Faceless Killers

I think he's just a solitary chimney sweep who lives contentedly with his rabbits and his aquavit. That's all."

Wallander thought for a moment. "Do you think Lövgren could have arranged a meeting with someone on that dirt road? Since the briefcase is gone."

"Maybe. I was thinking of taking a dog patrol out there."

"Do it right away," said Wallander. "Maybe we're at last getting somewhere."

Martinsson left the office. He almost collided with Hansson, who was on his way in."Do you have a minute?" he asked.Wallander nodded. "How's it going?"

"He's not talking. But he's been linked to the crime. That bitch Brolin is going to remand him today."

Wallander didn't feel like commenting on Hansson's contemptuous opinion of Anette Brolin."What do you want?" he asked.

Hansson sat down on the wooden chair near the window, looking ill at ease.

"You probably know that I play the horses a bit," he began. "By the way, the horse you recommended came last by a street. Who gave you that tip?"

Wallander vaguely recalled a remark he had made one time in Hansson's office. "It was just a joke," he said. "Go on."

"There's a chap named Erik Magnusson who often shows up at Jagersro. He bets big time, loses a bundle, and I happen to know that he works for the county council."Wallander was immediately interested."How old is he? What does he look like?"

Hansson described him. Wallander knew at once that it was the man he had met.

"There are rumours that he's in debt," said Hansson. "And gambling debts can be dangerous."

"Good," said Wallander. "That's exactly the kind of information we need."

Hansson stood up. "You never know," he said. "Gambling and drugs can sometimes have the same effect. Unless you're like me and just gamble for the fun of it."

Wallander thought about something Rydberg had said. About people who, because of a drug dependency, were capable of unlimited brutality.

"Good," he said to Hansson. "Excellent."

Hansson left the office. Wallander thought for a moment and then called Boman in Kristianstad. He was in luck and got hold of him at once.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked after Wallander had given him Hansson's news.

"Run the vacuum cleaner over him," said Wallander. "And keep an eye on her."

Boman promised to put Ellen Magnusson under surveillance.

Wallander got hold of Hansson just as he was on his way out of the station.

"Gambling debts," he said. "Who would he owe the money to?"

Hansson knew the answer. "There's a man from Tagarp who lends money," he said. "If Magnusson owes money to anybody, it would be him. He's a loan shark for a lot of the high rollers at Jagersro. And as far as I know, he's got some really unpleasant types working for him that he sends out with reminders to people who are lax with their payments.""Where can I get hold of him?"

"He's got a hardware shop in Tagarp. A short, hefty guy in his 6os.""What's his name?""Larson. But people call him the Junkman."

Wallander went back to his office. He tried to find Rydberg. Ebba, who was on the switchboard, knew where he was. He wasn't due in until 10 a.m., because he was at the hospital."Is he ill?" wondered Wallander.

"It's probably his rheumatism," said Ebba. "Haven't you noticed how he's been limping this winter?"

Wallander decided not to wait for Rydberg. He put on his coat, went out to his car, and drove to Tagarp.

The hardware shop was in the middle of the town. It was advertising a sale on wheelbarrows. The man who came out of the back room when the bell rang was indeed short and hefty. Wallander was the only person in the shop, and he decided to get right to the point. He took out his identity card. The Junkman studied it carefully but seemed totally unaffected.

"Ystad," he said. "What can the police from Ystad want with me?"

"Do you know a man named Erik Magnusson?"

The man behind the counter was much too experienced to lie.

"Could be. Why?"

"When did you first meet him?"

Wrong question, thought Wallander. It gives him the chance to retreat."I don't remember."

"But you do know him?""We have a few common interests.""Such as betting on the horses?""That's possible."

Wallander felt provoked by the man's overbearing self-confidence.

"Listen," he said. "I know that you lend money to people who can't control their gambling. Right now I'm not thinking of asking about the interest rates you charge on your loans. I don't give a damn about your involvement in an illegal money-lending operation. I want to know about something else entirely."The Junkman looked at him with curiosity.

"I want to know whether Erik Magnusson owes you money," he said. "And I want to know how much.""Nothing," replied the man.

"Nothing?" . "Not a single ore."

Dead end, thought Wallander. Hansson's lead was a dead end.

"But if you want to know, he did owe me money," said the man. "How much?""A lot. But he paid up 25,000 kronor." "When?"

The man made a swift calculation. "A little over a week ago. The Thursday before last."

Thursday, 11 January, thought Wallander. They were finally on the right track."How did he pay you?""He came over here.""In what denominations?""Thousands. Five hundreds.""Where did he have the money?""What do you mean?""In a bag? A briefcase?""In a plastic grocery bag. From I.C.A., I think." "Was he late paying?" "A little."

"What would have happened if he hadn't paid?""I would have had to send him a reminder.""Do you know how he came up with the money?"

The Junkman shrugged. At that moment a customer came into the shop.

"That's none of my business," he said. "Will there be anything else?"

"No, thanks. Not at the moment. But you may hear from me again."

Wallander went out to his car. The wind had picked up. OK, he thought. Now we've got him. Who would have thought that something good would come out of Hansson's lousy gambling? Wallander drove back to Ystad feeling as if he had won the lottery. He was on the scent of an answer.Erik Magnusson, he thought. Here we come.

CHAPTER 14

After intensive work that dragged on until late into the night of Friday, 19 January, Wallander and his colleagues were ready for battle. Björk had sat in on the long case meeting, and at Wallander's request he had let Hansson put aside work on the murder in Hageholm so he could join the Lunnarp group, as they now called themselves. Näslund was off ill again, but he rang in and said he'd be there the next day.

In spite of the weekend, the work had to continue with undiminished effort. Martinsson had returned with a dog patrol from a detailed inspection of the dirt road that led from Veberodsvagen to the back of Lövgren's stable. He had made a meticulous examination of the road, which ran for nearly two kilometres through a couple of copses, divided two pieces of pasture land as the boundary line, and then ran parallel to an almost dry creek bed. He hadn't found anything out of the ordinary, even though he came back to the station with a plastic bag full of bits and pieces. Among other things, there was a rusty wheel from a doll's pram, a greasy sheet of plastic, and an empty cigarette pack of a foreign brand. The objects would be examined, but Wallander didn't think they would produce anything of use to the investigation.

The most important decision during the meeting was that Magnusson would be placed under round-the-clock surveillance. He lived in a rented house in the old Rosengard district. Hansson reported that there were trotting races at Jagersro on Sunday, and he was assigned the surveillance during the races.

"But I'm not authorising any bets," said Björk, in a halfhearted attempt at a joke.

"I propose that we all go in," replied Hansson. "There's good odds that this murder investigation could pay off."

But it was a serious mood that prevailed in Björk's office. There was a feeling that a decisive moment was approaching.

The question that aroused the longest discussion concerned whether Magnusson should be told that they were onto him. Both Rydberg and Björk were sceptical. But Wallander thought that they had nothing to lose if Magnusson discovered that he was the object of police interest. The surveillance would be discreet, of course. But beyond that, no measures would be taken to hide the fact that he was the subject of an investigation.

"Let him get nervous," said Wallander. "If he has anything to be nervous about, then I hope we discover what it is."

It took three hours to go through all the investigative material to look for threads that could be tied to Magnusson. They found nothing, but they also found nothing to contradict the possibility that it could have been Magnusson who was in Lunnarp that night, despite his fiancee's alibi.

Now and then Wallander felt vaguely uneasy; afraid that they were going down yet another blind alley. But it was mosdy Rydberg who showed signs of doubt. Time after time he asked himself whether a lone individual could have carried out the murders.

"There was something that hinted at teamwork in that slaughterhouse," he said. "I can't get the idea out of my mind."

"There's nothing to say Magnusson didn't have an accomplice," replied Wallander. "We have to take one thing at a time."

