The Steel Spring by Per Wahlöö

many were arrested?’
    ‘Only a handful. And a few others made themselves scarce.’
    ‘Where did they go?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Are you interested in politics yourself?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Do you usually vote?’
    ‘For the Accord? Yes, of course.’
    The woman shifted uneasily.
    ‘That’s not true,’ she said quietly.
    The man gave her a miserable look.
    ‘If I’m being honest, we don’t bother these days. But that’s not a crime, is it?’
    ‘No.’
    The man gave a shrug.
    ‘Why vote?’ he said. ‘It’s all beyond us, anyway.’
    Jensen closed his notebook.
    ‘So you didn’t witness any of these disturbances yourself?’
    ‘No. I only heard rumours.’
    ‘What sort of rumours?’
    ‘That lots of people got so incensed with the socialists that they beat them up.’
    ‘When?’
    ‘At demos and so on. But I expect they only got what they deserved.’
    Jensen put away his notebook and pen.
    ‘Do you know who smashed the window of the supermarket down there?’
    ‘Yes, it was the same lot as came for the children. They brokeinto the shop and took loads of stuff out to the bus. Stuff they sold in the shop, I mean.’
    The boy said something incomprehensible. The woman tried to shush him.
    ‘What’s he saying?’ asked Jensen.
    ‘He’s asking if Mister Policeman’s got a bang-bang,’ she said, blushing. ‘He means a gun.’
    ‘No, I haven’t got a gun.’
    Jensen looked at the open bag of sweets in the child’s hand and said:
    ‘Don’t forget to pay for that when things get back to normal again.’
    The man nodded.
    ‘Or there could be unpleasant consequences.’
    Jensen moved towards the door. The woman went after him and said, quiet and hesitantly:
    ‘When will things get back to normal?’
    ‘Don’t know. You’ll be safest indoors until further notice. Goodbye.’
    No one in the flat said anything more.
    Inspector Jensen left. He closed the door carefully behind him.

CHAPTER 15
    There was not much to see on the way to the Sixteenth District police station. The streets of the inner city lay empty and the whole city centre looked completely deserted. All the shops were locked and barred, as were the snack bars where the private food industry syndicates that had won contracts from the Ministry of Public Health used to serve up their scientifically composed but far from tempting set meals. The only sign of any kind of care and loving attention to detail were the names of these food outlets. They were invariably called ‘Culinary Paradise’, with subheadings such as ‘The Dainty Morsel’, ‘Chef’s Delight’ or ‘Eats and Treats’. The windows displayed fake, plastic food, and alongside them and inside the premises there were notices distributed jointly by the Ministry for Public Health and the group of companies that ran the restaurants. Most of these said ‘Chew your food well, but do not occupy your table for too long. Other citizens are waiting.’ This concise message encapsulated the primary interests of both parties. During his long period of illness Jensen had had problems with his digestion, and had only patronised such places on rare occasions. He knew, however, that the food was cooked centrally and sent out pre-portioned. A few years before, the operation had been rationalised so that all the outlets in the city served only a single daily dish, a move that had generated significant savings, that is to say, greatly improved profitability, for the conglomerateproducing the food. The standard dishes were allegedly geared to popular taste and were devised by a group of experts inside the Ministry of Public Health. A typical dish might consist of three slices of meat loaf, two baked onions, five mushy boiled potatoes, a lettuce leaf, half a tomato, some thick, flour-based sauce, a third of a litre of homogenised milk, three slices of bread or crispbread, a portion of vitamin-enriched margarine, a little tub of soft cheese, coffee in a plastic cup, and a cake. The next