The Fire Engine that Disappeared

by Maj Sjowall

  “Here? Practically none. Except me. Shall I ring Märsta station?”

  “Don’t bother,” said Kollberg wearily. “I’ll fix it. Did you say quarter past six?”

  “Eighteen fifteen hours. That’s what it says.”

  Kollberg looked at the time. Just past four. Plenty of time, relatively.

  He depressed the knobs on the telephone and dialed his home number.

  “It looks as if I’ll have to go out to Arlanda.”

  “Hell,” said Gun.

  “Couldn’t agree more.”

  “What time’ll you be back?”

  “No later than eight, I hope.”

  “Hurry.”

  “Bet your sweet ass. Bye.”

  “Lennart.”

  “Mmm.”

  “I love you. Bye.”

  She replaced the receiver so quickly that he had no time to say anything. He smiled, got up, went out into the corridor and yelled:

  “Skacke!”

  The only thing he could hear was the rain, and in some way or other it was no longer pleasant.

  He had to go practically through the whole floor before he found a living soul. A policeman.

  “Where the hell is Skacke?”

  “He’s playing football.”

  “What? Football? On duty?”

  “He said it was a very important match and that he’d be back before half-past five.”

  “What team is he playing in?”

  “The Police.”

  “Where?”

  “At Zinkensdamm. He’s off duty until half-past five, anyway.”

  This was true and did not improve matters. It was not an attractive prospect to have to go out to Arlanda alone, and also Skacke was in on the case and could take over as soon as Kollberg had shaken hands with Mr. Whatshisname. If it came to that even. So he put on his raincoat, went down to the car and drove to Zinkensdamm.

  The posters outside were white with green lettering: SATURDAY 15:00 HOURS POLICE SPORTS CLUB VERSUS REYMERSHOLM SPORTS CLUB. Over Högalid church curved a magnificent rainbow and over the green sports stadium only light misty rain was falling now. On the churned-up field were twenty-two soaked players and round about stood a hundred or so spectators. The atmosphere seemed numb.

  Kollberg was not in the least interested in sports and after sweeping a look over the field, he went to the far side where he caught sight of a policeman in mufti standing quite alone by the railing, nervously scratching his palms.

  “Are you some kind of manager, or whatever it’s called?”

  The man nodded without taking his eyes off the ball.

  “Get that creature in the orange shirt off at once, the one who’s just tripping over the ball there.”

  “Impossible. We’ve already put in our twelfth man. Quite out of the question. Anyhow, there’s only ten minutes left.”

  “What’s the score?”

  “Three-two for the Police. And if we win this match, then …”

  “Yes?”

  “Then we can go up into … no … oh, thank God … into the third division.”

  Ten minutes was not the end of the world and the man looked so agonized that Kollberg decided not to add to his burdens.

  “Ten minutes isn’t the end of the world,” he said goodnaturedly.

  “A lot can happen in ten minutes,” said the man pessimistically.

  He was right. The team in green shirts and white shorts scored two goals and won, amid ragged applause from the alcoholics and other veterans who appeared to form the majority of the spectators. Skacke got kicked in the legs and fell flat into a muddy puddle.

  When Kollberg managed to get hold of him, he had mud in his hair and was panting like an old steam engine going up hill. He also looked completely crushed.

  “Hurry, now,” said Kollberg. “That Whatshisname’s coming to Arlanda at six-fifteen. We’ve got to go and meet him.”

  Skacke vanished like lightning into the dressing room.

  A quarter of an hour later, he was sitting beside Kollberg in the car, newly showered, hair brushed and trim.

  “That’s a hell of a thing to do,” said Kollberg. “Go and get beaten like that.”

  “We’ve the crowd against us,” said Skacke. “And Reymers is one of the best teams in the league. What are we going to do with this Lasalle?”

  “We’ll have to have a chat with him, I suppose. I reckon our chances of getting him are minimal. If we take him with us, he’ll probably set up such a damned row that we’ll have the Foreign Office on our necks and in the end we’ll have to apologize and say goodbye and thanks very much. The only possibility is if we can disconcert him so that he reveals himself in some way. But if he’s as smart as they say, he won’t get had that way. If it is him at all.”

