The Laughing Policeman. Джонатан Франзен

reaching for the list.

      He looked at it for a while. Then he handed it back to Rönn.

      ‘That's about the most cramped writing I've ever seen. Can you really read that yourself? Haven't you typed out any copies?’

      ‘Yes,’ Rönn replied. ‘I have. You'll get them in a minute.’

      ‘OK,’ said Kollberg. ‘Let's hear.’

      Rönn put on his glasses and cleared his throat. He glanced through his notes.

      Of the eight dead, four lived in the vicinity of the terminus,' he began. ‘The survivor also lived there.’

      ‘Take them in order if you can,’ Martin Beck said.

      ‘Well, first of all there's the driver. He was hit by two shots in the back of the neck and one in the back of the head and must have been killed outright.’

      Martin Beck had no need to look at the photograph that Rönn extracted from the pile on the table. He remembered all too well how the man in the driver's seat had looked.

      ‘The driver's name was Gustav Bengtsson. He was forty-eight, married, two children, lived at Inedalsgatan 5. His family has been notified. It was his last run for the day and when he had let off the passengers at the last stop he would have driven the bus to the Hornsberg depot at Lindhagensgatan. The money in his fare purse was untouched and in his wallet he had 120 kronor.’

      He glanced at the others over his glasses.

      ‘There's no more about him for the moment.’

      ‘Go on,’ Melander said.

      ‘I'll take them in the same order as on the sketch. The next is Åke Stenström. Five shots in the back. One in the right shoulder from the side, might have been a ricochet. He was twenty-nine and lived –’

      Gunvald Larsson interrupted him.

      ‘You can skip that. We know where he lived.’

      ‘I didn't,’ Rönn said.

      ‘Go on,’ said Melander.

      Rönn cleared his throat.

      ‘He lived on Tjärhovsgatan together with his fiancée …’

      Gunvald Larsson interrupted him again.

      ‘They were not engaged. I asked him not long ago.’

      Martin Beck cast an irritated glance at Gunvald Larsson and nodded to Rönn to continue.

      ‘Together with Åsa Torell, twenty-four. She works at a travel agency.’

      He gave Gunvald Larsson a quick look and said, ‘In sin. I don't know whether she's been told.’

      Melander took his pipe out of his mouth and said, ‘She has been told.’

      None of the five men around the table looked at the pictures of Stenström's mutilated body. They had already seen them and preferred not to see them again.

      ‘In his right hand he held his service pistol. It was cocked but he had not fired a shot. In his pockets he had a wallet containing 37 kronor, identification card, a snapshot of Åsa Torell, a letter from his mother and some receipts. Also, driving licence, notebook, pens and bunch of keys. It will all be sent up to us when the boys at the lab are through with it. Can I go on?’

      ‘Yes, please,’ said Kollberg.

      ‘The girl in the seat next to Stenström was called Britt Danielsson. She was twenty-eight, unmarried and worked at Sabbatsberg Hospital. She was a registered nurse.’

      ‘I wonder whether they were together,’ Gunvald Larsson said. ‘Perhaps he was having a bit of fun on the side.’

      Rönn looked at him disapprovingly.

      ‘We'd better find out,’ Kollberg said.

      ‘She shared a room at Karlbergsvägen 87 with another nurse from Sabbatsberg. According to her roommate, Monika Granholm by name, Britt Danielsson was coming straight from the hospital. She was hit by one shot. In the temple. She was the only one in the bus to be struck by only one bullet. She had thirty-eight different things in her handbag. Shall I enumerate them?’

      ‘Christ, no,’ said Gunvald Larsson.

      ‘Number four on the list and on the sketch is Alfons Schwerin, the survivor. He was lying on his back on the floor between the two longitudinal seats at the rear. You already know his injuries. He was hit in the abdomen and one bullet lodged in the region of the heart. He lives alone at Norra Stationsgatan 117. He is forty-three and employed by the highway department of the city council. How is he, by the way?’

      ‘Still in a coma,’ Martin Beck said. ‘The doctors say there's just a chance he'll regain consciousness. But if he does they don't know whether he'll be able to talk or even to remember anything.’

      ‘Can't you talk with a bullet in your belly?’ Gunvald Larsson asked.

      ‘Shock,’ said Martin Beck.

      He pushed back his chair and stretched himself. Then he lit a cigarette and stood in front of the sketch.

      ‘What about this one in the corner?’ he said. ‘Number eight?’

      He pointed to the seat at the very back of the bus in the right-hand corner. Rönn consulted his notes.

      ‘He got eight bullets in him. In the chest and abdomen. He was an Arab and his name was Mohammed Boussie, Algerian subject, thirty-six, no relations in Sweden. He lived at a kind of boarding house on Norra Stationsgatan. Was obviously on his way home from work at the Zig-Zag, that grill restaurant on Vasagatan. There's nothing more to say about him at the moment.’

      ‘Arabia,’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘Isn't that where there's usually an awful lot of shooting?’

      ‘Your political knowledge is devastating,’ Kollberg said. ‘You should apply for a transfer to Sepo.’

      ‘Its correct name is the Security Department of the National Police Board,’ said Gunvald Larsson.

      Rönn got up, fished one or two pictures out of the pile and lined them up on the table.

      ‘This guy we haven't been able to identify,’ he said. ‘Number six. He was sitting on the outside seat immediately behind the middle doors and was hit by six shots. In his pockets he had the striking surface of a matchbox, a packet of Bill cigarettes, a bus ticket and 1,823 kronor in cash. That was all.’

      ‘A lot of money,’ Melander said thoughtfully.

      They leaned over the table and studied the pictures of the unknown man. He had slithered down in the seat and lay sprawled against the back with arms hanging and his left leg stuck out in the aisle. The front of his coat was soaked in blood. He had no face.

      ‘Hell, it would have to be him,’ Gunvald Larsson said. ‘His own mother wouldn't recognize him.’

      Martin Beck had resumed his study of the sketch on the wall. Holding his left hand in front of his face he said, ‘I'm not so sure there weren't two of them after all.’

      The others looked at him.

      ‘Two what?’ Gunvald Larsson asked.

      ‘Two gunmen. Look at all the passengers, they never moved from their seats. Except the one who's still alive and he might have tumbled off afterwards.’

      ‘Two madmen?’ Gunvald Larsson said sceptically. ‘At the same time?’

      Kollberg went and stood beside Martin Beck.

      ‘You mean that someone should have had time to react if there had been only one? Hm, maybe. But he simply mowed them down. It happened rather fast, and when you think they were all caught napping …’

      ‘Shall we go on with the list? We'll find that out as soon as we know whether there was one weapon or two.’