Blomquist gave Ulf a sympathetic look. “Of course,” he said.

  They travelled in silence, which was unusual for any journey with Blomquist, and it was not until they were close to the point at which they would need to turn off the public road that anything was said. Then Blomquist remarked, “Do you think we’ll be making an arrest?”

  Ulf slowed down to scan the road ahead. He thought the turn-off should be coming up soon. “It’s possible,” he said.

  “I suppose,” mused Blomquist, “that we shall have to say, ‘Are you the owner of this house?’ That’s what we’ll have to say to anybody we find in the house. That’s what you say to people when you stop them in what you think is a stolen car.”

  “Or, ‘Where did you get this house?’ ” suggested Ulf, smiling.

  “They might reply, ‘We found it.’ That’s what thieves often say, isn’t it?”

  They arrived at the turning. Blomquist had input into his sat-nav the position of the house he had spotted on the aerial photograph, and now a disembodied voice from his mobile phone instructed them to turn off and drive two miles down a narrow, unpaved track.

  After a while, a smaller track branched off to the left. It looked as if it was of recent creation, as the packed earth of its surface was yet to be substantially eroded by rainfall. The forest, too, cut to make room for the track, had yet to green over the incision. Seeing this, Ulf began to feel confident that they were indeed on to something—that somebody had recently made this track, deep into this profusion of trees, to hide something that needed to be concealed. And had it not been for Blomquist and, indirectly, his photographer friend, that attempt at concealment might have succeeded. But not now, because Ulf had a very strong feeling that they were about to strike yet another blow for the proposition that the perpetrators of egregious crimes would, sooner or later, be made to answer for their misdeeds.

  They followed the smaller track for a few minutes, and then they were in a clearing. And there it was—the very house that had been in the picture shown to Ulf when he first met Fridolf Bengtsson.

  Ulf slowed down. “There,” he said.

  Blomquist pointed. “Yes. See? See.”

  “You were right, Blomquist,” said Ulf. And then he added something that he knew would give Blomquist pleasure, for that was what he felt he wanted to do now. “Right again, Blomquist.”

  Blomquist made a modest gesture. “I’m not always right. I’m often wrong.”

  But he did not sound convinced of this self-deprecating re-mark. So Ulf went on, “No, Blomquist—you must be prepared to take credit where it’s due. And you deserve it. You’ve solved this case—you. Not me. You.”

  “I didn’t do very much,” muttered Blomquist.

  “I intend to give you full credit in my report,” said Ulf. “I’m going to spell it out. Entirely owing to Blomquist’s intelligent and creative inquiries, we managed to locate the stolen house. Or words to that effect.”

  “But we haven’t found the guilty party yet,” Blomquist pointed out. “We’ve located the stolen goods, but that’s not the same thing as wrapping up the case.”

  “No, that’s true,” said Ulf. “But let’s go and knock on the door and see what we find. I have a good feeling about this whole case now, Blomquist.”

  They got out of the car and walked across a small patch of grass towards the front door of the house. Ulf looked up towards the roof, and then turned to look over his shoulder. “Blomquist,” he said. “How do you think they got this into this clearing?”

  Blomquist shrugged. “On the back of a big trailer,” he said. “Or a truck. Something like that.”

  Ulf nodded. “Yes, but…” He pointed towards the track down which they had just driven. “Look at that track.”

  Blomquist turned to look. “Yes?”

  “It’s not very broad,” said Ulf.

  For a few moments, Blomquist was silent. Then he said, “I see what you mean. The house is wider than the track, I think.”

  “I think so too,” said Ulf.

  “So that suggests,” Blomquist continued, “that this house was constructed in this clearing, rather than being brought in ready-made.”

  Ulf sighed. “That seems to follow.” He paused. “However, let’s not jump to any conclusions. We should still take a look.”

  They approached the front door, which was open, and Ulf knocked loudly. When there was no response after a minute or so, he knocked again.