  “He’s very dangerous, isn’t he?” said Skacke.

  “Yes, he’s said to be dangerous. But hardly to us.”

  “Wouldn’t it be a better idea to tail him and see what he’s thinking of doing? Had you thought of that?”

  “I’d thought of that,” said Kollberg. “But I think this way’s better. There’s a faint chance that he’ll blunder. If nothing else, perhaps we can scare him away.”

  He sat in silence for a moment. Then he said:

  “He’s smart and ruthless, but probably not all that bright. And that’s where our chance lies.”

  A little later he added maliciously:

  “Of course, most policemen are not all that bright either, now, so in that respect the odds are even.”

  The traffic on the highway north was fairly light, but they had plenty of time and Kollberg maintained a moderate speed. Skacke was fidgeting about. Kollberg glanced suspiciously at him and said:

  “What are you up to?”

  “I don’t like this shoulder holster.”

  “Have you got your pistol on you?”

  “Of course.”

  “When you go to play football?”

  “I had it locked up during the match, of course.”

  “Fool,” said Kollberg.

  He himself went unarmed and had done so for as long as he could remember. He was one of those who urged that all policemen should be disarmed completely.

  “Gunvald Larsson’s got one of those clips you fasten into your trouser belt. I wonder where he got it from.”

  “Mr. Larsson would probably prefer to go round carrying a nickel-plated Smith and Wesson 44-Magnum with a butt of grooved Gonçala Alves and an eight and three-eighths inch barrel and a name plate in chased silver.”

  “Are there such things?”

  “Oh, yes. Cost more than 1,000 kronor and weigh about three pounds.”

  They continued in silence, Skacke sitting rigid and tense, licking his lips now and again. Kollberg nudged him with his elbow and said:

  “Relax, kid. Nothing special is going to happen. You know the description, don’t you.”

  Skacke nodded hesitantly and then guiltily sat mumbling to himself for the rest of the way.

  The plane was a Sabena Caravelle and landed ten minutes late, by which time Kollberg was already so tired of both Arlanda and his earnest colleague that he had nearly yawned his jaw out of joint.

  They were standing on each side of the glass door, watching the plane taxiing toward the airport building. Kollberg was standing just by the door and Skacke about five yards inside the airport lounge. This was a routine safety precaution which they had taken without discussing the matter.

  The passengers filed out and approached in a straggly line.

  Kollberg whistled to himself. Clearly it was not just anyone who had come on this extra flight. First in was a squat, dark-haired man, impeccably dressed in a dark suit, snow-white shirt and highly polished black shoes.

  This man was a prominent Russian diplomat. Kollberg recognized him from the State Visit five years earlier and knew that nowadays he was a key man in Paris or Geneva, or somewhere. Two yards behind him came his beautiful wife and another four yards behind her, Sa
mir Malghagh or Lasalle or whatever his name was. The description fitted anyhow. He was wearing a felt hat and a blue shantung suit.

  Kollberg let the Russian pass and involuntarily glanced at his wife, who really was a good-looker, a mixture of Tatjana Samojlova and Juliette Greco and Gun Kollberg.

  That glance was the most fateful mistake Kollberg had made in his life.

  For Skacke misinterpreted it.

  Kollberg immediately turned his head back, looked at the much-discussed Lebanese or whatever he was, raised his right hand to his hat, took half a step forward and said:

  “Excusez moi, Monsieur Malghagh …”

  The man stopped, smiled toothily and inquiringly, and also raised his right hand to his hat.

  And just at that very moment, Kollberg saw the unheard-of thing happening, diagonally behind him, out of the corner of his eye.

  Skacke had taken a step forward and placed himself in front of the prominent diplomat, and the Russian had routinely raised his right arm and swept him away, no doubt in the belief that the man was an impertinent reporter, for the Czechoslovakian crisis was on and all that, and Skacke tottered backward and stuck his right hand inside his jacket and pulled out his Walther 7.65.

