sight of Rebecka, she at once thinks the girl has come to rob the bank, partly because she cannot understand what such a person would be doing in a bank, and partly because she is inflamed by the innumerable directives that have been heaped on bank employees recently. She at once sounds the alarm and begins to put money into the bag the girl has placed on the counter. What happens then? Well, instead of one of the public prosecutor's famous detectives, who have no time to bother with such futile little cases, along come two uniformed policemen in a patrol car. While one of them, according to his own words, leaps on the girl like a panther, the other manages to scatter the money all over the floor. Beyond this contribution, he also questions the cashier. From this interrogation it appears that Rebecka did not threaten the bank staff at all and that she did not demand money. The whole matter can then be called a misunderstanding. The girl behaved naïvely, but, as you know, that is no crime.’
Crasher limped over to his table, studied his papers, and with his back to the judge and jury said, ‘I ask that Rebecka Lind be released and that the charge against her be declared void. No other plea is possible, because anyone with any sense must see that she is not guilty and that there can be no question of any other verdict.’
The court's deliberations were quite brief. The result was announced in less than half an hour.
Rebecka Lind was declared free and immediately released. On the other hand, the charges were not declared void, which meant that the prosecution could appeal the verdict. Five of the jury had voted for release and two against. The judge had recommended conviction.
As they left the courtroom, Bulldozer Olsson came up to Martin Beck and Rhea and said, ‘You see? If you'd been a bit quicker, you'd have won that bottle of whisky.’
‘Are you going to appeal?’
‘No. Do you think I've nothing better to do than sit in the High Court for a whole day arguing the toss with Crasher? In a case like this?’ He rushed away.
Crasher also came up to them, limping worse than ever. ‘Thanks for coming,’ he said. ‘Not many people would have done that.’
‘I thought I understood your train of thought,’ said Martin Beck.
‘That's what's wrong,’ said Braxén. ‘Lots of people understand one's train of thought, but hardly anyone will come and support it.’
Crasher looked thoughtfully at Rhea as he snipped off the top of his cigar.
‘I had an interesting and profitable conversation with Miss … Mrs … this lady during the recess.’
‘Nielsen's her name,’ said Martin Beck. ‘Rhea Nielsen.’
‘Thank you,’ said Crasher with a certain warmth. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I don't lose a lot of cases just because of this name business. Anyhow, Mrs Nilsson should have gone in for law. She analysed the whole case in ten minutes and summarized it in a way that would have taken the public prosecutor several months, if he were bright enough to manage it at all.’
‘Mmm,’ said Martin Beck. ‘If Bulldozer wanted to appeal, he would be unlikely to lose in a higher court.’
‘Well,’ said Crasher, ‘you have to reckon with your opponent's psyche. If Bulldozer loses in the first instance, he doesn't appeal.’
‘Why not?’ said Rhea.
‘He would lose his image as a man who is so busy that he really has no time for anything. And if all prosecutors were as successful as Bulldozer usually is, then half the population of the country would be in prison.’
Rhea grimaced.
‘Thanks again,’ said Crasher and limped away.
Martin Beck watched him go with some thoughtfulness, then turned to Rhea. ‘Where do you want to go?’
‘Home.’
‘Your place or mine?’
‘Yours. It's beginning to be a long time ago.’
To be precise, long ago was four days.
Martin Beck lived in Köpmangatan in the Old City, as close to the centre of Stockholm as one could get. The building was well maintained – it even had a lift – and all but a few incorrigible snobs with villas and grand gardens and swimming pools in Saltjöbaden or Djursholm would have called it an ideal apartment. He had been in luck when he found the place, and the most extraordinary thing was that he didn't get it through cheating or bribery and corruption – in other words, the way police generally acquired privileges. This stroke of luck had in turn given him the strength to break up an unhappy marriage of eighteen years.
Then his luck ran out again. He was shot in the chest by a madman on a roof and a year later, when he was finally out of the hospital, he had truly been out in the cold, bored with work and horrified at the thought of spending the rest of his working life in a swivel chair in a carpeted office with originals by established painters on the walls.
But now that risk had been minimized. The upper echelons of the police force appeared convinced that even if he wasn't actually crazy, he was certainly impossible to work with. So Martin Beck had become head of the National Murder Squad and would remain so until that antediluvian but singularly efficient organization was abolished.
Ironically, that very efficiency had engendered some criticism of the Squad. Some said that the Squad's extraordinary success rate was due to the fact that it had too good a staff for its relatively few cases.
In addition, there were also people in high places who disliked Martin Beck personally. One of these had even let it be known that, by various unjust means, Martin Beck had persuaded Lennart Kollberg, who had been one of the best policemen in the country, to resign from the force to become a part-time revolver sorter at the Army Museum, compelling his poor wife to take on the burden of being the family breadwinner.
Martin Beck seldom became really angry, but when he heard this gibe, he came close to going up to the person in question and slugging him on the jaw. The fact was that everyone had gained from Kollberg's resignation. Kollberg himself not only escaped from a distasteful job but also managed to see his family more often, and his wife and children very much preferred seeing more of him. Another beneficiary was Benny Skacke, who took Kollberg's place and thus could hope to collect more credits towards his great purpose in life, that of becoming chief of police. And last but by no means least to benefit were certain members of the National Police Administration who, even if they were forced to admit that Kollberg was a good policeman, never could get over the fact that he was ‘troublesome’ and ‘caused complications’. When you came down to it, there was only one person who missed Kollberg, and that was Martin Beck.
When he had come out of hospital more than two years earlier, he also had problems of a more personal nature. He had felt lonely and isolated in a way he had never felt before. The case he had been given as occupational therapy had been unique in that it seemed to come straight from the world of detective stories. It concerned a locked room, and the investigation had been mystifying and the solution unsatisfactory. He had often had the feeling that it was he himself who was seated in the locked room, instead of a rather uninteresting corpse.
He had found the murderer, although Bulldozer Olsson at the subsequent trial had chosen to have the accused charged with murder in connection with a bank robbery, of which the man in question was entirely innocent – the case that Braxén had referred to earlier in the day. Martin Beck had found things a bit difficult with Bulldozer since then, as the whole affair had been so deliberately manipulated, but their relations weren't all that bad. Martin Beck was not resentful and he liked talking to Bulldozer, even if it did amuse him to put a spoke in the public prosecutor's wheel as he had done earlier that day.
But luck had come his way again – in the shape of Rhea Nielsen. When he met her, it took him only ten minutes to realize he was extremely interested, and she had made little effort to hide her interest