LITMIR.BIZ

       5

      It was eleven-thirty in the morning and Martin Beck's third day in Motala. He had got up early but accomplished nothing by it. Now he was sitting at the small desk thumbing through his notebook. He had reached for the telephone a few times, thinking that he really ought to call home, but nothing had come of the idea.

      Just like so many other things.

      He put on his hat, locked the door to his room, and walked down the stairs. The easy chairs in the hotel lobby were occupied by several journalists and two camera cases with folded tripods, bound by straps, lay on the floor. One of the press photographers stood leaning against the wall near the entrance smoking a cigarette. He was a very young man and he moved his cigarette to the corner of his mouth and raised his Leica to look through the viewer.

      When Martin Beck went past the group he drew his hat down over his face, ducked his head against his shoulder and walked straight ahead. This was merely a reflex action but it always seemed to irritate someone because one of the reporters said, surprisingly sourly:

      ‘Say, will there be a dinner with the leaders of the search this evening?’

      Martin Beck mumbled something without even knowing what he had said himself and continued towards the door. The second before he had opened the door, he heard the little click which indicated that the photographer had taken a picture.

      He walked quickly down the street, but only until he thought he was out of the range of the camera. Then he stopped and stood there indecisively for about ten seconds. He threw a half-smoked cigarette into the gutter, shrugged his shoulders and walked over to a taxi stand. He slumped into the back seat, rubbed the tip of his nose with his right index finger, and peered over towards the hotel. From under his hat brim he saw the man who had spoken to him in the lobby. The journalist stood directly in front of the hotel and stared after the taxi. But only for a moment. Then he, too, shrugged his shoulders and went back into the hotel.

      Press people and personnel from the Homicide Division of the National Police often stayed at the same hotel. After a speedy and successful solution to a crime, they often spent the last evening eating and drinking together. Over the years this had become a custom. Martin Beck didn't like it but several of his colleagues thought otherwise.

      Even though he hadn't been on his own very much, he had still learned a little about Motala during the forty-eight hours he had been there. At least he knew the names of the streets. He watched the street signs as the taxi drove by them. He told the driver to stop at the bridge, paid him, and stepped out. He stood with his hands on the railing and looked along the canal. While he stood there he realized that he had forgotten to ask the driver to give him a receipt for the fare and that there would probably be some kind of idiotic nonsense back at the office if he were to make one out himself. It would be best to type out the information, it would give more substance to his request.

      He was still thinking about that as he walked along the path on the north side of the canal.

      During the morning hours there had been a few rain showers and the air was fresh and light. He stopped, right in the middle of the path, and felt how fresh it was. He drank in the cool, clean odour of wild flowers and wet grass. It reminded him of his childhood, but that was before tobacco smoke, petrol odours and mucus had robbed his senses of their sharpness. Nowadays it wasn't often he had this pleasure.

      Martin Beck had passed the five locks and continued along the sea wall. Several small boats were moored near the locks and by the breakwater, and a few small sailing boats could be seen out in the open water. One hundred and fifty feet beyond the jetty, the dredger's bucket clanged and clattered under the watchful eye of some seagulls who were flying in wide, low circles. Their heads moved from one side to the other as they waited for whatever the bucket might bring up from the bottom. Their powers of observation and their patience were admirable, as was their staying power and optimism. They reminded Martin Beck of Kollberg and Melander.

      He walked to the end of the breakwater and stood there for a while. She had been lying here, or more accurately, her violated body had been lying here, on a crumpled tarpaulin practically on view to anyone for public inspection. After a few hours it had been carried away by two businesslike, uniformed men with a stretcher and, in time, an elderly gentleman whose profession it was to do so had opened it up, examined it in detail, and then sewn it together again before it was sent to the mortuary. He hadn't seen it himself. There was always something to be thankful for.

      Martin Beck became conscious of the fact that he was standing with his hands clasped behind his back as he shifted his weight from the sole of one foot to another, a habit from his years as a patrolman which was totally unconscious and almost unbreakable. He was standing and staring at a grey and uninteresting piece of ground from where the chalk marks from the first, routine investigation had long since been washed away by the rain. He must have occupied himself with this for a long time because the surroundings had gone through a number of changes. When he looked up he observed a small, white passenger boat entering one of the locks at a good speed. When it passed the dredger, some twenty cameras pointed at it, and, as if to underscore the situation, the dredging foreman climbed out of his cabin and also photographed the passenger boat. Martin Beck followed the boat with his eyes as it passed the jetty and noted certain ugly details. The hull had clean lines but the mast was cut off and the original smokestack, which had surely been high and straight and beautiful, had been replaced by a strange, streamlined little tin hood. From inside the ship growled something that must have been a diesel engine. The deck was full of tourists. Nearly all of them seemed to be elderly or middle-aged and several of them wore straw hats with flowered bands.

      The boat was named Juno. He remembered that Ahlberg had mentioned this name the first time they had met.

      There were a lot of people on the breakwater and along the edge of the canal now. Some of them fished and others sunbathed, but most of them were chiefly occupied with watching the boat. For the first time in several hours Martin Beck found a reason to say something.

      ‘Does the boat always pass here at this time of day?’

      ‘Yes, if it comes from Stockholm. Twelve-thirty. Right. The one that goes in the other direction comes by later, just after four. They meet at Vadstena. They tie up there.’

      ‘There are a lot of people here, on shore, I mean.’

      ‘They come down to see the boat.’

      ‘Are there always so many?’

      ‘Usually.’

      The man he was talking to took the pipe from his mouth and spat in the water.

      ‘Some pleasure,’ he said. ‘To stand and stare at a bunch of tourists.’

      When Martin Beck walked back along the brink of the canal he passed the little passenger boat again. It was now about halfway up, peacefully rising in the third lock. A number of passengers had gone on land. Several of them were photographing the boat, others crowded around the kiosk on shore where they were buying postcards and plastic souvenirs which, without doubt, were made in Hong Kong.

      Martin

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