“Is an arrest imminent?”
“No. Not yet. But the investigations at the banks produced some good results.”
She nodded.
“Preferably before ten on Monday,” she said. “The rest of the day I have detention hearings and negotiations in district court.”
They settled on nine o’clock.
Wallander watched her as she disappeared down the corridor.
He felt strangely exhilarated when he returned to his office.
Anette Brolin, he thought. In a world where everything is said to be possible, anything could happen.
He devoted the rest of the day to reading the notes from various interrogations that he had only skimmed before. The definitive autopsy report had also arrived. Once more he was shocked at the senseless violence to which the old couple had been subjected. He read the reports of the interviews with the two daughters and the accounts of what had been learned from the door-to-door canvassing in Lenarp.
All the information matched and added up.
No one had any idea that Johannes Lövgren was a significantly more complex person than he outwardly seemed. The simple farmer had been a split personality in disguise.
Once during the war, in the fall of 1943, he had been taken to district court in a case of assault and battery. But he had been acquitted. Someone had dug up a copy of the report, and Wallander read through it carefully. But he could see no reasonable motive for revenge. It seemed to have been an ordinary quarrel that led to blows at Erikslund community center.
At half past three Ebba brought in his dry-cleaned suit.
“You’re an angel,” he said.
“Hope you have a wonderful time tonight,” she said with a smile.
Wallander got a lump in his throat. She had really meant what she said.
He spent the time until five o’clock filling in a soccer lottery coupon, making an appointment to have his car serviced, and thinking through the important interviews for him the following day. Then he wrote a reminder to himself that he had to prepare a memo for Björk when he came back from vacation.
At three minutes after five Thomas Naslund stuck his head in the door.
“Are you still here?” he said. “I thought you’d gone home.”
“Why would I have done that?”
“That’s what Ebba said.”
Ebba keeps watch over me, he thought with a smile. Tomorrow I’ll bring her some flowers before I leave for Simrishamn.
Näslund came into the room.
“Do you have time right now?” he asked.
“Not much.”
“I’ll make it quick. It’s this Klas Månson.”
Wallander had to think for a moment before he remembered who that was.
“The one who robbed that minimart?”
“That’s the guy. We have witnesses who can identify him, even though he had some crappy stocking over his head. A tattoo on his wrist. There’s no doubt that he’s the one. But this new prosecutor doesn’t agree with us.”
Wallander raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“She thinks the investigation was sloppy.”
“Was it?”
Naslund looked at him in amazement.
“It was no sloppier than any other investigation. It’s a clear-cut case.”
“So what did she say?”
“If we can’t come up with more convincing proof she’s considering opposing the detention order. It’s bullshit that a Stockholm bitch like that can come here and pretend she’s somebody!”
Wallander could feel himself getting mad, but he was careful to keep his feelings to himself.
“Pelle wouldn’t have given us any problems,” Naslund went on. “It’s obvious that this punk is the one who robbed the store.”
“Have you got the report?” asked Wallander.
“I asked Svedberg to read through it.”
“Leave it here for me so I can look at it tomorrow.”
Naslund got ready to leave.
“Somebody ought to tell that bitch,” he said.
Wallander nodded and smiled. “I’ll do it. It’s obvious we can’t have a prosecutor from Stockholm who doesn’t do things the way we’re used to.”
“I thought you’d say that,” said Naslund and left.
An excellent excuse to have dinner, thought Wallander. He put on his jacket, hung the dry-cleaned suit over his arm, and switched off the ceiling light.
After a quick shower he made it to Malmö just before seven. He found a parking space near Stortorget and went down the steps to Kock’s Tavern. He would toss back a couple of drinks before he met Mona at the restaurant of the Central Hotel.
Even though the price was outrageous, he ordered a double whiskey. He preferred to drink malt whiskey, but an ordinary blend would have to do.
At the first gulp he spilled some on himself.
Now he’d have a new spot on his lapel. Almost in the same place as the old one.
I’m going home, he thought, full of self-reproach. I’ll go home and go to bed. I can’t even hold a glass without spilling it on me. At the same time he knew this feeling was pure vanity. Vanity and incurable nervousness about this meeting with Mona. It might be their most important meeting since the time he proposed to her.
Now he had taken on the task of stopping a divorce that was already set in motion.
But what did he really want?
He wiped off his lapel with a paper napkin, drained the glass, and ordered another whiskey.
In ten minutes he would have to go.
By then he would need to make up his mind. What was he going to say to Mona?
And what would her answer be?
His new drink came and he tossed it off. The liquor burned in his temples, and he could feel himself starting to sweat.
He didn’t come up with any solution.
Deep inside he hoped that Mona would say the words he was waiting to hear.
She was the one who had wanted the divorce.
So she was also the one who should take the initiative and cancel it.
