The Pyramid

PROLOGUE

The aeroplane flew in over Sweden at a low altitude just west of Mossby Beach. The fog was thick out at sea but growing lighter closer to shore. Contours of the shoreline and the first few houses rushed towards the pilot. But he had already made this trip many times. He was flying by instruments alone. As soon as he crossed the Swedish border and identified Mossby Beach and the lights along the road to Trelleborg, he made a sharp turn north-east and then another turn east. The plane, a Piper Cherokee, was obedient. He positioned himself along a route that had been carefully planned. An air corridor cut an invisible path over an area in Skåne where the houses were few and far between. It was a little before five o'clock on the morning of 11 December 1989. Around him there was an almost solid darkness. Every time he flew at night he thought about his first few years, when he had worked as a co-pilot for a Greek company that had transported tobacco at night and in secret from what had then been Southern Rhodesia, restricted by political sanctions. That had been in 1966 and 1967. More than twenty years ago. But the memory never left him. That was when he had learned that a skilled pilot can fly even at night, with a minimum of aids, and in complete radio silence.

The plane was now flying so low that the pilot did not dare to take it any lower. He began to wonder if he would have to turn back without completing his mission. That happened sometimes. Safety always came first and visibility was still bad. But suddenly, right before the pilot would have been forced to make his decision, the fog lifted. He checked the time. In two minutes he would see the lights where he was supposed to make his drop. He turned round and shouted out to the man who was sitting on the only chair left in the cabin.

'Two minutes!'

The man behind him in the darkness directed a torch into his own face and nodded.

The pilot peered out into the darkness. One minute to go now, he thought. And that was when he saw the spotlights that formed a square of two hundred metres per side. He shouted to the man to make himself ready. Then he prepared for a left turn and approached the lighted square from the west. He felt the cold wind and light shaking of the fuselage as the man behind him opened the cabin door. Then he put his hand on the switch that glowed red in the back of the cabin. He had decreased his speed as much as possible. Then he threw the switch, the light changed to green, and he knew that the man back there was pushing out the rubber-clad cistern. The cold wind stopped when the door shut. At that point, the pilot had already changed his course to the south-east. He smiled to himself. The cistern had landed now, somewhere between the spotlights. Someone was there to collect it. The lights would be turned off and loaded onto a truck, and then the darkness would become as compact and impenetrable as before. A perfect operation, he thought. The nineteenth in a row.

He checked his watch. In nine minutes they would pass over the coast and leave Sweden again. After another ten minutes he would rise another several hundred metres. He had a Thermos with coffee next to his seat. He would drink it as they crossed the sea. At eight o'clock he would set his plane down on his private landing strip outside Kiel, and then get into his car and already be on his way to Hamburg, where he lived.

The aeroplane lurched once. And then again. The pilot checked his instrument panel. Everything seemed normal. The headwind was not particularly strong, nor was there any turbulence. Then the plane lurched a third time, more strongly. The pilot worked the rudder, but the plane rolled onto its left side. He tried to correct it without success. The instruments were still normal. But his extensive experience told him that something wasn't right. He could not straighten the plane up. Although he was increasing his speed, the plane was losing altitude. He tried to think with complete calm. What could have happened? He always examined a plane before he took off. When he had arrived at the hangar at one o'clock in the morning, he had spent over half an hour examining it, going through all the lists that the mechanic provided, and then he had followed all the directions on the checklist before take-off.

He was unable to straighten the plane. The twisting continued. Now he knew the situation was serious. He increased his speed even more and tried to compensate with the rudder. The man in the back shouted and asked what was wrong. The pilot didn't reply. He had no answer. If he didn't manage to steady the plane they would crash in a few minutes. Right before they reached the sea. He was working with a pounding heart now. But nothing helped. Then came a brief moment of rage and hopelessness. Then he continued to pull on the levers and push the foot pedals until everything was over.

The aeroplane struck the ground with vehement force at nineteen minutes past five on the morning of the eleventh of December, 1989. It immediately burst into flame. But the two men on board did not notice their bodies catching fire. They had died – torn into pieces – at the moment of impact.

The fog had come rolling in from the sea. It was four degrees above zero and there was almost no breeze.

CHAPTER 1

Wallander woke up shortly after six o'clock on the morning of the eleventh of December. At the same moment that he opened his eyes, his alarm clock went off. He turned it off and lay staring out into the dark. Stretched his arms and legs, spread his fingers and toes. That had become a habit, to feel if the night had left him with any aches. He swallowed in order to check if any infection had sneaked into his respiratory system. He wondered sometimes if he was slowly becoming a hypochondriac. But this morning everything seemed in order, and for once he was completely rested. He had gone to bed early the night before, at ten o'clock, and had fallen asleep immediately. And once he fell asleep, he slept. But if he ended up lying there awake it could take many hours for him to eventually find some rest.

He got out of bed and walked into the kitchen. The thermometer read six degrees above zero. Since he knew it showed the wrong tempera ture, he was able to calculate that he would greet the world at four degrees this day. He looked up at the sky. Ribbons of fog wafted by above the rooftops. No snow had fallen in Skåne yet this winter. But it is coming, he thought. Sooner or later, the snowstorms arrive.

He made coffee and some sandwiches. As usual, his fridge was basically empty. Prior to going to bed he had written a shopping list that now lay on the kitchen table. While he was waiting for the coffee, he went to the bathroom. When he returned to the kitchen, he added toilet paper to the list. And a new brush for the toilet. He skimmed the Ystad Allehanda that he had picked up from the hall while he ate breakfast. He only paused when he reached the back page with the advertisements. Somewhere in the back of his mind there was a vague longing for a house in the country. Where he could walk straight outside in the morning and piss on the grass. Where he could have a dog, and maybe – this dream was the most remote – a dovecote. There were several houses for sale, but none that interested him. Then he saw that some Labrador puppies were for sale in Rydsgård. I can't start at the wrong end, he thought. First a house, then a dog. Not the other way round. Otherwise I'll have nothing but problems, the work hours that I keep, as long as I don't live with anyone who could help out. It was now two months since Mona had definitively left him. Deep inside he still refused to accept what had happened. At the same time he didn't know what to do to get her to come back.

He was ready to leave at seven o'clock. He selected the sweater he usually wore when it was zero to eight degrees Celsius. He had sweaters for various temperatures and was very selective about what he wore. He hated being cold in the damp Skåne winter and he was annoyed the minute he started to sweat. He thought it affected his ability to think. Then he decided to walk to the station. He needed to move. When he stepped outside he felt a faint breeze from the sea. The walk from Mariagatan took him ten minutes.

While he walked he thought about the day ahead. If nothing in particular had occurred during the day, which was his constant prayer, he would question a suspected drug dealer who had been brought in yesterday. There were also constant piles on his desk with current investigations that he should do something about. Looking into the export to Poland of stolen luxury cars was one of the most thankless of his ongoing assignments.

He walked in through the glass doors of the station and nodded at Ebba sitting at the reception desk. He saw that she had permed her hair.

'Beautiful as always,' he said.

'I do what I can,' she replied. 'But you should watch out so you don't start putting on weight. Divorced men often do.'

Wallander nodded. He knew she was right. After the divorce from Mona he had started to eat more irregularly and poorly. Every day he told himself he would break his bad habits, without any success so far. He walked to his office, hung up his coat and sat down at his desk.

The telephone rang at that moment. He lifted the receiver. It was Martinsson. Wallander was not surprised. The two of them were the homicide division's earliest risers.

'I think we have to drive out to Mossby,' Martinsson said.

'What's happened?'

'A plane has crashed.'

Wallander felt a pang in his chest. His first thought was that it must be a commercial airliner coming in for landing or taking off from Sturup. Then it meant a catastrophe, perhaps with many fatalities.

'A small sport plane,' Martinsson went on.

Wallander exhaled, while cursing Martinsson for not being able to provide him with a clear sense of the situation from the start.

'The call came in a while ago,' Martinsson said. 'The fire brigade is already on the scene. Apparently the plane was in flames.'

Wallander nodded into the receiver.

'I'm on my way,' he said. 'Who else do we have in the field?'

'No one, as far as I know. But the patrol units are there, of course.'

'Then you and I will go first.'

They met in the reception area. Just as they were about to leave, Rydberg walked in. He had rheumatism and looked pale. Wallander quickly told him what had happened.

'You two go on ahead,' Rydberg replied. 'I have to go to the toilet before I do anything else.'

Martinsson and Wallander left the station and walked over to Martinsson's car.

'He looked ill,' Martinsson said.

'He is ill,' Wallander said. 'Rheumatism. And then there's something else. Something with his urinary system, I think.'

They took the coastal road going west.

'Give me the details,' Wallander said while he stared out at the sea. Ragged clouds were still drifting across the water.

'There are no details,' Martinsson said. 'The plane crashed some time around half past five. It was a farmer who called. Apparently the crash site is just north of Mossby, out in a field.'

'Do we know how many were in the plane?'

'No.'

'Sturup must have issued a dispatch about a missing plane. If the plane crashed in Mossby, the pilot must have had radio contact with the control tower in Sturup.'

'That was my thought too,' Martinsson said. 'That's why I contacted the control tower just before I called you.'

'What did they say?'

'They aren't missing any planes.'

Wallander looked at Martinsson.

'What does that mean?'

'I don't know,' Martinsson said. 'It should be an impossibility, to fly in Swedish airspace without an assigned flight path and continuous radio contact with various towers.'

'Sturup received no emergency transmission? The pilot must have radioed if he ran into problems. Doesn't it usually take at least a couple of seconds before a plane hits the ground?'

'I don't know,' Martinsson answered. 'I don't know more than what I've told you.'

Wallander shook his head. Then he wondered what lay in store for him. He had seen a plane accident before, also a small plane. The pilot had been alone. The plane had crashed north of Ystad and the pilot had literally been torn to pieces, but the plane had not burned.

Wallander was filled with dread at the prospect of what awaited him. The day's morning prayer had been in vain.

When they got to Mossby Beach, Martinsson turned to the right and pointed. Wallander had already seen the pillar of smoke that rose to the sky.

They arrived a few minutes later. The plane had come down in the middle of a muddy field, about one hundred metres from a farmhouse. Wallander assumed that it was from there that the call had been made. The firefighters were still spraying foam on the wreck. Martinsson took a pair of wellingtons from the boot. Wallander looked unhappily down at his own shoes, a pair of winter boots, almost brand new. Then they started to make their way through the slippery mud. The man in charge of the fire crew was Peter Edler. Wallander had met him on numerous occasions. He liked him. It was easy for them to work together. Apart from the two fire engines and the ambulance, there was also a patrol car. Wallander nodded at Peters, a patrol officer. Then he turned to Peter Edler.

'What do we have?' he asked.

'Two dead,' Edler replied. 'I have to warn you that it is not a pretty sight. That's what happens when people burn in petrol.'

'You don't have to warn me,' Wallander said. 'I know what that looks like.'

Martinsson came up next to Wallander.

'Find out who made the call,' Wallander said. 'Probably someone in that farm over there. Find out what the time was. And then someone has to have a serious talk with the control tower at Sturup.'

Martinsson nodded and set off towards the farm. Wallander approached the plane. It was lying on its left side, embedded in the mud. The left wing had been torn off completely and had broken into several parts that were strewn out across the field. The right wing was still intact near the fuselage but had been broken off at the tip. Wallander observed that it was a single-engine plane. The propeller was bent and driven deep into the ground. He slowly circled the plane. It was black with soot and covered in foam. He waved Edler over.

'Is it possible to remove the foam?' he asked. 'Don't aeroplanes tend to have some kind of markings on the fuselage and under the wings?'

'I think we should let the foam stay on a while longer,' Edler said. 'You never know with petrol. There may still be some left in the fuel tanks.'

Wallander knew he had no choice but to obey Edler's directives. He walked closer and peered into the plane. Edler had been right. It was impossible to discern any facial features. He circled the plane one more time. Then he lumbered out into the muddy field where the largest piece of wing lay. He crouched down. He could not make out any numbers or letter combinations. It was still very dark. He called out to Peters and asked for a torch. Then he studied the wing intently. Scraped the outside with his fingertips. It appeared to have been painted over. Could that mean that someone had wanted to conceal the identity of the plane?

He stood up. He was jumping to conclusions again. It was Nyberg and his team's job to sort this out. He looked over absently at Martinsson, who was making his way to the farm with deliberate strides. Several cars with curious onlookers had pulled over by a dirt road. Peters and his partner were trying to convince them to keep going. Yet another police car had arrived, with Hansson, Rydberg and Nyberg. Wallander walked over and said hello. Explained the situation in brief and asked Hansson to cordon off the area.

'You have two bodies inside the plane,' Wallander repeated to Nyberg, who would be responsible for the preliminary forensic investigation.

Eventually, an accident commission would be appointed to investigate the cause of the crash. But at that point Wallander would no longer have to be involved.

'I think it looks as if the wing that was torn off had been repainted,' he said. 'As if someone wanted to eliminate all possibility of identifying the plane.'

Nyberg nodded mutely. He never wasted his words.

Rydberg appeared behind Wallander.

'One shouldn't have to tramp around in the mud at my age,' he said. 'And this damned rheumatism.'

Wallander threw a quick glance at him.

'You didn't have to come out here,' he said. 'We can handle it. Then the accident commission can take over.'

'I'm not dead yet,' Rydberg said with irritation. 'But who the hell knows…' He didn't finish the sentence. Instead he made his way over to the plane, bent down and looked in.

'This one will have to be dental,' he said. 'I don't think there will be any other way of getting a positive ID.'

Wallander ran through the main points for Rydberg's benefit. They worked well together and never had to give each other lengthy explan ations. Rydberg was also the one who had taught Wallander what he now knew about being a criminal investigator. That is, after the foundation had been laid in Malmö with Hemberg, who sadly had died in a traffic accident last year. Wallander had departed from his usual habit of never attending funerals and attended the ceremony in Malmö. But after Hemberg, Rydberg had been his role model. They had worked together for many years now. Wallander had often thought that Rydberg must be one of the most skilful criminal investigators in Sweden. Nothing escaped him, no hypothesis was so outlandish that Rydberg did not test it. His ability to read a crime scene always surprised Wallander, who greedily absorbed it all.

Rydberg was single. He did not have much of a social life and did not appear to want one. Wallander was still, after all these years, not sure if Rydberg actually had any interests apart from his work.

On the occasional warm evening in early summer, they would sometimes get together and sit on Rydberg's balcony and drink whisky. Often in a pleasant silence that was broken from time to time with some comment about work.

'Martinsson is trying to establish some clarity with regard to the time of the events,' Wallander said. 'Then it seems to me that we have to find out why the control tower at Sturup didn't raise the alarm.'

'You mean, why the pilot didn't raise the alarm,' Rydberg corrected him.

'Maybe he didn't have time?'

'It doesn't take many seconds to send an SOS,' Rydberg said. 'But you must be right. The plane would have been flying in an assigned air lane. If it wasn't flying illegally, of course.'

'Illegally?'

Rydberg shrugged.

'You know the rumours,' he said. 'People hear aeroplane noise at night. Low-flying, darkened planes slipping covertly into these areas close to the border. At least that's how it was during the Cold War. Perhaps it's not completely over yet. Sometimes we get reports about suspected espionage. And then you can always question if all drugs actually come in by way of the sound. We will never know for sure about this plane. It may simply be our imagination. But if you fly low enough you escape the defence department's radar. And the control tower.'

'I'll drive in and talk to Sturup,' Wallander said.

'Wrong,' Rydberg said. 'I'll do that. I leave this mud to you, by the rights of my old age.'

Rydberg left. It was starting to get light. One of the technicians was photographing the wreck from various angles. Peter Edler had delegated his responsibilities to someone else and returned to Ystad in one of the fire engines.

Wallander saw Hansson talking to several reporters down on the dirt road. He was happy not to have to do it himself. Then he spotted Martinsson tramping back through the mud. Wallander walked over to meet him.

'You were right,' Martinsson said. 'There's an old man in there who lives by himself. Robert Haverberg. Seventies, alone with nine dogs. To be honest, it smelled like hell in there.'

'What did he say?'

'He heard the roar of a plane. Then it got quiet. And then the sound returned. But at that point it sounded more like a whine. And then he heard the crash.'

Wallander often felt that Martinsson was bad at formulating simple and clear explanations.

'Let's go over this again,' Wallander said. 'Robert Haverberg heard the engine noise?'

'Yes.'

'When was this?'

'He had just woken up. Sometime around five o'clock.'

Wallander frowned.

'But the plane crashed half an hour later?'

'That's what I said. But he was very firm on this point. First he heard the sound of a passing plane, at a low altitude. Then it grew quiet. He made some coffee. And then the sound returned, and then the explosion.'

Wallander reflected on this. What Martinsson had told him was clearly significant.

'How much time elapsed between the first time he heard the sound and the subsequent crash?'

'We worked out that it must have taken around twenty minutes.'

Wallander looked at Martinsson.

'How do you account for that?'

'I don't know.'

'Did the old man seem sharp?'

'Yes. He also has good hearing.'

'Do you have a map in your car?' Wallander asked.

Martinsson nodded. They walked up to the dirt road where Hansson was still talking with the media. One of them saw Wallander and started approaching him. Wallander waved dismissively.

'I have nothing to say,' he called out.

They got into Martinsson's car and unfolded the map. Wallander studied it in silence. He thought about what Rydberg had said, about aeroplanes on illegal missions, beyond authorised air lanes and control towers.

'One could imagine the following,' Wallander said. 'A plane comes in low over the coast, passes by and continues out of earshot. Returns shortly thereafter. And then it goes straight down.'

'You mean it dropped something off somewhere? And then turned back?' Martinsson asked.

'Something like that.'

Wallander folded the map back up.

'We know too little. Rydberg is on his way to Sturup. Then we have to try to identify the bodies, as well as the plane itself. We can't do any more at the moment.'

'I've always been a nervous flyer,' Martinsson said. 'It doesn't exactly help to see things like this. But it's even worse when Teres talks about becoming a pilot.'

Teres was Martinsson's daughter. He also had a son. Martinsson was a real family man. He was always worried that something might have happened and called home several times a day. Often he went home for lunch. Sometimes Wallander was a little envious of his colleague's seemingly problem-free marriage.

'Tell Nyberg we're going now,' he said to Martinsson.

Wallander waited in the car. The landscape around him was grey and desolate. He shivered. Life goes on, he thought. I've just turned forty-two. Will I end up like Rydberg? A lonely old man with rheumatism?

Wallander shook off these thoughts.

Martinsson returned and they drove back to Ystad.

At eleven o'clock Wallander stood up to go to the room where a suspected drug dealer by the name of Yngve Leonard Holm was waiting for him. At that moment Rydberg came in. He never bothered to knock. He sat down in the visitor's chair and got straight to the point.

'I've talked to an air traffic controller by the name of Lycke,' he said. 'He claimed to know you.'

'I've spoken to him before, I don't remember the context.'

'He was very firm, in any case,' Rydberg continued. 'No single-engine plane was cleared to pass over Mossby at five o'clock this morning. They have also not received any emergency broadcast from any pilot. The radar screens have been empty. There were no strange signals that may have indicated the presence of an unidentified plane. According to Lycke, the plane that crashed did not exist. They have already reported this both to the defence department and to God knows how many other authorities. Customs, probably.'

'So you were right,' Wallander said. 'Someone was out on an illegal mission.'

'We don't know that,' Rydberg objected. 'Someone was flying illegally. But if it was also an illegal mission, we don't know.'

'Who would be out flying around in the dark without a particular reason?'

'There are so many idiots,' Rydberg said. 'You should know that.'

Wallander looked closer at him.

'You don't believe that for a minute, do you?'

'Of course not,' Rydberg said. 'But until we know who they were or identify the plane, we can't do anything. This has to go to Interpol. I'm willing to wager a pretty penny that the plane came from the outside.'

Rydberg left.

Wallander mulled over what he had said.

Then he stood up, took his papers and walked to the room where Yngve Leonard Holm was waiting with his lawyer.

It was exactly a quarter past eleven when Wallander started the tape recorder and began his interrogation.

CHAPTER 2

Wallander turned off the tape recorder after one hour and ten minutes. He had had enough of Yngve Leonard Holm. Both because of the man's attitude and the fact that they were going to have to release him. Wallander was convinced that the man on the other side of the table was guilty of repeated and serious drug offences. But there was not one prosecutor in the world who would judge their pre-investigation worthy of taking to trial. Certainly not Per Åkeson, to whom Wallander was going to submit his report.

Yngve Leonard Holm was thirty-seven years old. He was born in Ronneby but had been registered as a resident of Ystad since the mid- 1980s. He listed his profession as a paperback-book salesman at outdoor summer markets, specialising in the 'Manhattan series'. For the last few years he had declared a negligible income. At the same time, he was having a large villa built in an area close to the police station. The house was taxed at several million kronor. Holm claimed to be financing the house with large gambling profits from both the Jägersro and Solvalla tracks, as well as various racetracks in Germany and France. Predictably, he had no receipts for his wins. They had disappeared when the trailer where he had stored his financial records caught fire. The only receipt he could show was a lesser one for 4,993 kronor that he had claimed a couple of weeks earlier. Possibly, Wallander thought, this indicated that Holm knew something about horses. But it hardly meant more than that. Hansson should have been sitting here in my place. He is also interested in racing. They could have talked horses to each other.

Nothing of this altered Wallander's conviction that Holm was the final link in a chain that imported and sold significant amounts of drugs in southern Sweden. The circumstantial evidence was overwhelming. But Holm's arrest had been very poorly organised. The raids should have been synchronised to take place at the same time. One at Holm's house, the other at the warehouse in an industrial area in Malmö where he rented space for his paperbacks. It had been a coordinated operation between the police in Ystad and their colleagues in Malmö.

But something had gone wrong from the start. The warehouse space had been empty, except for a lone box of old, well-thumbed Manhattan books. Holm had been watching TV in his house when they rang the bell. A young woman was curled up at his feet, massaging his toes, while the police searched the house. They found nothing. One of the drug-sniffing dogs they had brought in from customs had spent a long time sniffing a handkerchief they had found in the rubbish. Chemical analysis had only been able to establish that the cloth could have come into contact with a drug. In some way, Holm had been tipped off about the raid. Wallander did not doubt that the man was both intelligent and good at covering up his activities.

'We have to let you go,' he said. 'But our suspicion of you remains. Or, to be precise, I'm convinced that you're involved in extensive drug trafficking in Skåne. Sooner or later, we will get you.'

The lawyer, who resembled a weasel, straightened up.

'My client doesn't have to put up with this,' he said. 'Slander of this kind against my client is inadmissible under the law.'

'Of course it is,' Wallander said. 'You're welcome to try to have me arrested.'

Holm, who was unshaven and appeared sick of the whole situation, stopped his lawyer from continuing.

'I understand that the police are simply doing their job,' he said. 'Unfortunately you made a mistake in directing your suspicions at me. I'm a simple citizen who knows a lot about horses and bookselling. Nothing else. Moreover, I regularly donate money to Save the Children.'

Wallander left the room. Holm would go home and have his feet massaged. Drugs would continue to stream into Skåne. We will never win this battle, Wallander thought as he walked down the corridor. The only room for hope is if future generations of young people reject it entirely.

It was now half past twelve. He felt hungry and regretted not having taken the car this morning. He could see through the window that it had started to rain. There was snow mixed in with the rain. The thought of walking all the way downtown and back in order to eat was not appealing. He pulled out a desk drawer and found the menu of a pizzeria that delivered. He eyed the menu without being able to decide on anything. Finally he closed his eyes and placed his index finger down somewhere at random. He called and ordered the pizza that fate had selected for him. Then he walked over to the window and stared at the water tower on the other side of the road.

The phone rang. He sat down at his desk and picked up. It was his father, calling from Löderup.

'I thought we had agreed that you would come by here last night,' his father said.

Wallander sighed quietly.

'We didn't agree to anything.'

'Yes we did, I remember it very well,' his father said. 'You're the one who's starting to get forgetful. I thought the police had notepads. Can't you write down that you're planning to arrest me? Then maybe you'll remember.'

Wallander didn't have the energy to get angry.

'I'll come by tonight,' he said. 'But we had not arranged that I was coming over last night.'

'It's possible I made a mistake,' his father replied, suddenly surprisingly meek.

'I'll be there around seven,' Wallander said. 'Right now I have a lot to do.' He hung up. My father engages in finely tuned emotional blackmail, Wallander thought. And the worst thing about it is that he's continually successful.

The pizza arrived. Wallander paid and took the box back to the break room. Per Åkeson was sitting at a table eating some porridge. Wallander sat down across from him.

'I thought you were going to come by and talk about Holm,' Åkeson said.

'And I will. But we had to release him.'

'That doesn't surprise me. The whole operation was exceedingly poorly executed.'

'You'll have to talk to Björk about that,' Wallander said. 'I wasn't involved.'

To Wallander's surprise, Åkeson salted his porridge.

'I'm taking a leave of absence in three weeks,' Åkeson said.

'I haven't forgotten,' Wallander replied.

'A young woman will be replacing me. Anette Brolin is her name. From Stockholm.'

'I'm going to miss you,' Wallander said. 'I'm also wondering how a female prosecutor is going to work out.'

'Why would that be a problem?'

Wallander shrugged.

'Prejudice, I guess.'

'Six months goes by fast. I have to admit that I'm looking forward to getting away for a while. I need to think.'

'I thought you were getting some additional education?'

'I am. But that won't stop me from thinking about the future. Should I continue as a public prosecutor for the rest of my life? Or is there something else I should do?'

'You could learn to sail and become a vagabond of the seas.'

Åkeson shook his head energetically.

'Nothing like that. But I am thinking about applying for something overseas. Perhaps in a project where one feels one is really making a difference. Perhaps I could be part of building a workable justice system where there was none before? In Czechoslovakia, for example.'

'I hope you write and tell me,' Wallander said. 'Sometimes I also wonder about the future, if I'm going to stay in this business until I retire. Or do something else.'

The pizza was tasteless. Åkeson, however, was tucking into his porridge with gusto.

'What's the story with that plane?' Åkeson asked.

Wallander told him what they knew.

'That sounds strange,' Åkeson said when Wallander had finished. 'Could it be drugs?'

'Yes, it could,' Wallander replied and regretted not having asked Holm if he owned an aeroplane. If he could afford to build a house he could probably afford to keep a private plane. Drug profits could be astronomical.

They stood at the sink together and cleaned their plates. Wallander had left half of his pizza uneaten. The divorce was still having an effect on his appetite.

'Holm is a criminal,' Wallander said. 'We'll get him sooner or later.'

'I'm not so sure of that,' Åkeson said. 'But of course I hope you're right.'

Wallander was back in his office a little after one o'clock. He considered calling Mona in Malmö. Linda lived with her right now. She was the one Wallander wanted to talk to. It had been almost a week since they talked last. She was nineteen and a little lost. Lately, she was back to thinking she wanted to work upholstering furniture. Wallander suspected she would change her mind many more times.

Instead Wallander called Martinsson and asked him to come by. Together they went over the events of the morning. It was Martinsson who was going to write the report.

'People have called both from Sturup and the Department of Defence,' he said. 'There is something not right about that plane. It doesn't seem to have existed. And it seems you were right in thinking the wings and fuselage had been painted over.'

'We'll see what Nyberg comes up with,' Wallander said.

'The bodies are in Lund,' Martinsson went on. 'The only way we have of identifying them is through dental records. The bodies were so badly burned they fell to pieces when they were moved onto stretchers.'

'We'll have to wait and see, in other words,' Wallander said. 'I was going to suggest to Björk that you act as our representative in the accident commission. Do you have anything against that?'

'I'll always learn something new,' Martinsson said.

When Wallander was alone again he ended up thinking about the difference between Martinsson and himself. Wallander's ambition had always been to become a good criminal investigator. And he had succeeded in this. But Martinsson had other ambitions. What tempted him was the post of chief of police in a not-too-distant future. To perform well in the field was for him only a step in his career.

Wallander dropped his thoughts about Martinsson, yawned, and listlessly pulled over the folder that was at the top of the pile on his desk. It still irritated him that he hadn't asked Holm about the plane. At least to get to see his reaction. But Holm was probably lying in his whirlpool by now. Or enjoying a delicious lunch at the Continental with his lawyer.

The folder remained unopened in front of Wallander. He decided he might as well talk to Björk about Martinsson and the accident commission. Then that could be checked off the list. He walked to the end of the corridor where Björk had his office. The door was open. Björk was on his way out.

'Do you have time?' Wallander asked.

'A few minutes. I'm on my way to a church to give a speech.'

Wallander knew that Björk was constantly giving lectures in the most unexpected settings. Apparently he loved performing in public, something that Wallander disliked intensely. Press conferences were a constant scourge. Wallander started to tell him about the morning's events, but apparently Björk had already been briefed. He had no objection to Martinsson's being appointed as police representative to the accident commission.

'I take it the plane was not shot down,' Björk said.

'Nothing so far indicates that it was anything other than an accident,' Wallander answered. 'But there is definitely something fishy about that flight.'

'We'll do what we can,' Björk said, indicating that the conversation was over. 'But we won't exert more of an effort than we have to. We have enough to do as it is.'

Björk left in a cloud of aftershave. Wallander shuffled back to his office. On the way he looked into Rydberg's and Hansson's offices. Neither one was around. He got himself a cup of coffee and then spent several hours reviewing the assault case that had occurred the week before in Skurup. New information had turned up that seemed to ensure that the man who had beaten up his sister-in-law could actually be charged with battery. Wallander organised the material and decided he would hand it over to Åkeson tomorrow.

