The White Lioness

Chapter Three

Kurt Wallander had a recurring daydream he suspected he shared with a lot of other people: that he’d pulled off the ultimate bank robbery and astounded the world. He wondered about how much money was generally kept at a normal-sized bank. Less than you might think? But more than enough? He didn’t know precisely how he’d go about it, yet the fantasy kept recurring.

He grinned to himself at the thought. But the grin quickly faded with his guilty conscience.

He was convinced they would never find Louise Akerblom alive. He had no evidence; there was no crime scene, no victim. And yet he knew.

He couldn’t get the photo of the two girls out of his mind.

How do you explain what it’s not possible to explain, he wondered. How will Robert Akerblom be able to go on praying to his God in the future, the God who’s left him and two kids so cruelly in the lurch?

Kurt Wallander wandered around the Savings Bank at Skurup, waiting for the assistant manager who had helped Louise Akerblom with the property deal the previous Friday to come back from the dentist. When Wallander had arrived at the bank a quarter of an hour earlier, he had talked with the manager, Gustav Hallden, whom he had met once before. He also asked Hallden to keep any information confidential.

“After all, we’re not sure if anything serious has happened,” Wallander explained.

“I get it,” said Hallden. “You just think something may have happened.”

Wallander nodded. That’s exactly how it was. How could you possibly be sure just where the boundary was between thinking and knowing?

His train of thought was interrupted by somebody addressing him.

“I believe you wanted to talk to me,” said a man with a fuzzy voice behind him.

Wallander turned round.

“Are you Moberg, the assistant manager?”

The man nodded. He was young, surprisingly young according to Wallander’s idea of how old an assistant manager should be. But there was something else that immediately attracted his attention.

One of the man’s cheeks was noticeably swollen.

“I still have some trouble speaking,” sputtered Moberg.

Wallander couldn’t understand what the man was saying.

“We’d better wait,” Moberg said. “Shouldn’t we wait until the injection has worn off?”

“Let’s try anyway,” said Wallander. “I’m short on time, I’m afraid. If it doesn’t hurt too much when you talk.”

Moberg shook his head and led the way into a small conference room at the back.

“This is exactly where we were,” explained the assistant manager. “You’re sitting in Louise Akerblom’s chair. Hallden said you wanted to talk about her. Has she disappeared?”

“She’s been reported missing,” said Wallander. “I expect she’s just visiting relatives and forgot to tell them at home.”

He could see from Moberg’s swollen face that he regarded Wallander’s reservations with great skepticism. Fair enough, thought Wallander. If you’re missing, you’re missing. You can’t be half-way missing.

“What was it you want to know?” asked the assistant manager, pouring a glass of water from the carafe on the table and gulping it down.

“What happened last Friday afternoon,” said Wallander. “In detail. Exact time, what she said, what she did. I also want the name of the parties buying and selling the house, in case I need to contact them later. Had you met Louise Akerblom before?”

“I met her several times,” answered Moberg. “We were involved in four property deals together.”

“Tell me about last Friday.”

The assistant manager took out his diary from the inside pocket of his jacket.

“The meeting had been set for a quarter after two,” he said. “Louise Akerblom turned up a couple of minutes early. We exchanged a few words about the weather.”

“Did she seem tense or worried?” asked Wallander.

Moberg thought for a moment before answering.

“No,” he said. “On the contrary, she seemed happy. Before, I always thought she was uptight, but not on Friday.”

Wallander nodded, encouraging him to go on.

“The clients arrived, a young couple called Nilson. And the seller, representing the estate of somebody who’d died in Sovde. We sat down here and went through the whole procedure. There was nothing unusual. All the documents were in order. The deeds, the mortgage bond, the loan forms, the draft. It didn’t take long. Then we broke up. I expect we all wished one another a pleasant weekend, but I can’t remember that.”

“Was Louise Akerblom in a hurry?” asked Wallander.

The assistant manager thought it over again.

“Could be,” he said. “Maybe she was. I’m not sure. But there is something I’m quite certain about.”

“What?”

“She didn’t go straight to her car.”

Moberg pointed at the window, which looked out over a little parking lot.

“Those lots are for the bank’s customers,” the assistant manager went on. “I saw her park there when she arrived. It was a quarter of an hour after she’d left the bank before she drove off. I was still in here, on the telephone. That’s how I could see everything. I think she had a bag in her hand when she got to the car. As well as her briefcase.”

