Faceless Killers

Chapter eight

In the morning he took out his best suit.

Despondently he stared at a spot on one lapel.

Ebba, he thought. This is a good project for her. When she hears that I’m going to meet Mona, she’ll put her heart into getting rid of this spot. Ebba is a woman who thinks that the number of divorces is a considerably greater threat to the future of our society than the increase in crime and violence.

At quarter past seven he laid the suit on the back seat and drove off. A thick cloud cover hung over the town.

Is it snow? he wondered. The snow that I really don’t want.

He drove slowly eastward, through Sandskogen, past the abandoned golf course, and turned off toward Kaseberga.

For the first time in days he felt that he had had enough sleep. He had slept nine hours straight. The swelling on his forehead had started to go down, and his burned arm didn’t sting anymore.

Methodically he went through the summary he had written up the night before. The main thing now was to find Johannes Lövgren’s mystery woman. And the son. Somewhere, in the circles surrounding these people, the perpetrators would be found. It was quite obvious that the double murder was connected to the missing 27,000 kronor, and maybe even to Lövgren’s other assets.

Someone who knew about the money, and who had taken time to give the horse some hay before he disappeared. One or more persons who knew Johannes Lövgren’s habits.

The rental car from Göteborg didn’t fit into the picture. Maybe it had nothing to do with the case at all.

He looked at his watch. Twenty to eight. Thursday, January eleventh.

Instead of driving straight to his father’s house, he went a few kilometers past it and turned off on the little gravel road that wound through rolling sand dunes up toward Båckakra, Dag Hammarskjöld’s estate, which the statesman had bequeathed to the Swedish public. Wallander left the car in the empty parking lot and walked up the hill; from there he could see the sea stretched out below.

There was a stone circle there. A stone circle of contemplation, built some years earlier. It was an invitation to solitude and peace of mind.

He sat down on a stone and looked out over the sea.

He had never been particularly inclined to philosophical meditation. He had never felt a need to delve into himself. Life was a continual interplay among various practical questions awaiting a solution. Whatever was out there was something inescapable which he could not affect no matter how much he worried about some meaning that probably didn’t even exist.

Having a few minutes of solitude was another thing altogether. It was the vast peace that lay hidden in not having to think at all. Just listen, observe, sit motionless.

There was a boat on its way somewhere. A large sea bird glided soundlessly on the updrafts. Everything was very quiet.

After ten minutes he stood up and went back to the car.

His father was in his studio painting when Wallander walked in. This time it was going to be a canvas with a wood grouse.

His father looked at him crossly.

Wallander could see that the old man was filthy. And he smelled bad too.

“Why are you here?” his father said.

“We made a date yesterday.”

“Eight o’clock, you said.”

“Good grief, I’m only eleven minutes late.”

“How the hell can you be a cop if you can’t keep track of time?”

Wallander didn’t answer. Instead he thought about his sister Kristina. Today he would have to make time to call her. Ask her whether she was aware of their father’s rapid decline. He had always imagined that senility was a slow process. That wasn’t the case at all, he realized now.

His father was searching for a color with his brush on the palette. His hands were still steady. Then he confidently daubed a nuance of pale red on the grouse’s plumage.

Wallander had sat down on the old sled to watch.

The stench of his father’s body was acrid. Wallander was reminded of a foul-smelling man lying on a bench in the Paris Metro when he and Mona were on their honeymoon.

I have to say something, he thought. Even if my father is on his way back to his childhood, I still have to speak to him like a grownup.

His father kept on painting with great concentration.

How many times has he painted that same motif? thought Wallander.

A quick and incomplete reckoning in his head came up with the figure of seven thousand.

Seven thousand sunsets.

He poured coffee out of the kettle that stood steaming on the kerosene stove.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“When you’re as old as I am, how you’re feeling is how you’re feeling,” his father replied dismissively.

“Have you thought about moving?”

“Where would I move to? And why should I move anyway?”

