'It is' said Moller. 'But I presume you know I can go over your head if I feel I have to.'

Martin Beck did not answer.

The Stockholm chief went over to the wall mirror and began adjusting his white silk tie.

'Gentlemen' said the Commissioner, 'the conference is over. The fieldwork can begin. I've complete confidence in you all.'

A little later that day, Martin Beck was visited by Eric Moller, an event that had never occurred before.

Martin Beck himself was still at Kungsholmsgatan, although he ought to have been either at his office in Vastberga, or in Rotebro, or Djursholm. He was anxious to crack the Petrus case before this new a.s.signment began to take up too much of his time, and he still had nowhere near the same faith in Benny Skacke as he'd had in Lennart Kollberg. Lennart Kollberg had been an excellent criminal investigator, systematic and inventive. In fact, Martin Beck had sometimes had the feeling that in many respects Kollberg was a better policeman than he himself.

There was nothing wrong with Skacke's ambition and energy, but he had never shown any blinding ac.u.men, and he would certainly never be brilliant. He might well develop, considering his relative youth - he was just thirty-five and was already showing signs of admirable persistence and a total fearlessness - but Martin Beck would probably have to wait a long time before he could hand over difficult cases to Skacke with complete confidence. On the other hand, Benny Skacke and sa Torell were not a bad team at all, and would certainly make some headway as long as they weren't hampered too much by Marsta-Parsta's directives.

Nevertheless, he would soon have to transfer Skacke temporarily to this new a.s.signment and thus further weaken the Murder Squad. He himself was capable of dealing with two complicated jobs at once, but he very much doubted Benny Skacke's capacity to do the same.

As far as he was concerned, his double a.s.signment had already started. They had already discussed where their headquarters was to be - Command Headquarters, as Stig Malm had martially expressed it - and just now he was discussing the composition of the escort with Gunvald Larsson, simultaneously thinking about the villa in Djursholm.

In the midst of this discussion there was a knock on the door and in came Moller, paunchier and more fox-like than ever. He glanced blankly at Gunvald Larsson, then turned to Martin Beck.

'I presume you've already contemplated what the escort will look like?'

'Have you got secret microphones in here, too?' said Gunvald Larsson.

Moller totally ignored him. Eric Moller was unflappable. If he hadn't been, he would probably never have become the head of Sapo.

'I've got an idea,' he said.

'Really?' said Gunvald Larsson.

'The senator will, I presume, be travelling in the bulletproof limousine?' said Mdller, still addressing himself only to Martin Beck.

'Yes.'

'In that case, my idea is that we let someone else go in the limousine, while the senator goes in a less ostentatious car, a police car, for instance, further back.'

'Who would that other person be?' asked Gunvald Larsson.

Moller shrugged. 'Oh, anyone.'

'Typical,' said Gunvald Larsson. 'Are you really so d.a.m.ned cynical -'

Martin Beck saw that Gunvald Larsson was beginning to get seriously angry and hurriedly interrupted.

'It's not a new idea. It's been used many times, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. In this case it's clearly out of the question. The senator himself wants to ride in the bulletproof car, and anyway the television broadcast will show him getting in.'

'There's lots of tricks,' said Moller.

'We know that,' said Martin Beck. 'But we're not interested in your tricks.'

'Oh, I see,' said the chief of Sapo. 'Goodbye, then.' And he left Gunvald Larsson's complexion slowly returned to normal. 'Tricks,' he said.

"There's no point in getting annoyed with Moller,' said Martin Beck. 'It doesn't affect him. It's like pouring water on lard Now I really have to get out to Vastberga.'

The days went by and grew into weeks, and as usual the much-longed-for summer seemed to be pa.s.sing much too swiftly.

But now it was still July, the peak of summer, with its cold and rain and very occasional sunny days.

Martin Beck had little time to notice the weather. He was fully occupied and some days hardly ever left his office. He often stayed long into the evenings when the police station was silent and virtually uninhabited. Not that this was always necessary; he often stayed simply because he didn't want to go home, or because he wanted to think about problems he hadn't had time for during a hectic day of constant telephone calls and visitors.

Rhea had taken her children for a three-week holiday in Denmark, where their father lived.

Martin Beck missed her, but she would be back in a week, and meanwhile he filled his life with work and calm solitary evenings at home in the Old City.

The death of Walter Petrus occupied a large part of his time and thoughts. Over and over again, he studied the voluminous collection of material that had been gathered from various quarters, with an irritating sense of constantly reaching a dead end. Now, after a month and a half, the case was being handled mainly by Benny Skacke and sa Torell. He could rely on their judgement and thoroughness and he left them to work largely on then-own.

The Drugs Squad had made a report after long and careful inquiries. They found, first, that Walter Petrus had not handled drugs on a large scale and there was nothing to indicate that he was a dealer. Presumably the quant.i.ty he had possessed had never been very great Second, they found that Petrus personally had not been a drug user on any great scale, though he occasionally smoked hash or took stimulants. In a locked drawer at his home they found packages bearing the names of various foreign drug manufacturers which he had probably brought back with him from his trips abroad, but there was no sign of any extensive smuggling.

