They came simultaneously and that had to be that for the day.

Rhea rummaged in the wardrobe and extracted a long lilac woollen jumper, which was clearly her favourite piece of clothing and which she had found as difficult to leave behind at Tulegatan as her personal integrity. Before she had even put it on, she began to talk about food.

'A hot sandwich or maybe three, or five, how does that sound? I've bought all sorts of goodies, ham and pate, the best Jarlsberg cheese you've ever tasted.'

'I believe you,' said Martin Beck. He was standing over by the window, listening to the wolf howls of police cars, which could be heard very clearly, although in fact he lived in a very secluded spot.

'It'll be ready in five minutes,' said Rhea.

It was the same every time they slept together. She at once became extremely hungry. Sometimes it was so urgent that she rushed stark-naked out to the kitchen to start cooking. Her preference for hot food didn't make things easier.

Martin Beck had no such problems - on the contrary. True, his stomach trouble seemed to have left him as soon as he left his wife. Whether the trouble had been due to her erratic cooking or whether it had had psychosomatic origins was not easy to say. But he could still easily satisfy his caloric needs - especially when on duty or when Rhea was not within reach - with a couple of cheese sandwiches and a gla.s.s or two of milk.

But Rhea's hot open sandwiches were very difficult to resist. Martin Beck ate three of them and drank two bottles of Hof. Rhea devoured seven, drank half a bottle of red wine and was still hungry enough fifteen minutes later to go foraging in the refrigerator for more.

'Are you staying over?' Martin Beck asked.

'Yes, please,' she said. 'It seems to be that sort of day.'

'What sort of day?'

'The sort of day that suits us, of course.' 'Oh, that sort of day.'

'We could celebrate Swedish Flag Day, for instance. And the King's name day. We'll have to think up something original when we wake up.'

'Oh, I expect that can be arranged.'

Rhea curled up in the armchair. Most people would probably have thought she looked comical in her strange position and that mysterious long jumper. But Martin Beck did not think so. After a while it looked as if she had fallen asleep, but at that moment she said, 'Now I remember what it was I was going to say just as you raped me.'

'Yes? What was it?'

'That girl, Rebecka Lind, what'll happen to her?' 'Nothing. They released her.'

'Sometimes you really do say stupid things. I know they released - her. The question is what might happen to her psychologically. Can she look after herself?'

'Oh, I think so. She isn't as apathetic and pa.s.sive as a lot of her contemporaries. And as far as the trial -'

'Yes, the trial. What did she learn from it? Presumably that it's possible to be arrested and maybe sent to prison without ever having done anything.' Rhea frowned. 'I'm worried about that girl. It's difficult to manage on your own in a society you don't understand at all, when the system is alien to you.'

'From what I could gather that American boy is okay and really does want to take care of her.'

'Maybe he just can't,' said Rhea, shaking her head.

Martin Beck looked silently at her for a while, then said, 'I'd like to disagree with you, but the fact is I was worried myself when I saw that girl. Another fact is that unfortunately we can't do much to help her. Of course we could help her privately, with money, but I don't think she'd accept that kind of help and anyway I don't have any money to give away.'

Rhea scratched the back of her neck for a while. 'You're right,' she said. 'I think she's the type who wouldn't accept charity. She'll never even go willingly to the welfare office. Perhaps she'll try to get herself a job, but she'll never find one.' She yawned. 'I haven't the energy to think any more,' she said. 'But one thing seems clear. Rebecka Lind will never become a noted citizen in the land.'

She was wrong there, and soon afterwards fell asleep.

Martin Beck went out to the kitchen, did the dishes and put things away. He was still there when Rhea woke up and he heard her switch on the TV. She had decided not to have a set of her own, presumably for the sake of the children, but she occasionally liked to watch his. He heard her call something, put down what he was doing and went into the room.

"There's a special news bulletin,' she said.

He had missed the actual beginning, but there was no doubt about the subject matter. The newscaster's voice sounded dignified and serious.

'... the a.s.sa.s.sination occurred before the arrival at the palace. An explosive charge of very great force was detonated beneath the street just as the motorcade was pa.s.sing. The President and the others in the bulletproof car were killed immediately and their bodies badly mutilated. The car itself was thrown over a nearby building. A number of other people were killed by the explosion, among them several security men and civilians in the area. The chief of the city police announced that sixteen people had definitely been killed, but the final number may be considerably higher. He also emphasized that security measures for the state visit had been the most comprehensive ever undertaken in the history of the country. In a broadcast from France immediately after the a.s.sa.s.sination, it was said that an international terrorist group called ULAG had accepted responsibility for the act.'

The newsreader lifted his telephone receiver and listened for a few seconds, then said, 'We now have a film transmitted by satellite and made by an American television company covering this state visit that has come to such a tragic end.'