“A bag?” asked Wallander. “What did it look like?”

Moberg shrugged his shoulders. Wallander could see the injection was wearing off.

“What does a bag look like?” said the assistant manager. “I think it was a paper bag. Not plastic.”

“And then she drove off?”

“Before that she made a call from her car phone.”

To her husband, thought Wallander. Everything fits in so far.

“It was just after three,” Moberg went on. “I had another meeting at three-thirty, and needed to prepare myself. My own call dragged on a bit.”

“Could you see when she drove off?”

“I’d already gone back to my office by then.”

“So the last you saw of her was when she was using the car phone.”

Moberg nodded.

“What make of car was it?”

“I’m not so up on cars,” said the assistant manager. “But it was black. Dark blue, perhaps.”

Wallander shut his notebook.

“If you think of anything else, let me know right away,” he said. “Any little thing could be important.”

Wallander left the bank after noting down the name and telephone numbers of both the seller and the buyer. He used the front entrance, and paused in the square.

A paper bag, he thought to himself. That sounds like a bakery. He remembered there was a bakery on the street running parallel to the railroad. He crossed over the square then turned off to the left.

The girl behind the counter had been working all day Friday, but she didn’t recognize Louise Akerblom from the photo Wallander showed her.

“There is another bakery,” said the girl.

“Whereabouts?”

The girl explained, and Wallander could see it was just as close to the bank as the one where he was now. He thanked her, and left. He made his way to the bakery on the other side of the square. An elderly lady asked him what he wanted as he entered the shop. Wallander showed her the photograph and explained who he was.

“I wonder if you recognize her?” he asked. “She might have been here shopping shortly after three o’clock last Friday.”

The woman went to fetch her eyeglasses in order to study the photo more carefully.

“Has something happened?” she asked, curious to know. “Who is she?”

“Just tell me if you recognize her,” said Wallander gently.

The woman nodded.

“I remember her,” she said. “I think she bought some pastries. Yes, I remember quite clearly. Napoleons. And a loaf of bread.”

Wallander thought for a moment.

“How many pastries?” he asked.

“Four. I remember I was going to put them in a carton, but she said a bag would be OK. She seemed to be in a hurry.”

Wallander nodded.

“Did you see where she went after she left?”

“No. There were other customers waiting to be served.”

“Thank you,” said Wallander. “You’ve been a great help.”

“What happened?” the woman asked.

“Nothing,” said Wallander. “Just routine.”

He left the store and walked back to the rear of the bank where Louise Akerblom had parked her car.

Thus far but no further, he thought. This is where we lose track. She sets out from here to see a house, but we still don’t know where it is. After she’d left a message on the answering machine. She’s in a good mood, she has pastries in a paper bag, and she’s due home at five o’clock.

He looked at his watch. Three minutes to three. Exactly three days since Louise Akerblom was standing on this very spot.

Wallander walked to his car, which was parked in front of the bank, put in a music cassette, one of the few he had left after the break-in, and tried to summarize where he’d gotten so far. Placido Domingo’s voice filled the car as he thought about the four pastries, one for each member of the Akerblom family. Then he wondered if they said grace before eating pastries as well. He wondered what it felt like to believe in a god.

An idea occurred to him at the same time. He had time for one more interview before they were gathering at the station to talk things through.

What had Robert Akerblom said?

Pastor Tureson?

Wallander started the engine and drove off towards Ystad. When he came out onto the E14, he was only just within the speed limit. He called Ebba at the station switchboard, asked her to get hold of Pastor Tureson and tell him Wallander wanted to speak to him right away. Just before he got to Ystad, Ebba called him back. Pastor Tureson was in the Methodist chapel and would be pleased to see him.

“It’ll do you no harm to go to church now and again,” said Ebba.

Wallander thought about the nights he’d spent with Baiba Liepa in a church in Riga the previous year. But he said nothing. Even if he wanted to, he had no time to think about her just now.

Pastor Tureson was an elderly man, tall and well built, with a mop of white hair. Wallander could feel the strength in his grip when they shook hands.

The inside of the chapel was simple. Wallander did not feel the oppression that often affected him when he went into a church. They sat down on wooden chairs by the altar.

“I called Robert a couple of hours ago,” said Pastor Tureson. “Poor man, he was beside himself. Have you found her yet?”

“No,” said Wallander.

“I don’t understand what can have happened. Louise wasn’t the type to get herself into dangerous situations.”

