The Fire Engine That Disappeared

‘Didn’t you call a doctor?’

The man shook his head.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I thought she was already dead so there wasn’t no point in getting a doctor.’

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

‘I didn’t mean her no harm. I just got annoyed. She shouldn’t have gone on so.’

Benny Skacke rose and collected his coat from the hanger by the door. He was not sure what he ought to do with the man. As he pulled on his coat, he said:

‘Why did you come here instead of going to the district police station? It’s quite near.’

Gottfridsson got up and shrugged his shoulders.

‘I thought…I thought a thing like this…murder and all that, so…’

Benny Skacke opened the door into the corridor.

‘You’d better come with me, Mr Gottfridsson.’

It took only a few minutes to get to the block where Gottfridsson lived. The man sat in silence, his hands shaking violently. He went ahead up the stairs and Skacke took the key away from him and opened the front door.

They went into a small, dark hall with three doors, all shut. Skacke looked inquiringly at Gottfridsson.

‘In there,’ said the man, pointing to the left-hand door.

Skacke took three steps across the floor and opened the door.

The room was empty.

The furniture was shabby and dusty, but seemed to be in its right place and there was no sign of a struggle of any sort. Skacke turned around and looked at Gottfridsson, who was still standing by the outer door.

‘There’s no one here,’ he said.

Gottfridsson stared at him. He raised his hand and pointed as he slowly came into the doorway.

‘But,’ he said, ‘she was lying there.’

He looked around in confusion. Then he walked straight across the hall and opened the kitchen door. The kitchen was also empty.

The third door led to the bathroom and there was nothing remarkable there either.

Gottfridsson ran his hand through his thinning hair.

‘What?’ he said. ‘I saw her lying there.’

‘Yes,’ said Skacke. ‘Perhaps you did. But she obviously wasn’t dead. How did you come to that conclusion, anyhow?’

‘I could see,’ said Gottfridsson. ‘She wasn’t moving and she wasn’t breathing. And she was cold. Like a corpse.’

‘Perhaps she just seemed dead.’

It occurred to Skacke that perhaps the man was pulling his leg and had invented the whole story. Perhaps he had no wife at all. Also, both the death of his presumed wife, and her resurrection and disappearance appeared to leave the man singularly unmoved. He eyed the floor where the dead woman, according to Gottfridsson, had lain. There was no trace of either blood or anything in particular.

‘Well,’ said Skacke. ‘She’s not here now. Perhaps we should ask the neighbours.’

Gottfridsson tried to dissuade him.

‘No, don’t do that. We’re not on very good terms. Besides, they’re not at home at this time of day.’

He went into the kitchen and sat down on a wooden chair.

‘Where the devil is the woman,’ he said.

At that moment, the outer door opened. The woman who came into the hall was short and plump. She was wearing a coverall apron and a cardigan, and had tied a check scarf around her head. She was carrying a string bag in one hand.

Skacke could not immediately find anything to say. Neither did the woman say anything. She walked swiftly past him into the kitchen.

‘Oh, yes, so you dared come back, did you, you clod?’

Gottfridsson stared at her and opened his mouth to say something. His wife dumped the string bag on the kitchen table with a bang and said:

‘And who’s that creature? Now, it’s no good you bringing your boozing pals here, you know that. You boozers can go somewhere else.’

‘Excuse me,’ said Skacke uncertainly. ‘Your husband thought you’d had an accident and—’

‘Accident,’ she snorted. ‘Accident, my foot.’

She swung around and looked at Skacke with hostility.

‘I just thought I’d scare him a bit. Coming home like that and beginning to fight after being out boozing for days. There has to be a limit.’

The woman took off her scarf. She had an insignificant bruise on her jaw, but otherwise there did not appear to be anything wrong with her.

‘How do you feel?’ said Skacke. ‘You’re not hurt, are you?’

‘Poof!’ she said. ‘But when he knocked me down, I thought I’d just lie there and pretend to have fainted.’

She turned to the man.

‘You were a bit scared, weren’t you?’

Gottfridsson glanced embarrassedly at Skacke and mumbled something.

‘Who are you, anyway?’ asked the woman.

Skacke met Gottfridsson’s eyes and said curtly: ‘Police.’