The questions he countered with came like the cracks of a whip.

“To a retirement home.”

His father pointed his brush at him ferociously, as if it were a weapon.

“Do you want me to die?”

“Of course not! I’m thinking of your own good.”

“How do you think I’d survive with a bunch of old fogies? And they certainly wouldn’t let me paint in my room.”

“Nowadays you can have your own apartment.”

“I’ve already got my own house. Maybe you didn’t notice that. Or maybe you’re too sick to notice?”

“I just have a little cold.”

At that moment he realized that the cold had never broken out. It had vanished as quickly as it came. He had been through this a few times before. When he had a lot to do, he refused to permit himself to get sick. But once the investigation was over, an illness could often break out instantly.

“I’m going to see Mona tonight,” he said.

Continuing to talk about an old folks’ home or an apartment in a building for senior citizens was pointless, he realized. First he had to talk with his sister about it.

“If she left you, she left you. Forget her.”

“I have absolutely no wish to forget her.”

His father kept on painting. Now he was working on the pink clouds. The conversation had stopped.

“Is there anything you need?” asked Wallander.

His father replied without looking at him. “Are you leaving already?”

The reproach in the words was evident. Wallander knew it was impossible to try and stifle the guilt that instantly flared up.

“I’ve got a job to do,” he said. “I’m the acting chief of police. We’re trying to solve a double murder. And track down some pyromaniacs.”

His father snorted and scratched his crotch. “Chief of police. Is that supposed to impress me?”

Wallander got up.

“I’ll be back, Dad,” he said. “I’m going to help you clean up this mess.”

His father’s outburst took him completely by surprise.

The old man flung his brush to the floor and stood in front of his son shaking his fist.

“You think you can come here and tell me this place is a mess?” he shouted. “You think you can come here and meddle in my life? Let me tell you this, I have both a cleaning woman and a housekeeper here. By the way, I’m taking a trip to Rimini for winter vacation. I’m going to have a show there. I’m demanding twenty-five thousand kronor per canvas. And you come here talking about old folks’ homes. But you’re not going to kill me off, I can tell you that!”

He left the studio, slamming the door behind him.

He’s nuts, thought Wallander. I’ve got to put a stop to this. Maybe he really imagines he has a cleaning woman and a housekeeper. That he’s going to Italy to open a show.

He wasn’t sure if he should go inside after his father, who was banging around in the kitchen. It sounded as if he was throwing pots and pans around.

Then Wallander went out to his car. The best thing would be to call his sister. Now, right away. Together maybe they could get their father to admit that he couldn’t go on like this.

At nine o’clock he went through the door of the police station and left his suit with Ebba, who promised to have it cleaned and pressed by that afternoon.

At ten o’clock he called a meeting for all the team members who weren’t out. The ones who had seen the spot on the news the night before shared his indignation. After a brief discussion they agreed that Wallander should write a sharp rebuttal and distribute it on the wire service.

“Why doesn’t the chief of the National Police respond?” Martinson wondered.

His question was met with disdainful laughter.

“That guy?” said Rydberg. “He only responds if he has something to gain from it. He doesn’t give a damn about how the police in the provinces are doing.”

After this comment their focus shifted to the double homicide.

Nothing remarkable had happened that demanded the attention of the investigators. They were still laying the groundwork.

Material was collected and gone over, various tips were checked out and entered in the daily log.

The whole team agreed that the mystery woman and her son in Kristianstad were the hottest lead. No one had any doubt either that the murder they were trying to solve had robbery as a motive.

Wallander asked whether things had been quiet at the various refugee camps.

“I checked the nightly report,” said Rydberg. “It was calm. The most dramatic thing last night was a moose running around on E14.”

“Tomorrow is Friday,” said Wallander. “Yesterday I got another anonymous phone call. The same individual. He repeated the threat that something was going to happen tomorrow, Friday.”