He paid the bill and left. He walked slowly so that he would not arrive too early.
He decided two things while he waited for the light to turn green at the corner of Vallgatan.
He was going to have a serious talk with Mona about Linda. And he would ask her advice with regard to his father. Mona knew him well. Even though they had never really gotten along, she knew from experience about his changeable moods.
I should have called Kristina, he thought as he crossed the street.
I probably forgot about it on purpose.
He walked across the canal bridge and was passed by a carload of punks. A drunken youth was hanging halfway out the open window and bellowing something.
Wallander remembered how he used to walk across this bridge more than twenty years before. In these neighborhoods the city had looked exactly the same. He had walked the beat here as a young policeman, usually with an older partner, and they would go into the train station to check up on things. Sometimes they had to throw out someone who was drunk and didn’t have a ticket. There was seldom any violence.
That world doesn’t exist anymore, he thought.
It’s gone, lost forever.
He went into the train station. A lot had changed since the last time he had walked the beat here. But the stone floor was the same. And the sound of the screeching train cars and the braking locomotives.
Suddenly he caught sight of his daughter.
At first he thought he was seeing things. It could just as well have been the girl tossing hay bales at Sten Widén’s farm. But then he was sure. It was Linda.
She was standing with a coal-black man and trying to get a ticket out of the automat. The African was almost a foot and a half taller than she was. He had thick curly hair and was dressed in purple overalls.
As if he were on a stakeout, Wallander swiftly drew back behind a pillar.
The African said something and Linda laug
hed.
He realized it must have been years since he had seen his daughter laugh.
What he saw depressed him. He sensed that he couldn’t reach her. She was gone from him, despite the fact that she was standing so near.
My family, he thought. I’m in a railroad station spying on my daughter. At the same time that her mother, my wife, has probably already arrived at the restaurant so that we can meet and eat dinner and maybe manage to talk with each other without starting to yell and scream.
Suddenly he noticed that he was having a hard time seeing. His eyes were misted over with tears.
He hadn’t had tears in his eyes for a long time. It was as distant a memory as the last time he had seen Linda laugh.
The African and Linda were walking toward the exit to the platform. He wanted to rush after her, pull her to him.
Then they were gone from his field of vision, and he continued his hastily instigated surveillance. He slunk along in the shadows of the platform where the icy wind from the sound was blowing through. He watched them walk hand in hand, laughing. The last thing he saw was the blue doors hissing shut and the train leaving toward Landskrona or Lund.
He tried to focus on the fact that she had looked happy. Just as carefree as when she was a young girl. But all he seemed to feel was his own misery.
Kurt Wallander. The pathetic cop with his pitiful family life.
And now he was late. Maybe Mona had already turned on her heel and left. She was always punctual and hated having to wait.
Especially for him.
He started running along the platform. A fire-engine red locomotive screeched alongside him like an angry wild beast.
He was in such a hurry that he stumbled on the stairs leading to the restaurant. The crew-cut doorman gave him a dirty look.
“Where do you think you’re going?” asked the doorman.
Wallander was completely paralyzed by the question. Its implication was suddenly clear to him.
The doorman thought he was drunk. He wasn’t going to let him in.
“I’m going to have dinner with my wife,” he said.
“No, I don’t think you are,” said the doorman. “I think you’d better go on home.”
Kurt Wallander felt his blood boil.
“I’m a police officer!” he shouted. “And I’m not drunk, if that’s what you think. Now let me in before I really get mad.”
“Kiss my ass!” said the doorman. “Now go home before I call the cops.”
For a moment he felt like punching the doorman in the nose. Then he regained his composure and calmed down. He pulled his ID out of his inside pocket.
“I really am a police officer,” he said. “And I’m not drunk. I stumbled. And it is actually true that my wife is waiting for me.”
The doorman gave the ID card a suspicious look.
Then his face suddenly lit up.
“Hey, I recognize you,” he said. “You were on TV the other night.”
Finally I’m getting some benefit from the TV, he thought.
“I’m with you,” said the doorman. “All the way.”
“With me about what?”
“Keeping those damn niggers on a short leash. What kind of shit are we letting into this country, going around killing old folks? I’m with you, we should kick ‘em all out. Chase ’em out with a stick.”
Wallander could tell it was pointless to get into a discussion with the doorman. Instead he attempted a smile.
“Well, I guess I’ll go eat, I’m starving,” he said.
The doorman held the door open for him.
“You understand we’ve got to be careful, right?”
“No problem,” replied Wallander and went into the warmth of the restaurant.
He hung up his coat and looked around.
Mona was sitting at a window table with a view over the canal.
He wondered whether she had been watching him arrive.
He sucked in his stomach as best he could, ran his hand over his hair, and walked over to her.
Everything went wrong right from the start.
He saw that she had noticed the spot on his lapel, and it made him furious.