  “Not in,” said Blomquist. “And the absence of any vehicles points that way too.”

  There was a small window close to the front door, and Ulf now peered through it. “Nothing much in here,” he said to Blomquist. “A sort of entrance hall. A table. A couple of chairs. A coat hanging up on a hook.”

  Blomquist moved past Ulf to a window just round the corner. Ulf followed him, and the two of them looked through that. Through the slightly dirty glass, they saw what seemed to be a study. There was a wall of bookshelves, a desk, a captain’s-style office chair, and a box in which magazines had been stacked. Ulf strained to make out the title of a large book at the end of one of the bookshelves. It took him a moment to make out the lettering, but what he saw made him take hold of Blomquist’s arm in excitement.

  “You see that large book on the second shelf, Blomquist? See it?”

  “The one with the blue cover?”

  “Yes. Can you read the title? Does it say what I think it says?”

  Blomquist wiped the window with his handkerchief and then screwed up his eyes. “I’m going to need glasses soon,” he said. “This sort of situation brings that home to me.” He pushed his nose up against the glass. “Modern Pib Breeding,” he said. “Yes. Modern Pib Breeding.” He turned to Ulf. “What are pibs, Ulf? A breed of dog? You know how they’re mixing breeds these days—labradoodles, cockapoos, and so on.”

  “Pigs,” said Ulf, laughing. “Pigs, Blomquist.”

  “Ah.”

  And then it dawned on Blomquist. “Fridolf is…”

  “Yes, he’s a pig breeder—a very major one.”

  “So this must be his house?”

  “I would say so,” said Ulf. “Who else would have a book of that title in his study? I would venture to suggest that only a pig breeder would own a book like that.”

  Blomquist said that he thought Ulf was probably right. “I think that confirms it,” he said.

  Ulf looked at his watch. Ideally he would have liked to have had time to go back to town, pick up Fridolf, then bring him out to identify the house as his own. But now he felt they would not have the time for that, and that it would have to wait until the following day. He was very much looking forward to reuniting Fridolf with his property—it always gave him pleasure to restore to people what was rightfully theirs. If one felt that with a stolen car or something of that sort, how much greater would the pleasure be if the item were something as emotionally significant as a house.

  They decided to walk round the house before returning to the car and starting their journey home. They tried a back door, but it was locked, and they investigated an empty wooden box lying on the ground at the back. But that afforded no information, and they left it where it was. Then Blomquist said, “Oh.” And after that, he said, “Oh,” again.

  Ulf stopped. “Have you seen something, Blomquist?” he asked.

  Blomquist pointed to the ground. “What do you think made those?”

  Ulf looked down and saw a line of large paw-prints. “Those are rather large,” he said. “They’re very interesting.”

  Blomquist crouched to examine the prints more closely. “Yes,” he said. “It would have to be a pretty big dog to make these prints.” He paused. “Or a wolf?”

  “This far south?”

  “There are wolves in this country,” said Blomquist. “And look at the claw marks. Dogs don’t have claws like that.”

  He straightened up. He looked into the surrounding trees and shivered. “I know that wolves are meant to be up in the north. And in the west. But wild animals move around, don’t they?”

  Ulf shook his head. “Wolves mainly rely on moose for food,” he said. “They go where they’ll find moose—and that’s not here.”

  Blomquist seemed unconvinced. “What about those big cats that people see? Panthers and so on? They even see them in England, you know. They’re escapees, but they can survive in the wild.”

  “It’s all a question of food sources,” said Ulf. “Predators need their particular food.”

  “They could take pigs,” said Blomquist. “There are plenty of pigs in southern Sweden.”

  Ulf smiled. “Do you remember the story, Blomquist? The three little pigs and the wolf? Remember the song? ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?’ ”

  Blomquist said that he remembered it very well. “I used to be scared by that story,” he said. “When I was a little boy. I remember hiding under my mother’s skirts when she read the story to me and she got to the point where the wolf huffed and puffed and blew the pig’s house down.”

