Bulldozer Olsson now rose to give his summation.

Rhea observed him through half-dosed eyes. Apart from his hopeless clothes, he was a man who radiated enormous self-confidence and an intense interest in what he was doing. He had seen through Crasher's line of defence, but he was not going to let his actions be influenced by it Instead, he expressed himself simply and briefly and stuck to his previous line of argument He puffed out his chest - in fact mostly stomach - looked down at his unpolished brown shoes and began in a silky voice.

'I wish to limit my summation to a repet.i.tion of proven facts. Rebecka Lind went into the PK Bank, armed with a knife and equipped with a capacious shoulder bag in which she intended to put her booty. Long experience with bank robberies of the simpler variety - in fact there have been hundreds during this last year - convinces me that Rebecka was behaving according to a pattern although her lack of experience caused her to be immediately apprehended. I personally feel sorry for the accused, who while so young has allowed herself to be beguiled into committing such a serious crime. All the same, my regard for the law obliges me to demand unconditional imprisonment. The evidence that has been produced in this court is incontestable: No amount of argument can undo it'

Bulldozer fingered his tie, then concluded: 'I therefore submit my case for the approval of the court.'

'Is counsel for the defence prepared for his summation?' asked the judge.

Crasher was apparently not in the least prepared. He shuffled his papers together unsorted, regarded his unlit cigar for a moment, then put it into his pocket. He looked round the courtroom, staring curiously at each person in turn, as if he had never seen any of them before. Then he rose and limped back and forth in front of the judge.

Finally he said, 'As I have already pointed out, this young lady who has been placed on the accused's bench, or perhaps I should say chair, is innocent, and a speech in her defence is largely unnecessary. Nevertheless, I shall say a few words.'

Everyone wondered nervously what Crasher might mean by 'a few words'.

Crasher unb.u.t.toned his jacket, belched with relief, thrust out his stomach and said, 'As counsel for the prosecution has pointed out, a great many bank robberies occur in this country. The wide publicity they are given, as well as the often spectacular attempts of the police to stop them, have not only made the public prosecutor a famous man but have also caused a general hysteria.'

Crasher paused and stood for a moment with his eyes on the floor, presumably trying to concentrate, then resumed.

'Rebecka Lind has not had much help or joy from society. Neither school, nor her own parents, nor the older generation in general have on the whole offered her support or encouragement. That she has not bothered to involve herself in the present system of government cannot be blamed on her. When, in contrast to many other young people, she tries to get work, she is told that there is none. I am tempted here to go into the reasons why there is no work for the younger generation, but I shall abstain.

'At any rate, when she finally finds herself in a difficult situation, she turns to a bank. She has not the slightest idea of how a bank works, and is led to the mistaken conclusion that the PK Bank is less capitalistic, or that it is actually owned by the people.

'When the bank cashier catches 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 naively, 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 Braxen. '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 a.n.a.lysed 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 Kopmangatan 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 sn.o.bs with villas and grand gardens and swimming pools in Saltjobaden 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 Braxen 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 in him. Perhaps most meaningful to him, at least at first, was that he had made contact with not only a human being who had at once understood what he meant, but also one whose own intentions and unspoken questions had been quite clear, without misunderstandings or complications.

So it had begun. They had met often, but only at her place. She owned an apartment building in Tulegatan and ran it, more and more dejectedly during the last year, as a kind of collective.

Several weeks had gone by before she had come to the Kopmangatan apartment. She had cooked dinner that evening, because good food was one of her interests. The evening had also revealed that she had certain other interests, and that their interests on that point were more or less mutual.

It had been a good evening. For Martin Beck, perhaps the most successful ever.

They had had breakfast together in the morning, Martin Beck preparing it as he watched her dress. He had seen her naked several times before, but he had a strong feeling that it would be many years before he had looked his fill. Rhea Nielsen was strong and well built It could be said-that she was rather stocky, but also that she had an unusually functional and harmonious body - just as it could be said that her features were as irregular as they were strong and individual. What he liked most of all were five widely disparate things: her uncompromising blue eyes, her flat round b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her large light-brown nipples, the fair patch of hair at her loins, and her feet Rhea had laughed hoa.r.s.ely. 'Go on looking,' she said. 'Sometimes it's d.a.m.ned good to be looked at' She pulled on her panties.

Soon afterwards they were breakfasting on tea and toast and marmalade. She looked thoughtful, and Martin Beck knew why. He was troubled himself.

A few minutes later, she left, saying, 'Thanks for one h.e.l.l of a nice night'

'Thanks yourself.'

'I'll call you,' said Rhea. 'If you think too long's gone by, then call me.' She looked thoughtful and troubled again, then thrust her feet into her red clogs and said abruptly, 'So long then. And thanks again.'

Martin Beck was free that day. After Rhea had gone, he took a shower, put on his bathrobe and lay down on the bed. He still felt troubled. He got up and looked at himself in the mirror. It had to be admitted that he did not look forty-nine, but it also had to be admitted that he was. As far as he could see, his features hadn't altered markedly for a number of years. He was trim and tall, a man with slightly yellow skin and a broad jaw. His hair showed no signs of going grey. No receding at the temples, either.

Or was that all an illusion? Just because he wanted it to be that way?

He went back to the bed, lay down on his back and clasped his hands behind his head.