Rydberg suggested that they contact the National Police. Let them decide whether additional manpower should be committed.

“Let’s do that,” said Wallander. “We might as well be on the safe side. In our own district we’ll send out an extra night patrol to concentrate on the refugee camps.”

“Then you’ll have to authorize overtime,” said Hanson.

“I know,” said Wallander. “I want Peters and Norén on this special night detail. Then I want someone to call and talk with the directors at all the camps. Don’t scare them. Just ask them to be a little more vigilant.”

After about an hour the meeting was over.

Wallander was alone in his office, getting ready to write the response to Swedish Television.

Then the telephone rang.

It was Göran Boman in Kristianstad.

“I saw you on the news last night,” he said, laughing.

“Wasn’t that a bitch?”

“Yeah, you ought to protest.”

“I’m writing a letter right now.”

“What the hell are those reporters thinking of?”

“Not about what’s true, that’s for sure. But about what big headlines they can get.”

“I’ve got good news for you.”

Wallander felt himself tense up.

“Did you find her?”

“Maybe. I’m faxing you some papers. We think we’ve found nine possibles. The register of citizens isn’t such a stupid thing to have. I thought you ought to take a look at what we came up with. Then you can call me and tell me which ones you want us to check out first.”

“Great, Göran,” said Wallander. “I’ll call you back.”

The fax machine was out in the lobby. A young female temp he had never seen before was just taking a piece of paper out of the tray.

“Which one is Kurt Wallander?” she asked.

“That’s me,” he said. “Where’s Ebba?”

“She had to go to the dry cleaners,” said the woman.

Wallander felt ashamed. He was making Ebba run his private errands.

Boman had sent a total of four pages. Wallander returned to his room and spread them out on the desk. He went through one name after another, their birthdates, and when their babies with unknown fathers had been born. It didn’t take long for him to eliminate four of the candidates. That left five women who had borne sons during the fifties.

Two of them were still living in Kristianstad. One was listed at an address in Gladsax outside Simrishamn. Of the two others, one lived in Strömsund and the other had emigrated to Australia.

He smiled at the thought that the investigation might require sending someone to the other side of the world.

Then he called up Göran Boman.

“Great,” he said again. “This looks promising. If we’re on the right track, we’ve got five to choose from.”

“Should I start bringing them in for a talk?”

“No, I’ll take care of it myself. Or rather, I thought we could do it together. If you have time, I mean.”

“I’ll make time. Are we starting today?”

Wallander looked at his watch.

“Let’s wait till tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll try to get up there by nine. If there’s no trouble tonight, that is.”

He quickly told Göran about the anonymous threats.

“Did you catch whoever set the fire the other night?”

“Not yet.”

“I’ll set things up for tomorrow. Make sure none of them has moved.”

“Maybe I should meet you in Gladsax,” Wallander suggested. “It’s about halfway.”

“Nine o’clock at the Hotel Svea in Simrishamn,” said Boman. “A cup of coffee to start the day with.”

“Sounds good. See you there. And thanks for your help.”

Now, you bastards, thought Wallander after he hung up the phone. Now I’m going to let you have it.

He wrote the letter to Swedish Television. He did not mince words, and he decided to send copies to the Immigration Service, the Immigration Ministry, the County Chief of Police, and the Chief of the National Police.

Standing in the corridor, Rydberg read through what he had written.

“Good,” he said. “But don’t think they’ll do anything about it. Reporters in this country, especially on television, can do no wrong.”

He dropped the letter off to be typed and went into the lunchroom for coffee. He hadn’t had time to think about food yet. It was almost one o’clock, and he decided to go through all his phone messages before he went out to eat.

The night before, he had felt sick to his stomach when he took the anonymous phone call. Now he had cast off all sense of foreboding. If anything happened, the police were ready.

He punched in the number for Sten Widen. But before the phone started to ring on the other end, he abruptly hung up. Widen could wait. There would be plenty of time later to amuse themselves by timing how long it took for a horse to finish off a ration of hay.

