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the sound of heavy traffic thundering along the main road.
    Allwright looked up.
    'Most of the big lorries still take this road from Malmö to Ystad,' he said. 'Even though the new Route 11 is a lot faster. Lorry drivers are creatures of habit'
    'And this business with Bengtsson?' said Martin Beck.
    'You ought to know more about him than I do.'
    'Maybe. Maybe not. We got him for a sex murder almost ten years ago. After a lot of ifs and buts. He was an odd man. But what happened to him afterwards, I don't know.'
    'I know’ Allwright said. 'Everyone in town here knows. They declared him sane, and he spent seven and a half years in prison. Eventually he moved down here and bought a little house. He had some money, apparently, because he also got hold of a boat and an old estate car. He makes a living smoking fish. Catches some of it himself and buys some of it from people who do a little fishing on the side - non-union. It's not popular with the professional fishermen, but it's not actually illegal, either. At least not as far as I can see. Then he drives around and sells smoked herring and fresh eggs, mostly to a few steady customers. The people around here have accepted Folke as a decent person. He's never done anyone any harm. Doesn't talk much and keeps mostly to. himself. Retiring type. The times I've run into him, it always seems as if he wanted to apologize for simply existing. But...'
    'Yes?'
    'But everybody knows he's a murderer. Tried and convicted. It was apparently a pretty ugly murder, too. Some harmless foreign woman.'
    'Roseanna McGraw was her name. And it really was revolting. Sick. But he was sexually provoked. The way he saw it. And we had to provoke him again in order to catch him. Myself, I can't imagine how he ever passed the psychiatric examination.'
    'Oh, come on,' said Allwright, laugh lines spreading around his eyes like a spider web. 'I've been in Stockholm too. The cram course in legal psychiatry. In fifty per cent of the cases the doctors are crazier than the patients.'
    'As far as I could gather, Folke Bengtsson was definitely disturbed. A combination of sadism, puritanism, and misogyny. Does he know Sigbrit Mård?'
    'Know?' said Allwright. 'His house isn't two hundred yards from hers. They're each other's closest neighbours. She's one of his regular customers. But that's not the worst of it'
    'Really?'
    'The key point is that he was in the post office at the same time she was. There are witnesses who saw them talking to each other. He had his car parked in the square. He was standing behind her in line and left the place about five minutes after she did.'
    There was a moment's silence.
    'You know Folke Bengtsson,' Allwright said. . 'Yes.'
    'And would he be capable...?'
    ‘Yes,' said Martin Beck.

5
    'To be perfectly honest, and I always am, Sigbrit's dead, and things look pretty damned bad for Folke,' Allwright said. 'I don't believe in coincidence.'
    'You said something about her husband?'
    'Yes, that's right He's a ship's captain, but he drinks too much. Six years ago he got some mysterious liver disease, and they sent him home from Ecuador. They didn't fire him, but the doctors wouldn't give him a clean bill of health, so he couldn't ship out again. He came out here to live, and went on drinking, and then pretty soon they separated. Now he lives, in Malmö.'
    'Do you have any contact with him?'
    'Yes. Unfortunately. Close physical contact you might say. If you wanted to put it nicely. The fact is, she was the one who wanted the divorce. He was against it Dead against it But she got her way. They'd been married for a long time, but he'd been away at sea mostly. Came home once a year or so, and apparently that worked fine. But then when they tried to live together all the time, it was a complete disaster.'
    'And now?'
    'Now every time he gets well and truly plastered he comes out here to "talk it over". But there's nothing to talk about and he usually winds up giving her a real alarming.'
    'A