'Non-existent'

'That's bad,' she said.

She changed the record and they drank some more.

He yawned.

You're tired,' she said.

He said nothing.

'But you don't want to go home. Okay then, don't go home.'

And then: 'I think I'll try and study a bit longer anyway. And I don't like this d.a.m.n shift. Tight and silly.'

She peeled off her clothes and flung them in a heap on the floor. Then she put on a dark-red flannel nightgown, which reached down to her feet and looked very odd in every way.

As she changed he observed her, interested.

Naked, she looked exactly as he'd imagined. Firm-bodied, strong, and well-built. Fair hair. Bulging stomach, flat rounded b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Rather large light-brown nipples.

He didn't think: No scars, blemishes, or other identifying marks.

Why don't you lie down awhile?' she said. 'You look dead beat.'

Martin Beck obeyed. He really did feel beat and dropped off almost at once. The last thing he saw was her sitting at the table, her blonde head sunk over her books.

When he opened his eyes she was bending over him, saying: 'Wake up now. It's twelve o'clock. I'm as hungry as can be. Go down and lock the street door, will you, while I put a sandwich in the oven. The key's hanging on the left side of the door - on a bit of green string.'

27.

Malmstrom and Mohren robbed the bank on Friday, 14th July. At 2.45 exactly they marched in through the doors wearing Donald Duck masks, rubber gloves, and orange overalls.

In their hands they held high-calibre pistols, and Mohren immediately, fired a shot at the ceiling. Then, so that all present should understand what was happening, he shouted in very broken Swedish: 'This is a bank robbery!'

Hauser and Hoff were wearing their usual outdoor clothes and enormous black hoods with holes for their eyes. Hauser was also equipped with a Mauser and Hoff with the sawn-off Maritza shotgun. They stood at the doors to keep open their retreat to the getaway cars.

Hoff let the muzzle of the shotgun sway to and fro, to warn outsiders away, while Hauser took up his planned tactical position in such a way as to be able to fire either into the bank or out at the pavement.

Meanwhile Malmstrom and Mohren began systematically emptying all the cash drawers.

Never had anything worked so perfectly or gone so completely according to plan.

Five minutes earlier an old car had exploded outside a garage on Rosenlundsgatan, in the south of the city. Immediately after the explosion, someone had fired a series of shots in various directions, and a house had burst into flames. Enterpriser A, who had staged these spectacular events, ran off through an alley to the next street, where he got into his car and drove home.

One minute later a stolen furniture lorry backed obliquely into the driveway of the central police building and broke down. Its rear door opened and scores of boxes of oil-soaked cotton came spewing out and immediately caught fire.

Meanwhile, Enterpriser B walked calmly away, apparentiy unconcerned at the chaos he'd caused.

Yes, everything went off precisely as planned. Every detail was carried out oh the dot, according to schedule.

From the point of view of the police, too, everything worked out more or less as they had expected. Everything happened as had been foreseen, and at the proper time.

With one little hitch.

Malmstrom and Mohren didn't rob a bank in Stockholm. They robbed a bank four hundred miles away, in Malmo.

Per Mnsson of the Malmd CID was sitting in his office drinking coffee. He had a view out over the car park, and when the explosion came and great clouds of smoke began rolling in from the driveway, his Danish pastry stuck in his throat At the same moment Benny Skacke, a young hopeful who, despite his careerist ambitions, had still risen no further than detective sergeant, jerked open his door and shouted that the catastrophe alarm had gone off. A bomb had exploded in Rosenlundsgatan, where it was also said that wild firing was going on and at least one building was in flames.

Though Skacke had been living in Malmo for three and a half years, he had never so much as heard of Rosenlundsgatan and did not know its whereabouts. But Per Mnsson did. He knew this town inside out, and it struck him as exceedingly peculiar that such a bombing should occur in that forgotten street in the peaceful district called Sofielund.

As it turned out, neither he nor any other policeman was given much opportunity for this sort of musing. At the same time as all available personnel were directed southwards, the police headquarters themselves seemed to be threatened. It took some time before they realized that the whole tactical reserve had quite simply been shut up inside the car park. Many of them sped over to Rosenlundsgatan by taxi or in private cars that had no radio.

Mnsson, for his part, got there at 3.07. By then the city fire department, which moved fast, had put out the fire. Obviously the whole thing was a bluff and had only caused insignificant damage to an empty garage. By this time large numbers of police were in the area, but apart from a badly damaged old car they found nothing remarkable. Eight minutes later a motorcycle policeman picked up a radio message that a city-centre bank was being robbed.

By that time Malmstrom and Mohren had already left Malmo. They had been seen driving away from the bank in a blue Fiat but Had not been followed. Five minutes later they had separated and changed over to two other cars.

