Murder on the Thirty-First Floor

by Per Wahlöö

  The man grimaced at the bright, white light and stared with bloodshot eyes.

  ‘Journalism’s dead,’ he said. ‘I’m dead. Everything’s dead.’

  He groped for the bottle on the desk.

  ‘Here I sit in this bloody soup kitchen. Hounded and ordered about by people who can’t even read or write. Me! Year after year.’

  He had hold of the bottle now, and poured himself the final drop.

  ‘The biggest soup kitchen in the world,’ he said. ‘Three hundred and fifty portions a week. A soup made of nothing but lies, guaranteed tasteless. Year after year.’

  His whole body was shaking and he needed both hands to raise the cup to his lips.

  ‘But now it’s over,’ he said.

  He picked up a letter from the desk and waved it.

  ‘Read this,’ he said. ‘Behold the finale.’

  Inspector Jensen took the piece of paper. It was a communication from the editor in chief:

  Your piece on the royal wedding lacks judgement, is badly written and full of errors. The publication of the reader letter on the subject of suicide in issue 8 is a scandalous lapse. I have been obliged to report the matter to the highest authority.

  ‘He’d read the whole thing before it went for typesetting, of course. That bloody reader’s letter as well. But I’m saying nothing. The poor fucker’s fighting to save his own skin.’

  The man regarded Jensen with fresh interest.

  ‘Who are you? A new director? You’ll be very happy here, my lad. We’ve got dressed-up farmhands from dunghills in the sticks as editors in chief here. And the odd village whore, of course, that somebody happens to have made a fool of himself with.’

  Jensen took out his blue card. The man in the chair didn’t even glance at it. He said:

  ‘I’ve been a journalist for thirty years. I’ve seen the whole process of spiritual decay. The intellectual strangulation. The world’s slowest garrotte. Once upon a time, I had a will. That was wrong. I still have a bit of will, just a tiny little scrap. That’s wrong, too. I can write. That’s wrong. That’s why they hate me. But for now, they need people like me. Until someone invents a machine that can write their bloody crap. They loathe me because I’m not an infallible machine with handles and dials that writes their crappy lies, six pages an hour, without typos or crossings-out or personal reflections. Now I’m drunk. Three cheers for that.’

  His eyes were open wide and the pupils were mere dots.

  ‘And that poor devil just hangs there like a bit of cooked macaroni,’ he said.

  He waved a vague hand in the direction of his penis, slumped still further and muttered:

  ‘As soon as my trousers are dry I shall try to get myself home.’

  The man sat there in silence for a while. He was breathless, his breathing uneven. He threw out his right arm and said:

  ‘Esteemed audience! Our play is now ended and the hero will be hanged, for the human race never changes or does anything as a favour or for free. Do you know who wrote that?’

  ‘No,’ said Inspector Jensen.

  He switched off the light and left the room.

  On the tenth floor he transferred to the paternoster lift and took it all the way down to the paper store.

  The night-time lighting was in operation, individual blue globes that shed a faint, uncertain gleam.

  He stood entirely still and felt the pressure of the vast building towering above him. The rotary presses and machines had all stopped and the weight and massive solidity of the Skyscraper seemed to grow in time with the silence. He could no longer hear the sound of whoever was shadowing him.

  He took the lift back up to street level. The lobby was empty and he waited. It took three minutes for the man in the grey suit to emerge from a side door and walk over to the security desk.

  ‘There’s an inebriated person in room two thousand, one hundred and forty-three,’ said Inspector Jensen.

  ‘He’s being dealt with,’ said the man in grey tonelessly.

  Inspector Jensen opened the front entrance with his own key and stepped out into the cold night air.

  CHAPTER 11

  By the time he got back to the station in the Sixteenth District it was five to ten. His room offered nothing to detain him, and he went downstairs to the arrest area, where two young women were just being admitted through the entrance from the yard. He waited while they handed over their ID cards, shoes, outdoor clothes and handbags at the admittance desk. One of them swore and spat in the registering officer’s face. The constable who had made the arrest yawned and twisted her wrist as he glanced wearily at his watch. The other woman under arrest just stood there, head down and arms hanging. She could not stop crying, and words came snuffling indistinctly through her tears. They were the usual ones, ‘No, no,’ and ‘I don’t want to.’

  The women were bundled off by a couple of police nurses in rubber gloves and pale green plastic coats, and almost immediately there was the sound of sobbing and cries of distress as they were body-searched. The female staff were more efficient and more persistent than their male counterparts.

  He went over to the admittance desk and read through the list of people booked in over the previous few hours. There had been no police intervention at the publishing house, and no reports had come from there, either.

  Inspector Jensen didn’t eat anything on the way home. He wasn’t particularly hungry, and the hollow feeling in his stomach had faded. But despite the warmth and safety of the car, he was shivering as if he were cold, and found it hard to keep his hands still on the steering wheel.

  That was the third day gone. He had four left.

  CHAPTER 12

  It was a cold, clear morning. There was a thin layer of fresh snow on the grass areas between the apartment blocks, and the concrete surface of the motorway had a veil of black ice.

