as one-krona coins. A little gravel and sand had adhered to them. Inside the car there were similar spots on the floor mats. It was a very nice car to look into. And surely even nicer to drive. The black leather upholstery lent the car a masculine aura. The little leather-covered steering wheel and the high-tech instrument panel gave the sense of sitting in a cockpit, which was of course the intention. Irene felt a slight flutter in her diaphragm as she settled into the driver’s seat.
“Excuse me, Irene, but have you entered nirvana or what?” It was Tommy’s voice that abruptly brought her back to earth.
Dreamily she said, “You get a certain feeling sitting in a car like this.”
“Go ahead and enjoy it. It’s not often you wind up in a Porsche. But I found something over here. Come on.”
With a sigh she hoisted herself out of the wonderful leather seat and followed him to the back of the garage. In one corner, wedged in between the end of the shelves and the wall, stood a large gasoline can of green metal. Tommy tried to wriggle it out, which he finally managed to do. He shook it and confirmed, “Empty. Only a little splash left.”
“How much does a can like this hold?”
“Twenty-five or thirty liters. It’s illegal to store gasoline in garages or similar spaces.”
“But it’s empty.”
“Yep. But it used to have gasoline in it.” Tommy unscrewed the lid and sniffed the opening.
“But maybe it was empty when it was put in here.”
“Maybe.”
He didn’t sound convinced, and Irene agreed with him. She looked at the can and said, “Could it have been this gasoline that was used for the devil bomb on Berzeliigatan?”
“Exactly what I’m thinking. But there had to be more gasoline involved than this.”
They went around looking at the junk on the shelves. All of a sudden Irene saw it. A yellow-and-black-edged snake that was trying to creep away under the bottom shelf plank. A cutoff piece of water hose. She pulled it out. It proved to be about a meter and a half long.
Triumphantly she said, “Check it out! A piece of the water hose, you say. Wrong, wrong! I say.”
Both Fredrik and Tommy looked astonished. They stared dumbly at the hose and suddenly Tommy lit up.
“Yep! You’re right. That’s it.”
Fredrik sighed, “I still think it’s a piece of hose.”
Both Irene and Tommy shook their heads and said at the same time, “It’s a siphon!”
Irene stepped over to the coiled-up water hose. The piece had come from it. The fresh cuts fit perfectly when she put them together. Her heart was pounding with excitement, a familiar reaction to a riddle that was nearing its solution.
“That’s it all right! This is what took time inside the garage. Our bomber cut off a piece of the hose and used it as a siphon, to transfer the gasoline from the metal can to the plastic can. Or the plastic cans, I mean,” she added.
Tommy nodded his agreement and said, “Yep! But it would take more gasoline. Do you think he took it out of the car gas tanks?”
They looked at the Porsche. The BMW had also been in here. That was quite a lot of gasoline. Irene looked at the Porsche a long time. Finally she said, “I think I know why he took the Porsche and not his own car.”
She took the car key, climbed into the soft driver’s seat, and turned the ignition. The engine turned over. Her heart was pounding again as she pointed at the instrument panel.
“Look. The tank is almost empty.”
“Shut it off so we don’t die of carbon monoxide poisoning!”
Coughing, Tommy opened the garage door. It was doubtful whether the air outside was much better, but at least it wasn’t as concentrated.
Feeling a pang of loss, Irene shut off the engine. It had purred as softly as a leopard. She sketched out her imagined scenario. “The bomb maker comes here after midnight. He knows that there’s gasoline in the can and in the cars. He has just filled up his own tank. Once he’s here, he discovers that the Porsche has almost no gas in the tank. It’s only enough for less than fifty kilometers. He drives the Porsche out onto the street and puts his own car in the garage, so he can siphon the gas into the plastic containers undisturbed. But he leaves enough in his car that he won’t risk running out on the way home. The oil spots in