LITMIR.BIZ

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      The clock showed that it was a quarter to one.

      ‘I told you one hour.’

      ‘You looked so tired. Commissioner Hammar is on the telephone.’

      ‘Oh, damn.’

      An hour later he was sitting in his chief's office.

      ‘Didn't you get anywhere?’

      ‘No. We don't know a thing. We don't know who she was, where she was murdered, and least of all by whom. We know approximately how and where but that's all.’

      Hammar sat with the palms of his hands on the top of the desk, and studied his fingernails and wrinkled his forehead. He was a good man to work for, calm, almost a little slow, and they always got along well together.

      Commissioner Hammar folded his hands and looked up at Martin Beck.

      ‘Keep in contact with Motala. You are most probably right. The girl was on vacation, thought to be away, maybe even out of the country. It might take two weeks at least before anyone misses her. If we count on a three week vacation. But I would like to see your report as soon as possible.’

      ‘You'll get it this afternoon.’

      Martin Beck went into his office, took the cover off his typewriter, thumbed through the papers he had received from Ahlberg, and began to type.

      At five-thirty the telephone rang.

      ‘Are you coming home to dinner?’

      ‘It doesn't seem so.’

      ‘Aren't there any other policemen but you?’ said his wife. ‘Do you have to do everything? When do they think you'll see your family? The children are asking for you.’

      ‘I'll try to get home by six-thirty.’

      An hour and a half later his report was finished.

      ‘Go home and get some sleep,’ said Hammar. ‘You look tired.’

      Martin Beck was tired. He took a taxi home, ate dinner and went to bed.

      He fell asleep immediately.

      At one-thirty in the morning the telephone awakened him.

      ‘Were you asleep? I'm sorry that I woke you up. I only wanted to tell you that the case has been solved. He turned himself in.’

      ‘Who?’

      ‘Holm, the neighbour. Her husband. He collapsed, totally. It was jealousy. Funny, isn't it?’

      ‘Whose neighbour? Who are you talking about?’

      ‘The dame in Storängen, naturally. I only wanted to tell you so that you wouldn't lie awake and think about it unnecessarily … Oh, God, have I made a mistake?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Damn it, of course. You weren't there. It was Stenström. I'm sorry. I'll see you in the morning.’

      ‘Nice of you to call,’ said Martin Beck.

      He went back to bed but he couldn't sleep. He lay there looking at the ceiling and listening to his wife's mild snoring. He felt empty and depressed.

      When the sun began to shine into the room he turned over on his side and thought: ‘Tomorrow I'll telephone Ahlberg.’

      He called Ahlberg the next day and then four or five times a week during the following month but neither of them had anything special to say. The girl's origins remained a mystery. The newspapers had stopped writing about the case and Hammar had stopped asking how it was going. There was still no report of a missing person that matched in any way. Sometimes it seemed as if she had never existed. Everyone except Martin Beck and Ahlberg seemed to have forgotten that they had ever seen her.

      At the beginning of August, Martin Beck took one week's vacation and went out to the archipelago with his family. When he got back he continued to work on the routine jobs which came to his desk. He was depressed and slept poorly.

      One night, at the end of August, he lay in his bed and looked out in the dark.

      Ahlberg had called rather late that evening. He had been at the City Hotel and sounded a little drunk. They had talked for a while about the murder and before Ahlberg had hung up, he had said: ‘Whoever he is and wherever he is, we'll get him.’

      Martin Beck got up and walked barefooted into the living room. He turned on the light over his desk and looked at the model of the training ship Danmark. He still had the rigging to finish.

      He sat down at the desk and took a folder out of a cubbyhole. Kollberg's description of the girl was in the folder together with copies of the pictures that the police photographer in Motala had taken nearly two months ago. In spite of the fact that he practically knew the description by heart he read it again, slowly and carefully. Then he placed the photographs in front of him and studied them for a long time.

      When he put the papers back in the folder and turned off the light, he thought: ‘Whoever she was, and wherever she came from, I'm going to find out.’

       7

      ‘Interpol, the devil with them,’ said Kollberg.

      Martin Beck said nothing. Kollberg looked over his shoulder.

      ‘Do those louses write in French too?’

      ‘Yes. This is from the police in Toulouse. They have a missing person.’

      ‘French police,’ said Kollberg. ‘I made a search with them through Interpol last year. A little gal from Djursholm section. We didn't hear a word for three months and then got a long letter from the police in Paris. I didn't understand a word of it and turned it in to be translated. The next day I read in the newspaper that a Swedish tourist had found her. Found her, hell. She was sitting in that world-famous cafe where all the Swedish beatniks sit…’

      ‘Le Dôme.’

      ‘Yes, that one. She was sitting there with some Arab that she was living with and she had been sitting there every day for nearly six months. That afternoon I got the translation. The letter stated that she hadn't been seen in France for at least three months and absolutely was not there now. In any case, not alive. “Normal” disappearances were always cleared up within two weeks, they wrote, and in this case, unfortunately, one would have to assume some kind of crime.’

      Martin Beck folded the letter and placed it in one of his desk drawers.

      ‘What did they write?’ asked Kollberg.

      ‘About the girl in Toulouse? The Spanish police found her in Mallorca a week ago.’

      ‘Why the devil do they need so many official stamps and so many strange words to say so little.’

      ‘You're right,’ said Martin Beck.

      ‘Anyway, your girl must be Swedish. As everyone thought from the beginning. Strange.’

      ‘What's strange?’

      ‘That no one has missed her, whoever she is. I sometimes think about her too.’

      Kollberg's tone changed gradually.

      ‘It irritates me,’ he said. ‘It irritates me a lot. How many blanks have you drawn now?’

      ‘Twenty-seven with this one.’

      ‘That's a lot.’

      ‘You're right.’

      ‘Don't think too much about the mess.’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Well meant advice is easier to give than to take,’ thought Martin Beck. He got up and walked over to the window.

      ‘I'd better be getting

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