The Abominable Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

hours of overtime, this one looked to be easily the youngest. In his leather jacket and shoulder belt and apparently indispensable weaponry, he looked like a parody of a policeman. An older gray-haired woman with glasses sat collapsed in a wicker chair, staring apathetically at her white wooden clogs. She was wearing a white smock and had an ugly case of varicose veins on her pale calves. The quartet was completed by a man in his thirties. He had curly black hair and was biting his knuckles in irritation. He too was wearing a white coat and wood-soled shoes.
    The air in the corridor was unpleasant and smelled of disinfectant, vomit, or medicine, or maybe all three at once. Rönn sneezed suddenly and unexpectedly and, a little late, grabbed his nose between thumb and forefinger.
    The only one to react was the policeman with the notebook. Without saying anything, he pointed to a tall door with light yellow crackled paint and a typewritten white card in a metal frame. The door was not quite closed. Rönn plucked it open without touching the handle. Inside there was another door. That one too was ajar, but opened in.
    Rönn pushed it with his foot, looked into the room and gave a start. He let go of his reddish nose and took another look, this one more systematic.
    “My, my,” he said to himself.
    Then he took a step backwards, let the outer door swing back to its former position, put on his glasses and examined the nameplate.
    “Jesus,” he said.
    The policeman had put away the black notebook and had taken out his badge instead, which he now stood fingering as if it had been a rosary or an amulet.
    Police badges were soon to be eliminated, Rönn remembered, irrationally. And with that, the long battle as to whether badges should be worn on the chest as forthright identification or hidden away in a pocket somewhere had come to a disappointing as well as surprising conclusion. They were simply done away with, replaced by ordinary ID cards, and policemen could safely go on hiding behind the anonymity of the uniform.
    “What’s your name?” he said out loud.
    “Andersson.”
    “What time did you get here?”
    The policeman looked at his wristwatch.
    “At two sixteen. Nine minutes ago. We were right in the neighborhood. At Odenplan.”
    Rönn took off his glasses and glanced at the uniformed boy, who was light green in the face and vomiting helplessly into the sink. The older patrolman followed his look.
    “He’s just a cadet,” he said under his breath. “It’s his first time out.”
    “Better give him a hand,” said Rönn. “And send out a call for five or six men from the Fifth.”
    “The emergency bus from Precinct Five, yes sir,” Anderssonsaid, looking as if he were about to salute or snap to attention or some other dumb thing.
    “Just a moment,” Rönn said. “Have you seen anything suspicious around here?”
    He hadn’t put it so awfully well perhaps, and the patrolman stared bewilderedly at the door to the sickroom.
    “Well, ah …” he said evasively.
    “Do you know who that is? The man in there?”
    “Chief Inspector Nyman, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, it is.”
    “Though you can’t hardly tell by looking.”
    “No,” Rönn said. “Not hardly.”
    Andersson went out.
    Rönn wiped the sweat from his forehead and considered what he ought to do.
    For ten seconds. Then he walked over to the pay phone and dialed Martin Beck’s home number.
    “Hi. It’s Rönn. I’m at Mount Sabbath. Come on over.”
    “Okay,” said Martin Beck.
    “Quick.”
    “Okay.”
    Rönn hung up the receiver and went back to the others. Waited. Gave his handkerchief to the cadet, who selfconsciously wiped off his mouth.
    “I’m sorry,” he said.
    “It can happen to anyone.”
    “I couldn’t help it. Is it always like this?”
    “No,” Rönn said. “I wouldn’t say that. I’ve been a policeman for twenty-one years and to be honest I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
    Then he turned to the man with