  Ulf looked thoughtful. “The straw one, yes. And the wooden one too. But not the one made of brick.”

  He looked at the house. “Do you think there’s some strange connection here, Blomquist? Pigs, wolves, houses?”

  Blomquist shrugged. “Heaven knows,” he said. “But could we get back to town now? I’m going to take my wife out to dinner tonight. It’s her birthday. We’re going to a restaurant that specialises in pork, as it happens.”

  “I love pork chops,” said Ulf.

  “So do I,” said Blomquist. “People go on about steak, but I find it too strong. Pork is somehow lighter, isn’t it? Pork chops and creamy mustard sauce. And then the crackling that comes with them—I can’t get enough of that. That lovely crisp texture and the taste…oh my.”

  They reached the car. “I suppose one shouldn’t eat too much pork,” said Ulf. “I don’t want to spoil your dinner, but it’s pretty fatty, isn’t it? It’s not what you’d call a lean meat.”

  “But it is healthy,” Blomquist insisted. “It has more unsaturated fats than beef or lamb. That’s a positive thing, because unsaturated fats are better for you, Ulf. I may have told you that before—I don’t know—but it’s something you should know. And then pork has a lot of iron, zinc, niacin, vitamin B12…all of those, and more. We can definitely eat pork, Ulf. Definitely.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” said Ulf. To himself, he muttered, I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down…The things of childhood stayed with us, a layer or two beneath the adult façade—which is what it is, thought Ulf: a façade. Because deeper down, in the basements of our being, we are all still children, with all the fears and insecurities of the child still firmly rooted in our psyches. Dr. Svensson would agree with that, of course, but would offer reassurance nonetheless. Wolves should not frighten us, he would say, because in the cold light of day we should be able to see that they bear us no ill will. What should frighten us, the therapist once said, is other people. They’re the real danger.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WHITE MASK CRIME

  Fridolf did not react in the way that Ulf had expected when he gave him the news that his house had been found.

  At first there had been silence. Then, with unconcealed nervousness in his voice, Fridolf stuttered, “My house? You’ve found my house?”

  “Yes,” said Ulf. “I’m happy to tell you we have. Unharmed…”

  It was as if he were giving news of the recovery of a missing person. The victim was untouched…

  “There was no damage to it, as far as we could see,” Ulf continued. “It was in a clearing about forty-five minutes from…from where it used to be.”

  Fridolf said nothing.

  “I take it that you’re pleased,” Ulf said. It occurred to him that Fridolf might have claimed the insurance on the house, and might not wish to refund it; that sometimes happened with stolen property, and then the owner was embarrassed by any restoration.

  The silence returned for a few seconds longer, and then Fridolf said, “I am so pleased—I really am. I thought—”

  He did not finish, as Ulf interrupted him. “We’ll need you to identify it.”

  “Of course. I’ll go round and do so.”

  Now it was Ulf’s turn to be silent. There were slips—missteps as they were sometimes called—and then there were catastrophic, headlong falls.

  “You’ll go yourself?” Ulf asked.

  “Yes. No need to take up your time. No doubt you have important things to do.”

  Ulf held his breath. “Good,” he said.

  He waited. Perhaps Fridolf just needed time to gather his thoughts; perhaps he would now ask where he might find the house. But no such question was asked.

  “You might need me to tell you where to go,” said Ulf, his voice calm and even.

  Ulf heard an involuntary intake of breath. That was enough. Fridolf might have tried to conceal it, but he had not done so. It was the most fundamental of mistakes—to show knowledge that only the perpetrator could possibly know. That sort of error was one that an inexperienced teenage miscreant might make—not a misjudgement expected of a successful businessman, a man of the world, as Fridolf clearly was.

  “Of course,” Fridolf blustered. “Foolish me.”

  Foolish you indeed, thought Ulf. He was tempted to say that aloud, but he did not. As a general rule, he thought it was best to say as little as possible. That meant there was less to regret; less to explain; less to retract.

