So it had begun. They had met often, but only at her place. She owned an apartment building in Tulegatan and ran it, more and more dejectedly during the last year, as a kind of collective.
Several weeks had gone by before she had come to the Köpmangatan apartment. She had cooked dinner that evening, because good food was one of her interests. The evening had also revealed that she had certain other interests, and that their interests on that point were more or less mutual.
It had been a good evening. For Martin Beck, perhaps the most successful ever.
They had had breakfast together in the morning, Martin Beck preparing it as he watched her dress. He had seen her naked several times before, but he had a strong feeling that it would be many years before he had looked his fill. Rhea Nielsen was strong and well built. It could be said that she was rather stocky, but also that she had an unusually functional and harmonious body – just as it could be said that her features were as irregular as they were strong and individual. What he liked most of all were five widely disparate things: her uncompromising blue eyes, her flat round breasts, her large light-brown nipples, the fair patch of hair at her loins, and her feet.
Rhea had laughed hoarsely. ‘Go on looking,’ she said. ‘Sometimes it's damned good to be looked at.’ She pulled on her panties.
Soon afterwards they were breakfasting on tea and toast and marmalade. She looked thoughtful, and Martin Beck knew why. He was troubled himself.
A few minutes later, she left, saying, ‘Thanks for one hell of a nice night.’
‘Thanks yourself.’
‘I'll call you,’ said Rhea. ‘If you think too long's gone by, then call me.’ She looked thoughtful and troubled again, then thrust her feet into her red clogs and said abruptly, ‘So long then. And thanks again.’
Martin Beck was free that day. After Rhea had gone, he took a shower, put on his bathrobe and lay down on the bed. He still felt troubled. He got up and looked at himself in the mirror. It had to be admitted that he did not look forty-nine, but it also had to be admitted that he was. As far as he could see, his features hadn't altered markedly for a number of years. He was trim and tall, a man with slightly yellow skin and a broad jaw. His hair showed no signs of going grey. No receding at the temples, either.
Or was that all an illusion? Just because he wanted it to be that way?
He went back to the bed, lay down on his back and clasped his hands behind his head.
He had had the best hours of his life. At the same time, he had created a problem that appeared insoluble. It was damned good sleeping with Rhea. But what was she really like? He was not sure he wanted to put it into words, but maybe he should. What was it someone had said once in the house on Tulegatan? Half girl and half ruffian?
Stupid, but it fitted somehow.
What had it been like last night?
The best in his life. Sexually. But he hadn't had a great deal of experience in that field.
What was she like? He would have to answer. Before he got to the central question.
She had thought it was fun. She had laughed sometimes. And sometimes he had thought she was crying.
So far so good, but then his thoughts took a different turn.
It won't work.
There's too much against it.
I'm thirteen years older. We're both divorced.
We have children, and even if mine are grown up, Rolf nineteen and Ingrid soon twenty-three, hers are still pretty young.
When I'm sixty and ready to retire she'll be only forty-seven.
It won't work.
Martin Beck did not call her. The days went by, and over a week had passed since that night, when his own telephone shrilled at half-past seven in the morning.
‘Hi,’ said Rhea.
‘Hi. Thanks for last week.’
‘Same to you. Are you busy?’
‘Not at all.’
‘God, the police must be busy,’ said Rhea. ‘When do you work, by the way?’
‘My department is having a quiet time at the present. But go into town and you'll find a different story.’
‘Thanks, I know what the streets are like.’
She paused briefly, coughed hoarsely, then said, ‘Is it talking time?’
‘I suppose.’
‘Okay. I'll put in an appearance whenever you say. It'd be best at your place.’
‘Maybe we could go out and eat afterwards,’ said Martin Beck.
‘Yes,’ she said hesitantly, ‘we could. Can you eat out in clogs these days?’
‘Sure.’
‘I'll be there at seven then.’
It was an important conversation for them both, despite the brevity. Their thoughts seemed always to run along roughly the same tracks, and there was no reason to suppose they had not done so this time. More than likely they had come to similar conclusions in a matter that was of undeniable significance.
Rhea came at exactly seven o'clock. She kicked off her red clogs and stood on tiptoe to kiss him.
‘Why didn't you call me?’ she asked.
Martin Beck did not answer.
‘Because you'd finished thinking,’ she said. ‘And weren't pleased with the result?’
‘Roughly.’
‘Roughly?’
‘Exactly,’ he said.
‘So we can't move in together or marry or have any more children or any other stupid thing. Then everything would become too complicated and muddled and a good relationship would have considerable chances of going to hell. Chewed to pieces and worn through.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You're probably right. However much I'd like to deny it.’
She gazed straight at him with her strange, peering, clear blue eyes and said, ‘Do you want to deny it very much?’
‘Yes, but I won't.’
For a moment she seemed to lose control. She walked over to the window, struck aside the curtain and said something in such a muffled voice that he could not catch the words. A few seconds later she said, still without turning her head, ‘I said I love you. I love you now, and I'll probably go on loving you for quite a long time.’
Martin Beck felt bewildered. Then he went over and put his arms around her. Soon afterwards she raised her face from his chest and said, ‘What I mean is, I'm staking a claim and will go on doing so as long as both of us do. Does that make sense?’
‘Yes,’ said Martin Beck. ‘Shall we go and eat now?’
Though they seldom went out to eat, they had gone to an expensive restaurant where the headwaiter had looked at Rhea's clogs with distaste. Afterwards they had walked home and lain in the same bed, which neither of them had planned on.
Since then almost two years had gone by and Rhea Nielsen had been to Köpmangatan innumerable times. Naturally she had to some extent left her mark on the apartment, especially in the kitchen, which was wholly unrecognizable. She had also stuck a poster of Mao Tse-Tung above the bed. Martin Beck never expressed opinions on political matters and said nothing this time, either. But Rhea had said, ‘If anyone wanted to do an “At Home With …” article, you'd probably have to take it down. If you were too cowardly to leave it up.’
Martin Beck had not