The Terrorists by Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö

“That’ll be fine. You’re the boss anyhow, so do as you please.”
    They could hear voices and noises outside and Pärsson went into the kitchen to look out the window. “Those damned reporters,” he said. “They’re like vultures. I’d better go out and talk to them.” He walked toward the front door with dignified posture and serious face.
    “You could look around a little,” said Martin Beck to Skacke.
    Skacke nodded, went over to the bookcase and began to study the titles.
    Martin Beck went up the stairs, which led into a large square room with wall-to-wall white carpeting. The furniture consisted of eight bulging armchairs in light-colored leather in a circle around a huge circular glass-topped table. There was a very complex and evidently very expensive stereo setup against one wall and white-painted loudspeakers on shelves in each corner. The ceiling was angled and the view through the large window facing out over the back of the house was rural and peaceful, with the shifting green of the forest beyond the wide field.
    There was only one door in the room, and that was closed. Martin Beck could hear the murmur of voices through it. He knocked and went in.
    Two women were sitting on a double bed with a white coverletof some furlike material. They fell silent and looked up at him as he stood in the doorway.
    One of the women was heavily built and considerably taller than the other. She had powerful features, dark eyes, and her hair was parted in the center and hung straight and glossy down her back. The other woman was slim and slightly angular, with lively brown eyes and very short dark hair.
    “Martin,” she said. “Hi! I didn’t know you were here.”
    Martin Beck was surprised too, and hesitated before answering. “Hi, Åsa,” he said. “I didn’t know you were here, either. Pärsson said he had a man up here.”
    “Oh,” said Åsa Torell, “he calls everyone his men, even if they’re women.”
    She turned back to the other woman. “Maud, this is Chief Inspector Beck. He’s the head of the National Homicide Squad.”
    The woman nodded at Martin Beck, who nodded back. He had not really collected himself after the sudden meeting with Åsa. Five years earlier he had almost been in love with her.
    He had met her eight years ago, when her fiancé and his youngest colleague, Åke Stenström, had been shot dead, together with eight other people in a bus. Åsa had mourned Åke for a long time and had eventually decided to join the police. She was an assistant to Pärsson in Märsta now.
    One summer night in Malmö, five years earlier, Martin Beck and Åsa had slept together. It had been a good night, and had never been repeated. He was glad now. Åsa was a sweet girl and their relationship was good and friendly whenever they met on duty, but after Rhea it was impossible for him to have sexual feelings for any other woman. Åsa was still unmarried, apparently wholly absorbed in her job, and she had become a very skillful policewoman.
    “Go down to Pärsson, will you,” said Martin Beck. “He’s sure to need you down there.”
    Åsa nodded cheerfully and went.
    As Martin Beck knew how adept Åsa was, especially at establishing a relationship with the person she was questioning, he thought he would keep his conversation with Maud Lundin brief.
    “I imagine you’re upset and tired after what’s happened,” he said. “I won’t trouble you for long, but I’d very much like to know what your relationship to Mr. Petrus was. How long have you known each other?”
    Maud Lundin tucked her hair behind her ears and looked at him steadily. “For three years,” she said. “We met at a party and he asked me out to dinner once or twice after that. That was in the spring. In the summer he was going to start filming, and he gave me a job in makeup. We went on meeting.”
    “But you aren’t working for him now?” asked Martin Beck. “How long did you work for him?”
    “Only on that one film. Then it