Instead he tried the number of the DA’S office.

The woman at the switchboard told him that Anette Brolin was in.

He got up and walked down to the other wing of the police building. Just as he raised his hand to knock, the door opened.

She had her coat on. “I’m just on my way to lunch.”

“May I join you?”

She seemed to think about it for a moment. Then she gave him a quick smile. “Why not?”

Wallander suggested the Continental. They got a window table facing the station, and they both ordered salted salmon.

“I saw you on the news yesterday,” said Anette Brolin. “How can they broadcast such incomplete and insinuating reports?”

Wallander, who had instantly braced himself for criticism, relaxed.

“Reporters view the police as fair game,” he said. “Whether we do too much or too little, we get criticized for it. And they don’t understand that sometimes we have to hold back certain information for investigative purposes.”

Without hesitating, he told her about the leak. How furious he had been when information from the investigative meeting had gone straight to a TV broadcast.

He noticed that she was listening. Suddenly he thought he had discovered someone else behind the prosecutor role and the tasteful clothes.

After lunch they ordered coffee.

“Did your family move here too?” he asked.

“My husband is still in Stockholm,” she said. “And the kids won’t have to change schools for a year.”

Wallander could feel his disappointment.

Somehow he had hoped that the wedding ring meant nothing after all.

The waiter came with the check, and Wallander reached out to pay.

“We’ll split it,” she said.

They got refills on the coffee.

“Tell me about this town,” she said. “I’ve looked through a number of criminal cases for the last few years. It’s a lot different from Stockholm.”

“That’s changing fast,” he said. “Soon the entire Swedish countryside will be nothing but one solid suburb of the big cities. Twenty years ago, for example, there were no narcotics here. Ten years ago drugs had come to towns like Ystad and Simrishamn, but we still had some control over what was happening. Today drugs are everywhere. When I drive by some beautiful old Scanian farm I sometimes think: there might be a huge amphetamine factory hidden in there.”

“There are fewer violent crimes,” she said. “And they’re not quite as brutal.”

“It’s coming,” he said. “Unfortunately, I guess I’m supposed to say. But the differences between the big cities and the countryside have been almost totally wiped out. Organized crime is widespread in Malmö. The open borders and all the ferries coming in are like candy for the underworld. We have one detective who moved down here from Stockholm a few years ago. Svedberg is his name. He moved here because he couldn’t stand Stockholm anymore. A few days ago he said he was thinking about moving back.”

“Still, there’s a sense of calm here,” she said pensively. “Something that’s been totally lost in Stockholm.”

They left the Continental. Wallander had parked his car on Stickgatan nearby.

“Are you really allowed to park here?” she asked.

“No,” he replied. “But when I get a ticket I usually pay it. Otherwise it might be an interesting experience to say the hell with it and get taken to court.”

They drove back to the police station.

“I was thinking of asking you to dinner some evening,” he said. “I could show you around the area.”

“I’d like that,” she said.

“How often do you go home?” he asked.

“Every other week.”

“And your husband? The kids?”

“He comes down when he can. And the kids when they feel like it.”

I love you, thought Kurt Wallander.

I’m going to see Mona tonight and I’m going to tell her that I love another woman.

They said goodbye in the lobby of the police station.

“You’ll get a briefing on Monday,” said Wallander. “We’re starting to get a few leads to go on.”

“Is an arrest imminent?”

“No. Not yet. But the investigations at the banks produced some good results.”

She nodded.

“Preferably before ten on Monday,” she said. “The rest of the day I have detention hearings and negotiations in district court.”

They settled on nine o’clock.

Wallander watched her as she disappeared down the corridor.

He felt strangely exhilarated when he returned to his office.

Anette Brolin, he thought. In a world where everything is said to be possible, anything could happen.

