The Fire Engine That Disappeared - Colin Dexter

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Kollberg’s called Åke Stenström, who had been shot dead on a bus only four months earlier.

      The woman on the floor drew down her strong dark eyebrows and rubbed energetically at her papers.

      ‘There’s an alternative,’ she said. ‘We can go to bed. It’s cheaper and more fun.’

      ‘Lobster Vanderbilt’s fun too,’ said Kollberg.

      ‘You think more about food than love,’ she complained. ‘Even though we’ve only been married two years.’

      ‘Not at all. Anyway, I’ve an even better idea,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and eat first and have five doubles and then go to bed. Call Åsa up now.’

      The telephone had a twenty-foot extension cable and was already on the rug. She stretched out her hand and pulled it towards her, dialled a number and got a reply.

      As she talked, she turned over on her back, drew up her knees and placed the soles of her feet on the floor. The pyjama top slid up a bit.

      Kollberg looked at his wife, thoughtfully regarding the broad patch of thick raven-black hair which spread over the lower half of her abdomen and reluctantly thinned out between her legs. She was looking up at the ceiling as she listened. After a while she drew up her left leg and scratched her ankle.

      ‘Okay,’ she said, putting down the receiver. ‘She’s coming. It’ll take her an hour to get here, won’t it? Have you heard the latest, by the way?’

      ‘No, what?’

      ‘Åsa’s going to train to be a policewoman.’

      ‘Christ,’ he said absently. ‘Gun?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘I’ve thought of yet another solution, even better than the last one. First we go to bed and then we go and eat and have five doubles and then we go to bed again.’

      ‘But that’s almost brilliant,’ she said. ‘Here on the rug?’

      ‘Yes, call up Operakällaren and order a table.’

      ‘Look up the number, then.’

      Kollberg riffled through the telephone directory as he unbuttoned his shirt and undid his belt; he found the number and heard her dialling it.

      Then she sat up, pulled the pyjama top over her head and flung it away across the floor.

      ‘What are you after? My vanished chastity?’

      ‘Exactly.’

      ‘From behind?’

      ‘However you like.’

      She giggled and began to turn, slowly and pliably, kneeling on all fours with her legs wide apart and her dark head down, her forehead pressed against her forearms.

      Three hours later, over the ginger sherbet, she reminded Kollberg about something he had not thought about since he had seen Martin Beck disappearing in the direction of the metro station.

      ‘That awful fire,’ she said. ‘Do you think it was deliberate?’

      ‘No,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe that. There must be some limit.’

      He had been a policeman for more than twenty years and should have known better.

       6

      Saturday came with sun and bright clear light.

      Martin Beck woke slowly, with an unusual feeling of contentment. He lay still, his face burrowed into the pillow, and he tried to hear whether it was late or early in the morning. He heard a blackbird in the trees outside the window and heavy drops falling with irregular splashes into the slush on the balcony. Cars driving past and an underground train braking at the station further away. His neighbour’s door slamming. Gurgling in the water pipes and suddenly, in the kitchen on the other side of the wall, a crash which made him open his eyes immediately. Rolf’s voice:

      ‘Oh hell!’

      And Ingrid:

      ‘You’re so damned clumsy.’

      And Inga hushing them.

      He put out his hand for cigarettes and matches, but had to get up on his elbow and dig out the ashtray from under a heap of books. He had lain reading about the battle of Tsushima until four in the morning and the ashtray was full of cigarette butts and dead matches. When he could not be bothered to get up and empty it before going to sleep, he usually hid it under a book to avoid hearing Inga’s prophecies about how one fine day they would all wake up burned to death as a result of his smoking in bed.

      His watch said half-past nine, but it was Saturday and he was off duty. Off duty in two ways, he thought contentedly, feeling a twinge of self-reproach. He was going to be alone in the flat for two days. Inga and the children were going with Inga’s brother to his cottage in Roslagen, and staying there until Sunday evening. Martin Beck was of course also invited, but as a weekend alone at home was a rare pleasure which he did not particularly want to forgo, he had pleaded work to avoid having to join them.

      He finished his cigarette before getting up and then took the ashtray with him to the toilet and emptied it. He skipped shaving and pulled on his khaki trousers and corduroy shirt. Then he put the book about Tsushima back on the bookshelf, rapidly transformed the bed back into a sofa and went out into the kitchen.

      His family were sitting around the table, eating breakfast. Ingrid got up and fetched a cup for him from the cupboard and poured some tea.

      ‘Oh, Daddy, you can come too, can’t you?’ she said. ‘Look what a marvellous day it is. It’s not such fun when you don’t come.’

      ‘Can’t, I’m afraid,’ said Martin Beck. ‘It’d be great fun, but—’

      ‘Daddy has to work,’ said Inga acidly. ‘As usual.’

      Again he felt a twinge of conscience. Then he thought that they would have more fun without him, as Inga’s brother always took Martin Beck’s presence as an excuse to bring out the booze and get drunk. Inga’s brother in a sober state was certainly nothing much to write home about and drunk he was almost unbearable. He had, however, one positive feature and that was that on principle he never drank alone. Martin Beck’s thoughts continued in that direction and arrived at the conclusion that he was really doing a good deed by lying and staying at home, as his absence would force his brother-in-law to remain sober.

      He had just come to this advantageous conclusion when his brother-in-law rang the doorbell, and five minutes later Martin Beck was able to begin celebrating his coveted free weekend.

      It was just as successful as he had hoped. Inga had in fact left food in the freezer for him, but he went out all the same and shopped for dinner. Among other things, he bought a bottle of Grönstedts Monopole cognac and six strong beers. Then he devoted the rest of Saturday to putting down the deck of the model of the Cutty Sark, which he had not had time to touch for several weeks. For dinner he ate cold meatballs, fish roe and camembert on pumpernickel bread, and he drank two beers. He also drank some coffee and cognac and watched an old American gangster film on television. Then he got his bed ready and lay in the bathtub reading Raymond Chandler’s The Lady in the Lake, every now and again taking a sip of cognac which he had placed within reach on the toilet seat.

      He felt very well and thought about neither work nor his family.

      When he had finished his bath, he put on his pyjamas, switched off all the lights except the reading lamp on his desk, and went on reading and drinking cognac until he felt sleepy and dopey and went to bed.

      He slept late on Sunday, then sat in his pyjamas, working on his model ship, and did not dress until afternoon. In the evening, when the family had returned, he took Rolf and Ingrid to the movies and saw a film on vampires.

      It

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