kind of trade show were you going to?' he asked.
The man sitting across from him looked surprised. 'What does that have to do with this?''Nothing. I just wondered.''An air show, if you must know.'
'An air show?''I'm interested in old planes. I build model planes myself.''Is it true that you took early retirement?''What the hell does that have to do with my stolen car?'
'Nothing.'
'Why don't you start looking for my car instead of poking around in my personal life?'
'We're already onto it. As you know, we think that the person who stole your car may have committed a murder. Or maybe I should say an execution.'
The man looked him straight in the eye. The nervous flitting had stopped.'That's what I heard,' he said.
Wallander had no more questions. 'I thought we'd go over to your place. So I can see where the car was parked.' 'I can't invite you in for coffee. The place is a mess.' 'Are you married?' 'I'm divorced.'
They went out to Wallander's car. The neighbourhood was an old one, situated just beyond the trotting track at
Jagersro. They stopped outside a yellow brick house with a small front lawn.
'This is where the car was, right where you're parked,' said the man. 'Right here.'
Wallander backed up a few metres and they got out. Wallander noticed that the car must have been parked between two streetlights.
'Are there a lot of cars parked on this street at night?' he asked.
'Usually one in front of every house. A lot of people who live here have two cars. Their garages only hold one.'
Wallander pointed at the streetlights. 'Do they work?' he asked.
'Yes. I always notice if any of them are broken.' Wallander looked around, thinking. He had no further questions.'I assume that we'll be talking to you again,' he said.'I want my car back,' replied the man.Wallander realised that he did have one more question.
'Do you have a licence to carry a gun?' he asked. 'Do you own any guns?'
The man stiffened. At that moment a crazy idea flashed through Wallander's mind. The car theft was pure fiction. The man standing beside him was one of the two men who had shot the Somali the day before.
'What the hell do you mean?' said the man. 'A gun licence? Don't tell me you're so fucking stupid that you think I had anything to do with that?'
'You were a policeman, so you should know that we have to ask these questions,' said Wallander. 'Do you have any guns in your house?''I have guns and a licence.''What kind of guns?'
'I like to shoot once in a while. I have a Mauser for hunting moose.' 'Anything else?'
'A shotgun. A Lanber Baron. It's a Spanish gun. For shooting rabbits.''I'll send someone over to pick them up.' 'Why is that?'
'Because the man who was killed yesterday was shot at close range with a shotgun.'
The man gave him a disdainful look. 'You're crazy,' he said. 'You're out of your fucking mind.'
Wallander left. He drove straight back to the Malmo police station. He called Ystad. The car hadn't been found. Then he asked to speak to the officer in charge of the department for homicide and violent crimes in Malmo. Wallander had met him once before and found him to be overbearing and self-important. It had been on the same occasion that he met Goran Boman.Wallander explained the case he was working on.
'I want his weapons checked,' he said. 'I want his house searched. I want to know whether he has any connections with racist organisations.'
The police officer gave him a long look. 'Do you have any reason whatsoever to believe that he made up the story about a stolen car? That he might be involved in the murder?''He owns guns. And we have to investigate everything.'
'There are hundreds of thousands of shotguns in this country. And what makes you think I can get authorisation to search his house when the case is about a stolen car?'
'This case has top priority,' said Wallander, starting to get annoyed. 'I'll call the county police chief. The national police chief, if necessary.'
'I'll do what I can,' said the officer. 'But no-one likes it when you dig around in the private life of a colleague. And what do you think would happen if this got out to the press?'
'I don't give a shit,' said Wallander. 'I've got three murders on my hands. And somebody who's promised me a fourth. Which I intend to prevent.'
On his way to Ystad, Wallander stopped at Hageholm. The technicians were just wrapping up their investigation. At the scene he went over Rydberg's theory about how the murder occurred, and he decided he was right. The car had probably been parked at the spot Rydberg had pinpointed. He realised that he hadn't asked the policeman whether he smoked. Or whether he ate apples.
He continued on to Ystad. On his way in he ran into a temp who was on her way out to lunch. He asked her to pick up a pizza for him.He looked into Hansson's office: still no car.
'Case meeting in my office in 15 minutes,' said Wallander. 'Try to round everybody up. Anyone who isn't here should be reached by phone.'
Without taking off his overcoat, Wallander sat down and called his sister again. They agreed that he would pick her up at Sturup airport at 10 a.m. the following morning.
He felt the lump on his forehead, which was now changing colour, shifting to yellow and black and red. Within 20 minutes, everyone except Martinsson and Svedberg was there.
'Svedberg is out digging around in a gravel pit,' said Rydberg. 'Somebody called and said they saw a mysterious car out there. Martinsson is trying to track down a man in the Citroen club who apparently knows about all the Citroens on the road in Skane. A dermatologist from Lund.''A dermatologist from Lund?' Wallander asked in surprise.
'There are hookers who collect stamps,' said Rydberg. 'Why shouldn't a dermatologist be into Citroens?'
Wallander reported on his meeting with the ex-policeman in Malmd. He could hear how hollow it sounded when he said that he had ordered a thorough investigation of the man.
'That doesn't sound very likely,' said Hansson. 'A policeman who wants to commit a murder wouldn't be dumb enough to report his own car stolen, would he?'
'Maybe not,' said Wallander. 'But we can't afford to ignore a single lead, no matter how unlikely it seems.'The discussion turned to the missing car.
'We aren't getting tip-offs from the public,' said Hansson. 'Which reinforces my belief that the car never left the area.'
Wallander unfolded a detailed map, and they leaned over it as if preparing for battle.
'The lakes,' said Rydberg. 'Krageholm Lake, Svaneholm Lake. Let's assume that they drove out there and ditched the car. There are minor roads all over the place.'
'It still sounds risky,' objected Wallander. 'Somebody could easily have seen them.'
They decided at any rate to drag the lakes. And to send some men out to search through abandoned barns. A dog patrol from Malmo had been out searching without finding a single trace. The helicopter search had produced no results either.
'Could your Iranian have been mistaken?' wondered Hansson.Wallander thought about this for a moment.
'We'll bring him in again,' he said. 'We'll test him on six different kinds of cars. Including a Citroen.'
Hansson was detailed to take care of the witness. They moved on to a summary of the search for the killers in Lunnarp. Here, too, the car that the early-morning lorry driver had seen still eluded them.
Wallander could see that his colleagues were tired. It was Saturday, and many of them had been working