It was a quarter to five. The police station seemed unusually deserted this day. Wallander decided he would go home and get his car and then go shopping. He would still have time to make it to his father's by seven. If he wasn't there on the dot, his father would burst out in a long tirade of accusations about how badly his son treated him.

Wallander took his coat and walked home. The snow-slush had increased. He pulled up his hood. When he sat down in his car he checked that he still had the grocery list in his pocket. The car was hard to start and he would soon have to get a new one. But where would he get the money? He managed to get the engine going and was about to put it in gear when he was struck by a thought. Even though he realised that what he wanted to do was meaningless, his curiosity proved too strong. He decided to put his shopping trip on hold. Instead he turned out onto Österleden and drove in the direction of Löderup.

The thought that had struck him was very simple. In a house just past the Strandskogen Forest, there lived a retired air traffic controller Wallander had got to know a few years earlier. Linda had been friends with his youngest daughter. It occurred to Wallander that he might be able to answer a question that Wallander had been thinking about ever since he had stood next to the wrecked plane and listened to Martinsson's summary of his conversation with Haverberg.

Wallander turned into the driveway of the house where Herbert Blomell lived. As Wallander got out of his car, he saw Blomell standing on a ladder, in the process of repairing a gutter. He nodded pleasantly when he saw who it was and carefully climbed down onto the ground.

'A broken hip can be devastating at my age,' he said. 'How are things with Linda?'

'Fine,' Wallander said. 'She's with Mona in Malmö.'

They went in and sat in the kitchen.

'A plane crashed outside Mossby this morning,' Wallander said.

Blomell nodded and pointed to a radio on the windowsill.

'It was a Piper Cherokee,' Wallander continued. 'A single-engine plane. I know that you weren't just an air traffic controller in your day. You also had a pilot's licence.'

'I've actually flown a Piper Cherokee a few times,' Blomell answered. 'A good plane.'

'If I put my finger on a map,' Wallander said, 'and then gave you a compass direction, and ten minutes, how far would you be able to fly the plane?'

'A matter of straightforward computation,' Blomell said. 'Do you have a map?'

Wallander shook his head. Blomell stood up and left. Several minutes later he returned with a rolled-up map. They spread it out on the kitchen table. Wallander located the field that must have been the crash site.

'Imagine that the plane came straight in off the coast. The engine noise is heard here at one point. Then, at most twenty minutes later, it returns. Of course, we cannot know that the pilot held the same course for the duration, but let us assume he did. How far did he go, then, in half that time? Before he turned round?'

'The Cherokee normally flies at around 250 kilometres an hour,' Blomell said. 'If the load is of a normal weight.'

'We don't know about that.'

'Then let's assume maximum load and an average headwind.'

Blomell computed silently, then pointed to a spot north of Mossby. Wallander saw that it was close to Sjöbo.

'About this far,' Blomell said. 'But keep in mind that there are many unknowns included in this estimation.'

'Still, I know a lot more now than just a moment ago.'

Wallander tapped his fingers on the table reflectively.

'Why does a plane crash?' he asked after a while.

Blomell looked quizzically at him.

'No two accidents are alike,' he said. 'I read some American magazines that refer to various accident investigations. There may be recurring causes. Errors in the plane's electrical wiring, or something else. But in the end there is nonetheless almost always some exceptional reason at the root of any given accident. And it almost always involves some degree of pilot error.'

'Why would a Cherokee crash?' Wallander asked.

Blomell shook his head.

'The engine may have stalled. Poor maintenance. You'll have to wait and see what the accident commission comes up with.'

'The plane's identifying marks had been painted over, both on the fuselage and the wings,' Wallander said. 'What does that mean?'

'That it was someone who didn't want to be known,' Blomell said. 'There is a black market for aeroplanes just as for anything else.'

'I thought Swedish airspace was secure,' Wallander said. 'But you mean that planes can sneak in?'

'There is nothing in this world that is absolutely secure,' Blomell answered. 'Nor will there ever be. Those who have enough money and enough motivation can always find their way across a border, and back again, without interception.'

Blomell offered him a cup of coffee, but Wallander declined.

'I have to look in on my father in Löderup,' he said. 'If I'm late I'll never hear the end of it.'

'Loneliness is the curse of old age,' Blomell said. 'I miss my air control tower with a physical ache. All night I dream of ushering planes through the air corridors. And when I wake up it's snowing and all I can do is repair a gutter.'

They took leave of each other outside. Wallander stopped at a grocery shop in Herrestad. When he drove away again, he cursed. Even though it had been on his list he had forgotten to buy toilet paper.

He arrived at his father's house at three minutes to seven. The snow had stopped, but the clouds hung heavy over the countryside. Wallander saw the lights on in the little side building that his father used as a studio. He breathed in the fresh air as he walked across the yard. The door was ajar; his father had heard his car. He was sitting at his easel, an old hat on his head and his near-sighted eyes close to the painting he had just started. The smell of paint thinner always gave Wallander the same feeling of home. This is what is left of my childhood. The smell of paint thinner.

'You're on time,' his father observed without looking at him.

'I'm always on time,' Wallander said as he moved a couple of newspapers and sat down.

His father was working on a painting that featured a wood grouse. Just as Wallander had stepped into the studio he had placed a stencil onto the canvas and was painting a subdued sky at dusk. Wallander looked at him with a sudden feeling of tenderness. He is the last one in the generation before me, he thought. When he dies, I'll be the next to go.

His father put away his brushes and the stencil and stood up.

They went into the main house. His father put on some coffee and brought some shot glasses to the table. Wallander hesitated, then nodded. He could take one glass.

'Poker,' Wallander said. 'You owe me fourteen kronor from last time.'

His father looked closely at him.

'I think you cheat,' he said. 'But I still don't know how you do it.'

Wallander was taken aback.

'You think I'd cheat my own father?'

For once his father backed down.

'No,' he said. 'Not really. But you did win an unusual amount last time.'

The conversation died. They drank coffee. His father slurped as usual. This irritated Wallander as much as it always did.

'I'm going to go away,' his father said suddenly. 'Far away.'

Wallander waited for more, but none came.

'Where to?' he asked finally.

'To Egypt.'

'Egypt? What are you going to do there? I thought it was Italy you wanted to see.'

'Egypt and Italy. You never listen to what I say.'

'What are you going to do in Egypt?'

'I'm going to see the Sphinx and the pyramids. Time is running out. No one knows how long I will live. But I want to see the pyramids and Rome before I die.'

Wallander shook his head.

'Who are you going with?'

'I'm flying with Egypt Air, in a few days. Straight to Cairo. I'm going to stay in a very nice hotel called Mena House.'

'But you're going alone? Is it a charter trip? You can't be serious,' Wallander said in disbelief.

His father reached for some tickets on the windowsill. Wallander looked through them and realised that what his father said was true. He had a regular-fare ticket from Copenhagen to Cairo for the fourteenth of December.

Wallander put the tickets down on the table.

For once he was completely speechless.

CHAPTER 3

Wallander left Löderup at a quarter past ten. The clouds had started to break up. As he walked to the car he noticed that it had turned colder. This in turn would mean that the Peugeot would be harder to start than usual. But it wasn't the car that occupied his thoughts, it was the fact that he had not managed to talk his father out of taking the trip to Egypt. Or at least wait until a time when he or his sister could accompany him.

'You're almost eighty years old,' Wallander had insisted. 'At your age, you can't do this kind of thing.'

But his arguments had been hollow. There was nothing visibly wrong with his father's health. And even if he dressed unconventionally at times, he had a rare ability to adapt to new situations and the new people he met. When Wallander realised that the ticket included a shuttle bus from the airport to the hotel that was situated close to the pyramids, his concerns had slowly dissipated. He did not understand what drove his father to go to Egypt, to the Sphinx and the pyramids. But he couldn't deny that – many years ago now, when Wallander was still young – his father had actually told him many times about the marvellous structures on the Giza plateau, just outside Cairo.

Then they had played poker. Since his father ended in the black, he was in a great mood when Wallander said his goodbyes.

Wallander paused with his hand on the car-door handle and drew in a breath of night air.

I have a strange father, he thought. That's something I'll never escape.

Wallander had promised to drive him into Malmö on the morning of the fourteenth. He had made a note of the telephone number for Mena House, where his father would be staying. Since his father never spent money unnecessarily, he had of course not taken any travel insurance and so Wallander was going to ask Ebba to take care of it tomorrow.

The car started reluctantly and he turned towards Ystad. The last thing he saw was the light in the kitchen window. His father had a habit of sitting up for a long time in the kitchen before going to bed. If he didn't return to the studio and add yet another few brushstrokes to one of his paintings. Wallander thought about what Blomell had said earlier that evening, that loneliness was a curse of the aged. But Wallander's father lived no differently since he had grown old. He continued to paint his pictures as if nothing had changed, neither anything around him nor himself.

Wallander was back at Mariagatan shortly after eleven o'clock. When he unlocked the front door he saw that someone had slipped a letter through the letter box. He opened the envelope and already knew whom it was from. Emma Lundin, a nurse at the Ystad hospital. Wallander had promised to call her yesterday. She walked past his building on her way home to Dragongatan. Now she was wondering if something was wrong. Why had he not called her? Wallander felt guilty. He had met her a month before. They had fallen into conversation at the post office on Hamngatan. Then they had bumped into each other a few days later at the grocery shop and after only a couple of days they had started a relationship that was not particularly passionate on either side. Emma was a year younger than Wallander, divorced with three children. Wallander had soon realised that the relationship meant more to her than to him. Without really daring to, he had started trying to extricate himself. As he stood in the hall now he knew very well why he hadn't called. He simply had no desire to see her. He put the letter down on the kitchen table and decided he had to end the relationship. It had no future, no potential. They did not have enough to talk about, and too little time for each other. And Wallander knew that he was looking for something completely different, someone completely different. Someone who would actually be able to replace Mona. If that woman even existed. But above all it was Mona's return that he dreamed of.

He undressed and put on his old worn dressing gown. Realised again that he had forgotten to buy toilet paper and found an old telephone book that he put in the bathroom. Then he put the grocery items he had bought in Herrestad into the fridge. The phone rang. It was a quarter past eleven. He hoped that nothing serious had occurred that would make him have to get dressed again. It was Linda. It always made him happy to hear her voice.

'Where have you been?' she asked. 'I've been calling all evening.'

'You could have guessed,' he replied. 'And you could have called your grandfather. That's where I was.'

'I didn't think of that,' she said. 'You never go to see him.'

'I don't?'

'That's what he says.'

'He says a lot of things. By the way, he's going to fly to Egypt in few days to see the pyramids.'

'Sounds fun. I wouldn't mind going along.'

Wallander said nothing. He listened to her lengthy narrative about how she had spent the past couple of days. He was pleased that she had now clearly recommitted herself to a career in upholstering furniture. He assumed that Mona was not home since she would normally get irritated when Linda talked so much and for so long on the phone. But he also felt a pang of jealousy. Even though they were now divorced, he could not reconcile himself to the thought of her seeing other men.

The conversation ended with Linda promising to meet him in Malmö and see her grandfather off for his trip to Egypt.

It was past midnight. Since Wallander was hungry he went back to the kitchen. The only thing he could be bothered to make was a bowl of porridge. At a half past twelve he crawled into bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

On the morning of the twelfth of December, the temperature had sunk to four degrees below zero. Wallander was sitting in the kitchen, just before seven o'clock, when the telephone rang. It was Blomell.

'I hope I didn't wake you,' he said.

'I was up,' Wallander said, coffee cup in hand.

'Something occurred to me after you left,' Blomell went on. 'I'm not a policeman, of course, but I still thought I should call you.'

'Tell me.'

'I was simply thinking that for someone to hear the engines outside Mossby the plane must have been at a very low altitude. That should mean that even others heard it. In that way you should be able to find out where it went. And perhaps you might even find someone who heard it turn round in the air and head back. If someone, for example, heard it with a break of only several minutes, you may be able to figure out what the turning radius was.'

Blomell was right. Wallander should have thought of it himself. But he did not say this.

'We're already on it,' he said instead.

'That was all,' Blomell said. 'How was your father?'

'He told me he's taking a trip to Egypt.'

'That sounds like a wonderful idea.'

Wallander didn't answer.

'It's getting colder,' Blomell concluded. 'Winter is on its way.'

'Soon we'll have snowstorms upon us,' Wallander said.

He went back to the kitchen, thinking about what Blomell had said. Martinsson or someone else could get in touch with colleagues in Tomelilla and Sjöbo. Maybe also Simrishamn to be safe. It might be possible to pinpoint the plane's route and destination by looking for people who were early risers and who had noticed an engine noise overhead, twice in a row if they were lucky. Surely there were still some dairy farmers around who were up at that time of day? But the question remained. What had the two men been doing on their flight? And why had the plane lacked all signs of identification?

Wallander quickly leafed through the paper. The Labrador puppies were still for sale. But there was no house that caught his eye.

Wallander walked in through the doors of the station a little before eight o'clock. He was wearing the sweater he reserved for days of up to five degrees below zero. He asked Ebba to arrange travel insurance for his father.

'That has always been my dream,' she said. 'To go to Egypt and see the pyramids.'

Everyone seems to be envious of my father, Wallander thought as he poured himself a cup of coffee and went to his office. No one even seems surprised. I'm the only one who's worried that something will happen. That he'll get lost in the desert, for example.

Martinsson had placed a report on his desk about the accident. Wallander eyed it quickly and thought that Martinsson was still far too verbose. Half as much would have been enough. Once Rydberg had told him that that which could not be expressed in a telegram format was either poorly conceived or completely wrong. Wallander had always tried to make his reports as clear and brief as possible. He called Martinsson and told him about his conversation with Björk the day before. Martinsson seemed pleased. Then Wallander suggested a meeting. What Blomell had said was worth following up. Martinsson managed to locate Hansson and Svedberg at half past eight. But Rydberg had still not arrived. They filed into one of the conference rooms.

'Has anyone seen Nyberg?' Wallander asked.

Nyberg walked in at that moment. As usual, he appeared to have been up all night. His hair was standing on end. He sat in his usual seat, somewhat apart from the others.

'Rydberg seems ill,' Svedberg said, scratching his bald spot with a pencil.

'He is ill,' Hansson said. 'He has sciatica.'

'Rheumatism,' Wallander corrected. 'There's a big difference.'

Then he turned to Nyberg.

'We've examined the wings,' the latter said. 'And washed away the fire-retardant foam and tried to puzzle the pieces of the fuselage back together. The numbers and letters had not only been painted over, they had also been scraped away beforehand. But that had only been partly successful, hence the need for paint. The people on board definitely did not want to be traced.'

'I imagine there is a number on the engine,' Wallander said. 'And of course not as many planes are manufactured as cars.'

'We're getting in touch with the Piper factory in the United States,' Martinsson said.

'There are some other questions that need to be answered,' Wallander went on. 'How far can a plane like this fly on one tank of fuel? How common are additional fuel tanks? What is the limit to the amount of petrol a plane of this type can carry?'

Martinsson wrote this down.

'I'll get the answers,' he said.

The door opened and Rydberg came in.

'I've been to the hospital,' he said curtly, 'and things always take a long time there.'

Wallander could see that he was in pain but said nothing.

Instead, he presented the idea of trying to find others who might have heard the engine noise. He felt a little guilty that he did not give Blomell credit for this insight.

'This will be like in wartime,' Rydberg commented. 'When everyone in Skåne walked around and listened for planes.'

'It's possible it won't yield anything,' Wallander said. 'But there's no harm in checking with our colleagues in nearby districts. Personally I have trouble believing it could have been anything other than a drug transport. An arranged drop somewhere.'

'We should talk to Malmö,' Rydberg said. 'If they've noticed that the supply seems to have increased dramatically, there could be a connection. I'll call them.'

No one had any objections. Wallander brought the meeting to a close shortly after nine o'clock.

He spent the rest of the morning concluding work on the assault case in Skurup and presenting the findings to Per Åkeson. At lunchtime he went downtown, had the hot-dog special, and bought some toilet paper. He even took the opportunity to drop by the state-run offlicence and buy a bottle of whisky and two bottles of wine. Just as he was leaving he bumped into Sten Widén on his way in. He reeked of alcohol and looked worn out.

Sten Widén was one of Wallander's oldest friends. They had met many years ago, united by their interest in opera. Widén worked for his father in Stjärnsund, where they had raised racehorses. They had seen each other less often the past few years. Wallander had started to keep his distance when he realised that Widén's drinking was getting out of control.

'It's been a while,' Widén said.

Wallander winced at his breath, which seemed to testify to many drinking bouts.

'You know how it is,' Wallander says. 'These things go in waves.'

Then they exchanged some neutral words. Both wanted to end the conversation as soon as possible. In order to meet under different, prearranged circumstances. Wallander promised to call.

'I'm training a new horse,' Widén said. 'She had such a bad name I managed to get it changed.'

'What is she now?'

' La Trottiata. '

Widén smiled. Wallander nodded. Then they went their separate ways.

Wallander walked back to Mariagatan with his bags. He was back at the station at a quarter past two. Everything still seemed deserted. Wallander continued to work through his pile of paper. After the assault in Skurup came a burglary in central Ystad, on Pilgrimsgatan. Someone had broken a window in the middle of the day and emptied the house of various valuables. Wallander shook his head as he read through Svedberg's report. It was unbelievable that none of the neighbours had seen anything.

Is this fear starting to spread even in Sweden? he wondered. The fear of assisting the police with the most elementary observations. If this is the case then the situation is far worse that I have wanted to believe.

Wallander struggled on with the material and made notes on who should be questioned and which searches should be made in the files. But he had no illusions that they would be able to solve the burglary case without a large dose of luck or reliable witnesses' accounts.

Martinsson walked into his office shortly before five. Wallander saw that he was starting to grow a moustache, but he said nothing.

'Sjöbo actually did have something to say,' Martinsson began. 'A man had been out looking for a lost bull calf all night. God only knows how he thought he was going to find anything in the dark. But he called the police in Sjöbo that morning and said he had seen strange lights and heard an engine noise shortly after five.'

'Strange lights? What did he mean by that?'

'I've asked the Sjöbo colleagues to interview the man in more detail.

Fridell was his name.'

Wallander nodded.

'Lights and engine noise. That could confirm our hypothesis about a scheduled drop.'

Martinsson spread out a map on Wallander's desk. He pointed. Wallander saw that it was in the area that Blomell had circled.

'Good work,' Wallander said. 'We'll have to see if it leads us anywhere.'

Martinsson folded up the map.

'It's terrible if it's true,' he said. 'If this really is the case then we're unprotected. If any old plane can come in across the border and drop off drugs without being sighted.'

'We have to get used to it,' Wallander said. 'But of course I agree with you.'

Martinsson left. Wallander left the station a little later. When he got home he cooked a real dinner for once. At half past seven he sat down with a cup of coffee to watch the news. The phone rang as the top stories were being announced. It was Emma. She was just leaving the hospital. Wallander didn't really know what he wanted. Another evening alone. Or a visit from Emma. Without being sure that he really wanted to see her, he asked if she wanted to stop by. She said yes. Wallander knew this meant that she would stay until a little after midnight. Then she would get dressed and go home. In order to steel himself for the visit he had two glasses of whisky. He had already showered before while he was waiting for the potatoes to boil. Quickly, he changed the sheets on the bed and threw the old bed-linen into the wardrobe, which was already overflowing with dirty laundry.

Emma arrived shortly before eight. Wallander cursed himself when he heard her on the stairs. Why couldn't he put an end to it, since it had no future?

She arrived, she smiled and Wallander asked her in. She had brown hair and beautiful eyes, and was short. He put on the kind of music he knew she liked. They drank wine and shortly before eleven they went to bed. Wallander thought of Mona.

Afterwards they both fell asleep. Neither one of them had said anything. Just before he fell asleep, Wallander noticed a headache coming on. He woke up again when she was getting dressed, but he pretended to be asleep. When the front door had shut, he got out of bed and drank some water. Then he returned to bed, thought about Mona for a bit longer, and fell back asleep.

The telephone started to ring deep inside his dreams. He woke immediately. Listened. The rings continued. He glanced at the clock on the bedside table. A quarter past two. That meant that something had happened. He lifted the receiver as he sat up in bed.

It was one of the officers who worked the night shift, Näslund.

'There's a fire on Möllegatan,' Näslund said. 'Right on the corner of Lilla Strandgatan.'

Wallander tried to visualise that block.

'What's burning?'

'The Eberhardsson sisters' sewing shop.'

'That sounds like a case for the fire brigade and a patrol unit.'

Näslund hesitated before answering.

'They're already there. It sounds like the house may have exploded. And the sisters live above the shop.'

'Did you get them out?'

'It doesn't look like it.'

Wallander didn't need to think any further. He knew there was only one thing to do.

'I'm coming,' he said. 'Who else have you called?'

'Rydberg.'

'You could have let him sleep. Get Svedberg and Hansson.'

Wallander hung up. Checked the time again. Seventeen minutes past two. While he put his clothes on he thought about what Näslund had said. A sewing shop had been blown up. That sounded implausible. And it was serious if the two owners had not managed to escape.

Wallander walked out onto the street and realised he had left his car keys. He cursed, then ran back up the stairs, noticing how out of breath he became. I should start playing badminton with Svedberg again, he thought. I can't manage four flights without losing my breath.

Wallander pulled up on Hamngatan at half past two. The whole area had been blocked off. The smell of fire was perceptible before he even opened the door. Flames and smoke were rising into the sky. The fire brigade had all their engines on the scene. Wallander ran into Peter Edler for the second time that day.

'It looks bad,' Peter Edler shouted, raising his voice to be heard above the din.

The whole house was in flames. The firefighters were spraying the surrounding buildings to restrict the damage.

'The sisters?' Wallander shouted.

Edler shook his head.

'No one has come out,' he replied. 'If they were home, they're still in there. We have a witness who says the building just blew up. It started to burn everywhere at once.'

Edler left to continue directing the operation. Hansson appeared at Wallander's side.

'Who the hell sets fire to a sewing shop?' he asked.

Wallander shook his head.

He had no answer.

He thought about the two sisters who had worked in their sewing shop for as long as he had lived in Ystad. Once, he and Mona had bought a zip there for one of his suits.

Now the sisters were gone.

And if Peter Edler was not completely mistaken, this fire had been started in order to kill them.

CHAPTER 4

Wallander rang in this St Lucia's Day, 1989, with lights other than those of a children's Lucia procession. He stayed at the scene of the blaze until dawn. By then he had sent home both Svedberg and Hansson. When Rydberg turned up, Wallander also told him to go home. The night cold and the heat of the flames would do nothing good for his rheumatism. Rydberg listened to a short report about the two sisters' likely death, and then he left. Peter Edler gave Wallander a cup of coffee. Wallander sat in the driver's cab in one of the fire engines and wondered why he didn't simply go home and sleep instead of staying here, waiting for the fire to be put out. He didn't manage to come up with a good answer. He thought back to the evening before, with discomfort. The erotic dimension between him and Emma Lundin was completely devoid of passion. Hardly more than an extension of their earlier inane conversations.

I can't go on like this, he thought suddenly. Something has to happen in my life. Soon, very soon. The two months that had gone by since Mona had left him felt like two years.

The fire was out at dawn. The building had burned to the ground. Nyberg arrived. They waited for Peter Edler to give the go-ahead erg to enter the smouldering remains with the fire brigade's own forensic technicians.

Then Björk turned up, impeccably dressed as usual, accompanied by a scent of aftershave that managed to overpower even the smoke.

'Fires are tragic,' he said. 'I hear the owners have died.'

'We don't know that yet,' Wallander said. 'But there are no indications to the contrary, unfortunately.'

Björk looked at his watch.

'I have to push on,' he said. 'I have a breakfast meeting with Rotary.' He left.

'He's going to lecture himself to death,' Wallander said.

Nyberg followed him with his eyes.

'I wonder what he says about the police and our work,' Nyberg said. 'Have you ever heard him speak?'

'Never. But I suspect he doesn't tell them about his accomplishments at the desk.'

They stood quietly, waiting. Wallander felt cold and tired. The whole block was still closed to traffic, but a reporter from Arbetet had managed to duck his way past the blockades. Wallander recognised him. He was one of the reporters who usually wrote what Wallander actually said, so he was given the little information they had. They still could not confirm that anyone had died. The reporter let himself be satisfied with this.

Another hour went by before Peter Edler could give them the green light. When Wallander had left home the night before, he had been smart enough to put on rubber boots, and now he stepped carefully into the scorched rubble where beams and the remains of walls lay jumbled in a mess of water. Nyberg and some of the firefighters carefully made their way through the ruins. After less than five minutes, they stopped. Nyberg nodded for Wallander to come.

The bodies of two people lay a few metres away from each other. They were charred beyond the point of recognition. It occurred to Wallander that he had now experienced this sight for the second time in forty-eight hours. He shook his head.

'The Eberhardsson sisters,' he said. 'What were their first names?'

'Anna and Emilia,' Nyberg answered. 'But we don't yet know if it is actually them.'

'Who else would it be?' Wallander said. 'They lived alone in this house.'

'We'll find out,' Nyberg said. 'But it will take a couple of days.'

Wallander turned and went back out onto the street. Peter Edler was smoking.

'You smoke?' Wallander said. 'I didn't know that.'

'Not very often,' Edler replied. 'Only when I'm very tired.'

'There must be a thorough examination of this fire,' Wallander said.

'I shouldn't jump to any conclusions, of course, but this looks like nothing less than deliberate arson. Though one may wonder why anyone wanted to take the lives of two old spinsters.'

Wallander nodded. He knew that Peter Edler was an extremely competent fire chief.

'Two old ladies,' Wallander remarked. 'Who sold buttons and zips.'

There was no longer any reason for Wallander to stay. He left the scene, got in his car and went home. He ate breakfast and conferred with the thermometer about which sweater to wear. He decided on the same one as yesterday. At twenty minutes past nine he parked in front of the station. Martinsson arrived at the same time. This is unusually late for him, Wallander thought. Martinsson offered up the explanation without being asked.

'My niece, who is fifteen, came home drunk last night,' he said sombrely. 'That hasn't happened before.'

'Some time has to be the first,' Wallander said.

He did not miss his days as a patrol officer, when St Lucia's Day was always a raucous affair, and he recalled that Mona had called several years ago and complained that Linda had come home and thrown up after late-night Lucia festivities. Mona had been very upset. That time, to his surprise, Wallander was the one who had been more relaxed about the whole incident. He tried to explain this to Martinsson as they walked up towards the station. But his colleague was resistant. Wallander gave up and stopped talking.

They halted in the reception area and Ebba came over to them.

'Is it true what I hear?' she asked. 'That poor Anna and Emilia have burned to death?'

'That's what it looks like,' Wallander said.

Ebba shook her head.

'I've bought buttons and thread from them since 1951,' she said. 'They were always so friendly. If you needed anything extra, they always took care of it with no additional charge. Who on earth would want to take the lives of two old ladies in a sewing shop?'

Ebba is the second person to ask that, Wallander thought. First Peter Edler, now Ebba.

'Is it a pyromaniac?' Martinsson asked. 'In that case he's chosen a particularly apt evening to get started.'

'We'll have to wait and see,' Wallander replied. 'Has anything more come in about the crashed plane?'

'Not as far as I know. But Sjöbo was going to have another talk with the man who was looking for his calf.'

'Call the other districts just to be sure,' Wallander reminded him. 'It could turn out that they received calls about an engine noise too. There can hardly be that many aeroplanes flying around at night.'

Martinsson left. Ebba gave Wallander a piece of paper.

'The travel insurance for your father,' she said. 'Lucky man, he gets to leave this weather and see the pyramids.'

Wallander took the paper and went to his office. When he had hung up his coat, he called Löderup. There was no answer, even though he let the phone ring fifteen times. His father must be out in the studio. Wallander put down the phone. I wonder if he remembers that he's supposed to travel tomorrow, he thought. And that I'm picking him up at seven o'clock.

But Wallander was looking forward to spending a couple of hours with Linda. That always put him in a good mood.

He pulled over a pile of papers, this one about the burglary on Pilgrimsgatan. But he ended up lost in thought about other things. What if they had a pyromaniac on their hands? They had been spared that for the past couple of years.

He forced himself to return to the burglary, but Nyberg called at ten thirty.

'I think you should come down here,' he said. 'To the scene of the fire.'

Wallander knew Nyberg would not have called unless it was important. It would be a waste of time to start asking questions over the phone.

'I'm on my way,' he said and hung up.

He took his coat and left the station. It took him only a couple of minutes by car to get downtown. The cordoned-off area was smaller, but some traffic was still being redirected around Hamngatan.

Nyberg was waiting next to the ruins of the house, which were still smoking. He got straight to the point.

'This was not only arson,' he said. 'It was murder.'

'Murder?'

Nyberg gestured for him to follow. The two bodies in the ruin had now been dug out. They crouched down next to one and Nyberg pointed to the cranium with a pen.

'A bullet hole,' he said. 'She's been shot, assuming it is one of the sisters. But I suppose we are assuming that.'

They stood up and walked over to the second body.

'Same thing here,' he said and pointed. 'Just above the neck.'

Wallander shook his head in disbelief.

'Someone shot them?'

