Kjaer asked the bouncer but he shook his head, and said something that Wallander didn't catch.
'He's sure,' she yelled over the noise in the room.
Wallander turned and started pushing his way through the crowd again. He was looking for her, but part of him knew she was already gone.
Finally he gave up, and made his way over to the bartender. He couldn't see the glass of wine Louise had been drinking.
'Where's the glass that was here?' he asked.
'I've already washed it.'
Wallander waved to Kjaer and she came over. He pointed to the top of the bar.
'I don't know how likely we are to get anything, but let's try for some fingerprints.'
'It'll be a first for me,' she said. 'I've never had to cordon off a section of a bar before. But I'll make sure it's done.'
Wallander left and walked out into the street. He was drenched with sweat and shaking with anger. How could he have been so stupid? That smile, her willingness to speak with him, just a trip to the ladies' room first. Why hadn't he seen through it?
Kjaer came out after ten minutes. 'I really don't know how she did it,' she said. 'I know I would have seen her if she had tried to leave.'
But the pieces were starting to fit together. Slowly Wallander understood what must have happened. There was only one answer. It was so unexpected that he needed time to grasp its full implication.
'Can we go to your office?' he asked. 'I need time to think.'
When they got there, Kjaer brought him a cup of coffee and repeated her question.
'I just don't understand how she got away without being seen.'
'That's because she never left,' Wallander said. 'Louise is still in there somewhere.'
She looked at him with surprise. 'Still there? Then why did we come here?'
Wallander shook his head dully. He was frustrated at his lack of awareness. He had sensed that there was something strange about her hair the first time he'd seen her picture in Svedberg's flat.
I should have seen it back then, he thought. That it was a wig.
She repeated her last question.
'In a way, Louise is still in the bar,' he answered, 'because Louise is just an act, put on by someone else. A man. That wrestler who was guarding the door said three men left the bar during the last ten minutes. One of them was Louise, with her wig in her pocket and all her make-up wiped off.'
She didn't believe him, and he was too tired to go into more detail. The important thing was that he knew it. Still, he owed her an explanation. She had helped him. Although it was past midnight, he continued to explain.
'When she went into the lavatory, she took off her makeup and the wig, and then she walked out again,' Wallander said. 'She probably altered something about the way her clothing looked as well. Neither of us noticed anything, because we were waiting for a woman to come out. Who would have noticed a man?'
'The Amigo doesn't have a reputation as a transvestite bar.'
'He may simply have gone there to play the role of a woman,' Wallander said thoughtfully. 'Not to be among his own kind.'
'What does this mean for your investigation?'
'I don't know. It probably means a great deal, but I haven't thought it through yet.'
She looked down at her watch.
'The last boat to Malmo has already left. The earliest leaves at 4.45 a.m. in the morning.'
'I'll stay in a hotel,' Wallander said.
She shook her head. 'You can sleep on the sofa at my place,' she said. 'My husband comes home around this time. He's a waiter. We have sandwiches and a beer together before we go to bed.'
They left the police station.
Wallander slept uneasily. At one point he got up and walked over to the window. He stared down at the empty street and wondered why all city streets resembled each other at night. He kept waiting for someone to appear, but all was quiet. He felt his anxiety grow stronger. The victims so far had been dressed up in costume. Just like Louise. When Wallander had told her who he was, she left.
It was him, he thought. There's no other explanation. I had the killer by my side without knowing it. But I didn't manage to see through his disguise, and he disappeared. Now he knows we're closing in, but he also knows we haven't guessed his real identity.
Wallander went back to the sofa and dozed until it was time to take the ferry back to Malmo.
He called Birch when he got to the other side, hoping he was an early riser. Birch answered and said he was just drinking his morning coffee.
'What happened to you last night? I thought we were going to be in touch.'
Wallander explained what had happened.
'Were you really that close?'
'I let myself be fooled. I should have stood guard by the lavatories.'
'It's easy to say so in hindsight,' Birch said. 'You're back in Malmo now, aren't you? You must be tired.'
'The worst thing is that I can't get the car started. I left my lights on.'
'I'll come over. I have jump leads,' Birch said. 'Where are you?'
Wallander gave him directions.
It took Birch less than 20 minutes to get there, during which time Wallander napped in his car.
Birch looked closely at Wallander. 'You should really try to sleep for a few hours,' he said. 'It won't help matters if you collapse.'
While they put the jump leads on, Birch told him he had searched Haag's flat but hadn't found anything significant.
'We'll do another search of the studio and his flat,' Birch said. 'And we'll stay in touch.'
'I'll tell you how things go at our end,' Wallander said.
He left Malmo. It was 6.25 a.m. At the turn-off for Jagersro, he pulled over to the side of the road and called Martinsson.
'I've been trying to reach you,' Martinsson said. 'We were supposed to have a meeting last night, but no one could contact you.'
'I was in Denmark,' Wallander said. 'Tell everyone I want a meeting at 8 a.m.'
'Has anything happened?'
'Yes, but I'll tell you about it later.'
Wallander continued on towards Ystad. The weather was still beautiful. There were no clouds in the sky and no wind. He was feeling less tired, and his mind was starting to work again. He went through the meeting with Louise over and over, trying to home in on the face behind the wig and make-up. Sometimes he almost had it.
He reached Ystad at 7.40 a.m. Ebba was at the front desk. She sneezed.
'Caught a cold?' he asked. 'In the middle of summer?'
'Even an old bag like me can have allergies,' she replied good-naturedly. Then she looked sternly at him.
'You haven't had a wink of sleep, have you?'
'I was in Copenhagen. That's not conducive to a good night's sleep.'
She didn't seem to see the humour in this. 'If you don't start taking your health seriously, you'll pay for it,' she said. 'Mark my words.'
He didn't answer. He was sometimes annoyed by her ability to see right through him. She was right, of course. He thought about the clumps of sugar in his bloodstream.
He got himself a cup of coffee and went into his office. Soon his colleagues would be waiting for him in the conference room. He would have to tell them what had happened the night before, how the killer had been there, gone to the lavatory, and disappeared.
A woman went up in smoke by taking on the form of a man. There was no Louise any more. All they had was an unknown man who simply removed his wig and disappeared without a trace. A man who had already killed eight people, and who might be preparing to strike again.
He thought about Isa Edengren, curled up in the cave behind the ferns, and shivered.
