Martin Beck: The Locked Room Part 7

When Werner Roos climbed into a cab on Kungsholmsgatan twenty minutes later, Detective Sergeant Rune Ek was sitting at the wheel of a grey Volvo.

Rune Ek was a corpulent man in his fifties. He had white hair, gla.s.ses, and ulcers, and his doctor had just put him on a strict diet This was why he didn't get much out of the four hours he spent at a table for one in the Opera Cellar restaurant though Werner Roos and his red-haired lady friend apparently denied themselves nothing, whether dry or liquid, at their window table on the veranda.

Ek pa.s.sed the long, light summer night in an elder grove out at Ha.s.selby, furtively watching the redhead's b.r.e.a.s.t.s, which were to be observed intermittently bobbing up and down on the waves of Lake Malaren, as Werner Roos, like a latter-day Tarzan, did the crawl.

Later, as the morning sun shone down between the treetops, Ek continued this activity among some bushes outside a Ha.s.selby bungalow. Having ascertained that the newly bathed couple were alone in the house, he devoted the following half hour to picking ticks out of his hair and clothes.

When, some hours later, Rune Ek was relieved, Werner Roos still hadn't put in an appearance. As far as anyone could see, it might take several hours before he dragged himself out of the redhead's arms in order, it was to be hoped, to look up his friends Malmstrom and Mohren.

14.

Anyone who had been in a position to compare the bank robbery squad to the robbers themselves would have found that in many ways they were evenly matched. The squad had enormous technical resources at its disposal, but its opponents possessed a large amount of working capital and also held the initiative.

Very likely Malmstrom and Mohren would have made good policemen if anyone could have induced them to devote themselves to so dubious a career. Their physical qualities were formidable, nor was there much wrong with their intelligence.

Neither had ever occupied himself with anything except crime, and now, aged thirty-three and thirty-five respectively, they could rightly be described as able professional criminals. But since only a narrow group of citizens regarded the robbery business as respectable, they had adopted other professions on the side. On pa.s.sports, driving licences, and other means of identification they described themselves as 'engineer' or 'executive', well-chosen labels in a country that literally swarms with engineers and executives. All their doc.u.ments were made up in totally different names. The doc.u.ments were forgeries, but with a particularly convincing appearance, both at first and second sight. Their pa.s.sports, for example, had already pa.s.sed a series of tests, both at Swedish and foreign border crossings.

Personally, both Malmstrom and Mohren seemed if possible even more trustworthy. They made a pleasant, straightforward impression and seemed healthy and vigorous. Four months of freedom had to some extent modified their appearance; both were now deeply tanned. Malmstrom had grown a beard, and Mohren wore not only a moustache but also side-whiskers.

The suntan did not derive from any ordinary tourist trap like Majorca or the Canary Islands but from a three-week so-called photo safari in East Africa. This had been pure recreation. Later they'd made a couple of business trips, one to Italy to complete their equipment and the other to Frankfurt to hire a couple of efficient aides.

Back in Sweden they had carried out a few modest bank robberies as well as knocking off two cheque-cashing establishments, which, for fiscal reasons of a technical nature, had not dared to contact the police.

The gross income from this activity was considerable, but they had incurred major expenses and were looking forward to considerably more expenses in the near future.

A large investment, however, yields large dividends. So much they had learned from Sweden's half-socialist, half-capitalist economy, and the least one can say about Malmstrom's and Mohren's goals was that they were extremely ambitious.

Malmstrom and Mohren were working on an idea - an idea that was by no means new, but that did not diminish its appeal in any way. They were going to do one more job and then retire. At long last they were going to stage their really big coup.

By and large their preparations were complete. All problems of finance had been solved, and the plan was as good as set As yet they didn't know when or where; but they did know the most important thing: how. Their goal was in sight.

Though far from being criminals of the first order, Malmstrom and Mohren were, as has been said, rather good at their job. The big-time criminal doesn't get caught. The big-time criminal doesn't rob banks. He sits in an office and presses b.u.t.tons. He takes no risks. He doesn't disturb society's sacred cows. Instead he devotes himself to some kind of legalized extortion, preying on private individuals.

Big-time .criminals profit from everything - from poisoning nature and whole populations and then pretending to repair their ravages by inappropriate medicines; from purposely turning whole districts of cities into slums in order to pull them down and then rebuild others in their place. The new slums, of course, turn out to be far more deleterious to people's health than the old ones had been. But above all they don't get caught.

