The Man Who Went Up in Smoke

In a basket by the entrance lay a few pamphlets in German and he took one out at random to have something to read while he waited. Clearly he needed to practise his German.

The leaflet was published by the German journalists' union and dealt with the Springer concern, one of the most powerful newspaper and magazine publishers in West Germany, and its chief, Axel Springer. It gave examples of the company's menacing fascist politics and quoted several of its more prominent contributors.

When his flight was called, Martin Beck noted that he had read almost the whole pamphlet without difficulty. He put the pamphlet into his pocket and boarded the plane.

After an hour in the air, the plane again came down to land, this time in Prague, a city that Martin Beck had always wanted to visit. Now he had to be content with a brief glimpse, from the air, of its many towers and bridges and of the Moldau; the stopover was too short to give him time to get into the city from the airport.

His red-haired namesake in the Foreign Office had apologized for the connections between Stockholm and Budapest which were not the world's best, but Martin Beck had no objections to the delays, although he was not able to see more of Berlin and Prague than their transit lounges.

Martin Beck had never been to Budapest and when the plane had taken off again, he read through a couple of leaflets he had received from the redhead's secretary. In one dealing with the geography of Hungary, he read that Budapest had two million inhabitants. He wondered how he was going to find Alf Matsson if the man had decided to disappear in this metropolis.

In his mind he reviewed what he knew about Alf Matsson. It was not a great deal, but he wondered whether there was really anything else to know. He thought of Kollberg's comment: ‘Singularly uninteresting person.’ Why should a man like Alf Matsson want to disappear? That is, if he had disappeared of his own free will? A woman? It seemed hardly credible that he should sacrifice a well-paid position – one that he seemed to be happy with, moreover – for that reason. He was still married, of course, but perfectly free to do as he wished. He had a home, work, money and friends. It was hard to think of any plausible reason why he should voluntarily leave all that.

Martin Beck took out the copy of the personal file from the Security Division. Alf Matsson had become an object of interest to the police simply because of his many and frequent trips to places in Eastern Europe. ‘Behind the Iron Curtain,’ the redhead had said. Well, the man was a reporter, and if he preferred to undertake assignments in Eastern Europe, then that in itself wasn't so peculiar. And if he had anything on his conscience now, why should he disappear? The Security Division had consigned the case to oblivion after a routine investigation. ‘A new Wallenberg affair,’ the man at the FO had said, thinking of the famous case of a well-known Swede last seen in Budapest in 1945: ‘Spirited away by the Communists.’ ‘You see too many James Bond movies,’ Kollberg would have said if he had been there.

Martin Beck folded up the copy and put it into his briefcase. He looked out the window. It was completely dark now but the stars were out, and way down there he could see small dots of light from villages and communities and pearl strings of light where the street lamps were on.

Perhaps Matsson had started to drink, abandoning the magazine and everything else. When he sobered up again he would be broke and full of remorse and would have to make his presence known. But that didn't sound likely either. True, he drank occasionally, but not to that degree, and normally he never neglected his job.

Perhaps he had committed suicide, had an accident, fallen into the Danube and drowned or been robbed and killed. Was this more likely? Hardly. Somewhere or other, Martin Beck had read that, of all the capitals in the world, Budapest had the lowest crime rate.

Perhaps he was sitting in the hotel dining room right now, having his dinner, and Martin Beck would be able to take the plane back the next day and continue his holiday.

The signs lit up. No smoking. Please fasten your seatbelts. And then they repeated the same thing in Russian.

When the plane stopped taxiing, Martin Beck picked up his briefcase and walked the short stretch towards the airport buildings. The air was soft and warm although it was late in the evening.

He had to wait quite a long time for his only suitcase, but the passport and customs formalities were dispensed with swiftly. He went through a huge lounge, its walls lined with shops, and then out onto the steps outside the building. The airport appeared to be far outside the city. He saw no other lights except those within the area of the airport itself. As he stood there, two elderly ladies climbed into the only taxi there was on the turn-around drive in front of the steps.

Some time elapsed before the next taxi drove up, and as it took him through suburbs and dark industrial areas, Martin Beck realized he was hungry. He knew nothing about the hotel he was going to stay at – other than its name and the fact that Alf Matsson had stayed there before he had disappeared – but he hoped he would be able to get something to eat there.