"If he committed the murder to pay a gambling debt, he wouldn't want an accomplice," Rydberg objected."I know," said Wallander. "But we have to keep at it."

Thanks to some quick work by Martinsson, they obtained a photograph of Magnusson, which was dug up from the county council's archives. It was taken from a brochure in which the county council presented its activities to a populace that was clearly assumed to be ignorant. Björk was of the opinion that all national and municipal government bodies needed public relations teams, which when necessary could highlight the colossal significance of that institution. He thought the brochure was excellent. In any case, there was Magnusson, standing next to his yellow fork-lift truck, dressed in dazzling white overalls. He was smiling.

The police officers looked at his face and compared it with some black-and-white photos of Johannes Lövgren. One of the pictures showed Lövgren standing next to a tractor in a newly-ploughed field.

Could they be father and son? The tractor driver and the fork-lift operator? Wallander had a hard time focusing on the pictures and making them blend together. The only thing he could see was the bloody face of an old man with his nose cut off.

By n p.m. on Friday they had completed their plan of attack. Björk had left them to go to a dinner organised by the local country club.

Wallander and Rydberg were going to spend Saturday paying a visit to Ellen Magnusson in Kristianstad. Martinsson, Näslund, and Hansson would split up the surveillance of Erik Magnusson and also confront his fiancee with the alibi. Sunday would be devoted to surveillance and an additional run-through of all the investigative material. On Monday Martinsson, who had been appointed computer expert in spite of his lack of any real interest in the subject, would examine Erik Magnusson's records. Did he have other debts? Had he ever been mixed up in any kind of criminal activity before?

Wallander asked Rydberg to go over all of the material. He wanted Rydberg to do what they called a treasure hunt. He would try to match up events and individuals who appeared to have nothing in common. Were there points of contact that they had previously missed? That was what he would try to discover.

Rydberg and Wallander walked out of the station together. Wallander was suddenly aware of Rydberg's fatigue and remembered that he had been to the hospital."How are you?" he asked.

Rydberg shrugged his shoulders and mumbled something unintelligible in reply."How's your leg, I mean," said Wallander.

"Same old thing," replied Rydberg, obviously not wanting to talk about his ailments.

Wallander drove home and poured himself a glass of whisky. But he left it untouched on the coffee table and went into the bedroom to lie down. His exhaustion got the upper hand. He fell asleep at once and escaped the thoughts that were whirling around in his head.

That night he dreamed about Sten Wid£n. Together they were attending an opera in which the performers were singing in an unfamiliar language. Later, when he awoke, Wallander couldn't remember which opera it had been.

As soon as he woke up the next day he remembered something they had talked about the day before. Johannes Lövgren's will. The missing will. Rydberg had spoken with the estate administrator who had been engaged by the two surviving daughters, a lawyer who was often called on by the farmers' organisations in the area. No will existed. That meant that the two daughters would inherit all of Lövgren's hidden fortune.

Could Erik Magnusson have known that Lövgren had huge assets? Or had Lövgren kept this secret from everyone?

Wallander got out of bed intending not to let this day pass before he knew definitively whether Ellen Magnusson had given birth to Johannes Lövgren's son.

He ate a hasty breakfast and met Rydberg at the station just after 9 a.m. Martinsson, who had spent the night in a car outside Magnusson's flat in Rosengard was relieved by Näslund, and reported that absolutely nothing had happened during the night. Magnusson was in his flat. All had been quiet.

The January day was hazy. Hoarfrost covered the fields. Rydberg sat exhausted and uncommunicative in the front seat next to Wallander. They didn't say a word to each other until they were approaching Kristianstad.

At 10.30 a.m. they met Boman at the police station, and went through the transcript of the initial interview with Ellen Magnusson, which Boman had conducted himself.

"We've got nothing on her," said Boman. "We ran the vacuum cleaner over her and the people she knows. Not a thing. Her whole story fits on one sheet of paper. She has worked at the same chemist for 30 years. She belonged to a choral group for a few years but eventually quit. She takes a lot of books out of the library. She spends her holidays with a sister in Vemmenhog, never travels abroad, never buys new clothes. She's a person who, at least on the surface, lives a completely undramatic life. Her habits are regular almost to the point of pedantry. The most surprising thing is that she can stand to live this way."

Wallander thanked him for his work. "Now we'll take over," he said.They drove to Ellen Magnusson's flat.

When she opened the door, Wallander thought that Eric looked a lot like his mother. He couldn't tell whether she had been expecting them. The look in her eyes was remote, as if she were somewhere else.

Wallander looked around the living room. She asked if they wanted a cup of coffee. Rydberg declined, but Wallander said yes.

Every time Wallander stepped into someone's home, he felt as though he were looking at the front cover of a book that he had just bought. The flat, the furniture, the pictures on the walls, and the smells were the title. Now he had to start reading. But Ellen Magnusson's flat was odourless, as if uninhabited. He breathed in the smell of hopelessness, resignation. Against a background of pale wallpaper hung coloured prints of abstract motifs. The furniture crammed into the room was heavy and old-fashioned. Doilies were decoratively arranged on several mahogany drop-leaf tables. On a little shelf stood a photograph of a child sitting in front of a rosebush. Wallander noticed that the only picture of her son on display was one from his childhood. The grown man was not present at all.

Next to the living room was a small dining room. Wallander nudged the half-open door with his foot. To his amazement, one of his father's paintings hung on the wall. It was the autumn landscape without the grouse. He stood looking at it until he heard the rattie of a tray behind him. It was as if he were looking at his father's painting for the first time.

Rydberg had sat down in a chair by the window. Someday Wallander would ask him why he always sat by a window.

Where do our habits come from? he wondered. What secret factory produces our habits, both good and bad? Ellen Magnusson served him coffee. He decided he'd better begin.

"Goran Boman from the Kristianstad police was here and asked you a number of questions," he said. "Please don't be surprised if we ask you some of the same ones."

"Just don't be surprised if you get the same answers," said Ellen Magnusson.

At that moment Wallander realised that the woman sitting across from him was the mystery woman with whom Johannes Lövgren had had a child. Wallander knew it without knowing how.

In a rash moment he decided to lie his way to the truth. If he wasn't mistaken, Ellen Magnusson had had very little experience with the police. She would assume that they searched for the truth by being honest themselves. She was the one who would lie, not the police.

"Mrs Magnusson," said Wallander. "We know that Johannes Lövgren is the father of your son Erik. There's no use denying it."

She looked at him, terrified. The absent look in her eyes was suddenly gone. Now she was with them again."That's not true," she said.

A lie that begs for mercy, thought Wallander. She's going to break soon.

"Of course it's true," he said. "You and I both know it's true. If Johannes Lövgren hadn't been murdered, we would never have had to worry about asking these questions. But now we have to know. And if we don't find out now, you'll be forced to answer these questions under oath in court."

It was easier than he thought. Suddenly she cracked.

"Why do you want to know?" she shrieked. "I haven't done anything. Why can't a person be allowed to keep her secrets?"

"No-one is denying that right, " said Wallander carefully. "But when people are murdered, we have to search for those responsible. This means we have to ask questions. And we have to get answers."

Rydberg sat motionless on his chair by the window. His tired eyes watched the woman. Together they listened to her story. Wallander thought it inexpressibly dreary. Her life, as it was laid out before him, was just as hopeless as the frosty landscape he had driven through that morning.

She had been born the daughter of an elderly farming couple in Yngsjo. She had torn herself free from the land and had eventually got a job in a chemist. Johannes Lövgren had come into her life as a customer there. She told Wallander and Rydberg that they first met when he was buying bicarbonate of soda. He had returned and started to court her.

He had described himself as a lonely farmer. Not until the baby was born did she find out that he was married. Her feelings had been resigned, never angry. He had bought her silence with money, which was paid to her several times a year. But she had raised the son alone. He was hers.

"What did you think when you found out that he had been murdered?" asked Wallander when she fell silent.

