'Nothing,' said Hammargren. 'I don't think he ever went on board. With his looks, someone would have remembered him. But the car was standing there out at Hisingen.'

'And the lab examination?'

'Nothing there either. Absolutely nothing.'

'Okay. Thanks for the call.'

Martin Beck energetically ma.s.saged his scalp. The car could be a red herring; it was more likely that Heydt had left the country on a less noticeable boat than the Saga. Gothenburg had a large harbour and a great many ships left it every day. Some of them took pa.s.sengers and were licensed to do so. Just as many, especially small-tonnage ones, carried travellers who wished to remain anonymous and could afford to pay for the privilege.

In sum, it was possible that Heydt had left the country several weeks ago and was already far out of reach. He looked at the time. It was too early to recall any of his colleagues. Maybe it would be a mistake to bring them back, anyway. What if the car was a one-hundred-per-cent red herring and Heydt hadn't left the country at all? It was a great loss that the man in Gothenburg didn't know whether the car had been there even before the bombing. That would have made it certain. Now everything was one large question mark. Martin Beck slammed the door of his temporary office and went home. Car or no car, it was probably best to stick to the plan. The train was not due to leave the central station in Stockholm until just before midnight He still had plenty of time.

There was a film of ice on the roof, but it was not especially cold. Reinhard Heydt lay absolutely still, the warmth of his body sufficient to melt the veil of ice underneath and around him.

He was wearing a black jersey with a polo neck, a black woollen cap pulled down over his ears and forehead, black corduroy trousers, black socks and black shoes with crepe soles that he had smeared with black shoe polish. He was also wearing long thin black gloves.

The rifle had a black barrel and a dark-brown b.u.t.t, and the only thing that could possibly give him away was a reflection in the night sight, but the lens was smoked and specially coated to prevent reflections.

Of course the idea was that he should not be visible, and although he could not have known it himself, a person with normal sight would not have been able to see him from a distance of six feet, a.s.suming that such a person, for some extraordinary reason, were suddenly to appear on the roof.

He had reached the roof easily through a hatch a few feet away. His Volkswagen was parked in Slottsbacken, and on the street he had worn a light-coloured raincoat. This was now lying with his briefcase, tucked into a niche in the grubby attic below.

The situation was perfect. In fact he could see all of Martin Beck's windows, since they all faced east. So far, however, the apartment had been silent and dark.

The rifle was specially constructed for sniping in the dark, and he found he could even make out details in the rooms, although all the lights were out. Behind him the devilish racket of the traffic on Skeppsbron formed a perfect background. The English rifle was comparatively quiet and the sound of a single shot would undoubtedly be drowned in the cacophony of car engines, squealing brakes and backfiring exhaust pipes.

The distance to the four windows was no more than fifty or sixty yards; if it had been ten times as far, he would still have been certain to hit his target.

Heydt was no longer lying still. He was moving his fingers and legs a little so as not to stiffen up. He had learned all that a long time ago - lying almost still, but giving his small muscles a little exercise so that none of them would let him down at the decisive moment Now and again he checked the sight, which was truly a technical masterpiece.

He must have been on the roof for about forty minutes when a light was suddenly switched on in the lift shaft and shortly afterwards in the furthest of the four windows. Heydt pressed the b.u.t.t against his shoulder and placed his finger inside the trigger guard, letting it stroke the trigger. He was familiar with his weapon and knew exactly where the pressure point lay.

His plan was simple. It entailed acting immediately, shooting this man Beck as soon as he showed himself and then swiftly but calmly removing himself from the area.

Someone pa.s.sed the first window, then the second and stopped in front of the third. Like all good snipers, Heydt relaxed, his body filling with a pleasant, satisfying warmth as the rifle, in some mysterious way, became a part of himself. His right forefinger rested on the trigger without a tremble. His physical and mental self-control was complete.

Someone was standing with his back to the third window. But it was the wrong person. It was a woman.

She was small and quite broad-shouldered. Straight blonde hair and a short neck. She was wearing a brighdy coloured blouse, a tweed skirt down to her knees and, presumably, tights.

Suddenly she turned around and looked up towards the sky.

Heydt had already recognized her before he saw her straight blonde fringe and searching blue eyes. Six weeks had pa.s.sed since he had seen her. Then she had been wearing a black duffle coat, faded blue jeans and red wellies. He also remembered exactly where he had seen her, first here in Kopmangatan, then in an alley, the name of which he had forgotten, and shortly afterwards in Slottsbacken.