He devoted the rest of the day to reading the notes from various interrogations that he had only skimmed before. The definitive autopsy report had also arrived. Once more he was shocked at the senseless violence to which the old couple had been subjected. He read the reports of the interviews with the two daughters and the accounts of what had been learned from the door-to-door canvassing in Lenarp.

All the information matched and added up.

No one had any idea that Johannes Lövgren was a significantly more complex person than he outwardly seemed. The simple farmer had been a split personality in disguise.

Once during the war, in the fall of 1943, he had been taken to district court in a case of assault and battery. But he had been acquitted. Someone had dug up a copy of the report, and Wallander read through it carefully. But he could see no reasonable motive for revenge. It seemed to have been an ordinary quarrel that led to blows at Erikslund community center.

At half past three Ebba brought in his dry-cleaned suit.

“You’re an angel,” he said.

“Hope you have a wonderful time tonight,” she said with a smile.

Wallander got a lump in his throat. She had really meant what she said.

He spent the time until five o’clock filling in a soccer lottery coupon, making an appointment to have his car serviced, and thinking through the important interviews for him the following day. Then he wrote a reminder to himself that he had to prepare a memo for Björk when he came back from vacation.

At three minutes after five Thomas Naslund stuck his head in the door.

“Are you still here?” he said. “I thought you’d gone home.”

“Why would I have done that?”

“That’s what Ebba said.”

Ebba keeps watch over me, he thought with a smile. Tomorrow I’ll bring her some flowers before I leave for Simrishamn.

Näslund came into the room.

“Do you have time right now?” he asked.

“Not much.”

“I’ll make it quick. It’s this Klas Månson.”

Wallander had to think for a moment before he remembered who that was.

“The one who robbed that minimart?”

“That’s the guy. We have witnesses who can identify him, even though he had some crappy stocking over his head. A tattoo on his wrist. There’s no doubt that he’s the one. But this new prosecutor doesn’t agree with us.”

Wallander raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“She thinks the investigation was sloppy.”

“Was it?”

Naslund looked at him in amazement.

“It was no sloppier than any other investigation. It’s a clear-cut case.”

“So what did she say?”

“If we can’t come up with more convincing proof she’s considering opposing the detention order. It’s bullshit that a Stockholm bitch like that can come here and pretend she’s somebody!”

Wallander could feel himself getting mad, but he was careful to keep his feelings to himself.

“Per wouldn’t have given us any problems,” Naslund went on. “It’s obvious that this punk is the one who robbed the store.”

“Have you got the report?” asked Wallander.

“I asked Svedberg to read through it.”

“Leave it here for me so I can look at it tomorrow.”

Naslund got ready to leave.

“Somebody ought to tell that bitch,” he said.

Wallander nodded and smiled. “I’ll do it. It’s obvious we can’t have a prosecutor from Stockholm who doesn’t do things the way we’re used to.”

“I thought you’d say that,” said Naslund and left.

An excellent excuse to have dinner, thought Wallander. He put on his jacket, hung the dry-cleaned suit over his arm, and switched off the ceiling light.

After a quick shower he made it to Malmö just before seven. He found a parking space near Stortorget and went down the steps to Kock’s Tavern. He would toss back a couple of drinks before he met Mona at the restaurant of the Central Hotel.

Even though the price was outrageous, he ordered a double whiskey. He preferred to drink malt whiskey, but an ordinary blend would have to do.

At the first gulp he spilled some on himself.

Now he’d have a new spot on his lapel. Almost in the same place as the old one.

I’m going home, he thought, full of self-reproach. I’ll go home and go to bed. I can’t even hold a glass without spilling it on me. At the same time he knew this feeling was pure vanity. Vanity and incurable nervousness about this meeting with Mona. It might be their most important meeting since the time he proposed to her.

Now he had taken on the task of stopping a divorce that was already set in motion.

But what did he really want?

He wiped off his lapel with a paper napkin, drained the glass, and ordered another whiskey.

In ten minutes he would have to go.

