Murder on the Thirty-First Floor

by Per Wahlöö

  Inspector Jensen opened his mouth to say something, but instantly thought the better of it.

  ‘She was particularly attractive from behind, you see. I remember vividly what she used to look like. She had a pale blue cleaning overall and white clogs and a white headscarf, and she was always bare-legged. Presumably she’d heard the talk. I remember it was said that the chairman couldn’t resist the sight of the back of a pair of knees.’

  The man got up, took a couple of sticky steps and switched on the light.

  ‘That hadn’t been going on very long before the chairman started making passes at her; he was known to be quite vigorous in that department. They say he always introduces himself first, absurdly enough. But do you know what happened?’

  The light bulb hanging from the ceiling was coated in a greasy layer of dust and shed a faint, roving light.

  ‘She never answered when he spoke to her, just mumbled something shy and incomprehensible and gave him that doe-eyed look. She carried on exactly as before.’

  Jensen drew another star. With six points.

  ‘He became obsessed with her. He did everything he possibly could. Tried to find out her address. He couldn’t. God knows where she hid away. They say he sent people to shadow her, but she outwitted them. Then she started coming a quarter of an hour later. He was still there. She came later and later, and he would generally be sitting in his room, pretending to be busy with something. So finally …’

  He paused. Jensen waited thirty seconds. Then he raised his eyes and looked expressionlessly at the man on the sofa bed.

  ‘He was going out of his mind, see. One evening it was half past eight before she came, and by then all the other cleaners had finished and gone home. The light in his room was off, but she knew he was there because she’d seen his outdoor things. So she clumped up and down the corridor in her clogs a few times, and then she picked up her bloody bucket and went in and closed the door behind her.’

  He laughed to himself, a low chuckle.

  ‘It’s too bloody good to be true,’ he said. ‘The chairman was standing behind the door in his string vest, and he threw himself at her with a bellow and tore off her clothes and sent her bucket flying and threw her to the ground and screwed her. She struggled and yelled and …’

  The man broke off and regarded his visitor triumphantly.

  ‘And what do you think happened?’

  Jensen was looking at something on the floor. It was impossible to tell whether he was listening.

  ‘Well just then, in comes a uniformed night-time security guard with a bunch of keys on his belt and shines his torch. When he sees who it is, he’s scared to death and slams the door and runs off, and the chairman runs after him. The guard dives into a lift and the chairman just manages to get in there with him as the doors close. He thinks the guard’s going to sound the alarm but the poor wretch is terrified and thinks he’s going to lose his job. She’d planned it all in advance, of course, and knew to the second when he came on his rounds and clocked in on that floor.’

  The man gave a gurgle of suppressed laughter and squirmed among the tangled bedclothes.

  ‘Just imagine the chairman standing in the lift in nothing but a string vest with a petrified security guard in a uniform and peaked cap, with a torch and a truncheon and a big bunch of keys on his belt. They go all the way down to the paper store before either of them has the presence of mind to press the stop button and get the lift to go back up again. And when they get back, the guard isn’t a guard any more but the security manager of the whole site, even though he didn’t dare utter a word the whole way.’

  The storyteller fell silent. The sparkle in his eyes seemed to fade. He said resignedly:

  ‘The old security manager got the sack for hiring deficient staff.’

  ‘Well, then came the negotiations of terms and conditions, and she must have played her cards brilliantly, because a week later an internal memo comes round, saying our chief editor’s been replaced, and a quarter of an hour later she sweeps into the editorial office and all hell breaks loose.’

  The man appeared to remember the bottle, and took a cautious little swig.

  ‘You see, the magazine was really pretty good, but it wasn’t selling well. Even though it was all about princesses and how to make ginger snaps, it went over the readers’ heads, was how they put it, and there had been talk of closing it down. But …’

  He gave his visitor a searching look, as if trying to make contact, but Jensen did not meet his eye.

  ‘It was pure Kristallnacht, what she did then. Practically the entire staff was weeded out and replaced by a pack of complete idiots. We had a sub-editor who was really a hairdresser and had never seen a semicolon. When she happened to see one on her typewriter, she came into my office and asked me what it was and I was so scared of getting the sack I didn’t dare tell her. I recall I told her it was just another example of intellectual snobbery.’

  He ground his toothless jaws for a while.

  ‘The old cow hated anything intellectual, see, and according to her, almost everything was intellectual, and especially being able to write coherent sentences on a piece of paper. The only reason I survived was that I didn’t seem like the others. Plus the fact that I minded every single word I said. There was a newly hired reporter who was stupid enough to pass on some story about one of the other bosses, to ingratiate himself. It was something that had really happened, mind you, and it was a bloody funny story. A man from the ideas department had come up to the editorial office of the arts pages of one of the biggest papers and said August Strindberg was a hell of a good writer and his film Miss Julie would make a great picture serial if they rewrote it a bit and got rid of all the class barriers and other incomprehensible stuff. The arts editor thought for a minute and then he said, ‘What did you say the writer was called?’ And the ideas guy said: ‘August Strindberg, you know.’ And then the arts editor said, ‘Oh yeah, him. Well, tell him to come to the Grand tomorrow at twelve and we’ll have lunch and talk about the price.’ So that reporter passed the story on, and she just gave him an icy cool look and said, ‘What’s so funny about that, then?’ And two hours later he had to clear his desk and go.’

