Colin Dexter - The Fire Engine That Disappeared

‘Daddy has to work,’ said Inga acidly. ‘As usual.’

Again he felt a twinge of conscience. Then he thought that they would have more fun without him, as Inga’s brother always took Martin Beck’s presence as an excuse to bring out the booze and get drunk. Inga’s brother in a sober state was certainly nothing much to write home about and drunk he was almost unbearable. He had, however, one positive feature and that was that on principle he never drank alone. Martin Beck’s thoughts continued in that direction and arrived at the conclusion that he was really doing a good deed by lying and staying at home, as his absence would force his brother-in-law to remain sober.

He had just come to this advantageous conclusion when his brother-in-law rang the doorbell, and five minutes later Martin Beck was able to begin celebrating his coveted free weekend.

It was just as successful as he had hoped. Inga had in fact left food in the freezer for him, but he went out all the same and shopped for dinner. Among other things, he bought a bottle of Grönstedts Monopole cognac and six strong beers. Then he devoted the rest of Saturday to putting down the deck of the model of the Cutty Sark, which he had not had time to touch for several weeks. For dinner he ate cold meatballs, fish roe and camembert on pumpernickel bread, and he drank two beers. He also drank some coffee and cognac and watched an old American gangster film on television. Then he got his bed ready and lay in the bathtub reading Raymond Chandler’s The Lady in the Lake, every now and again taking a sip of cognac which he had placed within reach on the toilet seat.

He felt very well and thought about neither work nor his family.

When he had finished his bath, he put on his pyjamas, switched off all the lights except the reading lamp on his desk, and went on reading and drinking cognac until he felt sleepy and dopey and went to bed.

He slept late on Sunday, then sat in his pyjamas, working on his model ship, and did not dress until afternoon. In the evening, when the family had returned, he took Rolf and Ingrid to the movies and saw a film on vampires.

It was a successful weekend and on Monday morning he felt quite rested and energetic, and at once took up the question of just who Göran Malm had actually been and what he might have had on his conscience. He spent the morning in the offices of various colleagues at the police station and paid a brief visit to the court. When he returned to relate the results of his investigations, there was no one there to tell, for they had all gone for lunch.

He called up the South police station and to his surprise was put straight through to Kollberg, who was ordinarily the first out to lunch, especially on Mondays.

‘Why aren’t you out to lunch?’

‘I was just about to go,’ said Kollberg. ‘Where are you, anyway?’

‘I’m in Melander’s room. Come over and eat here instead, then I know I’ve got you. When Melander and Rönn put in an appearance, we can take a slightly closer look at Göran Malm. If Melander can possibly drag himself away from the scene of the fire. Anyhow, I’ve found out quite a bit about Malm.’

‘Okay,’ said Kollberg. ‘I’ll just get hold of Benny and instruct him, so to speak.’

‘If that’s possible,’ he added.

Benny Skacke was their newest recruit. He had joined the Murder Squad two months earlier, to replace Åke Stenström. Stenström had been twenty-nine when he died and had been regarded as a toddler by his colleagues, especially Kollberg. Benny Skacke was two years younger. Martin Beck took out Melander’s tape recorder and as he waited for the others, he played back the tape he had borrowed from the court. He took a piece of paper and made notes as he listened.

Rönn arrived on the dot of one, and fifteen minutes later Kollberg jerked open the door and said:

‘Well, let’s have it.’

Martin Beck handed over his chair to Kollberg and placed himself by the filing cabinet.

‘It was about car thefts,’ he said. ‘And trading in stolen cars. During last year, the number of undetected car thefts rose so much that there’s reason to believe one or several large, well-organized gangs were occupied with the selling of stolen cars. And presumably also smuggling them out of the country. Malm was probably some kind of cog in the machine.’

‘A large cog or a small one?’ asked Rönn.

‘Small, I should think,’ said Martin Beck. ‘Even very small indeed.’

‘What had he done that he’d got caught?’ said Kollberg.

‘Wait a moment, and I’ll start from the beginning,’ said Martin Beck.

He took up his notes and put them down beside him on the cabinet; then he began to speak, easily and fluently.

‘At about ten o’clock on the night of the twenty-fourth of February, Göran Malm was stopped at a roadblock some two miles north of Södertälje. It was a routine traffic check and he was heading in that direction by chance. He was driving a Chevrolet Impala, 1963 model. The car seemed okay, but as it turned out that Göran Malm was not the owner, they compared the registration number with the current list of stolen cars. The number was indeed there, but according to the list belonged to a Volkswagen and not to a Chevrolet. It appears that the car was given a false number and by mistake, or by chance, it was a hot number. At the first interrogation, Malm said that he had been loaned the car by the owner, who was a friend of his. This owner’s name was Bertil Olofsson. That name was given by Malm and it was on the name plate of the car too. It turned out that this Olofsson was not unknown to the police. In actual fact, he had for some time been suspected of just this kind of car racket. A few weeks before Malm was caught, they had managed to find quite a bit of evidence against Olofsson, but then they couldn’t get hold of him. He has still not been found. Malm maintained that Olofsson had loaned the car to him because he did not need it for a while, as he was to go abroad. When the boys who suspected Olofsson, and had already begun to look for him, heard about this Malm and that the police had got him by chance, they tried to have him remanded in custody. They were convinced that Malm and Olofsson were in some way or other accomplices. When they failed—well, he wasn’t remanded in custody, as you will shortly hear—they put Gunvald, with Hammar’s gracious consent, on to tail Malm. They hoped in this way to get at Olofsson, who in his turn then might reveal the gang. If there was such a gang. And if Olofsson and Malm, in that case, belonged to it.’

Martin Beck crossed the floor and stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray.

‘Well, that’s about it,’ he said. ‘No, it’s not. The registration certificate and the licence were forged, of course, very skilfully, by the way.’

Rönn scratched his nose and said:

‘Why did they let Malm go?’

‘Insufficient evidence,’ said Martin Beck. ‘Wait till you hear it.’

He bent over the tape recorder.

‘The prosecution pleaded that Malm should be remanded in custody on suspicion of receiving. The motivation being that Malm might complicate the investigation if he was free.’

He switched on the tape recorder and let the spool run on quickly.

‘Here it is. Prosecution’s interrogation of Malm.’

P: Well, Mr Malm, you have heard my case before the court regarding this evening, that is, the twenty-fourth of February, this year. Will you now please tell us in your own words what happened?

M: Well, it was just like what you said. I was driving along the Södertälje road and there was a police car there, one of those police roadblocks, and I stopped of course and…and when the police saw the car wasn’t mine, they took me to the police station.