  “I tell you what,” said Ulf. “Let one of my people accompany you. He can spare the time. He’ll show you.”

  Fridolf agreed, and Ulf arranged a time when Blomquist might come and pick him up.

  “Blomquist knows all the facts of the case,” Ulf said. “You will find him pleasant company on the journey.”

  That comment was not made ironically; nor was it insincere. It was one of those remarks that is made without really meaning anything at all. And Ulf made it because he was, in fact, thinking very hard about how Fridolf’s involvement in the disappearance of his own house made any sense. The obvious explanation involved insurance. In fact, thought Ulf, there could be no other explanation. And if that were the case, then the next thing for him to do was to discover whether Fridolf was in financial difficulty. Ulf had a way of finding that out by way of a quick telephone call to his accommodating friend, Irena, in the Department of Commercial Crime. She had ways of finding out which businesses were in difficulty, and which were not. And she rarely took more than a couple of days to do so. If you wanted the information within hours, that could be arranged too, although she would expect a large take-out coffee and a chocolate éclair for that—delivered discreetly, of course—as this was a matter of informal reciprocity, a system that ensured that life within the various departments proceeded smoothly and on a cooperative basis.

  After making this arrangement, Ulf spent the remainder of the day dealing with a build-up of paperwork. It was the aspect of his job that he liked least, and it was for this reason that he let it accumulate. Then, when guilt tugged at his sleeve too insistently, he would tackle the backlog in a single cathartic session—which is what he did now. Five o’clock came quickly, and with his work all but finished, Ulf put the one or two remaining files into a desk drawer, slammed it shut, and then left the office.

  Juni had a key to Ulf’s flat, and she was inside, waiting for him when he arrived home. He could tell immediately that she was excited, as she flung her arms around his neck and gave him a long, lingering kiss.

  “What have I done to deserve that?” Ulf asked.

  She gave him a reproachful look. “You don’t need to do anything special for that,” she said.

  “It’s just that you seem…” He trailed off.

  “Pleased?”

  Ulf nodded. “Yes. You seem pleased about something.”

  “I am,” Juni said. “I’ve got good news for you. Niklas phoned.”

  Ulf slipped off his jacket. He did not want to hear from Niklas, but he did not want Juni to see that the mention of the vet’s name made him feel uncomfortable.

  “Well,” Juni persisted. “Aren’t you going to ask?”

  “What did he say?”

  “That’s better. Niklas has managed to get hold of the components that he needs for Martin’s operation. He ended up getting them from a colleague in the Netherlands. So he’ll be able to perform Martin’s operation tomorrow afternoon.”

  Ulf felt his heart skip a beat. “That’s rather soon, isn’t it?”

  “No,” said Juni. “There’s plenty of time to starve him.”

  It took Ulf a moment or two to realise what she was talking about. “Do you mean so that he can have an anaesthetic?”

  “Exactly,” said Juni. “There’s always a danger of choking if the patient regurgitates.”

  Ulf looked away. He resented the fact that she had made this arrangement without consulting him. For all she knew, he might wish to be with Martin during the procedure, and the following afternoon might not have suited him.

  It was as if she had read his mind. “I’ll take him to Niklas’s clinic,” she said. “I know that you’re likely to be busy, and I have the day off anyway. Niklas says that I can stay with Martin while he’s carrying out the operation.”

  Ulf bit his lip. It was too much. It was a liberty.

  “I would have liked to go with him,” he said.

  She seemed to be weighing up alternative responses. Eventually, she struck a conciliatory note. “I know how you feel, Ulf. You want the best for Martin, and I can see why—he’d feel safe with you there with him. But we mustn’t risk losing the opportunity, you know. If Niklas doesn’t do the operation tomorrow, it might be weeks before he can fit Martin in. It really could be. Niklas is very busy, you know. He has clients from all over—even Estonia. They book months in advance.”