By then he would need to make up his mind. What was he going to say to Mona?

And what would her answer be?

His new drink came and he tossed it off. The liquor burned in his temples, and he could feel himself starting to sweat.

He didn’t come up with any solution.

Deep inside he hoped that Mona would say the words he was waiting to hear.

She was the one who had wanted the divorce.

So she was also the one who should take the initiative and cancel it.

He paid the bill and left. He walked slowly so that he would not arrive too early.

He decided two things while he waited for the light to turn green at the corner of Vallgatan.

He was going to have a serious talk with Mona about Linda. And he would ask her advice with regard to his father. Mona knew him well. Even though they had never really gotten along, she knew from experience about his changeable moods.

I should have called Kristina, he thought as he crossed the street.

I probably forgot about it on purpose.

He walked across the canal bridge and was passed by a carload of punks. A drunken youth was hanging halfway out the open window and bellowing something.

Wallander remembered how he used to walk across this bridge more than twenty years before. In these neighborhoods the city had looked exactly the same. He had walked the beat here as a young policeman, usually with an older partner, and they would go into the train station to check up on things. Sometimes they had to throw out someone who was drunk and didn’t have a ticket. There was seldom any violence.

That world doesn’t exist anymore, he thought.

It’s gone, lost forever.

He went into the train station. A lot had changed since the last time he had walked the beat here. But the stone floor was the same. And the sound of the screeching train cars and the braking locomotives.

Suddenly he caught sight of his daughter.

At first he thought he was seeing things. It could just as well have been the girl tossing hay bales at Sten Widén’s farm. But then he was sure. It was Linda.

She was standing with a coal-black man and trying to get a ticket out of the automat. The African was almost a foot and a half taller than she was. He had thick curly hair and was dressed in purple overalls.

As if he were on a stakeout, Wallander swiftly drew back behind a pillar.

The African said something and Linda laughed.

He realized it must have been years since he had seen his daughter laugh.

What he saw depressed him. He sensed that he couldn’t reach her. She was gone from him, despite the fact that she was standing so near.

My family, he thought. I’m in a railroad station spying on my daughter. At the same time that her mother, my wife, has probably already arrived at the restaurant so that we can meet and eat dinner and maybe manage to talk with each other without starting to yell and scream.

Suddenly he noticed that he was having a hard time seeing. His eyes were misted over with tears.

He hadn’t had tears in his eyes for a long time. It was as distant a memory as the last time he had seen Linda laugh.

The African and Linda were walking toward the exit to the platform. He wanted to rush after her, pull her to him.

Then they were gone from his field of vision, and he continued his hastily instigated surveillance. He slunk along in the shadows of the platform where the icy wind from the sound was blowing through. He watched them walk hand in hand, laughing. The last thing he saw was the blue doors hissing shut and the train leaving toward Landskrona or Lund.

He tried to focus on the fact that she had looked happy. Just as carefree as when she was a young girl. But all he seemed to feel was his own misery.

Kurt Wallander. The pathetic cop with his pitiful family life.

And now he was late. Maybe Mona had already turned on her heel and left. She was always punctual and hated having to wait.

Especially for him.

He started running along the platform. A fire-engine red locomotive screeched alongside him like an angry wild beast.

He was in such a hurry that he stumbled on the stairs leading to the restaurant. The crew-cut doorman gave him a dirty look.

“Where do you think you’re going?” asked the doorman.

Wallander was completely paralyzed by the question. Its implication was suddenly clear to him.

The doorman thought he was drunk. He wasn’t going to let him in.

“I’m going to have dinner with my wife,” he said.

“No, I don’t think you are,” said the doorman. “I think you’d better go on home.”

Kurt Wallander felt his blood boil.

“I’m a police officer!” he shouted. “And I’m not drunk, if that’s what you think. Now let me in before I really get mad.”

“Kiss my ass!” said the doorman. “Now go home before I call the cops.”

