For the first time, Forsberg turned his head. His wrists and ankles were strapped down. He looked at Ronn and said, 'What do you call this?'
Ronn dropped his eyes.
‘Where did you board the bus?' Gunvald Larsson asked. 'On Klarabergsgatan. Outside Ahlens.' 'How did you get there?'
'By car. I parked at my office. I have a reserved space there.'
'How did you know which bus Goransson would take?'
'He called and was given instructions.'
'In other words, you told him what he was to do in order to be murdered,' Gunvald Larsson said.
'Don't you understand that he gave me no choice? Anyway, I did it humanely, he never knew a thing.'
'Humanely? How do you make that out?'
'Can't you leave me in peace now?'
'Not just yet. Explain about the bus first'
'Very well. Will you go then? Promise?'
Ronn glanced at Gunvald Larsson, then said, 'Yes. We will.'
'Nisse called me at the office on Monday morning. He was desperate and said that that man was following him wherever he went. I realized he couldn't hold out much longer. I knew that my wife and the maid would be out in the evening. And the weather was suitable. And the children always go to sleep early, so I...'
'Yes?'
'So I said to Nisse that I wanted to have a look myself at the man who was shadowing him. That he was to entice him out to Djurgarden and wait until a doubledecker bus came and to take it from there at about ten o'clock and stay on until the end of the line. Fifteen minutes before he left he was to call my direct number to the office. I left home soon after nine, parked the car, went up to the office and waited. I did not put the light on. He called as agreed and I went down and waited for the bus.'
'Had you decided on the place beforehand?'
'I chose it earlier in the day when I'd taken the bus all the way there. It was a good spot -1 didn't think there would be anyone in the vicinity, especially if the rain kept up. And I reckoned that only very few passengers would go all the way to the last stop. It would have been best if only Nisse and the man who was shadowing him and the driver and one other had been sitting in the bus.'
'One other?' Gunvald Larsson remarked. 'Who would that be?'
'Anybody. Just for the sake of appearances.'
Ronn looked at Gunvald Larsson and shook his head. Then, turning to the man on the stretcher, he said, 'How did it feel?'
'Making difficult decisions is always a trial. But once I've made up my mind to carry something out -'
He broke off.
'Didn't you promise to go now?' he asked.
'What we promise and what we do are two different things,' Gunvald Larsson said.
Forsberg looked at him and said bitterly, 'All you do is torture me and tell lies.'
'I'm not the only one in this room telling lies,' Gunvald Larsson retorted. 'You had decided to kill Goransson and Inspector Stenstrom weeks beforehand, hadn't you?'
‘Yes.'
'How did you know that Stenstrom was a policeman?'
'I had observed him earlier. Without Nisse's noticing.'
'How did you know he was working alone?'
'Because he was never relieved. I took it for granted that he was working on his own account. To make a career for himself.'
Gunvald Larsson was silent for half a minute.
'Had you told Goransson not to have any identification papers on him?' he said at last.
'Yes. I gave him orders about that the very first time he called up.'
'How did you learn to operate the bus doors?'
'I had watched carefully what the drivers did. Even so, there was nearly a hitch. It was the wrong sort of bus.'
'Whereabouts in the bus did you sit? Upstairs or down below?'
'Upstairs. I was soon the only one there.'
'And then you went down the stairs with the submachine gun at the ready?'
‘Yes. I kept it behind my back so that Nisse and the others sitting at the rear wouldn't see it. Even so, one of them managed to stand up. You have to be prepared for things like that'
'Supposing it had jammed? In my day those old things often misfired.'
'I knew it was in working order. I was familiar with my weapon and I had checked it carefully before taking it to the office.' 'When did you take the submachine gun to the office?' 'About a week beforehand.'
'Weren't you afraid that someone might find it there?' 'No one would dare go to my drawers,' Forsberg said haughtily. 'Besides, I had locked it up.' 'Where did you keep it previously?'
'In a locked suitcase in the attic. Together with my other trophies.'
'Which way did you go after you had killed all those people?'
'I walked eastward along Norra Stationsgatan, took a taxi at Haga air terminal, collected my car outside the office and drove home to Stocksund.'
'And chucked the submachine gun away en route,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'Don't worry. We'll find it.'
Forsberg didn't answer.
'How did it feel?' Ronn repeated gentiy. 'When you fired?'
'I was defending myself and my family and my home and my firm. Have you ever stood with a gun in your hands, knowing that in fifteen seconds you will charge down into a trench full of the enemy?'
'No,' Ronn replied. 'I haven't'
'Then you don't know anything!' Forsberg shouted. 'You've no right to speak! How could an idiot like you understand me!'
'This won't do,' the doctor said. 'He must be given treatment now.'
He pressed the bell. A couple of orderlies came in. Forsberg went on raving as the bed was rolled out of the room. Ronn started packing up the tape recorder.
'How I loathe that bastard,' Gunvald Larsson muttered suddenly. 'What?'
'I'll tell you something I've never said to anyone else,' Gunvald Larsson confided. 'I feel sorry for nearly everyone we meet in this job. They're just a lot of scum who wish they'd never been born. It's not their fault that everything goes to hell and they don't understand why. It's types like this one who wreck their lives. Smug swine who think only of their money and their houses and their families and their so-called status. Who think they can order others about merely because they happen to be better off. There are thousands of such people and most of them are not so stupid that they strangle Portuguese whores. And that's why we never get at them. We only see their victims. This guy's an exception.'
'Hm, maybe you're right,' Ronn said.
They left the room. Outside a door farther down the corridor stood two police officers in uniform, legs apart and arms folded.
'Huh, so it's you two,' Gunvald Larsson said morosely. 'Oh yes, of course, this hospital is in Solna.'
'You got him in the end, anyway,' Kvant said.
'Yes,' Kristiansson chimed in.
'We didn't,' Gunvald Larsson said. 'It was really Stenstrom himself who fixed it.'
About an hour later Martin Beck and Kollberg sat drinking coffee in one of the rooms at Kungsholmsgatan.
'It was really Stenstrom who cleared up the Teresa murder,' Martin Beck said.
'Yes,' Kollberg said. 'But he went about it in a silly way all the same. Working on his own like that. And not leaving so much as a piece of paper behind him. Funny, that lad never grew up.'
The phone rang. Martin Beck answered.
'Hello, it's Mansson.'
