Read Online The Terrorists by Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö - Free Book Online Page A

“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 analyzed 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.

  4  
    Martin Beck lived in Köpmangatan in the Old City, as close to the middle of Stockholm as one could get. The building was well maintained—it even had an elevator—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 Homicide 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 rate of success 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-timerevolver 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 toward 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