He had no idea who she was, but he recognized her at once, and if he had been equipped with such a capacity, he would have been surprised to see her. Instead, he observed her hair through the telescope sight and thought that perhaps she did not bleach it, as he had thought the first time.

A man came into his field of vision, quite a tall man with a broad forehead, straight nose, thin but wide mouth and strong jaw. Heydt at once recognized him from television. This was his enemy, Martin Beck, the man who had transformed the a.s.sa.s.sination into a miserable fiasco, then put Kaiten - the most physically dangerous of all ULAG's agents - out of action and the man who would now have to be eliminated to facilitate Heydt's own retreat from the country.

The man put his arms around the woman, turned her around and pulled her towards him.

He did not look particularly dangerous, thought Heydt, raising the barrel a trifle so that the cross hairs of the night sight lay exactly between the policeman's eyes. It would have been easy to kill him then, but after that he would also have had to kill the woman, and it all would have had to happen very quickly.

Everything depended on how she would react He had not seen much of her, but something told him she was probably very quick-thinking. If she were swift enough, she might have time to take shelter after the first shot and raise the alarm, and in that case his situation up there on the roof would not be particularly enviable. If there were enough police nearby, he would no longer be protected by the darkness and his isolated position. Instead he would find himself in a deathtrap, with no means of flight and no path to safety.

Heydt a.n.a.lysed the situation, clearly and swiftly, and decided that there was still plenty of time. He could wait and see what happened.

Rhea Nielsen stood on tiptoe and bit Martin Beck playfully on the cheek.

'I have regular working hours nowadays,' she said. 'And superiors. It looks a bit peculiar when a policeman comes and picks me up three-quarters of an hour early.'

'The circ.u.mstances are a little special,' said Martin Beck. 'And anyway I didn't want to go home alone.'

'What circ.u.mstances?'

'I've got to go away this evening.'

'Where to?'

'To Malmo. I should really have gone already.' 'Why haven't you then?'

'There was something I thought I'd better take care of first' 'What? Where? In bed?' 'For instance.'

They moved away from the window. She ran her fingers roughly over one of his model boats, peered suspiciously at him and said, 'How long will you be gone?'

'Don't know for sure. Might take three or four days.'

'Over Christmas Eve then? d.a.m.n. I haven't even had time to buy you a present'

'I haven't got yours yet either. But I'll probably be back on Christmas Eve.'

'Probably? Don't I look nice today, by the way? Skirt, blouse, tights, real shoes, tartan bra and matching panties.' Martin Beck laughed.

'What are you laughing at? My femininity?' 'That's not in your clothes.' 'You're sweet,' she said suddenly. 'Do you think so?'

'Yes, I do. If I read your thoughts correctly, then we should immediately rush off to bed.'

'You read my thoughts absolutely correctly.'

She kicked off her shoes, which flew in different directions, then said, 'In that case I'd better check up on the fridge and pantry first, so there won't be hunger riots afterwards.' She went out to the kitchen.

Martin Beck went over to the window and looked out. The sky was actually clear and the stars were out - a meteorological miracle at this time of year.

'Where did this lobster come from?' she called out.

'Hotorg market.'

'I can do lots of good things with it. How long have we got?'

'That depends on how long you spend messing around in the kitchen,' he said. 'No, we've got plenty of time. Hours.' 'Okay, I'm coming. Have you got any wine?'

'Yes.' 'Good.'

Rhea undressed on her way to the bedroom, beginning by flinging her blouse on the kitchen floor. 'It scratches,' she explained.

By the time she reached the bed, she had nothing on but the tartan bra. 'You take it off,' she said with burlesque coquettishness. 'It's a rare occasion, since I almost never wear one.'

They did not pull down the blinds, since normally there was no way anyone could see into the apartment From his place on the roof, Heydt could not see the bed, but he observed that the light dimmed in the bedroom, and he was quite able to deduce what was going on.

After a while, the lights went up again and the woman came to the window. She was naked.

Through the telescope sight, he gazed dispa.s.sionately at her left breast. The cross hairs lay just over the large brown nipple, the enlargement in the night sight was so great that it filled his whole field of vision. He could even see that there was a blonde hair about half an inch long growing just above the nipple. It occurred to him that she ought to have it removed.

