The Pyramid

  Wallander put the pen down. I'm going to talk to Hemberg about this too, he thought. Right now this is actually a real lead.

  Then Wallander thought that he should of course have asked Jespersen to find out if there was anyone in his circle who had heard of a woman named Alexandra Batista.

  He was irritated at his sloppiness. I didn't think it all the way through, he said to himself. I make unnecessary errors.

  It was already a quarter to eight. Wallander walked to and fro in the apartment. He was nervous, but his stomach was fine now. He thought about calling his father at the new telephone number in Löderup, but chances were they would start quarrelling. It was enough to deal with Mona. In order to get the time to pass he took a walk around the block. Summer had arrived. The evening was warm. He wondered what would happen with their planned trip to Skagen.

  At half past eight he walked back into his apartment. Sat down at the kitchen table with his watch laid out in front of him. I'm acting like a child, he thought. But right now I don't know what to do in order to act any different.

  He called at nine o'clock. Mona picked up almost immediately.

  'Before you hang up, I would like to explain myself,' Wallander started.

  'Who said I was going to hang up?'

  This threw him off guard. He had prepared himself carefully, knew what he was going to say. Instead she was the one who talked.

  'I actually do believe that you have an explanation,' she said. 'But right now that doesn't interest me. I think we should meet and talk in person.'

  'Now?'

  'Not tonight. But tomorrow. Can you do that?'

  'Yes, I can do that.'

  'Then I'll come to your place. But not until nine o'clock. It's my mother's birthday. I promised to stop by.'

  'I can cook dinner.'

  'That won't be necessary.'

  Wallander started over again from the beginning with his prepared explanations. But she interrupted him.

  'Let's talk tomorrow. Not now, not on the phone.'

  The conversation was over in less than a minute. Nothing had turned out the way Wallander had expected. It had been a conversation that he had hardly dared to dream about. Even if there had also been something that he could interpret as ominous.

  The thought of staying in for the rest of the evening made him restless. It was only a quarter past nine. Nothing prevents me from taking a walk through Pildamms Park, he thought. Maybe I'll even bump into a man with a sagging eyelid.

  Wallander took out a hundred kronor in small notes which he kept tucked between the pages of a book in his bookcase. He put the notes in his pocket, picked up his coat and walked out. There was no wind and it was still warm. While he walked to the bus stop he hummed a melody from an opera. Rigoletto. He saw the bus come and started to run.

  When he reached Pildamms Park he began to wonder if it had been such a good idea. It was a large park. In addition, he was actually looking for a suspected murderer. The regulations against officers acting on their own rang in his ears. But I can take a walk, he thought. I have no uniform, no one knows that I'm a policeman. I'm just a single man who's out walking his invisible dog.

  Wallander started to walk down one of the park paths. A group of young people were sitting under one of the trees. Someone was playing guitar. Wallander saw a few bottles of wine. He wondered how many laws they were breaking at this moment. Lohman would surely have moved in quickly. But Wallander simply walked on by. A few years ago he could have been one of the people sitting under the tree. But now he was a policeman and should instead arrest a person drinking wine in a public place. He shook his head at the thought. He could hardly wait until he got to work in criminal investigations. It wasn't for this that he had joined the police. To seize young people who were playing guitar and drinking wine on one of the first warm evenings of the summer. It was to get the really big criminals. The ones who committed violent crimes or large-scale theft, or smuggled drugs.

  He walked on into the park. Traffic roared in the distance. Two young people walked by, wrapped tightly around each other. Wallander thought about Mona. It would probably work out. Soon they would take their trip to Skagen, and he would never again be late for a date.

  Wallander stopped. Some people were sitting and drinking alcohol on a bench not far ahead. One of them was pulling on the leash of a German shepherd who wouldn't lie still. Wallander approached them slowly. They didn't appear to pay him any attention. Wallander couldn't see that any of them had a sagging eyelid. But suddenly one of the men stood up on swaying legs in front of Wallander. He was very burly. The muscles swelled out under his shirt, which was unbuttoned over his stomach.

  'I need a tenner,' he said.

  Wallander had at first intended to say no. Ten kronor was a lot of money. Then he changed his mind.

  'I'm looking for a friend of mine,' he said. 'A guy with a sagging eyelid.'