And he didn’t know if he totally succeeded in concealing his fury.
“Hi,” he said, sitting down across from her.
“Late as usual,” she said. “You’ve really put on weight!”
She had to start off with an insult. No friendliness, no affection.
“But you look just the same. You’ve really got a tan.”
“We spent a week on Madeira.”
Madeira. First Paris, then Madeira. The honeymoon. The hotel perched way out on the cliffs, the little fish restaurant down by the beach. And now she had been there again. With someone else.
“I see,” he said. “I thought Madeira was our island.”
“Don’t be childish!”
“I mean it!”
“Then you are being childish.”
“Of course I’m childish! What’s wrong with that?”
The conversation was spinning out of control. When a friendly waitress came to their table it was like being rescued from a frigid hole in the ice.
When the wine arrived the mood improved.
Kurt Wallander sat looking at the woman who had been his wife and thought that she was extremely beautiful. At least in his eyes. He tried to avoid thoughts that gave him a sharp stab of jealousy.
He tried to give the impression of being very calm, which he definitely was not, but it was something he strived for.
They said skål and raised their glasses.
“Come back,” he begged. “Let’s start over.”
“No,” she said. “You’ve got to understand that it’s finished. It’s all over.”
“I went into the station while I was waiting for you,” he said. “I saw our daughter there.”
“Linda?”
“You seem surprised.”
“I thought she was in Stockholm.”
“What would she be doing in Stockholm?”
“She was supposed to visit a college to see if it might be the right place for her.”
“I’m not blind. It was her.”
“Did you talk to her?”
Wallander shook his head. “She was just getting on the train. I didn’t have time.”
“Which train?”
“Lund or Landskrona. She was with an African.”
“That’s good, at least.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that Herman is the best thing that’s happened to Linda in a long time.”
“Herman?”
“Herman Mboya. He’s from Kenya.”
“He was wearing purple overalls!”
“He does have an amusing way of dressing sometimes.”
“What’s he doing in Sweden?”
“He’s in medical school. He’ll be a physician soon.”
Wallander listened in amazement. Was she pulling his leg?
“A physician?”
“Yes! A physician! A doctor, or whatever you call it. He’s friendly, thoughtful, and has a good sense of humor.”
“Do they live together?”
“He has a student apartment in Lund.”
“I asked you if they were living together!”
“I think Linda has finally decided.”
“Decided what?”
“To move in with him.”
“Then how can she go to the college in Stockholm?”
“It was Herman who suggested that.”
The waitress refilled their wine glasses. Wallander could feel himself starting to get a buzz.
“She called me one day,” he said. “She was in Ystad. But she never came by to say hello. If you see her, you can tell her that I miss her.”
“She does what she wants.”
“All I’m asking is for you to tell her!”
“I will! Don’t yell!”
“I’m not yelling!”
&nbs
p; Just then the roast beef arrived. They ate in silence. Wallander couldn’t taste a thing. He ordered another bottle of wine and wondered how he was going to get home.
“You seem to be doing well,” he said.
She nodded, firmly and maybe spitefully too.
“And you?”
“I’m having a hell of a time. Otherwise, everything’s fine.”
“What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”
He had forgotten that he was supposed to think of some excuse for their meeting. Now he had no idea what to say.
The truth, he thought ironically. Why not try the truth?
“I just wanted to see you,” he said. “The other stuff I said was all lies.”
She smiled.
“I’m glad that we could see each other,” she said.
Suddenly he burst into tears.
“I miss you terribly,” he mumbled.
She reached out her hand and put it on his. But she didn’t say anything.
And it was in that instant that Kurt Wallander knew that it was over. The divorce wouldn’t change anything. Maybe they’d have dinner once in a while. But their lives were irrevocably going in different directions. Her silence did not lie.
He started thinking about Anette Brolin. And the black woman who visited him in his dreams.
He had been unprepared for loneliness. Now he would be forced to accept it and maybe gradually find the new life that no one but himself could create.
“Tell me one thing,” he said. “Why did you leave me?”
“If I hadn’t left you, I would have died,” she said. “I wish you could understand that it wasn’t your fault. I was the one who felt the breakup was necessary, I was the one who decided. One day you’ll understand what I mean.”
“I want to understand now.”
When they were about to leave she wanted to pay her share. But he insisted and she gave in.
“How are you getting home?” she asked.
“There’s a night bus,” he replied. “How are you getting home?”
“I’m walking,” she said.
“I’ll walk with you partway.”
She shook her head.
“We’ll say goodbye here,” she said. “That would be best. But call me again sometime. I want to stay in touch.”
She kissed him quickly on the cheek. He watched her walk across the canal bridge with a vigorous stride. When she disappeared between the Savoy and the tourist bureau, he followed her. Earlier that evening he had shadowed his daughter. Now he was tailing his wife.