Then he lowered the barrel a trifle. The cross hairs lay over a point immediately below her left breast. Her heart. He pulled the trigger towards him half a millimetre and felt it against the point of pressure. If he pulled the trigger yet another half-millimetre, the gun would go off and the bullet would strike her in the heart. With the super high-speed ammunition he used, she would be thrown backwards across the room and be dead before her back even struck the far wall.

Rhea was still standing by the window.

'What stars!' she said. 'Why do you have to go to Malmo? Is it still that character with the sideburns? Heydt?'

'Yes.'

'Do you know what I think he's doing at this moment Sitting in Bali fishing for goldfish with a hula-hula girl on his lap. Come on, let's fix that lobster.'

Fifty yards away, Reinhard Heydt was deciding that this whole project was uninteresting and pointless. He wriggled down through the hatch, dismantled his rifle and put the parts into the briefcase. Then he put on his light-coloured raincoat and left.

As he walked calmly down Bollhus Alley, he decided when, how and where he would leave the country.

29.

Since Martin Beck and his generation had been children, Christmas had changed from a fine traditional family festival into something that might be called economic cheapjackery or commercial insanity. For over a month before Christmas Eve, almost desperate advertis.e.m.e.nts for practically everything hammered at people's nerves, intent on squeezing their money from them right down to the last possible coin. Christmas was supposed to be in many respects a festival for children, but many children suffered from nerves and exhaustion several weeks before the great day finally arrived.

It had also become a festival of travel. The whole population seemed gripped by a manic need to be on the move. The lines of cars were endless, and charter flights to Gambia, Malta, Morocco, Tunis, Malaga, Israel, Canada, the Canary Islands, Algarve, the Faroes, Capri, Rhodes, and various other places less inviting at that time of year, were all fully booked. The state railways had to put on extra trains, and singularly uncomfortable buses rumbled off to the strangest places, like Saffle, Bogholm and Hjo. Even the Djurgard ferry and the boats to Visby were full.

Martin Beck could not sleep on the night train to Malmo, although in his capacity as a senior official he was able to travel first cla.s.s. His sleeplessness was partly due to the fact that his companion in the bunk above not only snored, talked in his sleep and ground his teeth, but also frequently climbed down to pa.s.s water, as it was called in tasteful language. As the train rattled through the shunting yard in Malmo, Martin Beck's fellow traveller was peeing for the fourteenth time, apparently suffering from some malfunction of the bladder.

Martin Beck's thoughts, however, were elsewhere - mostly with Reinhard Heydt.

A few hours earlier, when Rhea had been standing naked by the window on Kopmangatan and he had been lying in bed admiring her back and muscular calves, he had suddenly recalled Gunvald Larsson's warning, and had virtually jumped up and jerked her from the window. Gunvald Larsson almost never said such things, at least not without grave reason. A moment later, while Rhea, with a hideous clatter and talking continuously, was transforming the lobster into a delicious dish of her own devising - half Lobster Vanderbilt, half Lobster Rhea Nielsen - he had walked through the apartment and pulled down all the blinds.

Naturally Heydt was dangerous, but was he actually in Sweden?

And was this question mark sufficient reason for Martin Beck to ruin Christmas for four loyal colleagues, three of whom also had children?

Well, the future would tell. Or perhaps the future would tell nothing, at any rate not about Reinhard Heydt.

Deep down, Martin Beck hoped that Heydt would take the Oslo route so that Gunvald Larsson would have the chance to slug him on the jaw. Gunvald Larsson could not receive a better Christmas present.

Then he thought for a while about the calm that Melander and Ronn were probably spreading all through the Helsingborg police force. But they were good men - Melander always had been, and Ronn had become so despite many people's expectations - and if Heydt tried to get out that way, he would probably have little chance of success.

But Malmo... well, Malmo was pure h.e.l.l when it came to border control. Practically all the drugs in the country were tunnelled in by that route, as well as most other contraband.

The man with bladder trouble was first down to the floor, and as Martin Beck could not be bothered to turn over, he had the pleasure of a worm's-eye view of his fellow traveller dressing. Socks and underpants and a string vest swirled past, followed by a great tussle with trousers and braces, before Martin Beck had a chance to get his own clothes on.