When, after a while, the police had managed to clear up the mess in their own car park and rid themselves of the furniture lorry and the troublesome boxes, roadblocks were put up at all exits to the city. The alarm went out "nationwide, and a search began for the getaway car.

Three days later it was found in a shed near the docks, together with the overalls, Donald Duck masks, rubber gloves, pistols, and various other accoutrements.

Hauser and Hoff did a good job for the lush fees that had been deposited in their wives' current accounts. After Malmstrom and Mohren had vanished, they kept guard over the bank for nearly ten minutes and indeed didn't leave until the first policemen hove into view. As it happened, it was two constables walking their beat who first chanced upon the bank. Their experience of anything except school kids who drank beer in public places was almost nil. And their only contribution was to yell themselves hoa.r.s.e into their walkie-talkies. By that time there was hardly a policeman in all Malmo who wasn't yelling into a walkie-talkie, and almost no one who was listening.

Hauser even got clean away, something that no one, least of all himself, had really expected. Shortly afterwards he left Sweden via Helsingborg and Helsingor without even being accosted.

Hoff, however, was caught - owing to a peculiar oversight At 3.55 he boarded the ferry Malmohus wearing a grey suit, a white shirt a tie, and a black Ku Klux Klan hood. A trifle absent-minded, he'd forgotten to take it off. The police and the customs men, imagining some costume party was being held on board, let him pa.s.s. But the crew of the vessel felt there was something strange about him, and on arrival at Frihavnen he was handed over to an elderly, unarmed Danish policeman. He almost dropped his beer bottle in amazement when his prisoner affably brought out two loaded pistols, a bayonet, and a primed hand grenade and laid them all down on the table in a little room at the Frihavnen station. The Dane, however, soon pulled himself together; there was something peculiarly agreeable about arresting a prisoner with such a nice name. 'Hoff, in Danish, means 'restaurant'.

Apart from a ticket to Frankfurt, Hoff had a certain amount of money on him: to be exact, forty German marks, two Danish ten-kroner notes, and about four kronor in Swedish money. That was all the loot that could be found.

It reduced the bank's losses to 1,613,496 kronor and 65 ore.

Meanwhile in Stockholm the strangest things were happening. The worst of them befell Einar Ronn.

Together with six uniformed officers he had been a.s.signed the less important task of keeping an eye on Rosenlundsgatan and grabbing Enterpriser A. Since the street is quite long, he had spread out his little force as cleverly as possible: a flying squad of two men in a car and the others placed at strategic points along the way. Bulldozer Olsson had told him to take it easy and above all, whatever happened, not to lose his nerve.

At 2.38 he was standing on the pavement opposite Bergsgruvan and feeling fairly tranquil, when two young men came up to him. Their appearance was similar to most people nowadays: dirty.

'Got a light?' one of them asked.

'Sure, no,' Ronn said peacefully. 'That is to say, I haven't. No.'

A second later a dagger was pointing at his belly at the same time as a bicycle chain was being swung around in disturbing proximity to his head.

'Now, you b.l.o.o.d.y f.u.c.king G.o.dd.a.m.n cop,' said the young man with the dagger. And in the same breath, he said to his mate: You take his wallet. I'll take his watch and ring. Then we'll slice him up.'

Ronn had never been a jujitsu or karate champion, but he still remembered a little of what he'd once learned in the gymnasium.

Putting out his foot he neatly tripped the guy with the dagger so that he sat down astonished on his behind. The rest, however, didn't come off quite so well. Though Ronn jerked his head as quickly as he could, he still got a nasty bang of the bicycle chain above his right ear; as everything went black before his eyes he grabbed a.s.sailant number two and, as he fell, pulled him down on to the pavement. 'And that's your last little fling, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' hissed the guy with the dagger.

But at that moment the flying squad turned up, and by the time Ronn could see again the uniforms had already given the two prostrate thugs a thorough beating with batons and pistol b.u.t.ts and had handcuffed them as well.

The one with the bicycle chain was the first to recover. Blood streaming down his face, he looked around and said, as usual: 'What happened?'

'You walked straight into a police trap, my lad,' said one of the policemen.

'Police trap? For us? Are you out of your mind? We were just going to have some fun with a cop.'

Once again Ronn had a lump on his head. It was the only physical injury suffered by any member of the special squad that day. All their other wounds were of a purely psychological nature.

In the grey bus that, equipped to the teeth with every imaginable device, was his operational headquarters, Bulldozer Olsson could hardly sit still from excitement - something that seriously disturbed not only the radio operator but also Kollberg.

At 2.45, after the tension had reached its peak, the seconds' began to draw out and pa.s.s with agonizing languor.

At 3.00 the staff of the bank began to make arrangements to close, and the sizeable police unit inside the bank, led by Gunvald Larsson, could hardly object to them getting on with their work.

