He was surprised to hear that Simon Larsson was evidently still alive. He did the mental arithmetic and concluded that Larsson must now be at least eighty-five.
“I remember who you are,” said Wallander. “But I must say that this call has come as a surprise.”
“No doubt you thought I was dead. I sometimes think I am myself.”
Wallander said nothing.
“I’ve read about the two people you found,” said Larsson. “I might have something useful to say about it.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I say. If you come around to my place, then maybe — but only maybe — I might have something useful to tell you.” Simon Larsson spoke in a clear and lucid voice.
Wallander made a note of his address. It was a care home for the elderly just outside Tomelilla. Wallander promised to visit him right away. He stopped in at Martinson’s office but it was empty — his cell phone was lying on his desk. Wallander shrugged and decided to drive out to Tomelilla on his own.
Simon Larsson seemed to be in a fragile state. He had a wrinkled face and a hearing aid. He opened the door and Wallander entered a pensioner’s apartment that was frightening in its dreariness. It seemed to Wallander that he was entering the hallway of death. The apartment comprised two rooms. Through a half-open door Wallander could see an old woman lying on top of a bed, resting. Hands shaking, Simon Larsson served up coffee. Wallander felt ill at ease. It was as if he were looking at himself at some time in the future. He didn’t like what he saw. He sat down in a worn armchair. A cat immediately jumped up onto his knee. Wallander let it stay there. He preferred dogs, but he had nothing against cats that occasionally expressed an interest in him.
Simon Larsson sat down on a Windsor chair opposite him.
“I don’t hear well, but I see well. I suppose it’s a hangover from all my years as a police officer — wanting to see the people I’m talking to.”
“I have the same problem,” said Wallander. “Or custom, perhaps I ought to say. What was it you wanted to tell me?”
Simon Larsson took a deep breath, as if he needed to brace himself for what was about to come.
“I was born in August 1917,” he said. “It was a warm summer, the year before the war ended. In 1937 I started working for the public prosecution service in Lund, and I came to Ystad in the sixties, after the police force had been nationalized. But what I wanted to tell you about, which might be of significance, happened during the forties. I worked for a few years then here in Tomelilla. They weren’t so strict about borderlines in those days — sometimes we helped out in Ystad and sometimes they came to assist us here. Anyway, at some time during the war a horse and an old caravan were found on the road not far from Löderup.”
“A horse? And a caravan? I don’t really understand.”
“You will if you stop interrupting me. It was in the autumn. Somebody rang us here in Tomelilla. Some bloke or other from Löderup. He ought to have telephoned Ystad, but instead he phoned the chief inspector’s office here in Tomelilla. He wanted to report that he had found a horse pulling a caravan along a road, without anybody inside or in the driver’s seat. I was the only person around that morning. As I was learning to drive, I didn’t bother ringing Ystad but instead took the car and drove to Löderup. Sure enough, there was a horse and caravan there, but no people. It was obvious from the inside of the caravan that gypsies lived in it. Nowadays we’re supposed to call them travelers, which makes them sound much more respectable. Anyway, they had vanished. It was all very odd. The horse and caravan had simply turned up there as dawn broke. Seven days earlier they had been seen in Kåseberga — a man and a woman in their fifties. He sharpened scissors and knives, they were friendly and reliable — but then they suddenly vanished.”
“Were they ever found?”
“Not as far as I know. I thought this information might be of some use to you.”
“Absolutely. What you say is very interesting. But it’s odd that nobody reported them missing — if they had done they would have been in our register.”
“I don’t really know what happened. Somebody looked after the horse, and I suppose the caravan just rotted away. I suspect the fact is that nobody cared much about travelers. I recall asking about what had happened, a year or so later, but nobody knew anything. There was an awful lot of prejudice in those days. But perhaps there is now as well?”
“Can you remember anything else?”
“It was such a long time ago. I’m just glad I can remember what I’ve told you.”
“Can you say what year it was?”
“No. But there was a fair bit about it in the newspapers at the time. It must be possible to find those articles.”
Wallander felt the urge to act immediately. He drained his cup of coffee and stood up.
“Many thanks for getting in touch. This could well turn out to be important. I’ll get back to you.”
“Don’t leave it too long,” said Larsson. “I’m an old man. I could die at any time.”
Wallander left Tomelilla. He drove fast. For the first time during this investigation, he had the feeling that they were about to make a breakthrough.
Chapter 18
It took Martinson four hours to find microfilm versions of Ystads Allehanda that contained articles about the mysterious horse and caravan. A few hours later he came to the police station with lots of copies of the microfilm pages. Together with Stefan Lindman, Wallander and Martinson sat down in the conference room.
“The fifth of December 1944,” said Martinson. “That’s when it begins. The headline over the first report of the incident in Ystads Allehanda is ‘THE FLYING DUTCHMAN ON THE COUNTRY ROAD.’ ”
They spent the next hour reading through everything that Martinson had collected. Wallander noted that the two people who had lived in the caravan were called Richard and Irina Pettersson. There was even a blurred picture of them — a copy of a framed photograph hanging inside the caravan.
“Simon Larsson has a good memory,” said Wallander when they had finished reading the articles. “We can be grateful for that. We might have caught on to this pair sooner or later, but you never know. The question is, of course: can these two be the people we are looking for?”
“They are the right age,” said Lindman. “And the place fits in. The question is: what happened?”
“The records,” said Wallander. “We need to dig out all the information we can find about them. If there really were such a thing as a time machine, now is when we could make use of it.”
“Perhaps Nyberg has one,” suggested Lindman.
Wallander and Martinson burst out laughing. Wallander stood up and walked over to the window. Martinson continued laughing in the background, and Lindman sneezed.
“Let’s concentrate on this for the next few days,” said Wallander. “We shouldn’t abandon all the other leads, but we’ll let them rest. Let them mature, as you might say. But something tells me this one is right. There are too many things that fit in for these not to be the two people we’re looking for.”
“Everybody in the newspapers speaks well of them,” said Martinson. “But somewhere between the lines you get the feeling that people didn’t care all that much about what happened to them. It’s the mystery that captured everybody’s attention. You get the impression that we should feel most sorry for the horse, pulling around an empty caravan. Just imagine what would have been said and written if it had been two old local farmers who had disappeared.”