about a woman is her breasts,' she said. 'He registers whether they are small or large, then usually proceeds to her legs, and finally her behind.'
Martinsson chuckled from his place at the computer. Wallander saw the absurdity of the situation. He was supposed to describe a woman who was actually a man, but who should still be regarded as a woman, at least until Martinsson had finished entering the data into the computer.
'She was wearing a jacket,' he said. 'Maybe I'm an unusual male, but I really didn't notice her breasts. And the bar hid most of her body. I didn't see much of her when she stood up and went to the ladies' room, because she was swallowed up by the crowd. It was a full house.'
'We have quite a lot already,' Martinsson said reassuringly. 'We just have to work out what kind of hairstyle he had under the wig.'
'There must be a hundred different styles,' Wallander said. 'Let's try circulating the face without any hair. Someone may recognise his features.'
'According to the FBI, that's almost impossible.'
'Let's do it anyway.'
Something else occurred to Wallander. 'Who questioned the nurse who received the call from the man pretending to be Erik Lundberg?'
'I did,' Hoglund said.
'What did she remember about his voice?'
'Not very much. He had a Scanian accent.'
'Did it sound real?'
She looked at him with surprise. 'Actually, no. She said there was something funny about his dialect, although she couldn't put her finger on it.'
'So it could have been fake?'
'Yes.'
'Was it a low or high voice?'
'Low.'
Wallander thought back to his time in the Amigo. Louise had smiled at him, then excused herself, and her voice had been deep, although she had tried to make it sound feminine.
'I think we can assume it was him,' Wallander said. 'Even though we have no proof.'
He told them about his visit to the postal depot. 'I've only been able to find one common denominator so far,' he said. 'Isa Edengren and Sture Bjorklund had the same postman. The other people in this investigation bring the number of postmen involved to three, in addition to someone who works outside of Ystad altogether. It therefore seems reasonable to ditch this theory, since it's absurd to think there's a conspiracy between postal workers.'
He sat back in his chair and looked at the other two. 'I see no pattern yet,' he said. 'We have costumes and secrets, but nothing more.'
'What happens if we ignore the costumes?' Hoglund said. 'What do we have then?'
'Young people,' Wallander said. 'Happy people, having a party or getting married.'
'You don't think Haag is a target?'
'No. He falls outside the parameters.'
'What about Isa Edengren?'
'She was supposed to have been there.'
'That changes our picture,' Hoglund said. 'A new motive emerges. She's not allowed to escape, but escape what? Is it revenge, or hatred? There also doesn't seem to be any point of connection between the young people and the wedding couple. And then there's Svedberg. What lead was he following?'
'I think I can answer the last question,' Wallander said. 'At least for now. Svedberg knew this man who dresses as a woman. Something made him suspicious. Over the course of the summer, his investigation confirmed his suspicion. That's why he was killed - he knew too much. But he didn't have time to tell us what he knew.'
'But what does it all add up to?' Martinsson said. 'Svedberg told his cousin he was involved with a woman called Louise. Now it turns out she's a man. Svedberg must have known that after all these years, so where does that lead us? Was Svedberg a transvestite? Was he homosexual after all?'
'A number of explanations are possible,' Wallander said. 'I doubt that Svedberg had a passion for dressing up in women's clothing, but he may very well have been homosexual without any of us knowing about it.'
'One person in our investigation seems to be growing in importance,' Hoglund said.
Wallander knew to whom she was referring: Bror Sundelius.
'I agree,' he said. 'We need to maintain that end of the investigation, not as an alternative but as part of our search for the killer. We need to know more about the people involved in charges filed against Svedberg. He may very well have been the victim of blackmail or had some other reason to keep Stridh quiet.'
'If Bror Sundelius has deviant tendencies then it all starts to make sense,' Martinsson said.
Wallander bristled at Martinsson's words. 'In this day and age, homosexuality can hardly be regarded as 'deviant',' he said. 'Maybe in the 1950s, but not now. That people might still want to conceal their sexual preferences is another matter entirely.'
Martinsson registered Wallander's disapproval, but said nothing.
'The question is what connected these three men, Sundelius, Stridh, and Svedberg,' Wallander said. 'A bank director, a petty criminal and a policeman, whose surnames all start with the letter 'S'.'
'I wonder if Louise was in the picture at that point,' Hoglund said.
Wallander made a face. 'We have to call him something else,' he said. 'Louise disappeared in the lavatory of that bar back in Copenhagen. We'll confuse ourselves if we don't use another name.'
'What about Louis?' Martinsson said. 'That would make it easy.'
They all agreed, and Louise was renamed. Now they were looking for a man called Louis. They decided that Martinsson should spend part of his time keeping an eye on Sundelius. Wallander left the room and went back to his office. He bumped into Edmundsson on his way.
'We didn't find anything in that area of the nature reserve you wanted us to search,' he said. It took Wallander a moment to remember what this had been about.
'Nothing?'
'We found a wad of chewing tobacco by a tree,' Edmundsson said. 'That was it.'
Wallander looked closely at him. 'I hope you collected that wad of chewing tobacco, or at least alerted Nyberg.'
Edmundsson surprised him with his answer. 'Actually, I did.'
'This could be more important than you realise,' he said.
He kept walking towards his office. He was right. The killer had been there that night, hiding where he had the best view of their comings and goings. He had spat out a wad of chewing tobacco, just like on the beach. And later he had turned up outside the police barricades at Nybrostrand, although this time he was disguised as a woman.
He's following us, Wallander thought. He's somewhere close by, both a step ahead and a step behind. Is he trying to find out what we know? Or is he trying to prove to himself that we can't find him?
Something occurred to him and he called Martinsson. 'Is there anyone who has shown an unexpected interest in our investigation?'
'You mean like a journalist?'
'Let people know to be on the lookout for someone who takes an interest in the case, something out of the ordinary. I don't think I can give you a more precise description - just someone who seems odd.'
Martinsson promised to pass it on. Wallander hung up.
It was midday and he felt nauseated with hunger. He left the station and walked to a restaurant in the middle of town. He got back at 1.30 p.m., took off his coat, and looked through the brochure that he had picked up at the post office.
The first postman was called Olov Andersson. Wallander picked up the receiver and dialled his number, wondering how long he could keep going.
He returned to Ystad shortly after 11 a.m. Since he didn't want to risk running into the policeman who had found him in Copenhagen, he took the ferry from Helsing0r. When he arrived at Helsingborg, he took a taxi to Malmo