'Looks like it. What's worse is that it was execution-style. Two shots to the back of the head.'

Wallander had trouble taking in what Nyberg had just said. It was too preposterous, too brutal. But he also knew that Nyberg never said anything he wasn't absolutely sure about.

They walked back out to the street. Nyberg held up a small plastic bag in front of Wallander.

'We found one of the bullets,' he said. 'It was still stuck in the cranium. The other one exited through the forehead and has melted in the heat. But the medical examiner will of course do a thorough examination.'

Wallander looked at Nyberg while he tried to think.

'So we have a double murder that someone tried to cover up with a fire?'

Nyberg shook his head.

'That doesn't make sense. A person who executes people by shooting them in the back of the head most likely knows that fires normally leave skeletons intact. After all, it's not a crematorium.'

Wallander realised that Nyberg had said something important.

'What's the alternative?'

'The murderer may have wanted to conceal something else.'

'What can you conceal in a sewing shop?'

'That's your job to figure out,' Nyberg replied.

'I'll go and get a team together,' Wallander said. 'We'll start at one.' He checked his watch. It was eleven. 'Can you make it?'

'I won't be done here, of course,' Nyberg said. 'But I'll come by.'

Wallander returned to his car. He was filled with a feeling of unreality. Who could have a motive for executing two old ladies who sold needles and thread and one or two zips? This was beyond anything he had been involved in before.

When he reached the station he walked straight to Rydberg's office. It was empty. Wallander found him in the break room, where he was eating a rusk and drinking tea. Wallander sat down and told him what Nyberg had discovered.

'That's not good,' Rydberg said when Wallander was finished. 'Not good at all.'

Wallander stood up. 'I'll see you at one,' he said. 'For now, let Martinsson focus on the plane. But Hansson and Svedberg should be there. And try to get Åkeson. Have we ever had anything like this?'

Rydberg considered. 'Not that I can remember. There was a lunatic who planted an axe in a waiter's head about twenty years ago. The motive was an unpaid debt of thirty kronor. But I can't think of anything else.'

Wallander lingered at the table.

'Execution-style,' he said. 'Not particularly Swedish.'

'And what is Swedish, exactly?' Rydberg asked. 'There are no longer any borders. Not for aeroplanes nor serious criminals. Once Ystad lay at the outskirts of something. What happened in Stockholm did not happen here. Not even things that occurred in Malmö were typical in a small town like Ystad. But that time is over.'

'What happens now?'

'The new era will need a different kind of police, particularly out in the field,' Rydberg said. 'But there will still be a need for those like you and me, the ones who can think.'

They walked together along the corridor. Rydberg walked slowly. They parted outside Rydberg's door.

'One o'clock,' Rydberg said. 'The double murder of two old ladies. Is that what we should call this? The case of the little old ladies?'

'I don't like it,' Wallander said. 'I don't understand why anyone would shoot two honourable old ladies.'

'That may be where we have to begin,' Rydberg said thoughtfully. 'By examining if they were actually as honourable as everyone appears to believe.'

Wallander was taken aback.

'What are you insinuating?'

'Nothing,' Rydberg said, and smiled suddenly. 'It's possible that one sometimes draws conclusions too quickly.'

Wallander stood by the window in his office and absent-mindedly watched some pigeons flapping around the water tower. Rydberg is right, he thought. As usual. If there are no witnesses, if we don't get any observations from outside, then this is where we have to start: who were they really, Anna and Emilia?

They were all assembled in the conference room at one o'clock. Hansson had tried to get hold of Björk, without success. But Per Åkeson was there.

Wallander gave an account of the discovery that the two women had been shot. A sombre mood spread through the room. Evidently everyone had been to the sewing shop at least once. Then Wallander turned to Nyberg.

'We're still digging around in the rubble,' Nyberg said. 'But so far we haven't found anything of interest.'

'The cause of the fire?' Wallander asked.

'It's too early to tell,' he replied. 'But according to the neighbours there was a loud blast. Someone described it as a muted explosion. And then, within the span of a minute, the whole building was on fire.'

Wallander looked around the table.

'Since there is no immediately apparent motive, we have to begin by finding out what we can about these sisters. Is it true, as I believe, that they didn't have any relatives? Both were single. Had they ever been married? How old were they? I thought of them as old ladies already when I moved here.'

Svedberg answered that he was sure that Anna and Emilia had never been married, and that they had no children. But he would find out more in greater detail.

'Bank accounts,' said Rydberg, who had not said anything until then. 'Did they have money? Either stuffed under the mattress at home or at the bank. There are rumours about such things. Can that have been the reason for the murder?'

'That doesn't explain the execution-style method,' Wallander said. 'But we need to find out about this. We need to know.'

They divvied up the usual tasks among themselves. They were the same methodical and time-consuming tasks that had to be performed at the beginning of every investigation. When it was a quarter past two, Wallander had only one more thing to say.

'We need to speak to the media,' he said. 'This will interest them. Björk should be present, of course. But I would be happy to get out of it.'

To everyone's surprise, Rydberg offered to speak to the reporters. Normally he was as reticent as Wallander on such occasions.

They broke up. Nyberg returned to the fire scene. Wallander and Rydberg stayed behind for a moment.

'I think we have to place some hope in the public,' Rydberg said. 'More than usual. It's clear that there must have been a motive for killing these sisters. And I have trouble thinking it could have been anything other than money.'

'We've encountered this before,' Wallander said. 'People who don't own a penny but who get attacked because there are rumours of wealth.'

'I have some contacts,' Rydberg said. 'I'll do a little investigating on the side.'

They left the room.

'Why did you take on the press conference?' Wallander asked.

'So that you wouldn't have to do it for once,' Rydberg said and went to his office.

Wallander managed to reach Björk, who was at home with a migraine.

'We're planning a press conference at five o'clock today,' Wallander said. 'We're all hoping you can be there.'

'I'll be there,' Björk said. 'Migraine or not.'

The investigative machine had been set in motion, slow but thorough. Wallander went back to the scene of the fire once more and talked to Nyberg, who was up to his knees in rubble. Then he returned to the station. But when the press conference started, he stayed away. He arrived home around six o'clock. This time his father answered when Wallander called.

'I've already packed,' his father said.

'I should hope so,' Wallander said. 'I'll be there at half past six. Don't forget your passport and tickets.'

Wallander spent the rest of the evening consolidating what they knew of the previous evening's events. He called Nyberg at home and asked him how the work was going.

Slowly, Nyberg said. They would continue in the morning as soon as it was light. Wallander also called the station and asked the officer on duty if any information had come in. But there was nothing that he considered noteworthy.

Wallander went to bed at midnight. In order to be sure of waking on time in the morning, he ordered a telephone wake-up call.

He had trouble falling asleep even though he was very tired.

The thought of the two sisters who had been executed worried him.

Before he fell asleep at last, he had managed to convince himself that it would be a long and difficult investigation. If they did not have the good fortune of tripping over the answer at the very beginning.

The following day he got up at five. At exactly half past six he turned into the driveway in Löderup.

His father was sitting outside on his suitcase, waiting.

CHAPTER 5

They drove to Malmö in darkness. The daily commute from the Skåne region into Malmö had not yet begun in earnest. His father was wearing a suit and a strange-looking pith helmet. Wallander had never seen it before and imagined that his father must have picked it up at a flea market or a second-hand shop. But he said nothing. He didn't even ask if his father had remembered to bring his tickets or his passport.

'You're really going' was all he said.

'Yes,' his father replied. 'This is the day.'

Wallander could sense that his father did not want to talk. It gave him the opportunity to focus on his driving and lose himself in his own thoughts. He was worried about the recent developments in Ystad. Wallander tried to get a handle on it. Why someone would cold-bloodedly shoot two old ladies in the back of the head. But he drew a blank. There was no context, no explanation. Only these brutal and incomprehensible executions.

As they turned into the small car park by the ferry terminal, they saw Linda already waiting outside. Wallander noticed that he didn't like how she greeted her grandfather first, then her father. She commented on her grandfather's pith helmet, saying she thought it suited him.

'I wish I had as nice a hat to show off,' Wallander said as he hugged his daughter. To his relief she was wearing a remarkably ordinary outfit. The opposite was often the case, which always bothered him. Now it struck him that this habit was something that she may have inherited from her grandfather. Or he'd been an influence, at least.

They accompanied him into the terminal. Wallander paid for his ferry ticket. Once he had climbed aboard, they stood out in the darkness and watched the vessel chug out through the harbour.

'I hope I'll be like him when I'm old,' Linda said.

Wallander did not reply. To become like his father was something he feared more than anything.

They had breakfast together at the Central Station restaurant. As usual, Wallander had very little appetite so early in the morning. But in order to stave off a lecture from Linda about how he wasn't taking proper care of himself, he filled his plate with various sandwich toppings and several pieces of toast.

He watched his daughter, who talked almost continuously. She was not really beautiful in the traditional and banal sense of the word. But there was something confident and independent about her manner. She did not belong among the scores of young women who did their utmost to please all the men they met. From whom she had inherited her loquaciousness he could not say. Both he and Mona were rather quiet. But he liked listening to her. It always raised his spirits. She continued to talk about going into the business of restoring furniture. Informed him of the possibilities in the field, what the challenges were, cursed the fact that the apprenticeship system had almost died out, and astonished him at the end by imagining a future where she set up her own shop in Ystad.

'It's too bad that neither you nor Mum have any money,' she said. 'Then I could have gone to France to learn.'

Wallander realised she was not in fact chastising him for not being wealthy. Nonetheless, he took it this way.

'I could take out a loan,' he said. 'I think a simple policeman can manage that.'

'Loans have to be paid back,' she said. 'And anyway, you are actually a criminal inspector.'

Then they talked about Mona. Wallander listened, not without some satisfaction, to her complaints about Mona, who controlled her daughter in everything she did.

'And to top it off I don't like Johan,' she finished.

Wallander looked searchingly at her.

'Who's that?'

'Her new guy.'

'I thought she was seeing someone called Sören?'

'They broke up. Now his name is Johan and he owns two diggers.'

'And you don't like him?'

She shrugged.

'He's so loud. And I don't think he's ever read a book in his life. On Saturdays he comes over and he's bought some comic book. A grown man. Can you imagine?'

Wallander felt a momentary relief at the fact that he had never bought a comic book. He knew that Svedberg sometimes picked up an issue of Super-Man. Once or twice he had flipped through it to try to recapture the feeling from childhood, but it was never there.

'That doesn't sound so good,' he said. 'I mean, that you and Johan don't get along.'

'It's not so much a question of us,' she said. 'It's more that I don't understand what Mum sees in him.'

'Come and live with me,' Wallander said impulsively. 'Your room is still there, you know that.'

'I've actually thought about it,' she said. 'But I don't think that would be a good idea.'

'Why not?'

'Ystad is too small. It would drive me crazy to live there. Maybe later, when I'm older. There are towns where you simply can't live when you're young.'

Wallander knew what she was talking about. Even for divorced men in their forties, a town like Ystad could start to feel cramped.

'What about you?' she asked.

'What do you mean?'

'What do you think? Women, of course.'

Wallander made a face. He didn't want to bring up Emma Lundin.

'You could put an ad in the paper,' she suggested. '"A man in his best years looking for a woman." You would get a lot of responses.'

'Sure,' Wallander said, 'and then it would take five minutes before we'd simply end up sitting there staring vacantly at each other, realising we have nothing to say.'

She surprised him again.

'You need to have someone to sleep with,' she said. 'It's not good for you to walk around with so much pent-up longing.'

Wallander winced. She had never said anything like that to him before.

'I have all I need,' he said evasively.

'Can't you tell me more?'

'There's not much to say. A nurse. A decent person. The problem is just that she likes me more than I like her.'

Linda did not ask any more questions. Wallander immediately started to wonder about her sex life. But the very thought filled him with so many ambivalent feelings that he didn't want to get into it.

They stayed in the restaurant until it was past ten o'clock. Then he offered to drive her home, but she had errands to run. They parted in the car park. Wallander gave her three hundred kronor.

'You don't need to do this,' she said.

'I know. But take it anyway.'

Then he watched her walk off into the city. Thought that this was his family. A daughter who was finding her way. And a father who was right now sitting on a plane taking him to scorching-hot Egypt. He had a complicated relationship with both of them. It was not only his father who could be difficult, but also Linda.

He was back in Ystad at half past ten. During the trip back he had an easier time thinking about what now awaited him. The meeting with Linda had given him new energy. The broadest possible approach, he said to himself. That's the way we have to proceed. He stopped on the outskirts of Ystad and ate a hamburger, promising himself it would be the last one of the year. When he walked into the reception area, Ebba called out to him. She looked a little tense.

'Björk wants to talk to you,' she said.

Wallander hung his coat up in his office, then walked to Björk's room. He was let in at once. Björk stood up behind his desk.

'I have to express my great dismay,' he said.

'With what?'

'That you go to Malmö on personal business when we are in the midst of a difficult murder case, one that you moreover are in charge of.'

Wallander could not believe his ears. Björk was actually reprimanding him. That had never happened before, even if Björk had often had ample reason to do so on previous occasions. Wallander thought about all the times that he had acted too independently during an investigation, without informing the others.

'This is extremely unfortunate,' Björk concluded. 'There will be no formal reprimand. But it was, as I said, a show of poor judgement.'

Wallander stared at Björk. Then he made an about-face and left without saying a word. But when he was halfway back to his office, he turned and walked back, pulling open the door to Björk's office and saying, through clenched teeth:

'I'm not going to take any shit from you. Just so you know. Give me a formal reprimand if you want. But don't stand there talking nonsense. I won't take it.'

Then he left. He noticed that he was sweating. But he didn't regret it. The outburst had been necessary. And he was not at all worried about the consequences. His position at the station was strong.

He got a cup of coffee in the break room and then sat down at his desk. He knew that Björk had gone to Stockholm to take a leadership course of some kind. He had probably learned he should scold his colleagues from time to time in order to improve the climate of the workplace, Wallander thought. But if so, he had chosen the wrong person to start with.

Then he wondered who had passed on the fact that Wallander had spent the morning driving his father to Malmö.

There were several possibilities. Wallander could not recall to whom he had mentioned his father's impending trip to Egypt.

The only thing he was sure of was that it was not Rydberg. The latter regarded Björk as a necessary administrative evil. Hardly anything more. And he was always loyal to those he worked with. His loyalty would never be corrupted, though of course he would not spare his colleagues if they acted irresponsibly. Then Rydberg would be the first to react.

Wallander was interrupted in this train of thought by Martinsson, who looked in.

'Is this a good time?'

Wallander nodded at his visitor's chair.

They began by talking about the fire and the murder of the Eberhardsson sisters. But Wallander soon realised that Martinsson had come in about something different.

'It's about the plane,' he said. 'Our Sjöbo colleagues have worked quickly. They've located an area just south-west of the village where lights were allegedly observed that night. From what I gather, it's a nonresidential area. That could also corroborate the idea of an air drop.'

'You mean that the lights would have been guiding lights?'

'That is one possibility. There's also a myriad of small roads through that area. Easy to get to, easy to leave.'

'That strengthens our theory,' Wallander said.

'I have more,' Martinsson went on. 'The Sjöbo team has been diligent. They've checked to see who actually lives in that area. Most of them are farmers, of course, but they found one exception.'

Wallander sharpened his attention.

'A farm called Långelunda,' Martinsson said. 'For a couple of years it's been a haven for a variety of people who have caused problems for the Sjöbo police from time to time. People have moved in and out, the ownership has been unclear and there have been drug seizures. Not great quantities, but still.'

Martinsson scratched his forehead.

'The colleague I spoke with, Göran Brunberg, gave me a few names. I wasn't paying that much attention, but when I hung up I started thinking. There was one name I thought I recognised. From a case we had recently.'

Wallander sat up.

'You don't mean that Yngve Leonard Holm lives up there? That he has a place there?'

Martinsson nodded.

'He's the one. It took a while for me to put it together.'

Damn it, Wallander thought. I knew there was something about him. I even thought of the plane. But we had to let him go.

'We'll bring him in,' Wallander said and banged a fist firmly on his desk.

'That was exactly what I told our Sjöbo colleagues when I made the connection,' Martinsson said. 'But when they got out to Långelunda, Holm was gone.'

'What do you mean, "gone"?'

'Disappeared, gone, vanished. He did live there, even if he was registered in Ystad for the last couple of years. And built his mansion here. The Sjöbo colleagues talked to a couple of other individuals living there. Rough types, from what I gather. Holm was there as recently as yesterday. But no one has seen him since then. I went to his house here in Ystad, but it's locked up.'

Wallander thought it over.

'So Holm doesn't usually disappear like this?'

'The people in the house actually seemed a little concerned.'

'In other words, there could be a connection,' Wallander said.

'I was thinking that Holm may have been intending to leave on the plane that crashed.'

'Not likely,' Wallander said. 'Then you're assuming the plane had somewhere to land and pick him up. And the Sjöbo police haven't found any place like that, have they? An improvised landing strip? It would also exceed the time frame.'

'A sport plane with a skilled pilot may only need a small level area to land and take off from.'

Wallander hesitated. Martinsson could be right, even though Wallander doubted this was the case. On the other hand, he had no difficulty imagining that Holm could be involved in decidedly larger drug operations than they had believed.

'We'll have to continue working on this,' Wallander said. 'Unfortunately, you'll be more or less alone on it. The rest of us have to focus on the murdered sisters.'

'Have you found a possible motive?'

'We have nothing other than an incomprehensible execution and an explosive fire,' Wallander replied. 'But if there's anything to be found in the remains of the fire, Nyberg will get it.'

Martinsson left. Wallander noticed that his thoughts were alternating between the downed plane and the fire. It was two o'clock. His father would have landed in Cairo by now, if the plane had left on time from Kastrup. Then he thought about Björk's strange behaviour. He felt himself getting upset again and at the same time felt pleased that he had given his boss a piece of his mind.

Since he was having trouble concentrating on his paperwork he drove down to the scene of the fire. Nyberg was on his knees in the rubble together with the other technicians. The smell of smoke was still strong. Nyberg saw Wallander and made his way out onto the street.

'The fire burned with an intense heat, according to Edler's people,' he said. 'Everything appears to have melted. And that of course strengthens the suspicion of arson, about a fire started in several places at once. Perhaps with the help of petrol.'

'We have to get the people who did this,' Wallander said.

'That would be a good thing,' Nyberg said. 'One gets the feeling that this is the work of a madman.'

'Or the opposite,' Wallander said. 'Someone who really knew what he was after.'

'In a sewing shop? Run by two old unmarried sisters?'

Nyberg shook his head disbelievingly and returned to the ruins. Wallander walked down to the harbour. He needed some air. It was a couple of degrees below freezing and there was almost no breeze. He stopped outside the theatre building and saw that there was going to be a performance by the National Theatre. A Dream Play by Strindberg. If only it had been an opera, he thought. Then I would have gone. But he hesitated to attend a regular play.

He walked out onto the pier in the yacht harbour. A ferry to Poland was just leaving the large terminal that lay adjacent to it. Absentmindedly he wondered how many cars were being smuggled out of Sweden this time.

He returned to the station at half past three. He wondered if his father had reached the hotel and settled in. And if he would receive a new reprimand from Björk for an unexplained absence. At four o'clock he gathered with his colleagues in the conference room. They reviewed the findings of the day. Their collected material was still thin.

'Unusually thin,' Rydberg said. 'A building burns down in Ystad. And no one has noticed anything out of the ordinary.'

Svedberg and Hansson reported what they had found. Neither of the sisters had been married. There were a number of distant relatives, cousins and second cousins. But no one who lived in Ystad. The sewing shop yielded an unremarkable declared income. Nor had they uncovered any bank accounts with large savings. Hansson had located a safedeposit box at Handels Bank. But since they lacked keys, Per Åkeson would have to submit a request that the box be opened. Hansson calculated that it could be done by the following day.

Afterwards a heavy silence descended on the room.

'There has to be a motive,' Wallander said. 'Sooner or later we'll find it. If we only have patience.'

'Who knew these sisters?' Rydberg asked. 'They must have had friends and a bit of spare time now and again when they weren't working in the shop. Did they belong to any kind of organisation? Did they have a summer cabin? Did they take holidays? I still feel that we haven't scratched below the surface.'

Wallander thought Rydberg sounded irritable. He's probably in a lot of pain, Wallander thought. I wonder what is really wrong with him. If it isn't only rheumatism.

No one had anything to add to what Rydberg had said. They would go forward and delve deeper.

Wallander remained in his office until close to eight o'clock. He made his own list of all the facts they had about the Eberhardsson sisters. As he read through what he had written he realised in earnest how thin it was. They had absolutely no leads to pursue.

Before leaving the office he called Martinsson at home. Martinsson told him that Holm had still not turned up.

Wallander went to his car. It took a long time for the engine to sputter into life. He angrily decided to take out a loan and get a new car as soon as he had the time.

When he came home he booked a time for the laundry room and then opened a can of luncheon meat. Just as he was about to sit down in front of the TV with his plate perched on his lap the phone rang. It was Emma. She asked if she could come by.

'Not tonight,' Wallander said. 'You've probably read about the fire and the two sisters. We're working round the clock right now.'

She understood. After Wallander hung up he wondered why he couldn't tell her the truth. That he didn't want to be with her any more. But of course it was inexcusable cowardice to say this over the phone. Therefore he had to steel himself to go over to her place some evening. He promised himself he would as soon as he had time.

He started to eat his food, which had already grown cold. It was nine o'clock.

The telephone rang again. Annoyed, Wallander put the plate down and answered.

It was Nyberg, who was still at the scene of the fire, calling from a patrol car.

'Now I think we've found something,' he said. 'A safe, the expensive kind that can withstand extreme heat.'

'Why didn't you find it earlier?'

'Good question,' Nyberg answered, without taking offence. 'The safe had been lowered into the foundation. We found a heat-insulated trapdoor under all the rubble. When we managed to force it open we found a space underneath. And there was the safe.'

'Have you opened it?'

'With what? There are no keys. This is a safe that will be difficult to force open.'

Wallander checked his watch. Ten minutes past nine.

'I'm on my way,' he said. 'I wonder if you might have uncovered the lead we were looking for.'

When Wallander got down to the street he couldn't get the car to start. He gave up and walked to Hamngatan.

At twenty minutes to ten he stood at Nyberg's side and studied the safe, illuminated by a lone spotlight.

At about the same time the temperature began to fall, and a gusty wind was moving in from the east.

CHAPTER 6

Shortly after midnight on the fifteenth of December, Nyberg and his men had managed to lift up the safe with the help of a crane. It was loaded onto the back of a truck and immediately taken to the station.

But before Nyberg and Wallander left the scene, Nyberg examined the space under the foundation.

'This was put in after the house was built,' he said. 'I have to assume it was constructed expressly to hold this safe.'

Wallander nodded without a reply. He was thinking about the Eberhardsson sisters. The police had searched for a motive. Now they may have found it, even if they didn't yet know what was in the safe.

But someone else may have known, Wallander thought. Both that the safe existed. And what was inside.

Nyberg and Wallander left the scene of the fire and walked out to the street.

'Is it possible to cut into the safe?' Wallander asked.

'Yes, of course,' Nyberg answered. 'But it requires special welding equipment. This is not the kind of safe that a regular locksmith would dream of trying to crack open.'

'We have to open it as soon as possible.'

Nyberg pulled off his protective suit. He looked sceptically at Wallander.

'Do you mean that the safe should be opened tonight?'

'That would be best,' Wallander said. 'This is a double homicide.'

'Impossible,' Nyberg said. 'I can only get hold of people with the requisite welding equipment tomorrow at the earliest.'

'Are they here in Ystad?'

Nyberg reflected.

'There is a company that's a subcontractor for the armed forces,' he said. 'They probably have the equipment that would do the trick. I think their name is Fabricius. They're on Industrigatan.'

Nyberg looked exhausted. It would be insane to drive him onward right now, Wallander thought. He himself shouldn't press on either.

'Seven o'clock tomorrow,' Wallander said.

Nyberg nodded.

Wallander looked around for his car. Then he remembered that it hadn't started. Nyberg could drop him off, but he preferred to walk. The wind was cold. He passed a thermometer outside a shop window on Stora Östergatan. Minus six degrees Celsius. Winter is creeping in, Wallander thought. Soon it will be here.

One minute to seven on the morning of the fifteenth of December, Nyberg entered Wallander's office. Wallander had the telephone directory open on his desk. He had already inspected the safe, which was being stored in a temporarily empty room next to reception. One of the officers just going off the night shift told him that they had needed a forklift to get the safe inside. Wallander nodded. He had noticed the marks outside the glass doors and seen that one of the hinges was bent. That won't make Björk happy, he thought. But he'll have to live with it. Wallander had tried to move the safe, without success. He had wondered again what it contained. Or if it was empty.

Nyberg called the company on Industrigatan. Wallander went to get some coffee. Rydberg arrived at the same time. Wallander told him about the safe.

'It was as I suspected,' Rydberg said. 'We know very little about these sisters.'

'We're in the process of trying to find a welder who can take on this kind of safe,' Wallander said.

'I hope you'll tell me before you open it,' Rydberg said. 'It will be interesting to be there.'

Wallander returned to his office. He thought it seemed as if Rydberg was in less pain today.

Nyberg was just getting off the phone when Wallander walked in with two cups of coffee.

'I've just spoken to Ruben Fabricius,' Nyberg said. 'He thought they would be able to do the job. They'll be here in half an hour.'

'Tell me when they arrive,' Wallander said.

Nyberg left. Wallander thought about his father in Cairo. Hoped that his experiences were living up to his expectations. He studied the note with the telephone number of the hotel, Mena House. Wondered if he should call. But suddenly he was unsure of what the time difference was, or if there even was one. He dropped the thought and instead called Ebba to see who had come in.

'Martinsson called in to say that he was on his way to Sjöbo,' she answered. 'Svedberg hasn't arrived yet. Hansson is showering. He's apparently had a water leak at home.'

'We're going to open the safe soon,' Wallander said. 'That may get noisy.'

'I went in to take a look at it,' Ebba said. 'I thought it would be bigger.'

'One that size can hold a lot as well.'

'Of course,' she said. 'Ugh.'

Wallander wondered later what she had meant by her last comment. Did she expect that they would find a child's corpse in the safe? Or a decapitated head?

Hansson appeared in the doorway. His hair was still wet.

'I've just talked to Björk,' he said cheerily. 'He pointed out that the doors of the station were damaged last night.'

Hansson had not yet heard about the safe. Wallander explained.

'That may provide us with a motive,' Hansson said.

'In the best-case scenario,' Wallander said. 'In the worst case, the safe is empty. And then we understand even less.'

'It could have been emptied by the people who shot the sisters,' Hansson objected. 'Perhaps he shot one of them and forced the other to open the safe?'

This had also occurred to Wallander. But something told him it was not what had actually happened. Without being able to say why he had that feeling.

At eight o'clock, under Ruben Fabricius's direction, two welders started the work of cutting open the safe. It was, as Nyberg had predicted, a difficult task.

'A special kind of steel,' Fabricius said. 'A normal locksmith would have to devote his whole life trying to open this kind of safe.'

'Can you blow it up?' Wallander asked.

'The risk would be that you'd take the whole building with you,' Fabricius answered. 'In that case I would first move the safe to an open field. But sometimes so much explosive is needed that the safe itself is blown to pieces. And the contents either burn or are pulverised.'

Fabricius was a large, heavyset man who punctuated each sentence with a short laugh.

'This kind of safe probably costs a hundred thousand kronor,' he said and laughed.

Wallander looked astonished.

'That much?'

'Easily.'

One thing at least is certain, Wallander thought as he recalled yesterday's discussion about the dead women's financial situation. The Eberhardsson sisters had much more money than they had reported to the authorities. They must have had undeclared income. But what can you sell of value in a sewing shop? Gold thread? Diamond-studded buttons?

The welding equipment was turned off at a quarter past nine. Fabricius nodded to Wallander and chuckled.

'All set,' he said.

Rydberg, Hansson and Svedberg had arrived. Nyberg had been following the work from the beginning. Using a crowbar, he now forced out the back piece that had been freed with a welding torch. Everyone who was crowded around leaned forward. Wallander saw a number of plastic-wrapped bundles. Nyberg picked up one that lay on top. The plastic was white and sealed with tape. Nyberg placed the bundle on a chair and cut open the tape. Inside there was a thick wad of notes. American hundred-dollar bills. There were ten wads, each a stack of ten thousand dollars.

'A lot of money,' Wallander said.

He carefully pulled out a bill and held it up to the light. It appeared genuine.

Nyberg took out the other bundles, one after another, and opened them. Fabricius stood in the background and laughed each time a new package of money was revealed.

'Let's take the rest to a conference room,' Wallander said.

Then he thanked Fabricius and the two men who had cut open the safe.

'You'll have to send us a bill,' Wallander said. 'Without you, we would never have been able to get this open.'

'I think this one's on us,' Fabricius said. 'It was an experience for a tradesman. And a wonderful opportunity for professional training.'

'There is also no need to mention what was inside,' Wallander said and tried to sound serious.

Fabricius let out a short laugh and saluted him. Wallander understood that it was not intended to be ironic.

When all of the bundles had been opened and the wads of notes counted, Wallander made a swift calculation. Most of it had been in US dollars. But there had also been British pounds and Swiss francs.

'I estimate it to be around five million kronor,' he said. 'No insignificant sum.'

