Free The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö Page A

idea, presumably well-founded, of Stenström's character, his merits and Mings as a policeman, but over and above this there was little to add.
    A nice guy. Ambitious, persevering, intelligent, ready to learn. On the other hand rather shy, still a trifle childish, anything but witty, not much sense of humour on the whole. But who had?
    Perhaps he'd had a complex.
    Because of Kollberg, who used to excel in literary quotations and complicated sophisms. Because of Gunvald Larsson, who once, in fifteen seconds, had kicked in a locked door and knocked a maniac axe-murderer senseless while Stenström stood two yards away wondering what ought to be done. Because of Melander, whose face never gave anything away and who never forgot anything he had once seen, read or heard.
    Well, who wouldn't get a complex from that sort of thing?
    Why did he know so litde? Because he had not been sufficiently observant? Or because there was nothing to know?
    Martin Beck massaged his scalp with his fingertips and studied what Kollberg had laid on the desk.
    There had been a pedantic trait in Stenström, for instance this fad that his watch must show the correct time to the very second, and it was also reflected in the meticulous tidiness on and in his desk.
    Papers, papers and more papers. Copies of reports, notes, minutes of court proceedings, stencilled instructions and reprints of legal texts. All in neady arranged bundles.
    The most personal things were a box of matches and an unopened pack of chewing gum. Since Stenström neither smoked nor was addicted to excessive chewing, he had presumably kept these objects so that he could offer some form of service to people who came there to be questioned or perhaps just to sit and chat.
    Kollberg sighed deeply and said, 'If I had been the one sitting in that bus, you and Stenström would have been rummaging through my drawers just now. It would have given you a hell of a lot more trouble than this. You'd probably have made finds that would have blackened my memory.'
    Martin Beck could well imagine what Kollberg's drawers looked like but refrained from comment.
    'This couldn't blacken anyone's memory,' Kollberg said.
    Again Martin Beck made no reply. They went through the papers in silence, quickly and thoroughly. There was nothing that they could not immediately identify or place in its natural context. All notes and all documents were connected with investigations that Stenström had been working on and that they knew all about
    At last there was only one thing left. A brown envelope in quarto size. It was sealed and rather fat
    'What do you think this can be?' Kollberg said.
    'Open it and see.'
    Kollberg turned the envelope all ways. 'He seems to have sealed it up very carefully. Look at these strips of tape.'
    He shrugged, took the paper knife from the pen tray and resolutely slit open the envelope.
    'Hm-m,' Kollberg said. 'I didn't know that Stenström was a photographer.'
    He glanced through the sheaf of photographs and then spread them out in front of him.
    'And I would never have thought he had interests like this.'
    'It's his fiancee,' said Martin Beck tonelessly.
    'Yes, but all the same, I would never have dreamed he had such far-out tastes.'
    Martin Beck looked at the photographs, dutifully and with the unpleasant feeling he always had when he was more or less forced to intrude on anything to do with other people's private lives. This reaction was spontaneous and innate, and not even after twenty-three years as a policeman had he learned to master it.
    Kollberg was not troubled by any such scruples. Moreover, he was a sensualist.
    'By God, she's quite a dish,' he said appreciatively and with great emphasis.
    He went on studying the pictures.
    'She can stand on her hands too,' he said. 'I wouldn't have imagined that she looked like that.'
    'But you've seen her before.'
    'Yes, dressed. This is an entirely different matter.'
    Kollberg was right, but Martin Beck preferred to say no more.
    His only