The Fire Engine That Disappeared by Sjöwall Maj & Wahlöö Per

Author:Sjöwall, Maj & Wahlöö, Per [Sjöwall, Maj & Wahlöö, Per]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Thriller, Crime
ISBN: 9780007242955
Publisher: HarperPerennial
Published: 2007-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

19

Malmö is Sweden's third largest city and is very different indeed from Stockholm. It has less than a third of the number of inhabitants and sprawls over a flat plain, while Stockholm is built on a system of elevated islands. Malmö also lies 360 miles further south and is the country's port to the Continent The rhythm of life is calmer there, the atmosphere less aggressive, and even the police are said to be more friendly and attuned to society, just as the climate is milder. It often rains,' but seldom gets really cold, and long before the ice begins to thaw around Stockholm, the waves in Öresund are rippling against flat sandy shores and limestone plateaux.

Spring usually comes early, in comparison with the rest of the country, and the months of February, March and April often come as a surprise with their sun and clear views and occasional dead calm.

Saturday, the sixth of April of this year was a day like that.

The Easter school holidays had started and many people had gone away, if for no more than a weekend to look at their summer cottages and visit friends and acquaintances in the country. The leaves were not yet out, but their time was not far off and yellow spring flowers were already blooming along the roadsides.

In Industrihammen, which lies in the northeast part of the city, this particular Saturday afternoon was exceptionally still, in itself a natural phenomenon, as the area not only lies quite a long way outside the city centre, but also could hardly be described as attractive either to walkers or to people taking trips in their cars; long silent docks with drooping cranes and immobile freight cars, heaps of timber and piles of rusty iron girders, the isolated bark of some lonely watchdog inside an enclosed factory site and a few moored Danish sand-excavators, the crews of which had gone back home for Easter. Outside one of the locked warehouses stood two hundred bright blue tractors which had just come by ship from England and which would soon be delivered to purchasers in the surrounding farm districts.

Apart from the dog, the slight sounds from the oil refinery a few hundred yards further away was all that could be heard. There was a smell of crude oil too, sufficient to irritate people with sensitive noses.

Over the whole area there were only two visible human beings, a couple of small boys lying on their stomachs, fishing. They were lying close together, their legs apart, their heads hanging over the edge of the wharf. These two young men had much in common. Both were six and a half years old, both were dark-haired, brown-eyed and looked sunburned, although technically speaking it was still winter.

They had walked here from their wretched homes at the east end of the city, sheath knives in their belts and fishing lines rolled up in their pockets. Then they had run about for an hour or so among the two hundred tractors and sat on at least fifty of them.

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