  The man started chuckling to himself again. Inspector Jensen raised his eyes and regarded him expressionlessly.

  ‘But then we get to the clever bit. With her matchless stupidity, she managed to double the circulation within a year. The magazine filled up with pictures of dogs and children and cats and pot plants; with horoscopes and phrenology and how to read fortunes in coffee grounds and water geraniums, and there wasn’t a comma in the right place, but people bought it. You see, what little there was that could be called text was so incredibly over-explicit and naïve that it’d be a match for anything being written today. You couldn’t write the bloody word locomotive without explaining it was a machine on wheels that ran on metal tracks and pulled carriages. And it proved a major, decisive victory for the chairman. Everyone said his boldness and foresight were extraordinary, and that his move had revolutionised journalism training through and through, and changed the very principles of modern newspaper and magazine publishing.’

  He took another swig from the bottle.

  ‘It was perfect. The only fly in the ointment was the night guard. He was tremendously proud of his new post and couldn’t keep quiet about how he’d got it. But he didn’t get to go on about it for long. Six months later he was crushed to death in the paternoster lift. It stopped between two floors, and as he was crawling out, it started again. He was more or less chopped in half. And colossally stupid as he was, there can be no doubting it was his own fault.’

  The man put his hand in front of his mouth and had a long, hacking fit of coughing. When the attack was over, he said:

  ‘And then she went on being bloody-minded, year after year. Her tastes got more and more refined, would you believe it, and her pretensions went on growing, and the magazine was stuffed fuller and fuller of pictures
of unwearable clothes. The fashion companies bribed her, everyone said. In the end they managed to get rid of her, but it wasn’t cheap. They say the chairman had to stump up a quarter of a million in ready money to get her to agree to early retirement on a pension to match her salary.’

  ‘Why did you leave?’ said Inspector Jensen.

  ‘What does it matter?’

  ‘Why did you leave?’

  The bottle was empty. The man shook himself and said with feeling:

  ‘I got the sack. Just like that. Without any compensation, after all those years.’

  ‘For what reason?’

  ‘They wanted to get rid of me. I suppose I looked too scruffy for them. I wasn’t a worthy ambassador for the company. And anyway, I’m burnt out as a writer, haven’t another line in me, not even drivel. It happens to everyone.’

  ‘Was that the immediate reason?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What was the immediate reason you were sacked?’

  ‘I was drinking in my office.’

  ‘And you had to leave straight away?’

  ‘Yes. Formally I wasn’t dismissed, of course. My contract was drawn up in a way that meant they could send me packing whenever they wanted to.’

  ‘And you didn’t protest?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There was no point. They’ve got themselves a new head of personnel, who used to be the leader of the journalists’ union and still directs it. He knows all the loopholes; no mere mortal stands a chance. If you’re going to appeal, you have to do it indirectly, to him, and he’s the one who decides. It’s smart, but it’s the same with everything. Their tax lawyers also hold positions at the Ministry of Finance, and the criticism of the weekly magazines that does crop up every five years is actually written by them, in their own newspapers. But that’s how it is with everything.’

  ‘Did it make you feel bitter?’

  ‘I don’t think so. The time for that’s passed. Who feels bitter these days?’

  ‘You got some kind of farewell diploma when you left?’

  ‘I may have. They like to do things in style. The head of personnel’s an expert at stuff like that. He smiles, and offers you a cigar with one hand while throttling you with the other. And he looks like a toad, by the way.’

  The man was losing his focus.

  ‘You got a diploma, didn’t you?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Have you still got it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Show it to me.’

  ‘I won’t, and I can’t.’

  ‘Is it here in the flat?’

  ‘I don’t know. And even if it was, I wouldn’t be able to find it. Would you be able to find anything in here?’

  Inspector Jensen looked about him. Then he shut his notebook and got to his feet.

  ‘Goodbye,’ he said.

  ‘You still haven’t told me why you came here.’

  Jensen did not answer. He took his hat and left the room. The man just sat there among the dirty bedclothes. He looked grey and worn, and his eyes were dim.

  Inspector Jensen turned on the car radio, called for an emergency vehicle and gave the address.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Domestic alcohol abuse. Take him to the main station in the Sixteenth District. And be quick about it.’

  On the other side of the street there was a telephone kiosk. He went over to it and rang the head of the plainclothes patrol.

  ‘I want the flat searched. And be quick about it. You know what you’re looking for.’

  ‘Yes, Inspector.’

  ‘Then get back to the station and wait. Detain him until you receive further orders.’

  ‘On what grounds?’

  ‘Anything you like.’

  ‘Understood.’

  Inspector Jensen returned to his car. He had gone no more than fifty metres when he met the police van.

