“I’m going to suggest one o’clock.”
Wallander made a note of it.
They divided up the tasks and brought the meeting to a close. Everyone wanted the matter disposed of as quickly as possible. It was a particularly wretched case, and no one wanted to spend more time on it than was necessary. Wallander would pay a visit to the Hökberg family. Martinsson and Höglund would talk to Eva Persson and her parents.
Soon the room was empty. Wallander could feel the symptoms of his flu getting worse. At least maybe I’ll infect a journalist, he thought as he dug around in his pockets for a tissue.
He bumped into Nyberg in the hallway. Nyberg was wearing boots and a warm coat, his hair splayed in all directions. He was clearly in a bad mood.
“I heard you found the knife,” Wallander said.
“Looks like the county can no longer afford to pay for basic upkeep,” Nyberg answered. “We were shin-deep in leaves. But we finally found it.”
“What kind of a knife?”
“Kitchen knife. Fairly big. The tip broke off, probably from hitting a rib, so she must have used a surprising amount of force. But then again, it was a cheap knife.”
Wallander shook his head.
“It’s hard to believe,” Nyberg said. “I don’t know what happened to the basic respect for human life. How much money did they get?”
“We don’t know yet, but probably around six hundred kronor. It couldn’t have been much more. Lundberg was at the beginning of his shift, and he never carried a lot of change to start.”
Nyberg muttered something under his breath and walked off. Wallander returned to his office. For a while he sat in his chair without knowing what to do next. His throat hurt. Finally he opened the folder with a sigh. Sonja Hökberg lived to the west of Ystad. He wrote down the address, got up, and put on his coat. As he was leaving, the phone rang. He picked up. It was Linda. The voices and clatter in the background made him think she was calling from the restaurant.
“I got your message this morning,” she said.
“This morning?”
“I wasn’t at home last night.”
Wallander knew better than to ask her where she had spent the night. It would only make her get angry and slam down the phone.
“Well, I didn’t call for any particular reason,” he said. “I just wanted to know how you were doing.”
“Good. How about you?’
“I’ve got a little cold. Otherwise things are the same. I was wondering if you had any plans to come down and visit soon.”
“I don’t have time.”
“I’m happy to pay your fare.”
“I told you, I don’t have time. It’s not about the money.”
Wallander realized he would not be able to change her mind. She was as stubborn as he was.
“How are you doing, anyway?” she asked again. “Do you have any contact with Baiba these days?”
“That ended a long time ago. You know that.”
“It’s not good for you to go on like this.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You know what I mean. You’re even starting to get a whiny tone in your voice. You never had that before.”
“You think I sound whiny?”
“You’re doing it right now. But I have a suggestion. I think you should contact a dating service.”
“A dating service?”
“Where you can find someone. Otherwise you’re going to turn into a whiny old man who worries about where I’m spending my nights.”
She sees right through me, he thought. I’m an open book.
“You mean I should put an ad in the paper?”
“Yes, or use one of those agencies.”
“I’ll never do that.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t believe in them.”
“And why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, it was just a suggestion. Think it over. I have to get back to work.”
“Where are you?”
“At the restaurant. We open soon.”
They said goodbye and hung up. Wallander wondered where she had spent the night. A couple of years ago, Linda had been involved with a young man from Kenya who was in medical school in Lund. But that had ended. After that, he had not known very much at all about who she was dating, other than that every so often she started seeing someone new. He felt an unpleasant pinch of irritation and jealousy. Then he left the room. The thought of putting in a personal ad or getting in touch with a dating service had actually occurred to him before. But he had always rejected the idea. It was as if that would mean sinking to an unacceptable level of desperation.
The strong wind chilled him as soon as he walked outside. He got in his car and started the engine, listening to the strange noises that were only getting worse. Then he drove out to the townhouse where the Hökbergs lived. Martinsson’s report had only given him the information that Sonja Hökberg’s father was “self-employed.” He still didn’t know what that actually meant. Wallander got out of the car. The small patch of garden in the front was neat and tidy. He rang the doorbell. After a moment a man came to the door. Wallander knew at once that they had met before. He had a good memory for faces. But he didn’t know when or where it had been. The man had also immediately recognized Wallander.
“It’s you,” he said. “I knew the police would be coming out, but I didn’t expect it to be you.”
He stepped aside to let Wallander enter. Wallander heard the sound of a TV coming from somewhere. He still had not managed to figure out where he had met this man before.
“I take it you remember me?” Hökberg asked.
“Yes,” Wallander said. “But I have to say I’m having trouble placing you in the right context.”
“ ‘Erik Hokberg’ doesn’t ring a bell?”
Wallander searched his memory. “I don’t think so.”
“What about ‘Sten Widen’?”
Suddenly Wallander remembered. Sten Widen, with his horse farm in Stjarnsund. And Erik. The three of them had once shared a passion for the opera. Sten had been the most deeply involved, but Erik was a childhood friend of his and they had often sat around the record player as they listened to Verdi’s operas.
“Yes, I remember now,” Wallander said. “But your name wasn’t Hökberg then, was it?”
“I took my wife’s name. As a boy I was called Erik Eriksson.”
Erik Hökberg was a large man. The coat hanger he held out to Wallander looked small in his hand. Wallander remembered him as thin, but now he was of substantial proportions. That must have been why it had been so hard to put two and two together.
Wallander hung up his coat and followed Hökberg into the living room. There was a TV in the middle of the room, but it was turned off. The sound was coming from another room. They sat down. Wallander tried to think of how to start off.
“It’s horrible what’s happened,” Hökberg said. “Naturally I have no idea what got into her.”
“Had she ever been violent before?”
“Never.”
“What about your wife? Is she home?”
Hökberg had collapsed into a heap in his chair. Behind the rolls of fat in his face Wallander thought he could sense the outline of another face from a time that now seemed endlessly distant.
“She took Emil and went to her sister in Höör. She couldn’t stand to stay here. The reporters kept calling. They show no mercy. They called in the middle of the night, some of them.”
“I’m afraid I have to speak to her.”
“I know. I told her the police would come by.”
Wallander wasn’t sure how to proceed.
“You and your wife must have talked about what happened.”
“She doesn’t understand it any more than I do. It was a complete shock.”