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      Skacke looked at the man, who was stubbornly staring down at the floor. Then he shrugged his shoulders, turned his back on the pair and returned somewhat shaken to the South police station.

      Martin Beck and Kollberg had not yet returned from Kungsholmsgatan. They were still in Melander’s office and had again played back the tape on the Malm case, this time for Hammar, who had looked in during the afternoon to ask whether they had got anywhere.

      The smoke from Martin Beck’s cigarettes and Hammar’s cigar lay like fog over the room, and Kollberg had added to the air pollution by lighting a bonfire of dead matches and empty cigarette packets in the ashtray. Rönn worsened the situation even more by opening the window and letting in the most polluted city air in the whole of northern Europe. Martin Beck coughed and said:

      ‘If we’re going to consider the arson theory at all, then everything is made much more difficult by all the witnesses being in the hospital and not available for questioning.’

      ‘Yes,’ said Rönn.

      ‘I don’t think it was arson, now,’ said Hammar. ‘But we mustn’t draw any hasty conclusions until Melander has finished at the scene of the fire and the labs have had their say.’