Val McDermid - The Man Who Went Up in Smoke

He looked at his watch. The boat would be leaving in two hours. The island was located in an area of the archipelago where transportation to and from the city was still maintained by one of the few remaining old steamers. This, thought Martin Beck, was just about the best part of their summer holiday find.

He went out into the kitchen and put the empty bottle down on the pantry floor. The pantry had already been cleared of everything that might spoil, but for safety's sake he looked around to see if he had forgotten anything before he shut the pantry door. Then he pulled the refrigerator plug out of the wall, put the ice trays in the sink and looked around the kitchen before shutting the door and going into the bedroom to pack.

Most of what he needed for himself he had already taken out to the island on the weekend he had already spent there. His wife had given him a list of things which she and the children wanted brought out, and by the time he had included everything, he had two bags full. As he also had to pick up a box of food from the supermarket, he decided to take a taxi to the boat.

There was plenty of room on board and when Martin Beck had put his bags down, he went up on deck and sat down.

The heat was trembling over the city and it was almost dead calm. The foliage in Karl XII Square had lost its freshness and the flags on the Grand Hotel were drooping. Martin Beck looked at his watch and waited impatiently for the men down there to pull in the gangplank.

When he felt the first vibrations from the engine, he got up and walked to the stern. The boat backed away from the quay and he leaned over the railing, watching the propellers whipping up the water into a whitish-green foam. The steam whistle sounded hoarsely, and as the boat began to turn toward Saltsjön, its hull shuddering, Martin Beck stood by the railing and turned his face towards the cool breeze. He suddenly felt free and untroubled; for a brief moment he seemed to relive the feeling he had had as a boy on the first day of the summer holidays.

He had dinner in the dining saloon, then went out and sat on deck again. Before approaching the jetty where he was to land, the boat passed his island, and he saw the cottage and some gaily coloured garden chairs and his wife down on the shore. She was crouching at the water's edge, and he guessed she was scrubbing potatoes. She rose and waved, but he was not certain she could see him at such a distance with the afternoon sun in her eyes.

The children came out to meet him in the rowboat. Martin Beck liked rowing, and ignoring his son's protests, he took the oars and rowed across the bay between the steamer jetty and the island. His daughter – whose name was Ingrid, but who was called Baby although she would be fifteen in a few days – sat in the stern talking about a barn dance. Rolf, who was thirteen and despised girls, was talking about a pike he had landed. Martin listened absently, enjoying the rowing.

After he had taken off his city clothes, he took a brief swim by the rock before pulling on his blue trousers and sweater. After dinner he sat chatting with his wife outside the cottage, watching the sun go down behind the islands on the other side of the mirror-smooth bay. He went to bed early, after setting out some nets with his son.

For the first time in a very long time, he fell asleep immediately.

When he woke, the sun was still low and there was dew on the grass as he padded out and sat down on a rock outside the cottage. It looked as if the day would be as fine as the previous one, but the sun had not yet begun to grow warm, and he was cold in his pyjamas. After a while he went in again and sat down on the veranda with a cup of coffee. When it was seven, he dressed and woke his son, who got up reluctantly. They rowed out and hauled in the nets, which contained nothing but a mass of seaweed and water plants. When they got back, the other two were up and breakfast was on the table.

After breakfast Martin Beck went down to the shed and began to hang up and clean the nets. It was work that tried his patience and he decided that in the future he ought to make his son responsible for providing fish for the family.

He had almost finished the last net when he heard the stutter of a motorboat behind him, and a small fishing boat rounded the point, heading straight for him. At once he recognized the man in the boat. It was Nygren, the owner of a small boatyard on the next island, and their nearest neighbour. As there was no water on the Becks' island, they fetched their drinking water from him. Nygren also had a telephone.

Nygren turned off the motor and shouted:

‘Telephone. They want you to call back as soon as possible. I wrote the number down on a slip of paper by the telephone.’

‘Didn't he say who he was?’ said Martin Beck, although he in fact already knew.

‘I wrote that down too. I've got to go out to Skärholmen now, and Elsa's in the strawberry patch, but the kitchen door's open.’

Nygren started up the motor again and, standing in the stern, headed out towards the bay. Before he vanished around the point, he raised his hand in farewell.

Martin Beck watched him for a short while. Then he went down to the jetty, untied the rowboat and began to row toward Nygren's boathouse. As he rowed he thought: Hell. To hell with Kollberg, just when I'd almost forgotten he existed!

On the pad below the wall telephone in Nygren's kitchen was written, almost illegibly: Hammar 54 10 60.

Martin Beck dialled the number and not until he was waiting for the exchange to put him through did he begin to feel real alarm.

‘Hammar speaking,’ said Hammar.

‘Well, what's happened?’

‘I'm really sorry, Martin, but I've got to ask you to come in as soon as possible. You may have to sacrifice the rest of your holiday. Well, postpone it, that is.’

Hammar was silent for a few seconds. Then he said, ‘If you will.’

‘The rest of my holiday? I haven't even had a day of it yet.’

‘Awfully sorry, Martin, but I wouldn't ask you if it wasn't necessary. Can you get in today?’

‘Today? What's happened?’

‘If you can get in today, it'd be a good thing. It's really important. I'll tell you more about it when you're here.’

‘There's a boat in an hour,’ said Martin Beck, looking out through the fly-specked window at the glittering, sunlit bay. ‘What's so important about it? Couldn't Kollberg or Melander—’

‘No. You'll have to handle this. Someone seems to have disappeared.’

When Martin Beck opened the door to his chief's room it was ten to one and he had been on holiday for exactly twenty-four hours.

Chief Inspector Hammar was a heavily-built man with a bull-neck and bushy grey hair. He sat quite still in his swivel chair, his forearms resting on the top of his desk, completely absorbed in what malicious tongues maintained was his favourite occupation: namely, doing nothing whatsoever.

‘Oh, you've arrived,’ he said sourly. ‘Just in time too. You're due at the FO in half an hour.’

‘The Foreign Office?’

‘Precisely. You're to see this man.’

Hammar was holding a calling card by one corner, between his thumb and forefinger, as if it were a piece of lettuce with a caterpillar on it. Martin Beck looked at the name. It meant nothing to him.

‘A higher-up,’ said Hammar. ‘Considers himself very close to the Minister.’ He paused slightly, then said, ‘I've never heard of the fellow either.’

Hammar was fifty-nine and had been a policeman since 1927. He did not like politicians.

‘You don't look as angry as you ought to,’ said Hammar.

Martin Beck puzzled on this for a moment. He decided that he was much too confused to be angry.

‘What is this actually all about?’