"I believe in God," she said. "I believe in righteous vengeance.""Vengeance?"

"How many people did Johannes betray?" she asked. "He betrayed me, his son, his wife, and his daughters. He betrayed everyone."

And soon she will learn that her son is a murderer, thought Wallander. Will she imagine that he was an archangel who was carrying out a divine decree for vengeance? Will she be able to bear it?

He continued asking his questions. Rydberg shifted his position on the chair by the window. A bell went off in the kitchen. When they finally left, Wallander felt that he had got all the answers he needed.

He had discovered who the mystery woman was. The secret son. He knew that she was expecting money from Lövgren. But he had never shown up.

One question, however, had an unexpected answer. Ellen Magnusson didn't give any of Lövgren's money to her son. She put it into a savings account. He wouldn't inherit the money until she was gone. Perhaps she was afraid that he would gamble it away.

But Erik Magnusson knew that Johannes Lövgren was his father. He had lied about that. Did he also know that his father had a huge fortune?

Rydberg was silent during the entire interview. Just as they were about to leave, he had asked her how often she saw her son. Whether they got along well with each other. Did she know about his fiancee?

Her reply was evasive. "He's grown now," she said. "He lives his own life. But he's good about coming to visit. And of course I know that he is engaged."Now she's lying again, thought Wallander. She didn't know.

They stopped at an inn at Degeberga and ate. Rydberg seemed to have revived.

"Your interrogation was perfect," he said. "It should be used as a training exercise at the police academy."

"Still, I did he," said Wallander. "And that's not considered kosher."During the meal they discussed their strategy. Both of them agreed that they should wait for the report on Erik Magnusson's records to be compiled before they picked him up for questioning."Do you think he's the one?" asked Rydberg.

"Of course he is," replied Wallander. "Alone or with an accomplice. What do you think?""I hope you're right."

They arrived back at the police station in Ystad at 3.15 p.m. Näslund was sitting in his office, sneezing. He had been relieved by Hansson at midday. Erik Magnusson had spent the morning buying new shoes and turning in some betting slips at a tobacco shop. Then he had gone home."Does he seem on guard?" asked Wallander.

"I don't know," said Näslund. "Sometimes I think so. But then I think I'm imagining things."

Rydberg went home, and Wallander shut himself in his office. He leafed absentmindedly through a stack of papers that someone had put on his desk. He was having a hard time concentrating. Ellen Magnusson's story had made him uneasy. He imagined that his own life wasn't that different from hers. His own unstable life.

I'm going to take some time off when this is over, he thought. With all my overtime I could probably be gone for a week. I'm going to devote seven whole days to myself. Seven days like seven lean years. Then I'll emerge a new man.

He pondered whether he ought to go to one of those health spas where he could get help losing weight. But the thought depressed him. He would rather get in his car and drive south. Maybe to Paris or Amsterdam. He knew a policeman in Arnhem whom he had met once at a narcotics seminar. Maybe he could visit him.

But first we have to solve these murders, he thought. We'll do that next week. Then I'll decide where I'm going to go.

On Thursday, 25 January, Erik Magnusson was picked up by the police for questioning. Rydberg and Hansson nabbed him right outside the block of flats where he lived, while Wallander sat in the car and watched. Magnusson got into the squad car without protest. They had timed it for morning, when he was on his way to work. Since Wallander was anxious for the first interview to take place without notice, he let Magnusson call his work and give a reason for not coming in. Björk, Wallander and Rydberg were present in the room when Magnusson was interviewed. Björk and Rydberg stayed in the background while Wallander asked the questions.

During the days before Magnusson was taken to Ystad, the police had grown even more certain that he was guilty of the murders. The investigations had shown that Magnusson had huge debts. On several occasions he had just avoided being beaten up for not paying his gambling debts. Hansson had watched Magnusson wagering large sums at Jagersro. His financial situation was catastrophic.

The year before, he had been the suspect in a bank robbery at Eslov, but it had not been possible to pin the crime on him. It was also conceivable that Magnusson was mixed up in narcotics smuggling. His fiancee, who was now unemployed, had been convicted of drug-related offences on several occasions and in one instance for postal fraud. Erik Magnusson had huge debts, but at times, however, he had enormous sums of money. And his salary from the county council was tiny.

Wallander had woken early on Thursday morning feeling great tension. This day would see the final breakthrough in the investigation. The murders in Lunnarp would be solved.

The next day, Friday, 26 January he realised that he was wrong.

The assumption that Erik Magnusson was the guilty party, or at least one of them, was completely obliterated. They had indeed gone down a blind alley. On Friday afternoon they realised that Magnusson was innocent.

His alibi for the night of the murder had been corroborated by his fiancee's mother, who was visiting. Her credibility was beyond reproach. She was an elderly lady who suffered from insomnia. Erik Magnusson had snored all night long the night that Johannes and Maria Lövgren were brutally murdered.

The money with which he had paid his debt to the Junkman came from the sale of a car. Magnusson was able to produce a receipt for the Chrysler he had sold. And the buyer, a cabinetmaker in Lomma, told them that he had paid cash, with 1,000-krona and 500-krona notes.

Magnusson was also able to give a satisfactory explanation for lying about Johannes Lövgren being his father. He had done it for his mother's sake, since he thought she would want it that way. When Wallander told him that Lövgren was a wealthy man, he had looked truly astonished.In the end there was nothing left.

Björk asked whether anyone was opposed to sending Erik Magnusson home, dropping him from the case until further notice. No-one had any objections. Wallander felt a crushing guilt at having steered the entire investigation in the wrong direction. Only Rydberg seemed unaffected. He was also the one who had been the most sceptical from the beginning.

They had run aground. All that was left was a wreck. There was nothing to do but start over again.

And then the snow arrived. In the early hours of Saturday, 27 January, a violent snowstorm came in from the southwest. After a few hours, the E65 was closed. The snow fell steadily for six hours. The heavy wind made the efforts of the snowploughs futile. As fast as they scraped the snow off the roads, it would collect in drifts again. For 24 hours the police were busy preventing the mess from developing into chaos. Then the storm moved on, as quickly as it had come.

To Wallander's great delight, his daughter Linda called him few days later. She was in Malmö and had decided to enroll at a college outside Stockholm. She promised to come and see him before she left.

Wallander arranged his schedule so that he could visit his father at least three times a week. He wrote a letter to his sister in Stockholm, telling her that the home help had done wonders with their father. The confusion that had driven him out on that desolate night-time promenade towards Italy had gone. Having the woman come regularly to his house had been his salvation.

One evening, Wallander called up Anette Brolin and offered to show her around wintry Skåne. He apologised again for his behaviour. She thanked him and said yes, and the following Sunday, 4 February, he took her out to see the ancient stones at Ales Stenar and the medieval castle of Glimmingehus. They had dinner in Hammenhog at the inn, and Wallander started to think that she really had decided that he was not the man who had pulled her down onto his knee.

The weeks passed with no new breakthrough in their investigation. Martinsson and Näslund were transferred to new assignments. Wallander and Rydberg, however, were allowed to concentrate exclusively on the murders for the time being.

One cold, clear, windless day in the middle of February, Wallander was visited in his office by the Lövgrens' daughter who lived and worked in Goteborg. She had come back to Skåne to oversee the placement of a headstone on her parents' grave in Villie cemetery. Wallander told her the truth - that the police were still fumbling around for a clue. The day after her visit, he drove out to the cemetery and stood there for a long while, staring at the black headstone with the gold inscription.

The month of February was spent in broadening and deepening the investigation.

Rydberg, who was uncommunicative and was suffering terribly from the pain in his leg, did most of his work by phone, while Wallander was often out in the field. They checked every single bank in Skdne, but found no more safe-deposit boxes. Wallander talked to more than 200 people who were either relatives or acquaintances of Johannes and Maria Lövgren. He went over the bulging file of investigative material again and again, went back to points he had covered long ago, and tore apart reports, scrutinising them anew. But he found no opening.

