Cop Killer. Ларс Кеплер

      The kitchen was practical and efficient, with all the modern conveniences. Allwright put a pot of water on the hob, took four eggs from the refrigerator, and made tea in the coffee pot – that is, he heated water in it and put the teabags in the cups. An effective method, though not one to satisfy the connoisseur.

      With a feeling that he ought to be doing something useful, Martin Beck put two pieces of sliced bread in the electric toaster.

      ‘They make some really good bread around here,’ Allwright said. ‘But I usually just buy Co-op. I like the Co-op.’

      Martin Beck did not like the Co-op, but he didn't say so.

      ‘It's so close,’ Allwright said. ‘Everything's close around here. I've got an idea that Anderslöv has the highest commercial concentration in Sweden. Or pretty near anyway.’

      They ate. Washed the dishes. Went back to the living room.

      Allwright took the folded report out of his back pocket.

      ‘Papers,’ he said. ‘I'm sick of paper. This has turned into a paper job – nothing but applications and licences and copies and crap. In the old days, being a policeman here was dangerous. Twice a year, at beet season. There'd be all sorts of people here. Some of them used to drink and fight like you wouldn't believe. And sometimes you'd have to go in and break it up. And that meant being quick with your fists, if you wanted to save your looks. It was tough, but it was fun too, in a way. Now it's different. Automated, mechanical.’

      He paused.

      ‘But that isn't what I was going to talk about. For that matter, I don't need the report. The facts are pretty damned simple. The woman in question is named Sigbrit Mård. She's thirty-eight years old and works in a pastry shop in Trelleborg. Divorced, no children, lives alone in a little house in Domme. That's out on the road towards Malmö.’

      Allwright looked at Martin Beck. His expression was grim, but still full of humour.

      ‘Towards Malmö,’ he repeated. ‘That is to say, west of here on Route 101.’

      ‘You don't have much faith in my sense of direction,’ said Martin Beck.

      ‘You wouldn't be the first person to get lost on the Skåne plains,’ Allwright said. ‘Speaking of which…’

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘Well, the last time I was in Stockholm – and I hope to heaven it was the last time – I was looking for the National Police Administration and wandered into Communist Party Headquarters instead. Ran into the head of the Party himself on the stairs and wondered what the hell he was doing at the NPA. But he was very nice. Took me where I wanted to go. Walked his bicycle the whole way.’

      Martin Beck laughed.

      Allwright took the opportunity of joining in.

      ‘But that wasn't all. The next day I thought I'd go up and say hello to your Commissioner. The old one, the one who used to be in Malmö. I don't know the new one, thank God. So I went to the City Hall, and some sort of guard tried to give me a tour of the Blue Gallery. When I finally managed to tell him what I wanted, he sent me over to Scheelegatan and I wandered into the courthouse. The guard wanted to know which room my case was coming up in and what I was on trial for. By the time I finally got to the police building on Agnegatan, Lüning had gone for the day. So that took care of that. I took the night train home. Had a wonderful time all the way south. Three hundred and fifty miles. What a difference.’

      He looked thoughtful.

      ‘Stockholm,’ he said. ‘What a miserable city. But then, of course, you like it.’

      ‘Lived there all my life,’ said Martin Beck.

      ‘Malmö's better,’ Allwright said. ‘Though not much. I wouldn't want to work there, unless they made me Commissioner or something. But let's not even talk about Stockholm.’

      He laughed loudly.

      ‘Sigbrit Mård,’ said Martin Beck.

      ‘Sigbrit had the day off that day. And she'd left her car to be fixed, so she took the bus to Anderslöv. Ran some errands. Went to the bank and the post office. And then disappeared. She didn't take the bus. The driver knows her, and he knows she wasn't on board. No one's seen her since. That was the seventeenth of October. It was about one o'clock when she left the post office. Her car, a VW, is still at the garage. There's nothing there. I went over it myself. And we took some samples and sent them to the lab in Helsingborg. All negative. Not a clue, as it were.’

      ‘Do you know her? Personally?’

      ‘Yes, sure. Until this back-to-nature fad got started, I knew every soul in the district. It's not so easy any more. People live in old abandoned houses and dilapidated outbuildings. They don't register in the township, and when you drive out there, often as not they've already moved. And someone else has moved in. The only thing left is the goat and the macrobiotic vegetable garden.’

      ‘But Sigbrit Mård is different?’

      ‘Yes, indeed. She's one of the ordinary types. She's lived here for twenty years. She comes from Trelleborg, originally. She seems like a stable sort of person. Always held down a job, and all that. Highly normal. Maybe a little frustrated.’

      He lit a cigarette, after inspecting it thoughtfully.

      ‘But then, that's normal in this country,’ he went on. ‘For example, I smoke too much. That's probably frustration too.’

      ‘So she could simply have run away.’

      Allwright bent down and scratched the dog behind the ears.

      ‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘That's a possibility. But I don't believe it. This isn't the sort of place you can run away from just like that, without anyone's noticing. And people don't leave their homes completely intact. I went over the house with the detectives from Trelleborg. Everything was still there, all her papers and personal property. Jewellery and all that sort of thing. The coffee pot and her cup were still on the table. It looked as if she'd gone out for a while and expected to be right back.’

      ‘Then what do you believe?’

      This time Allwright's answer was even longer in coming. He held his cigarette in his left hand and let the dog chew playfully on his right. Every trace of laughter was gone from his face.

      ‘I believe she's dead,’ he said.

      And that was all he said on the subject.

      From a distance came the sound of heavy traffic thundering along the main road.

      Allwright looked up.

      ‘Most of the big lorries still take this road from Malmö to Ystad,’ he said. ‘Even though the new Route 11 is a lot faster. Lorry drivers are creatures of habit.’

      ‘And this business with Bengtsson?’ said Martin Beck.

      ‘You ought to know more about him than I do.’

      ‘Maybe. Maybe not. We got him for a sex murder almost ten years ago. After a lot of ifs and buts. He was an odd man. But what happened to him afterwards, I don't know.’

      ‘I know,’ Allwright said. ‘Everyone in town here knows. They declared him sane, and he spent seven and a half years in prison. Eventually he moved down here and bought a little house. He had some money, apparently, because he also got hold of a boat and an old estate car. He makes a living smoking fish. Catches some of it himself and buys some of it from people who do a little fishing on the side – non-union. It's not popular with the professional fishermen, but it's not actually illegal, either. At least not as far as I can see. Then he drives around and sells smoked herring and fresh eggs, mostly to a few steady customers. The people around here have accepted Folke as a decent person. He's never done anyone any harm. Doesn't talk much and keeps mostly to himself. Retiring type. The times I've run into him, it always seems as if he wanted to apologize for simply existing. But …’

      ‘Yes?’