worker, but a few years later the depression came and he was unemployed for a couple of years. Martin Beck reckoned that his mother had never really got over those years of poverty and anxiety; although they were much better off later on, she had never stopped worrying about money. She still could not bring herself to buy anything new if it were not absolutely necessary, and both her clothes and the few bits of furniture she had brought with her from her old home were worn by the years.
Martin Beck tried to give her money now and again and at regular intervals he offered to pay the bill at the home, but she was proud and obstinate and wished to be independent.
When the coffee had boiled, he brought the pot over and let his mother pour it. She had always been solicitous towards her son and when he had been a boy she had never even allowed him to help with the dishes or make his own bed. He had not realized how misdirected her thoughtfulness had been until he had discovered how clumsy he was when it came to the simplest domestic chore.
Martin Beck watched his mother with amusement as she popped a sugar lump into her mouth before taking a sip of the coffee. He had never seen her drinking coffee ‘on the lump’ before. She caught his eye and said:
‘Ah well, you can take a few liberties when you’re as old as I am.’
She put down her cup and leaned back, her thin freckled hands loosely clasped in her lap.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘Tell me how things are with my grandchildren.’
Nowadays, Martin Beck was always careful to express himself in nothing but positive terms when he talked to his mother about his children, as she considered her grandchildren cleverer, more brilliant and more beautiful than any other children. She often complained that he did not appreciate their merits and she had even accused him of being an unsympathetic and harsh father. He himself thought he was able to regard his children in a quite sober light and he presumed they were much like any other children. His contact with sixteen-year-old Ingrid was best; a lively, intelligent girl who found things easy at school and was a good mixer. Rolf would soon be thirteen and was more of a problem. He was lazy and introverted, totally uninterested in anything to do with school and did not seem to have any other special interests or talents either. Martin Beck was concerned about his son’s inertia, but hoped it was just his age and that the boy would overcome his lethargy. As he could not find anything positive to say about Rolf at the moment and as his mother would not have believed him if he had told her the truth, he avoided the subject. When he had told her about Ingrid’s latest progress at school, his mother said quite unexpectedly:
‘Rolf’s not going into the police force when he leaves school, is he?’
‘I don’t think so. Anyhow, he’s hardly thirteen. It’s a little soon to begin worrying about that sort of thing.’
‘Because if he wants to, you must stop him,’ she said. ‘I’ve never understood why you were so stubborn about becoming a policeman. Nowadays it must be an even more awful profession than it was when you first began. Why did you join the police force, anyway, Martin?’
Martin Beck stared at her in astonishment. It was true she had been against his choice of profession at the time, twenty-four years ago, but it surprised him that she brought the subject up now. He had become a chief inspector in the Murder Squad less than a year ago and his conditions of work were completely different from those that had existed when he had been a young constable.
He leaned forward and patted her hand.
‘I am all right now, Mother,’ he said. ‘Nowadays, I mostly sit at a desk. But of course, I’ve often asked myself the same question.’
It was true. He had often asked himself why he had become a policeman.
Naturally he could have replied that at the time, during the war years, it was a good way of avoiding military service. After a two-year deferment because of bad lungs, he had been declared fit and no longer exempt, which was quite an important reason. In 1944 conscientious objectors were not tolerated. Many of those who had evaded military service in the way he had, had since changed occupation, but he himself had been promoted over the years to chief inspector. That ought to mean that he was a good policeman, but he was not so sure. There were several instances of senior posts in the police being held by less able policemen. He was not even certain he wanted to be good policeman, if that involved being a dutiful person who never deviated one iota from the regulations. He remembered something Lennart Kollberg had once said a long time ago. ‘There are lots of good cops around. Stupid guys who are good cops. Inflexible, limited, tough, self-satisfied types who are all good cops. It would be better if there were a few more good guys who were cops.’
His mother came out with him, and they walked together in the park a bit. The slushy snow made it difficult to walk and the icy wind rattled round the branches of the tall bare trees. After they had slipped about for ten minutes, he accompanied her back to the porch and kissed her on the cheek. He turned around on his way down the slope and saw her standing there waving by the entrance. Small and shrunken and grey.
He took the metro back to the South police station in Västberga Allé.
On the way to his office, he glanced into Kollberg’s room. Kollberg was an inspector as well as Martin Beck’s assistant and best friend. The room was empty. He glanced at his wristwatch. It was half-past one. It was Thursday. It required no powers of deduction to work out where Kollberg was. For a brief moment Martin Beck even considered joining him down there with his pea soup, but then he thought of his stomach and desisted. It was already disturbed by the far too numerous cups of coffee his mother had pressed on him.
On his blotter there was a brief message about the man who had committed suicide that same morning.
His name was Ernst Sigurd Karlsson and he was forty-six years old. He was unmarried and his nearest relative was an elderly aunt in Boras. He had been absent from his work in an insurance company since Monday. Influenza. According to his colleagues at work, he was a loner and as far as they knew he had no close friends. His neighbours said he was quiet and inoffensive, came and went at definite times and seldom had visitors. Tests on his handwriting showed that it had indeed been he who had written Martin Beck’s name on the telephone pad. That he had committed suicide was perfectly evident.
There was nothing else to say about the case. Ernst Sigurd Karlsson had taken his own life, and as suicide is not a crime in Sweden, the police could not do very much more. All the questions had been answered. Except one. Whoever had written out the report had also asked this question: Had Chief Inspector Beck had any connection with the man in question and could he possibly add anything?
Martin Beck could not.
He had never heard of Ernst Sigurd Karlsson.
As Gunvald Larsson left his office at the police station in Kungsholmsgatan, it was half-past ten at night and he had no plans whatsoever for becoming a hero; insofar as it was no great deed to go home to Bollmora, shower, put on his pyjamas and go to bed. Gunvald Larsson thought about his pyjamas with pleasure. They were new, bought that same day, and most of his colleagues would not have believed their ears if they had heard what they had cost. On his way home, he was to carry out a minor duty which would hardly set him back more than five minutes, if that. As he thought about his pyjamas, he struggled into his Bulgarian sheepskin coat, put out the light, slammed the door and left. The decrepit lift which went up to their department went wrong as usual and he had to stamp twice on the floor before it could be persuaded