  CHAPTER 21

  Light was seeping out through the letterbox. Inspector Jensen took out his notebook and reread what he had written: Number 4, art director, unmarried, age 20, employment terminated at own request. Then he put the pad away, got out his police ID and rang the doorbell.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Police.’

  ‘Rubbish. I keep saying there’s no point asking. I don’t want to.’

  ‘Open up.’

  ‘Never, I don’t want to!’

  ‘Open up.’

  ‘Go away. Leave me in peace, for God’s sake. Tell him I don’t want to!’

  Jensen administered two heavy blows to the door.

  ‘Police. Open up.’

  The door swung open and she gave him a sceptical stare.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Things have gone too damn far this time.’

  He took a step over the threshold and showed his ID.

  ‘Inspector Jensen from the Sixteenth District,’ he said. ‘I’m conducting an investigation that has to do with your former employment and place of work.’

  She stared at his enamel badge and backed into the flat.

  She was a young woman, with dark hair, shallow-set grey eyes and a firm jawline. She was wearing a checked shirt, khaki trousers and a pair of boots. She was long-legged and strikingly slim-waisted, but her hips looked broad. As she moved, it was evident she had nothing else on under the shirt. Her hair was short and tousled, and she clearly did not use make-up.

  She somehow reminded him of women in pictures from the old days.

  The expression in her eyes was hard to read. It seemed to contain anger, fear, desperation and decision in equal measure.

  Her trousers were smeared with paint, and she had a brush in her hand. There was newspaper spread in the centre of the floor, and on it stood a rocking chair that she was evidently in the process of painting.

  Jensen looked about him. The rest of the furniture, too, looked as though it had been found on the rubbish dump by someone who had then painted it in cheerful colours.

  ‘So you weren’t lying,’ she said. ‘He’s even set the police on me, now. I might have known it. But I want to make one thing plain from the start. You can’t scare me. Lock me up if you can find an excuse. I’ve got a bottle of wine in the kitchen, maybe that’ll do. It makes no odds. Anything’s better than going on like this.’

  Inspector Jensen got out his notebook.

  ‘When did you cease your employment?’ he asked.

  ‘A fortnight ago. I just stopped bothering to turn up. Is there a law against that?’

  ‘How long had you been employed by the group?’

  ‘Two weeks. Have you got any other stupid questions to plague me with? I’ve told you, you won’t get anywhere.’

  ‘Why did you leave?’

  ‘Good grief, what do you think? Because I couldn’t stand being nagged every minute of the day and chased with every step I took.’

  ‘You were an art director?’

  ‘I most certainly wasn’t; I was an assistant in a layout department, what they call a glue girl. I didn’t even have time to learn that job properly before this business blew up.’

  ‘What does being an art director involve?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think you copy lettering and whole pages out of foreign papers.’

  ‘Exactly why did you leave your job?’

  ‘Good grief, are they giving the police orders now? Can’t you show a bit of pity? Tell your employer there are clinics that would certainly be better places for him than my bed.’

  ‘Why did you leave?’

  ‘I left because I couldn’t stand it any longer. Can’t you try to understand? He had his eye on me from a couple of days after I started. A photographer I knew had asked me to be the model for a picture to go with some kind of medical investigation or something. And he’d seen the picture. He took me in his car to a funny little restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Then I let him come here, stupidly enough. The next night he rang – he rang me, I mean – and asked me if I’d got a bottl
e of wine in the house. I told him to go to hell, of course. And so it went on.’

  She stood in the middle of the floor, feet planted wide apart, and stared at him.

  ‘What in Christ’s name do you want to know? That he sat over there on the floor babbling away for three hours, holding my foot? And that he almost had a heart attack when I struggled free and went off to bed?’

  ‘You are supplying a lot of superfluous information.’

  She tossed the paintbrush down beside the chair, and a few red splashes landed on her boots.

  ‘Yes, well,’ she said nervously. ‘I suppose I would have slept with him when it came to it. Why not? A person has to have some interests in life. I was sleepy, of course, but how was I to know he’d go to pieces like that, just because I took my clothes off. Don’t you realise what hell it’s been for me these last few weeks, day after day? He’s got to have me. He’s got to have my simple, natural urges. He’ll send me round the world. I’ve got to help him find something he’s lost. He’ll put me in charge of God knows what. In charge, me! No darling, you don’t have to be able to do anything. Not interested? It doesn’t matter, darling.’

  ‘I repeat: you are supplying a lot of superfluous information.’

  She finally held her breath and looked at him with a puzzled frown.

  ‘You haven’t come … it wasn’t him who sent you?’

  ‘No. You were given some kind of farewell diploma when you left?’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘Show it to me.’

  She looked entirely baffled. She went over to a blue chest of drawers against one wall, opened a drawer and took out the certificate.

  ‘It’s a bit of a mess,’ she said tentatively.

  Jensen opened it. Someone had dotted the gold text with big red exclamation marks. On the last page a few obscene slogans had been scrawled in red pen.

  ‘I know it’s not the done thing, but I was livid. It was all so ridiculous. I’d only been there a fortnight, and all I’d done was let my foot be held for three hours and get undressed and put my pyjamas on.’