The Steel Spring by Per Wahlöö Read Free Book Online

attack.’
    ‘Well we’ll take him to the central unit anyway.’
    They carried the dead man to the ambulance, opened the back doors and heaved in the body. The woman wiped her forehead with the sleeve of her coat and looked about.
    ‘Have you got treatment tonight?’ she said.
    ‘Yes, at twelve.’
    ‘Good. We’ll have time for sex beforehand, just a quickie.’
    ‘Fine by me. What did you say your name was?’
    ‘I didn’t.’
    They climbed into the front of the ambulance again, the engine started and the ambulance backed off in a wide arc, its headlights sweeping across the immediate surroundings. Jensen saw there were three cars parked a little way off.
    One was a police patrol car.
    The ambulance drove off. The growl of the engine was soon drowned out by the noise of the rain, but then the siren began to wail again.
    The sound receded.
    Jensen waited until it was completely silent. Then he left the phone box and walked purposefully towards where he had seen the police car parked. He knew that model well and as long as there was petrol in the tank he’d be able to jump-start it.
    But there was no need. The car was unlocked and the key had been left in the ignition. He switched on the interior light and could see nothing special or unusual. The tank was almost full. The glove compartment contained a half-empty packet of cigarettes, a pistol and a torch. He looked at the patrol carnumber below the dashboard. As he had guessed, it belonged to the police unit stationed at the airport.
    The engine started at once. He switched on the headlights, left the airport and joined the motorway, driving moderately fast. After about twenty minutes an ambulance came speeding up behind him with its blue light flashing and its siren on. As it tried to overtake, Jensen put his foot down and had soon left it far behind. A while after that, he met an oncoming grey bus and two more ambulances. They passed so fast that he had no time to register any details.
    The rain got heavier and the visibility grew worse than ever. In one place, however, he thought he could see flickering lights in the windows of a tower block in one of the self-clearance areas. He was only three kilometres from the district where he lived when he met a roadblock improvised out of a row of lorries, parked close together and blocking the motorway.
    In the middle of the roadblock a big, crudely painted sign announced: INFECTION RISK – HELP STATION 4KM – FOLLOW ROUTE 73. Under the words was a painted arrow, pointing to the right. Jensen saw the roadblock so late that he only just had time to stop. Some earlier motorist had not been so lucky, for he saw the crushed wreck of a little car jammed between the big lorries.
    He backed away from the abandoned lorries and turned down the slip road leading off the motorway. He passed a few more signs directing people to the help station, but soon turned off route 73 on to a narrow back road.
    Inspector Jensen was entirely at home in the area, but it still took him a couple of hours to find a back way into the estate where he lived. The torrential rain made observation impossible. He parked in his usual place. Took with him the pistol,the torch and the patrol car log, which was where it should be, in the compartment under the driving seat. He locked the car, took the suitcase out of the boot and went up to his flat. Neither the lift nor the stairwell lighting was working. Nor were the lights in the flat.
    There wasn’t a sound in the entire building.
    He switched on the torch and looked round. Everything seemed untouched.
    On the floor just inside the door lay four messages, obviously posted through the letterbox. Two of them were printed, the others run off on a duplicating machine.
    The moment he bent down to pick them up, the torch went out. He shook it several times, to no avail. He didn’t have another one, nor any alternative way of getting light.
    He looked at the luminous hands on his watch. It was five past