The taxi drove along broad streets and around large open squares into what appeared to be the centre of the city. There were not many people about and most of the streets were empty and rather dark. For a while they went down a wide street with brightly lit store windows before continuing into narrower and darker side streets. Martin Beck had no idea whatsoever where he was in the city, but all the while he kept an eye out for the river.

The taxi stopped outside the lighted entrance of the hotel. Martin Beck leaned over and read the figure on the red meter before paying the driver. It seemed expensive, more than a hundred forints. He had forgotten what a forint was worth in his own money, but he realized that it couldn't be very much.

An elderly man, with a grey moustache, a green uniform and visored cap, opened the taxi door and took his bag. Martin Beck walked through the revolving doors behind him. The entrance hall was large and very lofty, the reception desk running at an angle across the left-hand corner of the hall. The night porter spoke English. Martin Beck gave him his passport and asked if he could have dinner. The porter indicated a glass door farther down the hall and explained that the dining room was open until midnight. Then he gave the key to the waiting elevator man who took Martin Beck's bag and preceded him into the elevator. The car creaked its way up to the first floor. The elevator man appeared to be at least as old as the elevator, and Martin Beck tried in vain to relieve him of the bag. They walked down a long corridor, turned to the left twice, and then the old man unlocked some enormous double doors and put the bag inside.

The room was over twelve feet high and very large. The mahogany furniture was dark and huge. Martin Beck opened the door to the bathroom. The bath was spacious with large, old-fashioned taps and a shower.

The windows were high and had shutters on the inside, and in front of the window alcove hung heavy white lace curtains. He opened the shutters on one side and looked out. Immediately below was a gas lamp, throwing out a yellowish-green light. Far away he could see lights, but quite a time elapsed before he realized that the river was flowing between him and the lights over there.

He opened the window and leaned out. Below, a stone balustrade and large flower urns encompassed tables and chairs. Light was streaming out onto them, and he could hear a little orchestra playing a Strauss waltz. Between the hotel and the river ran a road with trees and gas lamps, a trolley line and a broad quay, on which there were benches and big flower pots. Two bridges, one to his right and the other to the left, spanned the river.

He left the window open and went down to eat. Opening the glass doors from the hall, he came into a lobby with deep armchairs, low tables and mirrors along one wall. Two steps led up to the dining room and at the far end sat the little orchestra he had heard up in his room.

The dining room was colossal, with two huge mahogany pillars and a balcony running along three of the walls, high up under the roof. Three waiters wearing reddish-brown jackets with black lapels were standing inside the door. They bowed and greeted him in chorus, while a fourth rushed forward and directed him to a table near the window and the orchestra.

Martin Beck stared at the menu for a long time before he found the column written in German and began to read. After a while the waiter, a grey-haired man with the physiognomy of a friendly boxer, leaned over toward him and said:

‘Very gut Fischsuppe, gentleman.’

Martin Beck at once decided upon fish soup.

‘Barack?’ said the waiter.

‘What's that?’ said Martin Beck, first in German, then in English.

‘Very gut apéritif,’ said the waiter.

Martin Beck drank the apéritif called barack. Barack palinka, explained the waiter, was Hungarian apricot brandy.

He ate the fish soup, which was red and strongly spiced with paprika and was indeed very good.

He ate fillet of veal with potatoes in strong paprika sauce and he drank Czechoslovakian beer.

When he had finished his coffee, which was strong, and an additional barack, he felt very sleepy and went straight up to his room.

He shut the window and the shutters and crept into bed. It creaked. It creaked in a friendly way, he thought, and fell asleep.

8 (#ulink_5cb51d17-5406-5c72-9f6b-48e6a9dc7155)

Martin Beck was woken by a hoarse, long-drawn-out toot. As he tried to orient himself, blinking in the half-light, the toot was repeated twice. He turned over on his side and picked his wristwatch up off the night table. It was already ten to nine. The great bed creaked ceremoniously. Perhaps, he thought, it had once creaked as majestically beneath Field Marshal Conrad von Hötzendorf. The daylight was trickling through the shutters. It was already very warm in the room.