“I don’t understand how you can keep at it.”
“I don’t either. But someone has to do it, and I probably do it as well as anybody else.”
Widen looked smilingly at him.
“You don’t have to get so defensive. Of course I think you’re an excellent policeman. I’ve always thought so. I just wonder if you’re going to make time for anything else in your life.”
“I’m not a quitter.”
“Like me?”
Wallander didn’t answer. He was suddenly aware of the distance between them and wondered how long it had really been there without their knowing it. Once upon a time they had been very close. Then they had grown up and gone their separate ways. When they’d met up years later, they thought they could build on the friendship they’d once had. They had never seen that the continuation of that friendship was totally different. Only now could Wallander see it clearly. Widen had probably also come to the same conclusion.
“One of the girls who killed this taxi driver had a stepfather,” Wallander said. “Erik Hökberg.”
Widen looked at him with surprise.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. It looks like the girl has now been murdered herself. I don’t have the time to take off, even if I wanted to.”
He tucked the whiskey bottle back into the plastic bag.
“Could you call a cab for me?”
“Are you going already?”
“I think so.”
A wave of disappointment washed over Widen’s face. Wallander felt the same. Their friendship had come to an end. Or rather: they had finally discovered that it had ended a long time ago.
“I’ll take you home.”
“No,” Wallander said. “You’ve had some drinks.”
Widen didn’t argue. He went over to the phone and called the cab company.
“It’ll be here in ten minutes.”
They went out. It was a clear fall evening with no wind.
“What did we expect?” Widen said suddenly. “When we were young, I mean.”
“I’ve forgotten. But I’m not the kind to look back very often. I have enough on my hands with the present, and my worries for the future.”
The taxi arrived.
“Make sure you write and tell me what happens,” Wallander said.
“Will do.”
Wallander climbed into the back seat.
The car drove through the darkness toward Ystad.
Wallander had just stepped into his apartment when the phone rang. It was Höglund.
“Are you home now? I’ve tried to call you a million times. Why isn’t your cell phone turned on?”
“What’s happened?”
“I tried the coroner’s office in Lund again. I spoke to the pathologist. He didn’t want to be held to this, but he’s found something. Sonja Hökberg had a skull fracture in the back of the head.”
“Was she dead when she hit the power lines?”
“Maybe not, but probably unconscious.”
“Could she have hurt herself somehow?”
“He was pretty sure it could not have been self-inflicted.”
“That settles it,” Wallander said. “She was murdered.”
“Haven’t we known that all along?”
“No,” Wallander said. “We suspected it, but we haven’t known it until now.”
Somewhere in the background a child started crying. Höglund was in a hurry to get off the phone. They arranged to meet at eight the next morning.
Wallander sat down at the kitchen table. He thought about Widen and Sonja Hökberg, but above all about Eva Persson.
She must knozu, he thought. She knows who killed Sonja Hökberg.
Chapter Ten
Wallander was catapulted from sleep at around five o’clock on Thursday morning. As soon as he opened his eyes in the dark he knew what had awakened him. It was something that had slipped his mind: his promise to Hoglund. Today was the day he was supposed to give a speech at the Ystad women’s literary society about life as a police officer.
He lay paralyzed in the darkness. How could he have forgotten about it so completely? He had nothing prepared, not even any scribbled notes.
He felt the anxiety grip in his stomach. The women he was going to address would almost certainly have seen the pictures of Eva Persson. And Hoglund must have called them by now to tell them he was speaking in her place.
I can’t do it, he thought. All they are going to see is a brutal man who assaulted a young girl. Not the person I actually am. Whoever that is.
As he lay in bed he tried to plot a way out of his dilemma, but he soon realized there was no way to get out of this. He got up at five-thirty and sat down at the kitchen table with a pad of paper in front of him. He wrote the word Lecture at the top of the page. He asked himself what Rydberg would have told a group of women about his work, but in the back of his mind he suspected that Rydberg would never have gotten himself roped into something like this in the first place.
By six o’clock he had still only written that one word. He was about to give up when he had a sudden thought. He could tell them about what they were involved in right now: the investigation of the taxi driver’s death. He could even start by telling them about Stefan Fredman’s funeral. A few days in a policeman’s life — the way it really was, without any editing. He made a few notes. He wouldn’t be able to avoid the whole incident with the photographer, and so his speech could seem like a defense. But in a way of course it was. It was a chance for him to tell it the way it had happened.
He put down his pen at a quarter past six. He was still anxious about the evening, but he no longer felt quite so helpless. He called the repair place and asked about his car. The conversation was depressing. Apparently they were considering taking the whole engine apart. The clerk promised to call him with a price quote later that day.
The thermometer outside read seven degrees Celsius. There were a soft wind and some clouds, but no rain. Wallander watched an old man slowly walking down the street. He stopped by a garbage can and leafed through its contents with one hand without finding anything. Wallander thought back to his visit with Widen. All traces of envy were gone. It had been replaced by a vague sense of melancholy. Widen was going to disappear from his life. Who was left who connected him to his earlier life? Soon there would be no one.
Wallander forced himself to halt this train of thought and left the apartment. On his way to the station he kept thinking about what he should say in his speech. A patrol car pulled up alongside him and the officer asked him if he wanted a ride. Wallander thanked him but declined the offer. He wanted to walk.
A man was waiting for him in the reception area. When Wallander walked past, the man turned to face him. Wallander recognized his face but was unable to place it in a context.
“Kurt Wallander,” he said. “Do you have a minute?”
“That depends. Who are you?”
“Harald Törngren.”
Wallander shook his head.
“I was the one who took the picture.”
Wallander realized he remembered the man’s face from the press conference.
“You mean, you were the one skulking around the hallway.”
Harald Törngren smiled. He was in his thirties and had a long face and short hair.
“I was looking for a bathroom and no one stopped me.”
“What do you want?”
“I thought you might like to comment on the picture. I’d like to interview you.”
“You’d never write what I say anyway.”
“How do you know that?”