Linda played the message back. Henrietta’s voice sounded calm. There was no unvoiced anxiety between the words, nothing out of the ordinary. She heard the implicit criticism of her choice of careers clearly enough. That bothered her. Did Anna share her mother’s dismissive attitude? To hell with them, Linda thought. Anna can carry on her disappearing act without me. Linda walked around one last time watering the plants, then left the apartment.
By the time Wallander came home around seven o’clock she had cooked and eaten dinner. She heated up the food she had left for him while he changed. She sat in the kitchen while he ate.
“What happened?”
“With the missing woman? Svartman and Grönkvist are in charge of it. Nyberg is examining her apartment. We have decided to take her disappearance seriously. Now we can only wait and see.”
“And what do you think?”
Wallander pushed his plate away.
“Something about it still worries me, but I could be wrong.”
“What worries you?”
“Certain people shouldn’t go missing, that’s all. It’s not something they do — if it happens it means something is wrong. I guess that’s been my experience.”
He got up and put on a pot of coffee.
“We had a real-estate agent whose wife went missing about ten years ago. Maybe you remember it? She was religious, something evangelical. They had small children. The moment he came in to notify us she was missing I knew something had happened. And I was right. She had been murdered.”
“But Birgitta Medberg is a widow and she doesn’t have small children. She’s probably not even religious — I certainly can’t imagine that fat daughter of hers being religious, can you?”
“I don’t think you can tell that just by looking at someone. But I’m talking about something else, something unexpected.”
Linda told him about her latest discovery in Anna’s apartment. She watched her father’s face take on a strong look of disapproval.
“You shouldn’t be getting yourself mixed up in this,” he said. “If anything’s happened it’s a case for the police.”
“I’m almost the police.”
“You’re a rookie, and the proper line of work for you is breaking up drunken brawls in town.”
“I just think it’s strange she’s gone, that’s all.”
Wallander brought his plate and his coffee cup over to the sink.
“If you’re genuinely concerned, you should go to the police.”
He left the kitchen. Linda stayed behind. His condescending tone irritated her, not least because he was right.
She sulked in the kitchen until she felt ready to see her dad again. He was in the living room, asleep in a chair. Linda shook his arm when he started to snore. He jerked awake and raised his arms as if to ward off an attack. Just like me, she thought. That’s another thing we have in common. He went to the bathroom, then got ready for bed. Linda watched a film on TV without really concentrating. Shortly before midnight she went to bed. She dreamed about her ex-boyfriend, Herman Mboya, who was back in Kenya and had opened his own practice.
The buzzing of the cell phone woke her up. It vibrated next to the lamp on the bedside table. She answered it at the same time that she checked her alarm clock. Three fifteen. There was no voice on the other end, just breathing. Then the line went dead. Linda knew it had something to do with Anna, whoever had made the call. It was a kind of message, even if it only consisted of a few breaths. It had to mean something.
Linda never managed to fall back asleep. Her father got up at a quarter past six. She let him shower and change in peace, but when he started making noise in the kitchen she joined him. He was surprised to see her up and dressed at that hour.
“I’m coming with you.”
“Why?”
“I thought about what you said, that if I was worried about Anna I should raise the matter with the police. Well, I am worried and I’m going to report her disappearance. I think something is seriously wrong.”
14
Linda had never learned to predict when her dad would fall into one of his sudden rages. She remembered with painful clarity how she and her mother would cringe when he got like this. Her grandfather was the only one who simply shrugged it off or gave as good as he got. By now she had learned to look for certain signs: the telltale red patch on the forehead, the nervous pacing.
But this morning she was once more taken by surprise at the vehemence of his reaction to her decision to report Anna’s disappearance. Her dad started by throwing a stack of napkins to the floor. There was a comical element in this gesture, since the anticipated violence of the crash never came, and the white papers fluttered softly across the kitchen floor. But it was enough to kindle Linda’s childhood fear. She recalled what Mona had said after the divorce: He can’t see it himself. He doesn’t know how intimidating it is to be met with a raging temper when you least expect it. Others probably think of him as a friendly, slightly eccentric perhaps, but capable policeman, which is probably a fair assessment of him in the workplace. But at home he let his temper run loose like a wild animal. He became a terrorist in my eyes. I feared him, and I also grew to hate him.
Linda thought of her mother’s words as she sat across from her giant of a father, still furious, now kicking at the napkins on the floor.
“Why don’t you listen to me?” he was saying. “How are you ever going to be a respected police officer if you think a crime has been committed every time one of your friends doesn’t pick up the phone?”
“Dad, it’s not like that.”
He swept the rest of the napkins off the table. A child, Linda thought. A big child throwing all his toys on the ground.
“Don’t interrupt me! Didn’t they teach you anything at the academy?”
“I learned to take things seriously.”
“You’re going to be laughed out of the force.”
“So be it. But Anna has disappeared.”
His rage died down as suddenly as it had started. There were still a few drops of sweat on his cheek. That was a short one, Linda thought. And not as furious as I remember. Maybe he’s more afraid of me now, or else he’s getting old. I bet he even apologizes this time.
“I’m sorry.”
Linda didn’t answer. She picked up a few napkins from the floor and threw them into the trash. Her heart was still pounding with fear. I’ll always feel this way when he gets angry, she thought.
“I don’t know what gets into me.”
Linda stared at him, waiting to speak until he actually looked at her.
“You just need to get a little action.”
He flinched as if she had struck him, then he blushed.
“You know I’m right,” she continued. “Anyway, you should get going. I’ll walk so you don’t have to be embarrassed.”
“I was planning to walk myself, actually.”
“Do it tomorrow. I don’t like it when you scream and yell. I need some space.”
Wallander set off meekly as instructed. Linda changed her top since she was drenched in sweat. She reconsidered her decision to report Anna’s disappearance and had still not made up her mind by the time she left the apartment.