One icy, windy day in February he picked up Sten Widén at his farm and they visited Lunnarp. Together they inspected the horse that might hold the answer, and watched the mare eat an arm load of hay. Old Nyström was at their heels wherever they went. He had been given the mare by the two daughters.

The property itself, which stood silent and closed up, had been turned over to an estate agent in Skurup for sale. Wallander stood in the wind looking at the smashed kitchen window, which had not been repaired, just boarded up with a piece of plywood. He tried to re-establish the bond with Widén that had been lost in the past years, but the racehorse trainer appeared uninterested. After Wallander had driven him home, he realised that their friendship was broken for good.

The investigation of the murder of the Somali refugee was concluded, and Rune Bergman was brought before the district court in Ystad. The courtroom was packed with people from the press. By now it had been established that it was Valfrid Ström who had fired the fatal shots. But Bergman was charged as an accessory to the murder, and the psychiatric evaluation declared him fit to be tried.

Wallander testified in court, and on several occasions he sat in and listened to Anette Brolin's submissions and cross-examination. Bergman said as little as possible. The court proceedings revealed a racist underground network in which political views similar to those of the Ku-Klux-Klan predominated. Bergman and Ström had acted on their own, but were connected to several racist organisations.

It again occurred to Wallander that a change was taking place in Sweden. He sympathised with some of the arguments against immigration that arose in conversation and in the press while the trial was in progress. Did the government and the Immigration Service have any real control over which individuals sought asylum? Over who was a refugee and who was an opportunist? Was it possible to differentiate at all? How long could the current refugee policy operate without leading to chaos? Was there an upper limit?

Wallander had made half-hearted attempts at studying the issues thoroughly. He realised that he harboured the same vague apprehension that so many other people did. Anxiety at the unknown, at the future.

At the end of February Bergman was sentenced to a long prison term. To everyone's astonishment, he did not appeal the verdict, which took effect immediately.

No more snow fell on Skåne that winter. Early one morning at the beginning of March, Anette Brolin and Wallander took a long walk out on the Falsterbo Spit. Together they watched the flocks of birds returning from the distant lands of the Southern Cross. Wallander took her hand, and she didn't pull it away, at least not at once.

He managed to lose four kilos, but he realised that he would never get back to what he had weighed before Mona had left him. Occasionally they spoke on the telephone. Wallander noticed that his jealousy was gradually fading away. And the black woman no longer visited him in his dreams.

March began. Rydberg was admitted to hospital for two weeks. At first everyone thought it was for his bad leg. But Ebba told Wallander in confidence that Rydberg was suffering from cancer. She didn't say how she knew, or what type of cancer it was. When Wallander visited Rydberg at the hospital, he told him it was only a routine checkup on his stomach. A shadow on an x-ray had revealed a possible lesion on his large intestine.

Wallander felt a burning pain inside him at the thought that Rydberg might be seriously ill. With a growing sense of hopelessness he trudged on with his investigation. One day, in a fit of rage, he threw the thick folders at the wall. The floor was covered with paper. For a long time he sat looking at the havoc. Then he crawled around sorting the material again and started from the beginning.

Somewhere there's something I'm not seeing, he thought. A connection, a detail, which is exactly the key I have to turn. But should I turn it to the right or the left?

He often called Boman in Kristianstad to complain about his plight. On his own authority, Boman had carried out intensive investigations of Nils Velander and other conceivable suspects. Nowhere did the rock crack. For two whole days Wallander sat with Lars Herdin without advancing an inch. But he still didn't want to believe that the crime would never be solved.

In the middle of March he managed to entice Anette Brolin to go to Copenhagen with him to see an opera. They had spent the night together. But when he told her that he loved her, she shied away. It was what it was. Nothing more.

On the weekend of 17 and 18 March, his daughter came to visit. She came alone, without the Kenyan medical student, and Wallander met her at the railway station. Ebba had sent a friend of hers over the day before to give his flat in Mariagatan a good clean.

Finally he felt that he had his daughter back. They took a long walk along the beach by Österleden, ate lunch at Lilla Vik, and then stayed up talking till 5 a.m. They visited Wallander's father, and he surprised them both by telling funny stories about Kurt as a child. On Monday morning he took her to the train. He seemed to have regained her trust a little.

He was back in his office, poring over the investigative material, when Rydberg came in. He sat down in the wooden chair by the window and told Wallander straight out that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Now he was going in for radiation treatment and chemotherapy, which could last for a long time and might not do any good. He wouldn't allow sympathy. He had merely come to remind Wallander about Maria Lövgren's last words. And the noose. Then he stood up, shook Wallander's hand, and left.

Wallander was left alone with his pain and his investigation. Björk thought that for the time being he ought to work alone, since the police were swamped.

Nothing happened in March. Or in April either. The reports on the status of Rydberg's health varied. Ebba was the unflagging messenger.

Early in May, Wallander went into Björk's office and suggested that someone else take over the investigation. But Björk refused. Wallander would have to continue at least until the summer holiday period was over. Then they would re-evaluate the situation.

Time after time Wallander started again. Retraced, prying and twisting at the material, trying to make it come alive. But the stones he was walking on remained cold.

At the beginning of June he traded in his Peugeot for a Nissan. On 8 June he went on holiday and drove up to Stockholm to see his daughter. Together they drove all the way to the North Cape. Herman Mboya was in Kenya but would be coming back in August.

On Monday, 9 July, Wallander was back on duty. A memo from Björk informed him that he was to continue with his investigation until Björk returned in early August. Then they would decide what to do.

He also received a message from Ebba that Rydberg was much better. The doctors might be able to control the cancer after all.

Tuesday, 10 July was a beautiful day in Ystad. At lunch-time Wallander went downtown and strolled around. He went into the electrical shop by the square and decided to buy a new stereo.

He remembered that he had some Norwegian notes in his wallet that he had forgotten to exchange. He had been carrying them around since the trip to the North Cape. He went down to the Union Bank and stood in line for the only window that was open.

He didn't recognise the woman behind the counter. It wasn't Britta-Lena Bod£n, the young woman with the good memory, or any of the other clerks he had met before. It must be a summer temp, he thought.

The man in front of him in line made a large withdrawal. Wallander wondered idly what he was going to use such a large amount of money for. While the man counted up the cash, Wallander absentmindedly read the name on the driver's licence that he had placed on the counter.

Then it was his turn, and he exchanged his Norwegian money. Behind him in the line he heard a tourist speaking Italian or Spanish.

As he emerged onto the street, an idea hit him. He stood there motionless, as if he were frozen solid by his inspiration. Then he went back inside the bank. He waited until the tourists had exchanged their money, and showed his identity card to the clerk."Britta-Lena Bodén," he said, smiling. "Is she on holiday?"

"She's probably with her parents in Simrishamn," said the teller. "She has two weeks of holiday left.""Bodén," he said. "Is that her parents' name too?"

"Her father runs a petrol station in Simrishamn. I think it's the one called Statoil nowadays."

"Thank you," said Wallander. "I just have some routine questions to ask her."

"I remember you," said the clerk. "So you haven't been able to solve that awful crime yet?""No," said Wallander. "It's terrible, isn't it?"

He practically ran back to the station, jumped into his car, and drove to Simrishamn. From Britta-Lena Bodén's father he learned that she was spending the day with friends at the beach at Sandhammaren. He searched a long time before he found her, well-hidden behind a sand dune. She was playing backgammon with her friends, and all of them gave Wallander an astonished look as he came trudging through the sand.

"I wouldn't bother you if it wasn't important," he said.

Britta-Lena Bodén seemed to grasp his serious mood and got up. She was dressed in a minuscule bathing suit, and Wallander averted his eyes. They sat down a little way from the others, so they wouldn't be disturbed.