He had had the best hours of his life. At the same time, he had created a problem that appeared insoluble. It was d.a.m.ned good sleeping with Rhea. But what was she really like? He was not sure he wanted to put it into words, but maybe he should. What was it someone had said once in the house on Tulegatan? Half girl and half ruffian?

Stupid, but it fitted somehow.

What had it been like last night?

The best in his life. s.e.xually. But he hadn't had a great deal of experience in that field.

What was she like? He would have to answer. Before he got to the central question.

She had thought it was fun. She had laughed sometimes. And sometimes he had thought she was crying.

So far so good, but then his thoughts took a different turn.

It won't work.

There's too much against it I'm thirteen years older. We're both divorced.

We have children, and even if mine are grown up, Rolf nineteen and Ingrid soon twenty-three, hers are still pretty young.

When I'm sixty and ready to retire she'll be only forty-seven.

It won't work.

Martin Beck did not call her. The days went by, and over a week had pa.s.sed since that night, when his own telephone shrilled at half-past seven in the morning.

'Hi,' said Rhea.

'Hi. Thanks for last week.'

'Same to you. Are you busy?'

'Not at all.'

'G.o.d, the police must be busy,' said Rhea. 'When do you work, by the way?'

'My department is having a quiet time at the present. But go into town and you'll find a different story.' 'Thanks, I know what the streets are like.'

She paused briefly, coughed hoa.r.s.ely, then said, 'Is it talking time?'

'I suppose.'

'Okay. I'll put in an appearance whenever you say. It'd be best at your place.'

'Maybe we could go out and eat afterwards,' said Martin Beck. 'Yes,' she said hesitantly, 'we could. Can you eat out in clogs these days?' 'Sure.'

'I'll be there at seven then.'

It was an important conversation for them both, despite the brevity. Their thoughts seemed always to run along roughly the same tracks, and there was no reason to suppose they had not done so this time. More than likely they had come to similar conclusions in a matter that was of undeniable significance.

Rhea came at exactly seven o'clock. She kicked off her red clogs and stood on tiptoe to kiss him.

'Why didn't you call me?' she asked.

Martin Beck did not answer.

'Because you'd finished thinking,' she said. 'And weren't pleased with the result?' 'Roughly.' 'Roughly?' 'Exactly,' he said.

'So we can't move in together or marry or have any more children or any other stupid thing. Then everything would become too complicated and muddled and a good relationship would have considerable chances of going to h.e.l.l. Chewed to pieces and worn through.'

'Yes,' he said. 'You're probably right However much I'd like to deny it'

She gazed straight at him with her strange, peering, clear blue eyes and said, 'Do you want to deny it very much?' 'Yes, but I won't'

For a moment she seemed to lose control. She walked over to the window, struck aside the curtain and said something in such a m.u.f.fled voice that he could not catch the words. A few seconds later she said, still without turning her head, 'I said I love you. I love you now, and I'll probably go on loving you for quite a long time.'

Martin Beck felt bewildered. Then he went over and put his arms around her. Soon afterwards she raised her face from his chest and said, 'What I mean is, I'm staking a claim and will go on doing so as long as both of us do. Does that make sense?

'Yes,' said Martin Beck. 'Shall we go and eat now?'

Though they seldom went out to eat, they had gone to an expensive restaurant where the headwaiter had looked at Rhea's clogs with distaste. Afterwards they had walked home and lain in the same bed, which neither of them had planned on.

Since then almost two years had gone by and Rhea Nielsen had been to Kopmangatan innumerable times. Naturally she had to some extent left her mark on the apartment, especially in the kitchen, which was wholly unrecognizable. She had also stuck a poster of Mao Tse-Tung above the bed. Martin Beck never expressed opinions on political matters and said nothing this time, either. But Rhea had said, 'If anyone wanted to do an "At Home With..." article, you'd probably have to take it down. If you were too cowardly to leave it up.'

Martin Beck had not answered, but the thought of the tremendous dismay the poster would cause in certain circles decided him at once to leave it there.

When they went into Martin Beck's apartment on the fifth of June, 1974, Rhea began at once to take off her sandals.

'These d.a.m.ned straps rub,' she said. 'But they'll be all right in a week or two.' She flung the sandals aside. 'What a relief,' she said. 'You did a good job today. How many policemen would have agreed to testify and answer those questions?'

Martin Beck continued to say nothing.

'Not one,' said Rhea. 'And what you said turned the whole case. I could tell right away.' She studied her feet and said, 'Pretty sandals, but they rub like h.e.l.l. It's nice to get them off.'

'Take everything else off if you like it,' said Martin Beck. He had known this woman long enough to know exactly how the situation might develop. Either she would immediately fling off all her clothes, or she would start talking about something completely different.

Rhea glanced at him. Sometimes her eyes looked luminous, he thought. She opened her mouth to say something and at once closed it again. Instead she flung off her shirt and jeans, and before Martin Beck had time to unb.u.t.ton his jacket, her clothes were lying on the floor and she herself lay naked on the bed.

'G.o.d, how slowly you undress,' she said, with a snort. Her mood had suddenly changed. This showed too in that she lay flat on her back almost throughout, her legs wide apart and straight up, the way she thought was the most fun, which was not to say that she always or even usually thought it was the best way.