“Did she seem tense or worried?” asked Wallander.

Moberg thought for a moment before answering.

“No,” he said. “On the contrary, she seemed happy. Before, I always thought she was uptight, but not on Friday.”

Wallander nodded, encouraging him to go on.

“The clients arrived, a young couple called Nilson. And the seller, representing the estate of somebody who’d died in Sovde. We sat down here and went through the whole procedure. There was nothing unusual. All the documents were in order. The deeds, the mortgage bond, the loan forms, the draft. It didn’t take long. Then we broke up. I expect we all wished one another a pleasant weekend, but I can’t remember that.”

“Was Louise Akerblom in a hurry?” asked Wallander.

The assistant manager thought it over again.

“Could be,” he said. “Maybe she was. I’m not sure. But there is something I’m quite certain about.”

“What?”

“She didn’t go straight to her car.”

Moberg pointed at the window, which looked out over a little parking lot.

“Those lots are for the bank’s customers,” the assistant manager went on. “I saw her park there when she arrived. It was a quarter of an hour after she’d left the bank before she drove off. I was still in here, on the telephone. That’s how I could see everything. I think she had a bag in her hand when she got to the car. As well as her briefcase.”

“A bag?” asked Wallander. “What did it look like?”

Moberg shrugged his shoulders. Wallander could see the injection was wearing off.

“What does a bag look like?” said the assistant manager. “I think it was a paper bag. Not plastic.”

“And then she drove off?”

“Before that she made a call from her car phone.”