  Wallander had not expected a hit. But to his amazement, he received an unexpected reply.

  'Rune's not here. The devil only knows where he's got to.'

  'That's the one,' Wallander said. 'Rune.'

  'Who the hell are you?' the swaying man said.

  'My name is Kurt,' Wallander said. 'I'm an old friend.'

  'I've never seen you before.'

  Wallander gave him a ten.

  'Tell him if you see him,' Wallander said. 'Tell him Kurt was here. Do you happen to know Rune's last name, by the way?'

  'I don't even know if he has a last name. Rune is Rune.'

  'Where does he live, then?'

  The man stopped swaying for a moment.

  'I thought you said you were friends? Then you should know where he lives.'

  'He moves around a lot.'

  The man turned to the others who were sitting on the bench.

  'Do any of you know where Rune lives?'

  The conversation that followed was extremely confused. At first it took a long time to establish which Rune they were talking about. Then many suggestions were offered to where this Rune might live. If he even had a home. Wallander waited. The German shepherd next to the bench barked the whole time.

  The man with the muscles returned.

  'We don't know where Rune lives,' he said. 'But we'll tell him that Kurt was here.'

  Wallander nodded and swiftly walked away. Of course, he might be wrong. There was more than one person with a sagging eyelid. But still, he was sure he was on the right track. It occurred to him that he should immediately contact Hemberg and suggest that the park be put under surveillance. Maybe the police already had a man with a sagging eyelid on their records?

  But then Wallander felt doubtful. He was proceeding too fast again. First he should have a thorough conversation with Hemberg. He should tell him about the name change and what Jespersen had said. Then it would be up to Hemberg to decide if this was a lead or not.

  Wallander would wait to talk to Hemberg the following day.

  Wallander left the park and took the bus home.

  He was still tired from the stomach flu and fell asleep before midnight.

  The following day Wallander woke up refreshed at seven o'clock. After noting that his stomach was completely restored to normal he had a cup of coffee. Then he dialled the number he had been given by the girl in reception.

  His father answered after many rings.

  'Is that you?' his father said brusquely. 'I couldn't find the telephone in all this mess.'

  'Why did you call the police station and introduce yourself as a distant relative? Can't you damn well say that you're my father?'

  'I don't want anything to do with the police,' his father answered. 'Why don't you come to see me?'

  'I don't even know where you live. Kristina only explained it vaguely.'

  'You're too lazy to figure it out. That's your whole problem.'

  Wallander realised the conversation had already taken a wrong turn. The best thing he could do now would be to end it as soon as possible.

&nbs
p; 'I'll be out in a few days,' he said. 'I'll call first and get directions. How are you liking it?'

  'Fine.'

  'Is that it? "Fine"?'

  'Things are in a bit of disarray. But once I get that sorted out it will be excellent. I have a wonderful studio in an old barn.'

  'I'll be there,' Wallander said.

  'I won't believe it until you stand here,' his father said. 'You can't really trust the police.'

  Wallander finished and hung up. He could live for twenty more years, he thought desperately. And I'm going to have him over me the whole time. I'll never escape him. I may as well face that now. And if he's bad-tempered now it will only get worse as he gets older.

  Wallander ate some sandwiches with a newly regained appetite and then took the bus in to the station. He knocked on Hemberg's halfopen door shortly after eight. He heard a grunt in reply and walked in. For once Hemberg did not have his feet on the table. He was standing at the window, flipping through a morning paper. As Wallander walked in, Hemberg scrutinised him with an amused expression.

  'Mussels,' he said. 'You should watch out for them. They suck up everything that's in the water.'

  'It could have been something else,' Wallander said evasively.

  Hemberg set the newspaper down and took his seat.

  'I need to talk to you,' Wallander said. 'And it will take longer than five minutes.'

  Hemberg nodded at his visitor's chair.

  Wallander told him of his discovery, that Hålén had changed his name a few years earlier. He noticed that Hemberg immediately became more attentive. Wallander went on and told him about his conversation with Jespersen, last night's visit, and the walk in Pildamms Park.

  'A man named Rune,' he concluded. 'Who doesn't have a last name. And has a droopy eyelid.'

  Hemberg considered everything he had said in silence.

  'No person lacks a last name,' he said thereafter. 'And there can't be that many people with droopy eyelids in a city like Malmö.'