'There would also not have been room for more in this safe,' Rydberg said. 'And this means, in other words, that if this cash was the motive then he or they who shot the sisters did not get what they had come for.'

'We nonetheless have some kind of motive,' Wallander said. 'This safe had been concealed. According to Nyberg, it appeared to have been there for a number of years. At some point the sisters must therefore have found it necessary to buy it because they needed to store and hide large sums of money. These were almost entirely new and unused dollar bills. Therefore it must be possible to trace them. Did they arrive in Sweden legally or not? We also need to find answers as quickly as possible to the other questions we're working on. Who did these sisters socialise with? What kind of habits did they have?'

'And weaknesses,' Rydberg added. 'Let us not forget about that.'

Björk entered the room at the end of the meeting. He gave a start when he saw all the money on the table.

'This has to be carefully recorded,' he said when Wallander explained in a somewhat strained manner what had happened. 'Nothing can be lost. Also, what has happened to the front doors?'

'A work-related accident,' Wallander said. 'When the forklift was lifting the safe.'

He said this so forcefully that Björk did not make any objections.

They broke up the meeting. Wallander hurried out of the room in order not to be left alone with Björk. It had fallen to Wallander to contact an animal protection association where at least one of the sisters, Emilia, had been an active member, according to one of the neighbours. Wallander had been given a name by Svedberg, Tyra Olofsson. Wallander burst out laughing when he saw the address: Käringgatan – 'käring' meant old woman or shrew – number 11. He wondered if there was any other town in Sweden that had as many unusual street names.

Before Wallander left the station he called Arne Hurtig, the car salesman he usually did business with. He explained the situation with his Peugeot. Hurtig gave him a few suggestions, all of which Wallander found too expensive. But when Hurtig promised a good trade-in price on his old car, Wallander decided to get another Peugeot. He hung up and called his bank. He had to wait several minutes until he could speak to the person who normally helped him. Wallander asked for a loan of twenty thousand kronor. He was informed that this would not be a problem. He would be able to come in the following day, sign the loan documents and pick up the money.

The thought of a new car put him in a good mood. Why he always drove a Peugeot, he couldn't say. I'm probably more stuck in my ways than I like to think, he thought as he left the station. He stopped and inspected the damaged hinge on the front doors of the station. Since no one was around, he took the opportunity to give the door frame a kick. The damage became more noticeable. He walked away quickly, hunched over against the gusty wind. Of course he should have called to make sure that Tyra Olofsson was in. But since she was retired, he took the chance.

When he rang the doorbell, it opened almost at once. Tyra Olofsson was short and wore glasses that testified to her myopia. Wallander explained who he was and held up his ID card, which she held several centimetres from her glasses and studied carefully.

'The police,' she said. 'Then it must have to do with poor Emilia.'

'That's right,' Wallander said. 'I hope I'm not disturbing you.'

She invited him in. There was a strong smell of dogs in the hall. She led him out into the kitchen. Wallander counted fourteen food bowls on the floor. Worse than Haverberg, he thought.

'I keep them outside,' Tyra Olofsson said, having followed his gaze.

Wallander wondered briefly if it was legal to keep so many dogs in the city. She asked if he wanted coffee. Wallander thanked her but declined. He was hungry and planning to eat as soon as his conversation with Tyra Olofsson was over. He sat down at the table and looked in vain for something to write with. For once he had remembered to put a notepad in his pocket. But now he didn't have a pen. There was a small stump of a pencil lying on the windowsill, which he picked up.

'You're right, Mrs Olofsson,' he began. 'This is about Emilia Eberhardsson, who has died so tragically. We heard through one of the neighbours that she had been active in an animal protection association. And that you, Mrs Olofsson, knew her well.'

'Call me Tyra,' she said. 'And I can't say I knew Emilia well. I don't think anyone did.'

'Was her sister Anna ever involved in this work?'

'No.'

'Isn't that strange? I mean, two sisters, both unmarried who live together. I imagine they would develop similar interests.'

'That is a stereotype,' Tyra Olofsson said firmly. 'I imagine that Emilia and Anna were very different people. I worked as a teacher my whole life. Then you learn to see the differences in people. It's already apparent in young children.'

'How would you describe Emilia?'

Her answer surprised him.

'Snooty. The kind who always knows best. She could be very unpleasant. But since she donated money for our work, we couldn't get rid of her. Even if we wanted to.'

Tyra Olofsson told him about the local animal protection association that she and a few other like-minded individuals had started in the 1960s. They had always worked locally and the impetus for the association was the increasing problem of abandoned summer cats. The association had always been small, with few members. One day in the early seventies, Emilia Eberhardsson had read about their work in the Ystad Allehanda and got in touch. She had given them money every month and participated in meetings and other events.

'But I don't think she really liked animals,' Tyra said unexpectedly. 'I think she did it so she would be thought of as a good person.'

'That doesn't sound like such a nice description.'

The woman on the other side of the table looked cheekily at him.

'I thought policemen wanted to know the truth,' she said. 'Or am I wrong?'

Wallander changed the subject and asked about money.

'She donated a thousand kronor a month. For us that was a lot.'

'Did she give the impression of being rich?'

'She never dressed expensively. But I'm sure she had money.'

'You must have asked yourself where it came from. A sewing shop is hardly something one associates with a fortune.'

'Not one thousand kronor a month either,' she answered. 'I'm not particularly curious. Perhaps it's because I see so badly. But where the money came from or how well their shop did, I know nothing about.'

Wallander hesitated for a moment, and then he told her the truth.

'It has been reported in the papers that the sisters burned to death,' he said, 'but it has not been reported that they were shot. They were already dead when the fire started.'

She sat up.

'Who could have wanted to shoot two old ladies? That's as likely as someone wanting to kill me.'

'That is exactly what we are trying to understand,' Wallander said. 'That's why I'm here. Did Emilia ever say anything about having enemies? Did she appear frightened?'

Tyra Olofsson did not have to reflect.

'She was always very sure of herself,' she said. 'She never said a word about her and her sister's life. And when they were away she never sent a postcard. Not once, even with all the wonderful postcards with animal motifs that you can get these days.'

Wallander raised his eyebrows.

'You mean they travelled a lot?'

'Two months out of every year. November and March. Sometimes in the summer.'

'Where did they go?'

'I heard it was Spain.'

'Who took care of their shop?'

'They always took turns. Perhaps they needed time apart.'

'Spain? What else do the rumours say? And where do these rumours come from?'

'I can't remember. I don't listen to rumours. Perhaps they went to Marbella. But I'm not sure.'

Wallander wondered if Tyra Olofsson was really as uninterested in rumours and gossip as she seemed. He had only one remaining question.

'Who do you think knew Emilia best?'

'I would think it was her sister.'

Wallander thanked her and walked back to the station. The wind was even stronger. He thought about what Tyra Olofsson had said. There had been no meanness in her voice. She had been very matter-of-fact. But her description of Emilia Eberhardsson had not been flattering.

When Wallander reached the station, Ebba told him that Rydberg had been looking for him. Wallander went straight to his office.

'The picture is becoming clearer,' Rydberg said. 'I think we should get the others and have a short meeting. I know they're around.'

'What's happened?'

Rydberg waved a bunch of papers.

'VPC,' he said. 'And there's a great deal of interest in these papers.'

It took Wallander a moment to remember that VPC stood for the Swedish securities register centre, which, among other things, recorded stock ownership.

'For my part I've managed to establish that at least one of the sisters was a genuinely unpleasant person,' Wallander said.

'Doesn't surprise me in the least,' Rydberg chuckled. 'The rich often are.'

'Rich?' Wallander asked.

But Rydberg did not answer until they were all assembled in the conference room. Then he explained himself in detail.

'According to the Swedish securities register centre, the Eberhardsson sisters had stocks and bonds totalling close to ten million kronor. How they managed to keep this from being subject to the wealth tax is a mystery. Nor do they appear to have paid income tax on their dividends. But I've alerted the tax authorities. It actually appears that Anna Eberhardsson was registered as a resident of Spain. But I'm not clear on the details of this yet. In any case, they had a large portfolio of investments both in Sweden and abroad. The Swedish securities register centre's ability to check international investments is of course minimal; this is not their job. But the sisters invested heavily in the British weapons and aviation industries. And in this they appear to have shown great skill and daring.'

Rydberg put down the documents.

'We can thus not exclude the possibility that what we see here is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Five million in a safe and ten million in stocks and bonds. This is what we have uncovered in the space of a few hours. What happens after we've been working for a week? Perhaps the amount will increase to one hundred million?'

Wallander reported on his meeting with Tyra Olofsson.

'The description of Anna isn't flattering either,' Svedberg said when Wallander had finished. 'I talked to the man who sold the sisters the house five years ago. That was when the market was getting soft. Until then they had always rented. Apparently it was Anna who negotiated. Emilia was never present. And the estate agent said Anna was the most difficult customer he ever had. Apparently she had managed to find out that his company happened to be in crisis at that time, with regard to both solidity and liquidity. He said that she had been completely ice-cold and more or less blackmailed him.'

Svedberg shook his head.

'This isn't exactly how I would have imagined two old ladies who sold buttons,' he said and the room fell silent.

Wallander was the one who broke the silence.

'In a way this has been our breakthrough,' he started. 'We still have no leads on who killed them. But we have a plausible motive. And it is the most common of all motives: money. In addition, we know that the women committed tax fraud and concealed great sums of money from the authorities. We know that they were rich. It won't surprise me if we turn up a house in Spain. And perhaps other assets, in other parts of the world.'

Wallander poured himself a glass of mineral water before continuing.

'Everything we know now can be summed up in two points. Two questions. Where did they get the money? And who knew that they were rich?'

Wallander was about to lift the glass to his lips when he saw Rydberg flinch, as if he had been given a shock.

Then his upper body slumped over the table.

As if he was dead.

CHAPTER 7

Later, Wallander would remember that for a few seconds he had been entirely convinced that Rydberg had died. Everyone who was in the room when Rydberg collapsed thought the same thing: that Rydberg's heart had suddenly stopped. It was Svedberg who reacted first. He had been sitting next to Rydberg and could tell that his colleague was still alive. He grabbed the telephone and called for an ambulance. Wallander and Hansson lowered Rydberg onto the floor and unbuttoned his shirt. Wallander listened to his heart and heard it beating very quickly. Then the ambulance arrived and Wallander accompanied it on its short drive to the hospital. Rydberg received immediate treatment, and after less than half an hour Wallander had been informed that it was not likely to have been a heart attack. Rather, Rydberg had collapsed for some as yet unknown reason. He was conscious at this point but shook his head when Wallander wanted to talk to him. He was judged to be in stable condition and admitted to the hospital for observation. There was no longer any reason for Wallander to stay. A patrol car was waiting outside to drive him back to the station. His colleagues had remained in the conference room. Even Björk was present. Wallander could inform them that the situation was under control.

'We work too hard,' he said and looked at Björk. 'We have more and more to do. But our numbers have not increased. Sooner or later what happened to Rydberg can happen to all of us.'

'It is a troubling situation,' Björk admitted. 'But we have limited resources.'

For the next half an hour the investigation was set aside. Everyone was shaken and talked about the working conditions. After Björk left the room, the words became sharper. About impossible planning, strange priorities and a continual lack of information.

At around two o'clock, Wallander felt they had to move on. Not least for his own sake. When he saw what had happened to Rydberg he had thought about what could happen to himself. How long would his own heart put up with the strain? All the unhealthy food, the frequently recurring bouts of broken and lost sleep? And, above all, his grief after the divorce.

'Rydberg would not approve of this,' he said. 'That we're wasting time talking about our situation. We'll have to do that later. Right now we have a double murderer to catch. As soon as we possibly can.'

They ended the meeting. Wallander went to his office and called the hospital. He was told that Rydberg was sleeping. It was still premature to expect an explanation for what had happened.

Wallander hung up the phone, and Martinsson walked in.

'What happened?' he asked. 'I've been in Sjöbo. Ebba was all shaken up out there.'

Wallander told him. Martinsson sat down heavily in the visitor's chair.

'We work ourselves to death,' he said. 'And who appreciates it?'

Wallander became impatient. He didn't want to think about Rydberg any more, at least not right now.

'Sjöbo,' he said. 'What do you have for me?'

'I've been out in a variety of muddy fields,' Martinsson replied. 'We've been able to pinpoint the location of those lights quite well. But there were no traces anywhere of either spotlights or marks from a plane landing or taking off. On the other hand, some information has turned up that probably explains why this aeroplane couldn't be identified.'

'And what is it?'

'It simply doesn't exist.'

'What do you mean?'

Martinsson took a while to search through the papers he had taken out of his briefcase.

'According to the records of the Piper factory, this plane crashed in Vientiane in 1986. The owner back then was a Laotian consortium that used it to transport its managers to various agricultural centres around the country. The official cause of the crash was listed as a lack of fuel. No one was injured or killed. But the plane was wrecked and removed from all active registers and from the insurance company, which apparently was a kind of daughter company to Lloyd's. This is what we know after looking up the engine registration number.'

'But that turned out not to be correct?'

'The Piper factory is naturally very interested in what has happened. It's not good for their reputation if a plane that no longer exists suddenly starts to fly again. This could be a case of insurance fraud and other things that we have no idea about.'

'And the men in the plane?'

'We're still waiting for them to be identified. I have a couple of good contacts in Interpol. They've promised to expedite the matter.'

'The plane must have come from somewhere,' Wallander said.

Martinsson nodded.

'That gives us yet another problem. If you refurbish a plane with extra fuel tanks, it's able to fly long distances. Nyberg thinks he may have identified the remains of something that could have been a spare fuel tank. But we don't know yet. If this is the case, the plane could have come from virtually anywhere. At least Britain and Continental Europe.'

'But it must have been observed by someone,' Wallander insisted. 'You can't cross borders with complete impunity.'

'I agree,' Martinsson said. 'Therefore Germany would be an educated guess, because you fly over open water until you reach the Swedish border.'

'What do the German aviation authorities say?'

'It takes time,' Martinsson said. 'But I'm working on it.'

Wallander reflected for a moment.

'We actually need you on this double homicide,' he said. 'Can you delegate this work to someone else? At least while we wait on a positive identification of the pilots, and whether the plane came from Germany?'

'I was about to suggest the same thing,' Martinsson said.

Wallander checked the time.

'Ask Hansson or Svedberg to get you up to speed on the case,' he said.

Martinsson got out of the chair.

'Have you heard from your father?'

'He doesn't call without a good reason.'

'My father died when he was fifty-five,' Martinsson said abruptly. 'He had his own business. A car-repairs shop. He had to work constantly in order to make ends meet. Right when things were starting to look up, he died. He wouldn't have been more than sixtyseven now.'

Martinsson left. Wallander did his best to avoid thinking about Rydberg. Instead he again reviewed everything they knew about the Eberhardsson sisters. They had a likely motive – money – but no trace of the killer. Wallander jotted a few words on his notepad.

The double life of the Eberhardsson sisters?

Then he pushed the pad away. When Rydberg was out, they lacked their best instrument. If an investigative team is like an orchestra, Wallander thought, we've lost our first violinist. And then the orchestra doesn't sound as good.

At that moment he made up his mind to have his own talk with the neighbour who had provided the information about Anna Eberhardsson. Svedberg was often too impatient when he talked to people about what they might have seen or heard. It's also a matter of finding out what people think, Wallander said to himself. He found the name of the neighbour, Linnea Gunnér. Only women in this case, he thought. He dialled her phone number and heard her pick up. Linnea Gunnér was at home and happy to receive him. She gave him the code to the front door of her building and he made a note of it.

He left the station shortly after three o'clock and kicked the damaged hinge again. The dent was getting worse. When he reached the scene of the fire, he saw that the ruins of the building were already in the process of being razed. There were still many curious onlookers gathered around the site.

Linnea Gunnér lived on Möllegatan. Wallander entered the door code and took the stairs to the first floor. The house dated back to the turn of the century and had beautiful designs on the walls of its stairwell. On the door to Gunnér's apartment was posted a large sign about residents not wishing to receive any advertisements. Wallander rang the bell. The woman who opened the door was the opposite of Tyra Olofsson in almost every way. She was tall, with a sharp gaze and a firm voice. She invited him into her apartment, which was filled with objects from all over the world. In the living room there was even a ship's figurehead. Wallander looked at it for a long time.

'This belonged to the barque Felicia, which sank in the Irish Sea,' Linnea Gunnér said. 'I bought it once for an insignificant sum in Middlesbrough.'

'Then you've been at sea?' he asked.

'My whole life. First as a chef, then as a steward.'

She did not speak with a Skåne dialect. Wallander thought she sounded more as if she came from Småland or Östergötland.

'Where are you from?' he asked.

'Skänninge in Östergötland. About as far from the sea as one can get.'

'And now you live in Ystad?'

'I inherited this apartment from an aunt. And I have a view of the sea.'

She had put out coffee. Wallander thought it was probably the last thing his stomach needed. But he still said yes. He had immediately felt he could trust Linnea Gunnér. He had read in Svedberg's notes that she was sixty-six years old. But she appeared younger.

'My colleague Svedberg was here,' Wallander started.

She burst into laughter.

'I have never seen someone scratch his forehead as often as that man.'

Wallander nodded.

'We all have our ways. For example, I always think there are more questions to be asked than one may initially think.'

'I only told him about my impressions of Anna.'

'And Emilia?'

'They were different. Anna spoke in quick, choppy bursts. Emilia was quieter. But they were equally disagreeable. Equally introverted.'

'How well did you know them?'

'I didn't. Sometimes we bumped into each other on the street. Then we would exchange a few words. But never more than was necessary. Since I like to embroider, I often went to their shop. I always got what I needed. If something had to be ordered, it arrived quickly. But they were not pleasant.'

'Sometimes one needs time,' Wallander said. 'Time to allow one's memory to catch things one thought one had forgotten.'

'What would that be?'

'I don't know. You know. An unexpected event. Something that went against their habits.'

She thought about it. Wallander studied an impressive brass-inlaid compass on a bureau.

'My memory has never been good,' she said finally. 'But now that you mention it, I do remember something that happened last year. In the spring, I think it was. But I can't say if it's important.'

'Anything could be important,' Wallander said.

'It was one afternoon. I needed some thread. Blue thread, as I recall. I walked down to the shop. Both Emilia and Anna were behind the counter. Just as I was about to pay for the thread, a man entered the shop. I remember that he started, as if he hadn't been expecting anyone else to be in the shop. And Anna became angry. She gave Emilia a look that could kill. Then the man left. He had a bag in his hand. I paid for my thread and then I left.'

'Could you describe him?'

'He was not what one would call Swedish-looking. Swarthy, on the short side. A black moustache.'

'How was he dressed?'

'A suit. I think it was of good quality.'

'And the bag?'

'An ordinary black briefcase.'

'Nothing else?'

She thought back.

'Nothing that I can recall.'

'You only saw him that one time?'

'Yes.'

Wallander knew that what he had just heard was important. He could not yet determine what it meant. But it strengthened his impression that the sisters had led a double existence. He was slowly penetrating below the surface.

Wallander thanked her for the coffee.

'What was it that happened?' she asked when they were standing in the hall. 'I woke up with my room on fire. The light from the flames was so bright that I thought my own apartment was burning.'

'Anna and Emilia were murdered,' Wallander answered. 'They were dead when the fire started.'

'Who would have wanted to do something like that?'

'I would hardly be here if I knew the answer,' Wallander said and took his leave.

When he came back out onto the street he stopped for a while next to the scene of the fire and watched absently as a backhoe filled a truck with rubble. He tried to visualise the case clearly. Do what Rydberg had taught him. To enter a room where death had wreaked havoc and try to write the drama backwards. But here there is not even a room, Wallander thought. There is nothing.

He started walking back in the direction of Hamngatan. In the building next to Linnea Gunnér's there was a travel agency. He stopped when he noticed a poster in the window that depicted the pyramids. His father would be home again in four days. Wallander felt he had been unfair. Why couldn't he be happy that his father was realising one of his oldest dreams? Wallander looked at the other posters in the window. Majorca, Crete, Spain.

Suddenly something occurred to him. He opened the door and walked in. Both of the sales agents were busy. Wallander sat down to wait. When the first of them, a young woman hardly older than twenty, became free he got up and sat down at her desk. He had to wait a couple of minutes longer as she answered the phone. He saw from a nameplate on the desk that her name was Anette Bengtsson. She put down the receiver and smiled.

'Do you want to get away?' she asked. 'There are still spaces left around Christmas and New Year.'

'My errand is of a different nature,' Wallander said and held up his ID card. 'You have of course heard that two old ladies burned to death across the street from here.'

'Yes, it's terrible.'

'Did you know them?'

He received the answer he had been hoping for.

'They booked their trips through us. It's so awful that they're gone. Emilia was planning to travel in January. And Anna in April.'

Wallander nodded slowly.

'Where were they going?' he asked.

'To the same place as always. Spain.'

'More precisely?'

'To Marbella. They had a house there.'

What she said next surprised Wallander even more.

'I've seen it,' she said. 'I went to Marbella last year. We have ongoing professional training. There's stiff competition between travel agencies these days. One day when I had time, I drove out and looked at their house. I knew the address.'

'Was it large?'

'It was palatial. With a huge garden. High walls all around, and guards.'

'I would appreciate it if you could write down the address for me,' Wallander said, unable to conceal his eagerness.

She looked through her folders and then wrote it down.

'You said that Emilia was planning to travel in January?'

She entered something into her computer.

'The seventh of January,' she said. 'From Kastrup at 9.05 a.m., via Madrid.'

Wallander helped himself to a pencil from her desk and made a note.

'So she didn't take charter trips?'

'Neither of them did. They travelled first class.'

That's right, Wallander thought. These ladies were loaded.

She told him which airline Emilia had booked her flight with. Iberia, Wallander wrote.

'I don't know what happens now,' she said. 'The ticket has been paid for.'

'I'm sure it will sort itself out,' Wallander said. 'How did they pay for their travel, by the way?'

'Always in cash. In thousand-kronor notes.'

Wallander slipped his notes into his pocket and got up.

'You've been a great help,' he said. 'The next time I travel anywhere I'll come and book my trip here. But for me that will mean charter.'

It was close to four o'clock. Wallander walked past the bank, where he was due to pick up his loan documents and money for the car tomorrow. He braced himself against the wind as he crossed the square. He made it back to the station by twenty past four. Again he directed a ritual kick at the hinge. Ebba told him that Hansson and Svedberg were out. But, more important, she had called the hospital and been able to speak to Rydberg. He had said that he was feeling fine. But he was being kept in overnight.

'I'll go look in on him.'

'That was the last thing he said,' Ebba replied. 'That under no circumstances did he want to have any visitors or phone calls. And absolutely no flowers.'

'Well, that doesn't surprise me,' Wallander said. 'If you think about how he is.'

'You all work too hard, eat too much junk and don't get enough exercise.'

Wallander leaned over towards her.

'That goes for you too,' he said. 'You aren't as slim as you once were, you know.'

Ebba burst into laughter. Wallander went to the break room and found half a loaf of bread that someone had left. He made several sandwiches to bring back to his office. Then he wrote a report on his conversations with Linnea Gunnér and Anette Bengtsson. He was done at a quarter past five. He read through what he had written and asked himself how they should proceed with the case from here. The money comes from somewhere, he thought. A man is on his way into the shop but turns round on the doorstep. They had a system of signs worked out.

The question is simply what is behind all this. And why were the women murdered all of a sudden? Something has been set in motion but then all at once it collapses.

At six o'clock he tried once more to get in touch with the others. The only one he managed to reach was Martinsson. They decided to hold a meeting at eight o'clock the next morning. Wallander put his feet up on his desk and went through the double homicide in his mind one more time. But since he didn't feel that he was getting anywhere he decided he might as well continue his thinking at home. And anyway, he needed to clean out his car before he got rid of it tomorrow.

He had just put his coat on when Martinsson walked in.

'I think it's best that you sit down,' Martinsson said.

'I'm fine standing up,' Wallander said grumpily. 'What is it?'

Martinsson appeared conflicted. He was holding a telex message in his hand.

'This just came in from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Stockholm,' he said.

He handed the piece of paper to Wallander, who read the message without understanding anything. Then he sat down at his desk and read it again, word for word.

Now he understood what was written there, but he refused to believe that it was true.

'It says here that my father had been arrested by the Cairo police, and that he would be brought before a judge if he did not immediately pay a fine of approximately ten thousand kronor. He had been accused of "unlawful entry and forbidden ascent".'

'What the hell does "forbidden ascent" mean?'

'I called the foreign ministry,' Martinsson said. 'I also thought it seemed strange. Apparently he was trying to climb the Cheops pyramid. Even though it's against the law.'

Wallander stared helplessly at Martinsson.

'I think you're going to have to fly there and bring him home,' Martinsson said. 'There are limits to what the Swedish authorities can do.'

Wallander shook his head.

He refused to believe it.

It was six o'clock. The fifteenth of December, 1989.

CHAPTER 8

At ten past one the following day, Wallander sank down into an SAS seat on a DC-9 aircraft called 'Agne'. He sat in 19C, an aisle seat, and he had a vague understanding that the plane, after stops in Frankfurt and Rome, would take him to Cairo. The arrival time was set at 10.15. Wallander still did not know if there was a time difference between Sweden and Egypt. In fact, he knew very little in general about what had jerked him out of his life in Ystad, from the investigation of a plane crash and a brutal double homicide, to an aircraft in Kastrup preparing for take-off, headed for North Africa.

The evening before, when the contents of the telex from the foreign ministry had actually sunk in, he had completely lost it. He left the station without a word, and even though Martinsson accompanied him as far as the car park and declared himself willing to help, Wallander had not so much as answered him.

When he got home to Mariagatan, he had two large tumblerfuls of whisky. Then he reread the crumpled telex several more times in the hopes that there was an encoded message in it explaining that it was all an invention, a joke, one that perhaps even his own father had played on him. But he had realised that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Stockholm meant business. There was no way out for him other than to accept this as a fact: his demented father had started climbing a pyramid, with the result that he had been apprehended and was now being held in police custody in Cairo.

Shortly after eight o'clock, Wallander called Malmö. As luck would have it, Linda answered. He told her what had happened and asked for her advice. What should he do? Her answer had been very firm. He had no option but to travel to Egypt the following day and see to it that her grandfather was released. Wallander had many objections, but she dismissed them one after another. Finally he realised that she was right. She also promised him to find out what available connections there were to Cairo tomorrow.

Wallander slowly calmed himself. Tomorrow he was supposed to go to the bank to pick up a car loan for twenty thousand kronor. No one would ask him what he was going to use the money for. He had enough money to buy a ticket and he could change the rest of the cash to British pounds or dollars in order to pay his father's fine. At ten o'clock Linda called and said that there was a flight the following day at ten past one. He also decided to ask Anette Bengtsson for help. Earlier that day, when he had promised to avail himself of the travel agency's services, he had not dreamed it would be so soon.

He tried to pack at around midnight, realising he knew nothing about Cairo. His father had gone there with an ancient pith helmet on his head. But he was unhinged beyond a doubt and could not be taken seriously. Finally, Wallander tossed some shirts and underwear into a bag and decided that would be enough. He was not going to stay away any longer than absolutely necessary.

Then he had a couple more glasses of whisky, set his alarm clock to wake him at six and tried to sleep. A restless slumber carried him towards the dawn at an interminable crawl.

When the bank opened the following day he was the first customer to step through the doors. It took him twenty minutes to sign the loan documents, get his money and exchange half of it for British pounds. He hoped that no one would ask why half of the payment for the car was to be paid in pounds. From the bank he went straight to the travel agency. Anette Bengtsson couldn't believe her eyes when he walked in through the door. But she was immediately willing to help him book the ticket. The return had to remain open for now. He was astonished to hear the price. But he simply pulled out his thousand-kronor notes, took his tickets and left the agency.

Then he took a taxi to Malmö.

He had taken a taxi to Ystad from Malmö before in a state of inebriation. But never in the opposite direction, and never sober. He would never be able to afford a new car now. Perhaps he should consider getting a moped or a bike.

Linda met him by the ferry terminal. They only had a few minutes together. But she convinced him he was doing the right thing. And she asked if he had remembered his passport.

'You'll need a visa,' she said. 'But you can buy that at the airport in Cairo.'

Now he was sitting in 19C and felt how the aeroplane gathered speed and tilted up towards the clouds and the invisible air corridors, headed south. He still felt as if he were standing in his office at the station, with Martinsson in the doorway, the telex in his hand, looking miserable.

Frankfurt airport became a memory of an endless series of corridors and stairs. He took his aisle seat again and, when they came to Rome in order to make the last connection, he took off his coat, as it had suddenly become very warm. The plane thudded down at the airport outside Cairo, delayed by half an hour. In order to lessen his worry, his fear of flying and his nervousness about what awaited him, Wallander had had far too much to drink during the flight. He was not drunk when he stepped out into the stifling Egyptian darkness, but he was not sober either. Most of the money was in a cloth bag squeezed in under his shirt. A tired passport controller directed him to a bank where he could buy a tourist visa. He ended up with a large number of dirty notes in his hand and was suddenly through both passport control and customs. Many taxi drivers then crowded round, prepared to drive him to any place in the world. But Wallander had the presence of mind to look around for a van heading to Mena House, which he imagined to be quite large. His plan went this far: to stay at the same hotel as his father. In a small bus, sandwiched between some loud American women, he then went through the city towards the hotel. He felt the warm night air on his face, discovered suddenly that they were crossing a river that might be the Nile, and then they were there.

