on.”
“No press conference, though,” said Wallander. “And nobody is to speak with Robert Akerblom yet, either.”
“Of course not,” said Bjork. “When do you think you’ll be back?”
“As soon as possible,” said Wallander. “How’s the weather?”
“Terrific,” said Bjork. “It feels like spring is on the way. Svedberg is sneezing like a man with hay fever. That’s usually a sure sign of spring, as you well know.”
Wallander felt vaguely homesick as he put the phone down. But his excitement over the imminent raid was even stronger.
At eleven Loven called together everybody who would be taking part in the raid. Reports from those watching the building suggested both Vladimir and Tania were in the apartment. It was not possible to establish whether anybody else was there.
Wallander listened carefully to Loven’s summary. He could see that a raid in Stockholm was very different from anything he was used to. Besides, operations of this size were practically unknown in Ystad. Wallander could only remember one incident the previous year, when a guy high on narcotics had barricaded himself into a summer cottage in Sandskogen.
Before the meeting Loven had asked Wallander if he wanted to play an active role.
“Sure,” he replied. “If Konovalenko is there, in a sense he’s my baby. Half of him at least. Besides, I’m looking forward to seeing Rykoff’s face.”
Loven brought the meeting to a close at half past eleven.
“We really don’t know what we’ll be up against,” he said. “Probably just two people who’ll go along with the inevitable. But it could turn out different.”
Wallander had lunch in the police canteen with Loven.
“Have you ever asked yourself what you’ve gotten involved in?” asked Loven, all of a sudden.
“That’s something I think about every day,” said Wallander. “Don’t most cops?”
“I don’t know,” said Loven. “I only know what I think. And the thoughts that go through my head depress me. We’re on the brink of losing control here in Stockholm. I don’t know how it is in a smaller district like Ystad, but being a crook in this city must be a pretty pleasant existence. At least as far as the chances of getting caught are concerned.”
“We’re still in control, I guess,” said Wallander. “But the differences between different districts are decreasing all the time. What’s happening here happens in Ystad as well.”
“Lots of cops in Stockholm can’t wait to get transferred to the provinces,” said Loven. “They think they’d have an easier time there.”
“I guess there are quite a few who’d like to transfer here as well,” Wallander countered. “They think they lead too quiet a life out in the sticks, or in some little town.”
“I doubt if I’d be able to change,” said Loven.
“Me neither,” said Wallander. “Either I’m an Ystad cop, or I’m not a cop at all.”
The conversation petered out. Afterwards Loven had things to do.
Wallander found a quiet spot where he could stretch out on a sofa. It occurred to him that he had not had a good night’s sleep since the moment Robert Akerblom came into his office.
He dozed off for a few minutes, and awoke with a start.
Then he just lay there, thinking about Baiba Liepa.
The raid on the apartment in Hallunda took place at exactly two o’clock. Wallander, Loven, and three other cops climbed the stairs. After ringing twice without reply, they broke down the door with a crowbar. Specially trained men with automatic weapons were waiting in the background. All the cops on the stairs carried pistols, apart from Wallander. Loven asked him if he wanted a gun. But he declined. On the other hand, he was glad he was wearing a bulletproof vest like the others.
They stormed into the apartment, spread out, and it was all over before it had even begun.
The apartment was empty. All that remained was the furniture.
The cops looked at each other in bewilderment. Then Loven took out his walkie-talkie and contacted the officer in charge down below.
“The apartment’s empty,” he said. “There will be no arrests. You can call the special units off. But you can send in the technical guys to go over the place.”
“They must have left last night,” said Wallander. “Or at the crack of dawn.”
“We’ll get ’em,” said Loven. “Within half an hour there’ll be a country-wide APB.”
He handed Wallander a pair of plastic gloves.
“Maybe you’d like to do some dusting,” he said.
While Loven was talking to headquarters in Kungsholmen on his mobile, Wallander went into the little guest room. He put on the gloves and carefully removed the ashtray from the shelf. His eyes had not deceived him. It was an exact copy of the ashtray he had been staring at a couple of nights previously, when he had a skinful of whiskey. He handed the ashtray to a technician.
“There’s bound to be fingerprints on this,” he said. “We probably won’t have them in our files. But Interpol might have them.”
He watched the technician put the ashtray into a plastic bag.
Then he went over to the window and absentmindedly contemplated the surrounding buildings and the gray sky. He remembered vaguely that this was the window Tania had opened the day before, to let out the smoke that was irritating Vladimir. Without really being able to decide whether he was depressed or annoyed at the failure of the raid, he went into the big bedroom. He examined the wardrobes. Most of the clothes were still there. On the other hand, there was no sign of any suitcases. He sat on the edge of one of the beds and casually opened a drawer in the other bedside table. It was empty save for a cotton reel and half a pack of cigarettes. He noted that Tania smoked Gitanes.
Then he bent down and looked under the bed. Nothing but a pair of dusty slippers. He walked around the bed and opened the drawer in the other bedside table. It was empty. Standing on the table were a used ashtray and a half-eaten bar of chocolate.
Wallander noticed the cigarette butts had filters. He picked one of them up and saw it was a Camel.
He suddenly became pensive.
He thought back to the previous day. Tania had lit a cigarette. Vladimir had immediately displayed his annoyance, and she had opened a window that was stuck.
It was not usual for smokers to complain about others with the same habit. Especially when the room was not smoky. Did Tania smoke several different brands? That was hardly likely. So, Vladimir smoked as well.
Thinking hard, he went back into the living room. He opened the same window Tania had opened. It was still sticking. He tried the other windows and the glazed door leading to the balcony. They all opened with no problem.
He stood in the middle of the floor, frowning. Why had she chosen to open a window that stuck? And why was that window so difficult to open?
It suddenly dawned on him. After a moment he realized there was only one possible answer.
Tania had opened the window that stuck because there was some pressing reason for that particular window to be opened. And it was sticking because it was opened so seldom.
He went back to the window. It occurred to him that if you were in a car in the parking lot, this was the window that could most clearly be seen. The other window was adjacent to the projecting balcony. The balcony door itself was completely invisible from the parking lot.
He thought through the whole sequence one more time.
He’d cracked it. Tania seemed nervous. She had been looking at the wall clock behind his head. Then she opened a window that was only used to signal to somebody in the parking lot that they should not go up to the apartment.
Konovalenko, the thought. He’d been that close.
In a gap between two phone calls, he told Loven about his conclusions.
“You may well be right,” said Loven. “Unless it was somebody else.”
“Of course,” said Wallander. “Unless it was somebody else.”