For a moment he felt like punching the doorman in the nose. Then he regained his composure and calmed down. He pulled his ID out of his inside pocket.

“I really am a police officer,” he said. “And I’m not drunk. I stumbled. And it is actually true that my wife is waiting for me.”

The doorman gave the ID card a suspicious look.

Then his face suddenly lit up.

“Hey, I recognize you,” he said. “You were on TV the other night.”

Finally I’m getting some benefit from the TV, he thought.

“I’m with you,” said the doorman. “All the way.”

“With me about what?”

“Keeping those damn niggers on a short leash. What kind of shit are we letting into this country, going around killing old folks? I’m with you, we should kick ‘em all out. Chase ’em out with a stick.”

Wallander could tell it was pointless to get into a discussion with the doorman. Instead he attempted a smile.

“Well, I guess I’ll go eat, I’m starving,” he said.

The doorman held the door open for him.

“You understand we’ve got to be careful, right?”

“No problem,” replied Wallander and went into the warmth of the restaurant.

He hung up his coat and looked around.

Mona was sitting at a window table with a view over the canal.

He wondered whether she had been watching him arrive.

He sucked in his stomach as best he could, ran his hand over his hair, and walked over to her.

Everything went wrong right from the start.

He saw that she had noticed the spot on his lapel, and it made him furious.

And he didn’t know if he totally succeeded in concealing his fury.

“Hi,” he said, sitting down across from her.

“Late as usual,” she said. “You’ve really put on weight!”

She had to start off with an insult. No friendliness, no affection.

“But you look just the same. You’ve really got a tan.”

“We spent a week on Madeira.”

Madeira. First Paris, then Madeira. The honeymoon. The hotel perched way out on the cliffs, the little fish restaurant down by the beach. And now she had been there again. With someone else.

“I see,” he said. “I thought Madeira was our island.”

“Don’t be childish!”

“I mean it!”

“Then you are being childish.”

“Of course I’m childish! What’s wrong with that?”

The conversation was spinning out of control. When a friendly waitress came to their table it was like being rescued from a frigid hole in the ice.

When the wine arrived the mood improved.

Kurt Wallander sat looking at the woman who had been his wife and thought that she was extremely beautiful. At least in his eyes. He tried to avoid thoughts that gave him a sharp stab of jealousy.

He tried to give the impression of being very calm, which he definitely was not, but it was something he strived for.

They said skål and raised their glasses.

“Come back,” he begged. “Let’s start over.”

“No,” she said. “You’ve got to understand that it’s finished. It’s all over.”

“I went into the station while I was waiting for you,” he said. “I saw our daughter there.”

“Linda?”

“You seem surprised.”

“I thought she was in Stockholm.”

“What would she be doing in Stockholm?”

“She was supposed to visit a college to see if it might be the right place for her.”

“I’m not blind. It was her.”

“Did you talk to her?”

Wallander shook his head. “She was just getting on the train. I didn’t have time.”

“Which train?”

“Lund or Landskrona. She was with an African.”

“That’s good, at least.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that Herman is the best thing that’s happened to Linda in a long time.”

“Herman?”

“Herman Mboya. He’s from Kenya.”

“He was wearing purple overalls!”

“He does have an amusing way of dressing sometimes.”

“What’s he doing in Sweden?”

“He’s in medical school. He’ll be a physician soon.”

Wallander listened in amazement. Was she pulling his leg?

“A physician?”

“Yes! A physician! A doctor, or whatever you call it. He’s friendly, thoughtful, and has a good sense of humor.”

“Do they live together?”

“He has a student apartment in Lund.”

“I asked you if they were living together!”

“I think Linda has finally decided.”

“Decided what?”

“To move in with him.”

“Then how can she go to the college in Stockholm?”

“It was Herman who suggested that.”

The waitress refilled their wine glasses. Wallander could feel himself starting to get a buzz.

