'That would be me,' the woman said and smiled. 'My name is Margareta Johansson. And I already know who you are, I've seen you so often in the papers.'
She continued watering the flowers. Wallander tried not to pay any attention to her comment about him.
'Sometimes it must be terrible to be a policeman,' she went on.
'I can agree with that,' Wallander answered. 'But I don't think I would want to live in this country if there were no police.'
'That's probably true,' she said and put down the watering can. 'I take it you're here about Matilda Lamberg?'
'Not for her sake, of course. It's about the woman who visits her. The one who isn't her mother.'
Margareta Johansson looked at him. A swift wave of concern passed over her face.
'Does this have anything to do with the father's murder?'
'It's not very likely, but I have been wondering who she is.'
Margareta Johansson pointed at a half-open door leading to an office.
'We can sit in there.'
She asked if Wallander wanted any coffee, and he declined.
'Matilda doesn't get many visitors,' she said. 'When I came here fourteen years ago, she had already been here six years. Only her mother came to see her. Perhaps another relative on some rare occasion. Matilda doesn't really notice if she has a visitor. She is blind, with poor hearing, and she doesn't react much to what goes on around her. But we still wish that those who reside here for many years, perhaps their whole lives, receive visits. Perhaps simply to give a feeling that they do in fact belong? In the larger context.'
'When did this woman begin her visits?'
Margareta Johansson thought back.
'Seven or eight years ago.'
'How often does she come?'
'It has always been very irregular. Sometimes half a year has gone by between visits.'
'And she has never given her name?'
'Never. Only that she is here to see Matilda.'
'I assume you have informed Elisabeth Lamberg about this?'
'Yes.'
'How did she react?'
'With surprise. She has also enquired as to who the woman is, and has asked us to call and tell her as soon as she arrives. The problem is simply that the woman's visits have always been very brief. Elisabeth Lamberg has never managed to get here before the woman has left.'
'How does the woman get here?'
'By car.'
'That she has driven herself?'
'I have never actually thought about that. Perhaps there has been someone else in the car that no one has noticed.'
'I assume that there isn't anyone who might have noticed what type of car it was? Or even made a note of the number plate?'
Margareta Johansson shook her head.
'Could you describe the woman to me?'
'She is between forty and fifty years old. Slender, not particularly tall. Simply but tastefully dressed. Short, blonde hair. No make-up.'
Wallander jotted this down.
'Is there anything else you've noticed about her?'
'No.'
Wallander stood up.
'Don't you want to meet Matilda?' she asked.
'I don't think I have the time,' Wallander said evasively. 'But most likely I'll be back here again. And I want you to notify the Ystad police if that woman returns. When was she here last?'
'A few months ago.'
She followed him outside. A nurse's assistant walked by pushing a wheelchair. Wallander caught sight of a shrunken boy under a blanket.
'Everyone feels better in the spring,' Margareta Johansson said. 'We can see it even in our patients, who are often completely sealed in their own worlds.'
Wallander said goodbye and walked over to his car. He had just started the engine when the telephone rang in Margareta Johansson's office. She called out that it was Svedberg. Wallander walked back in and took the receiver.
'I've tracked down the driver,' Svedberg said. 'It was easier than I had dared hope. His name is Anton Eklund.'
'Good,' Wallander said.
'It gets better. Guess what he told me? That he has the habit of keeping the passenger lists of all his trips. And that he has pictures from this particular one.'
'Taken by Simon Lamberg?'
'How did you know?'
'I did what you told me. I guessed.'
'To top it off, he lives in Trelleborg. He's retired these days. But we have a standing invitation to look him up.'
'We should absolutely take him up on that. As soon as possible.'
But first Wallander had another visit to think about. One that couldn't be put off.
From Rynge he was planning to drive straight to Elisabeth Lamberg's house.
He had a question he wanted an immediate answer to.