Malmstrom and Mohren, on the other hand, had an almost pathetic knack for getting caught. But they now believed that they knew the reason for this: they had operated on too small a scale.

'Do you know what I was thinking about when I was taking a shower?' Malmstrom said. Emerging from the bathroom, he carefully spread a towel on the floor in front of him; he was wearing two others - one wound around his hips and the other draped over his shoulders. Malmstrom had a mania for cleanliness. This was already the fourth shower he'd taken today.

'Sure,' said Mohren. 'Chicks.'

'How could you guess?'

Mohren was sitting by the window, looking intently out over Stockholm. He was dressed in shorts and a thin white shirt and was holding up a pair of naval binoculars to his eyes.

The apartment where they were living was in one of the large mansion blocks on Danvik Cliffs, and the view was by no means bad.

'Work and chicks don't mix,' Mohren said. 'You've seen how that turns out, haven't you?'

'I don't mix things, ever,' Malmstrom said, offended. 'Aren't I even allowed to think nowadays, huh?'

'Sure,' said Mohren magnanimously. 'Just carry right on thinking; if you're up to it.' He let his binoculars follow a white steamboat which was coming in towards the Stream.

Yes, it's the Norrskar ' he said. 'Amazing that she's still on the job.'

'Who's still on what job?'

'No one you're interested in. Which ones were you thinking about?'

'Those birds in Nairobi. Some s.e.xpots, eh? I've always said there's something special about Negroes.'

'Negroes?' Mohren corrected him. 'Negresses, in this case. Absolutely not Negroes.'

Malmstrom sprayed himself scrupulously under his arms and in certain other places.

'If you say so,' he said.

'Anyway there's nothing special about Negresses,' Mohren said. 'If you happened to get that impression it was just because you were suffering from s.e.x-starvation.'

'The devil I was!' Malmstrom disagreed. 'By the way, did yours have a lot of hair on her c.u.n.t?'

'Yes,' said Mohren. 'As a matter of fact she did, now that I think of it. An amazing abundance. And it was very stiff. Bushy and nasty'

'And her t.i.ts?'

'Black,' said Mohren. 'And lightly hung.'

'I thought mine said she was a maitresse, or else a mattress. Could that be right?'

'She said she was a waitress. I reckon your English was a bit rusty. Anyway, she thought you were a train engineer.'

'Yes, well, anyway she was a tart. What was yours?'

'Keypunch operator.'

'Hmm.'

Malmstrom picked up some sealed polythene bags containing underwear and socks, tore them open, and began to get dressed.

'You're going to waste your whole fortune on briefs,' said Mohren. 'A most remarkable pa.s.sion, I must say.''

'Yes, it's shocking how expensive they've become.'

'Inflation,' said Mohren. 'And we're partly to blame.'

'How the h.e.l.l can that be?' asked Malmstrom. 'We've been inside for years.'

'We spend a lot of money unnecessarily. Thieves are always spendthrifts.' 'Not you.'

'No, but I'm a shining exception. Though I do spend a fair-amount on food.'

'You didn't even want to fork out for those birds down there in Africa. That's why things turned out as they did. It was your fault we had to scrounge around for three days until we found a couple who'd do it free.'

'That wasn't only for economic reasons,' Mohren said. 'And certainly it wasn't to dampen inflation in Kenya. But as I see the matter, it's public thievishness that's undermining the value of money. If anyone should be put into k.u.mla it's the government.'

'Hmm.'

'And the tyc.o.o.ns. I've been reading about an interesting example of the way inflation begins.' 'Oh?'

'When the British seized Damascus in October 1918, the troops broke into the state bank and stole all the cash. Those soldiers hadn't any idea what it was worth. Among other things, an Australian cavalryman gave half a million to a kid who held his horse for him when he took a p.i.s.s.'

'Does a horse have to be held while it p.i.s.ses?'

'Prices shot up a hundredfold, and only a few hours later a toilet roll was costing two hundred bucks.'

'Did they really have toilet paper out there in Australia? In those days?'

