Chapter Four

The man in the dingy raincoat shuddered. Thrusting his hands into his pockets, he strode into the headwind that gusted down Sveavägen. He didn't like this. He didn't like it at all. It had been one thing to have been a simple messenger for the man in the third-floor office, ferrying letters and oddly-shaped packages around for him. He hadn't needed to know anything about what was going on behind the scenes, and that was exactly how he'd preferred it. But now he had seen too much, far too much. He kicked himself for his own curiosity. Why had he stuck his nose in where it wasn't needed? He couldn't forget what he'd seen, and he had no idea what he was going to do about it.

He knew he couldn't incriminate himself, he didn't have the courage. He also couldn't risk the wrath of his strange and capricious master. Therefore, marching into a police station and spilling his guts was absolutely out of the question. Something had to be done, but he cringed at what the cost would be to himself.

Near Rådmansgatan station he pushed his way into a crowded bar and bought himself a whisky. This was shortly followed by another, and then another. Finally, after a fourth had found its way down to his stomach, he began to feel calmer and came up with what could be described as a plan. Swaying slightly, he wandered out of the bar and took the subway home.

Several hours later, when he woke up slumped over the Stockholm telephone directory, it took his bleary mind several moments to recall what he had being doing before falling into an alcohol-fuelled doze. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and his heart began thumping in his chest as he remembered his plan. To moisten his mouth, which felt like sandpaper, he poured himself a glass of the homemade aquavit from the bottle he kept under the sink and knocked it back. He found that this fortified him tolerably well, and with only slightly shaking hands he opened the directory and began searching for the number he needed.

It didn't take long to find what he was looking for. He was about to pick up the phone and dial when a realisation hit him. What if the call could be traced? That would put him right in it.

Grabbing a notepad, he scrawled down the number and tore out the page, before making his slightly wobbly way out the door and down the stairs. There was a public phone on the corner, just beside the grocery. He could safely call from there.

Squinting at his note in the dim light from the streetlamps, he dialled the number and held his breath. The ringing went on for a long time, until eventually a man's groggy voice answered.

"Beck here."

"Hello," he mumbled through the handkerchief he had wrapped around the mouthpiece. "Is that Inspector Martin Beck?"

"Yes. Who's this?"

"It's not important. I have some information that might be of interest to you."

"What sort of information?"

"It's about Hans Edengren."

"Who? Look, who is this? It's half past two in the morning. If this isn't important I'm going back to bed."

"Just listen to me, Inspector. It is important. It could be a matter of life and death. Edengren is mixed up in a lot of very dodgy stuff. At first I thought it was just drugs or something. But it's worse than that, much worse."

"Go on..."

"I can give you an address. Odengatan 12b. I've seen some awful things there, and I'm afraid it'll get worse. That poor soul..."

There was a click and the line went dead. He had forgotten to put more money in, and now he had been cut off. He swore viciously, then calmed himself. At least he had told the Inspector the gist of what he'd wanted to say. Hopefully the police would take the matter seriously, and his name would never be involved.

He slouched his way back up the street to his flat, had another glass of aquavit, lay down on the bed and fell fast asleep.

Meanwhile, Martin Beck stood, bewildered, staring at the phone in his hand. What had that been about? And why had the nameless caller been cut off so suddenly? He glanced at the hurried notes he'd scribbled during the short conversation, and still couldn't make much sense of it. What could possibly be going on at Odengatan 12b that the fellow had found so disturbing? Perhaps more importantly, how did he know about it to begin with? Martin Beck rubbed his forehead, feeling the beginnings of a headache.

Inga interrupted his train of thought by sticking her head around the door.

"What's happening? Why are people phoning in the middle of the night?"

Something about her tone of voice irritated Martin Beck more than he could reasonably explain.

"I don't know," he said. "Go back to sleep."

Inga gave him an injured look and went back to the bedroom. Martin Beck lay down on the sofa and pulled a blanket round his body. Lying back in the darkness he tried to make sense of the phonecall. It would probably be something to investigate in the morning, he thought. On the other hand, it could just as easily be a drunken insomniac who thought it would be fun to prank a police officer in the middle of the night. Perhaps he should look at having his number removed from the directory.

He yawned and pulled the blanket tighter around himself, hoping that sleep would soon overtake him again. For reasons he was not entirely sure of, his mind drifted back to Klara Norstedt. The dark, hopeless look in her eyes. The hints in her missing person's file that all was most certainly not well at home. He tried to picture her face again, but for some reason it kept blurring the image of the girl that Gunvald Larsson was investigating. Erika Lindström. At that very moment they were both out there, although presumably not together, wandering, homeless, easy prey for the sort of men who look for girls in such situations.

Martin Beck's eyes closed and he drifted off into an uneasy dream where he kept catching glimpses of a blonde girl as she disappeared around corners and through doors. Every time he thought he was catching up with her she eluded him again, and a phone kept ringing somewhere far away, but he could never work out where.

He woke, bleary-eyed, a few hours later, unhappily acknowledging that the disturbance in the early hours had effectively ruined his entire night's sleep. He shuffled into the kitchen and began making some coffee, looking out at the early light that was spreading over Stockholm. It looked like being another grey day. He sighed and contemplated his day's work.

Unknown to him, at that moment a man in a raincoat was hurrying up Sveavägen, his hands buried in his pockets, resolute in spite of the pounding in his head.

He stopped at a door and rang a buzzer. In a few moments he was let in and he hurried up to the third floor, where his feared employer awaited him.

The door to the street swung shut behind him. It was a perfectly ordinary door. The only thing setting it apart was its plaque, bearing the legend H. Edengren.