomped out of the room. In the doorway he met Kollberg, who stepped aside quickly, stole a glance at the broad back and said, 'What's wrong with the walking battering ram? Got the hump?'

Martin Beck nodded. Kollberg went over to the window and looked out.

'Jesus Christ,' he growled.

'Is Asa still staying with you?'

'Yes,' Kollberg replied. 'And don't say, 'Have you got yourself a harem?' because Mr Larsson has already asked that' Martin Beck sneezed.