A feeling of great emptiness had begun to overcome them all, but Bulldozer Olsson said: 'Gendemen, we have only temporarily been outwitted. Werner Roos has guessed we've figured out something, and is hoping we'll give up. He'll have Malmstrom and Mohren strike next Friday, a week from today, that is. Well, it's he who's losing time, not us.'

At 3.30 the first really, disturbing report came in. It was so alarming that all withdrew at once to Kungsholmen, there to await further developments. During the next few hours the telex never ceased tapping out new messages.

Gradually the picture cleared, though it took some time.

'"Milan" obviously didn't mean what you thought it did,' said Kollberg coldly.

'No,' Bulldozer said. 'Malmo. That was clever.' For some considerable time now he'd been sitting quite still.

'Who the h.e.l.l could have known the streets in Malmo have the same names,' Gunvald Larsson said.

'Or that almost all the new banks have the same interior design,' said Kollberg.

We should have known it, gendemen,' shouted Bulldozer. 'Roos knew it. It's cheaper to build all the banks the same. Roos pinned us down in Stockholm. But next time he won't get away with it. We'll just have to wait till next time.*

Bulldozer had apparendy recovered. He got up and said: 'And where is Werner Roos?'

'In Istanbul,' said Gunvald Larsson. 'Where he's taken a few days off, to rest up.'

'Right,' said Kollberg. 'Where d'you think Malmstrom and 'Mohren are resting up?'

'Makes no difference,' said Bulldozer, some of his old fire retarning. 'Easy come, easy go. They'll soon be back again. Then it'll be our turn.'

'D'you think so?' Kollberg said dubiously.

The situation was no longer particularly mysterious, but the hour was late.

Malmstrom, for instance, had already reached his hotel in Geneva, where he'd had a room booked for the last three weeks.

Mohren was in Zurich. But he was going on to South America the next day.

In those last few minutes in the shed where they'd swapped cars, they hadn't had much time to talk.

'Now don't go and throw away all your hard-earned money on underwear and loose women,' Mohren admonished.

'What a h.e.l.l of a lot of dough!' Malmstrom said.

'And what shall we do with the hardware?'

'Deposit it in some bank, of course,' Mohren said. 'Where else?'

A day or so later Werner Roos was sitting in the bar of the Istanbul Hilton sipping a daiquiri and reading the Herald Tribune. It was the first time he had managed to draw the attention of this haughty news organ to himself. It was a single-column article, quite short, under the laconic heading: 'Swedish Bank Robbed'. The text mentioned the more important facts: for example, the amount of money. At least half a million dollars. And one less important piece of information: 'A representative of the Swedish police said today that they think they know the organization behind the coup.'

A little further down came another Swedish news item. 'Ma.s.s escape from prison. Fifteen of Sweden's most dangerous bank robbers today escaped over the wall of k.u.mla Prison, hitherto regarded as escape-proof.'

This latter bit of news reached Bulldozer Olsson just as, for the first time in several weeks, he had gone to bed with his wife. Instantly jumping out again, he began traipsing about the bedroom, repeating the same delighted words: 'What possibilities! What fantastic possibilities! It's war to the death, now! War to the death!'

That same Friday, Martin Beck arrived at the house in Tulegatan at 5.15. He had his jigsaw puzzle under his arm, and in his hand was a bag containing some bottles from the state alcohol shop. He met Rhea on the ground floor. She came tramping down the stairs in her red clogs, with nothing on but her long pale-mauve cardigan. She was carrying a rubbish bag in either hand.

'Hi,' she said. 'Glad you've come. I've something to show you.'

'Let me take those,' he said.

'It's just rubbish,' she said. 'And anyway you've got your hands full. Is that the puzzle?' 'Yes.'

'Fine. Open the gate, will you?'

He held open the gate to the yard and watched her go over to the dustbins. Her legs were like everything else about her: solid, muscular, shapely. As the lid of the dustbin fell with a bang she turned and ran back. She ran like a sportswoman, straight forward, head down, knowing where she was going. She also half-ran up the stairs, so that he had to take several steps at a time to keep up with her.

Two people were sitting in the kitchen, drinking tea: one was the girl called Ingela, the other was someone he didn't know.

'What was it you were going to show me?' 'Here,' she said. 'Come. He followed her.

She pointed at a door. 'There you are she said. 'A locked room.

'The nursery?'

'Dead right,' she said. "There's no one in there, and it's locked from inside.'

He stared at her. Today she looked happy - and extremely healthy. She began to laugh, a hoa.r.s.e hearty laugh. 'The kids've got a hook on the inside,' she said. 'I put it on myself. After all, they've a right to be in peace and quiet when they want to, too.'

'But they aren't at home.'

'You're being obtuse,' she said. 'I was in there with the vacuum cleaner, and when I was done I slammed the door behind me. A bit too hard, maybe. So the hook flew up and dropped into the eye. Now I can't get it open again.'

He felt the door. It opened outwards but seemed impossible to budge.