An Event in Autumn: A Kurt Wallander Mystery

Chapter 11

Linda surprised Wallander by having dinner ready when he came back home. Although it was an ordinary weekday he was tempted to open a bottle of wine — but if he did Linda would only start stirring up trouble, so he didn’t. Instead he told her about the return visit he and Martinson had made in Löderup.

“Did you find anything?”

“I now have an overall view of who owned the property over the past fifty years. But, of course, it’s too early to say whether that knowledge will prove to be useful to us.”

“I spoke to Stefan. He hadn’t discovered any missing woman who might fit in the picture.”

“I didn’t expect he would.”

They ate in silence. It was only when they came to the coffee that they resumed talking.

“You could have bought the house,” she said. “You could have lived there until the day you died without knowing that there was a cemetery in your garden; lived there for the rest of your life without knowing that every summer you walked around in your bare feet on grass that was growing over a grave.”

“I keep thinking about that hand,” he said. “Something had caused it to come up to the surface. Obviously, if you have a tendency to believe in ghosts you might well think that the hand was sticking up on purpose in order to attract the attention of a visiting police officer.”

Their conversation was interrupted by a call to Linda’s cell phone. She answered, listened, then hung up.

“That was Stefan. I’m going to drive over to his place.”

Wallander immediately felt that nagging feeling of jealousy. He made an unintentional grimace, which of course she noticed.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“I can see that there is something. You’re pulling a face.”

“That’s just because something’s got caught in my teeth.”

“When will you learn that you can never get away with telling me lies?”

“I’m just a simple, jealous old father. That’s all.”

“Find yourself a woman. You know what I’ve said. If you don’t find someone to fuck soon, you’ll die.”

“You know I don’t like you using words like that.”

“I think you need somebody to annoy you sometimes. Bye.”

Linda left the room. Wallander thought for a few moments. Then he stood up, opened the bottle of wine, took out a glass and went into the living room. He dug out a record of Beethoven’s last string quartet and sat down in his armchair. His thoughts started to wander as he listened to the music. The wine was making him dozy. He closed his eyes, and was soon half asleep.

He suddenly opened his eyes. He was wide awake again. The music was finished — the record had come to an end. A thought had struck him deep in his subconscious mind. That hand he had stumbled over. He had received an explanation from Nyberg that the forensic officer thought was plausible. Groundwater could rise and fall, the clay soil could sink down and hence force the undersoil up toward the surface. And so the hand had risen up to ground level. But why just the hand? Was that remark at the dinner table more significant than he had realized? Had that hand risen to the surface specifically in order to be observed?

He poured another glass of wine, then telephoned Nyberg. It was always a bit dodgy calling him because he could object angrily to someone disturbing him. Wallander waited, listening to the phone ringing at the other end.

“Nyberg.”

“It’s Kurt. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“Of course you’re disturbing me, for Christ’s sake. What do you want?”

“That hand sticking up out of the ground. The one I stumbled over. You said that the clay soil keeps shifting, gliding around, and that the groundwater level is changing constantly. But I still don’t understand why that hand should emerge through the topsoil just now.”

“Who said it happened just now? I didn’t. It could have been lying there for many years.”

“But surely somebody ought to have seen it in that case?”

“That’s a problem for you to solve. Was that all?”

“Not really. Would it be possible for the hand to have been placed there on purpose? Specifically for it to be discovered? Did you notice if the ground there had been dug up recently?”

Nyberg was breathing heavily. Wallander was worried that he might burst into a fit of rage.

“That hand had moved there of its own accord,” said Nyberg.

He hadn’t become angry.

“It was exactly that I was wondering about,” said Wallander. “Thank you for taking the trouble to respond.”

He hung up and returned to his glass of wine.

Linda returned home shortly after midnight. By then he had already gone to bed and fallen asleep, after washing his glass and hiding away the empty bottle.