Wallander was jealous of the fluent way that Martinsson could express himself in English. His pronunciation might be awful, but his vocabulary was much richer than Wallander's. Why didn't the national police board provide courses in English, instead of all those daft jamborees about staff development and internal democracy?

"I'm sure you're right," Major Liepa said. "As the Communist states start to disintegrate, they behave like shipwrecked sailing boats: the criminals are the rats, the first to leave the sinking ship. They have contacts; they have money; they also have access to advice. A lot of the refugees from the Eastern bloc are nothing but criminals. Not fleeing oppression, but seeking new territory. It's easy for them to forge a new past and identity."

"Major Liepa," Wallander said. "You say that this is what you believe the situation to be. You do not know for certain?"

"I'm certain," replied Major Liepa, "but I can't prove it. Not yet."

Wallander realised that in Major Liepa's words were references and significance he couldn't recognise or understand. In Major Liepa's country, criminal activities were linked with a political elite that had the authority to overrule and directly influence the sentencing of criminals. The two dead men had criminal backgrounds. Who would want them dead? And why?

It occurred to Wallander that as far as Major Liepa was concerned every criminal investigation involved his search for proof of a political implication: maybe that's how we should approach things in Sweden, he thought. Maybe we have to accept that we just aren't digging deeply enough into the criminal activity all around us.

"The men," Martinsson asked. "Who killed them?"

"I don't know," Major Liepa replied. "They were executed, of course – but why tortured? What did the killers want to know before they silenced Leja and Kalns? Did they find out what they wanted to know? I also have many unanswered questions."

"We're hardly going to find the answers here in Sweden," Wallander said.

"I know," Major Liepa said. "The solution might possibly be found in Latvia."

Wallander pricked up his ears. Why had he said "possibly"?

"If we can't find the answer in Latvia, where can we find it?" he asked. "Further away."

"Further to the east?" suggested Martinsson.

"Or possibly further south," Major Liepa said hesitantly, and both Martinsson and Wallander recognised that he didn't want to reveal what he was thinking for the moment.

They decided they had done all they could for the day.

Thanks to all the sitting down and the laborious discussions they'd had with the major, Wallander could feel the repercussions of an old lumbago attack. Martinsson promised to help Major Liepa change some currency at the bank, and Wallander suggested that he also get in touch with Lovén in Stockholm, to find out the latest on the ballistic investigation. Wallander's own task was to write a report on what had happened at the meeting. The prosecutor, Anette Brolin, had let it be known that she would appreciate an update as soon as possible.

La Brolin, thought Wallander as he left the smoke-filled conference room and set off down the corridor. This is a case you're not going to be able to take to court. We'll off-load it to Riga as soon as we can, together with two corpses and a red life-raft. Then we can put the rubber stamp on our own investigation, and maintain that we've done all we can and have "no reason to initiate further investigation".

Wallander wrote his report after lunch, while Martinsson looked after Major Liepa, who had expressed a desire to buy some clothes for his wife. Wallander had just phoned the prosecutor's office and had been told that Anette Brolin was free and would see him, when Martinsson strode into his office.

"What have you done with the major?" Wallander asked. "He's in his room, smoking," Martinsson said. "He's already dropped ash all over Svedberg's fancy carpet." "Has he had anything to eat?"

"I treated him to the lunch of the day at the Hornblower. Dumplings. I don't think he liked them – he spent most of the time smoking and drinking coffee."

"Did you reach Lovén?"

"He's away with flu."

"Have you talked to anybody else?"

"It's impossible to reach anybody by phone, nobody's in. Nobody knows when they're coming back. Someone promises that they'll call back, but no one ever does."

"Maybe Rönnlund could give you a hand?"

"I tried him as well, but he was out on business. Nobody knew what business, where he was, or when he was coming back."

"Better try again. I have to see the prosecutor about this report. I'm assuming we can hand the case over to Major Liepa rather soon – the bodies, the life-raft and the documentation. He's welcome to take the whole shooting match back to Riga with him."

"That's what I came to talk to you about."

"What is?"

"The life-raft."

"What about it?"

"Major Liepa wanted to examine it."

"Well, all he had to do was to go down to the basement."

"It's not quite as simple as that."

Wallander could feel himself getting annoyed. Martinsson sometimes took forever to get to the point.

"What's so difficult about walking down the stairs to the basement?"

"The raft's not there."

Wallander stared at Martinsson in astonishment. "What do you mean 'not there'?" "Not there."

"What on earth do you mean? It's on a couple of trestles, where you and Captain Österdahl examined it. By the way, we ought to write to him and thank him for his help – good that you reminded me of that."

"The trestles are still there" said Martinsson, "but the life-raft isn't."

Wallander put his papers down on his desk, and hurried down into the basement, closely followed by Martinsson. He was right. The two wooden trestles had been overturned and were lying there on the concrete floor, and the life-raft was nowhere to be seen.

"What the bloody hell's going on?" Wallander shouted.

Martinsson was hesitant, as if he didn't really believe what he was saying.

"There's been a break-in. Hansson was down here last night, and the life-raft was here then. This morning one of the traffic police noticed that the door had been forced, so it must have been stolen during the night."

"That's impossible," Wallander said. "How can the police station have been burgled? There are people here round the clock, for God's sake. Is anything else missing? Why hasn't anybody said anything about this?"

"A patrol officer reported it to Hansson, but he forgot to tell you. There was nothing here apart from the raft, and all the other doors were locked. None of them has been forced. Whoever did this was after the life-raft, and nothing else."

Wallander stared at the overturned trestles. Somewhere deep down he could feel a worry starting to gnaw away at him.

"Martinsson," he said slowly, "can you remember off the top of your head whether any of the newspapers reported that the life-raft was in the basement at the police station?"

"Yes," he said. "I remember reading that. I also seem to remember there was a photographer down here. But who would take the risk of breaking into a police station to get their hands on a life-raft?"

"You've hit the nail on the head," Wallander said. "Who would take a risk like that?" "I'm lost," Martinsson said.

"Maybe Major Liepa will have the answer," Wallander said. "Bring him here. Then we'll have a thorough search. And tell somebody to get hold of the patrol officer. Who was it?"

"I think it was Peters. He's probably at home now, in bed. If it snows tomorrow night, he's going to have a hard shift."

"We'll have to wake him," Wallander said. "We have no alternative."

When Martinsson left, Wallander inspected the door. It was a thick, steel door with a double lock, but the burglars had got in without doing any visible damage to the door itself. Obviously the lock had been picked. These people knew what they were doing, Wallander thought. They knew how to pick a lock at any rate. He took another look at the overturned trestles. He'd inspected the life-raft himself, and had been absolutely certain he hadn't missed anything. Martinsson and Österdahl had also examined the raft, and so had Rönnlund and Lovén.