“Sometimes you can’t avoid it,” said Wallander.

“What do you mean by that?”

“There are two kinds of dangerous situations. One is the kind you get yourself into. The other just sucks you in. That’s not quite the same thing.”

Pastor Tureson threw up his hands in acknowledgment. He seemed genuinely worried, and his sympathy with the husband and their children appeared to be real.

“Tell me about her,” said Wallander. “What was she like? Had you known her long? What sort of a family were the Akerbloms?”

Pastor Tureson stared at Wallander, a serious expression on his face.

“You ask questions as though it were all over,” he said.

“It’s just a bad habit of mine,” said Wallander apologetically. “Of course I mean you should tell me what she is like.”

“I’ve been pastor in this parish for five years,” he began. “As you can probably hear, I’m originally from Goteborg. The Akerbloms have been members of my congregation the whole time I’ve been here. They both come from Methodist families, and they met through the chapel. Now they’re bringing up their daughters in the true religion. Robert and Louise are good people. Hard-working, thrifty, generous. It’s hard to describe them any other way. In fact, it’s hard not to talk about them as a couple. Members of the congregation are shattered by her disappearance. I could feel that at our prayer meeting yesterday.”

The perfect family. Not a single crack in the facade, thought Wallander. I could talk to a thousand different people, and they would all say the same thing. Louise Akerblom doesn’t have a single weakness. Not one. The only odd thing about her is that she has disappeared.

Something doesn’t add up. Nothing adds up.

“Something on your mind, Inspector?” asked Pastor Tureson.

“I was thinking about weakness,” said Wallander. “Isn’t that one of the basic features of all religions? That God will help us to overcome our weaknesses?”

“Absolutely.”

“But it seems to me like Louise Akerblom didn’t have any weaknesses. The picture I’m getting of her is so perfect, I start getting suspicious. Do such utterly good people really exist?”

“That’s the kind of person Louise is,” said Pastor Tureson.

“You mean she’s almost angelic?”

“Not quite,” said Pastor Tureson. “I remember one time when she was making coffee for a social evening the chapel had organized. She burnt herself. I happened to hear that she actually swore.”

Wallander tried going back to the beginning and starting again.

“There’s no chance she and her husband were fighting?” he asked.

“None at all,” replied Pastor Tureson.

“No other man?”

“Of course not. I hope that isn’t a question you’ll put to Robert.”

“Could she have felt some kind of religious doubt?”

“I regard that as being out of the question. I’d have known about it.”

“Was there any reason why she might have committed suicide?”

“No.”

“Could she have gone out of her mind?”

“Why ever should she? She’s a perfectly stable character.”

“Most people have their secrets,” said Wallander after a moment’s silence. “Can you imagine that Louise Akerblom might have had some secret she couldn’t share with anybody, not even her husband?”

Pastor Tureson shook his head.

“Of course everybody has secrets,” he said. “Often very murky secrets. All the same, I’m convinced Louise didn’t have any that could lead her to abandon her family and cause all this worry.”

Wallander had no more questions.

It doesn’t add up, he thought again. There’s something in this picture of perfection that simply doesn’t add up.

He got to his feet and thanked Pastor Tureson.

“I’ll be talking with other members of your congregation,” he said. “If she doesn’t turn up, that is.”

“She’ll have to turn up,” said Pastor Tureson. “There’s no other possibility.”

It was five minutes past four when Wallander left the Methodist chapel. It had started raining, and he shivered in the wind. He sat in the car for a while, feeling tired. It was as if he couldn’t cope with the thought that two little girls had lost their mother.

At half past four they were all gathered in Bjork’s office at the police station. Martinson was slumped back on the sofa; Svedberg leaned against a wall. As usual he was scratching his bald head, as if searching absentmindedly for the hair he had lost. Wallander sat on a wooden chair. Bjork was leaning over his desk, engrossed in a telephone conversation. At last he put down the receiver and told Ebba they were not to be disturbed for the next half-hour. Unless it was Robert Akerblom.

“Where are we?” asked Bjork. “Where shall we start?”

“We’ve gotten nowhere,” replied Wallander.

“I’ve filled in Svedberg and Martinson,” Bjork went on. “We’ve put out a search for her car. All the usual routines for missing person cases we consider to be serious.”

“Not consider to be serious,” said Wallander. “They are serious. If there had been an accident, we’d have heard about it by now. But we haven’t. That means we’re dealing with a crime. I’m convinced she’s dead.”