  Kollberg turned his head and yelled:

  “Skacke, for Christ’s sake!”

  The moment Malghagh saw the pistol, his face changed and grew taut and strained, and for a fraction of a second his brown eyes expressed only surprise and fear. Then he had a knife in his hand, which he must have had up his sleeve, Kollberg had time to think, a sharp terrible weapon with a blade at least nine inches long and no more than half an inch wide.

  Kollberg had nothing but his training and speed of reaction to thank for the fact that he realized that the man intended to cut his throat, and he had time to raise his left arm to parry the knife thrust. But the other man turned with lightning and masterly speed and stabbed from below upward, and Kollberg, still off balance and some of his attention drawn in the wrong direction, felt how the blade went in just below his ribs on the left side of his diaphragm. Like a hot knife through butter, people say, thought Kollberg, and that’s exactly what it feels like, and he doubled up over the knife, still quite conscious of what he was doing and why he was doing it. He knew that it would delay the other man for a few seconds. How many? Perhaps five or six.

  All this happened while Skacke was still standing, utterly bewildered, about to raise his pistol and press down the safety catch with his thumb.

  Then Malghagh or whatever his name was got the knife free and Kollberg fell doubled over, his head down to protect his crotid artery, and the knife went up again and at that moment Skacke fired.

  The bullet hit Lasalle or whatever his name was in the center of his chest and threw him violently backward, the knife flying out of his hand as he landed on his back on the marble floor.

  The scene was completely static. Skacke was standing there with his arm outstretched, the barrel of his pistol still pointing diagonally upward after the recoil; the man in the shantung suit was lying flat on his back, his arms outstretched; and between them lay Kollberg doubled up and half on his side, with both hands pressed against the left side of his diaphragm. Everyone else was standing absolutely still and no one had time even to scream.

  Then Skacke ran up to Kollberg, knelt down, the pistol still in his hand, and said breathlessly:

  “How is it?”

  “Bad.”

  “Why did you wink at me? I thought—”

  “You were just about to arrange a third world war,” whispered Kollberg.

  And then, as things should be, panic and chaos broke out, with screams and running hither and thither, as usual, when everything is over.

  But everything was not over for Kollberg. In the wailing ambulance on its way to Mörby Hospital, he was at first immensely scared of dying. Then he looked at the man in the shantung suit lying on a parallel stretcher only a yard away from him. The man had his head turned to one side and he was looking at Kollberg with eyes that were rigid with pain and terror and rapidly approaching death. He tried to move his hand, perhaps to make the sign of the cross, but all he could manage was a slight jerk.

  “Ha, you’re going to die before you get the last rites, or whatever it’s called,” thought Kollberg impiously.

  He was right. The man did not even survive as far as the emergency room. Just as the ambulance began to slow down, his lower jaw dropped and blood and filth began to pour out of him.

  Kollberg was still immensely scared of dying.

  And just before he lost consciousness, he thought:

  “It’s not fair. I’ve never been interested in this damned case. And Gun waiting …”

  “Will he die?” asked Skacke.

  “No,” said the doctor. “Not from this, anyhow. But it’ll be a month or two before he can thank you.”

  “Thank?”

  Skacke shook his head and went over to the telephone.

  He had many calls to make.

  Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

  Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, her husband and coauthor, wrote ten Martin Beck mysteries. Mr Wahlöö, who died in 1975, was a reporter for several Swedish newspapers and magazines and wrote numerous radio and television plays, film scripts, short stories, and novels. Maj Sjöwall is also a poet.

  Books by MAJ SJÖWALL and PER WAHLÖÖ

  Roseanna

  The Man Who Went Up in Smoke

  The Man on the Balcony

  The Laughing Policeman

  The Fire Engine That Disappeared

  Murder at the Savoy

  The Abominable Man

  Cop Killer

  The Terrorists

  ALSO BY MAJ SJÖWALL AND

  PER WAHLÖÖ

  ROSEANNA

  On a July afternoon, a young woman’s body is dredged from Sweden’s beautiful Lake Vättern. With no clues, Beck begins an investigation not only to uncover a murderer but also to discover who the victim was. Three months later, all Beck knows is that her name was Roseanna and that she could have been strangled by any one of eighty-five people on a cruise. As the melancholic Beck narrows the list of suspects, he is drawn increasingly to the enigma of the victim, a free-spirited traveler with a penchant for casual sex, and to the psychopathology of a murderer with a distinctive—indeed, terrifying—sense of propriety.