The broadcast was of poor quality, but nevertheless so revolting that it should never have been shown.

At first there were a few pictures of the arrival of the President's plane and the n.o.ble gentleman himself, rather foolishly waving at the reception committee. Then he unenthusiastically inspected the honour guard and greeted his hosts with a smile plastered on his face. There followed a few pictures of the motorcade. The security measures seemed singularly rea.s.suring.

Then came the climax of the broadcast. The television company appeared to have had a cameraman very strategically, or perhaps fortunately, placed. If the man had been fifty yards nearer, he would probably no longer be alive. If on the other hand he had been fifty yards, further away, he would probably not have had any pictures to show. Everything happened very quickly; first an enormous pillar of smoke, cars, animals and people all thrown high into the air, bodies torn apart, swallowed up in a cloud of smoke that looked almost like the mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb. Then the cameraman panned around the surroundings, which were very beautiful; a fountain playing, a wide palm-lined street. And then came the terrible paroxysms beside a heap of metal that might once have been a car, and something which a short time before had probably been a living human being.

Throughout the film the reporter kept up a ceaseless commentary in that eager, exalted tone that only American news reporters seem to achieve. It was as if he had - with enormous pleasure -just witnessed the end of the world.

'Oh, G.o.d,' said Rhea, burying her face in the chair cushion. 'What a d.a.m.ned awful world we live in.'

But for Martin Beck it was going to be slightly more difficult.

The Swedish newsreader reappeared and said, 'We have just learned that the Swedish police had a special observer at the site of the a.s.sa.s.sination, Inspector Gunvald Larsson, from the Violent Crimes Squad in Stockholm.'

The screen was filled with a still picture of Gunvald Larsson looking mentally deficient, his name, as usual, misspelled.

'Unfortunately there is no news at the moment of what has happened to Inspector Larsson. The next newscast will be the regularly scheduled news on the radio.'

'Dammit,' said Martin Beck. 'Dammit to h.e.l.l.'

'What's the matter?' asked Rhea.

'Gunvald. He's always right there when the s.h.i.t hits the fan.' 'I thought you didn't like him.'

'But I do. Even if I don't say so very often.'

'You should say what you think,' said Rhea. 'Come on, let's go to bed,'

Twenty minutes later he had fallen asleep with his cheek against her shoulder.

Her shoulder soon grew numb, and then her arm. She didn't move, but just lay awake in the dark, liking him.

The last commuter train of the night from Stockholm's Central Station stopped at Rotebro and dropped a single pa.s.senger.

The man, wearing a dark blue denim suit and black trainers, walked briskly along the platform and down the steps, but as he left the bright lights of the station behind him, he slowed down. He continued unhurriedly through the older villa section of the suburb, past the fences, low walls and well-cut hedges that surrounded the gardens. The air was chilly, but still and full of scents.

It was the darkest part of the night, but it was only two weeks to the summer solstice and the June sky arched deep blue above his head.

The houses on either side of the road lay dark and silent, the only sound that of the man's rubber soles against the pavement.

During the train journey, he had been uneasy and nervous, but now he was feeling calm and relaxed, his thoughts wandering their own ways. A poem by Elmer Diktonius came to his mind, its cadence matching his steps.

Walk carefully along the road But never count your steps, For fear will kill them.

From time to time he had tried to compose poetry himself, with indifferent results, but he liked reading poetry and had learned by heart many poems written by his favourite poets.

As he walked he kept his hand firmly clenched around the solid iron bar, over a foot long, that he was carrying thrust up the right sleeve of his denim jacket.

When the man had crossed Holmbodavagen and was approaching a street of terraced houses, his movements grew more cautious and his stance more alert. Up to now he had met no one and he was hoping his luck would hold for the short stretch remaining before he reached his goal. He felt more exposed here, the gardens were behind the houses, and the vegetation in the narrow strip between the fronts of houses and the pavement consisted of flower beds, bushes and hedges that were too low to offer any protection.

The houses along one side of the road were painted yellow, those opposite red. This appeared to be the only difference; their exteriors were otherwise identical, two-storey houses of wood, with mansard roofs. Between the houses were garages or tool-sheds, squeezed in as if to link the houses together as well as to separate them.

The man was on his way to the furthest row of houses, beyond which the buildings ceased and fields and meadows took over. He slipped swiftly and silently up to the garage next to one of the houses on the corner, as his eyes swept the terraces and the road. There was no one to be seen.

The garage had no doors, and there was no car inside, only a woman's bicycle leaning against the wall just inside the entrance, and opposite that a dustbin. Furthest in, by the far wall, were two large rectangular wooden crates standing on end. He had been worried that someone might have moved them away. The hiding place had been decided on beforehand and he would have found it difficult to find another one as good.