When he stepped out of the bus he was sober again. From here on he did not know what to do. A Swedish policeman in Egypt could feel very insignificant, he thought gloomily as he stepped into the magnificent foyer of the hotel. He walked up to the reception desk, where a pleasant young man who spoke perfect English asked if he could be of service. Wallander explained his situation and said he had not reserved a room. The helpful young man looked concerned for a moment and shook his head. But then he managed to find a room.

'I think you already have a guest by the name of Wallander.'

The man searched in his electronic database and then nodded.

'That's my father,' Wallander said and groaned inwardly over his poor English pronunciation.

'Unfortunately, I cannot give you a room close to his,' the young man said. 'We only have simple rooms left. Without a view of the pyramids.'

'That suits me fine,' Wallander said. He didn't want to be reminded of the pyramids more than was necessary.

He registered, was given a key and a small map, and then made his way through the labyrinthine hotel. He gathered that it had been expanded many times over the years. He found his room and sat down on the bed. The air conditioning was cool. He took off his shirt, which was drenched in sweat. He looked at his face in the bathroom mirror.

'Now I am here,' he said out loud to himself. 'It's late at night. I need to eat something. And sleep. Above all, sleep. But I can't, since my crazy father is being held at a police station somewhere in this city.'

He put on a clean shirt, brushed his teeth and returned to the reception desk downstairs. The young man who had recently helped him was nowhere to be seen. Or else Wallander did not recognise him. He approached an older receptionist who was standing motionless and appeared to be surveying everything that happened in the lobby. He smiled when Wallander turned up in front of him.

'I have come here because my father has found himself in difficulty,' he said. 'His name is Wallander and he is an elderly man who arrived here several days ago.'

'What type of difficulty?' the receptionist asked. 'Has he become ill?'

'He appears to have tried to climb one of the pyramids,' Wallander answered. 'If I am right he chose the highest one.'

The receptionist nodded slowly.

'I have heard about it,' he replied. 'It was very unfortunate. The police and the Ministry of Tourism did not approve.'

He retreated behind a door and returned shortly with another man, also older. They spoke rapidly for a short while. Then they turned to Wallander.

'Are you the old man's son?' one of them asked.

Wallander nodded.

'Not only that,' Wallander said, 'I am also a policeman.'

He displayed his identification, which clearly stated the word 'police'. But the two men did not appear to understand.

'You mean, you are not his son, you are police?'

'I am both,' Wallander said. 'Both his son and police.'

They pondered what he had said for a while. A couple of other receptionists who didn't have anything to do for the moment joined the group. The incomprehensible conversation resumed. Wallander noticed that he was drenched in sweat again.

Then they asked him to wait. They pointed to a group of sofas in the lobby. Wallander sat down. A veiled woman walked past. Scheherazade, Wallander thought. She could have helped me. Or Aladdin. I could have used someone in that league. He waited. An hour went by. He got up and started to walk back to the reception desk. But immediately someone pointed to the sofas again. He felt very thirsty. The clock had struck twelve a long time ago.

There were still many people in the lobby. The American women from the bus left with a guide who was apparently going to take them out into the Egyptian night. Wallander closed his eyes. He jumped when someone touched his shoulder. When he opened his eyes the receptionist was there, together with a number of police officers in impressive uniforms. Wallander got up from the sofa. A clock on the wall read half past two. One of the police officers, who appeared to be about his own age and who was also wearing the most stripes on his uniform, saluted him.

'I hear you have been sent here by the Swedish police,' he said.

'No,' Wallander said. 'I am a police officer. But above all I am Mr Wallander's son.'

The policeman who had saluted him immediately exploded into an incomprehensible torrent of words directed at the receptionists. Wallander thought that the best thing he could do would be to sit down again. After about a quarter of an hour the policeman brightened.

'I am Hassaneyh Radwan,' he said. 'I now have a clear picture. It is a delight to meet a Swedish colleague. Come with me.'

They left the hotel. Wallander felt like a criminal surrounded by officers who were all carrying weapons. It was a very warm night. He sat down beside Radwan in the back of a police car that immediately revved into action and turned on its sirens. Just as they were driving away from the hotel grounds, Wallander saw the pyramids. They were illuminated by large spotlights. It happened so fast he could not believe his eyes. But they were actually the pyramids that he had seen depicted so many times. And then he thought with dread about the fact that his father had tried to climb one.

They drove east, the same way he had come from the airport.

'How is my father doing?'

'He is a very determined man,' Radwan answered. 'But his English is unfortunately difficult to understand.'

He doesn't speak any English at all, Wallander thought helplessly.

They drove through the city at high speed. Wallander caught sight of some heavily loaded camels moving with slow dignity. The bag inside Wallander's shirt was rubbing against his skin. Sweat streamed down his face. They crossed the river.

'The Nile?' Wallander asked.

Radwan nodded. He took out a packet of cigarettes but Wallander shook his head.

'Your father smokes,' Radwan remarked.

No, he doesn't, Wallander thought. With increasing trepidation, he now started to question if they were in fact on their way to see his father, who had never smoked in all his life. Could there be more than one old man who had tried to climb the pyramids?

The police car slowed down. Wallander had seen that the name of the street was Sadei Barrani. They were outside a large police station where armed guards stood in small sentry boxes outside the tall doors. Wallander followed Radwan. They came to a room where garish neon tubes glowed in the ceiling. Radwan pointed to a chair. Wallander sat down and wondered how long he now had to wait. Before Radwan left Wallander asked him if it would be possible to buy a soft drink. Radwan called over a young policeman.

'He will help you,' Radwan said and then left.

Wallander, who was extremely unsure of the value of his notes, gave the policeman a small wad of them.

'Coca-Cola,' he said.

The policeman looked wide-eyed at him. But he said nothing, he simply took the money and left.

A little while later he returned with a carton of Coke bottles. Wallander counted fourteen in all. He opened two of them with his penknife and gave the rest to the policeman, who shared them with his colleagues.

It was half past four. Wallander watched a fly that was sitting still on one of the empty bottles. The sound of a radio came from somewhere. Then he realised there was actually something that this police station and the one in Ystad had in common. The same night-time peace. The waiting for something to happen. Or not. The policeman who had sunk down into his newspaper could have been Hansson poring over his horse races.

Radwan came back. He gave Wallander a sign to follow him. They walked down an endless succession of winding corridors, up and down stairs, and at last stopped outside a door where a policeman was standing guard. Radwan nodded and the door opened. Then he signalled for Wallander to step inside.

'I'll be back in half an hour,' he said and left.

Wallander stepped inside. Inside the room, which was illuminated by the ubiquitous neon tubes, were a table and two chairs. His father was sitting on one of them, dressed in a shirt and trousers but barefoot. His hair was sticking up. Wallander suddenly felt pity for him.

'Hello, old man,' he said. 'How are you?'

His father looked at him without the slightest trace of surprise.

'I intend to protest,' he said.

'Protest what?'

'That they prevent people from climbing the pyramids.'

'I think we should wait on that protest,' Wallander said. 'The most important thing right now is for me to get you out of here.'

'I am not paying any fines,' his father replied angrily. 'I want to wait out my punishment instead. Two years, they said. That will go by quickly.'

Wallander quickly considered getting angry, but that could simply egg his father on.

'Egyptian prisons are probably not particularly comfortable,' he said carefully. 'No prisons are. I also doubt they would allow you to paint in your cell.'

His father stared back at him in silence. Apparently he had not considered this possibility.

He nodded and stood up.

'Let's go then,' he said. 'Do you have the money to pay the fine?'

'Sit down,' Wallander said. 'I don't think it's quite that simple. That you can just stand up and leave.'

'Why not? I haven't done anything wrong.'

'According to what I understand, you tried to climb the Cheops pyramid.'

'That was why I came here. Ordinary tourists can stand among the camels and look. I wanted to stand on the top.'

'That's not allowed. It's also very dangerous. And what would happen if everyone started to climb all over the pyramids?'

'I'm not talking about everyone else, I'm talking about me.'

Wallander realised it was futile to try to reason with his father. At the same time he couldn't help but be impressed with his intractability.

'I'm here now,' Wallander said. 'I'll try to get you out tomorrow. Or later today. I'll pay the fine and then it's over. We'll leave this place, go to the hotel and get your suitcase. Then we'll fly home.'

'I've paid for my room until the twenty-first.'

Wallander nodded patiently.

'Fine. I'm going home. You stay. But if you climb the pyramids one more time you're on your own.'

'I never got that far,' his father said. 'It was difficult. And steep.'

'Why did you want to get to the top?'

His father hesitated before answering.

'It's a dream I've had all these years. That's all. I think that one should be faithful to one's dreams.'

The conversation died away. Several minutes later Radwan returned. He offered Wallander's father a cigarette and lit it for him.

'Have you started smoking now?'

'Only when I'm in jail. Never anywhere else.'

Wallander turned to Radwan.

'I assume there's no possibility that I can take my father with me now?'

'He must appear before the court today at ten o'clock. The judge will most likely accept the fine.'

'Most likely?'

'Nothing is certain,' Radwan said. 'But we have to hope for the best.'

Wallander said goodbye to his father. Radwan followed him out to a patrol car that was waiting to take him back to the hotel. It was now six o'clock.

'I will send a car to pick you up a little after nine,' Radwan said as they parted. 'One should always help a foreign colleague.'

Wallander thanked him and got into the car. Again he was thrown back against the seat as it sped off, sirens blaring.

At half past six Wallander ordered a wake-up call and collapsed naked on the bed. I have to get him out, he thought. If he ends up in prison he'll die.

Wallander sank into a restless slumber but was awakened by the sun rising over the horizon. He had a shower and dressed. He was already down to his last clean shirt.

He walked out. It was cooler now, in the morning. Suddenly he stopped. Now he saw the pyramids. He stood absolutely still. The feeling of their enormity was overwhelming. He walked away from the hotel and up the hill that led to the entrance to the Giza plateau. Along the way he was offered rides on both donkeys and camels. But he walked. Deep down he understood his father. One should stay faithful to one's dreams. How faithful had he been to his own? He stopped close to the entrance and looked at the pyramids. Imagined his father climbing up the steeply inclined walls.

He ended up standing there for a long time before he returned to the hotel and had breakfast. At nine o'clock he was outside the hotel entrance, waiting. The patrol car arrived after several minutes. Traffic was heavy and the sirens were on as usual. Wallander crossed the Nile for the fourth time. He saw now that he was in a huge metropolis, incalculable, clamorous.

The court was on a street by the name of Al Azhar. Radwan was standing on the steps, smoking, as the car pulled up.

'I hope you had a few hours of sleep,' he said. 'It is not good for a person to go without sleep.'

They walked into the building.

'Your father is already here.'

'Does he have a defence lawyer?' Wallander asked.

'He has a court-assigned assistant. This is a court for minor offences.'

'But he could still receive two years in prison?'

'There is a big difference between a death sentence and two years,' Radwan said thoughtfully.

They walked into the courtroom. Some cleaners were walking around, dusting.

'Your father's case is the first of the day,' Radwan said.

Then his father was led in. Wallander stared horrified at him. His father was in handcuffs. Tears welled up in Wallander's eyes. Radwan glanced at him and put a hand on his shoulder.

A lone judge walked in and sat down. A prosecutor seemed to appear out of thin air and rattled off a long tirade that Wallander assumed to be the charges. Radwan leaned over.

'It looks good,' he whispered. 'He claims that your father is old and confused.'

As long as no one translates that, Wallander thought. Then he really will go crazy.

The prosecutor sat down. The court assistant made a very brief statement.

'He is making the case for a fine,' Radwan whispered. 'I have informed the court that you are here, that you are his son and that you are a policeman.'

The assistant sat down. Wallander saw that his father wanted to say something. But the court assistant shook his head.

The judge struck the table with his gavel and uttered a few words.

Then he banged the gavel again, got up and left.

'A fine,' Radwan said and patted Wallander on the shoulder. 'It can be paid here in the courtroom. Then your father is free to go.'

Wallander took out the bag inside his shirt.

Radwan led him to a table where a man calculated the sum from British pounds into Egyptian pounds. Almost all of Wallander's money disappeared. He received an illegible receipt for the amount. Radwan made sure his father's handcuffs were removed.

'I hope that the rest of your journey is pleasant,' Radwan said and shook both their hands. 'But it is not advisable for your father to attempt to climb the pyramids again.'

Radwan had a patrol car take them back to the hotel. Wallander made a note of Radwan's address. He realised that this would not have been so easy without Radwan's help. In some way he wanted to thank him. Perhaps it would be most appropriate to send him a painting with a wood grouse?

His father was in high spirits and commented on everything that they drove past. Wallander was simply tired.

'Now I will show you the pyramids,' his father said happily when they reached the hotel.

'Not right now,' Wallander said. 'I need to sleep for a few hours. You too. Then we'll look at the pyramids. When I've booked my return flight.'

His father looked intently at him.

'I must say that you surprise me. That you spared no expense in flying out here and getting me out. I would not have thought that of you.'

Wallander did not answer.

'Go to bed,' he said. 'I'll meet you here at two o'clock.'

Wallander did not manage to fall asleep. After writhing on his bed for an hour he went to the reception desk and asked them for help in booking his return flight. He was directed to a travel agency located in another part of the hotel. There he was assisted by an unbelievably beautiful woman who spoke perfect English. She managed to get him a seat on the plane that was leaving Cairo the following day, the eighteenth of December, at nine o'clock. Since the plane only stopped in Frankfurt, he would already be in Kastrup at two o'clock that afternoon. After he had confirmed his seat, it was only one o'clock. He sat down in a cafe next to the lobby and drank some water and a cup of very hot coffee that was much too sweet. At exactly two o'clock his father appeared. He was wearing his pith helmet.

Together they explored the Giza plateau in the intense heat. Wallander thought several times that he was going to faint. But his father seemed unaffected by the heat. Down by the Sphinx Wallander at last found some shade. His father narrated and Wallander realised that he knew a great deal about the Egypt of old where the pyramids and the remarkable Sphinx had once been built.

It was close to six o'clock when they finally returned to the hotel. Since he was travelling very early the next morning they decided to eat dinner in the hotel, where there were several restaurants to choose from. At his father's suggestion they booked a table at an Indian restaurant and Wallander thought afterwards that he had rarely had such a good meal. His father had been pleasant the entire time and Wallander understood that he had now dismissed all thoughts of climbing the pyramids.

They parted at eleven. Wallander would be leaving the hotel at six.

'Of course I'll get up and see you off,' his father said.

'I'd rather you didn't,' Wallander said. 'Neither of us likes goodbyes.'

'Thank you for coming here,' his father said. 'You're probably right about it being hard to spend two years in prison without being able to paint.'

'Come home on the twenty-first and everything will be forgotten,' Wallander answered.

'The next time we'll go to Italy,' his father said and walked away towards his room.

That night Wallander slept heavily. At six o'clock he sat in the taxi and crossed the Nile for the sixth and hopefully final time. The plane left at the assigned time and he landed in Kastrup on time. He took a taxi to the ferries and was in Malmö at a quarter to four. He ran to the station and just made a train to Ystad. He walked home to Mariagatan, changed his clothes and walked in through the front doors of the station at half past six. The damaged hinge had been replaced. Björk knows where to set his priorities, he thought grimly. Martinsson's and Svedberg's offices were empty, but Hansson was in. Wallander told him about his trip in broad strokes. But first he asked how Rydberg was doing.

'He's supposed to be coming in tomorrow,' Hansson said. 'That was what Martinsson said.'

Wallander immediately felt relieved. Apparently it had not been as serious as they had feared.

'And here?' he asked. 'The investigation?'

'There has been another important development,' Hansson said. 'But that has to do with the plane that crashed.'

'What is it?'

'Yngve Leonard Holm has been found murdered. In the woods outside Sjöbo.'

Wallander sat down.

'But that isn't all,' Hansson said. 'He hasn't only been murdered. He was shot in the back of the head, just like the Eberhardsson sisters.'

Wallander held his breath.

He had not expected this. That a connection would suddenly appear between the crashed plane and the two murdered women who had been found in the remains of a devastating fire.

He looked at Hansson.

What does it mean, he thought. What is the significance of what Hansson is telling me?

All at once the trip to Cairo felt very distant.

CHAPTER 9

At ten o'clock in the morning on the nineteenth of December, Wallander called the bank and asked if he could increase his loan by another twenty thousand kronor. He lied and said he had misheard the price of the car he intended to buy. The bank loan officer replied that it shouldn't present any difficulties. Wallander could come by and sign the loan documents and collect the money the same day. After Wallander hung up the phone, he called Arne, who was selling him the car, and arranged for him to deliver the new Peugeot to Mariagatan at one o'clock. Arne would also either try to bring the old one to life or tow it back to his garage.

Wallander made these two calls right after the morning meeting. They had met for two hours, starting at a quarter to eight. But Wallander had been at the station since seven o'clock. The night before, when he had learned that Yngve Leonard Holm had been murdered and that there was a possible connection between him and the Eberhardsson sisters, or at least with their killer, he had perked up and sat with Hansson for close to an hour, learning all the available facts. But then he had suddenly felt exhausted. He had gone home and stretched out on the bed in order to rest before undressing but had fallen asleep and slept through the night. When he woke up at half past five he felt restored. He stayed in bed for a while and thought about his trip to Cairo, which was already a distant memory.

When he reached the station, Rydberg was already there. They went to the break room, where they found several bleary-eyed officers who had just finished the night shift. Rydberg had tea and rusks. Wallander sat down across from him.

'I heard you went to Egypt,' Rydberg said. 'How were the pyramids?'

'High,' Wallander said. 'Very strange.'

'And your father?'

'He could have gone to prison. But I got him out by paying almost ten thousand kronor in fines.'

Rydberg laughed.

'My dad was a horse-trader,' he said. 'Have I told you that?'

'You've never said anything about your parents.'

'He sold horses. Travelled around to markets, checking the teeth, and was apparently a devil at inflating the price. That old stereotype about the horse-trader's wallet is actually true. My dad had one of those filled with thousand-kronor notes. But I wonder if he even knew that the pyramids were in Egypt. It's even less likely that he knew the capital was Cairo. He was completely uneducated. There was only one thing he knew and that was horses. And possibly women. All his dalliances drove my mother crazy.'

'One has the parents one has,' Wallander said. 'How are you feeling?'

'Something is wrong,' Rydberg said firmly. 'One doesn't collapse like that from rheumatism. Something is wrong. But I don't know what it is. And right now I'm more interested in this Holm who got a bullet in the back of his head.'

'I heard about it from Hansson yesterday.'

Rydberg pushed his teacup away.

'It is of course an incredibly compelling thought that the Eberhardsson sisters might turn out to have been involved in drug trafficking. Something like that would strike at the very foundations of the Swedish sewing supplies industry. Out with the embroidery, in with the heroin.'

'The thought has crossed my mind,' Wallander said. 'I'll see you in a while.'

As he walked to his office he thought that Rydberg would never have been as open about his health if he wasn't convinced that something was wrong. Wallander felt himself starting to worry.

Until a quarter to eight he went through some reports that had piled up on his desk during his absence. He had spoken to Linda the day before – just after he had got home and put his bag down. She had promised to go to Kastrup and meet her grandfather and make sure he made it home to Löderup. Wallander had not dared to hope that he would really be approved for a new loan and therefore be able to get a new car and pick up his father in Malmö.

He found a message that Sten Widén had called. And his sister. He saved these messages. His colleague Gösta Boman in Kristianstad had tried to reach him. Boman was a police officer he got together with from time to time after they had met at one of the countless National Police Commission seminars. He also put this message aside. The rest of them he swept into the bin.

The investigative meeting started with Wallander briefly describing his adventures in Cairo and the helpful police officer Radwan. Then a discussion broke out about when exactly the death penalty had been abolished in Sweden. There were many guesses. Svedberg claimed that convicts had been executed by firing squad as late as the 1930s, which was firmly dismissed by Martinsson, who maintained that no executions had taken place in Sweden since Anna Månsdotter had her head cut off at the Kristianstad prison sometime in the 1890s. It ended with Hansson calling a crime reporter in Stockholm who shared his interest in horse racing.

'Abolished in 1910,' he said when he got off the phone. 'It was the first and last time the guillotine was used in Sweden. On a man by the name of Ander.'

'Didn't he fly in a balloon to the North Pole?' Martinsson said.

'That was Andrée,' Wallander said. 'And now let's move on.'

Rydberg had sat quietly throughout. Wallander had the feeling that he was in some way absent from the proceedings. Then they discussed Holm. Administratively, he was on the borderline.

The body had been found within the Sjöbo police district, but just a couple of hundred metres from the dirt road where Ystad's police district began.

'Our Sjöbo colleagues are happy to give him to us,' Martinsson said. 'We can symbolically carry the corpse across the dirt road and then it is ours. Especially considering that we have already had dealings with Holm.'

Wallander asked for a timetable of events, which Martinsson was able to supply. Holm had gone missing shortly after he was brought in for questioning on the day that the aeroplane crashed. While Wallander was in Cairo, a man out walking in the woods had discovered the body. It had been lying at the end of a forest road. There were car tracks. But Holm still had his wallet, so it had not been a case of robbery-homicide. No observations of any interest had been called in to the police. The area was deserted.

Martinsson had just finished when the door to the conference room was opened. An officer popped his head in and said that a communication had arrived from Interpol. Martinsson went to get it. While he was gone, Svedberg told Wallander about the violent energy with which Björk had gone about getting the front doors repaired.

Martinsson returned.

'One of the pilots has been identified,' he said. 'Pedro Espinosa, thirty-three years old. Born in Madrid. He'd been imprisoned in Spain for embezzlement and in France for smuggling.'

'Smuggling,' Wallander said. 'That fits perfectly.'

'There's another thing that's interesting,' Martinsson said. 'His last known address is in Marbella. That's where the Eberhardsson sisters' big villa is.'

The room fell silent. Wallander was clear on the point that it could still be a coincidence. A house in Marbella and a dead pilot who happened to have lived in the same place. But deep down he knew that they were in the process of uncovering a baffling connection. He did not yet know what it would mean. But now they could begin to focus their work in a particular direction.

'The other pilot is still unidentified,' Martinsson went on. 'But they're working on it.'

Wallander looked around the table.

'We need more help from the Spanish police,' he said. 'If they're as helpful as Radwan in Cairo, they should be able to search the Eberhardsson sisters' villa very soon. They should look for a safe. And they should look for drugs. Who did the sisters know down there? This is what we need to find out. And we need to find out soon.'

'Should one of us go down there?' Hansson asked.

'Not yet,' Wallander said. 'Your sunbathing will have to wait until next summer.'

They reviewed the material one more time and assigned the tasks to be performed. Above all they were going to focus on Yngve Leonard Holm. Wallander noticed that the pace in the team had picked up.

They ended the meeting at a quarter to ten. Hansson reminded Wallander about the traditional Christmas buffet that would be celebrated at the Hotel Continental on the twenty-first of December. Wallander tried to think of a good excuse for missing it, without success.

After Wallander had made his telephone calls, he put down the receiver and closed the door. Slowly he went back through the material they had uncovered so far, regarding the plane that had crashed, Yngve Leonard Holm and the two Eberhardsson sisters. He drew a triangle on his notepad: each of the three components marked a corner. Five dead people, he thought. Two pilots, one of whom came from Spain. In an aeroplane that was literally a Flying Dutchman since it had supposedly been scrapped after an accident in Laos. An aeroplane that flew in across the Swedish border at night, turned round just south of Sjöbo and crashed next to Mossby Strand. Lights had been observed on the ground, which could mean that the plane had dropped something.

This is the first point of the triangle.

The second point is the two sisters, who ran their sewing shop in Ystad. They are killed with shots to the head and their building is burned down. They turn out to have been wealthy, with a safe built into the foundation and a villa in Spain. The second point, in other words, consists of two sisters who lived a double life.

Wallander drew a line between Pedro Espinosa and the Eberhardsson sisters. There was a connection there. Marbella.

The third point consisted of Yngve Leonard Holm, who had been executed on a forest road outside Sjöbo. About him they knew that he was a notorious drug dealer who possessed an unusually well-developed ability to cover his tracks.

But someone caught up with him outside Sjöbo, Wallander thought.

He got up from the desk and studied his triangle. What did it say? He made a point in the middle of the triangle. A centre, he thought. Hemberg and Rydberg's constant question: where was the centre, a midpoint? He continued to study his sketch. Then all at once he realised that what he had drawn could be interpreted as a pyramid. The base was a square. But from a distance, the pyramid could look like a triangle.

He sat down at the desk again. Everything that I have in front of me tells me one thing. That something has happened that has disturbed a pattern. The most likely thing is that the plane crash is the beginning. It has set a chain reaction in motion that has resulted in three murders, three executions.

He started over from the beginning. He couldn't drop the thought of a pyramid. Could it be that a kind of strange power play had been enacted? Where the triangle points consisted of the Eberhardsson sisters, Yngve Leonard Holm and the downed plane? But where there was still an unknown centre?

Slowly and methodically he proceeded through all the known facts. Now and again he wrote down a question. Without him noticing the time pass, it was suddenly twelve o'clock. He dropped the pen, took his coat and walked down to the bank. It was a couple of degrees above zero and drizzling. He signed his loan documents and received another twenty thousand kronor. Right now he did not want to think about all the money that had disappeared in Egypt. The fine was one thing. What gnawed at him and ate away at his parsimonious inner recesses was the price of the plane ticket. He held out no hopes that his sister would agree to help defray the costs.

At exactly one o'clock the car salesman arrived with his new Peugeot. The old one refused to start. Wallander did not wait for the tow truck. Instead he took a drive in the new dark blue car. It was worn and reeked of smoke. But Wallander noticed that the engine was good. That was the most important thing. He drove towards Hedeskoga and was about to turn when he decided to continue. He was on the road to Sjöbo. Martinsson had explained in detail where Holm's body had been found. He wanted to see the place with his own eyes. And perhaps even stop by the house where Holm had lived.

The place where Holm had been found was still cordoned off. But there were no police. Wallander stepped out of the car. There was silence all around. He stepped over the police tape and looked about. If someone wanted to kill a person, this was an excellent location. He tried to imagine what had happened. Holm had arrived here with someone. According to Martinsson there were only tracks from one car.

A confrontation, Wallander thought. Certain goods are handed over, a payment is to be made. Then something happens. Holm is shot in the back of the head. He is dead before he falls to the ground. The person who has committed the murder vanishes without a trace.

A man, Wallander thought. Or more than one. The same person or people who killed the Eberhardsson sisters a few days earlier.

Suddenly he felt close to something. There was yet another connection here that he would be able to see if only he made an effort. That it had to do with drugs appeared obvious, even if it was still hard to accept that two sisters who owned a sewing shop would have been mixed up in something like that. But Rydberg had been right. His first comment – what did they really know about the two sisters? – had been justified.

Wallander left the forest road and drove on. He could see Martinsson's map clearly in his head. He had to turn right at the large roundabout south of Sjöbo. Then another road, a gravel road, to the left, to the last house on the right, a red barn next to the road. A blue mailbox that was about to fall to the ground. Two junked cars and a rusty tractor on a field next to the barn. A barking dog of indeterminate breed in a dog run. He had no trouble finding it. He heard the dog before he even got out of the car. He stepped out and walked into the yard. The paint on the main house was peeling. The gutters hung in pieces at the corners. The dog barked desperately and scratched at the fence. Wallander wondered what would happen if the fence gave way and the dog was let loose. He walked over to the door and rang a bell. Then he saw that the wiring was loose. He knocked and waited. Finally he banged on the door so hard that it opened. He called out to see if anyone was home. Still no answer. I shouldn't go in, he thought. I will break many rules that pertain not only to the police but to all citizens. Then he pushed the door open further and went in. Peeling wallpaper, stale air, a mess. Broken couches, mattresses on the floor. Yet there was a large-screen television and a relatively new video recorder. A CD player with large speakers. He called out again and listened. No answer. There was indescribable chaos in the kitchen. Dishes piled up in the sink. Paper bags, plastic bags, empty pizza cartons on the floor to which various lines of ants led.

A mouse scuttled past in a corner. The place smelled musty. Wallander walked on. Stopped outside a door that had been spray-painted with the words 'Yngve's Church'. He pushed open the door. There was a real bed inside, but only a bottom sheet and a blanket on it. A chest of drawers, two chairs. A radio in the window. A clock that had stopped at ten minutes to seven. Yngve Leonard Holm had lived here. While he was having a large house built in Ystad. On the floor there was a tracksuit top. He had been wearing it when Wallander questioned him. Wallander sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed, afraid that it would give way, and looked around. A person lived here, he thought. A person who lived by herding other people into various forms of drug hell. He shook his head with distaste. Then he leaned over and looked under the bed. Dust. A slipper and some porn magazines. He stood up and pulled out the chest drawers. More magazines with undressed, splay-legged women. Several of them frighteningly young. Underwear, painkillers, Band-Aids.

Next drawer. An old kerosene blowtorch. The kind you used to start engines on fishing boats. In the final drawer, piles of papers. Old report cards. Wallander saw that Holm had been proficient only in what was also his own favourite subject, geography. Otherwise his marks were forgettable. Some photographs. Holm at a bar somewhere with a glass of beer in each hand. Drunk. Red-eyed. Another photograph: Holm naked on a beach. Grinning straight at the camera. Then an old black-and-white photograph of a man and a woman on a road. Wallander turned it over. Båstad, 1937. It could be Holm's parents.

