The Laughing Policeman

The flat consisted of one room and kitchen and was poorly furnished. The windows looked on to an untidy courtyard. Ronn sat down in the only chair and Bjork sat on the bed.

'I heard you wanted to know about Nisse,' Bjork said. 'I must confess I don't know much about him myself, but I thought you could perhaps take care of his things'

He bent down and fished out a shopping bag from under the bed and gave it to Ronn.

'He left this here when he cleared out He took some stuff with him - that's mostly clothes. Worthless crap.'

Ronn took the bag and placed it beside the chair.

'Can you tell me how long you knew Goransson, where and how you met and how you came to let him stay here with you?'

Bjork settled down on the bed and crossed his legs.

'I can if you like,' he said. 'Can I cadge a cigarette?'

Ronn took out a pack of Prince and shook out a cigarette for . Bjork, who lit it after nipping off the filter.

'It was like this, see. I was down at Zum Franziskaner having a beer and Nisse was sitting at the next table. I'd never seen him before but we started talking and he stood me a glass of wine. I thought he seemed a nice guy so when they closed and he said he had no pad, I brought him back here. We got pretty loaded that night and the next day he stood me a couple of drinks and some grub at Sodergard. This must have been the third or fourth of September, I don't remember exactly.'

'Did you notice he was an addict?' Ronn asked.

Bjork shook his head.

'No, not at once. But after a couple of days he gave himself a fix in the morning as soon as we woke up and then, of course, I realized it He asked if I wanted one, by the way, but I don't dig that sort of thing.'

Bjork had rolled his sleeves up above his elbows. Ronn cast a practised eye at the bends of his arms and noted that he was evidently telling the truth.

'You haven't much room here,' he said. 'Why did you let him stay here for so long? Did he pay for his keep, by the way?'

'I thought he was OK. He didn't actually pay any rent, but he had plenty of money and always brought home grub and booze and so on.'

‘Where did he get his money from?'

Bjork shrugged.

'I dunno. It wasn't my business anyway. But he didn't have any job, I know that'

Ronn looked at Bjork's hands, which were black with ingrained dirt

'What's your job?'

'Cars,' Bjork replied. 'I've got a date with a bird in a while, so you'd better get a move on. Anything more you wanted to know?'

‘What did he talk about? Did he tell you anything about himself?'

Bjork rubbed his forefinger quickly to and fro under his nose and said, 'He said he'd been to sea, though I think that was years ago. And he used to talk about birds. Especially one he'd been living with who had kicked the bucket not long before. She was like mum, he said, only better.'

Pause.

'You can't screw your mum, you know,' Bjork said gravely. 'Otherwise he wasn't so keen on talking about himself.' 'When did he clear out of here?'

'On the eighth of October. I remember because it was a Sunday and it was his nameday. He took his things, all except them there. He didn't have many, they all went into an ordinary bag. He said he had got himself another pad but that he'd come by and say hello in a day or two.'

He paused and stubbed out his cigarette in a coffee cup that was standing on the floor.

'After that I never saw him again. And now he's dead, Sivan said. Was he really one of those on the bus?'

Ronn nodded.

'Do you know where he went to from here?'

'Haven't a clue. He never looked me up and I didn't know where he was. He met several of my mates here, but I never met any of his. So I really know bugger all about him.'

Bjork got up, went over to a mirror hanging on the wall and combed his hair.

'Do you know who it was?' he asked. The guy on the bus?' 'No’ Ronn replied. 'Not yet’ Bjork pulled off his sweater. 'I have to change now; he said. 'My bird's waiting.' Ronn stood up, took the shopping bag and walked towards the door.

'So you've no idea what he did with himself after the eighth of October?' he asked. 'I said no, didn't I?'

He took a clean shirt out of the chest of drawers and tore off the laundry's paper strip.

'I only know one thing’ he said, ‘What?'

'He was as nervy as hell for a week or two before he cleared out Seemed to have something on his mind.' 'But you don't know what?' 'No, I don't'

When Ronn got home to his empty flat he went out into the kitchen and emptied the contents of the shopping bag on to the table. Then he picked the objects up cautiously and studied them before dropping them back into the bag, one at a time.

A spotted, threadbare cap, a pair of underpants that had once been white, a wrinkled tie with red and green stripes, an artificial leather belt with a yellow brass buckle, a pipe with a chewed stem, a wool-lined pigskin glove, a pair of yellow crepe nylon socks, two dirty handkerchiefs and a crumpled light-blue poplin shirt.

Ronn held the shirt up and was just going to put it back in the bag when he noticed a scrap of paper sticking out of the breast pocket Putting the shirt down, he unfolded the paper. It was a bill for Kr. 78:25 from Restaurant Pilen. It was dated 7 October and according to the sums stamped by the cash register, one was for food, six were for alcohol and three for soda water.

Ronn turned the bill over. In the margin on the back someone had written with a ball-point pen:

10.8 bf

3000

Morph

500

Owe ga

100

Owe mb

50

Dr P

650

1700

Bal

1300

Ronn thought he recognized Goransson's handwriting, of which he had seen several examples at Blonde Malin's. He took the jottings to mean that Goransson, on 8 October - the same day he left Sune Bjork - was to get 3,000 kronor from somewhere, perhaps from a person with the initials BF. Out of this money he would buy morphine for 500, pay 150 in debts and give a Dr P 650, for drugs or something else. That would leave him 1,700. When he was found dead in the bus over a month later he had had over 1,800 kronor in his pocket So he must have received more money after 8 October. Ronn wondered whether this, too, had come from the same source, bf or BF. It needn't be a person, it could just as well be an abbreviation for something else.

Brought forward? Goransson didn't seem the type that would have a bank account The most likely thing after all was that bf was a person. Ronn looked at his notebook, but none of those he had talked to or heard about in connection with Goransson had the initials BF.

Ronn picked up the bag and went out into the hall. He put the bill in his briefcase and placed bag and briefcase on the hall table. Then he went to bed.

He lay wondering where Goransson had got his money from.