Martinson started to ask a question, but Wallander interrupted and summarized what he’d been doing that afternoon. He had to get his colleagues to see what he had realized. A person like Louise Akerblom wouldn’t voluntarily abandon her family.

Somebody or something must have forced her to fail to turn up at home at five o’clock, as she had promised on the telephone.

“It sounds nasty, no doubt about that,” said Bjork when Wallander had finished.

“Real estate agent, free church member, family,” said Martinson. “Maybe it all got too much for her? She buys the pastries, drives off home. Then all of a sudden she turns around and heads for Copenhagen instead.”

“We have to find the car,” said Svedberg. “Without that, we won’t get anywhere.”

“First of all we have to find the house she was going to see,” Wallander pointed out. “Hasn’t Robert Akerblom called yet?”

No one had heard from him.

“If she really did go to see that house somewhere near Krageholm, we ought to be able to follow her tracks until we find her, or until the tracks come to an end.”

“Peters and Noren have been combing the side roads around Krageholm,” said Bjork. “No Toyota Corolla. They did find a stolen truck, though.”

Wallander took the cassette from the answering machine out of his pocket. With some considerable difficulty they eventually managed to find a machine to play it. They all stood around the desk, listening to Louise Akerblom’s voice.

“We have to analyze the tape,” said Wallander. “I can’t imagine what the technical guys could possibly find. But still.”

“One thing is clear,” said Martinson. “When she left her message she wasn’t threatened or pressured, scared or worried, desperate or unhappy.”

“Which means something must have happened,” said Wallander. “Between three and five. Somewhere in the area of Skurup, Krageholm, Ystad. Just over three days ago.”

“How was she dressed?” asked Bjork.

Wallander suddenly realized he’d forgotten to ask her husband this most basic question. He admitted as much.

“I still think there could be a natural explanation,” said Martinson thoughtfully. “It’s like you say yourself, Kurt. She’s not the type to disappear of her own free will. But in spite of everything, assault and murder are still pretty rare. I think we should go about it in the usual way. Let’s not get hysterical.”

“I’m not hysterical,” said Wallander, realizing he was getting mad. “I know what I think, though, and I think certain conclusions speak for themselves.”

Bjork was just about to intervene when the telephone rang.

“I said we shouldn’t be disturbed,” said Bjork.

Wallander quickly put his hand over the receiver.

“It could be Robert Akerblom,” he said. “Maybe it’s best if I talk to him?”

He picked up the phone and gave his name.

“Robert Akerblom here. Have you found Louise?”

“No,” said Wallander. “Not yet.”

“The widow just called,” said Robert Akerblom. “I have a map. I’m going there myself to take a look.”

Wallander thought for a moment.

“I’ll take you there,” he said. “That’ll probably be best. I’ll come right away. Can you make a few copies of the map? Five will do.”

“OK,” said Robert Akerblom.

Wallander thought how truly religious people were usually law-abiding and compliant with authority. Yet nobody could have stopped Robert Akerblom from going out on his own to look for his wife.

Wallander slammed down the receiver.

“We have a map now,” he said. “We’ll take two cars to start with. Robert Akerblom wants to come along. He can ride with me.”

“Shouldn’t we take a few patrol cars?” wondered Martinson.

“We’d have to drive as a column if we did that,” said Wallander. “Let’s take a look at the map first, and draw up a plan. Then we can send out everything we’ve got.”

“Call me if anything happens,” said Bjork. “Here or at home.”

Wallander almost ran down the corridor. He was in a hurry. He had to know if the track just petered out. Or if Louise Akerblom was out there somewhere.

They took the map Robert Akerblom had sketched in accordance with what he’d heard and spread it out over the hood of Wallander’s car. Svedberg had dried it first with his handkerchief, as it had rained earlier that afternoon.

“E14,” said Svedberg, “As far as the exit for Katslosa and Lake Kade. Take a left to Knickarp, then a right, then left again, and look for a dirt road.”

“Wait a minute,” said Wallander. “If you’d been in Skurup, which road would you have taken then?”

There were lots of possibilities. After some discussion Wallander turned to Robert Akerblom.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“I think Louise would have taken a minor road,” he said without hesitation. “She didn’t like all the traffic on the E14. I think she’d have gone via Svaneholm and Brodda.”

“Even if she was in a hurry? If she had to be home by five o’clock?”

“Even then,” said Robert Akerblom.

