The Terrorists by Sjöwall Maj & Wahlöö Per

Author:Sjöwall, Maj & Wahlöö, Per [Sjöwall, Maj & Wahlöö, Per]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, thriller, Crime
ISBN: 9780007243006
Google: a5R4uQAACAAJ
Amazon: 0007243006
Barnesnoble: 0007243006
Goodreads: 1105471
Publisher: Fourth Estate
Published: 1975-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

15

The Army Museum in Stockholm was on Riddargatan in Öster-malm, in the old barracks behind a spacious courtyard containing neatly kept and grouped old artillery pieces. It filled the whole block between Sibyllegatan and Artillerigatan. The nearest building was not very military: Hedvig Eleonora Church, which despite its fine dome was not one of the city's historic buildings, nor much to cheer about.

Nowadays there was not much to cheer about in the Army Museum either, especially since it had been revealed that part of the Security Service had been tucked away in the building, with the museum as an innocent front.

The heart of the museum was a great hall filled with ancient cannons and various old muskets, but it was not an interest in history that had brought the chief of the Murder Squad on a visit.

A fat man was sitting at a desk in a small office studying a chess problem. It was an unusually difficult one, mate in five moves, and now and again he made a note in a shorthand notebook, which he then almost immediately crossed out again. There was a possibility that this was not what he was supposed to be doing, as on the table lay a dismembered pistol and beside his chair a wooden crate full of firearms, some of them with cardboard labels that carried no information at all.

The man with the chess problem was Lennart Kollberg, Martin Beck's closest colleague during many difficult years. He had said farewell to the police force about a year before, and his resignation had caused considerable uproar and some acid comment. The fact that one of the country's best policemen – a man with a solid position of command – had resigned because he could no longer stand being a policeman had not looked so good. Stig Malm had chased through the corridors like a dog with its tongue hanging out trying to carry out the Commissioner's order that the matter not be made public.

Naturally, it got out all the same, although the newspapers, by and large, found it no more remarkable that an old policeman should resign than that a sports journalist, satiated with travel, bribes and drink, should say to hell with it all and decide to spend his time with his children watching football on TV. For Martin Beck personally, it had been a misfortune, but he'd get over it. They seldom met privately, but even so a number of tankards had been raised in either Kollberg's apartment in Skårmarbrink or Martin Beck's in Köpmangatan.

‘Hi,’ said Kollberg now, pleased to see Martin Beck but showing no overwhelming enthusiasm.

Martin Beck said nothing but thumped his old friend on the back.

‘This is quite interesting,’ said Kollberg, nodding at the crate. ‘A heap of old pistols and revolvers, mostly from various police districts. A lot of people handed in funny old popguns when Parliament made those new laws on the possession of firearms. But the ones who voluntarily brought in their arsenals were, of course, those who'd never even considered trying to shoot with them.

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