The Laughing Policeman

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On the morning of Thursday, 21 December, it was no fun being a policeman. The evening before, in the midst of the Christmas hysteria in the city centre, an army of police in uniform and plainclothes had got caught up in a spectacular and utterly chaotic fight with a large number of workmen and intellectuals who were streaming out of a Vietnam meeting in the Trades Union Hall. Opinions as to what really happened were divided and would probably remain so, but there were very few laughing policemen on this dismal and chilly morning.

The only one to have derived any profit from the incident was Mansson. He had unsuspectingly said that he had nothing to do and had immediately been sent out to help keep order. At first he had hidden in the shadows around Adolf Fredrik's Church on Sveavagen in the hope that disturbances, if any, would not spread in that direction. But the police pressed in on all sides, unsystematically, and the demonstrators, who had to go somewhere, began also to force their way towards Sveavagen. Mansson retired swiftly northward and came at last to a restaurant. He went in to warm himself and do a little investigating. On his way out he took a toothpick from the cruet stand on one of the tables. It was wrapped in paper and tasted of menthol.

Presumably he was the only one in the entire police force who was happy on this miserable morning. He had already called up the stock-keeper of the restaurant and got the address of the supplier.

Einar Ronn was not happy. He stood in the wind on Ringvagen, gazing at a hole in the ground and a taurpaulin; some of the highway department's trestles had been placed around about them. The hole was quite uninhabited. Not so the service truck which was parked over fifty yards away. Ronn knew the four men who sat inside fiddling with their thermos flasks and merely said, 'Hello, there.'

'Hello. Shut the door. But if you were the one who clubbed my boy on the head on Barnhusgatan last night, then I'm not talking to you.'

'No,' Ronn said. 'It wasn't me. I was at home looking at TV. The wife has gone up north.'

'Sit down, then, like some coffee?' 'Thanks, don't mind if I do.'

After a while one of the men said, 'Want anything special?'

'Yes... A man named Schwerin - he was born in America. Was it noticeable when he talked?'

'Was it! He had an accent just like Anita Ekberg's. And when he was drunk he spoke English.'

'When he was drunk?'

‘Yes. And when he lost his temper. Or forgot himself.'

Ronn took No. 54 back to Kungsholmen. It was a red doubledecker Leyland Atlantean model with a cream- coloured top and a grey-lacquered roof. Despite Ek's assertion that the doubledeckers took only seated passengers, the bus was packed with people who stood clutching for support with one hand and grasping packages and shopping bags with the other.

He thought hard all the way. Then he sat down at his desk for a while. Went into the next room and said, 'He didn't recognize him,' and went out again.

'Now he's gone crazy too,' Gunvald Larsson growled.

'Wait a second,' Martin Beck said. 'I think he's got something there.'

He got up and went after Ronn. The room was empty. Hat and coat were gone.

Half an hour later Ronn once again opened the door of the truck on Ringvagen. The men who had been Schwerin's co-workers were sitting in exactly the same place as before. The hole in the road looked untouched by human hands.

'Christ, you scared me,' one of them said. 'I thought it was Olsson.'

'Olsson?'

‘Yes. Or 'Oleson', as Alf used to say.'

Ronn did not produce his results until the next morning, two days before Christmas Eve.

Martin Beck stopped the tape recorder and said, 'So you think it should go like this: You say, 'Who did the shooting?' And he answered in English, 'Didn't recognize him.''

Yes.'

'And then you say, 'What did he look like?' And Schwerin answers, 'Like Olsson.''

'Yes. And then he died.'

'Splendid, Einar,' Martin Beck said.

'Who the hell is Olsson?' Gunvald Larsson asked.

'A sort of inspector. He goes around between the different working sites and checks that the men aren't loafing.

'And what the hell does he look like?'

'He's next door in my office,' Ronn said modestly.

Martin Beck and Gunvald Larsson went in and stared at Olsson. Gunvald Larsson for only ten seconds, then he said, 'Uh-huh.'

And went out Olsson stared after him, mouth agape.

Martin Beck stayed for thirty seconds while he said, 'I gather you've taken all the particulars, Einar?'

'Yes,' Ronn said.

'Thank you, Mr Olsson.'

Martin Beck went out. Olsson looked more puzzled than ever.

When Martin Beck returned from lunch, having managed to get down only a glass of milk, two pieces of cheese and a cup of coffee, Ronn had put a sheet of paper on his desk. It bore the brief title: Olsson.

Olsson is 46 years old and is an inspector for the highway department.

He is 6 feet tall and weighs 170 pounds stripped.

He has ash-blond wavy hair and grey eyes. He is lankily built His face is long and lean with distinct features, prominent nose, rather crooked, wide mouth, thin lips and good teeth.

Shoe size: 9.

Rather dark complexion, which he says is due to his work, which forces him to be so often out of doors.

Clothing, neat: grey suit, white shirt and tie and black shoes. Out-of-doors while at work, wears a waterproofed, knee-length raincoat wide and loose-fitting. Colour, grey. He has two such coats and always wears one of them in winter. On his head he has a black leather hat with narrow brim. He has heavy black shoes with deep-ribbed rubber soles on his feet. In rain or snow, however, he usually wears black rubber boots with reflex tape. Olsson has an alibi for the evening of 13 November. At the time in question, from 10 p.m. to midnight, he was at premises belonging to a bridge club of which he is a member. He took part in a competition and his presence is confirmed by the competition score card and the testimonies of the three other players.

Regarding Alfons (Alf) Schwerin, Olsson says that he was easy to get on with but lazy and given to strong drink.

'Do you think Ronn stripped him and weighed him?' Gunvald Larsson said.

Martin Beck did not answer.

'Nice logical conclusions,' Gunvald Larsson went on. 'He had the hat on his head and the shoes on his feet He wore only one overcoat at a time. And is it his nose or his mouth that's-rather crooked? What are you going to do with that?'

'Don't know. It's a sort of description.'

'Yes, of Olsson.'

'What about Assarsson?'

'I was talking to Jacobsson just now,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'An ugly customer.' 'Jacobsson?'

‘Yes, him too,' Gunvald Larsson replied. 'I suppose he's put out because they can't pull off their own drug seizures and we have to do their job for them.'

'Not 'we'. You.'

'Even Jacobsson admits, of course, that Assarsson was the biggest wholesale dealer in dope they've ever laid hands on. They must have made money by the sackful, those brothers'

'And that other shady type? The foreigner?'

'He was just a courier. Greek. The bastard had a diplomatic passport. He was an addict himself. Assarsson thinks he was the one who squealed. Says it's very dangerous to confide anything to pot-heads. He's not at all pleased. Probably because he didn't get rid of the courier long ago in some suitable way.'

He paused briefly.

'That Goransson on the bus was also an addict. I wonder ...'