The Locked Room. Майкл Коннелли

We must think. If I were Werner Roos now, what move would I make? How would I attack his king? How would you do it? And when?’

      ‘Who the hell's Werner Roos?’ Kollberg enquired again.

      ‘He's an airline purser,’ said Gunvald Larsson.

      ‘First and foremost he's a criminal,’ Bulldozer Olsson shouted. ‘In his own way Werner Roos is a genius. He's the one who plots out everything down to the last detail. Without him Malmström and Mohrén would be mere nonentities. It's he who does all the thinking. Without him plenty of others would be out of work. And he's the biggest skunk of the lot! He's a sort of professor of –’

      ‘Don't shout so damn loud,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘You're not in the district court.’

      ‘We'll get him,’ Bulldozer Olsson said, as if he'd just hit on some genial idea. ‘We'll nab him now, right away.’

      ‘And release him tomorrow,’ said Gunvald Larsson.

      ‘Never mind. It'll be a surprise. Catch him off his guard.’

      ‘You think so? It'll be the fifth time this year.’

      ‘No matter,’ said Bulldozer Olsson, making for the door.

      Actually Bulldozer Olsson's first name was Sten. But this was something everyone, except possibly his wife, had long ago forgotten. She, on the other hand, had very likely forgotten what he looked like.

      ‘There seem to be a lot of things I don't understand,’ Kollberg complained.

      ‘Where Roos is concerned, Bulldozer's probably right,’ Gunvald Larsson said. ‘He's a smart devil who's always got an alibi. Fantastic alibis. Whenever anything happens he's always away in Singapore or San Francisco or Tokyo.’

      ‘But how does Bulldozer know these Malmström and Mohrén guys are behind this particular job?’

      ‘Some sort of sixth sense, I expect.’

      Gunvald Larsson shrugged and said: ‘But where's the sense in it? Here are Malmström and Mohrén, known to be a couple of gangsters, who, though they never confess, have been inside any number of times. And now, when at last they're under lock and key in Kumla, they're granted weekend parole!’

      ‘Well, we can't really keep people locked up in one room with a TV set for all eternity, can we?’

      ‘No,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘That's true enough.’

      For a while they sat silent. Both men were thinking the same thing: how it had cost the state millions to build Kumla Prison and equip it with every conceivable refinement designed to insulate social misfits from society. Foreigners with experience in penal institutions from far and wide had said that Kumla's internment department was probably the most inhuman and personality-deadening in the whole world. Lack of lice in the mattresses or maggots in the food is no substitute for human contact.

      ‘As for this murder on Hornsgatan …’ Kollberg began.

      ‘That wasn't murder. Probably just an accident. She fired by mistake, maybe didn't even realize the gun was loaded.’

      ‘Sure it was a girl?’

      ‘Yeah.’

      ‘What about all this talk of Malmström and Mohrén, then?’

      ‘Well, it's just possible they sent in a girl …’

      ‘Weren't there any fingerprints? As far as I know, she wasn't even wearing gloves.’

      ‘Sure there were fingerprints. On the doorknob. But before we had time to lift them one of the bank people had been there and messed it all up. So we couldn't use them.’

      ‘Any ballistic investigation?’

      ‘You bet your life there was. The experts got both the bullet and the cartridge. They say she shot him with a forty-five, presumably a Llama Auto.’

      ‘Big gun … especially for a girl.’

      ‘Yeah. According to Bulldozer that's another bit of evidence on this Malmström and Mohrén and Roos gang. They always use big, heavy weapons, to cause alarm. But …’

      ‘But what?’

      ‘Malmström and Mohrén don't shoot people. At least they've never done so yet. If someone causes trouble they just put a bullet in the ceiling, to restore order.’

      ‘Is there any point in holding this Roos guy?’

      ‘Hmm, well I suspect Bulldozer's reasoning goes like this: If Roos has one of his usual perfect alibis – for instance, if he was in Yokohama last Friday – then we can be dead sure he planned the job. On the other hand, if he was in Stockholm, then the thing's more doubtful.’

      ‘What does Roos say himself? Doesn't he get angry?’

      ‘Never. He says it's true Malmström and Mohrén are old chums of his and he thinks it's sad things should have turned out so badly for them in life. Last time he asked if we thought he could help his old chums in some way. Malm happened to be there. He almost had a brain haemorrhage.’

      ‘And Olsson?’

      ‘Bulldozer just roared. He loved it.’

      ‘What's he waiting for, then?’

      ‘The next move, didn't you hear? He thinks Roos is planning a major job which Malmström and Mohrén are going to carry out. Presumably Malmström and Mohrén want to scrape enough money together to emigrate quietly and live the rest of their lives on the proceeds.’

      ‘And it's got to be a bank robbery?’

      ‘Bulldozer thinks everything except banks can go to the devil,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘It's his orders, so they say.’

      ‘What about the witness?’

      ‘Einar's?’

      ‘Yeah.’

      ‘He was here this morning, looking at pictures. Didn't recognize anyone.’

      ‘But he's sure of the car?’

      ‘Damn right.’

      Gunvald Larsson sat silent, tugging at his fingers one after the other until the joints cracked. After a long while he said: ‘There's something about that car that doesn't jell.’

       11

      The day looked as if it was going to be a hot one, and Martin Beck took his lightest suit out of the closet. It was pale blue. He'd bought it a month ago and only worn it once. As he pulled on his trousers a big, sticky chocolate mark on the right trouser knee reminded him how, on that particular occasion, he'd been chatting with Kollberg's two kids and how they'd indulged in an orgy of lollipops and Mums-Mums chocolate balls.

      Martin Beck climbed out of his trousers again, took them into the kitchen, and soaked one corner of a towel in hot water. Then he rubbed the towel against the stain, which immediately spread. Yet he didn't give up. As he gritted his teeth and went on working away at the material he thought to himself it was really only in such situations that he missed Inga – which said a good deal about their former relationship. At least one of the trouser legs was thoroughly soaked, and the stain seemed at least partially to have disappeared. Squeezing his thumb and forefinger along the crease, he hung his trousers over a chair in the sunshine which was flooding in through the open window.

      It was only eight o'clock, but already he'd been awake for several hours. In spite of everything, he'd fallen asleep early the previous evening, and his sleep had been unusually calm and free of dreams. True, though it had been his first real working day in a long time, it had not been a particularly strenuous one; even so, it had left him exhausted.

      Martin Beck opened the refrigerator door, inspected the milk carton,