She was out in the garden when he pulled up. She was bent over the flower beds. Her grief over her recent loss was apparently neither deep nor long-lasting; as he listened over the fence, he thought he could hear her humming. As Wallander opened the gate, she heard him and straightened up. She held a little shovel in her hand and squinted in the sunlight.
'I'm sorry I had to come back and bother you again so soon,' Wallander said. 'But I have an urgent question.'
She put the shovel down in a basket next to her.
'Should we go in?'
'It's not necessary.'
She pointed to some deckchairs that were nearby. They sat down.
'I've talked to the director of the nursing home where Matilda is,' Wallander began. 'I went there.'
'Did you see Matilda?'
'Unfortunately, I had very little time.'
He didn't want to tell her the truth. That it was almost impossible for him to confront the seriously handicapped.
'We talked about the unknown woman who comes to visit her.'
Elisabeth Lamberg had put on a pair of dark glasses. He could not see her eyes.
'When we spoke about Matilda last time, you never mentioned anything about this woman. That surprises me. It makes me curious. Above all, it strikes me as strange.'
'I didn't think it was important.'
Wallander hesitated over how hard or direct to be. After all, her husband was brutally murdered a couple of days ago.
'It's not the case, then, that you know who the woman is? And that you for some reason don't want to talk about her?'
She took off her sunglasses and looked at him.
'I have no idea who she is. I've tried to find out, but I haven't been successful.'
'What have you done in order to find out about her?'
'The only thing I could do, which is to ask the staff to call me as soon as she appears. Which they have. But I've never made it out there in time.'
'You could of course have asked the staff not to let her in? Or given orders that she was not allowed to visit Matilda without providing a name?'
Elisabeth Lamberg looked confused.
'She did give her name, the first time she was there. Didn't the director tell you that?'
'No.'
'She introduced herself as Siv Stigberg, and she said she lived in Lund, but I haven't been able to find anyone by that name there. I've looked into it. I've looked through telephone directories for the entire country. There is a Siv Stigberg in Kramfors, and another in Motala. I've even been in touch with both of them. Neither one understood what I was talking about.'
'She gave a false name? That must have been why Margareta Johansson didn't say anything.'
'Yes. That's the only reason I can imagine.'
Wallander reflected on this. He now believed that she was telling the truth.
'The whole thing is remarkable. I still don't understand why you didn't tell me this from the start.'
'I realise now that I should have.'
'You must have really wondered who she was, why she was paying these visits.'
'Of course. That was why I instructed the director to let her keep visiting Matilda. I was hoping to make it in time on
e day.'
'What does she do when she's there?'
'She only stays a short while. Looks at Matilda, but never says anything. Even though Matilda can hear when someone talks to her.'
'Did you ever ask your husband about her?'
Her voice was filled with bitterness when she answered.
'Why should I have done that? He wasn't interested in Matilda. She didn't exist.'
Wallander got up out of the deckchair.
'Nonetheless, I have an answer to my question,' he said.
He went straight to the station. The feeling of urgency was suddenly very strong. It was already late afternoon. Svedberg was in his office.
'Now we go to Trelleborg,' Wallander said from the doorway. 'Do you have the driver's address?'
'Anton Eklund lives in an apartment in the middle of town.'
'It's probably best if you call and ask if he's home.'
Svedberg looked up the number. Eklund picked up almost immediately.
'We can come any time,' Svedberg said when he had finished the brief conversation.
They took his car, which was better than Wallander's. Svedberg drove quickly and confidently. Wallander travelled west along Strandvägen for the second time that day. He told Svedberg about his visits to the nursing home and Elisabeth Lamberg.
'I can't escape the feeling that this woman is important,' he said. 'And that she definitely has something to do with Simon Lamberg.'
They continued on in silence. Wallander enjoyed the view, somewhat distractedly. He also dozed off for a moment. His cheek no longer hurt, although it was still discoloured. His tongue had also started to get used to the temporary crown.