"That day in January," said Wallander. "I want to ask you about it again. I'd like you to think back, and try to remember whether there was anyone else in the bank when Johannes Lövgren made his large withdrawal."Her memory was still excellent."No," she said. "He was alone."He knew that what she said was true.

"Keep going," he continued. "Lövgren went out the door. The door closed behind him. What happened then?"Her reply was quick and firm. "The door didn't close.""Another customer came in?""Two of them.""Did you know them?""No."The next question was crucial."Because they were foreigners?"She looked at him in astonishment."Yes. How did you know?""I didn't until now. Keep thinking.""There were two men. Quite young.""What did they want?""They wanted to change some money.""Do you remember what currency?""Dollars.""Did they speak English? Were they Americans?"

She shook her head. "Not English. I don't know what language they were speaking.""Then what happened? Try to picture it in your mind." "They came up to the counter." "Both of them?"

She thought carefully before she answered. The warm wind was ruffling her hair.

"One of them came up and put the money on the counter. I think it was 100 dollars. I asked him if he wanted to change it. He nodded.""What was the other man doing?"She thought again.

"He dropped something on the floor, which he bent over and picked up. A glove, I think."He went back a step with his questions.

"Johannes Lövgren had just left," he said. "He had received a large amount of cash which he put into his briefcase. Did he receive anything else?""He got a receipt for his money.""Which he put in the briefcase?"For the first time she was hesitant."I think so."

"If he didn't put the receipt in his briefcase, then what happened to it?" She thought again.

"There was nothing lying on the counter. I'm sure of that. Otherwise I would have picked it up." "Could it have slipped onto the floor?" "Possibly."

"And the man who bent over for the glove could have picked it up?" "Perhaps.""What was on the receipt?

"The amount. His name and address."Wallander held his breath."All that was on it? Are you sure?"

"He filled out his withdrawal slip in big letters. I know that he wrote down his address too, even though it wasn't required."

Wallander went back again. "Lövgren takes his money and leaves. In the doorway he runs into two unknown men. One of them bends down and picks up a glove, and maybe the withdrawal slip too. It says that Johannes Lövgren has just withdrawn 27,000 kronor. Is that correct?"Suddenly she understood. "Are they the ones that did it?""I don't know. Think back again."

"I exchanged the money. He put the notes in his pocket. They left.""How long did it take?""Three, four minutes. No more."

"The bank has a copy of their receipt, I suppose?" She nodded.

"I exchanged money at the bank today. I had to give my name. Did they give an address?" "Perhaps. I don't remember."

Kurt Wallander nodded. Now something was starting to spark. "Your memory is phenomenal," he said. "Did you ever see those two men again?""No. Never.""Would you recognise them?" "I think so. Maybe."

Wallander thought for a few moments. "You might have to interrupt your holiday for a few days," he said."We're supposed to drive to Oland tomorrow!"

Wallander made a decision on the spot. "I'm sorry, you can't," he said. "Maybe the next day. But not before then."

He stood up and brushed off the sand. "Be sure to tell your parents where we can reach you," he said. She stood up and got ready to rejoin her friends. "Can I tell them?" she asked.

"Invent something," he replied. "I'm sure you can do that."

Late that afternoon they found the exchange receipt in the Union Bank's files.The signature was illegible. No address was given.

Wallander was not disappointed, because now at least he understood how the whole thing might have happened. From the bank he drove straight to Rydberg's place, where he was convalescing.

Rydberg was sitting on his balcony when Wallander rang the doorbell. He had grown thin and was very pale. Together they sat on the balcony, and Wallander told him about his discovery. Rydberg nodded thoughtfully.

"You're probably right," he said when Wallander finished. "That's probably how it happened."

"The question now is how to find them," said Wallander. "Some tourists who happened to be visiting Sweden more than six months ago.

"Maybe they're still here," said Rydberg. "As refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants.""Where do I start?" asked Wallander.

"I don't know," said Rydberg. "But you'll figure out something."They sat for a couple of hours on Rydberg's balcony. In the early evening Wallander went back to his car. The stones under his feet were no longer so cold.

CHAPTER 15

Wallander would always remember the following days as the time when the chart was drawn. He started with what Britta-Lena Bodén remembered and an illegible signature. A possible scenario existed, and the last word Maria Lövgren spoke before she died was a piece of the puzzle that had finally fallen into place. He also had the oddly-knotted noose to consider.

He drew the chart. On the day he had talked with Britta-Lena Bodén in the warm sand dunes at Sandhammaren he had gone to Björk's house, interrupted his dinner, and extracted from him a promise there and then to assign Hansson and Martinsson back to the investigation, which was once again given top priority.

On Wednesday, 11 July, before the bank opened for business, they reconstructed the scene. Britta-Lena Bodén took her place behind the window, Hansson assumed the role of Lövgren, and Martinsson and Björk played the two men who came in to change their money. Wallander insisted that everything should be exactly as it was on that day six months earlier. The anxious bank manager eventually agreed to allow Britta-Lena Bodén to hand over 27,000 kronor notes of mixed, large denominations to Hansson, who had borrowed an old briefcase from Ebba.

Wallander stood to one side, watching everything. Twice he ordered them to begin again when Britta-Lena Bodén remembered some detail that didn't seem right.

Wallander set up this reconstruction in order to trigger her memory. He was hoping that she could open a door to yet another room in her exceptional memory.

When it was over, she shook her head. She had told him everything she could remember. There was nothing more she could say. Wallander asked her to postpone her journey to Oland another couple of days and then left her in an office where she could look through photographs of foreign criminals who, for one reason or another, had been caught in the net of the Swedish police. When this produced no results, she was put on a flight to Norrkoping to go through the extensive photo archives at the Immigration Service. After 18 hours spent studying countless pictures, she returned to Sturup, where Wallander himself went to meet her. The results were negative.

The next step was to link up with Interpol. The scenario of how the crime might have occurred was fed into their computers, which then made comparative studies at European headquarters. Again, nothing turned up to change the situation significantly.

While Britta-Lena Bodén was sitting puzzling over the endless rows of photographs, Wallander conducted three long interviews with Arthur Lundin, the chimney sweep from Slimminge. The drives between Lunnarp and Ystad were reconstructed, clocked, and repeated. Wallander continued to draw up his chart.

Now and then he went to see Rydberg, who sat on his balcony, weak and pale, and went over the investigation with him. Rydberg insisted that these visits were not a burden for him. But Wallander left him each time with a nagging feeling of guilt.

Anette Brolin returned from her holiday, which she had spent with her husband and children in a summerhouse in Grebbestad on the west coast. Her family came back to Ystad with her, and Wallander adopted his most formal tone when he called to report his breakthrough in the hitherto stalled investigation.

After a week of intensive activity, everything came to a standstill. Wallander stared at his chart. They were stuck again.

"We'll just have to wait," said Björk. "Interpol's dough rises slowly."

Wallander winced at the strained metaphor, but realised that Björk was right.

When Britta-Lena Bodén came back from Oland, Wallander asked the bank to give her a few more days off. He took her to the refugee camps around Ystad. They also visited the floating camps on ships in Malmö's Oil Harbour. But nowhere did she see a face that she recognised. Wallander arranged for a police artist to come down from Stockholm, but after coundess sketches, Britta-Lena Bodén was not satisfied with any of the faces the artist produced.

Wallander began to have doubts. Björk forced him to give up Martinsson and make do with Hansson as his only colleague on the case.

On Friday, 20 July, Wallander was once more ready to give up. Late in the evening he sat down and wrote a memo suggesting that the investigation be put on hold for the time being because no pertinent material that would move the case forward could be found.

He put the paper on his desk and decided to leave the decision to Björk and Anette Brolin on Monday morning.

He spent Saturday and Sunday on the Danish island of Bornholm. It was windy and rainy, and something he ate on the ferry made him ill. He spent Sunday night in bed. At regular intervals he had to get up and vomit.

