down that flower seller Forsgard he claims to have met in the john.”
“This is a murder investigation,” said Wallander. “Track these people down even if they’re in their vacation homes trying to get some peace and quiet.”
They agreed to meet again at five to see where they were. Wallander got some coffee, went to his office and called Nyberg at home.
“You’ll have my report on Monday,” said Nyberg. “But you already know the most important parts.”
“No,” said Wallander. “I still don’t know why the house burned down. I don’t know the cause of the fire.”
“Maybe you ought to talk to the chief fire officer about that,” said Nyberg. “He might have a good explanation. We’re not ready yet.”
“I thought we were working together,” said Wallander, irritated. “Us and the fire service. But maybe there’ve been some new instructions I don’t know about?”
“We don’t have an obvious explanation,” said Nyberg.
“What do you think, then? What does the fire service think? What does Peter Edler think?”
“The explosion must have been so powerful that there’s nothing left of the detonator. We’ve discussed the possibility of a series of explosions.”
“No,” said Wallander. “There was only one bang.”
“I don’t mean it quite like that,” said Nyberg patiently. “You can plan ten explosions within a second if you’re smart enough. We’d be talking about a chain with a tenth-of-a-second delay between each charge. But that increases the effect enormously. It has to do with the changed air pressure.”
Wallander thought for a moment.
“We’re not talking about a bunch of amateurs, then?” he said.
“No way.”
“Can there be any other explanation for the fire?”
“Hardly.”
Wallander glanced at his papers before going on.
“Can you say anything else about the radio transmitter?” he ventured. “There’s a rumor that it was made in Russia.”
“That’s not just a rumor,” said Nyberg. “I have had confirmation. I’ve had help from the army guys.”
“What do you make of that?”
“No idea. The army is very interested to know how it got here. It’s a mystery.”
Wallander pressed ahead.
“The pistol butt?”
“Nothing new on that.”
“Anything else?”
“Not really. The report isn’t going to reveal anything surprising.”
Wallander brought the call to a close. Then he did something he’d made up his mind to do during that morning’s meeting. He dialed the number of police headquarters in Stockholm and asked to speak with Inspector Loven. Wallander had met him the previous year, while investigating a raft carrying two bodies that were washed up at Mossby Beach. Although they only worked together for a few days, Wallander could see he was a good detective.
“Inspector Loven isn’t available at the moment,” said the operator at HQ.
“This is Inspector Wallander, Ystad. I have an urgent message. It has to do with the policeman killed in Stockholm a few days ago.”
“I’ll see if I can find Inspector Loven,” said the operator.
“It’s urgent,” Wallander repeated.
It took Loven exactly twelve minutes to call back.
“Wallander,” he said. “I thought of you the other day when I read about the murder of that woman. How’s it going?”
“Slowly,” said Wallander. “How about you?”
“We’ll get him,” said Loven. “We always get the guys who shoot one of ours sooner or later. You had something to tell us in that connection?”
“Could be,” said Wallander. “It’s just that the woman down here was shot through the head. Just like Tengblad. I think it would be a good idea to compare the bullets as soon as possible.”
“Yeah,” said Loven. “Don’t forget, this guy was shooting through a windshield. Must have been hard to make out a face on the other side. And it’s a hell of a shot if you can get somebody in the middle of the forehead when they’re in a moving car. But you’re right, of course. We ought to check it out.”
“Do you have a description of the guy?” asked Wallander.
The reply came without a pause.
“He stole a car from a young couple after the murder,” said Loven. “Unfortunately they were so scared they’ve only been able to give us very confused accounts of what he looked like.”
“They didn’t happen to hear him speak, did they?” Wallander wondered.
“That was the only thing they agreed on,” said Loven. “He had some sort of a foreign accent.”
Wallander could feel his excitement growing. He told Loven about his conversation with Alfred Hanson and about the man who had paid ten thousand kronor to rent an empty house out in the sticks.
“We’ll obviously have to look into this,” said Loven when Wallander was through. “Even if it does sound odd.”
“The whole business is very odd,” said Wallander. “I could drive up to Stockholm on Monday. I suspect that’s where my African is.”
“Maybe he was mixed up in the tear gas attack on a discotheque in the Soder district of Stockholm,” said Loven.
Wallander vaguely remembered seeing something about that in the Ystad Chronicle the previous day.
“What attack was that?” he asked.
“Somebody threw some tear gas canisters into a club in Soder,” said Loven. “A discotheque with lots of Africans among the clientele. We’ve never had any trouble there before. But we have now. Somebody fired a few shots as well.”
“Take good care of those bullets,” said Wallander. “Let’s take a close look at them as well.”
“You think there’s only one gun in this country?”
“No. But I’m looking for links. Unexpected links.”
“I’ll set things in motion here,” said Loven. “Thanks for calling. I’ll tell the people running the investigation you’ll be coming on Monday.”
They assembled as agreed at five o’clock, and the meeting was very short. Martinson had managed to confirm so much of Stig Gustafson’s alibi that he was well on the way to being excluded from the investigation. All the same, Wallander felt doubtful, without being quite sure why.
“Let’s not let him go altogether,” he said. “We’ll go through all the evidence concerning him one more time.”
Martinson stared at him in surprise.
“What exactly do you expect to find?” he asked.
Wallander shrugged.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m just worried about letting him go too soon.”
Martinson was about to protest, but checked himself. He had great respect for Wallander’s judgement and intuition.
Svedberg had worked his way through the stack of tips the police had received so far. There was nothing that obviously threw new light on either Louise Akerblom’s death or the blown-up house.
“You’d think somebody would have noticed an African missing a finger,” was Wallander’s comment.
“Maybe he doesn’t exist,” said Martinson.
“We’ve got the finger,” said Wallander. “Whoever lost it was no spook.”
Then Wallander reported on how far he had gotten. They all agreed he should go to Stockholm. There could be a link, no matter how unlikely it seemed, between the murders of Louise Akerblom and Tengblad.