The s.p.a.ce between the packing cases and the wall was narrow, but wide enough for him to squeeze into. He wriggled in behind the crates, which were solidly constructed of rough pine and about the same size as coffins. When he had a.s.sured himself that he was completely hidden he drew the iron bar out of his sleeve. He lay face down on the damp, cold cement floor, his face buried in the crook of his arm. In his right hand was the iron bar, still warm from the heat of his body. Now he had only to wait as the summer night outside gradually grew lighter.

He was awakened by the twittering of birds. Getting to his knees, he looked at his watch. Almost half-past four. The sun was just rising; he had four more hours to wait.

Just before six, sounds began to come from inside the house. They were faint and indefinite and the man behind the wooden crate felt like pressing his ear to the wall, but dared not as he would then be visible from the road. Through a narrow slit between the two crates he could see a bit of the road and the house opposite. A car pa.s.sed, and shortly afterwards he heard an engine start up nearby and then saw another car go by.

At half-past six he heard steps approaching on the other side of the wall; it sounded like someone in clogs. The thumping faded away and came back several times, and finally he heard a deep female voice saying quite clearly, 'Bye, then. I'm going. Will you call me this evening?'

He could not make out the reply, but heard the front door open and close. He stood quite still with his eye to the crack.

The woman in clogs came into the garage. He could not see her, but heard a small d.i.c.k as she unlocked the bicycle and then the crunch of her steps on the gravel path leading out to the road. The only thing he saw as she cycled past was that her trousers were white and her hair long and dark.

He scanned the house across the road. The blinds were down in the only window that was within his field of vision. He damped the iron bar under his jacket with his left arm and moved three steps away from the protection of the crates, put one ear against the wall and listened, his eye on the road outside. At first he could hear nothing, but he soon caught the sound of steps vanishing up some stairs.

The road was empty. Far away he heard a dog bark and the distant grumble of a diesel engine, but in the immediate vicinity everything was quiet and still. He pulled on his gloves, which had been rolled up inside his jacket pockets, slipped quickly along the garage wall, stepped around the corner and pressed down the handle of the front porch door.

As he had expected, it was unlocked.

He held the door ajar, heard footsteps up on the next floor, established with a swift glance that the road was still empty, and slipped inside.

The tiles of the porch were a step lower than the parquet flooring of the hall, and he stood there looking to the right, through the hall and into the large living room. He was already familiar with the layout of the house. There were three doors to the right, the middle one open - that was the kitchen. The bathroom lay behind the door to the left in the hall. Then the stairs to the upper floor. Beyond them was the part of the living room hidden from him facing the garden at the back of the house.

To his left hung a row of outdoor clothes, and on the tile floor beneath them were rubber boots and some sandals and shoes. Straight ahead of him, immediately opposite the door from the porch, was yet another door. He opened it, went in and shut it soundlessly behind him.

He found himself in a kind of combined storage and utility room. The boiler for the central heating was there. Washing machine, dryer and pump stood along one wall beyond the heating unit. Along the other wall were two large cupboards and a workbench. He glanced into the cupboards. In one hung a ski suit, a sheepskin coat and other clothing seldom used, or put away for the summer. The other held a few rolls of wallpaper and a large tin of white paint.

The sounds from above had ceased. The man held the iron bar in his right hand as he opened the door a crack and listened.

Suddenly steps could be heard coming down the stairs and he hurried to close the door, but remained standing there with his ear to the wooden door-panel. The steps could not be heard so clearly down here, probably because the person out there was either barefooted or in his stocking feet.

There was a clatter in the kitchen, as if a saucepan had fallen to the floor.

Silence.

Then steps approached and the man tightened his grip on the iron bar. But he relaxed it again when he heard the bathroom door open and then the rush of water in the toilet He opened the door a crack again and peered out. Over the sound of rushing water, he heard the peculiar sounds that arise when someone, tries to sing while brushing his teeth. This was followed by gargling, throat clearing and spitting. Then the song started up again, clearer now and with shrill power. He recognized the song despite the fact that the rendering of it was horribly out of tune and that he had not heard it sung for at least twenty-five years. 'The Girl in Ma.r.s.eille' he thought it was called.

'... but then one dark night, in the Mediterranean moonlight, I lay dead in an alley, down by the old harbour...' came from the bathroom as someone turned on the shower.

He stepped out and on tiptoe crept up to the half-open bathroom door. The noise of the shower did not drown the song, which was now. mixed with snorts and puffings and blowings.