When he woke on Monday morning, he was feeling better, but he was still undecided about whether to stay in bed or not. At last he got up and left the flat. A few minutes before 9 a.m. he was at the station. Since it was Ebba's birthday, they all had cake in the canteen. It was almost 10 a.m. before Wallander finally had a chance to read through his memo to Björk. He was about to deliver it when the phone rang. It was Britta-Lena Bodén.Her voice was barely a whisper."They've come back. Get here as fast as you can!""Who's come back?" asked Wallander.

"The men who changed the money. Don't you understand?"

In the corridor he ran into Norén, just come back from traffic duty."Come with me!" shouted Wallander.

"What the hell's going on?" said Norén biting into a sandwich."Don't ask. Just come!"

When they reached the bank Norén was still clutching the half-eaten sandwich. On the way over, Wallander had gone through a red light and driven over a flower bed. He left the car right in the middle of some market stalls in the square by the town hall. But still they got there too late. The two men had disappeared. Britta-Lena Bodén had been so shaken to see them again that it hadn't occurred to her to ask anyone to follow them. But she had had the presence of mind to activate the security camera.

Wallander studied the signature on the receipt. The name was again illegible, but the signature was the same. No address was given this time either.

"Good," said Wallander to Britta-Lena Bodén, who was standing in the bank manager's office, shaking. "What did you say when you left to call me?"

"That I had to go and get a stamp." "Do you think they suspected anything?" She shook her head.

"Good," Wallander repeated. "You did exactly the right thing.""Do you think you'll catch them now?" she asked."Yes," said Wallander. "This time we're going to get them."

The video tape from the camera showed two men who did not look particularly Mediterranean. One of them had short blond hair, the other was balding. The first was at once dubbed Lucia and the other Skinhead.

Britta-Lena Bodén listened to samples of recorded languages and finally decided that the men had spoken to each other in Czech or Bulgarian. The $50 note they had exchanged was immediately sent to the laboratory for examination.Björk called a meeting in his office.

"After six months they turn up again," said Wallander. "Why did they go back to the same small bank? First, because they live somewhere in the region. Second they made a lucky catch after their earlier visit. This time they weren't so lucky. The man ahead of them in line was depositing money, not making a withdrawal. But he was an old man like Johannes Lövgren. Maybe they think that old men who look like farmers always make large cash withdrawals.""Czechs?" asked Björk. "Or Bulgarians?"

"That's not positively confirmed," said Wallander. "The girl could have been mistaken. But it fits with their appearance."

They watched the video four times and decided which pictures to copy and enlarge."Every Eastern European who lives in town and the surrounding area will have to be investigated," said Björk. "It's not going to be pleasant. It will be regarded as discrimination, but we'll have to say to hell with that. They've got to be here somewhere. I'll talk to the police chiefs in Malmö and Kristianstad and see what they think we should do on the county level."

"Show the video to every police officer," said Hansson. "They might turn up on the streets."

Wallander had a vision of the slaughterhouse that had been the Lövgren's farm.

"After what they did in Lunnarp," he said, "we have to treat them as dangerous."

"If they were the ones," said Björk. "We don't know that yet.""That's true," said Wallander. "But even so."

"We're going to move into high gear now," said Björk. "Kurt is in charge and will divide up the work as he sees fit. Anything that doesn't have to be done straight away should be put aside. I'll call the prosecutor; she'll be glad to hear that something's happening."

But nothing did happen. In spite of massive police effort and the relatively small size of the town, the men had vanished.

The next few days passed without result. The two county police chiefs gave the go-ahead to implement special measures in their districts. The video tape was distributed. Wallander had doubts as to whether the pictures should be released to the press. He was afraid that the men would make themselves even scarcer. He asked for Rydberg's advice.

"You have to drive foxes out into the open," he said. "Wait a few days. But then publish the pictures."

For a long time he sat staring at the copies that Wallander had brought along.

"There's no such thing as a murderer's face," he said. "You imagine something: a profile, a hairline, a set of the jaw. But it never matches up."

On Tuesday, 31 July, ragged clouds raced across the sky, and the wind was gusting up to gale force. After waking at dawn, Wallander lay in bed for a long time and listened to the wind. When he stood on the scales in the bathroom, he saw that he had lost another kilo. This cheered him up so much that when he drove into the car park at the station he had shed the gloom he'd felt of late.

This investigation is turning into a personal defeat, he had been thinking. I'm driving my colleagues hard, we've fetched up in a dead end again. But those two men are out there, he thought angrily as he slammed the car door. Somewhere.

In the reception he stopped to chat to Ebba. There was an old-fashioned music box next to the switchboard.

"I haven't seen one of those in ages," he said. "Where did you get it?"

"I bought it at a stall in the Sjobo market," she replied. "Sometimes you can actually find something wonderful amongst all the junk."

Wallander smiled and moved on. On the way to his office he stopped to see Hansson and Martinsson and asked them to come along with him. Still no trace of Skinhead or Lucia.

"Two more days," said Wallander. "If we don't come up with something by Thursday, we'll call a press conference and release the pictures.""We should have done that right away," said Hansson.Wallander said nothing.They went over the chart again. Martinsson would go on organising the search of camping grounds where the two men might be hiding out.

"Check the youth hostels," said Wallander. "And all the rooms rented in private homes for the summer."

"It was easier in the old days," said Martinsson. "People used to stay put in the summer. Now they scatter all over the place."

Hansson would go on to looking into a number of smaller, less particular building firms that were known to hire workers from various Eastern European countries without work permits. Wallander would go out to the strawberry fields. The two men might be hiding at one of the big fruit farms.

But their searches were in vain. When they gathered again late in the afternoon, they had drawn only blanks.

"I found one Algerian pipefitter," said Hansson, "two Kurdish bricklayers and a huge number of Polish manual labourers. I feel like writing a note to Björk. If we hadn't had this damned double murder to solve, we could have cleaned up that shit. They're making the same wages as kids with summer jobs. They have no insurance. If there's an accident, the companies will say that the workers were living without permission at the sites."Martinsson had no good news either.

"I found a bald Bulgarian," he said. "With a little luck he could have been Skinhead. But he's a doctor at the clinic in Mariestad and would have no trouble producing an alibi."

It was stuffy in the room. Wallander got up and opened the window. For some reason he thought of Ebba's music box. Though he hadn't heard its tune, the music box had been playing in his subconscious all day.

"The markets," he said, turning around. "We should look there. Which market is open next?"

Both Hansson and Martinsson knew the answer. The one in Kivik."It's open today and tomorrow," said Hansson."I'll go there tomorrow," said Wallander.

"It's a big one," said Hansson. "You should take somebody with you."I can go," said Martinsson.

Hansson looked relieved to be spared the assignment. Wallander thought that there probably were races on Wednesday nights. The meeting over, they said goodbye to one another, and Hansson and Martinsson left. Wallander remained at his desk and sorted through a pile of phone messages. He arranged them in order of priority for the following day and got ready to leave. Then he caught sight of a note that had fallen under the desk. He bent to pick it up and saw that it was a message to call the director of a refugee camp.

He dialled the number. It rang ten times and he was about to hang up when someone answered.

"This is Wallander at the Ystad police. I want to speak to Mr Modin.""Speaking.""I'm returning your call.""I think I have something important to tell you."Wallander held his breath.

"It's about the two men you're looking for. I came back from holiday today. The photographs the police sent were on my desk. I recognise those two men. They lived at this camp for a while."

"I'm on my way," said Wallander. "Don't leave your office before I get there."

The camp was outside Skurup, and Wallander was there in 19 minutes. It was housed in an old vicarage, and was only used as a temporary shelter when all the permanent camps were full.

Modin, the director, was a short man, maybe 60. He was in the drive when Wallander's car skidded to a stop.

"The camp is empty at the moment," Modin said. "But we're expecting a number of Romanians next week."They went into his small office."Start at the beginning," Wallander said.

