He parked outside the station and was in his office as the clock struck seven. Sitting at his desk, he suddenly remembered the item he had forgotten to buy. Soap. He immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper. Then he turned his thoughts to the case.
Some of the unpleasant feelings from the day before returned. He recalled Sonja Hökberg’s complete lack of emotion. He tried to convince himself that she did in fact exhibit some signs of compassion that he simply had not been able to pick up, but to no avail. His experience in these matters told him he had not been mistaken. He got up and went to get a cup of coffee from the lunchroom. Since Martinsson was also an early riser, Wallander stopped by his office. As usual, the door was open. Wallander had often wondered how Martinsson got any work done. Wallander couldn’t concentrate unless his door was bolted shut.
Martinsson nodded when Wallander stopped in the doorway.
“I thought you’d be here,” he said.
“I don’t feel so well today,” Wallander said.
“A cold?”
“I always get a sore throat in October.”
Martinsson, who always worried about getting sick, pulled his chair back a couple of inches.
“You could have stayed home today,” he said. “This depressing Lundberg case is already solved.”
“Only partially,” Wallander objected. “We still don’t have a motive. I don’t believe that line that they needed extra money for nothing in particular. Have you found the knife yet?”
“Nyberg’s in charge of that. I haven’t talked to him yet.”
“Call him.”
Martinsson made a face.
“He’s not easy to talk to in the morning.”
“Then I’ll call him myself.”
Wallander reached for Martinsson’s phone and tried Nyberg’s home number. After a few moments he was automatically transferred to a cell phone. Nyberg answered, but it was a poor connection.
“It’s Kurt. I just wanted to know if you’ve found the knife yet.”
“How the hell are we supposed to find anything in the dark?” Nyberg answered angrily.
“I thought Eva Persson said where she had left it.”
“We still have an area of several hundred cubic meters to comb. She just said she threw it somewhere in the Old Cemetery.”
“Why don’t you have someone bring her down?”
“If it’s here, we’ll find it,” Nyberg said.
They ended the conversation.
“I didn’t sleep well last night,” Martinsson said. “My daughter Terese knows Eva Persson. They’re almost the same age. And Eva Persson has parents too. What are they going through right now? From what I understand, Eva is their only child.”
They both thought about what he had said. Then Wallander started a series of sneezes. Martinsson left quickly. The conversation was left hanging.
They gathered in one of the conference rooms at eight o’clock. Wallander sat in his usual spot at the end of the table. Hansson and Höglund were already there. Martinsson was standing by the window talking to someone on the phone, most likely his wife. Wallander had always wondered how they could have so much to say to each other after having had breakfast together only an hour before. The main feeling in the room was despondence. Lisa Holgersson walked in and Martinsson finished his conversation. Hansson got up and shut the door.
“Isn’t Nyberg supposed to be here?” he asked.
“He’s looking for the knife,” Wallander said. “I think we can assume he’ll find it.”
Then he looked over at Holgersson, who nodded at him. He could start the meeting. He wondered briefly how many times he had found himself in exactly this situation. Up early in the morning, facing his colleagues across the conference table with a crime to solve.
They were waiting for him to begin.
“Johan Lundberg is now dead,” he said. “In case anyone hasn’t heard the latest.”
He pointed to a copy of the local newspaper, the Ystad Allehanda, that was lying on the table. The taxi driver’s death was announced in huge print on the first page.
Wallander continued. “This means the two girls, Hökberg and Persson, are charged with murder. We can’t call it anything else, since Hökberg in particular was so precise in her explanations. They planned this and were carrying weapons. They were going to attack whichever taxi driver came their way. We’ve recovered the hammer, as well as Lundberg’s empty wallet and his cell phone. The only thing missing is the knife. Neither one of the girls has denied the charges, nor shifted the blame to the other. I’m assuming we can hand the matter over to the district attorney tomorrow at the latest. Since Eva Persson is so young, her case will be handled by the juvenile courts. The autopsy results aren’t in yet, but I think we can say that our role in this unfortunate case is as good as over.”
Wallander finished and waited to see if anyone had anything to say. “Why did they do it?” Lisa Holgersson finally asked. “It seems so unnecessary.”
Wallander nodded. He had hoped someone would ask this question so he wouldn’t have to find a way to pose it himself.
“Sonja Hökberg was very firm on this point,” he said. “Both in her session with Martinsson and later with me. She said, ‘We needed the money.’ Nothing else.”
“What for?”
Hansson asked the last question.
“We don’t know why. They won’t tell us. If Hökberg is to be believed, they didn’t even know why themselves. They just wanted money.”
Wallander looked around the table before he continued.
“I don’t think they’re telling the truth. At the very least, I know Hökberg is lying. I haven’t yet spoken with Eva Persson, but I’m still convinced of it. They needed that money for something in particular. I also have the suspicion that Persson was doing what Hökberg told her to. That doesn’t make her any less guilty, but I think it gives a clearer picture of their relationship.”
“Does it even matter?” Höglund asked. “Whether they needed the money for clothes or something else?”
“I guess not, at this point. The district attorney certainly has enough evidence to convict Hökberg.”
“They’ve never been in trouble with us before,” Martinsson said. “I made a quick search of our database. And they were both doing well in school.”
Wallander again had the feeling that they were taking the wrong approach to the case. Or at the very least, that they had been overly hasty in writing off other explanations for Lundberg’s murder. But since he was unable to put this hunch into words, he said nothing. They still had a lot of work to do, and the reason for the murder could very well have to do with money. They simply had to keep their eyes open for other possibilities.
The phone rang and Hansson picked up. After listening for a moment he put the receiver down.
“That was Nyberg,” he said. “They found the knife.”
Wallander nodded and shut the folder lying in front of him.
“Naturally, we still need to speak to the parents and make sure we conduct a thorough background investigation, but I think we can safely forward the preliminary information to the district attorney’s office.”
Lisa Holgersson raised her hand to speak.
“We need to hold a press conference. We’ve been barraged by calls from the media. It is still unusual for two young girls to commit this kind of violent crime.”
Wallander looked over at Höglund, but she shook her head. In the past few years, she had often taken on the task of talking to the media, a job he thoroughly despised. But not this time. Wallander understood.
“I’ll do it,” he said. “Do we have a time?”