The man stood with the iron bar in his hand and looked into the bathroom. He looked at the reddening shiny back with two rolls of fat hanging between the round cushions over the shoulder blades and the place where the waist should have been. He looked at the sagging b.u.t.tocks, trembling over dimpled thighs, and the bulging veins at the back of the knees and k.n.o.bbly calves. He looked at the fat neck and the skull, which shone pink between thin strands of black hair. And as he looked and took the few steps towards the man standing in the bath, he was filled with loathing and disgust. He raised his weapon, and with the force of all his hatred, split the man's skull with one blow.

The fat man's feet slid backwards on the slippery enamel and he fell face down, his head thumping against the edge of the bath before his body came to rest with a smacking sound under the shower.

The killer leaned over to turn off the taps and saw how blood and brain tissue had mixed with the water and were swirling down the drain, which was half blocked by the dead man's big toe. Revolted, he grabbed a towel and wiped the weapon, threw the towel over the corpse's head and thrust the iron bar up the wet sleeve of his jacket. Then he closed the bathroom door and went into the living room, opening the gla.s.s doors into the garden, where the lawn bordered on the broad fields surrounding the area.

He had to walk a long stretch across open fields to reach the edge of the woods on the other side. A beaten path ran diagonally across the field and he began to follow it Further on, the ground was cultivated and green with sprouting seed. He did not turn around, but out of the corner of his left eye he sensed the long rows of houses with their angled roofs and shining windows in the pointed gables. Every window was an eye staring coldly at him.

As he approached the first group of trees on a small rocky slope surrounded by thick bushes, he turned off the path. Before he pushed his way through the p.r.i.c.kly blackthorn bushes to vanish among the trees, he let the iron bar slide out of his sleeve and vanish into the tangled undergrowth.

Martin Beck was sitting alone at home, leafing through an issue of Longitude as he listened to one of Rhea's records. Rhea and he did not really have the same tastes in music, but they both liked Nannie Porres and often played her records.

It was a quarter to eight in the evening and he had considered going to bed early. Rhea was at a meeting of the parent-teacher a.s.sociation of her children's school, and anyway they had already celebrated Swedish Flag Day in a satisfactory manner that morning.

The telephone rang in the middle of 'I Thought About You', and as he knew it could hardly be Rhea, he was in no hurry to answer it. It turned out to be Chief Inspector Parsson in Marsta district, known to some people as Marsta-Parsta. Martin Beck considered the nickname infantile and always thought of him as Parsson in Marsta.

'I called the duty officer first,' Parsson said, 'and he thought it'd be okay to call you at home. We've got a case out here in Rotebro which is clearly murder. The man's had his skull bashed in with a powerful blow to the back of his head.'

'Where and when was he found?'

'In a terraced house on Tennisvagen. The woman who lives in the house and appears to be his mistress came home at about five and found him dead in the bath. He was alive when she left the house at half-past six in the morning, she says.'

'How long have you been there?'

'She called us at five thirty-five,' said Parsson. 'We got here almost exactly two hours ago.'

He paused for a moment and then went on. 'I imagine it's a case we could manage on our own, but I thought I'd better inform you as soon as possible. It's difficult at this stage to decide just how complicated the investigation will be. The weapon hasn't been found.'

'So you want us to come in on it?' said Martin Beck. 'If I hadn't known that you weren't actually working on a case at the moment, I wouldn't have bothered you at this stage. But I wanted your advice, and I'm told you usually like to come on a case when it's reasonably fresh.'

Parsson sounded slightly uncertain. He admired all high-ranking officers, and Martin Beck could be considered one of those, but most of all he respected his professional skill 'Of course,' said Martin Beck. 'You're quite right I'm glad you called me up so soon.'

It was true. Often the police in country areas waited too long before calling in the Murder Squad, either because they overestimated their own resources and skills or misjudged the scope of the investigation, or because they themselves wanted to rap the experts in Stockholm over the knuckles and have the honour of solving a murder. When they finally had to admit their limitations and Martin Beck and his men went to the place, they were often faced" with a situation in which all the clues had been destroyed, all reports were illegible, witnesses had lost their memories, and the culprit had already established residence in Tahiti or had died of old age.

'When can you come?' said Parsson, noticeably relieved.

'I'll get started right away. I'll just call Koll-... Skacke, and see if he can drive me out'

Martin Beck thought of calling Kollberg in situations like this out of habit. He supposed it was because his subconscious would not accept the fact that they were no longer working together. During the first few months after Kollberg resigned, he had actually called him several times in emergencies.

Benny Skacke was at home and as usual sounded eager and enthusiastic He lived in southern Stockholm with his wife Monica and their one-year-old daughter. He promised to be at Kopmangatan within seven minutes, and Martin Beck went down to the street to wait for him. Exactly seven minutes later Skacke arrived in his black Saab.