The building was old and had no elevator. Matsson was the top name on the list of tenants down in the entrance hall. When Martin Beck had climbed the five steep flights of stairs, he was out of breath and his heart was thumping. He waited for a moment before ringing the doorbell.
The woman who opened the door was small and fair. She was wearing slacks and a cotton-knit top and had hard lines around her mouth. Martin Beck guessed she was about thirty.
‘Come in,’ she said, holding open the door.
He recognized her voice from the telephone conversation they had had an hour earlier.
The hall of the flat was large and unfurnished except for an unpainted stool along one wall. A small boy of about two or three came out of the kitchen. He had a half-eaten roll in his hand and went straight up to Martin Beck, stood in front of him and stretched up a sticky fist.
‘Hi,’ he said.
Then he turned around and ran into the living room. The woman followed him and lifted up the boy, who with a satisfied gurgle had sat down in the room's only comfortable armchair. The boy yelled as she carried him into a neighbouring room and closed the door. She came back, sat down on the sofa and lit a cigarette.
‘You want to ask me about Alf. Has something happened to him?’
After a moment's hesitation, Martin Beck sat down on the armchair.
‘Not so far as we know. It's just that he doesn't seem to have been heard from for a couple of weeks. Neither by the magazine, nor, so far as I can make out, by you, either. You don't know where he might be?’
‘No idea. And the fact that he's not let me know anything isn't very strange in itself. He's not been here for four weeks, and before that I didn't hear from him for a month.’
Martin Beck looked towards the closed door.
‘But the boy? Doesn't he usually …’
‘He hasn't seemed especially interested in his son since we've separated,’ she said, with some bitterness. ‘He sends money to us every month. But that's only right, don't you think?’
‘Does he earn a lot on the magazine?’
‘Yes. I don't know how much, but he always had plenty of money. And he wasn't mean. I never had to go without, although he spent a lot of money on himself. In restaurants and on taxis and so on. Now I've got a job, so I earn a little myself.’
‘How long have you been divorced?’
‘We're not divorced. It's not been granted yet. But he moved out of here almost eight months ago now. He got hold of a flat then. But even before that, he was away from home so much that it hardly made any difference.’
‘But I suppose you're familiar with his habits – who he sees and where he usually goes?’
‘Not any longer. To be quite frank, I don't know what he's up to. Before, he used to hang around mostly with people from work. Journalists and the like. They used to sit around in a restaurant called the Tankard. But I don't know now. Maybe he's found some other place. Anyhow, that restaurant's moved or has been torn down, hasn't it?’
She put out her cigarette and went over to the door to listen. Then she opened it cautiously and went in. A moment later she came out and shut the door just as carefully behind her.
‘He's asleep,’ she said.
‘Nice little boy,’ said Martin Beck.
‘Yes, he's nice.’
They sat silent for a moment, and then she said, ‘But Alf was on an assignment in Budapest, wasn't he? At least, I heard that somewhere. Mightn't he have stayed there? Or have gone somewhere else?’
‘Did he used to do that? When he was away on assignments?’
‘No,’ she said hesitantly. ‘No, actually he didn't. He's not especially conscientious and he drinks a lot, but while we were together he certainly didn't neglect his work. For instance, he was awfully particular about getting his manuscripts in at the time he'd promised. When he lived here, he often sat up late at night writing to get things finished in time.’
She looked at Martin Beck. For the first time during their conversation he noticed a vague anxiety in her eyes.
‘It does seem peculiar, doesn't it? That he's never got in touch with the magazine. Supposing something really has happened to him.’
‘Have you any idea what might have happened to him?’
She shook her head.
‘No, none at all.’
‘You said before that he drinks. Does he drink a lot?’
‘Yes – sometimes, at least. Towards the end, when he lived here, he often came home drunk. If he generally ever came home at all.’
The bitter lines around her mouth had returned.
‘But didn't that affect his work?’
‘No, it didn't really. Anyhow not much. When he began working for this weekly magazine, he often got special assignments. Abroad and that kind of thing. In between, he didn't have much to do and was often free. He didn't have to be at the office much. That was when he drank. Sometimes he sat around that cafe for days on end.’
‘I see,’ said Martin Beck. ‘Can you give me the names of anyone he used to go around with?’
She gave Martin Beck the names of three journalists who were unknown to him, and he wrote them down on a taxi receipt he found in his inside pocket. She looked at him and said:
‘I thought the police always had little notebooks with black covers that they wrote everything down in. But maybe that's just in books and at the movies.’
Martin Beck got up.
‘If you hear anything from him, perhaps you'd be good enough to call me,’ she said. ‘Would you?’
‘Naturally,’ said Martin Beck.
In the hall, he asked, ‘Where did you say he was living now?’
‘On Fleminggatan. Number 34. But I didn't say.’
‘Have you got a key to the apartment?’
‘Oh, no. I haven't even been there.’
On the door was a piece of cardboard with MATSSON lettered on it in India ink. The lock was an ordinary one and caused Martin Beck no difficulties. Aware that he was overstepping his authority, he made his way into the flat. On the doormat was some mail – a few advertisements, a postcard from Madrid signed by someone called Bibban, a sports car magazine in English and an electricity bill amounting to 28:45 kronor.
The flat consisted of two large rooms, a kitchen, hall and toilet. There was no bathroom, but two large wardrobes. The air in the flat was heavy and musty.
In the largest room, facing the street, were a bed, a night table, bookshelves, a low circular table with a glass top, a desk and two chairs. On the night table stood a record player and on the shelf below, a pile of long-playing records. Martin Beck read in English on the top sleeve: Blue Monk. It meant nothing to him. On the desk were a sheaf of typing paper, a daily paper dated the twentieth of July, a taxi receipt for 6:50 kronor dated the eighteenth, a German dictionary, a magnifying glass and a stencilled information sheet from a youth club. There was a telephone too, and telephone directories and two ash trays. The drawers contained old magazines, magazine photographs, receipts, a few letters and postcards, and a number of carbon copies of manuscripts.
In the back room there was no furniture