from the side, it made no difference.'
'What about if you saw them from above?' Asa Torell asked.
Kollberg looked at her in astonishment. Birgersson's face darkened slightly.
'Well, I never got much practice in that I mightn't have been so good at that'
He pondered for a while. Kollberg shrugged resignedly.
'But you can get a lot of pleasure out of a simple occupation like that,' Birgersson went on. 'And excitement. Sometimes I saw very rare cars like a Lagonda or Zim or EMW. That cheered me up.'
'And you told Inspector Stenstrom about this?' 'Yes, I'd never told anyone else.' 'And what did he say?' 'He said he thought it was interesting.' 'I see. And this is what you brought me here to say? At nine thirty in the evening? On Christmas Eve?' Birgersson looked hurt.
‘Yes,' he replied. 'You did say I was to tell you anything I remembered ...'
‘Yes, sure,' Kollberg said wearily. 'Thank you.' He stood up.
'But I haven't told you the most important part yet,' the man murmured. 'It was something that interested Inspector Stenstrom very much. It occurred to me since we'd been talking about a Morris.'
Kollberg sat down again.
'Yes? What?'
'Well, it had its problems, this hobby, if I may call it that. It was very hard to distinguish certain models when it was dark or if they were a long way off. For instance, Moskvitch and Opel Kadett or DKW and IFA.'
He paused, and then said emphatically, 'Very, very hard. Just small details.'
'What has this to do with Stenstrom and your Morris 8?'
'No, not my Morris,' Birgersson replied. 'What interested the Inspector so much was when I told him that the hardest of all was to see the difference between a Morris Minor and a Renault CV-4 from in front. Not from the side or the back, that was easy. But from straight in front or obliquely in front - that was very difficult indeed. Though I learned in time and seldom made a mistake. It did happen, of course.'
‘Wait a moment,' Kollberg said. 'Did you say Morris Minor and Renault CV-4?'
'Yes. And I remember that Inspector Stenstrom gave quite a start when I told him. All the time I was talking he had just sat there nodding, and I didn't think he was listening. But when I said that he was terribly interested. Asked me about it several times.'
'From in front, you said?'
'Yes. He asked that too, several times. From in front or obliquely in front. Very difficult'
When they were sitting in the car again, Asa Torell asked, 'What's this all about?'
'I don't know yet. But it might mean quite a lot'
'About the man who killed Ake?'
'Don't know. At any rate it explains why he wrote down the name of that car in his book.'
'I've also remembered something,' she said. 'Something Ake said a couple of weeks before he was killed. He said that as soon as he could take two days off he'd go down to Smaland and investigate something. To Eksjo, I think. Does that tell you anything?'
'Not a thing,' Kollberg replied.
The city lay deserted. The only signs of life were two ambur lances, a police car, and a few Santa Clauses staggering about, delayed in the exercise of their profession and handicapped by far too many glasses in far too many hospitable homes. After a while Kollberg said, 'Gun told me you're leaving us in the new year.'
'Yes. I've exchanged the flat for a smaller one at Kungsholms Strand. I'm selling the furniture, lock, stock and barrel, and buying new stuff. I'm going to get a new job, too.'
'Where?'
'I haven't quite decided. But I've been thinking it over.' She was silent for a few seconds. Then she said, 'What about the police force? Are there any vacancies?' 'I'll say there are,' Kollberg replied absendy. Then he started and said, 'What! Are you serious?' 'Yes,' she replied. 'I am serious.'
Asa Torell concentrated on her driving. She frowned and peered out into the whirling snow.
When they got back to Palandergatan, Bodil had fallen asleep, and Gun was curled up in a armchair reading. There were tears in her eyes.
'What's wrong?' he asked.
'That damn dinner,' she said. 'It's ruined.'
'Not at all. With your appearance and my appetite you could put a dead cat on the table and make me overjoyed.'
'And that hopeless Martin called up. Half an hour ago.'
'OK,' Kollberg said jovially. 'I'll give him a bell while you're getting the grub.'
He took off his jacket and tie and went to the phone.
'Hello. Beck.'
'Who's doing all that howling?' Kollberg asked suspiciously.
'The laughing policeman.'
'What?'
'A phonograph record.'
'Oh yes, now I recognize it. An old music hall tune. Charles Penrose, isn't it? Goes back to before the First World War.' A roar of laughter was heard in the background.
'It makes no difference,' Martin Beck said joylessly. 'I called you because Melander called me.' 'What did he want?'
'He said that at last he had remembered where he had seen the name Nils Erik Goransson.' ‘Where?'
'In the investigation concerning Teresa Camarao.'
Kollberg unlaced his shoes. Thought for a moment. Then said, 'Then you can tell him from me that he's wrong for once. I've just read the whole pile, every damn word. And I'm not so dumb that I wouldn't have noticed a thing like that'
'Have you the papers at home?'
'No. They're at Vastberga. But I'm sure. Dead sure.'
'OK. I believe you. What did you do at Langholmen?'
'Got some information. Too vague and complicated for me to explain now, but if it's right -'
'Yes?'
'Then you can use every single sheet of the Teresa investigation as toilet paper. Merry Christmas.' He put down the phone.
'Are you going out again?' his wife asked suspiciously. 'Yes. But not until Wednesday. Where's the akvavit?'
29
It took a lot to depress Melander, but on the morning of the twenty-seventh he looked so miserable and puzzled that even Gunvald Larsson brought himself to ask, 'What's with you?'
'It's just that I don't usually make a mistake.'
'There's always a first time,' Ronn said consolingly.
'Yes. But I don't understand, all the same.'
Martin Beck had knocked on the door and before anyone had time to react he was in the room, standing there tall and grave, coughing slightly.
'What is it you don't understand?'
'About Goransson. That I could make a mistake.'
'I've just been out at Vastberga,' said Martin Beck. 'And I know something that might cheer you up.'
'What is that?'
'There's a page missing from the Teresa investigation. Page 1244, to be exact.'
At three o'clock in the afternoon Kollberg was standing outside a car showroom in Sodertalje. He had already got through a lot this day. For one thing, he had made sure that the three witnesses who had observed a car at Stadshagen sports ground sixteen and a half
years earlier must have seen the vehicle from in front or possibly from obliquely in front For another, he had supervised some photographic work, and rolled up in his inside pocket he had a dark-toned, slightly retouched advertising picture of a Morris Minor 1950 model Of the three witnesses two were dead, the police sergeant and the