  Then he frowned.

  'I've already told you once not to act on your own. And you should have contacted me or someone else last night. We would have picked up the people you met in the park. With some thorough questioning and some time to sober up, people tend to remember more. Did you, for example, write down any of these men's names?'

  'I didn't say I was from the police. I said I was a friend of Rune's.'

  Hemberg shook his head.

  'You can't do that kind of stuff,' he said. 'We act openly unless there are compelling reasons to the contrary.'

  'He wanted money,' Wallander said, defending himself. 'Otherwise I would simply have walked on by.'

  Hemberg looked narrowly at him.

  'What were you doing in Pildamms Park?'

  'Taking a walk.'

  'You were not undertaking your own investigation?'

  'I needed some exercise after my illness.'

  Hemberg's face expressed strong disbelief.

  'It was, in other words, pure coincidence that made you choose Pildamms Park?'

  Wallander did not reply. Hemberg got up out of his chair.

  'I'll put some men on this development. Right now we need to proceed on the widest possible front. I think I had fixed on it being Hålén who killed Batista, but you get it wrong sometimes. Then all you can do is strike it and start over.'

  Wallander left Hemberg's room and walked down to the lower floor. He was hoping to be able to avoid Lohman but it was as if his boss had been waiting for him. Lohman walked out of a conference room, a cup of coffee in his hand.

  'I had just started to wonder where you were,' he said.

  'I've been ill,' Wallander said.

  'And yet people reported seeing you in the building.'

  'I'm fine again now,' Wallander said. 'It was the stomach flu. Mussels.'

  'You've been assigned to foot patrol,' Lohman said. 'Talk to Håkansson.'

  Wallander walked to the room where the patrol squad received their assignments. Håkansson, who was large and fat and always sweating, was sitting at a table and leafing through a magazine. He looked up when Wallander walked in.

  'Central city,' he said. 'Wittberg is leaving at nine. End at three. Go with him.'

  Wallander nodded and walked to the changing room. He took his uniform out of his locker and changed. Just as he finished, Wittberg walked in. He was thirty years old and always talked about his dreams of one day driving a racing car.

  They left the station at a quarter past nine.

  'Things are always calmer when it's warm,' Wittberg said. 'No unnecessary intervention on our part, then perhaps the day will turn out calm.'

  And the day did indeed turn out to be calm. By the time Wallander hung up his uniform, shortly after three, they had not made a single intervention, except for stopping a cyclist who was riding on the wrong side of the street.

  Wallander got home at four o'clock. He had stopped at the shop on the way home, just in case Mona changed her mind and was hungry when she came by after all.

  By half past four he had showered and changed his clothes. There were still four and a half hours until Mona would come. Nothing prevents me from taking another walk in Pildamms Park, Wallander thought. Especially if I'm out with my invisible dog.

  He hesitated. Hemberg had given him express orders.

  But he went anyway. At half past five he walked down the same path as before. The young people who had been playing guitar and drinking wine were gone. The bench where the drunk men had been sitting was also empty. Wallander decided to keep going for another quarter of an hour. Then he would go home. He walked down a hill and paused, watching some ducks swimming around in the large pond. He heard birds singing nearby. The trees gave off a strong scent of early summer. An older couple walked past. Wallander heard them talking about someone's 'poor sister'. Whose sister it was and why she was the object of pity, he never found out.

  He was just about to walk back the same way he had come when he discovered two people sitting in the shade of a tree. If they were drunk, he couldn't tell. One of the men stood up. His walk was unsteady. His friend still sitting under the tree had nodded off. His chin rested against his chest. Wallander walked closer but did not recognise him from the night before. The man was poorly dressed and there was an empty vodka bottle between his feet.

  Wallander crouched down to try to see his face. At the same time he heard the crunch of steps on the gravel path behind him. When he turned round there were two girls standing there. He recognised one of them without being able to say from where.

  'It's one of those damn cops,' the girl said. 'Who hit me at the demonstration.'

  Then Wallander realised who it was: the girl who had verbally assaulted him at the cafe the week before.

  Wallander rose to his feet. At that same moment he saw from the other girl's face that something was happening behind his back. He quickly turned round. The man who had been leaning against the tree had not been asleep. Now he was standing. And he had a knife in his hand.