Shortly before 6 p.m. Martinsson popped his head round Wallander's door and asked if he'd like to come round for dinner at his place that evening. He'd already invited Lovén and Rönnlund, who seemed to be feeling homesick.

"Svedberg's busy," he said. "Birgitta Törn told me she was going to Malmö tonight. What about you?"

"Sorry, I can't," Wallander said. "I've got an appointment, I'm afraid."

It was partly true. He hadn't absolutely made up his mind whether to drive again to Brantevik and take a closer look at the fishing boat.

At 6.30 p.m. he phoned his father as usual, and was instructed to buy a new pack of cards and bring it with him the next time he came. As soon as he'd hung up, he left the station. The wind had dropped, and the sky was clear. He stopped on the way home to buy some food. By 8.30 p.m., when he'd finished eating and was waiting for the coffee to brew, he still hadn't made up his mind. No doubt it could wait until tomorrow. Besides, he was exhausted from the previous night's exertions.

He sat for ages at his kitchen table over his coffee, trying to imagine Rydberg opposite him, discussing the day's events. He went through what had happened step by step with his invisible visitor. It was three days since the life-raft had beached at Mossby Strand. They weren't going to get any further until they established who the dead men were, but even if they did that, the riddle might remain unsolved.

He put his cup in the sink. He noticed a drooping plant on his windowsill, and watered it before going to the living room and choosing a Maria Callas recording of La Traviata. He had made up his mind to postpone the visit to the fishing boat.

Later that evening he tried to ring his daughter at her college near Stockholm, but nobody answered. At 10.30 p.m. he went to bed and fell asleep almost at once.

The following day, the fourth day of the investigation, just before 2 p.m., what everybody had been expecting finally came to pass. Birgitta Törn went to Wallander's office with a telex. The police in Riga had informed the Swedish foreign ministry, via their superiors in Moscow, that it was likely that the men were Latvian citizens. In order to facilitate further investigations, Major Litvinov of the Moscow police suggested that his Swedish colleagues might like to establish direct contact with the serious crimes unit in Riga.

"So, they do exist after all," Wallander said. "The Latvian police, I mean."

"Who said they didn't?" she answered. "If you'd got in touch with Riga directly, though, there could have been diplomatic repercussions. I'm not sure we'd have received a response at all. I take it you are aware that the situation in Latvia is rather tense."

Wallander knew that. It was barely a month since the Soviet elite troops had attacked the Ministry of the Interior in central Riga and killed many innocent people. Wallander had seen newspaper pictures of barricades made of stone blocks and iron poles. All the same, he wasn't quite clear what was going on. As usual, he felt he didn't know enough about what was happening around him.

"What do we do now, then?" he asked tentatively.

"We establish contact with the police in Riga. The main thing is to make sure we really are dealing with the people indicated in the telex."

Wallander read the message again. The man in the fishing boat had been right: the life-raft had indeed drifted the whole way from the Baltic coast.

"We still don't know who they were," he said.

But he did know three hours later. A call from Riga had been announced, and the investigation team gathered in the conference room. Björk was so on edge that he spilled coffee down his jacket.

"Is there anybody here who speaks Latvian?" Wallander asked. "I don't."

"The call will be in English," Birgitta Törn said. "We asked for this."

"You take it," Björk said to Wallander.

"My English isn't all that good."

"No doubt his won't be either," Rönnlund said. "What was his name? Major Litvinov? It'll even itself out, I reckon."

"Major Litvinov is stationed in Moscow," Birgitta Törn pointed out. "We'll be talking to the police in Riga, in Latvia."

The call came at 5.19 p.m. The line was surprisingly clear. A man introduced himself as Major Liepa from the Riga police. Wallander made notes as he listened, occasionally answering a question. Major Liepa spoke very bad English, and Wallander was not at all confident that he understood everything he said. Nevertheless, when the call was over he felt he had the most important information jotted down in his notebook.

Two names, two identities: Janis Leja and Juris Kalns.

"Riga had their fingerprints," Wallander said. "According to Major Liepa there was no doubt that the bodies we found are these two."

"Excellent," Björk said. "What sort of men were they?"

Wallander read from his notes.

"Notorious criminals," he said.

"Did he have any idea why they might have been murdered?" Björk asked.

"No, but he didn't seem particularly surprised. If I understood him, he said that he'll be sending over some documentation. He also wondered if we were interested in inviting over any Latvian police officers to assist with the investigation."

"That would be an excellent idea" Björk said. "The quicker we can get this case out of the way, the better."

"The foreign ministry will support any such move, of course," Birgitta Törn said.

So it was agreed. The next day Major Liepa sent a telex announcing that he personally would be flying to Arlanda the following afternoon, and would get the first connection to Sturup.

"A major," Wallander said. "What does that mean?"

"I've no idea," Martinsson said. "I generally feel like a corporal in this business myself."

Birgitta Törn went back to Stockholm. Now she was gone, Wallander had difficulty recalling the sound of her voice, or even what she looked like. That's the last I'll see of her, he thought, and I don't suppose I'll ever discover why she came here in the first place.

Björk had taken it upon himself to meet the Latvian major at the airport, which meant that Wallander could spend the evening playing canasta with his father. As he drove out to Loderup, he thought to himself that the case would soon be solved. The Latvian police would presumably supply a plausible motive, and then the whole investigation could be transferred to Riga. That was no doubt where the murderer would be found. The life-raft had been washed up on the Swedish coast, but the origins of it all, of the murders, were on the other side of the sea. The bodies of the dead men would be sent back to Latvia and there the case would be resolved.

In this judgement, Wallander was completely wrong. The case had scarcely begun. What had begun in Skåne, and in earnest, was winter.

Wallander had expected Major Liepa to be in uniform when he arrived at the police station in Ystad, but the man Björk introduced him to on the sixth day of the investigation was wearing a baggy grey suit and a badly knotted tie. Moreover, he was short, with hunched shoulders that seemed to suggest he had no neck at all, and Wallander could see no trace of any military bearing. Major Liepa's first name was Karlis, and he was a chain-smoker: his fingers were yellow with nicotine stains from his extra-strong cigarettes.

The morning was grey and windy. A snowstorm was expected over Skåne towards evening, and since a particularly nasty flu virus had gained a foothold among the police, Björk felt he had to release Svedberg from the case for the time being: there was an urgent list of other crimes awaiting immediate attention. Lovén and Rönnlund had gone back to Stockholm, and as Björk was not feeling too well, he left Martinsson and Wallander to get on with the investigation with Major Liepa. They were sitting around in the conference room, and Major Liepa was chain-smoking.