LITMIR.BIZ

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the demonstrators break up the US Trade Centre and set fire to the American embassy. This is no joking matter,’ Gunvald Larsson added stiffly.

      Keeping his eyes fixed on him, Martin Beck said:

      ‘I'm not joking. I just wondered.’

      ‘This man knows his business. It's almost as if he had radar. There's never a policeman in sight when he attacks.’

      Martin Beck rubbed the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.

      ‘Send out…’

      Larsson broke in at once.

      ‘Send out? Whom? What? The dog van? And let those damn dogs tear the civil patrol to pieces? Yesterday's victim had a dog, come to that. What good was it to him?’

      ‘What kind of dog?’

      ‘How the hell do I know? Shall I interrogate the dog perhaps? Shall I get the dog here and send it out to the lavatory so that Melander can interrogate it?’

      Gunvald Larsson said this with great gravity. He pounded the desk with his fist and went on:

      ‘A lunatic prowls about the parks bashing people on the head and you come here and start talking about dogs!’

      ‘Actually it wasn't I who…’

      Again Gunvald Larsson interrupted him.

      ‘Anyway, I told you, this man knows his business. He only goes for defenceless old men and women. And always from behind. What was it someone said last week? Oh yes, “he leaped out of the bushes like a panther.”’

      ‘There's only one way,’ Martin Beck said in a honeyed voice.

      ‘What's that?’

      ‘You'd better go out yourself. Disguised as a defenceless old man.’

      The man at the desk turned his head and glared at him.

      Gunvald Larsson was six foot three and weighed fifteen and a half stone. He had shoulders like a heavyweight boxer and huge hands covered with shaggy blond hair. He had fair hair, brushed straight back, and discontented, clear blue eyes. Kollberg usually completed the description by saying that the expression on his face was that of a motorcyclist.

      Just now the blue eyes were looking at Martin Beck with more than the usual disapproval.

      Martin Beck shrugged and said:

      ‘Joking apart…’

      And Gunvald Larsson interrupted him at once.

      ‘Joking apart I can't see anything funny in this. Here am I up to my neck in one of the worst cases of robbery I've ever known, and along you come drivelling about dogs and God knows what.’

      Martin Beck realized that the other man, no doubt unintentionally, was about to do something that only few succeeded in: to annoy him to the point of making him lose his temper. And although he was quite well aware of this, he could not help raising his arm from the cabinet and saying:

      ‘That's enough!’

      At that moment, fortunately, Melander came in from the room next door. He was in his shirtsleeves, and had a pipe in his mouth and an open telephone directory in his hands.

      ‘Hello,’ he said.

      ‘Hello,’ said Martin Beck.

      ‘I thought of the name the second you hung up,’ Melander said. ‘Arvid Larsson. Found him in the telephone directory too. But it's no good calling him. He died in April. Stroke. But he was in the same line of business up to the last. Had a rag-and-bone shop on the south side. It's shut now.’

      Martin Beck took the directory, looked at it and nodded. Melander dug a matchbox out of his trouser pocket and began elaborately lighting his pipe. Martin Beck took two steps into the room and put the directory down on the table. Then he went back to the filing cabinet.

      ‘What are you busy on, you two?’ Gunvald Larsson asked suspiciously.

      ‘Nothing much,’ Melander said. ‘Martin had forgotten the name of a fence we tried to nab twelve years ago.’

      ‘And did you?’

      ‘No,’ said Melander.

      ‘But you remembered it?’

      ‘Yes.’

      Gunvald Larsson pulled the directory towards him, riffled through it and said:

      ‘How the devil can you remember the name of a man called Larsson for twelve years?’

      ‘It's quite easy,’ Melander said gravely.

      The telephone rang.

      ‘First division, duty officer.

      ‘Sorry, madam, what did you say?

      ‘What?

      ‘Am I a detective? This is the duty officer of the first division, Detective Inspector Larsson.

      ‘And your name is …?’

      Gunvald Larsson took a ball-point pen from his breast pocket and scribbled a word. Then sat with the pen in mid-air.

      ‘And what can I do for you?

      ‘Sorry, I didn't get that.

      ‘Eh? A what?

      ‘A cat?

      ‘A cat on the balcony?

      ‘Oh, a man.

      ‘Is there a man standing on your balcony?’

      Gunvald Larsson pushed the telephone directory aside and drew a memo pad towards him. Put pen to paper. Wrote a few words.

      ‘Yes, I see. What does he look like, did you say?

      ‘Yes, I'm listening. Thin hair brushed straight back. Big nose. Aha. White shirt. Average height. Hm. Brown trousers. Unbuttoned. What? Oh, the shirt. Blue-grey eyes.

      ‘One moment, madam. Let's get this straight. You mean he's standing on his own balcony?’

      Gunvald Larsson looked from Melander to Martin Beck and shrugged. He went on listening and poked his ear with the pen.

      ‘Sorry, madam. You say this man is standing on his own balcony? Has he molested you?

      ‘Oh, he hasn't. What? On the other side of the street? On his own balcony?

      ‘Then how can you see that he has blue-grey eyes? It must be a very narrow street.

      ‘What? You're doing what?

      ‘Now wait a minute, madam. All this man has done is to stand on his own balcony. What else is he doing?

      ‘Looking down into the street? What's happening in the street?

      ‘Nothing? What did you say? Cars? Children playing?

      ‘At night too? Do the children play at night too?

      ‘Oh, they don't. But he stands there at night? What do you want us to do? Send the dog van?

      ‘As a matter of fact there's no law forbidding people to stand on their balconies, madam.

      ‘Report an observation, you say? Heavens above, madam, if everyone reported their observations we'd need three policemen for every inhabitant.

      ‘Grateful? We ought to be grateful?

      ‘Impertinent? I've been impertinent? Now look here, madam…’

      Gunvald Larsson broke off and sat with the receiver a foot from his ear.

      ‘She hung up,’ he said in amazement.

      After three seconds he banged down the receiver and said:

      ‘Go to hell, you old bitch.’

      He tore off the sheet of paper he had been writing

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