An Event in Autumn: A Kurt Wallander Mystery

Chapter 23

On the outskirts of Ystad Wallander stopped at a filling station and had a hot dog. He was still not sure what the information he had received from the tax authorities actually indicated. If, in fact, it indicated anything at all.

He drank some coffee served in a plastic mug before continuing on his way.

Ekudden was just off the main road to Trelleborg — a large, old building in extensive grounds, with views of the sea and the entrance to Ystad harbor. Wallander parked his car and went through the gate. A few elderly men were playing boules on one of the gravel paths. Wallander entered the building, gave a friendly nod to two old ladies who sat knitting, and knocked on a door with a sign saying “Office.” A woman in her thirties opened the door.

“My name’s Wallander and I’m a police officer here in Ystad.”

“I know your daughter, Linda,” said the woman with a smile. “We went to the same school a long time ago. I was in your flat in Mariagatan once when you came in through the door: I remember being scared to death!”

“Of me?”

“Of you, yes! You were so enormously big.”

“I don’t think I’m all that big, am I? Do you know that Linda has come back to Ystad?”

“Yes, I bumped into her in the street. I know she’s become a police officer.”

“Do you think she seems frightening now?”

The girl laughed. She had a name tag pinned to her blouse: she was evidently called Pia.

“I have a question,” said Wallander. “I’ve been told that a man called Ivar Pihlak lives here.”

“Yes, Ivar lives here. He has a room on the first floor, right at the end of the corridor.”

“Is he at home?”

Pia looked at him in surprise.

“It’s very seldom that the old folks who live here are not at home.”

“Do you know if he has any relatives?”

“He’s never had any visitors. I don’t think he has a family. His parents live in Estonia. Or lived, rather. I seem to recall that he once said they were dead, and that he doesn’t have any relatives left.”

“How is he?”

“He’s eighty-six years old. He can think clearly, but he’s a bit limited physically. Why do you want to meet him?”

“It’s just a routine matter.”

Wallander suspected Pia didn’t believe him. Not a hundred percent, at least. She ushered him to the staircase and accompanied him up to the first floor.

The door to Ivar Pihlak’s room was ajar. She knocked.

Sitting at a little table in front of a window was an elderly man with white hair, playing patience. He looked up and smiled.

“You have a visitor,” said Pia.

“What a nice surprise!” said the man.

Wallander could hear no trace of a foreign accent in his voice.

“I’ll leave you to it,” said Pia.

She went back along the corridor. The old man had stood up. They shook hands. He smiled: his eyes were blue and his grip was firm.

It seemed to Wallander that everything was wrong. The man standing in front of him would never be able to supply him with a solution to the riddle of the two skeletons.

“I didn’t catch your name,” said Ivar Pihlak.

“My name’s Kurt Wallander and I’m a police officer. For a while during the war, many years ago, you and your parents lived on a farm just outside Löderup that belonged to a man called Ludvig Hansson. You lived there for just over six months, and then your parents went back to Denmark but you stayed on here in Sweden. Is that right?”

“How amazing that you should come here and talk about that now! After so many years.”

Ivar Pihlak looked at him with his blue eyes. It was as if Wallander’s words had both surprised him and awoken melancholic memories.

“So it’s true, is it?”

“My parents went back to Denmark in the beginning of December 1944. The war was coming to an end. They had a lot of friends — there were lots of other Estonians in Denmark. I suppose they didn’t really feel at home in Sweden.”

“Can you tell me exactly what happened?”

“Might I ask why you’re so interested?”

Wallander thought it over and decided not to mention the skeletons.

“It’s just a routine matter. Nothing special. What happened?”

“My parents returned to Estonia in June 1945. To their home in Tallinn. It was partially ruined, but they began to rebuild it.”

“But you stayed here in Sweden, is that right?”

“I didn’t want to go back. I stayed on here. I’ve never regretted it. I was able to train to become an engineer.”

“Do you have any family?”

“It never happened, I’m afraid. That’s something I regret, now that I’m an old man.”

“Did your parents come to visit you here?”

“It was usually a case of me going to Estonia. Things were very difficult there after the war, as you know.”

“When did your parents die?”

“My mother died as early as 1965, my father in the eighties.”

“What happened to their home?”

“An uncle on my father’s side took care of everything. I was there for their funerals. I brought some of their belongings back here to Sweden with me. But I got rid of everything when I moved in here. There’s not a lot of room for stuff here as you can see.”

Wallander felt he had no more questions to ask. The whole situation was pointless. The man with the blue eyes looked directly at him all the time, and spoke in a calm, soft voice.

“I won’t disturb you anymore,” said Wallander. “Good-bye, and many thanks.”

Wallander walked back through the garden. The men were still playing boules. Wallander paused and watched them. Something had begun to worry him. At first he couldn’t pin it down, apart from being aware that it had to do with the conversation he had had with the old man a few minutes earlier.

Then the penny dropped. It was as if the man’s responses had been rehearsed. No matter what he had asked, he received an answer — a little too fast, a little too precisely.

I’m imagining things, Wallander thought. I’m seeing ghosts where there aren’t any ghosts.

He drove back to the police station. Linda was sitting in the canteen, drinking coffee. He sat down at her table. There were a few ginger biscuits on a plate, and he ate them all.

“How’s it going?” she asked.

“It’s not going at all,” he said. “We’re standing still.”

“Will you be at home for dinner this evening?”

“I think so.”

She stood up and returned to her duties. Wallander finished his coffee and then went to his office.

The afternoon slid slowly past.

Just as he was about to go home, the telephone rang.