He continued to search among the papers. Stopped at an old aeroplane ticket. Took it over to the window. Copenhagen-Marbella, return. The twelfth of August, 1989. The return dated the seventeenth. Five days in Spain, and not on a charter ticket. He was unable to determine if the code was tourist or business class. He tucked it into his pocket and closed the drawer after a few more minutes of searching.

There was nothing of interest in the wardrobe. More clutter and chaos. Wallander sat back down on the bed. Wondered where the other people who lived in the house were. He walked into the living room. There was a telephone on the table. He called the station and spoke to Ebba.

'Where are you?' she asked. 'People have been asking for you.'

'Who is asking for me?'

'You know how it is. As soon as you aren't here everyone wants you.'

'I'm on my way,' Wallander said.

Then he asked her to look up the number of the travel agency where Anette Bengtsson worked. He made a mental note of it, finished his conversation with Ebba and dialled the agency. It was the other girl who answered. He asked to speak with Anette. It took several minutes but then she picked up. He told her who it was.

'How was the trip to Cairo?' she asked.

'Good. The pyramids are very high. Remarkable, really. It was also very warm.'

'You should have stayed longer.'

'I'll have to do that another time.'

Then he asked her if she could tell him if Anna or Emilia Eberhardsson had been in Spain between the twelfth and seventeenth of August.

'That will take a while,' she said.

'I'll wait,' Wallander said.

She put the receiver down. Wallander again caught sight of a mouse in a corner. He could not of course be sure that it was the same mouse. Winter is coming, he thought. The mice are on their way back into the house. Anette Bengtsson came back.

'Anna Eberhardsson left Ystad on the tenth of August,' she said. 'She returned at the beginning of September.'

'Thanks for the help,' Wallander replied. 'I would very much like to have an inventory of all of the sisters' trips last year.'

'What for?'

'For the police investigation,' he said. 'I'll come in tomorrow.'

She promised to help him. He hung up. Thought that he would probably have fallen in love with her if he had been ten years younger. Now it would be senseless. She would look on advances from him with distaste. He left the house and thought alternately of Holm and Emma Lundin. Then his thoughts returned to Anette Bengtsson. He couldn't be completely sure that she would be offended. But she probably already had a boyfriend. Although he could not recall seeing a ring on her left hand.

The dog barked like crazy. Wallander walked up to the dog run and screamed at it and then it went quiet. As soon as he turned round and left it started to bark again. I should be grateful, he thought, that Linda doesn't live in a house like this. How many people in Sweden, how many normal, unthinking citizens, are familiar with these environments? Where people live in constant mists, misery, despair. He got into the car and drove away. But first he had checked the mailbox. There was a letter in it, addressed to Holm. He opened it. It was the final notice of a bill from a car-hire agency. Wallander put the letter in his pocket.

He was back at the station at four o'clock. A note from Martinsson was on his desk. Wallander went to Martinsson's office. He was on the phone. When Wallander turned up in the doorway, he said he'd call back. Wallander assumed he had been talking with his wife. Martinsson hung up.

'The Spanish police are searching the villa in Marbella right now,' he said. 'I've been in touch with a colleague by the name of Fernando Lopez.

He speaks excellent English and seems to be a very high-ranking officer.'

Wallander told him about his excursion and his conversation with Anette Bengtsson. He showed Martinsson the ticket.

'That bastard flew business class,' Martinsson said.

'Be that as it may,' Wallander said, 'we now have another connection. No one can still say this is a coincidence.'

That was also what he said at the case meeting at five o'clock. It was very brief. Per Åkeson sat in on it without saying anything. He's already finished, Wallander thought. He's physically here, but mentally he's already away on his leave.

When there was nothing more to say, they finished the meeting. Each of them went back to his tasks. Wallander called Linda and told her he now had a car that worked and could pick up her grandfather in Malmö. He went home a little before seven. Emma Lundin called. This time Wallander said yes. She stayed until just past midnight, as usual. Wallander thought of Anette Bengtsson.

The following day he stopped by the travel agency and picked up the information he had requested. There were many customers looking for seats for Christmas. Wallander would have liked to stay for a while and talk to Anette Bengtsson, but she didn't have time. He also stopped outside the old sewing shop. The rubble had now been cleared. He walked into town. Suddenly he realised there was only a week left until Christmas. The first one since the divorce.

That day nothing happened that took the investigation further. Wallander pondered his pyramid. The only addition he made was a thick line between Anna Eberhardsson and Yngve Leonard Holm.

The next day, the twenty-first of December, Wallander drove to Malmö to pick up his father. He felt great relief when he saw him walk out of the ferry terminal. He drove him back to Löderup. His father talked non-stop about his wonderful trip. He appeared to have forgotten the fact that he had been in prison and that Wallander had actually also been to Cairo.

That evening Wallander went to the annual police Christmas function. He avoided sitting at the same table as Björk. But the toast the police chief made was unusually successful. He had taken the trouble to look into the history of the Ystad police. His account was both entertaining and well presented. Wallander chuckled on several occasions. Björk was without a doubt a good orator.

He was drunk when he came home. Before falling asleep he thought of Anette Bengtsson. And decided in the next moment to immediately stop thinking about her.

On the twenty-second of December they reviewed the state of the investigation. Nothing new had happened. The Spanish police had not found anything noteworthy in the sisters' villa. No hidden valuables, nothing. They were still waiting for the second pilot to be identified.

In the afternoon, Wallander went and bought himself a Christmas present. A stereo for the car. He managed to install it himself.

On the twenty-third of December they were able to add to the existing case data. Nyberg informed them that Holm had been shot with the same gun used on the Eberhardsson sisters. But there was still no trace of this weapon. Wallander made new lines in his sketch. The connections grew, but the top of the pyramid was still missing.

The work was not supposed to stop during Christmas, but Wallander knew it would slow down. Not least because it would be hard to track people down, hard to get information.

It rained in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. Wallander picked Linda up at the station. Together they drove out to Löderup. She had bought her grandfather a new scarf. Wallander had bought him a bottle of cognac. Linda and Wallander made dinner while his father sat at the kitchen table and told them about the pyramids. The evening went unusually well, above all because Linda had such a good relationship with her grandfather. Wallander sometimes felt as if he were on the outside. But it didn't bother him. From time to time he thought about the dead sisters, Holm and the plane that had crashed into a field.

After Wallander and Linda had returned to Ystad they sat up and talked for a long time. Wallander slept late the following morning. He always slept well when Linda was in the apartment. Christmas Day was cold and clear. They took a long walk through Sand Forest. She told him about her plans. Wallander had given her a promise for Christmas. A promise to cover some of the costs, as much as he could afford, if she decided to pursue an apprenticeship in France. He accompanied her to the train station in the late afternoon. He had wanted to drive her to Malmö, but she wanted to take the train. Wallander felt lonely in the evening. He watched an old film on TV and then listened to Rigoletto. Thought that he should have called Rydberg to wish him a merry Christmas. But now it was too late.

When Wallander looked out of the window on Boxing Day, just after seven in the morning, a gloomy mix of snow and rain was falling over Ystad. He suddenly recalled the warm night air in Cairo. Thought that he should not forget to thank Radwan for his help in some way. He wrote it down on the pad of paper on the kitchen table. Then he cooked himself a substantial breakfast for once.

It was close to nine when he finally got to the police station. He talked to some of the officers who had worked during the night. Christmas had been unusually calm in Ystad this year. As usual, Christmas Eve had resulted in a number of family quarrels, but nothing had been really serious. Wallander walked down the deserted corridors to his office.

Now he would take up the murder investigations in earnest again. There were still technically two cases, even though he was convinced that the same person, or people, had killed the Eberhardsson sisters and Yngve Leonard Holm. It was not simply the same weapon and the same style. There was also a common motive. He got himself a cup of coffee in the break room and sat down with his notes. The pyramid with its base. He drew a large question mark in the middle. The apex, which his father had been aiming for, he now had to find himself.

After two hours of thinking, he was sure. They now had to concentrate most forcefully on the missing link. A pattern, perhaps an organisation, had collapsed when the plane crashed. Then one or several unknown individuals had hastily stepped out of the shadows and acted. They had slain three people.

Silence, Wallander thought. Perhaps that is what all this is about? To prevent information from trickling out. Dead people do not speak.

That could be what it was. But it could also be something completely different.

He went over and stood by the window. The snow was falling more thickly now.

This will take time, he thought.

That's the first thing I'll say when we have our next meeting.

We have to count on the fact that it will take time to solve this case.

CHAPTER 10

The night before the twenty-seventh of December Wallander had a nightmare. He was back in Cairo again, in the courtroom. Radwan was no longer at his side. But now he could suddenly understand everything that the prosecutor and judge were saying. His father had been sitting there in handcuffs at his side and Wallander had listened in horror as his father was sentenced to death. He had stood up in order to protest. But no one had heard him. At that point he had kicked himself out of the dream, up to the surface, and when he woke up he was covered in sweat. He lay completely still, staring into the darkness.

The dream had made him so unsettled that he got out of bed and went to the kitchen. It was still snowing. The street lamp was swaying gently in the wind. It was half past four. He drank a glass of water, then stood for a while fingering a half-empty bottle of whisky. But he let it be. He thought about what Linda had said, that dreams were messengers. Even if dreams were about other people, they consisted foremost of messages to the self. Wallander had always doubted the value of trying to interpret dreams. What could it mean for him to imagine that his father had been sentenced to death? Had the dreams pronounced a death sentence on him? Then he thought that perhaps it had to do with the concern he felt for Rydberg's health. He had another glass of water and went back to bed.

But sleep would not come. His thoughts wandered. Mona, his father, Linda, Rydberg. And then he was back to his constant point of departure. Work. The murders of the Eberhardsson sisters and Yngve Leonard Holm. The two dead pilots, the one from Spain and the other as yet unidentified. He thought about his sketch. The triangle with a question mark in the middle.

But now he was lying in darkness, thinking about the fact that a pyramid also has different cornerstones.

He tossed and turned until six o'clock. Then he got out of bed, ran a bath and made a cup of coffee. The morning paper had already arrived. He turned the pages until he reached the property section. There was nothing of interest to him there today. He took his coffee cup with him into the bathroom. Then he lay and dozed in the warm water until close to six thirty. Thinking about going out into the weather was unpleasant. This endless slush. But now at least he had a car that would presumably start.

He turned the key in the ignition at a quarter past seven. The engine started at once. He drove to the station and parked as close to the entrance as possible. Then he ran through the snow and slush and almost slipped on the front steps. Martinsson was in reception, skimming the police magazine. He nodded when he spotted Wallander.

'It says here that we're supposed to get better at everything,' he said with a note of despondence. 'Above all, we're supposed to improve our relations with the general public.'

'That sounds excellent,' Wallander said.

He had a recurring memory, something that had happened in Malmö over twenty years ago. He had been accosted by a girl at a cafe who accused him of hitting her with a baton at a Vietnam demonstration. For some reason he had never forgotten this moment. That she had been partly responsible for his almost being stabbed to death with a knife at a later time was of a lesser concern. It was her expression, her complete contempt, that he had never forgotten.

Martinsson threw the magazine onto the table.

'Don't you ever think about quitting?' he asked. 'Doing something else?'

'Every day,' Wallander answered. 'But I don't know what that would be.'

'One could apply to a private security company,' Martinsson said.

This surprised Wallander. He had always imagined that Martinsson nurtured a heady dream of one day becoming police chief.

Then he told him about his visit to the house that Holm had lived in. Martinsson expressed concern when he heard that only the dog had been home.

'At least two others live there,' Martinsson said. 'A girl around twentyfive. I never saw her. But a man was there. Rolf was his name. Rolf Nyman, I think. I don't remember her name.'

'There was only a dog,' Wallander repeated. 'It was such a coward it crawled on its belly when I raised my voice.'

They agreed to wait until around nine before meeting in the conference room. Martinsson was not sure if Svedberg was coming. He had called the night before and said that he had come down with a bad cold and a temperature.

Wallander walked to his office. As usual it was twenty-three steps away from the beginning of the corridor. Sometimes he wished that something would suddenly have happened. That the corridor would turn out to be longer or shorter. But everything was normal. He hung up his coat and brushed off a couple of hairs that had stuck to the back of the chair. He brushed his hand along the back and top of his head. With every year he became more worried that he was going to lose his hair. Then he heard rapid steps outside in the corridor. It was Martinsson, waving a piece of paper.

'The second pilot has been identified,' he said. 'This came just now from Interpol.'

Wallander immediately stopped thinking about his hair growth.

'Ayrton McKenna,' Martinsson read. 'Born 1945 in Southern Rhodesia. A helicopter pilot since 1964 in the then Southern Rhodesian military. Decorated many times during the 1960s. For what, one might ask. For bombing a lot of black Africans?'

Wallander only had a very vague sense of what had transpired in the former British colonies in Africa.

'What is Southern Rhodesia called today?' he asked. 'Zambia?'

'That was Northern Rhodesia. Southern Rhodesia is Zimbabwe today.'

'My knowledge of Africa isn't what it should be. What else does it say?'

Martinsson continued to read.

'At some point after 1980, Ayrton McKenna moved to England. Between 1983 and 1985 he was in prison in Birmingham for drug smuggling. From 1985 on there are no records until he suddenly turns up in Hong Kong in 1987. There he is suspected of smuggling people from the People's Republic. He escapes from a prison in Hong Kong after shooting two guards to death and has been a wanted man ever since. But the identification is definitive. He was the one who crashed with Espinosa outside Mossby.'

Wallander mulled this over.

'What do we have?' he said. 'Two pilots with criminal histories. Both with smuggling on their records. In an aeroplane that does not exist. They cross illegally over the Swedish border for a few short minutes. They are probably on their way out again when the plane crashes. That leaves us with two possibilities. They were either leaving or collecting something. Since there are no indications that the plane landed, this seems to indicate that something was tossed out. What is dropped from a plane? Besides bombs?'

'Drugs.'

Wallander nodded. Then he leaned over the table.

'Has the accident commission begun its work yet?'

'Things have proceeded very slowly. But nothing indicates that the plane was shot down, if that's what you're getting at.'

'No,' Wallander said. 'I'm only interested in two things. Did the plane have extra fuel tanks, that is, from how far away could it have come? And was it an accident?'

'If it wasn't shot down, it could hardly have been anything other than an accident.'

'There is a possibility that it was sabotage. But perhaps that's remote.'

'It was an old plane,' Martinsson said. 'We know that. It probably ran into the hillside outside Vientiane. And was then put back together again. It could, in other words, have been in bad shape.'

'When is this accident commission going to get started for real?'

'The twenty-eighth. Tomorrow. The plane's been transported to a hangar in Sturup.'

'You should probably be there,' Wallander said. 'This matter of the extra fuel tanks is an important one.'

'I think it would need a great deal to be able to fly here from Spain without landing somewhere in between,' Martinsson said hesitantly.

'I don't believe that either. But I want to know if the flight could have originated from the other side of the sea. Germany. Or one of the Baltic States.'

Martinsson left. Wallander made some notes. Next to the name Espinosa he now wrote McKenna, unsure of the exact spelling.

The investigators met at half past eight. Their group was down to the bare bones. Svedberg did in fact turn out to have a cold. Nyberg had gone to Eksjö to visit his ninety-six-year-old mother. He would have been back this morning but his car had broken down somewhere south of Växjö. Rydberg looked tired and harried. Wallander thought he caught a whiff of alcohol. Probably Rydberg had spent the holidays alone, drinking. Not to the point of drunkenness, since he rarely did. But a steady, quiet drinking. Hansson complained that he had eaten too much. Neither Björk nor Per Åkeson showed up. Wallander studied the three men around the table. You don't see this on TV very often, he thought. There they have young, fresh and enthusiastic policemen in action. Martinsson could possibly fit such a context. Apart from him this squad is not such an edifying sight.

'There was a stabbing incident last night,' Hansson said. 'Two brothers who ended up in a fight with their father. Drunk, of course. One of the brothers and the father are in the hospital. Apparently they attacked each other with various tools.'

'What kind of tools?' Wallander asked.

'A hammer. A crowbar. Screwdriver maybe. At least, the father has stab wounds.'

'We'll have to deal with that when we have time,' Wallander said. 'Right now we have three murders on our plate. Or two, if we combine the sisters into one.'

'I don't really understand why Sjöbo can't deal with Holm on their own,' Hansson said with irritation.

'Because Holm has to do with us,' Wallander replied, just as irritated. 'If both of us investigate these things on our own we'll never get anywhere.'

Hansson did not back down. He was apparently in a very bad mood this morning.

'Do we know that Holm had anything to do with the Eberhardssons?'

'No,' Wallander said. 'But we know everything indicates that the same person killed them. I think that's enough of a connection to bind the cases and for us to lead a coordinated investigation from Ystad.'

'Has Åkeson weighed in on this?'

'Yes,' Wallander said.

It was not true. Per Åkeson had not said anything. But Wallander knew that he would have backed him up.

Wallander marked the end of this discussion with Hansson by turning to Rydberg.

'Do we have any updates on the drug trade?' he asked. 'Has anything happened in Malmö? Have the prices changed, or the supply?'

'I called,' Rydberg said, 'but there didn't appear to be anyone working there over Christmas.'

'Then we'll have to proceed with Holm,' Wallander decided. 'Unfortunately, I suspect this investigation will prove both long and difficult. We need to dig deeper. Who was Holm? Who did he associate with? What was his position in the drug-trade hierarchy? Did he even have a position? And what about the sisters? We know too little.'

'Absolutely correct,' Rydberg said. 'Digging down usually takes one forward.'

Wallander decided to store these words in his memory.

Digging down usually takes one forward.

They ended the meeting with Rydberg's words of wisdom buzzing in their ears. Wallander drove down to the travel agency to speak to Anette Bengtsson. But to his disappointment she had taken time off over Christmas. Her colleague did, however, find an envelope to give to him.

'Have you found him yet?' she asked. 'The one who killed the sisters?'

'No,' Wallander answered. 'But we're working on it.'

On the way back to the station, Wallander suddenly remembered that he had signed up for the laundry room this morning. He stopped at Mariagatan, walked up to the apartment and carried down all the dirty laundry that had accumulated in his wardrobe. When he reached the laundry room there was a note taped to the front of the washer saying it was out of order. Wallander was so furious he carried all the laundry out to his car and threw it in the boot. There was a washing machine at the station. As he turned onto Regementsgatan he was almost hit by a motorcycle approaching at high speed. He pulled over to the side of the road, turned off the engine and closed his eyes. I'm stressed, he thought. If a broken washer almost causes me to lose control then there's something wrong with my life.

He knew what it was. Loneliness. The increasingly anaemic latenight hours with Emma Lundin.

Instead of driving to the station he decided to pay a visit to his father out in Löderup. It was always a risky proposition to arrive without prior notice. But right now Wallander felt the need to experience the smell of oil paints in the studio. The dream from last night still haunted him. He drove through the grey landscape and wondered where he should begin in order to achieve a change in his existence. Perhaps Martinsson was right and he should seriously consider whether or not he should remain a police officer for the rest of his life. Sometimes Per Åkeson would speak dreamily about a life beyond all charges, all leaden and uniform hours in courtrooms and questioning chambers. Even my father has something that I lack, he thought as he turned into the driveway. The dreams that he has decided to stay faithful to. Even if they cost his only son a small fortune.

He got out of the car and walked towards the studio. A cat strutted out through the half-open door and regarded him suspiciously. When Wallander bent down to pet it, it slunk away. Wallander knocked and went in. His father was leaning forward in front of his easel.

'You here?' he said. 'That's unexpected.'

'I was in the neighbourhood,' Wallander said. 'Am I disturbing you?'

His father pretended not to hear the question. Instead he talked of his trip to Egypt. As if it were a vivid but already very distant memory. Wallander sat down on an old sledge and listened.

'Now only Italy remains,' his father concluded. 'Then I can lie down to die.'

'I think we'll wait with that trip,' Wallander said. 'At least a couple of months.'

His father painted. Wallander sat quietly. Now and again they exchanged a few words. Then more silence. Wallander noticed that he was more relaxed. His head felt lighter. After about half an hour he stood up to leave.

'I'll come by for New Year,' he said.

'Bring a bottle of cognac,' his father replied.

Wallander returned to the police station, which still gave the impression of being almost completely deserted. He knew that everyone was now lying low in preparation for New Year's Eve, when there would be a flurry of activity, as usual.

Wallander sat down in his office and reviewed the Eberhardsson sisters' trips during the past year. He tried to discern a pattern, without being sure of what he was really looking for. I know nothing about Holm, he thought. Or these pilots. I have nothing that I can apply like a grid to these trips to Spain. There are no fixed points, other than this single trip that Holm made at the same time as Anna Eberhardsson.

He put all the papers back into the envelope and put that into the folder where he kept all the documents having to do with the murder investigations. Then he wrote himself a reminder to buy a bottle of cognac.

It was already past noon. He felt hungry. In order to break his habit of downing a couple of hot dogs at a stand, he walked down to the hospital and had a sandwich at the cafe. Then he leafed through a ripped magazine that had been left on the table next to him. A pop star had almost died of cancer. An actor had fainted during a performance. Photographs from the parties of the rich. He tossed the magazine aside and started walking back to the station. He felt like an elephant lumbering around in a ring bounded by the city of Ystad. Something has to happen soon, he thought. Who has executed these three people, and why?

Rydberg was sitting in the reception area, waiting for him. Wallander sat down on a sofa next to him. As usual Rydberg got right to the point.

'Heroin is flowing into Malmö,' he said. 'In Lund, Eslöv, Landskrona, Helsingborg. I talked to a colleague in Malmö. He said that there were clear signs that the market had received a boost in supply. It could, in other words, coincide with a drug drop from the plane. In this case, there is only one important question.'

Wallander understood.

'Who was there to receive it?'

'In this, we can play with several different scenarios,' Rydberg went on. 'No one counted on the fact that the plane would crash. A wreck of a plane from Asia that should have been junked a long time ago. Something must then have happened on land. Either the wrong person picked up the package that was dropped in the night. Or else there was more than one predator stalking this prey.'

Wallander nodded. He had also thought this far.

'Something went wrong,' Rydberg said. 'And this led to the execution-style slayings of the Eberhardsson sisters and subsequently Holm. With the same weapon and by the same hand, or hands.'

'But I still resist this thought,' Wallander said. 'We know by now that Anna and Emilia were not nice old ladies. And yet from there, the step of saying they were involved in illegal narcotics transactions feels too great.'

'I actually think so too,' Rydberg said. 'But nothing surprises me any longer. Greed knows no bounds when it sinks its claws into people. Perhaps the sewing shop was doing worse and worse? If we analyse their tax returns we'll get a clearer picture. It should also be possible to tell from the numbers when something happens. At which point they no longer have to care about the profitability of the sewing shop. Perhaps they dreamed of a life in a sunny paradise. They could never have achieved this by selling snaps and silk thread. Suddenly something happens. And they are caught in the web.'

'You can also look at it from the reverse perspective,' Wallander said. 'A better cover than two older women in a sewing shop can hardly be imagined. They were the personification of innocence.'

Rydberg nodded.

'Who was there that night to receive the package?' he repeated. 'And one more question: who was behind all this? More precisely: who is behind it?'

'We're still searching for a midpoint,' Wallander said. 'The apex of the pyramid.'

Rydberg yawned and got up from the sofa with some effort.

'We'll figure it out sooner or later,' he said.

'Has Nyberg returned yet?' Wallander asked.

'According to Martinsson he's still in Tingsryd.'

Wallander returned to his office. Everyone seemed to be waiting for something to happen. Nyberg called at four o'clock and said that his car had finally been fixed. They had a meeting at five. No one really had anything new to bring to the table.

That night Wallander slept heavily, without dreaming. The next day it was sunny and five degrees above zero Celsius. He left the car at home and walked to the station. But when he was halfway there, he changed his mind. He thought of what Martinsson had told him, about the two people who lived in the house where Holm had a room. It was only a quarter past seven. He would have time to drive up there and see if they were in before his meeting at the station.

He turned into the front yard at a quarter to eight. The dog was in its fenced run, barking. Wallander looked around. The house appeared as abandoned as the day before. He walked up to the door and knocked. No answer. He felt the handle. It was locked. Someone must have been there. He stepped away in order to walk around the house. Then he heard the front door open behind him. He jumped involuntarily. A man wearing an undershirt and sagging jeans was standing there staring at him. Wallander walked over and introduced himself.

'Are you Rolf Nyman?' he asked.

'Yes, that's me.'

'I need to speak to you.'

The man looked hesitant.

'The house is a mess,' he said. 'And the girl who lives here is sleeping.'

'My place is also messy,' Wallander said. 'And we don't need to sit next to her bed.'

Nyman stepped aside and led Wallander to the cluttered kitchen. They sat down. The man made no gesture to offer Wallander anything. But he appeared friendly. Wallander assumed he was embarrassed at the mess.

'The girl has big problems with drugs,' Nyman said. 'Right now she's trying to detox. I'm helping her as much as I can. But it's hard.'

'And you?'

'I never touch anything.'

'But isn't it strange then to live in the same place as Holm? If you want her to get over a drug addiction.'

Nyman's reply was swift and convincing.

'I had no idea he was involved with drugs. We lived here cheaply. He was nice. I had no idea what he did. To me he said he was studying astronomy. We used to stand outside in the garden in the evenings. He knew the name of every single star.'

'What do you do?'

'I can't hold down a permanent job until she gets better. I work at a disco from time to time.'

'Disco?'

'I play records.'

'You're a DJ?'

'Yes.'

Wallander thought he made a sympathetic impression. He did not appear anxious about anything other than disturbing the girl who was sleeping somewhere.

'Holm,' Wallander said. 'How did you meet him? And when was that?'

'In a disco in Landskrona. We started talking. He told me about this house. A couple of weeks later we moved in. The worst thing is that I don't have the energy to clean. I did earlier. Holm did too. But now all my time goes to taking care of her.'

'You never suspected what Holm was up to?'

'No.'

'Did he ever have visitors?'

'Never. He was usually gone during the day. But he always said when he was coming back. It was only the last time, when he didn't come back, that he said where he was going.'

'Had he appeared nervous that day? Was there anything different about him?'

Rolf Nyman thought back.

'No, he was like normal.'

'And how was that?'

'Happy. But reserved sometimes.'

Wallander thought about how best to proceed.

'Did he have a lot of money?'

'He certainly didn't live in luxury. I can show you his room.'

'That won't be necessary. Are you sure he never had any visitors?'

'Never.'

'But there must have been telephone calls.'

Nyman nodded.

'It was as if he always knew when someone was going to call. Sat down next to the phone and it rang. If he wasn't at home or nearby, it never rang. That was the strangest thing about him.'

Wallander had reached the end of his questions and stood up.

'What will you do now?' he asked.

'I don't know. Holm rented the house from someone in Örebro. I guess we'll have to move.'

Rolf Nyman followed him out onto the front steps.

'Did you ever hear Holm mention the Eberhardsson sisters?'

'The ones who were killed? No, never.'

Wallander realised he had one final question.

'Holm must have had a car,' he said. 'Where is it?'

Rolf Nyman shook his head.

'I don't know.'

'What kind was it?'

'A black VW Golf.'

Wallander held out his hand and said goodbye. The dog was silent as Wallander walked to the car.

Holm must have concealed his business well, he thought on the way back to Ystad. Just as he concealed his true self well when I questioned him.

He parked the car outside the station at a quarter to nine. Ebba was at her desk and said that Martinsson and the others were waiting for him in the conference room. He hurried over. Nyberg had also arrived.

'What's going on?' Wallander said before he had even sat down.

'Big news,' Martinsson said. 'Our Malmö colleagues have made a routine search of a well-known drug dealer. In his house they found a.38 calibre pistol.'

Martinsson turned to Nyberg.

'The technicians have worked quickly,' he said. 'Both the Eberhardsson sisters and Holm were shot with a weapon of that calibre.'

Wallander caught his breath.

'What's the name of the dealer?'

'Nilsmark. But he's known as Hilton.'

'Is it the same pistol?'

'We can't answer that question yet. But the possibility exists.'

Wallander nodded.

'Good,' he said. 'This may be our breakthrough. And then we have a shot at wrapping this up before the new year.'

CHAPTER 11

They worked intensively for three days, until New Year's Eve. Wallander and Nyberg drove into Malmö on the morning of the twenty-eighth. Nyberg went in order to talk to the Malmö police technicians, Wallander in order to take part, and in part to take over, the questioning of the drug dealer known as Hilton. He turned out to be a man in his fifties, overweight yet able to move with a surprising agility. He was dressed in a suit and tie and appeared bored. Before the start of his questioning, Wallander had been briefed on the man's history by a detective inspector named Hyttner, whom Wallander had met before.

Hilton had done some time at the beginning of the 1980s for dealing drugs. But Hyttner was convinced that the police and prosecutors had only been able to skim the surface that time and put him away for just a small portion of his criminal activities. He had clearly been able to retain control of his business from the prison in Norrköping where he had served his time. During his absence, the Malmö police had not been able to detect a power struggle among those who controlled the drug supply into the southern parts of Sweden.