"They were here from December of last year to the middle of February," said Modin, leafing through some papers. "Then they were transferred to Malmö. To Celsius House, to be exact."

Modin pointed to the photo of Skinhead. "That one is Lothar Kraftczyk. He's a Czech seeking political asylum on the grounds that he was persecuted as a member of an ethnic minority."

"Are there minorities in Czechoslovakia?" wondered Wallander."I think he claims he is a gypsy.""Claims?"

Modin shrugged. "I don't believe he is. Refugees who know they don't have a strong enough case to be permitted to stay in Sweden quickly learn that one excellent way to improve their chances is to say that they're gypsies."

Modin picked up the photo of Lucia. "Andreas Haas. Also a Czech. I don't really know what his grounds for seeking asylum were. The paperwork went with them to Celsius House."

"And you're positive that they're the men in the photographs?""Yes. I'm sure of it.""OK," said Wallander. "Tell me more."

"About what?"

"What were they like? Did anything unusual happen while they were here? Did they have plenty of money? Anything you can remember."

"I've been trying," said Modin. "By and large they kept to themselves. You should know that life in a refugee camp is extremely stressful. I do remember that they played chess. Day in, day out.""Did they have money?""Not that I recall.""What were they like?""They kept to themselves, but they weren't unfriendly." "Anything else?"Wallander noticed that Modin hesitated."What are you thinking?" he asked.

"This is a small camp," said Modin. "I'm not here at night, and neither is anyone else. On certain days it was also unstaffed. Except for a cook to prepare the meals. Usually we keep a car here. The keys are locked in my office. But sometimes when I got here in the morning I had the feeling that someone had been in my office, taken the keys, and used the car.""And you suspected these two?"

Modin nodded. "I don't know why. It was just a feeling I had."Wallander pondered this.

"So at night no-one was here," he said. "Or on certain days either. Is that right?" "Yes."

"January the 4th to January the 6th," said Wallander. "That's more than six months ago. Is there any way of knowing whether anyone was on duty those days?"Modin paged through his desk calendar.

"I was at emergency meetings in Malmö," he said. "There was such a backlog of refugees that we had to find more temporary camps."

Wallander had goose bumps. The chart had come alive. Now it was speaking to him."So nobody was here on those days?"

"Only the cook. The kitchen is in the back so she might not have seen if anyone had driven away in the car.""None of the refugees would have said anything?"

"Refugees don't get involved. They're scared. Even of each other."Wallander stood up. Suddenly he was in a big hurry.

"Call your colleague at Celsius House and tell him I'm on my way," he said. "But don't say anything about these two men. Just make sure that the director is available."Modin stared at him."Why are you looking for them?" he asked."They may have committed a crime. A serious crime.""The murders in Lunnarp? Is that what you mean?"

Wallander saw no reason not to tell him. "Yes. I think they're the ones."

He reached Celsius House in central Malmö at a few minutes past 7 p.m. He parked on a side street and walked to the main entrance, where there was a security guard. After several minutes a man came to get him. His name was Larson, a retired seaman, and he smelled of beer.

"Haas and Kraftczyk," said Wallander when they were in Larson's office. "Two Czech asylum seekers.""The chess players," he said. "Yes, they live here."Damn it thought Wallander. We've finally got them."Are they here, in the building?""Yes," said Larson. "I mean, no.""No?"

"They live here. But they're not here.""Where the hell are they?""I really don't know.""But they do live here?""They ran away.""Ran away?""It happens all the time - people running away.""But aren't they trying to get asylum?"

"They still run away.""What do you do then?""We report them, naturally.""And then what happens?""Nothing, usually."

"Nothing? People run away who are waiting to hear whether they can stay in this country or whether they're going to be deported? And nobody cares?""I guess the police are supposed to look for them.""This is bloody ridiculous. When did they disappear?"

"They left in May. Probably they expected that their applications would be turned down.""Where do you think they went?"

Larson threw his hands wide. "If you only knew how many people lived here without residency permits. More than you can imagine. They live together, forge their papers, trade names with each other, work illegally. You can spend a lifetime in Sweden without anyone checking up on you. No-one wants to believe it. But that's the way it is."Wallander was speechless."This is crazy," he said. "This is fucking crazy.""I agree with you. But that's the way of it."Wallander groaned."I need all the documents you have on these two men." "I am not at liberty to hand those over."

"These two men have committed murder," Wallander exploded. "Double murder.""Nevertheless I can't release the papers." Wallander stood up.

"Tomorrow you're going to hand over those papers. Even if I have to get the chief of the national police to come and get them himself.""That's how it is. I can't change the regulations."

Wallander drove back to Ystad. At 8.45 p.m. he rang Björk's doorbell. Quickly he told him what had happened."Tomorrow we issue an APB for them," he said.

Björk nodded. "I'll call a press conference for 2 p.m. I have a meeting with the police chiefs in the morning, but I'll see to it that we get the papers from Celsius House."

Wallander went to see Rydberg. He was sitting in the dark on his balcony. Wallander looked at him and realised that he was in pain. Rydberg, who seemed to read his thoughts, said matter-of-factly, "I don't think I'm going to make it through this. I might live past Christmas; I might not."Wallander didn't know what to say.

"One has to endure," said Rydberg. "Tell me why you're here."

Wallander told him. Dimly he could make out Rydberg's face in the darkness. They sat in silence. The night was cool. But Rydberg didn't seem to notice as he sat there in his old dressing gown and slippers.

"Maybe they've skipped the country," said Wallander. "Maybe we'll never catch them."

"In that case, we'll have to accept that at least we know the truth," said Rydberg. "Justice doesn't only mean that the people who commit crimes are punished. It also means that we can never give up seeking the truth."

With great effort he got to his feet and fetched a bottle of cognac, and with shaking hands poured two glasses.

"Some old police officers die worrying about ancient, unsolved puzzles," he said. "I suppose that I'm one of them."

"Have you ever regretted becoming a policeman?" asked Wallander."Never. Not once."

They drank their cognac. Talked some, or sat in silence. Not until midnight did Wallander get up to leave. He promised to return the following evening. He left Rydberg where he was, sitting on the balcony in the dark.

On Wednesday morning, 1 August, Wallander briefed Hansson and Martinsson on what had happened the day before. The press conference would be in the afternoon, so they decided to check the Kivik market in the meantime. Hansson took on the job of writing the press release with Björk. Wallander said that he and Martinsson would be back not later than midday.

They went by way of Tomelilla and joined a long queue of cars just south of Kivik. They pulled in and parked in a field where an opportunistic farmer charged them 20 kronor.

It started to rain as they reached the market area, which stretched before them with a view of the sea. They stared in dismay at the mass of stalls and people. Loudspeakers were squawking, drunken youths were yelling, and they were shoved this way and that by the crowd.

"Let's try to meet somewhere in the middle," said Wallander.

"We should have brought walkie-talkies in case something happens," said Martinsson.

"Nothing's going to happen," said Wallander. "Let's meet one hour from now."

He watched Martinsson shamble off and be swallowed up by the crowd. He turned up the collar of his jacket and headed in the opposite direction.

After a little more than an hour they met again. They were soaked and exasperated with the crowds and the jostling.

"To hell with this," said Martinsson. "Let's go somewhere to have coffee."

Wallander pointed at a cabaret tent in front of them."Have you been in there?" he asked.

Martinsson grimaced. "Some tub of lard doing a striptease. The crowd screamed as if it were some kind of sexual revivalist meeting. Fuck!"

"Let's walk round the back of the tent," said Wallander. "I think there are a few stalls over there too. Then we can call it a day."

They trudged through the mud, pushing their way between a caravan and rusty tent pegs. The stalls were selling different goods, but each looked the same, their awnings pitched above red-painted metal poles.

Wallander and Martinsson saw the men at exactly the same moment. They were inside a stall, its counter covered with leather jackets. One price was displayed for all of them, and Wallander had time to think that the jackets were amazingly cheap.

