The Laughing Policeman

Fredrik Melander was a tall, lean man of grave appearance and methodical disposition. He was forty-eight years old and a detective inspector on the homicide squad. Kollberg had worked together with him for many years. He had forgotten how many. Melander, on the other hand, had not. He was known never to forget anything.

Two telephones rang.

‘Hello. This is Superintendent Beck. Who? No, he's not here. Shall I ask him to call? Oh, I see.’

He put the phone down and reached for the other one. An almost white-haired man of about fifty opened the door cautiously and stopped doubtfully on the threshold.

‘Well, Ek, what do you want?’ Martin Beck asked as he lifted the receiver.

‘About the bus …’ the white-haired man said.

‘When will I be home? I haven't the vaguest idea,’ said Martin Beck into the telephone.

‘Hell,’ Kollberg exclaimed as the strip of tape got tangled up between his fat fingers.

‘Take it easy,’ Melander said.

Martin Beck turned back to the man in the doorway.

‘Well, what about the bus?’

Ek shut the door behind him and studied his notes.

‘It's built by the Leyland factories in England,’ he said. ‘It's an Atlantean model, but here it's called Type H35. It holds seventy-five seated passengers. The odd thing is –’

The door was flung open. Gunvald Larsson stared incredulously into his untidy office. His light raincoat was sopping wet, like his trousers and his fair hair. His shoes were muddy.

‘What a bloody mess in here,’ he grumbled.

‘What was the odd thing about the bus?’ Melander asked.

‘Well, that particular type isn't used on route 47.’

‘Isn't it?’

‘Not as a rule, I mean. They usually put German buses on, made by Büssing. They're also doubledeckers. This was just an exception.’

‘A brilliant clue,’ Gunvald Larsson said. ‘The madman who did this only murders people in English buses. Is that what you mean?’

Ek looked at him resignedly. Gunvald Larsson shook himself and said, ‘By the way, what's the horde of apes doing down in the vestibule? Who are they?’

‘Journalists,’ Ek said. ‘Someone ought to talk to them.’

‘Not me,’ Kollberg said promptly.

‘Isn't Hammar or the Commissioner or the Attorney General or some other higher-up going to issue a communiqué?’ Gunvald Larsson said.

‘It probably hasn't been worded yet,’ said Martin Beck. ‘Ek is right. Someone ought to talk to them.’

‘Not me,’ Kollberg repeated.

Then he wheeled round, almost triumphantly, as if he had had a brainwave.

‘Gunvald,’ he said. ‘You were the one who got there first. You can hold the press conference.’

Gunvald Larsson stared into the room and pushed a wet tuft of hair off his forehead with the back of his big hairy right hand. Martin Beck said nothing, not even bothering to look towards the door.

‘OK,’ Gunvald Larsson said. ‘Get them herded in somewhere. I'll talk to them. There's just one thing I must know first.’

‘What?’ Martin Beck asked.

‘Has anyone told Stenström's mother?’

Dead silence fell, as though the words had robbed everyone in the room of the power of speech, including Gunvald Larsson himself. The man on the threshold looked from one to the other.

At last Melander turned his head and said, ‘Yes. She's been told.’

‘Good,’ Gunvald Larsson said, and banged the door.

‘Good,’ said Martin Beck to himself, drumming the top of the desk with his fingertips.

‘Was that wise?’ Kollberg asked.

‘What?’

‘Letting Gunvald … Don't you think we'll get enough abuse in the press as it is?’

Martin Beck looked at him but said nothing. Kollberg shrugged.

‘Oh well,’ he said. ‘It doesn't matter.’

Melander went back to the desk, picked up his pipe and lit it.

‘No,’ he said. ‘It couldn't matter less.’

He and Kollberg had got the sketch up now. An enlarged drawing of the lower deck of the bus. Some figures were sketched in. They were numbered from one to nine.

‘Where's Rönn with that list?’ Martin Beck mumbled.

‘Another thing about the bus –’ Ek said obstinately.

And the telephones rang.

8 (#ulink_4a9184b2-82bf-556e-9d24-6f2bd01395d5)

The office where the first improvised confrontation with the press took place was decidedly ill-suited to the purpose. It contained nothing but a table, a few cupboards and four chairs, and when Gunvald Larsson entered the room, it was already stuffy with cigarette smoke and the smell of wet overcoats.

He stopped just inside the door, looked round at the assembled journalists and photographers and said tonelessly, ‘Well, what do you want to know?’