When Hilton had got out of prison he had immediately celebrated the event by getting divorced and marrying a young Bolivian beauty. Thereafter he had moved to a large estate just north of Trelleborg. What they also knew was that he had started to extend his hunting grounds as far as Ystad and Simrishamn and was on his way to establishing himself in Kristianstad. On the twenty-eighth of December, the police felt they had enough evidence against him to get the public prosecutor to issue a search warrant for his estate. That was when they found the gun. Hilton had immediately confessed that he had no licence for the weapon. He explained that he had bought it in order to defend himself since his home was so remotely located. But he had firmly denied any involvement in the murders of the Eberhardsson sisters and Yngve Leonard Holm.

Wallander sat in on the drawn-out questioning of Hilton. Towards the end he posed some of his own questions, among them what exactly Hilton had been doing on the two dates in question. In the case of the Eberhardssons, the timetable was very precise. It was less certain when Holm had been shot. Hilton claimed to have been in Copenhagen when the Eberhardssons were killed. Since he had travelled alone, it would take time to confirm this claim. During the time that had elapsed between Holm going missing and when he had been found murdered, Hilton had done many different things.

Wallander wished Rydberg was there. Wallander could usually tell fairly quickly if the person before him was telling the truth or not. But it was hard with Hilton. If Rydberg had been there they could have compared their impressions. After the session, Wallander had coffee with Hyttner.

'We've never been able to link him to any violent incidents before,' Hyttner said. 'He has always used other boys when needed. And they haven't always been the same ones. From what we can tell, he's brought in people from the Continent when he's had to break someone's leg who hasn't performed up to snuff.'

'All of them will have to be tracked down,' Wallander said, 'if it turns out that the weapon matches.'

'I have a hard time believing that it's him,' Hyttner said. 'He's not the type. He has no qualms about selling heroin to schoolkids. But he's also the kind who faints when he has to give a blood sample.'

Wallander returned to Ystad at the start of the afternoon. Nyberg remained in Malmö. Wallander noticed that he was hoping more than he believed that they were nearer to solving the case.

At the same time another thought had started to gnaw at him. Something he had overlooked. A conclusion he should have drawn, or an assumption he should have made. He searched his mind without finding an answer.

On his way back to Ystad he turned off by Stjärnsund and stopped for a while at Sten Widén's horse ranch. He found Widén out in the stables with an older woman who apparently owned one of the horses being trained. She was on her way out when Wallander arrived. Together, he and Widén watched the BMW drive away.

'She's nice,' Sten Widén said. 'But the horses that she is swindled into buying don't make anybody happy. I always tell her to ask me for advice before she buys. But she thinks she knows best. Now she has one called Jupiter who is guaranteed never to win a race.'

Widén threw his arms out.

'But she keeps me alive,' he said.

'La Trottiata,' Wallander said. 'I'd like to see her.'

They walked back through the stables where the horses were stomping in various boxes. Sten Widén stopped next to one of the horses and stroked its muzzle.

'La Trottiata,' he said. 'Not particularly wanton, I have to say. She's mostly just afraid of the stallions.'

'Is she any good?'

'Could be. But she has frail hind legs. We'll have to see.'

They walked outside again. Wallander had picked up a faint trace of alcohol on Widén's breath when they were in the stables. Widén wanted to invite him in for a cup of coffee but Wallander said no.

'I have a triple homicide to solve,' he said. 'I assume you've read about it in the papers.'

'I only read the sport pages,' Sten Widén answered.

Wallander left Stjärnsund. He wondered if he and Sten would ever find their way back to the ease of understanding that had once existed between them.

When Wallander came back to the station he bumped into Björk in the reception area.

'I hear you've solved those murders,' he said.

'No,' Wallander said firmly. 'Nothing has been solved.'

'Then we'll have to continue to hope,' Björk said.

Björk left through the front doors. It is as if our confrontation had never taken place, Wallander thought. Or else he's more afraid of conflict than I am. Or nurses a grudge longer.

Wallander gathered the squad together and reviewed the developments in Malmö.

'Do you think it's him?' Rydberg asked when Wallander was finished.

'I don't know,' Wallander answered.

'That means, in other words, that you don't think it's him?'

Wallander did not answer. He only shrugged somewhat despondently.

As they ended the meeting, Martinsson asked if Wallander would consider switching New Year's Eve duty with him. Martinsson was on duty and would rather get out of it if he could. Wallander thought it over. Perhaps it would be best to work and keep his hands busy instead of thinking of Mona the whole time, but he had promised his father he would spend the evening in Löderup. That carried the most weight.

'I've promised to be with my father,' he said. 'You'll have to try someone else.'

Wallander stayed behind in the conference room after Martinsson had left. He searched for the thought that had started nagging at him on the way back from Malmö. He went over to the window and stared absent-mindedly out across the car park to the water tower. Slowly he reviewed all of the events in his mind. Tried to catch something he had missed. But it was in vain.

The rest of the day, nothing significant occurred. Everyone was waiting. Nyberg returned from Malmö. The forensic ballistics specialists were working at full speed on the weapon. Martinsson managed to switch his New Year's Eve with Näslund, who was on bad terms with his wife and wanted to avoid being home. Wallander walked to and fro in the corridor. He kept searching for the thought that was just out of reach. It continued to gnaw on his subconscious. He knew enough to realise it was only a detail that had flashed by. Perhaps a single word that he should have caught and examined more closely.

It was six o'clock. Rydberg left without saying anything. Together, Wallander and Martinsson reviewed everything they knew about Yngve Leonard Holm. He was born in Brösarp and, as far as they could tell, had never held down a real job in his life. Small-time stealing in his youth had led to increasingly serious crimes. But no violence. In this he reminded them of Nilsmark. Martinsson excused himself and left. Hansson was absorbed in his racing tables, which he quickly stuffed into a drawer if anyone came into his office. In the break room Wallander talked with a couple of officers who were going to run a drunk-driving campaign over New Year. They were going to focus on the smaller roads, the 'alcohol routes' that were used by drivers with good local knowledge who were over the legal limit and still planned to drive themselves home. At seven o'clock Wallander called Malmö and spoke to Hyttner. Nothing had happened there either. But the heroin was now flowing as far north as Varberg. There, the drug trade controlled from Gothenburg took over.

Wallander went home. The washing machine had still not been repaired. And the dirty laundry was still in his car. He angrily returned to the station and stuffed the washer full. Then he sat doodling in his notebook. Thought about Radwan and the mighty pyramids. By the time his laundry was dry it was past nine o'clock. He went home, opened a can of hash and ate in front of the TV while he watched an old Swedish film. He vaguely remembered it from his youth. He had seen it with a girl who had not allowed him to place a hand on her thigh.

Before he went to bed he called Linda. This time it was Mona who answered. He could immediately tell from her voice that he had called at the wrong time. Linda was out. Wallander simply asked Mona to give Linda his greetings. The conversation was over before it had even begun.

He had just crawled into bed when Emma Lundin called. Wallander pretended to have been woken up. She apologised for disturbing him. Then she asked him about New Year's Eve. Wallander told her he was planning to spend it with his father. They arranged to get together on New Year's Day. Wallander regretted this even before he replaced the receiver.

The following day, the twenty-ninth of December, nothing happened other than that Björk was in a minor traffic accident. It was a smirking Martinsson who delivered the news. Björk had seen a car too late as he was making a left turn. It had been slick and the cars had skidded into each other and received some superficial damage.

Nyberg was still waiting for the forensic ballistics report. Wallander spent the day trying to work through his piles of paper. In the afternoon Per Åkeson came into his office and asked for an update on the latest developments. Wallander told him the truth, that they were just hoping they were on the right track. But there was still a great deal of groundwork to be done.

It was Åkeson's last day of work before his leave of absence.

'My replacement is a woman,' he said. 'But I've already told you that, haven't I? Her name is Anette Brolin and she's coming down from Stockholm. You should be happy. She's much more attractive than I am.'

'We'll see,' Wallander said. 'But I expect we'll miss you.'

'Not Hansson,' Per Åkeson said. 'He's never liked me. Why, I don't know. The same goes for Svedberg.'

'I'll try to find out why that is while you're gone.'

They wished each other a happy new year and promised to stay in touch.

That evening Wallander talked to Linda for a long time on the phone. She was planning to celebrate New Year's Eve with friends in Lund. Wallander was disappointed. He had thought, or at least hoped, that she would join them in Löderup.

'Two old men,' she said kindly. 'I can think of a more exciting way to spend the evening.'

After the call, Wallander realised that he had forgotten to buy the bottle of cognac his father had asked for. He should also buy a bottle of champagne. He wrote two notes. He put one on the kitchen table and one in his shoe. That night he sat up for a long time listening to an old recording of Turandot with Maria Callas. For some strange reason his thoughts wandered to the horses in Sten Widén's stables. Only when the time was close to three did he fall asleep.

On the morning of the thirtieth there was a heavy snowfall over Ystad. It could be a chaotic New Year's Eve if the weather did not improve. But already at ten o'clock the skies cleared and the snow started to melt away. Wallander wondered why the ballistics team was taking such an inordinate amount of time to decide whether it was the same weapon. Nyberg grew angry and said that forensic technicians did not earn their measly wages by performing substandard work. Wallander immediately crawled on his knees. They made up and then spent some time talking about the low wages of the police. Not even Björk had a particularly good salary.

In the afternoon, the investigative squad assembled for what turned out to be a slow-moving meeting since there were so few new items. The police in Marbella had sent an impressively detailed report of their search of the Eberhardsson sisters' villa. They had even included a photograph. The picture was now passed around the table. The house really was palatial. But nonetheless the report did not yield anything new to the investigation. There was no breakthrough, only this waiting.

Their hopes were dashed on the morning of the thirty-first. The forensic ballistic specialists were able to determine that the weapon that had been found in Nilsmark's home had not been the one used to kill either the Eberhardsson sisters or Holm. For a moment, the investigative squad was deflated. Only Rydberg and Wallander had suspected that the message would most likely be in the negative. The Malmö police had also been able to confirm Nilsmark's trip to Copenhagen. He could not have been in Ystad when the sisters were slain. Hyttner also believed that Nilsmark would be able to produce an alibi for the time period of Holm's death.

'That puts us back at square one,' Wallander said. 'In the new year we are going to have to start again at full speed. Review the material again and work deeper.'

No one made any more comments. During the new year's holiday, the investigation would be put on hold. Since they had no immediate leads Wallander felt that what they needed most was to rest. Then they wished one another a happy new year. Finally, only Rydberg and Wallander were left.

'We knew this,' Rydberg said. 'Both you and I. That it would have been too easy with that Nilsmark. Why the hell would he have kept the weapon? It was wrong from the start.'

'But we still had to look into it.'

'Police work often consists of doing what one knows from the start to be meaningless,' Rydberg said. 'But it is as you say. No stone can be left unturned.'

Then they talked about New Year's Eve.

'I don't envy my colleagues in the big cities,' Rydberg said.

'It can get messy here too.'

Rydberg asked Wallander what he was going to do.

'I'll be out with the old man in Löderup. He wants cognac, we'll have a bite to eat, play cards, yawn and then drink a toast at midnight. Then I'll go home.'

'I try to avoid staying up,' Rydberg said. 'New Year's Eve is a ghost. It's one of the few times during the year that I take a sleeping pill.'

Wallander wanted to ask how Rydberg was feeling, but he decided to let it be.

They shook hands, as if to mark the day as special.

Then Wallander went to his office, put out an almanac for 1990 and cleaned out his drawers. It was a habit he had acquired over the past few years. New Year's Eve was for cleaning out drawers, to rid himself of old paper.

Wallander was amazed at all the old junk he found. A bottle of glue had leaked in one of the drawers. He fetched a knife from the break room and started to scrape it away. From the corridor he could hear an outraged drunk let it be known that he did not have time to waste at the station because he was on his way to a party. It's already started, Wallander thought, and he took the knife back to the break room. He threw the bottle of glue into the bin.

At seven o'clock he went home, had a shower and changed his clothes. Shortly after eight he was out in Löderup. On the road he had continued to grope around for the thought that bothered him, without success. His father had made a fish gratin that was surprisingly tasty. Wallander had managed to buy cognac and his father nodded approvingly when he saw that it was Hennessy. The bottle of champagne was put in the fridge. They drank beer with their dinner. His father had put on his old suit for the occasion and also a tie that he had tied in a way Wallander had never seen before.

A little after nine they sat down and played poker. Wallander got three of a kind two times but threw one of his cards away each time so that his father could win. At around eleven, Wallander walked outside to relieve himself. It was clear and had grown colder. The stars were sparkling.

Wallander thought of the pyramids. The fact that they were lit by strong spotlights meant the Egyptian night sky had been all but invisible. He went back inside. His father had downed several glasses of cognac and was starting to get drunk. Wallander only had small sips since he was planning to drive back. Even though he knew where the traffic controls were going to be, it was unacceptable for him to drive while over the legal limit. Not on New Year's Eve. Sometimes it ended up happening, and each time Wallander told himself he would never let it happen again.

Linda called at half past eleven. They took turns talking to her. In the background Wallander heard the sounds of a stereo turned up very high. They had to shout at each other.

'You would have had a better time with us,' Wallander shouted.

'You don't know anything about it,' she yelled back, but it sounded friendly.

They wished each other a happy new year. His father had yet another glass of cognac. He was starting to spill as he refilled his glass. But he was in good spirits. And that was the only thing that mattered to Wallander.

They sat in front of the TV at twelve and watched Jarl Kulle ring in the new year. Wallander glanced at his father, who actually had tears in his eyes. He was not touched himself, only tired. He also thought with dread about the coming day when he would get together with Emma Lundin. It was as if he was cheating at cards with her. If he was going to make a New Year's resolution this evening it should be to tell her the truth as soon as possible, that he did not want to continue the relationship.

But he made no resolution.

He went home a little before one. But first he had helped his father into bed. He had taken off his shoes and spread a blanket over him.

'We'll go to Italy soon,' his father said.

Wallander cleaned up in the kitchen. His father's snores were already rolling through the house.

On the morning of New Year's Day, Wallander woke up with a headache and a sore throat. He said as much to Emma Lundin when she came by at twelve o'clock. Since she was a nurse and Wallander was both hot and pale she didn't doubt that it was true. She checked his throat.

'A three-day cold,' she pronounced. 'Stay home.'

She made some tea that they drank in the living room. Wallander tried several times to tell her what he was thinking. But when she left at around three they had not arrived at anything except that Wallander would be in touch with her when he felt better.

Wallander spent the rest of the day in bed. He started to read several books without being able to concentrate. Not even The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, his favourite, was able to kindle his interest. But he was reminded of the fact that one of the characters in the book had the same name – Ayrton – as one of the dead pilots who had finally been identified.

For long periods of time he lay in a kind of half-stupor. The pyramids returned again and again in his thoughts. His father climbed and fell, or else he found himself deep down in a narrow passageway where enormous masses of stone were suspended above his head.

In the evening he managed to find a packet of dried soup in one of the kitchen drawers, which he made. But he poured almost all of it out. His appetite was almost non-existent.

The following day he still felt ill. He called Martinsson and said he was planning to stay in bed. He was told that New Year's Eve had been a calm affair in Ystad but unusually troublesome in other parts of the country. At around ten o'clock he went out and bought groceries, since his fridge and pantry were almost empty. He also went by the chemist and bought some headache tablets. His throat felt better, but now his nose was running. He sneezed as he was about to pay for the painkillers. The cashier looked disapprovingly at him.

He went back to bed and fell asleep again.

Suddenly he woke up with a start. He had dreamed about the pyramids again. But it was something else that had awakened him. Something that had to do with the thought that had eluded him.

What is it that I don't see? he wondered. He lay in absolute stillness and stared out into the darkened room. It had something to do with the pyramids. And with New Year's Eve at his father's in Löderup. When he had been standing out in the garden, staring up at the sky, he had seen the stars. Since it was dark all around him. The pyramids outside Cairo had been illuminated by strong lights. They had detracted from the light of the stars.

He finally grasped the thought that had nagged at him.

The plane that had sneaked in over the Swedish coast had dropped something. Lights had been observed beyond the woods. An area had been marked out in order for the plane to find it. Spotlights had been set up in the fields and then taken down again.

It was the spotlights that had nagged at him. Who had access to strong lights of this kind?

The idea was a long shot. Nonetheless he trusted his intuition. He thought about it for a while, sitting up in bed. Then he made up his mind, got up, put on his old dressing gown and called the police station. He wanted to talk to Martinsson. It took a couple of minutes for him to get to the phone.

'Do me a favour,' Wallander said. 'Call Rolf Nyman. The guy who shared that house with Holm outside Sjöbo. Call and make it sound like a routine inquiry. Some facts that need to be filled in. Nyman told me he worked as a DJ at various discos. Ask him in passing for the names of all the places where he's worked.'

'Why is this important?'

'I don't know,' Wallander said. 'But please do me this favour.'

Martinsson promised to get back to him. Wallander had already started to doubt himself. It was too much of a long shot. But it was as Rydberg always said: no stone should be left unturned.

The hours went by. It was already afternoon. Martinsson did not call. Wallander's fever was starting to go down. But he was still plagued by sneezing attacks. And a runny nose. Martinsson called at half past four.

'No one answered the phone until just now,' he said. 'But I don't think he suspected anything. I have a list here of the four discos. Two in Malmö, one in Lund, and one out in Råå, outside Helsingborg.'

Wallander wrote down the names.

'Good,' he said.

'I hope you realise that I'm curious.'

'It's just an idea I've had. We'll talk about it tomorrow.'

Wallander finished the conversation. He got dressed without a second thought, let a couple of painkillers dissolve in a glass of water, had a cup of coffee and took out a roll of toilet paper to bring along. At a quarter past five he was in his car and on his way.

The first disco was housed in an old warehouse in the Malmö Frihamn area. Wallander was in luck. Just as he stopped the car, a man walked out of the closed disco. Wallander introduced himself and learned that the person in front of him was called Juhanen, from Haparanda, and the owner of the disco Exodus.

'How does someone from Haparanda end up in Malmö?' Wallander asked.

The man smiled. He was around forty and had bad teeth.

'He meets a girl,' he said. 'Most people who move do so for one of two reasons. To find work. Or because they meet someone.'

'I actually want to ask you about Rolf Nyman,' Wallander said.

'Anything wrong?'

'No,' Wallander answered. 'Routine questions. He works for you sometimes?'

'He's good. Perhaps a little conservative in his music selection. But skilled.'

'A disco lives on the high volume of its music and its light effects,' Wallander said, 'if I'm not completely mistaken?'

'Correct,' Juhanen said. 'I always stuff my ears, or I would have lost my hearing a long time ago.'

'Rolf Nyman never borrowed any lighting equipment, did he?' Wallander asked. 'Some of the high-intensity spotlights?'

'Why would he do that?'

'It's just a question.'

Juhanen shook his head firmly.

'I keep an eye on both the staff and the equipment,' he said. 'Nothing disappears around here. Or gets borrowed.'

'That's all I needed to know,' Wallander said. 'Also, I would rather you didn't mention this to anyone for now.'

Juhanen smiled.

'You mean, I shouldn't tell Nyman?'

'Exactly.'

'What's he done?'

'Nothing. But we have to snoop around in secret sometimes.'

Juhanen shrugged.

'I won't say anything.'

Wallander drove on. The second disco was located in the inner city. It was open. The volume hit Wallander's head like a club as he walked in the door. The disco was owned by two men, one of whom was present. Wallander convinced him to walk out onto the street. He also had a negative answer to give. Rolf Nyman had never borrowed any lights. Nor had any equipment gone missing.

Wallander got back in his car and blew his nose into some toilet paper. This is meaningless, he thought. What I am doing right now is just throwing away my efforts. The only result will be that I'll end up staying ill longer.

Then he drove to Lund. The sneezing attacks came and went in waves. He noticed that he was sweating. He was probably running a temperature again. The disco in Lund was called Lagårn – the Barn – and was in the eastern corner of the city. Wallander made several wrong turns before he found it. The sign was not illuminated and the doors were locked. Lagårn was located in a building that had earlier been a dairy, Wallander was able to read from the facade. He wondered why the disco had not been given that name instead, the Dairy. Wallander looked around. There was some small industry on either side of the disco. A little further away there was a house with a garden. Wallander walked over, opened the gate and rang the doorbell. A man around his own age opened it. Wallander heard opera music in the background.

Wallander showed him his police ID. The man let Wallander into the hall.

'If I'm not mistaken, it's Puccini,' Wallander said.

The man looked more closely at him.

'That's right,' he said. 'Tosca.'

'I'm actually here to talk about a different kind of music,' Wallander said. 'I'll keep this brief. I need to know who owns the disco next to you.'

'How on earth would I know that? I'm a genetic researcher. Not a disc jockey.'

'But you are neighbours, after all,' Wallander said.

'Why not ask your colleagues?' the man suggested. 'There are often fights outside. They would know.'

He's right, Wallander said.

The man pointed to a telephone on a table in the hall. Wallander had the number of the Lund police memorised. After being transferred several times he got the information that the disco was owned by a woman with the last name Boman. Wallander made a note of her address and telephone number.

'It's easy to find,' the officer he spoke to said. 'She lives in the building downtown that's across from the station.'

Wallander hung up.

'That is a very beautiful opera,' Wallander said. 'The music, I mean. I have unfortunately never seen it performed.'

'I never go to the opera,' the man said. 'The music is enough for me.'

Wallander thanked him and left. Then he drove around for a long time until he managed to find the station in Lund. The pedestrian streets and dead ends seemed innumerable. He parked in a no-parking zone. Then he tore off a number of sheets of toilet paper, put them in his pocket and walked across the street. He pressed the button with the name Boman. The door lock buzzed open and Wallander walked in. The apartment was on the second floor. Wallander looked around for a lift, but there was none. Even though he walked slowly, he got out of breath. A woman who was very young, hardly twenty-five, was standing in the doorway waiting for him. She had very short hair and several rings in her ears. Wallander introduced himself and showed her his ID. She didn't even glance at it but asked him to come in. Wallander looked around with astonishment. There was almost no furniture in the apartment. The walls were bare. And yet it was cosy somehow. There was nothing in the way. It only contained what was absolutely necessary.

'Why do the police in Ystad want to speak with me?' she asked. 'I have enough trouble with the cops in Lund.'

He could tell that she was not overly fond of the police. She had sat down in a chair and was wearing a very short skirt. Wallander searched around for a spot next to her face where he could direct his gaze.

'I'll get right to the point,' Wallander said. 'Rolf Nyman.'

'What about him?'

'Nothing. But does he work for you?'

'I have him as a reserve. In case one of my regular DJs gets ill.'

'My question may strike you as strange,' Wallander said. 'But I have to ask it.'

'Why aren't you looking me in the eye?' she asked abruptly.

'That is probably because your skirt is so very short,' Wallander replied, surprised at his own directness.

She burst into laughter, reached for a blanket and laid it across her legs. Wallander looked at the blanket and then her face.

'Rolf Nyman,' he repeated. 'Has he ever borrowed any lighting equipment from your establishment?'

'Never.'

Wallander caught an almost imperceptible cloud of uncertainty that crossed her face. His attention sharpened at once.

'Never?'

She bit her lip.

'The question is odd,' she said. 'But the fact is that a number of lights disappeared from the disco about a year ago. We reported it to the police as a burglary. But they never found any leads.'

'When was that? Was it after Nyman started to work for you?'

She thought back.

'Exactly one year ago. In January. After Nyman had started.'

'You never suspected that it could be an inside job?'

'No, actually.'

She got up and quickly left the room. Wallander looked at her legs. After a moment's absence she returned with a pocket calendar in her hand.

'The lights disappeared sometime between the ninth and twelfth of January. And now that I look I can see that it was actually Rolf who was working then.'

'What kind of lights?' Wallander asked.

'Six spotlights. Not really useful for a disco. They're more for theatre work. Very strong, around two thousand watts. There were also a number of cables that went missing.'

Wallander nodded slowly.

'Why are you asking about this?'

'I can't tell you that right now,' Wallander said. 'But I have to ask you one thing, and I want you to regard it as an order. That you don't mention this to Rolf Nyman.'

'Request granted as long as you have a word with your Lund colleagues and ask them to leave me alone.'

'I'll see what I can do.'

She followed him out into the hall.

'I don't think I ever asked you for your first name,' he said.

'Linda.'

'That's my daughter's name. Therefore it's a very beautiful name.'

Wallander was overcome by a sneeze. She drew back a few steps.

'I won't shake your hand,' he said. 'But you gave me the answer I had been hoping for.'

'You realise, of course, that I'm curious?'

'You'll get your answer,' he said, 'in time.'

She was just about to close the door when Wallander realised he had yet another question.

'Do you know anything about Rolf Nyman's private life?'

'No, nothing.'

'So, you don't know about his girlfriend who has a drug addiction?'

Linda Boman looked at him for a long time before she answered.

'I don't know if he has a girlfriend who takes drugs,' she said finally. 'But I do know that Rolf has serious problems with heroin. How long he'll manage to control it, I have no idea.'

Wallander went back down onto the street. The time was already ten o'clock and the night was cold.

We are through, he thought.

Rolf Nyman. Surely he's the one.

CHAPTER 12

Wallander was almost back in Ystad when he decided not to go straight home. At the second roundabout on the edge of town he turned north instead. It was ten minutes to eleven. His nose continued to run, but his curiosity drove him on. He thought that what he was doing again – how many times now, he had no idea – was at odds with the most fundamental rules governing police work. Above all, the rule that forbade placing yourself in dangerous situations alone.

If it was true, as he was now convinced, that it was Rolf Nyman who had shot Holm and the Eberhardsson sisters, Nyman definitely counted as potentially dangerous. In addition, he had tricked Wallander. And he had done so effortlessly and with great skill. On his car ride from Malmö, Wallander had been wondering what could be driving him. What was the crack that had appeared in the pattern? The answers he came up with pointed in at least two different directions. It could be a power struggle or about influence over the drug trade.

The point in the whole situation that worried him most was what Linda Boman had said about Nyman's own drug habit. That he was a heroin addict. Wallander had almost never come across drug dealers above the absolute bottom level who were also addicts. The question went around in Wallander's head. There was something that did not make sense, a piece that was missing.

Wallander turned by the road that led to the house where Nyman lived. He turned off the engine and the headlights. He took out a torch from the glove compartment. Then he carefully opened the door after first turning off the interior lights. Listened out into the darkness and then closed the car door as quietly as he could. It was about a hundred metres to the yard entrance. He shielded the torch with one hand and directed the beam in front of him. The wind was cold, he felt. Time for a warmer sweater. But his nose had almost dried up. When he reached the edge of the woods, he turned out the torch. One window in the house was lit up. Someone must be home. Now comes the dog, he thought. He walked back the way he had come, about fifty metres. Then he went into the woods and turned the torch back on. He was going to approach the house from the back. As far as he could recall, the room with the lighted window had windows both to the front and back of the house.

He moved slowly, trying to avoid stepping on twigs. He was sweating by the time he had reached the back of the house. He had also started to question himself more and more as to what he thought he was up to. In the worst-case scenario the dog would bark and give Rolf Nyman the first warning that someone was watching him. He stood still and listened. All he could hear was the sighing of the trees. In the distance a plane was coming in for landing at Sturup. Wallander waited until his breathing was back to normal before he carefully walked up to the house. He crouched down and held the torch only a few centimetres from the ground. Just before he entered the area lit up by the window, he turned off the torch and drew back into the shadows next to the house. The dog was still quiet. He listened with his ear pressed against the cold wall. No music, no voices, nothing. Then he stretched up and carefully peered in through the window.

Rolf Nyman was sitting at a table in the middle of the room. He was leaning over something that Wallander could not immediately see. Then he realised that Rolf Nyman was playing a game of patience. Slowly, he turned over card after card. Wallander asked himself what he had been expecting. A man who was measuring out tiny bags of white powder on some scales? Or someone with a rubber tube around his upper arm, injecting himself?

I'm wrong, he thought. This is a mistake from beginning to end.

But he was still convinced. The man sitting at the table playing a game of patience had recently killed three people. Brutally executed them.

Wallander was just about to pull away from the house wall when the dog at the front of the house started to bark. Rolf Nyman jumped. He looked straight at Wallander. For one second, Wallander thought he had been discovered. Then Nyman quickly stood up and walked to the front door, at which point Wallander was already on his way back into the woods. If he lets the dog loose I'm in trouble, he thought. He directed the torch at the ground that he was stumbling over. He slipped and felt a branch cut his cheek. In the background he could still hear the dog barking.

When he reached the car he dropped the torch but did not stop to pick it up. He turned the key and wondered what would have happened if he had had his old car. Now he was able to put the car in reverse without a problem and drive away. Just as Wallander got into the car he heard a tractor approach on the main road. If he could get the sound of his own engine to coincide with the sound of the other vehicle then he would be able to get away without Rolf Nyman hearing him. He stopped and quietly turned and sneaked slowly into third gear. When he got out onto the main road he saw the tail lights of the tractor. Since he was going downhill he turned off the engine and let the car coast. There was no one in his rear-view mirror. No one had come in pursuit. Wallander stroked his cheek and felt blood and then felt around for the toilet paper. In a brief moment of inattentiveness he almost drove into a ditch. At the last moment he was able to straighten the car.

It was already past midnight when he reached Mariagatan. The branch had made a deep cut in his cheek. Wallander briefly considered going to the hospital, but he settled for cleaning the wound himself and applying a large Band-Aid. Then he put on a pot of strong coffee and sat down at the kitchen table with one of his many half-full notepads in front of him.

