Excerpts

1 The man lying dead on the tidily made bed had first taken off his jacket and tie and hung them over the chair by the door. He had then unlaced his shoes, placed them under the chair and stuck his feet into a pair of black leather slippers. He had smoked three filter-tipped cigarettes and stubbed them out in the ashtray on the bedside table. Then he had lain down on his back on the bed and shot himself through the mouth. That did not look quite so tidy. His nearest neighbor was a prematurely retired army captain who had been injured in the hip during an elk hunt the previous year. He had suffered from insomnia after the accident and often sat up at night playing solitaire. He was just getting the deck of cards out when he heard the shot on the other side of the wall and he at once called the police. It was twenty to four on the morning of the seventh of March when two radio police broke the lock on the door and made their way into the apartment, inside which the man on the bed had been dead for thirty-two minutes. It did not take them long to establish the fact that the man almost certainly had committed suicide. Before returning to their car to report the death over the radio, they looked around the apartment, which in fact they should not have done. Apart from the bedroom, it consisted of a living room, kitchen, hall, bathroom and wardrobe. They could find no message or farewell letter. The only written matter visible was two words on the pad by the telephone in the living room. The two words formed a name. A name which both policemen knew well. Martin Beck. It was Ottilia's name day. Soon after eleven in the morning, Martin Beck left the South police station and went and stood in the line at the state liquor store in Karusellpian. He bought a bottle of Nutty Solera. On the way to the subway, he also bought a dozen red tulips and a can of English cheese biscuits. One of the six names his mother had been given at baptism was Ottilia and he was going out to congratulate her on her name day. The old people's home was large and very old. Much too old and inconvenient according to those who had to work there. Martin Beck's mother had moved there a year ago, not because she had been unable to manage on her own, for she was still lively and relatively fit at seventy-eight, but because she had not wanted to be a burden on her only child. So in good time she had ensured herself a place in the home and when a desirable room had become vacant, that is, when the previous occupant had died, she had got rid of most of her belongings and moved there. Since his father's death nineteen years earlier, Martin Beck had been her only support and now and again he was afflicted with pangs of conscience over not looking after her himself. Deep down, inwardly, he was grateful that she had taken things into her own hands without even asking his advice. He walked past one of the dreary small sitting rooms in which he had never seen anyone sitting, continued along the gloomy corridor and knocked on his mother's door. She looked up in surprise as he came in; she was a little deaf and had not heard his discreet tap. Her face lighting up, she put aside her book and began to get up. Martin Beck moved swiftly over to her, kissed her cheek and with gentle force pressed her down into the chair again. "Don't start dashing about for my sake," he said. He laid the flowers on her lap and placed the bottle and can of biscuits on the table. "Congratulations, Mother dear." She unwound the paper from the flowers and said: "Oh, what lovely flowers. And biscuits! And wine, or what is it? Oh, sherry. Good gracious!" She got up and, despite Martin Beck's protests, went over to a cupboard and took out a silver vase, which she filled with water from the washbasin. "I'm not so old and decrepit that I can't even use my le Excerpted from The Fire Engine that Disappeared by Per Wahloo, Sjowall All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.