He was a known customer on the Stockholm drugs scene and seemed to have gone to three different suppliers for his somewhat modest purchases. He had paid the going price and returned at fairly long intervals without any of the signs of desperation common to addicts.

They had also interrogated several girls with experiences similar to those of the two girls sa had questioned. They had all been offered drugs, but only during visits to his office. He had definitely refused to give them any to take away with them.

Two of the girls questioned by the Drugs Squad had been in one of his films; not the great international production with Charles Bronson in the main part as Petrus had promised, but in a p.o.r.nographic film with a lesbian theme. They admitted that during the filming they had been so under the influence of drugs that they had hardly known what they were doing.

'What a b.a.s.t.a.r.d!' sa had cried when she read the report.

sa and Skacke had been out to Djursholm and spoken to Chris Petrus again, and to the two children who were home. The younger son was still abroad and had not been heard from, although the family had cabled his last-known address and had also put an advertis.e.m.e.nt into the personal column of the International Herald Tribune.

'Don't worry, Mother, he'll show up when his money runs out,' the elder son had said acidly.

sa had also had a talk with Mrs Pettersson, who by and large gave one-syllable replies to all her questions. She was a faithful servant of the old school, and in the few words she actually uttered she spoke highly of the family.

'I felt like giving her a lecture on women's liberation,' said sa later on to Martin Beck.

Benny Skacke had spoken to Walter Petrus's gardener and chauffeur, Sture h.e.l.lstrom. He was as taciturn as the maid when it came to opinions on the Petrus family, but he was happy to talk about gardening.

Skacke also spent quite a lot of time out at Rotebro, which was really sa's territory. No one really knew what he was doing out there, and one day when they were having coffee in Martin Beck's office, sa said teasingly, 'You haven't gone and fallen in love with Maud Lundin, have you, Benny? Watch out for her. I think she's a dangerous woman.'

'I think she's pretty mercenary,' said Skacke. 'But I've talked quite a bit to a guy out there - the sculptor who lives across the street. He makes things out of sc.r.a.p iron, really nice things.'

sa also disappeared for long periods of the day without saying where she was going. Finally Martin Beck asked her what she was up to.

'I go to the movies. Watch dirty films. I take them in small doses, one or two a day, but I'm determined to see all of Petrus's films. It'll probably make me frigid, on top of everything else.'

'What do you want to see them for?' asked Martin Beck. 'What do you think you can find? One was enough for me - that Love in the Glow of the Midnight Sun, or whatever it was called.'

sa laughed. 'That was nothing compared to some of the others. Some of them are considerably better from a technical point of view - colour and wide screen and all that. I think he sold them to j.a.pan. But it's no fun to sit and watch them. Especially for a woman. You get downright angry.'

'I can understand that,' said Martin Beck sincerely. 'But you didn't answer my question about why you think you have to see them'

sa ruffled her untidy hair. 'Well, you see, I look at the people in the films, and then I try to find out what sort of people they are, where they live and what they do. I've interviewed a couple of boys who were in several of the films. One's a professional, works at a s.e.x club and regards it as a job. He was fairly well paid. The other one works in a men's clothes shop and did it for fun. He got practically nothing. I've got a long list of people I'm going to check up on.'

Martin Beck nodded thoughtfully, giving her a doubtful look.

'Not that I know anything'll come of it,' said sa, 'but if you have no objections, I'm going to carry on.'

'Do, if you can take it,' said Martin Beck.

'There's only one more I haven't seen,' said sa. 'Confessions of a Night Nurse, I think it's called. Horrors.'

The week went by and on the last day of July, Rhea returned.

That evening they celebrated with smoked eel, Danish cheeses and Elephant beer and aquavit she had brought back with her from Copenhagen. Rhea talked almost without stopping until she fell asleep in his arms.

Martin Beck lay for a while feeling happy that she was back, but the Elephant beer took its toll and soon he was asleep too.

Things began to happen the next day. It was the first of August, the name day was Per, and it was pouring with rain.

Martin Beck awoke bright and alert, but ended up late for work anyway. Three weeks was a long time, and Rhea's eagerness to tell him about her visit to the Danish island, combined with the food, beer and aquavit, had caused them to fall asleep before they could give expression to how much they'd missed each other. They made up for it in the morning, and as the children were still in Denmark they were undisturbed and took their time, until Rhea finally pushed him out of bed and commanded him to think about his responsibilities and his duty as chief to set a good example.

Benny Skacke had been waiting for him impatiently for two hours. Before Martin Beck had time to sit down, he was in the office, shuffling his feet.

'Morning, Benny,' said Martin Beck. 'How're things with you?'

'Fine, I think.'

'Do you still suspect that sc.r.a.p-iron artist?'