He reviewed his triangle-shaped pyramid once more and replaced the question mark in the middle with Rolf Nyman. He knew from the start that the material was very thin. The only thing that he could produce against Nyman was the suspicion that he had stolen the lights that were later used to mark the area for the plane drop.

But what else did he have? Nothing. What relationship had Holm and Nyman shared? Where did the plane and the Eberhardsson sisters fit in? Wallander pushed the notepad away. They would need a more thoroughgoing investigation in order to move forward. He was also wondering how he could convince his colleagues that despite how it looked, he really had found the lead that they should concentrate on. How far could he go by simply citing his intuition again? Rydberg would understand, perhaps even Martinsson. But both Svedberg and Hansson would dismiss it.

It was two o'clock before he turned out the light and went to bed. His cheek ached.

In the morning, the third of January, it was cold and clear in Skåne. Wallander got up early, changed the bandage on his cheek, and arrived at the station shortly before seven. Today he was in before even Martinsson. In reception he was told about a serious traffic accident that had happened an hour earlier, just outside Ystad, involving several deaths, including a young child, which always evoked a particularly sombre mood among his colleagues. Wallander went to his office and was grateful for the fact that he no longer found himself called out to the scene of traffic accidents. He poured himself some coffee and then sat down and thought back to the events of the evening before.

But his doubts from the day before remained. Rolf Nyman could turn out to be a red herring. But there were still grounds for investigating him thoroughly. Wallander also decided that they should put his house under discreet surveillance, not least in order to find out when Nyman would be out. Technically this fell to the Sjöbo police, but Wallander had already decided simply to keep them informed. The Ystad police would insist on undertaking this work themselves.

They needed to get into the house. But there was an additional complication. Rolf Nyman was not alone. There was also a woman, whom no one had seen, and who had been sleeping when Wallander stopped by.

Wallander suddenly wondered if the woman even existed. Much of what Nyman had told him had turned out not to be true. He looked at his watch. Twenty minutes past seven. It was probably very early for a woman who ran a disco. But he still searched around for Linda Boman's telephone number in Lund. She picked up almost immediately. Wallander could hear that she was groggy.

'I'm sorry if I woke you up,' he said.

'I'm awake.'

She is like me, Wallander thought. Doesn't like to admit that she has been woken up. Even if this is a perfectly decent hour to still be sleeping.

'I have some more questions,' Wallander said. 'And unfortunately they can't wait.'

'Call me in five minutes,' she said and hung up.

Wallander waited for seven minutes. Then he dialled the number again. Her voice was less hoarse now.

'This is in regard to Rolf Nyman, of course,' he said.

'Are you still not planning to tell me why you're interested in him?'

'I can't do that right now. But I promise you'll be the first to know.'

'I feel honoured.'

'You said that he had a serious heroin addiction.'

'I remember.'

'My question is very simple: how do you know this?'

'He told me. It took me by surprise. He didn't try to hide it, and that made an impression on me.'

'He told you?'

'Yes.'

'Does this mean that you never noticed that he had a problem?'

'He always did his job.'

'He never appeared high?'

'Not that I could tell.'

'And he never appeared nervous or anxious?'

'No more so than anyone else. I can also be nervous and anxious. Especially when the police in Lund bother me and the disco.'

Wallander sat quietly for a moment and wondered if he should ask his Lund colleagues about Linda Boman. She waited.

'Let me go through this one more time,' he said. 'You never saw him when he was under the influence. He only told you that he was a heroin addict.'

'I have a hard time believing that a person would lie about something like that.'

'I agree,' Wallander said. 'But I want to assure myself that I've understood this correctly.'

'Is that why you're calling at six o'clock in the morning?'

'It's half past seven.'

'Same difference.'

'I have one more question,' Wallander continued. 'You said that you never heard about a girlfriend.'

'No, I didn't.'

'You never saw him with one?'

'No, never.'

'So if we assume that he said he had a girlfriend you couldn't verify if this were true or not?'

'Your questions are getting stranger and stranger. Why wouldn't he have a girlfriend? He isn't worse-looking than other guys.'

'Then I have no more questions for the moment,' Wallander concluded. 'And what I said yesterday is still very much in effect.'

'I won't say anything. I'm going to sleep.'

'It's possible that I'll be in touch again,' Wallander said. 'Do you know, by the way, if Rolf has any close friends?'

'No.'

The conversation came to a close.

Wallander went to Martinsson's office. Martinsson was combing his hair and looking into a small hand-held mirror.

'Eight thirty,' Wallander said. 'Can you get everyone together?'

'It sounds like something's happened.'

'Maybe,' Wallander replied.

Then they exchanged a few words about the traffic accident. Apparently a car had crossed over onto the wrong side of the road and driven head-on into a Polish tractor.

At half past eight Wallander informed his colleagues about the latest developments. About his conversation with Linda Boman and the missing lighting equipment. He did not, however, mention his nighttime visit to the remote house outside Sjöbo. As he had predicted, Rydberg found the discovery important while Hansson and Svedberg had a number of objections. Martinsson said nothing.

'I know it's thin,' Wallander said after listening to the discussion. 'But I'm still of the opinion that we should concentrate on Nyman right now, though not discontinue the investigations we're already pursuing.'

'What does the public prosecutor have to say about this?' Martinsson asked. 'Who is the public prosecutor right now, anyway?'

'Her name is Anette Brolin and she's in Stockholm,' Wallander said. 'She'll be coming down next week. But I had been planning to talk to Åkeson. Even if he no longer has formal responsibility in charge of the pre-investigation.'

They went on. Wallander argued that they needed to get into the house outside Sjöbo but without Nyman's knowledge, which was immediately greeted with new protests.

'We can't do that,' Svedberg said. 'That's illegal.'

'We have a triple homicide on our hands,' Wallander said. 'If I'm correct, Rolf Nyman is very cunning. If we're going to find something, we have to observe him without his knowledge. When does he leave the house? What does he do? How long is he gone? But above all we have to find out if there really is a girlfriend.'

'Maybe I'll dress up as a chimney sweep,' Martinsson suggested.

'He'll see through it,' Wallander said, ignoring his ironic tone of voice. 'I had been thinking we would proceed more indirectly. With the help of the country postman. Find out who handles Nyman's post. There is not one rural postman in this country who doesn't know what goes on in the houses in their district. Even if they never set foot in a house, they know who lives there.'

Svedberg was stubborn.

'Maybe that girl never receives any post?'

'It's not only about that,' Wallander replied. 'Postmen just know. That's how it is.'

Rydberg nodded in agreement. Wallander felt his support. It spurred him on. Hansson promised to contact the post office. Martinsson grudgingly agreed to organise surveillance of the house. Wallander said he would speak to Åkeson.

'Find out everything you can about Nyman,' Wallander said in closing. 'But be discreet. If he is the bear I think he is, we don't want to wake him.'

Wallander signalled to Rydberg that he wanted to speak to him in his office.

'Are you convinced?' Rydberg asked. 'That it's Nyman?'

'Yes,' Wallander said. 'But I'm aware that I could be wrong. That I could be steering this investigation in the wrong direction.'

'The theft of the lighting equipment is a strong indicator,' Rydberg said. 'For me that is the deciding factor. What made you think of it, by the way?'

'The pyramids,' Wallander answered. 'They're illuminated by spotlights. Except for one day a month, when the moon is full.'

'How do you know that?'

'My old man told me.'

Rydberg nodded thoughtfully.

'It's unlikely that drug shipments follow the lunar calendar,' Rydberg said. 'And they may not have as many clouds in Egypt as we have in Skåne.'

'The Sphinx was actually the most interesting,' Wallander said. 'Half man, half animal. Holding guard to make sure the sun returns every morning. From the same direction.'

'I think I've heard of an American security firm that uses the Sphinx as a symbol,' Rydberg said.

'That fits,' Wallander said. 'The Sphinx keeps watch. And we keep watch. Whether or not we're police officers or night guards.'

Rydberg burst into laughter.

'If you told new recruits about this kind of thing they would make fun of us.'

'I know,' Wallander said. 'But perhaps we should tell them anyway.'

Rydberg left. Wallander called Per Åkeson at home. He promised to inform Anette Brolin.

'How does it feel?' Wallander asked. 'Not to have any criminal cases pending?'

'Good,' Åkeson said. 'Better than I could have imagined.'

The investigative squad met two more times that day. Martinsson arranged the surveillance of the house. Hansson left in order to meet up with the rural postman. During this time the others continued with the task of establishing the facts of Rolf Nyman's life. He did not have a police record, something that made the process more difficult. He was born in 1957, in Tranås, and moved to Skåne with his parents in the mid-1960s. They had initially lived in Höör and later in Trelleborg. His father had been employed by a power plant as a systems operator, his mother stayed at home, and Rolf was an only child. His father had died in 1986 and the mother had then moved back to Tranås, where she had died the following year. Wallander had a growing feeling that Rolf Nyman had lived an invisible life. As if he had deliberately swept up any traces of himself. With the help of their Malmö colleagues they learned that he had never been mentioned in the circles that worked on illegal drug activity. He is too invisible, Wallander thought several times during the afternoon. All people leave traces. Everyone except Rolf Nyman.

Hansson returned, having spoken to the postal worker, whose name was Elfrida Wirmark. She had been very firm in stating that there were two people in the house, Holm and Nyman. Which meant there was only one person there these days, as Holm was in the mortuary, waiting to be buried.

They met in the conference room at seven that evening. According to the reports that Martinsson had received, Nyman had not left the house during the day other than to feed the dog. No one had come by to see him. Wallander asked if the officers who were keeping Nyman under surveillance had been able to tell if he was on his guard, but no such reports had been issued. Then they discussed the postal worker's statement for a while. In the end they were able to reach a consensus that Rolf Nyman had most likely invented his girlfriend.

Wallander made the final case review of the day.

'There are no indications that he is a heroin addict,' he started. 'That is his first lie. The second is that he has a girlfriend – he's alone in that house. If we want to get in there we have two choices. Either we wait until he leaves, which he has to do sooner or later, if for no other reason than to buy groceries. If he doesn't have extensive provisions. But why would he have something like that? Or else we find a way to lure him out of the house.'

They decided to wait him out, at least for a few days. If nothing happened, they would revisit the situation.

They waited on the fourth, and they waited on the fifth. Nyman left the house twice in order to feed the dog. There were no indications that he had grown more watchful than before. During that time they continued to work on mapping his life. It was as if he had lived in a strange vacuum. Via the tax authorities they could see that he had a low annual income from his work as a DJ. He never claimed any exemptions, which seemed unusual. He applied for a passport in 1986. He received his driver's licence in 1976. There did not appear to be any friends.

On the morning of the fifth of January, Wallander sat down with Rydberg and closed the door. Rydberg said that they should probably continue for a couple more days, but Wallander presented an idea that would make it possible to lure Nyman out of the house. They decided to present this idea to the others that same afternoon. Wallander called Linda Boman in Lund. The following evening the disco was going to be open, and a Danish DJ was scheduled that night. Wallander explained his idea. Linda Boman asked who would cover the extra costs since the DJ from Copenhagen had a contract with Linda's disco. Wallander told her she could send the bill to the Ystad police if need be. He promised to get back to her within a couple of hours.

At four o'clock in the afternoon on the fifth of January, a bitingly cold wind had started to blow in over Skåne. A snow front was passing from the east and could possibly nudge the southern tip of Skåne. At the same time Wallander gathered his team in the conference room. As succinctly as possible, he explained the idea that he had discussed earlier with Rydberg.

'We have to smoke out Rolf Nyman,' he said. 'Apparently he doesn't go anywhere unnecessarily. At the same time it seems that he doesn't suspect anything.'

'Maybe the whole thing is too far-fetched,' Hansson interjected. 'Maybe because he has nothing to do with the murders?'

'That possibility does exist,' Wallander admitted. 'But right now we're assuming the opposite. And that means we need to get into the house without him finding out. The first thing that we have to do is find a way to get him out, but not for a reason that will arouse any suspicion.'

Then he laid out the plan. Linda Boman was going to call Nyman and tell him that the scheduled DJ had cancelled. Could Rolf cover for him? If he said yes, the house would be empty all evening. They could post someone at the disco who could keep in contact with the people inside the house. When Rolf Nyman returned to Sjöbo in the early morning, the house would be empty. No one except the dog would know they had been there.

'What happens if he calls his DJ colleague in Copenhagen?' Svedberg asked.

'We've thought of that. Linda Boman is going to tell the Dane not to answer the phone. The police will cover his regular fee. But we're happy to take that on.'

Wallander had expected more objections. But none came. He realised it was because of a growing impatience among the team. They weren't getting anywhere. They had to do something.

Wallander looked around the table. No one had anything more to add.

'Then we're agreed? The plan is to do this soon, tomorrow night.'

Wallander reached for the telephone on the table and called Linda Boman.

'Let's do it,' he said when she answered. 'Call me in an hour.'

Wallander hung up, checked his watch and turned to Martinsson.

'Who's on surveillance right now?'

'Näslund and Peters.'

'Call them on the radio and tell them to be particularly observant at twenty past five. That's when Linda Boman is going to call Nyman.'

'What do you think might happen?'

'I don't know. I just want increased attentiveness.'

Then they talked through the programme. Linda Boman was going to ask Nyman to come into Lund early, at eight, in order to look over a number of new records. That meant he should leave Sjöbo around seven. The disco would then stay open until three in the morning. As soon as the person posted at the disco confirmed that Nyman had entered, the others would go into the house. Wallander had asked Rydberg to come along. But Rydberg had in turn suggested Martinsson. So Martinsson it was.

'Martinsson and I will go into the house. Svedberg comes along and keeps watch. Hansson takes the disco in Lund. The rest remain here at the station. In case something happens.'

'What are we looking for?' Martinsson asked.

Wallander was about to ask when Rydberg raised his hand.

'We don't know,' he said. 'We're trying to find what we don't know that we're looking for. But by extension there will be a yes or a no. Was Nyman the one who killed Holm and the two sisters?'

'Drugs,' Martinsson said. 'Is that it?'

'Weapons, money, anything. Spools of thread bought in the Eberhardsson sisters' shop. Copies of plane tickets. We don't know.'

They sat around the table for a little longer. Martinsson left in order to get in touch with Näslund and Peters. He returned, nodded, and sat down.

At twenty minutes past five, Wallander was sitting with the clock in his hand.

Then he dialled Linda Boman's number. The line was busy.

They waited. Nine minutes later the phone rang. Wallander picked up the receiver. He listened and then hung up.

'Nyman has agreed,' he said. 'Now we're in business. Let's see if this leads us in the right or wrong direction.'

The meeting broke up. Wallander held Martinsson back.

'It's best for us to be armed,' he said.

Martinsson looked surprised.

'I thought Nyman was going to be in Lund?'

'Just in case,' Wallander replied. 'That's all.'

The snowstorm never reached Skåne. The next day, the sixth of January, the sky was covered in clouds. A faint wind was blowing, there was rain in the air, and it was four degrees above zero. Wallander stood indecisively in front of his sweaters for a long time before he was able to select one. They met at six o'clock in the conference room. By then Hansson had already left for Lund. Svedberg was stationed behind a clump of trees where he had a view of the front of Nyman's house. Rydberg was doing crossword puzzles in the break room. Wallander had reluctantly taken out his gun and strapped on the holster that never quite fit properly. Martinsson had his weapon in his coat pocket.

At nine minutes past seven they received a dispatch from Svedberg. The bird has flown. Wallander had not wanted to take any unnecessary risks. Police dispatches were always being listened to. Therefore they were referring to Rolf Nyman as the bird. Nothing else.

They waited. Six minutes to eight came Hansson's dispatch. The bird has landed. Rolf Nyman had driven slowly.

Martinsson and Wallander stood up. Rydberg looked up from his crossword puzzle and nodded.

They arrived at the house at half past eight. Svedberg greeted them. The dog barked. But the house was dark.

'I've checked the lock,' Svedberg said. 'A simple pass key is enough.'

Wallander and Svedberg held up their torches while Martinsson picked the lock. Svedberg left to resume his post as lookout.

They went in. Wallander turned on all the lights, which took Martinsson by surprise.

'Nyman is playing records at a disco in Lund,' Wallander said. 'Let's get started.'

They proceeded slowly and methodically through the house. They found no traces of a woman anywhere. Apart from the bed that Holm had used there was only one other single bed.

'We should have brought a drug-detection dog,' Martinsson said.

'I think it's unlikely he keeps any supplies at home,' Wallander said.

They searched the house for three hours. Shortly before midnight Martinsson contacted Hansson on the police dispatch radio.

'There are a lot of people here,' Hansson said. 'And the music is thundering like hell. I'm staying outside. But it's cold.'

They continued to search. Wallander had started to worry. No drugs, no weapons. Nothing that indicated any involvement on Nyman's part. Martinsson had searched the basement and the outlying building thoroughly. No lighting equipment. Nothing. Just the dog that was barking like crazy. Several times Wallander had felt an urge to shoot it. But he loved dogs, deep down. Even dogs that barked.

At half past one Martinsson got in touch with Hansson again. Still nothing.

'What did he say?' Wallander asked.

'That a lot of people were crowded around outside.'

At two o'clock they could get no further. Wallander had started to realise that he had made a mistake. There was no indication that Rolf Nyman was anything other than a DJ. The lie about a girlfriend could hardly be considered criminal. And they had also not found any indications that Nyman was a drug addict.

'I think we can wrap this up,' Martinsson said. 'We haven't found anything.'

Wallander nodded.

'I'm staying behind for a while,' Wallander answered. 'But you and Svedberg can go home. Leave me the radio.'

Martinsson put the radio, which was turned on, on the table.

'Time to call it quits,' Wallander said. 'Hansson will have to wait until I call him, but everyone at the station can go home.'

'What do you think you'll find when you're alone?'

Wallander caught the sarcastic tone in Martinsson's voice.

'Nothing,' he said. 'Perhaps I just need more time to realise I've led us in the wrong direction.'

'We'll start over tomorrow,' Martinsson said. 'That's life.'

Martinsson left. Wallander sat down and looked around the room. The dog was barking. Wallander cursed under his breath. He was convinced he was right. It was Rolf Nyman who had killed the two sisters and Holm. But he found no evidence. He found nothing. He remained seated for a while longer. Then he started to walk around and turn out the lamps.

Then the dog stopped barking.

Wallander stopped. Listened. The dog was quiet. Immediately he sensed danger. Where it came from, he didn't know. The disco was supposed to be open until three in the morning. Hansson had not contacted him.

Wallander did not know what made him react. But suddenly he realised he was standing in a window that was clearly illuminated from the inside. He threw himself to the side. At that moment, the windowpane shattered. Wallander lay motionless on the floor. Someone had fired a shot. Confused thoughts went through his head. It could not be Nyman. Hansson would have told him. Wallander pressed himself against the floor while he tried to pull out his own gun. He tried to crawl deeper into the shadows but saw that he was about to enter the light again. The person who had fired the shot may have made it up to the window by now. Overhead there was a ceiling lamp that was lighting up the room. He got out his weapon and aimed it at the strong bulb. When he pressed the trigger his hand was shaking so hard that he missed. He aimed again, holding it with two hands now. The shot shattered the bulb. The room became darker. He sat still, listening. His heart was pounding in his chest. What he needed most of all was the police dispatch radio. But it was on the table several metres away. And the table was in a pool of light.

The dog was still silent. He listened. Suddenly he thought he heard someone in the hall. Almost inaudible steps. He aimed the weapon at the doorway. His hands shook. But no one came in. How long he waited, he didn't know. The whole time he was feverishly trying to understand what was happening. Then he noticed that the table was on a rug. Carefully, without putting his gun down, he started to pull on the rug. The table was heavy. But it was moving. He saw how it was moving closer, extremely gently. But just when he had the radio within reach, a second shot rang out. It hit the radio, which shattered. Wallander curled up into the corner. The shot had come from the front of the house. Wallander knew that he would no longer be able to shield himself if the shooter walked round to the back of the house. I have to get out, he thought. If I stay here I'm dead. He tried desperately to come up with a plan. He had no chance of getting at the outside lights. The person out there would shoot him first. So far, the person shooting had shown himself to have a steady hand.

Wallander knew he had only one choice. A thought that was more repellent to him than anything. But he had no choice. He took several deep breaths. Then he got to his feet, rushed out into the hall, kicked open the door, threw himself to the side, and aimed three shots into the dog run. A howl signalled that he had hit the mark. Every second that went by, Wallander expected to die. But the dog's howls gave him time to slip into the shadows. Then he spotted Rolf Nyman. He was standing in the middle of the yard, momentarily bewildered by the shooting of the dog. Then he saw Wallander.

Wallander closed his eyes and fired two shots. When he opened his eyes again he saw that Rolf Nyman had fallen to the ground. Slowly Wallander walked up to him.

He was alive. A bullet had caught him in the side. Wallander took the weapon out of his hand, and then went up to the dog run. The dog was dead.

Wallander heard sirens approaching in the distance.

His whole body shaking, he sat down on the front steps and waited.

At that moment he noticed that it had started to rain.

EPILOGUE

At a quarter past four, Wallander was sitting in the station break room drinking a cup of coffee. His hands were still shaking. After the first chaotic hour when no one had really been able to explain what had happened, the picture had finally cleared up. When Martinsson and Svedberg had left Nyman's home and contacted Hansson on the police dispatch, the police in Lund had stormed Linda Boman's disco, since they suspected that the number of people inside exceeded the legal limit. In the general chaos that had ensued Hansson had misunderstood what Martinsson had said. He had believed that everyone had left Nyman's house. Then he had also realised too late that Nyman had sneaked out a back door that he had missed due to an oversight when he had inspected the disco. He had asked an officer in charge where the employees were and had been told that they had been brought down to the Lund station for questioning. He had assumed that this group included Rolf Nyman. Then he had decided there was no longer any reason for him to stay in Lund and had driven back to Ystad with the belief that Nyman's house had been empty for more than an hour.

During that time Wallander had lain on the floor, shot at the ceiling light, rushed out into the yard and killed a dog – and injured Rolf Nyman with a bullet to his side.

Wallander had thought several times since returning to Ystad that he should be furious. But he could decide for himself who he should blame. It had been an unfortunate series of misunderstandings that could have ended very badly, with not only a dog left dead. That had not happened. But it had been a close shave.

There is a time to live, and a time to die, Wallander thought. This was a mantra he had carried with him ever since the time he had been stabbed in Malmö many years ago. Now it had been a close call again.

Rydberg came into the break room.

'Rolf Nyman is going to be fine,' he said. 'You hit him in a good spot. He will suffer no permanent damage. The doctors seemed to think we could talk to him as early as tomorrow.'

'I could easily have missed,' Wallander said. 'Or hit him right between the eyes. I'm a terrible shot.'

'Most policemen are,' Rydberg said.

Wallander slurped more of the hot coffee.

'I talked to Nyberg,' Rydberg went on. 'He said that the weapon looked like a probable match with the one that was used to kill the Eberhardsson sisters and Holm. They've also found Holm's car. It was parked on a street in Sjöbo. Nyman probably drove it there.'

'So something has been solved,' Wallander said. 'But we still have no idea what's really behind all this.'

Rydberg had no answer to that.

It would take several weeks for the whole picture to emerge. But when Nyman began to speak, the police were able to uncover a skilfully constructed organisation that managed the importation of large quantities of heavy drugs into Sweden. The Eberhardsson sisters had been Nyman's ingenious camouflage. They organised the supply links in Spain, where the drugs – which had their origin in distant producers in both Central America and Asia – arrived on fishing boats. Holm had been Nyman's henchman. But then, at a moment that they were unable to pinpoint, Holm and the Eberhardsson sisters had joined forces in their greed and decided to oust Nyman. When he had realised what was happening, he had struck back. The plane crash had occurred during this time. Drugs were being transported from Marbella to northern Germany. The night-time air trips to Sweden had taken off from a private airstrip outside Kiel. The plane had always returned there, except this last time when it had gone down. The commission in charge of investigating the accident was never able to determine the actual cause. But there were many indications that the plane was in such poor condition that several factors had worked together.

Wallander himself led the first questioning of Nyman. But when two other serious crimes occurred he had to hand the case over. Nonetheless he had understood from the start that Rolf Nyman was not the head of the pyramid that he had drawn. There were others above him – financiers, invisible men – who behind the facade of blameless citizens saw to it that the flood of drugs into Sweden did not dry up.

Many evenings Wallander thought about the pyramids. To the top that his father had been trying to reach. Wallander thought that this climb could stand as a symbol for his own work. He never reached the summit. There were always some who sat so high and far above everyone else that they could never be reached.

But this morning, the seventh of January 1990, Wallander was simply tired.

At half past five he could no longer take it. Without saying a word to anyone other than Rydberg he went home to the apartment on Mariagatan. He showered and crawled into bed without being able to fall asleep. Only when he managed to find a sleeping pill in an old bottle in the bathroom cabinet was he finally able to sleep, and he did not wake up until two o'clock in the afternoon.

He spent the rest of the day at the station and the hospital. Björk turned up and congratulated Wallander on his efforts. Wallander did not reply. He thought that most of what he had done had been wrong. It had been their luck, not their skill, that had finally felled Rolf Nyman.

Then he had had his first conversation with Nyman at the hospital. The man had been pale but collected. Wallander had expected Nyman to refuse to say a word. But he had answered many of Wallander's questions.

'The Eberhardsson sisters?' Wallander asked before he concluded the session. Rolf Nyman smiled.

'Two greedy old ladies,' he said. 'Who were tempted by the fact that someone rode into their hopeless lives and brought the scent of adventure.'

'That sounds implausible,' Wallander said. 'It's too big a step.'

'Anna Eberhardsson had lived a fairly wild life when she was younger. Emilia had always had to keep an eye on her. Perhaps deep down she had wanted to live the same life. What do we know about people? Other than that they have their weaknesses. And those are the things you need to know.'

'How did you meet them?'

The answer came as a surprise.

'I bought a zip. It was a time in my life when I mended my own clothes. I saw those old ladies and had a crazy idea. That they could be useful. As a cover.'

'And then?'

'I started dropping by. Bought some thread. Talked about my travels around the world. How easy it was to make money. And that life is short. But that nothing was ever too late. I saw that they listened.'

'And then?'

Rolf Nyman shrugged.

'One day I made them an offer. How does that go again? An offer they couldn't refuse.'

Wallander wanted to ask more. But suddenly Nyman did not want to talk about it any more.

Wallander changed the subject.

'And Holm?'

'He was also greedy. And weak. Too stupid to realise that he wouldn't be able to trick me.'

'How did you catch onto their plans?'

Rolf Nyman shook his head.

'I won't give you that answer,' he said.

Wallander walked from the hospital to the station. A press conference was going on that to his relief he had managed to get out of. When he got to his office there was a package on the floor. Someone had written a note and said that the package had ended up sitting around in reception by mistake. Wallander saw that it had come from Sofia in Bulgaria. Immediately he knew what it was. Several months earlier he had participated in an international police conference in Copenhagen. While there he had become good friends with a Bulgarian detective who shared his interest in opera. Wallander opened it. It contained a recording of La Traviata with Maria Callas.

Wallander wrote up a report on his first conversation with Rolf Nyman. Then he went home. Cooked some food, slept a few hours. Thought of calling Linda but didn't.

In the evening he listened to the record from Bulgaria. Thought that what he needed most right now was a couple of days off.

He only went to bed and fell asleep when it was close to two.

The incoming call was registered by the Ystad police dispatcher at 5.13 a.m., the eighth of January. It was received by an exhausted policeman who had been on duty almost without a break since New Year's Eve. He had listened to the stammering voice on the phone and at first thought that it was a confused elderly person. But something nonetheless alerted his attention. He started to ask questions. When the conversation was over he only had to reflect for a moment before he lifted the receiver again and dialled a number he knew by heart.

When the telephone signals jerked Wallander from his slumber he had been deeply enmeshed in an erotic dream.

He checked his watch as he reached his hand out for the telephone receiver. A car accident, he thought quickly. An icy road, or someone driving too fast. People dead. Or clashes with refugees who arrived on the morning ferry from Poland.

He sat up in bed and pressed the receiver against his cheek, where his stubble stung.

'Wallander!' he barked.

'I didn't wake you, did I?'

'I was awake.'

Why do I lie? he wondered. Why don't I tell the truth? That most of all I would like to return to my sleep and catch a fleeting dream in the form of a naked woman.

'I thought I should call you. An old farmer called in, said his name was Nyström and that he lived in Lenarp. He claimed that a neigh-bouring woman was tied up on the floor and that someone was dead.'

Wallander swiftly located Lenarp in his mind. Not so far from Marsvinsholm, in an unusually hilly area for Skåne.

'It sounds serious. I thought it was best to call you directly.'

'Who is available right now?'

'Peters and Norén are out looking for someone who broke a window at the Continental. Should I call them in?'

'Tell them to drive to the intersection of Kadesjö and Katslösa and wait until I get there. Give them the address. When did you receive this call?'

'A couple of minutes ago.'

'Are you sure it's not some drunk?'

'It didn't sound like it.'

Wallander got out of bed and got dressed. The rest that he needed so much was not to be granted him.

He drove out of the city, passing the newly built furniture warehouse by the main road into town, and sensed the dark sea beyond it. The sky was covered in clouds.

The snowstorms are coming, he thought.

Sooner or later they will be on top of us.

Then he tried to concentrate on whatever sight it was that he would encounter.

The patrol car was waiting for him by the road to Kadesjö.

It was still dark.