‘We … were called names,’ Kristiansson said feebly.
‘Abuse of an officer of the law,’ said Kvant emphatically.
‘And how did that happen?’
‘A man riding by on a bicycle shouted insults at us.’
Kvant was still acting the part while Kristiansson was standing saying nothing, but looking more and more uneasy.
‘And that prevented you from carrying out the orders you'd just received?’
Kvant had the answer ready. ‘In an official statement, the National Chief of Police himself said that a complaint should definitely be brought against anyone who abuses an officer, especially an officer in uniform. A policeman can't be made a laughing stock.’
‘Is that so?’ said Gunvald Larsson.
The two constables glared at him unsympathetically.
He shrugged and went on: ‘Now I grant you that the potentate you mention is famous for his official statements, but I doubt that even he could have said anything so utterly stupid, for Christ's sake. Well, how did those insults go?’
‘“Pig!”’ Kvant said.
‘And you think you didn't deserve that?’
‘Absolutely not,’ Kvant said.
Gunvald Larsson looked searchingly at Kristiansson, who shifted his weight and mumbled, ‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘Yeah,’ Kvant said. ‘And even if Siv would say …’
‘What is Siv?’ said Gunvald Larsson. ‘Is that a bus, too?’
‘My wife,’ said Kvant.
Gunvald Larsson disentangled his fingers and put his enormous hairy hands on the desk top, palms down. ‘Here's how it happened,’ he said. ‘You were parked on Karolinskavägen. You had just gotten the alert. Then a man rode by on his bicycle and shouted “Pig!” at you. You were obliged to caution him. And that's why you didn't make it to the air terminal on time.’
‘That's right,’ said Kvant.
‘Yeeaah,’ said Kristiansson.
Gunvald Larsson watched them for a long time. Finally he said in a low voice, ‘Is that true?’
No one answered. Kvant began to look apprehensive. Kristiansson nervously fingered his pistol holster with one hand, wiping the sweat off his forehead with his cap.
Gunvald Larsson remained quiet for a long time, letting the silence deepen. Suddenly he raised his arms and slammed his palms down on the table, with a smack that made the whole room shake.
‘It's a lie,’ he shouted. ‘Every single word is a lie; and you know it, too. You'd stopped at a drive-in. One of you was standing outside the car eating a hot dog. As you said, a man rode by on a bicycle and someone shouted something at you. But it wasn't the man who shouted, it was his son who was sitting in the kiddie carrier on the back of the bike. And he didn't yell “Pig!” but “Daddy, this little pig …” He is only three years old. He plays with his toes, for Christ's sake.’
Gunvald Larsson broke off abruptly.
By now Kristiansson and Kvant were as red as beets.
At long last Kristiansson mumbled indistinctly, ‘How on earth did you know?’
Gunvald Larsson looked piercingly from one to the other. ‘All right, who was eating the hot dog?’ he asked.
‘Not me,’ said Kristiansson.
‘You son of a bitch,’ Kvant whispered out of the corner of his mouth.
‘Well, let me answer the question for you,’ Gunvald Larsson said tiredly. ‘The man on the bicycle simply wouldn't let two idiots in uniform bawl him out for more than fifteen minutes for something a three-year-old happened to say. So he called here to complain and had every right to do so. Especially since there were witnesses.’
Kristiansson nodded glumly.
Kvant tried to make a final defence: ‘It's easy to hear the wrong thing when you've got your mouth full of …’
Gunvald Larsson cut him off by raising his right hand.
He pulled over his notepad, took a pencil out of his inside pocket and printed in large letters, ‘GO TO HELL!’ He tore off the page and shoved it across the desk. Kristiansson took the sheet, glanced at it, turned a deeper shade of red and gave it to Kvant.
‘I can't bear to say it one more time,’ Gunvald Larsson said.
Kristiansson and Kvant took the message and left.
Martin Beck didn't know anything about all that.
He was in his office at the South police station on Västberga Allé, working on quite different problems. He had pushed back his chair and was sitting with his legs outstretched and his feet on the lower desk drawer, which he'd drawn halfway out. He bit down on the filter tip of a newly lit Florida, thrust his hands deep into his trouser pockets and squinted out of the window. He was thinking.
Since he was a chief inspector in the National Murder Squad, it might be supposed that he was meditating on the axe murder on the south side, which was still unsolved after a week. Or on the unidentified female corpse that had been fished up from Riddarfjärden the day before. But that wasn't the case.
He was brooding over what he should buy for his dinner party that night.
At the end of May, Martin Beck had found a two-room flat on Köpmangatan and moved away from home. He and Inga had been married for eighteen years, but the marriage had been on the rocks for some time, and in January, when his daughter Ingrid had moved in with a friend, lock, stock and barrel, he'd talked to his wife about separating. At first she'd protested, but when the lease was ready, and she was faced with the facts, she accepted. Rolf, their fourteen-year-old, was her favourite, and Martin Beck suspected that she was actually pleased to be alone with the boy.
The flat was cosy and large enough, and when he'd finally arranged the few things he'd taken with him from his and Inga's home out in the dismal suburb of Bagarmossen and bought what he still needed, he'd had an attack of recklessness and invited his three best friends for dinner. Considering that, at best, his knowledge of cooking consisted of boiling eggs and brewing tea, that was reckless to say the least; he realized that now. He tried to recollect what Inga used to serve when they had company, but managed only to evoke diffuse images of hearty dishes whose preparation and ingredients were totally foreign to him.
Martin Beck lit another cigarette and thought with confusion of Sole Walewska and filet of veal à la Oscar. Not to mention cœur de filet provençale. Furthermore, there was one more detail that he hadn't taken into consideration when he extended his unpremeditated invitation. He had never seen three people with appetites so voracious as those of the forthcoming guests.
Lennart Kollberg, who was the person he worked with most closely, was both a gourmet and a gourmand; he'd had the chance to observe this the times he'd ventured down to the lunchroom. In addition, Kollberg's size indicated a strong interest in the delicacies of the table – not even an ugly knife wound in the stomach about a year earlier had been able to remedy that trait. Gun Kollberg didn't have her husband's figure, but did have a good appetite. Åsa Torell, now a colleague of his too, since she had joined the Vice Squad after graduating from the Police Academy, was a real Gargantua.
He remembered very distinctly how small, thin and spindly she'd looked a year and a half earlier, when her husband, Martin Beck's youngest assistant detective, had been shot to death on a bus by a mass murderer. She'd got over the worst now, regained her appetite and even become a little rounder. Presumably she had an astounding metabolic rate.