Free The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö

passport.
    Lucky.
    Thought Martin Beck, looking at the photos, which were very recent and better than those published on the front pages of the evening papers.
    Stenström looked, if anything, younger than his twenty-nine years. He had a bright, frank expression and dark-brown hair, combed back. Here, as it usually did, it looked rather unruly.
    At first he had been considered naive and mediocre by a number of colleagues, including Kollberg, whose sarcastic remarks and often condescending manner had been a continuous trial. But that was in the past Martin Beck remembered that once, while they were still housed in the old police premises out at Kristineberg, he had discussed this with Kollberg. He had said, 'Why are you always nagging the lad?'
    And Kollberg had answered, 'In order to break down his put-on self-confidence. To give him a chance to build it up new. To help turn him into a good policeman one day. To teach him to knock at doors.'
    It was conceivable that Kollberg had been right. At any rate, Stenström had improved with the years. And although he had never learned to knock at doors, he had developed into a good policeman - capable, hard-working and reasonably discerning. Outwardly, he had been an adornment to the force: a pleasant appearance, a winning manner, physically fit and a good athlete. He could almost have been used in recruiting advertisements, which was more than could be said of certain others. For instance, of Kollberg, with his arrogance and flabbiness and tendency to run to fat. Of the stoical Melander, whose appearance in no way challenged the hypothesis that the worst bores often made the best policemen. Or of the red-nosed and in all respects equally mediocre Rönn. Or of Gunvald Larsson, who could frighten anyone at all out of his wits with his colossal frame and staring eyes and who was proud of it, what is more.
    Or of himself either, for that matter, the snuffling Martin Beck. He had looked in the mirror as recently as the evening before and seen a tall, sinister figure with a lean face, wide forehead, heavy jaws and mournful grey-blue eyes.
    In addition, Stenström had had certain specialities which had been of great use to them all.
    Martin Beck thought of all this while he regarded the objects that Kollberg systematically took out of the drawers and placed on the desk.
    But now he was coldly appraising what he knew of the man whose name had been Åke Stenström. The feelings that had threatened to overwhelm him not long ago, while Hammar stood scattering truisms about him in the office at Kungsholmsgatan, were gone. The moment was past and would never recur.
    Ever since Stenström had put his cap on the hatrack and sold his uniform to an old classmate from the police school, he had worked under Martin Beck. First at Kristineberg, at the then national homicide squad which had belonged to the municipal police and functioned chiefly as a kind of emergency corps, intended to assist hard-pressed local police in the provinces.
    Later, at the turn of the year 1964-65, the police force in its entirety had been nationalized, and by degrees they had moved out here to Västberga.
    In the course of the years Kollberg had been given various assignments, and Melander had been transferred at his own request, but Stenström had been there all the time. Martin Beck had known him for more than five years, and they had worked together with innumerable investigations. During this time Stenström had learned what he knew about practical police work, and that was not a little. He had also matured, overcome most of his uncertainty and shyness, left home and in time moved in with a young woman, together with whom he said he wanted to spend the rest of his life. Shortly before this, his rather had died and his mother had moved back to Västmanland.
    Martin Beck should, therefore, know most of what there was to know about him.
    Oddly enough, he didn't know very much. True, he had all the important data and a general