'No, that was only at first He lived so close by and his workshop was full of iron bars and pipes and things, I thought he seemed like a good bet. He knew Maud Lundin quite well and he would only have had to run across the road with one of his iron bars or lead pipes and kill the old man, after he'd seen Maud Lundin go off to work. It looked obvious.'

'But he had an alibi, didn't he?'

'Yes, a girl was with him all night and went into town with him in the morning. Anyway, he's a nice guy and had nothing to do with Petrus. His girl seems straight, too. She says she sleeps badly, so was reading after he'd fallen asleep, and she says he slept like a log until ten in the morning.'

Martin Beck looked at Skacke's eager face with amus.e.m.e.nt. 'So what have you found now?'

*Well, I've been out there quite a bit, walking and looking around and sitting talking to that sculptor. Yesterday I was out there and we were having a beer together, and I sat there looking at those big crates standing in Maud Lundin's garage. They're his crates - he uses them for packing his sculptures when he sends them to exhibitions. He hasn't got room for them in his garage, so Maud Lundin let him put them in hers. They've been there since March and no one has touched them since. It occurred to me that whoever killed Petrus could have gone to the house that night, when there wasn't any risk of being seen, and waited behind those crates until the old man was alone.'

'But then he walked right across the field where everyone could see him,' said Martin Beck.

'Yes, I know. But if he did hide behind the crates, it must have been because Walter Petrus used to leave the house shortly after Maud Lundin, so he had to make use of that brief period when the old man was alone in the house. And from his hiding place behind the crates, he could hear when she left.'

Martin Beck rubbed his nose. 'Sounds plausible,' he said. 'Have you checked whether it's actually possible to hide in there? Aren't they right up against the wall?'

Benny Skacke shook his head. 'No. There's a s.p.a.ce just large enough. Kollberg might not be able to squeeze in there with his stomach, maybe, but a person of normal build could.'

He fell silent Negative statements about Kollberg didn't go down too well with Martin Beck, but he didn't seem offended, so Skacke went on.

'I looked behind the crates. There's quite a lot of sand, dust and loose earth on the floor. Couldn't we do some lab work? Spray for footprints and sieve the soil and see if we can find anything?'

'Not a bad idea,' said Martin Beck. 'I'll get somebody on it right away.'

When Skacke had gone, Martin Beck phoned to request an immediate technical examination of Maud Lundin's garage.

As he put the receiver down, sa Torell came into his office without knocking. She was as breathless and eager as Skacke had been.

'Take a seat and calm down,' said Martin Beck. 'Have you been to another blue movie? What were the night nurse's confessions like, anyway?'

'Awful. And her patients were really something. Surprisingly healthy, I must say.' Martin Beck laughed.

'I hope that's the last skinflick I ever have to watch,' said sa. 'But now listen.'

Martin put his elbows on the desk and adopted a listening att.i.tude with his chin in his hands.

'You know that list I told you about?' said sa. 'The one I made of all the people who were in Petrus's films?'

Martin Beck nodded and sa went on.

'In some of the worst films - I think you saw some of them yourself - black-and-white shorts of people s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g on an old sofa and that kind of thing - there was a girl called Kiki h.e.l.l. I tried to get hold of her, but it turned out she was no longer in Sweden. But I got hold of a friend of hers and learned quite a lot Kiki h.e.l.l's real name is Kristina h.e.l.lstrom and a few years ago she lived in Djursholm oh the same street as Walter Petrus. What do you say to that?'

Martin Beck sat up straight and struck his forehead. 'h.e.l.lstrom,' he said. 'The gardener.'

'Exacdy,' said sa. 'Kiki h.e.l.lstrom is the daughter of Walter Petrus's gardener. I haven't managed to find out much about her yet it seems she left Sweden a few years ago and no one knows where she is now.'

'It does sound as if you've got something there, sa. Do you have your car here?'

sa nodded. 'It's in the car park. Shall we go out to Djursholm?'

'Right away,' said Martin Beck. 'We can talk on the way.'

In the car sa said, 'Do you think it's him?'

'Well, he's got plenty of reason to dislike Walter Petrus,' said Martin Beck. 'If what I suspect is true. Petrus used the gardener's daughter in his films and when her dad found out, he can't have been all that pleased. How old is she?'

'She's nineteen now. But the films are four years old, so she was only fifteen when they were made.'

After a spell of silence, sa said, 'Suppose it was the other way around?'

'What do you mean?'

'That her dad encouraged her to be in the films to get money out of Petrus.'

'You mean he sold his own daughter? sa, watching all that filth has given you a dirty mind.'

They parked the car at the edge of the road and walked through the gate to the house next door to the Petruses'. There were no photocells in the gateposts there. A wide gravel path led to the left along the hedge up to a garage and a yellow stucco bungalow. Between the bungalow and the garage was a smaller building which seemed to be some kind of workshop or toolshed.

'That must be where he lives,' said sa, and they began to walk towards the yellow house. The garden seemed enormous, and the house itself, which they had seen from the gateway, was here quite hidden by tall trees.