“She called me one day,” he said. “She was in Ystad. But she never came by to say hello. If you see her, you can tell her that I miss her.”

“She does what she wants.”

“All I’m asking is for you to tell her!”

“I will! Don’t yell!”

“I’m not yelling!”

Just then the roast beef arrived. They ate in silence. Wallander couldn’t taste a thing. He ordered another bottle of wine and wondered how he was going to get home.

“You seem to be doing well,” he said.

She nodded, firmly and maybe spitefully too.

“And you?”

“I’m having a hell of a time. Otherwise, everything’s fine.”

“What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

He had forgotten that he was supposed to think of some excuse for their meeting. Now he had no idea what to say.

The truth, he thought ironically. Why not try the truth?

“I just wanted to see you,” he said. “The other stuff I said was all lies.”

She smiled.

“I’m glad that we could see each other,” she said.

Suddenly he burst into tears.

“I miss you terribly,” he mumbled.

She reached out her hand and put it on his. But she didn’t say anything.

And it was in that instant that Kurt Wallander knew that it was over. The divorce wouldn’t change anything. Maybe they’d have dinner once in a while. But their lives were irrevocably going in different directions. Her silence did not lie.

He started thinking about Anette Brolin. And the black woman who visited him in his dreams.

He had been unprepared for loneliness. Now he would be forced to accept it and maybe gradually find the new life that no one but himself could create.

“Tell me one thing,” he said. “Why did you leave me?”

“If I hadn’t left you, I would have died,” she said. “I wish you could understand that it wasn’t your fault. I was the one who felt the breakup was necessary, I was the one who decided. One day you’ll understand what I mean.”

“I want to understand now.”

When they were about to leave she wanted to pay her share. But he insisted and she gave in.

“How are you getting home?” she asked.

“There’s a night bus,” he replied. “How are you getting home?”

“I’m walking,” she said.

“I’ll walk with you partway.”

She shook her head.

“We’ll say goodbye here,” she said. “That would be best. But call me again sometime. I want to stay in touch.”

She kissed him quickly on the cheek. He watched her walk across the canal bridge with a vigorous stride. When she disappeared between the Savoy and the tourist bureau, he followed her. Earlier that evening he had shadowed his daughter. Now he was tailing his wife.

Near the radio store at the corner of Stortorget a car was waiting. She got into the front seat. Wallander ducked into a stairwell as the car drove past. He got a quick glimpse of the man behind the wheel.

He walked to his own car. There was no night bus to Ystad. He went into a phone booth and called Anette Brolin at home. When she answered he hung up at once.

He got into his car and pushed in the cassette of Maria Callas and closed his eyes.

He woke up with a start because he was cold. He had slept for almost two hours. Even though he wasn’t sober, he decided to drive home. He would take the back roads through Svedala and Svaneholm. That way he wouldn’t risk running into any police patrols.

But he did anyway. He had completely forgotten that the night patrols from Ystad were watching the refugee camps. And he was the one who had given the order.

Peters and Norén came upon an erratic driver between Svaneholm and Slimminge, after they had checked that everything was quiet at Hageholm. Normally both of them would have recognized Wallander’s car, but it never occurred to them that he might be out driving around at night. Besides, the license plate was so covered with mud that it was unreadable. Not until they had stopped the car and knocked on the windshield, and Kurt Wallander had rolled down the window did they recognize their acting chief.

None of them said a word. Norén’s flashlight shone on Wallander’s bloodshot eyes.

“Everything quiet?” asked Wallander.

Norén and Peters looked at each other.

“Yes,” said Peters. “Everything seems quiet.”

“That’s good,” said Wallander, about to roll up the window.

Then Norén stepped forward.

“You’d better get out of the car,” he said. “Now, right away.”

Wallander looked inquiringly at the face he could hardly recognize in the sharp glare from the flashlight.

Then he obeyed and did as he was told.

He got out of the car.

The night was cold. He could feel that he was freezing.

Something had come to an end.