He jogged across to the Savoy, where he always used to stay, even if at long intervals, and was given an exuberant welcome by the porter in his long greatcoat He went up to his room, shaved and showered, then took a cab to the police station, where he was soon shown into Per Mnsson's office. The Malmo police had had a difficult, even oppressive year, but this was not evident from Mnsson, who was chewing more tranquilly than ever on one of his eternal toothpicks.

'Benny isn't here,' said Mnsson. 'He practically fives down at the flying-boat terminal.' In Malmo for some reason they called hydrofoils 'flying boats'.

'And otherwise?'

'Otherwise we've checked d.a.m.ned well everywhere,' said Mnsson. 'The problem, of course, is that so many people are travelling at this time of year. In both directions. Pure chaos. But...'

'Yes?'

'His looks are on our side. As big as h.e.l.l, this guy Heydt. Maybe he could crawl on all fours and get by as a dog, if it weren't for the fact that you can't take dogs into Denmark any "more. The foxes over there have rabies.'

'Well,' said Martin Beck, 'there are a lot of tall people. Heydt isn't as tall as Gunvald Larsson, for instance.'

'But you could frighten the life out of little kids with Larsson,' said Mnsson, taking another toothpick from his pen tray.

'What do you think? You know this sort of traffic'

'Mmm,' said Mnsson. 'Sometimes I wonder whether I know anything at all. The train ferry Malmohus is the easiest to check. He hasn't got a chance there. Then come the so-called big boats, 0rnen, Gripen and oresund. Not so good with the car ferries in Limhamn, Hamlet and Ophelia or whatever their names are. But the worst of all, that's the flying-boat terminal - sheer h.e.l.l.'

'Hydrofoil,' said Martin Beck.

'Okay, they're h.e.l.l, either way. They come and go all the time, and the terminal building is so packed with people, you can hardly get your nose in.'

'I understand.'

'You won't understand a thing until you've actually seen it with your own eyes. The seaman who's supposed to check the tickets gets trampled underfoot, and the pa.s.sport police have a room to hide themselves away in, otherwise they'd be as flat as pancakes in ten minutes. You could push them under the doors to their wives when they got home.' Mnsson fell silent, a toothpick stuck in his teeth. Then he added, 'To use a corny old joke.'

'Then what's Skacke doing?'

'Benny? He's standing out on the quay, freezing in the wind, blue in the face. And he's been standing there since he got here yesterday evening.'

Gunvald Larsson was also freezing, though he had some important and some less important reasons for doing so. It was certainly several degrees colder on the Norwegian-Swedish border than in Malmo, but on the other hand he was purposefully clad in long Johns (which he loathed),thick corduroy trousers, ski pants, thick socks, sheepskin jacket and cap.

He was standing almost on the actual border, his back against a pine tree, attentively observing the endless stream of cars, the customs shed, the border barrier and the provisional roadblock, absently listening to the veritable storm of abuse motorists were raining down on to the inquisitive police. Wasn't there supposed to be free travel here? Had Norway suddenly become as difficult to get into as Saudi Arabia? What had happened to Scandinavian cooperation? Was it because of the North Sea oil? Or because all Swedish policemen were idiots? Why the h.e.l.l should my name be Heydt? And what business is it of the police what my name is anyway? As long as I'm a Swedish citizen, it's none of your business whether my name's Paronqvist or Laurel and Hardy. And just look at the traffic jam you've caused.

Gunvald Larsson sighed and looked at the line of cars. It had in fact begun to get remarkably long, while the vehicles coming from the opposite direction swept unhindered into Sweden from dear old Norway. Some of the policemen at the barrier were also behaving unusually stupidly. Every man was equipped with Heydt's photograph and a description. They knew he spoke bad Swedish, but pa.s.sable Danish, and also that he was about thirty years old and six feet tall. Yet some were hara.s.sing bald sixty-year-olds with marked Varmland accents for as long as ten minutes. Larsson sighed. Doing penance for the inbuilt stupidity of the police force had cost him years of his life. Now it was time for Don Quixote to take over.

Nearly all the cars had their roof racks loaded with skis, snow shovels and reindeer antiers, the latter having been sold to them by some smart operator at grossly inflated prices on the Swedish side of the border. Gunvald Larsson watched it all with profound distaste.

He liked Lapland very much indeed - but only in the summer.