  Crime Fiction/978-0-307-39046-2

  THE MAN WHO WENT UP IN SMOKE

  Inspector Martin Beck of the Stockholm Homicide Squad has his vacation abruptly terminated when the top brass at the foreign office pack him off to Budapest to search for Alf Matsson, who has vanished. Beck investigates viperous Eastern European underworld figures and—at the risk of his life—stumbles upon the international racket in which Matsson was involved. With the coolly efficient local police on his side and a predatory nymphet on his tail, Beck pursues a case whose international implications grow with each new clue.

  Crime Fiction/978-0-307-39048-6

  THE MAN ON THE BALCONY

  In the once peaceful parks of Stockholm, a killer is stalking young girls and disposing of their bodies. The city is on edge, and an undercurrent of fear has gripped its residents. Martin Beck, now a superintendent, has two possible witnesses: a silent, stone-cold mugger and a mute three-year-old boy. With the likelihood of another murder growing as each day passes, the police force works night and day. But their efforts have offered little insight into the methodology of the killer. Then a distant memory resurfaces in Beck’s mind, and he may just have the break he needs.

  Crime Fiction/978-0-307-39047-9

  THE LAUGHING POLICEMAN

  On a cold and rainy Stockholm night, nine bus riders are gunned down by a mysterious assassin. The press portrays it as a freak attack and dubs the killer a madman. But Superintendent Martin Beck thinks otherwise—one of his most ambitious young detectives was among those killed—and he suspects it was more than coincidence. Beck seeks out the girlfriend of the murdered detective, an
d with her help Beck reconstructs the steps that led to his murder. The police comb the country for the killer, only to find that this attack may be connected to a much older cold-case murder.

  Crime Fiction/978-0-307-39050-9

  THE FIRE ENGINE THAT DISAPPEARED

  The cunning incendiary device that blew the roof off a Stockholm apartment building not only interrupted the small, peaceful orgy underway inside, it nearly took the lives of the eleven occupants. And if one of Martin Beck’s colleagues hadn’t been on the scene, the explosion would have led to a major catastrophe since—for reasons nobody could satisfactorily explain—a regulation fire truck has vanished. Was it terrorism, suicide, or simply a gas leak? And what, if anything, did the explosion have to do with the peculiar death earlier that day of a forty-six-year-old bachelor whose cryptic suicide note consisted of only two words: “Martin Beck”?

  Crime Fiction/978-0-307-39092-9

  MURDER AT THE SAVOY

  When Viktor Palmgren, a powerful Swedish industrialist, is shot during his after-dinner speech in the luxurious Hotel Savoy, it sends a shiver down the spine of the international money markets and terrifies the tiny town of Malmö. No one in the restaurant can identify the gunman, and local police are sheepishly baffled. That’s when Beck takes over the scene and quickly picks through Palmgren’s background. What he finds is a web of vice so despicable that it’s hard for him to imagine who wouldn’t want Palmgren dead, but that doesn’t stop him and his team of dedicated detectives from tackling one of their most intriguing cases yet.

  Crime Fiction/978-0-307-39091-2

  THE ABOMINABLE MAN

  The gruesome murder of a police captain in his hospital room reveals the unsavory history of a man who spent forty years practicing a horrible blend of strong-arm police work and shear brutality. Beck and his colleagues comb Stockholm for the murderer, a demented and deadly rifleman, who has plans for even more chaos. As the tension builds and a feeling of imminent danger grips Beck, his investigation unearths evidence of police corruption. That’s when an even stronger sense of responsibility and something like shame urge him into taking a series of drastic steps, which lead to a shocking disaster.