“You take that road,” said Wallander to Martinson and Svedberg. “We’ll go straight to the house. We can use the car phone if we need to.”

They drove out of Ystad. Wallander let Martinson and Svedberg pass, since they had the longest distance to travel. Robert Akerblom sat staring straight ahead. Wallander kept glancing at him. He was rubbing his hands anxiously, as if he couldn’t make up his mind whether or not to clasp them together.

Wallander could feel Akerbom’s tension. What would they find?

He braked as they approached the exit for Lake Kade, let a truck pass, and recalled how he had driven along the same road one morning two years before, when an old farmer and his wife had been beaten to death in a remote farmhouse. He shuddered at the memory, and thought as he so often did of his colleague Rydberg, who died last year. Every time Wallander was faced with an investigation out of the ordinary, he missed the experience and advice of his elder colleague.

What’s going on in this country of ours, he thought to himself. Where have all the old-fashioned thieves and con men gone? Where does all this senseless violence come from?

The map was lying by the gearshift.

“Are we going the right way?” he asked, in order to break the silence in the car.

“Yes,” said Robert Akerblom, without taking his eyes off the road. “We should take a left just over the top of this next hill.”

They drove into Krageholm Forest. The lake was on the left, shimmering through the trees. Wallander slowed down, and they started looking out for the turnoff.

It was Robert Akerblom who saw it first. Wallander had already driven past. He reversed and came to a halt.

“You stay in the car,” he said. “I’ll go look around.”

The actual turnoff into the dirt road was almost completely overgrown. Wallander got down on one knee and could make out faint traces of car tires. He could feel Robert Akerblom’s eyes on the back of his neck.

He went back to the car and called Martinson and Svedberg. They’d just got as far as Skurup.

“We’re at the start of the dirt road,” said Wallander. “Be careful when you turn in. Don’t spoil the tire marks.”

“Roger,” said Svedberg. “We’re on our way now.”

Wallander turned carefully into the track, avoiding the tire marks.

Two cars, he thought. Or the same one going in and coming back.

They shuddered along the muddy and badly maintained road. It was supposed to be a kilometer to the house that was up for sale. To his surprise, Wallander saw on the map that the house was called Solitude.

After three kilometers the track petered out. Robert Akerblom stared uncomprehendingly at the map and at Wallander.

“Wrong road,” said Wallander. “We couldn’t have avoided seeing the house. It’s right by the roadside. Let’s go back.”

When they emerged onto the main road, they drove slowly forward and came to the next turnoff some five hundred meters further on. Wallander repeated his investigation. Unlike the previous road, this one had lots of tire tracks, one over the other. The road also gave the impression of being better maintained and more often used.

But they could not find the right house here, either. They caught a glimpse of a farmhouse through the trees, but they kept going as it didn’t seem anything like the description they had. Wallander stopped after four kilometers.

“Do you have Mrs. Wallin’s number?” he inquired. “I have the distinct impression she has a very poor sense of direction.”

Robert Akerblom nodded and took a little telephone book from his inside pocket. Wallander noticed there was a bookmark shaped like an angel between the pages.

“Call her,” said Wallander. “Explain that you’re lost. Ask her to give you the directions again.”

The phone rang for some time before the widow answered.

It turned out that Mrs. Wallin was by no means sure how many kilometers it was to the turnoff.

“Ask her for some other landmark,” said Wallander. “There must be something we can use to get our bearings. If not, we’ll have to send a car and bring her here.”

Wallander let Robert Akerblom talk to Mrs Wallin without switching the phone over to the loudspeaker.

“An oak tree struck by lightning,” said Robert Akerblom. “We turn off just before we get to the tree.”

They drove on, and after two more kilometers saw the oak. There was also a turnoff to the right. Wallander called the other car, and explained how to find it. Then he investigated for the third time, looking for tire tracks. To his surprise he found nothing at all to suggest any vehicle had used this road for some time. That wasn’t necessarily significant. The tracks could have been washed away by rain. Nevertheless, he felt something approaching disappointment.

The house was situated where it ought to have been, by the roadside just one kilometer in. They stopped and got out of the car. It had started raining, and the wind was blowing in gusts.

Suddenly Robert Akerblom set off running towards the house, yelling out his wife’s name in a shrill voice. Wallander stayed by the car. It all happened so quickly, he was taken completely by surprise. When Robert Akerblom disappeared behind the house, he ran after him.

No car, he thought as he went. No car, and no Louise Akerblom.