Mohren sighed. Sometimes he felt his intellect was becoming numb from never talking to anyone except Malmstrom. 'Damascus,' he said ponderously, 'is in Arabia. Syria, to be more exact'

'No kidding.' By now Malmstrom was dressed and was studying the results in a mirror. Muttering to himself, he fluffed up his beard and flicked some specks of dust, invisible to any normal person, off his blazer. Spreading out the towels side by side on the floor, he went over to the closet and got their weapons. Laying them out in a row, he got some cheesecloth and a can of cleaning fluid.

Mohren cast a distraught glance at the a.r.s.enal. 'How many times have you done that? It's all new from the factory, or almost, anyway.'

'Have to keep our things in order,' Malmstrom said. 'Firearms need looking after.'

They had enough there to start a minor war or, at the very least, a revolution. Two automatics, one revolver, two submachine guns, and three sawn-off shotguns. The submachine guns were standard Swedish Army equipment. All the others were foreign.

Both the automatics were of large calibre, a nine-millimetre Spanish Firebird and a Llama DC The revolver, too, was Spanish, an Astra Cadix forty-five, and so was one of the shotguns, a Maritza. Both the others came from elsewhere on the Continent, a Belgian Continental Supra de Luxe and an Austrian Ferlach with the romantic name 'Forever Yours'.

Having cleaned the pistols, Malmstrom picked up the Belgian rifle. 'The person who sawed off this rifle should be shot with it in the b.a.l.l.s,' he said.

'I expect he didn't acquire it like we did.'

'What? I don't get you.'

'Didn't acquire it honestly,' Mohren said seriously. 'Probably he stole it' He turned back to the view of the river. 'Stockholm certainly is a spectacular city,' he observed.

'How do you mean?'

'It needs to be enjoyed from a distance. So it's a good thing we don't have to go out much.'

'Scared someone'll knock you off in the metro?'

'Among other things. Or else of getting a dagger in my back. Or an axe through my skull. Or being kicked to death by a hysterical police horse. Really, I feel sorry for people.'

'People? What people?'

Mohren made a sweeping gesture. 'People down there. Imagine working your a.r.s.e off to sc.r.a.pe together enough to pay off the instalments on a car and a summer place while your kids are doping themselves to death. And your wife's only got to stick her nose outdoors after six in the evening to be raped. And yourself, you don't even dare to go to vespers.'

'Vespers?'

'Just an example. If you've more than a ten-kronor bill on you, you get robbed; and if you've got less, the muggers stick a knife in your back out of sheer disappointment. The other day I read in the newspapers that even the cops don't dare go out alone any more. There are fewer cops on the streets, and it's becoming harder and harder to keep order. Something like that. It was some big noise in the Ministry of Justice who said so. No, it'll be nice to get out 'of here and never come back.'

'And never see the Rangers again,' Malmstrom said gloomily.

'You and your vulgarity. Anyway, you're not allowed that in k.u.mla, either.'

'Still we get a glimpse of it on TV, now and then.'

'Don't mention our horrible cellmate,' Mohren said. He got up and opened the window. Stretching out his arms, He threw his head back - as if directly addressing the ma.s.ses. 'h.e.l.lo down there,' he shouted, 'as Lyndon Johnson said when he held his election speech from a helicopter.'

'Who?' Malmstrom asked.

The doorbell rang. The signal was a complicated one; they listened carefully.

'I reckon it's Mauritzon,' Mohren said, looking at his watch. 'He's even on time.'

'I don't trust that b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' Malmstrom said. "This time we're taking no chances.' He slipped the magazine into one of the machine guns. 'Here,' he said.

Mohren took the weapon.

Picking up the Astra, Malmstrom went out to the front door. Holding the revolver in his left hand he unlocked the various chains with his right. Malmstrom was left-handed. Mohren stood six feet behind him.

Then, as abruptly as he could, Malmstrom jerked open the door.

The man outside had expected this. 'h.e.l.lo,' he said, staring nervously at the revolver.

'Hi,' said Malmstrom.

'Come in, come in,' Mohren said. 'Dear Mauritzon, you are welcome.'

The man who entered was laden with bags and packages of food. As he put down these groceries he cast a sideways glance at the display of weaponry.

You guys planning a revolution?' he said.

'That's always been our line of business Mohren said. 'Though right now the situation's not ripe for one. Did you get us any crayfish?'

'How the devil d'you expect me to get hold of crayfish on the fourth of July?'

'What d'you think we're paying you for?' Malmstrom said threateningly.

'A most legitimate question Mohren said. 'That you can't get us what we tell you to is more than I can understand'