The man came up to the teller’s window and held out an empty suitcase.

He put down the dart, opened the hatch; stunned, he took the bag.

“Fill it up,” the ox-like man said in heavily accented English.

Quietly and methodically he placed one bundle of banknotes after another into the suitcase. Next to the bag lay the dart with the long point. Thoughts were surging through his mind, helter skelter. Only the bull’s-eye left, he thought. He thought about Lisbet and about nine-thirty, and about a bank door he had unlocked out of old habit. He thought about checking out in the double ring.

The ox-like man lowered the pistol for a moment and looked around nervously.

He thought about his ability to perform his best under extreme pressure.

“Hurry up!” snarled the ox, casting nervous glances out the window. His eyes were very black inside reddish rings.

Bull’s-eye, he thought and grabbed the dart.

Then all that remained was the checkout.

2

What struck Paul Hjelm first was how long it had been since he’d sat in a patrol car with flashing blue lights and a wailing siren. Now he was squeezed into the backseat between two uniformed cops and a plainclothes detective who looked exactly like him. He leaned forward and placed his hand on the driver’s shoulder just as the car burned rubber, pulling out abruptly onto Botkyrkaleden.

“I think it’d be best to turn off the siren,” Hjelm said.

The driver reached out his hand to push the button, but that didn’t bring silence; the squealing tires and the furiously accelerating engine kept the noise level high.

Hjelm studied his plainclothes colleague. Svante Ernstsson was clinging to the little strap that hung from the roof. Are there really straps hanging from the roof in modern police vehicles? thought Hjelm, thinking that was probably not what he should be thinking about right now.