Svedberg only needed to ask for directions once in order to find Eklund's address in Trelleborg. It was a red-brick apartment building in the centre of town. Eklund was on the ground floor. He had spotted them and was waiting with an open door. He was a large man with abundant grey hair. When he shook Wallander's hand, he squeezed so hard it almost hurt. He invited them into the small apartment. Coffee had been set out. Wallander immediately assumed that Eklund lived on his own. The apartment was tidy but nonetheless projected the impression of a single man living alone. He had this idea confirmed as soon as he sat down.
'I've been on my own for the past three years,' he said. 'My wife died. That was when I moved here. We only had one year together in retirement. One morning she lay dead in the bed.'
Neither of the detectives said anything. There was nothing to say. Eklund picked up the plate of pastries. Wallander chose a piece of Bundt cake.
'You were the driver on a charter bus trip to Austria in 1981,' he started. 'Markresor were the organisers. You left from Norra Bantorget in Stockholm, with Austria as your final destination.'
'We were going to Salzburg and Vienna. Thirty-two passengers, one travel director and me. The bus was a Scania, completely new.'
'I thought that bus trips to the Continent went out of vogue after the 1960s,' Svedberg said.
'They did,' Eklund said. 'But they came back. Markresor – Ground Travel – may seem like a silly name for a travel agency, but they were on the right track. There turned out to be a lot of people who absolutely did not want to go up in the air and be tossed to some distant holiday destination. There were people who really wanted to experience travelling.
And for that you have to stay on the ground.'
'I've heard that you kept the passenger lists,' Wallander said.
'It became an obsession,' Eklund said. 'I look through them sometimes. I don't remember most of them. Some names bring out memories. Most of them good, some that you'd rather forget.'
He got up and reached for a plastic sleeve on a shelf. He held it out to Wallander. It contained a list of thirty-two names. He picked out the name Lamberg almost immediately. He went slowly through the rest of the names, none of which had appeared in the context of the investigation before. More than half of the passengers came from the middle of Sweden. There was also a couple from Härnösand, a woman from Luleå, as well as seven individuals from southern Sweden. From Halmstad, Eslöv and Lund. Wallander passed the list to Svedberg.
'You said you had pictures from the trip? That Lamberg had taken?'
'Because of his profession, he was appointed our official photographer. He took almost all of the shots. Those who wanted copies wrote their names on a list. Everyone received what they had ordered. He kept his promises.'
Eklund lifted a newspaper. Under it there was an envelope with photographs.
'Lamberg gave me all of these free of charge. He had chosen them himself. I wasn't the one who picked them out.'
Wallander slowly looked through the stack of pictures. There were nineteen in all. He already sensed that Lamberg would not appear in any of them, since he had been behind the camera. But in the second-to-last one he appeared in a group shot. On the back someone had written that the photo had been taken in a rest area between Salzburg and Vienna. Even Eklund was in it. Wallander assumed that Lamberg had used a timer. He went through the stack one more time. Studied details and faces. Suddenly he noticed a woman's face that appeared again and again. She always stared straight into the camera. And smiled. When Wallander looked at her features, he had the feeling that there was something familiar about it, without being able to put his finger on what it was.
He asked Svedberg to take a look at them.
'What do you remember of Lamberg from that trip?'
'To begin with I didn't notice him very much. But then there was plenty of drama.'
Svedberg looked up quickly.
'What do you mean?' Wallander asked.
'Maybe one shouldn't talk about these kinds of things,' Eklund said hesitantly. 'He's dead now. But he got together with one of the ladies on the trip. And it was not an uncomplicated matter.'
'Why not?'
'Because she was married. And her husband was there.'
Wallander let this sink in.
'There was something else,' Eklund said, 'that probably didn't help matters much.'
'What was that?'
'She was a minister's wife. He was a man of the Church.'
Eklund pointed him out in one of the pictures. The hymn book flashed through Wallander's head. He realised he was sweating. He glanced at Svedberg. He had the feeling his colleague was having the same associations.
Wallander grabbed the stack of photographs, taking out one where the unknown woman was smiling at the camera.