LITMIR.BIZ

       8

      ‘No one could say that you look particularly well,’ said Kollberg. Martin Beck felt anything but well. He had a cold, and a sore throat, his ears hurt him and his chest felt miserable. The cold had, according to schedule, entered its worst phase. Even so, he had deliberately defied both the cold and the home front by spending the day in his office. First of all he had fled from the suffocating care which would have enveloped him had he remained in bed. Since the children had begun to grow up, Martin Beck's wife had adopted the role of home nurse with bubbling eagerness and almost manic determination. For her, his repeated bouts of colds and flu were on a par with birthdays and major holidays.

      In addition, for some reason he didn't have the conscience to stay home.

      ‘Why are you hanging around here if you aren't well?’ said Kollberg.

      ‘There's nothing the matter with me.’

      ‘Don't think so much about that case. It isn't the first time we have failed. It won't be the last either. You know that just as well as I do. We won't be any the better or the worse for it.’

      ‘It isn't just the case that I'm thinking about.’

      ‘Don't brood. It isn't good for the morale.’

      ‘The morale?’

      ‘Yes, think what a lot of nonsense one can figure out with plenty of time. Brooding is the mother of ineffectiveness.’

      After saying this Kollberg left.

      It had been an uneventful and dreary day, full of sneezing and spitting and dull routine. He had called Motala twice, mostly to cheer up Ahlberg, who in the light of day had decided that his discovery wasn't worth very much as long as it couldn't be connected with the corpse at the locks.

      ‘I suspect that it is easy to overestimate certain things when you've been working like a dog for so long without results.’

      Ahlberg had sounded crushed and regretful. It was almost heartbreaking.

      The girl who had disappeared from Räng was still missing. That didn't worry him. She was 5 feet, 1 inch tall, had blonde hair and a Bardot hair style.

      At five o'clock he took a taxi home but got out at the subway station and walked the last bit in order to avoid the devastating economic argument which undoubtedly would have followed if his wife had happened to see him get out of a taxi.

      He couldn't eat anything but drank a cup of camomile tea. ‘For safety's sake, so that he'd get a stomach ache too,’ Martin Beck thought. Then he went and lay down and fell asleep immediately.

      The next morning he felt a little better. He ate a biscuit and drank with stoic calm the cup of scalding hot honey water which his wife had placed in front of him. The discussion about his health and the unreasonable demands that the government placed on its employees dragged on and by the time he arrived at his office at Kristineberg, it was already a quarter past ten.

      There was a cable on his desk.

      One minute later Martin Beck entered his chief's office without knocking even though the ‘Don't Disturb’ red light was on. This was the first time in eight years he had ever done this.

      The ever-present Kollberg and Commissioner Hammar were leaning against the edge of the desk studying a blueprint of an apartment. They both looked at him with amazement.

      ‘I got a cable from Kafka.’

      ‘That's a hell of a way to start a work day,’ said Kollberg.

      ‘That's his name. The detective in Lincoln, in America. He's identified the woman in Motala.’

      ‘Can he do that by cable?’ asked Hammar.

      ‘It seems so.’

      He put the cable on the desk. All three of them read the text.

      THAT'S OUR GIRL ALL RIGHT. ROSEANNA MCGRAW, 27, LIBRARIAN. EXCHANGE OF FURTHER INFORMATION NECESSARY AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

      KAFKA, HOMICIDE

      ‘Roseanna McGraw,’ said Hammar. ‘Librarian. That's one you never thought of.’

      ‘I had another theory,’ said Kollberg. ‘I thought she was from Mjölby. Where's Lincoln?’

      ‘In Nebraska, somewhere in the middle of the country,’ said Martin Beck. ‘I think.’

      Hammar read through the cable one more time.

      ‘We had better get going again then,’ he said. ‘This doesn't say particularly much.’

      ‘Quite enough for us,’ said Kollberg. ‘We aren't spoiled.’

      ‘Well,’ said Hammar calmly. ‘You and I ought to clear up what we're working on first.’

      Martin Beck went back to his office, sat down for a moment and massaged his hairline with his fingertips. The first surprised feeling of progress had somehow disappeared. It had taken three months to come up with information that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred you had free from the beginning. All the real work remained to be done.

      The embassy people and the County Police Superintendent could wait. He picked up the telephone and dialled the area code for Motala.