“… is going to be handled by Faste and Ekström.”

“I don’t like this,” Modig said.

“Nor do I. But Ekström’s the boss, and he has backing from higher up in the bureaucracy. In other words, our job is still to find the killer. Curt, what’s the situation?”

Andersson shook his head. “Niedermann seems to have been swallowed up by the earth. I have to admit that in all my years on the force I’ve never seen anything like it. We haven’t had any tip-offs, and we don’t have a single informer who knows him or has any idea where he might be.”

“That sounds fishy,” Modig said. “But he’s being sought for the police murder in Gosseberga, for G.B.H on another officer, for the attempted murder of Salander, and for the aggravated kidnapping and assault of the dental nurse Anita Kaspersson, as well as for the murders of Svensson and Johansson. In every instance there’s good forensic evidence.”

“That helps a bit, at least. How’s it going with the case of Svavelsjö M.C.’s treasurer?”

“Viktor Göransson – and his girlfriend, Lena Nygren. Fingerprints and D.N.A. from Göransson’s body. Niedermann must have bloodied his knuckles pretty badly during the beating.”

“Anything new on Svavelsjö M.C.?”

“Nieminen has taken over as club president while Lundin remains in custody, awaiting trial for the kidnapping of Miriam Wu. There’s a whisper that Nieminen has offered a big reward to anyone who could provide information as to Niedermann’s whereabouts.”

“Which makes it even stranger that he hasn’t been found, if the entire underworld is looking for him. What about Göransson’s car?”

“Since we found Kaspersson’s car at Göransson’s place, we’re sure that Niedermann switched vehicles. But we have no trace of the car he took.”

“So we have to ask ourselves, one, is Niedermann still hiding out somewhere in Sweden?; two, if so, with whom?; three, is he out of the country? What do we think?”

“We have nothing to tell us that he has left the country, but really that seems his most logical course.”

“If he has gone, where did he ditch the car?”

Modig and Andersson shook their heads. Nine times out of ten, police work was largely uncomplicated when it came to looking for one specific individual. It was about initiating a logical sequence of inquiries. Who were his friends? Who had he been in prison with? Where does his girlfriend live? Who did he drink with? In what area was his mobile last used? Where is his vehicle? At the end of that sequence the fugitive would generally be found.

The problem with Niedermann was that he had no friends, no girlfriend, no listed mobile, and he had never been in prison.

The inquiries had concentrated on finding Göransson’s car, which Niedermann was presumed to be using. They had expected the car to turn up in a matter of days, probably in some car park in Stockholm. But there was as yet no sign of it.

“If he’s out of the country, where would he be?”

“He’s a German citizen, so the obvious thing would be for him to head for Germany.”

“He seems not to have had any contact with his old friends in Hamburg.”

Andersson waved his hand. “If his plan was to go to Germany… Why would he drive to Stockholm? Shouldn’t he have made for Malmö and the bridge to Copenhagen, or for one of the ferries?”

“I know. And Inspector Erlander in Göteborg has been focusing his search in that direction from day one. The Danish police have been informed about Göransson’s car, and we know for sure that he didn’t take any of the ferries.”

“But he did drive to Stockholm and to Svavelsjö, and there he murdered the club’s treasurer and – we may assume – went off with an unspecified sum of money. What would his next step be?”

“He has to get out of Sweden,” Bublanski said. “The most obvious thing would be to take one of the ferries across the Baltic. But Göransson and his girlfriend were murdered late on the night of April 9. Niedermann could have taken the ferry the next morning. We got the alarm roughly sixteen hours after they died, and we’ve had an A.P.B. out on the car ever since.”

“If he took the morning ferry, then Göransson’s car would have been parked at one of the ports,” Modig said.

“Perhaps we haven’t found the car because Niedermann drove out of the country to the north via Haparanda? A big detour around the Gulf of Bothnia, but in sixteen hours he could have been in Finland.”

“Sure, but soon after he would have had to abandon the car in Finland, and it should have been found by now.”

They sat in silence. Finally Bublanski got up and stood at the window.

“Could he have found a hiding place where he’s just lying low, a summer cabin or-”

“I don’t think it would be a summer cabin. This time of year every cabin owner is out checking their property.”

“And he wouldn’t try anywhere connected to Svavelsjö M.C. They’re the last people he’d want to run into.”

“And the entire underworld should be excluded as well… Any girlfriend we don’t know about?”

They could speculate, but they had no facts.

When Andersson had left for the day, Modig went back to Bublanski’s office and knocked on the door jamb. He waved her in.

“Have you got a couple of minutes?” she said.

“What’s up?”

“Salander. I don’t like this business with Ekström and Faste and a new trial. You’ve read Björck’s report. I’ve read Björck’s report. Salander was unlawfully committed in 1991 and Ekström knows it. What the hell is going on?”

Bublanski took off his reading glasses and tucked them into his breast pocket. “I don’t know.”

“Have you got any idea at all?”

“Ekström claims that Björck’s report and the correspondence with Teleborian were falsified.”

“That’s rubbish. If it were a fake, then Björck would have said so when we brought him in.”

“Ekström says Björck refused to discuss it, on the grounds that it was Top Secret. I was given a dressing down because I jumped the gun and brought him in.”

“I’m beginning to have strong reservations about Ekström.”

“He’s getting squeezed from all sides.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“We don’t have a monopoly on the truth, Sonja. Ekström says he’s received evidence that the report is a fake – that there is no real report with that protocol number. He also says that the forgery is a good one and that the content is a clever blend of truth and fantasy.”

“Which part was truth and which part was fantasy, that’s what I need to know,” Modig said.

“The outline story is pretty much correct. Zalachenko is Salander’s father, and he was a bastard who beat her mother. The problem is the familiar one – the mother never wanted to make a complaint so it went on for several years. Björck was given the job of finding out what happened when Salander tried to kill her father. He corresponded with Teleborian – but the correspondence in the form we’ve seen it is apparently a forgery. Teleborian did a routine psychiatric examination of Salander and concluded that she was mentally unbalanced. A prosecutor decided not to take the case any further. She needed care, and she got it at St Stefan’s.”

“And if it is a forgery… who did it and why?”

Bublanski shrugged. As I understand it, Ekström is going to commission one more thorough evaluation of Salander.”

“I can’t accept that.”

“It’s not our case any more.”

“And Faste has replaced us. Jan, I’m going to the media if these bastards piss all over Salander one more time.”

“No, Sonja. You won’t. First of all, we no longer have access to the report, so you have no way of backing up your claims. You’re going to look like a paranoid, and then your career will be over.”

“I still have the report,” Modig said in a low voice. “I made a copy for Curt but I never had a chance to give it to him before the Prosecutor General collected the others.”

“If you leak that report, you’ll not only be fired but you’ll be guilty of gross misconduct.”