He caught up with Robert Akerblom just as he was about to throw a broken brick through a window at the back of the house. Wallander grabbed his arm.

“It’s no good,” said Wallander.

“She may be in there,” yelled Robert Akerblom.

“You said she didn’t have any keys to the house,” Wallander pointed out. “Drop that brick so that we can look for a door that’s been forced. But I can tell you now she’s not there.”

Robert Akerblom suddenly collapsed in a heap.

“Where is she?” he asked. “What’s happened?”

Wallander felt a lump in his throat. He had no idea what to say.

Then he took Robert Akerblom by the arm and helped him to his feet.

“No point in sitting here and making yourself ill,” he said. “Let’s look around.”

There was no door that had been forced. They peeked in through undraped windows and saw only empty rooms. They had just concluded there was nothing else to see when Martinson and Svedberg turned into the drive.

“Nothing,” said Wallander. At the same time, he put his finger to his lips, discreetly, so that Robert Akerblom couldn’t see.

He didn’t want Svedberg and Martinson to start asking questions.

He didn’t want to have to say Louise Akerblom probably never got as far as the house.

“We have nothing to report either,” said Martinson. “No car, nothing.”

Wallander looked at his watch. Ten past six. He turned to Robert Akerblom and tried to smile.

“I think the most useful thing you can do now is to go back home to the girls,” he said. “Svedberg here will drive you home. We’ll make a systematic search. Try not to worry. We’ll find her all right.”

“She’s dead,” said Robert Akerblom in a low voice. “She’s dead, and she’ll never come back.”

The three policemen stood in silence.

“No,” said Wallander eventually. “There’s no reason to think it’s as bad as that. Svedberg will drive you home now. I promise to get in touch later on.”

Svedberg drove off.

“Now we can start searching for real,” said Wallander resolutely. He could feel the unease growing inside him all the time.

They sat in his car. Wallander called Bjork and asked for all available personnel with cars to be sent to the split oak. At the same time Martinson started planning how best to go through all the roads in a circle around the house with a fine-tooth comb, as quickly and efficiently as possible. Wallander asked Bjork to make sure they got suitable maps.

“We’ll keep looking until it gets dark,” said Wallander. “We start again at dawn tomorrow, if we don’t find anything tonight. You can get in touch with the army as well. Then we’ll have to consider a line search.”

“Dogs,” said Martinson. “We need dogs tonight, right now.”

Bjork promised to come along in person and take over responsibility.

Martinson and Wallander looked at each other.

“Summary,” said Wallander. “What do you think?”

“She never came here,” said Martinson. “She could have been close by, or a long way away. I don’t know what can have happened. But we have to find the car. We’re doing the right thing, starting the search here. Somebody must have seen it, surely. We’ll have to start knocking on doors. Bjork will have to hold a press conference tomorrow. We have to let it be known we regard the disappearance as serious.”

“What can have happened?” wondered Wallander.

“Something we’d rather not think about,” said Martinson.

The rain started drumming against the car windows and roof.

“Hell,” said Wallander.

“Yes,” said Martinson. “Exactly.”

Shortly before midnight the policemen, tired and drenched, reassembled on the gravel in front of the house Louise Akerblom had probably never seen. They’d found no trace of the dark blue car, still less of Louise Akerblom. The most remarkable thing they found was two elk carcasses. And a police car almost crashed with a Mercedes racing along one of the dirt roads at high speed as they were on their way to the meeting.

Bjork thanked everybody for their efforts. He had already agreed with Wallander that the weary cops could be sent home and told the search would begin again at six the next morning.

Wallander was the last to leave and head for Ystad. He had called Robert Akerblom on his car telephone, and told him they regretted they had nothing new to report. Although it was late, Robert Akerblom expressed the wish that Wallander should come and see him at their house, where he was alone with the daughters.

Before Wallander started the engine he called his sister in Stockholm. He knew she stayed up late at night. He told her their father was planning to marry his home aide. To Wallander’s astonishment, she burst out laughing. But to his relief, she promised to come down to Skane at the beginning of May.

Wallander replaced the telephone in its holder and set off for Ystad. Rain squalls hammered against the windshield.

He found his way to Robert Akerblom’s home. It was a row house like a thousand other houses. The light was still on downstairs.

Before getting out of the car he leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.

She never got that far, he thought.

What happened on the way?

There’s something about this disappearance that doesn’t add up. I don’t get it.