The men behind the counter stared at the two police officers. Much too late Wallander realised that they had recognised him. His face had appeared so often in the newspapers and on television that it was known all over the country.

Everything happened very fast. Lucia stuck his hand under the leather jackets on the counter and pulled out a revolver. Martinsson and Wallander threw themselves to one side.

Martinsson got tangled in the guy ropes of the tent. Wallander hit his head on the back end of the caravan. Lucia aimed at Wallander. The shot could hardly be heard above the commotion from the tent where "death riders" were hurtling around on roaring motorcycles. The bullet struck the caravan, inches from Wallander's head. In the next instant he saw that Martinsson was holding his revolver.

Martinsson fired. Wallander watched Lucia fly back and put his hand up to his shoulder. The gun fell from his hand and landed outside the counter. With a bellow Martinsson yanked himself free of the guy ropes and launched himself at the counter, straight at the wounded man. The counter collapsed, and Martinsson landed in a jumble of leather jackets.

Wallander lunged forwards and grabbed the gun from the mud. He saw Skinhead dash past him into the crowd. No-one seemed to have noticed the shots. The traders in the surrounding stalls had watched in amazement as Martinsson made his ferocious tiger pounce.

"Get after him," Martinsson shouted from the heap of leather jackets. "I'll take care of this bastard."

Wallander ran. Terrified people shrank away as Wallander came running with mud on his face and the gun in his hand. He was afraid that he had lost Skinhead, when suddenly he caught sight of him again, in wild and reckless flight through the market crowds. He shoved aside an elderly woman who stepped in front of him and crashed into a stall selling cakes. Wallander ran through the mess, knocked over a sweet stand, and then took off after him.Again the man disappeared.

Wallander swore and fought his way through the ambling crowd. Then he saw him again. He was running to the edge of the market, down to the cliff. Two security guards came running at him, but they leaped aside when he waved the gun and yelled at them to stay away. One fell back into a tent serving beer, while the other one knocked over a candlestick stall.

Wallander ran, his heart pounding like a piston. The man vanished over the cliff edge. Wallander was about 30 metres behind him. When he reached the edge himself, he stumbled and fell headlong down the slope. He lost his grip on the gun. For a moment he hesitated, wondering whether he should stop and find it. Then he saw Skinhead running along the beach, and set off after him.

The chase ended when neither of them had any strength left to keep running. Skinhead leaned against the bottom of a black-tarred rowing boat. Wallander stood 10 metres away, so out of breath that he thought he was going to fall over.

Skinhead had drawn a knife and was coming towards him. That's the knife he used to cut off Johannes Lövgren's nose, he thought. That's the knife he used to force Lövgren to tell him where the money was. He looked around for a weapon. A broken oar was all he could see. Skinhead made a lunge with the knife. Wallander parried with the heavy oar. The man jabbed again with the knife, and Wallander swung at him. The oar caught him on the collarbone. Wallander heard the bone crack. Skinhead stumbled, and Wallander dropped the oar and slammed his right fist into his chin. The pain in his knuckles was agonising, but Skinhead fell.

Wallander collapsed onto the wet sand. Seconds later Martinsson came running. The rain was pouring down."We got them," said Martinsson."Yes," said Wallander. "I guess we did."

He walked over to the water's edge and rinsed his face. In the distance he saw a tanker heading south. He thought how glad he was to be able to give Rydberg some good news to lighten his misery.

Two days later the man named Andreas Haas confessed to the murders, but he blamed it all on the other man. When Lothar Kraftczyk was confronted with the confession, he gave up too. The brutality, he insisted, was all Andreas Haas's doing.

It was exactly as Wallander had imagined it. On several occasions the two men had gone into banks to change money and to look for a customer who was withdrawing a large sum. They had followed Lövgren in the car from the refugee camp when Lundin, the chimney sweep, had driven him home. They had tailed him along the dirt road, and two nights later they had returned.

"There's one thing that puzzles me," said Wallander, who was leading the interrogation of Lothar Kraftczyk. "Why did you feed the horse?"The man looked at him in surprise.

"The money was hidden in the hay net," he said. "Perhaps we threw some hay to the horse when we were looking for the briefcase."

Wallander nodded. The solution to the mystery was that simple."One more thing," said Wallander. "Why the noose?"

No answer. Neither man would confess to that insane violence. He repeated his question but never got an answer.

The Czech police sent word that Haas and Kraftczyk had both done time for assault in Czechoslovakia.

When they had abandoned Celsius House, the two men had rented a dilapidated cottage outside of Hoor. The jackets they were selling had been stolen from a leather shop in Tranas.

The detention hearing was over in a matter of minutes. No-one doubted that the case would be airtight, even though the two men were still blaming each other for the violence.

Wallander sat in the courtroom and stared at the men he had been hunting for so long. He remembered that early morning in January when he stepped into the farmhouse in Lunnarp. The double murder had now been solved and the criminals would soon be sentenced, Wallander still wasn't happy. Why the noose around Maria Lövgren's neck? Why such violence?

He shuddered. He couldn't answer these questions, and that left him feeling unsatisfied.

Late on Saturday, 11 August, Wallander took a bottle of whisky over to Rydberg's. On Sunday Anette Brolin was going to go with him to visit his father. Wallander thought of the question he had put to her. Would she consider getting a divorce for him? Of course she had said no, but he knew that she hadn't been offended by his asking.

As he was driving to see Rydberg, he listened to Maria Callas on the tape deck. He was taking the next week off, as time off in lieu of the extra hours he had worked. He was going to Lund to meet Herman Mboya, who had come back from Kenya, and then planned to spend the rest of the time repainting his flat. Maybe he would even treat himself to that new stereo. As he parked, he caught a glimpse of the yellow moon overhead. Autumn was on its way.

Rydberg was sitting as usual in the dark on his balcony. Wallander poured two glasses of whisky.

"Do you remember when we sat around worrying about Mrs Lövgren's last words?" said Rydberg. "That we would be forced to search for some foreigners? Then, when Erik

Magnusson came into the picture, we desperately wanted him to be the murderer. But he wasn't. So we got a pair of foreigners after all. And the wretched Somali died for no good reason."

"You knew all along," said Wallander. "Didn't you? You were sure that it was foreigners.""I wasn't positive," said Rydberg. "But I thought so."

Slowly they went over the investigation, as if it were already a distant memory.

"We made lots of mistakes," said Wallander thoughtfully. "I made lots of mistakes."

"You're a good policeman," said Rydberg emphatically. "Maybe I never told you that. But I think you're a damned fine policeman.""I made too many mistakes," replied Wallander.

"You kept at it," said Rydberg. "You never gave up. You wanted to catch whoever committed those murders in Lunnarp. That's the important thing."

The conversation gradually petered out. I'm sitting here with a dying man, thought Wallander in despair. I don't think I ever took in that Rydberg is actually going to die. He remembered the time he was stabbed. He also thought about the fact that a little less than six months ago he had driven his car while drunk. He should have been dismissed from the force.

Why don't I tell Rydberg about that? he wondered. Why don't I say anything? Or perhaps he already knows?

The incantation flashed through his mind. A time to live, a time to die."How are you?" he asked cautiously.Rydberg's face was unreadable in the darkness.

"At the moment I don't have any pain," he said. "But tomorrow it'll be back. Or the next day."

It was almost 2 a.m. when Wallander left Rydberg sitting on his balcony. Wallander left his car where it was and walked home. The moon had disappeared behind a cloud. Now and then he skipped. The voice of Maria Callas resounded in his head.

Before he went to sleep, he lay in bed for a while in the darkness of his apartment with his eyes open. Again he thought about the violence. The new era, which demanded a different kind of policeman. We're living in the age of the noose, he thought. Fear will be on the rise.

He forced himself to push these thoughts aside and sought out the black woman of his dreams. The investigation was over. Now he could finally get some rest.