He was massively built, and on a huge scale. He had muscles that spoke of long hours spent in a gym. But he was not a bodybuilder. His muscles looked completely natural. His hands were as big as frying pans.
The van was bumping along a road full of potholes. She thought they had taken the E4 south for a long time before they turned off onto country roads.
She knew that even if her hands were free she wouldn't stand a chance against this giant.
Eriksson called Blomkvist a little before midnight.
"I'm sorry for calling so late. I've been trying to reach you for hours, but you didn't answer your mobile."
"I had it turned off all day while I was dealing with some of the johns."
"I came up with something that could be of interest," Eriksson said.
"Tell me."
"Bjurman. You asked me to look into his background."
"What did you find?"
"He was born in 1950, and began studying law in 1970. He took his law degree in 1976, started working at Klang and Reine in 1978, and opened his own practice in 1989. One of his side jobs was as a clerk at a district court for a few weeks in 1976. Right after he got his degree in 1976 he worked for two years, from 1976 to 1978, as a lawyer at National Police headquarters."
"Interesting."
"I checked out what sort of work he did there. It wasn't easy to dig up. But he was, for one thing, in charge of legal matters for the Security Police. He worked on immigration."
"Which tells us?"
"That he worked there with your man Bjorck."
"That bastard. He didn't say a word about having actually worked with Bjurman."
The van had to be somewhere in the vicinity.
Paolo Roberto had glimpsed it only a minute before he lost it. He reversed onto the grass verge and turned back. He drove slowly, looking for side roads.
After only a hundred and fifty yards he spotted a light glinting through a narrow gap in the curtain of trees. He saw a forest track on the opposite side of the road and drove up it about fifty feet, turned, and parked facing out, not bothering to lock the car. Then he jogged back across the road and hopped over a ditch. He wished he had a flashlight as he wound his way forward through the undergrowth and low branches.
Very soon he came out onto a sandy gravel area and could see some low, dark buildings. As he walked towards them the light above a loading bay came on.
He dropped to his knees and stayed motionless. A second later the lights went on inside the building. It appeared to be a warehouse about a hundred feet long with a row of narrow windows high on one side. The yard was full of containers, and to his right was parked a yellow front-end loader. Next to it was a white Volvo. In the glow of the outdoor light he suddenly saw the van, parked only twenty-five yards from where he crouched.
Then a door opened in the loading bay right in front of him. A man with mousy hair and a beer belly came out of the warehouse and lit a cigarette. Paolo Roberto saw, against the light from the door, that he had a ponytail.
He kept stock-still. He was in full view less than twenty yards from the man, but the flame from his cigarette lighter had knocked out his night vision. Then he and the man with the ponytail both heard a half-choked howl from the van. As Ponytail moved towards the van, Paolo Roberto eased himself down flat on the ground.
He heard a rattle as the sliding doors of the van opened and saw the huge blond man get out, reach back inside, and haul out Miriam Wu. He took her under one arm and held her in an easy grip as she struggled. The two men exchanged some words, but Paolo Roberto could not hear what they said. Then Ponytail opened the door on the driver's side and hopped in. He started up the van and made a tight turn in the yard. The beams of the headlights swung past only a few yards from Paolo Roberto. The van disappeared down an access road and the noise of its engine faded into the distance.
The giant carried Miriam Wu through the door in the loading bay. Paolo Roberto could see a shadow through the windows high on the wall. It seemed as if the shadow was