  Inspector Jensen had woken early, and despite the traffic congestion and slippery road conditions he reached his office in good time. His throat was dry, and although he had gargled and brushed his teeth, the unpleasant stale taste persisted. He sent for a bottle of mineral water from the canteen and started going through the papers on his desk. The forensics institute report hadn’t arrived, and the others appeared of no interest. The man at the post office was getting nowhere. Jensen read his short account thoroughly, massaged his temples and rang the number of the main post office. It took a long time for the policeman to come to the phone.

  ‘Jensen here.’

  ‘Yes, Inspector.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Interviewing the sorters. It’s going to take quite a while.’

  ‘Be more precise.’

  ‘Two more days. Maybe even three.’

  ‘Do you think it’s going to give you any leads?’

  ‘No, not really. There are lots of letters with addresses made out of bits cut from newspaper headlines. I’ve seen over a hundred already. Most of them aren’t even anonymous. It’s just something people do.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Some sort of joke, I suppose. The only employee who can remember this particular letter is the express messenger who delivered it.’

  ‘Have you got a copy of the letter itself?’

  ‘No, Inspector. But I’ve got one of the envelopes and the address.’

  ‘I know that. Avoid giving me unnecessary information.’

  ‘Yes, Inspector.’

  ‘Stop what you’re doing. Go to the forensics lab, have a photocopy made of the text and find out which newspapers or magazines the letters came from. Understood?’

  ‘Understood.’

  Inspector Jensen replaced the receiver. Outside the window, the sanitary squad was clattering around with its shovels and metal dustpans.

  He clasped his hands and waited.

  When he’d been waiting for three hours and twenty minutes, the telephone rang.

  ‘We’ve identified the paper used for the letter,’ said the lab assistant.

  ‘Y
es?’

  ‘It’s document-grade paper of a weight known as CB–3. It’s manufactured by one of the group’s own paper mills.’

  The line went quiet for a moment. Then the man went on:

  ‘Not that surprising in itself. They own practically the whole paper-making industry.’

  ‘Get to the point,’ said Inspector Jensen.

  ‘This mill is north of here, only forty kilometres from the city. We’ve got a man up there. I spoke to him five minutes ago.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘This kind has been in production for about a year. It’s mainly intended for export, but some smallish consignments have gone to a so-called job-printing firm, which also belongs to the group. They’ve taken delivery of two different sizes. From what I can understand, it’s only the larger format that’s relevant here. We won’t be taking this any further now. The rest is up to your lot. I’ve got someone coming over with all the names and addresses. They should be with you in ten minutes.’

  Jensen didn’t reply.

  ‘That’s all,’ said the lab assistant.

  The man seemed to be hesitating. After a short, doubtful pause, he said:

  ‘Er, Inspector?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What you said yesterday, I mean about reporting me for professional misconduct. Does it still apply?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Inspector Jensen.

  Ten minutes later, an officer from the uniformed branch came in with the written information.

  Once Jensen had read it, he stood up and consulted the big map on the wall. Then he put on his hat and coat and went down to his car.

  CHAPTER 13

  The office had glass walls, and while Inspector Jensen waited for the foreman of the printing works to come back, he watched the activity on the other side, where staff in white and grey protective coats moved to and fro behind long counters. In the background he could hear the din of the typesetting machinery and printing presses.

  On metal hooks along one wall of the office there were damp proofs hung up to dry. The texts, which were set in big, bold typefaces, sang the praises of the publishing house’s papers and magazines. One of them imparted the news that this week one particular paper came with a fold-out poster, a life-size picture of a sixteen-year-old TV star. The poster was printed in ‘glorious full colour and exceptionally beautiful’. The public was urged to buy the paper without delay, before stocks ran out.

  ‘We do some of the company’s advertising,’ said the foreman. ‘Those are advertisements for the daily papers. Stylish looking stuff, but very expensive. A single one of those costs as much as you or I get paid in a year.’

  Inspector Jensen made no comment.

  ‘But that’s neither here nor there, of course, for the people who own the whole lot, the magazines and the daily press and the printing firms and the paper they print things on,’ said the foreman.

  ‘Elegant, no doubt about it,’ he said. The man half turned away and popped a pastille in his mouth.

  ‘You were quite right,’ he said. ‘We did two printing jobs on that paper. About a year back. They were really swish, too. Limited print runs. Only a couple of thousand of each. One was personal headed notepaper for the big boss, and the other one was some kind of diploma.’

  ‘For the publishing house?’

  ‘Yep. There ought to be sample copies here somewhere. I’ll show you.’

  He hunted through his files.

  ‘Ah, here they are. Take a look.’

  The chairman’s notepaper was quite small in format, and the discreet grey monogram in the top right-hand corner appeared to have been designed to give an impression of reticence and sober taste. Inspector Jensen saw at once that the paper size was considerably smaller than that of the anonymous letter, but he measured it anyway. Then he got out the report from the lab and compared the measurements. They didn’t match.

  The second piece of printed paper was a four-page booklet, almost square. The first two pages were blank, and on the third there was some text, printed in gold in big, ornamental Gothic script. It read:

  IN RECOGNITION OF THE YEARS OF FRUITFUL COLLABORATION IN THE SERVICE OF CULTURE AND ACCORD WE EXPRESS OUR DEEPLY FELT THANKS.

  ‘Nice, eh?’

  ‘What was its intended use?’

  ‘I don’t know. Some sort of certificate. I suppose someone was going to sign it. Then they’d hand it out. That must have been what it was for.’

  Inspector Jensen took his ruler and measured the front cover of the booklet. He took the card from his pocket and compared the measurements. They matched.

  ‘Have you got any of this type of paper in your store?’

  ‘No, it’s a special edition. Cost a small fortune, too. And the bits that were left over once we’d done the print job must have been pulped long since.’

  ‘I’m taking this with me.’

  ‘We’ve only got the one archive copy,’ said the foreman.

  ‘Oh?’ said Inspector Jensen.

  The foreman was a man of sixty with a lined face and melancholy look. He smelt of alcohol, printing ink and throat sweets and he didn’t say a word more, not even goodbye.

  Inspector Jensen rolled up the diploma and left the printing works.

  CHAPTER 14

  The office of the head of personnel was on the nineteenth floor. The man behind the desk was short and stout with a face like a frog, and his smile was not as well practised as the one used by the head of publishing. It just looked crooked and distorted and malicious. He said:

  ‘Deaths? Well, there have been one or two jumpers, of course.’

  ‘Jumpers?’

  ‘Yes, suicides. You get a few of those everywhere, don’t you?’

  His observation was correct. Over the course of the previous year, two pedestrians had been killed in the city centre by falling bodies. Several more had been injured. It was one of the disadvantages of high-rise buildings.

  ‘And apart from that?’

  ‘Well, a few people have died in the building in recent years, always of natural causes or as the result of an accident. I’ll have the administrative department send over a list.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The head of personnel was really making an effort. He managed to make his smile look a little less off-putting and said:

  ‘Anything else I can do for you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Inspector Jensen, unrolling the diploma. ‘What’s this?’

  The man looked rather taken aback.

  ‘An address, or perhaps I should say a farewell letter, for people leaving their employment with us here. They’re very costly to produce, but the intention is to give our former employees a beautiful keepsake, something to remember us by. No expense spared. That’s the way the management sees it, in this as in so many other cases.’

  ‘Are they presented to everybody when they leave?’

  The man shook his head.

  ‘No, no, of course not. That would be far too expensive. This is a mark of distinction only given to people in top posts, or colleagues in positions of particular trust. At the very least, anyone receiving it must have carried out their duties as required, and been a worthy ambassador for the company.’

  ‘How many have been handed out?’

  ‘Only a few. This particular kind is pretty new. We’ve only been using it for six months or so.’

  ‘Where are the diplomas kept?’

  ‘With my secretary.’

  ‘Are they easily accessible?’

  The head of personnel pressed a button on his intercom. A young woman came into the room.

  ‘Is form PR–8 kept where outsiders could get their hands on it?’

  The woman looked horrified.

  ‘No, certainly not. It’s kept in the big steel filing cabinet. I lock it every time I leave the room.’

  He waved her out and said:

  ‘She’s a reliable girl, very thorough. She wouldn’t be here otherwise.’

  ‘I need a list
of all the people who have received diplomas of this type.’

  ‘Of course. That can be arranged.’

  They sat in silence for quite a time, waiting while the list was drawn up. At length, Inspector Jensen asked:

  ‘What are your main functions in this job?’

  ‘Hiring editorial and administrative staff. And ensuring that everything possible is done to promote the well-being of the staff, and …’

  He paused and smiled a broad smile with his frog mouth. It was hard and cold and appeared entirely genuine.

  ‘And freeing the publishing house from those who abuse our trust,’ he said. ‘Dealing with staff who’ve neglected their duties.’

  A few seconds later, he added:

  ‘Well, it rarely comes to that, of course, and such cases are handled in the most humane way possible, like everything else here.’

  Silence descended on the room again. Inspector Jensen sat entirely still, listening to the throbbing rhythm of the Skyscraper.

  The secretary came in with two copies of a list. There were twelve names on it.

  The head of personnel read it through.

  ‘Two of these people have actually died since they took retirement,’ he said. ‘And one has moved abroad, I know that for a fact.’

  He took his fountain pen from his breast pocket and put neat little ticks by three of the names. Then he passed the sheet of paper to his visitor.

  Inspector Jensen glanced quickly through the list. Each name was followed by a date of birth and some brief details such as ‘early retirement’ or ‘left at his own request’. He folded the list carefully and put it in his pocket.

  Before he left, there were two more exchanges between them.

  ‘May I ask the reason for your interest in this particular detail?’

  ‘An official matter that I am not at liberty to discuss.’

  ‘Have any of our farewell letters fallen into the wrong hands?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  There were already two men in the lift Inspector Jensen took back down. They were fairly young, and smoked cigarettes while chatting about the weather. They had a nervous, slangy, staccato way of talking that seemed to consist of a series of keywords. It was not at all easy for an outsider to understand.