South Africa. Sammy rooted in the brochures that were in the plastic sleeve. There was nothing about any hotel or other special activities such as a safari or the like. He took out his cell phone, called the travel agency that was listed as seller of the ticket, and was met by the message that many were calling right now but that his call would be answered as soon as possible.
Lindell on the other hand answered immediately and he asked her to assign some trainee to check out the hospitals. Perhaps Haller had been in an accident?
They ended the call. He checked around the apartment one more time, trying to see something that deviated from the dreary, unimaginatively furnished apartment. On the table in the living room were several notebooks. He opened one of the books but realized that it was also a kind of diary but of a different type than Haller’s workbooks. Here were no lines with the number of hours worked, no list of various materials.
On the cover page the year 1942 was given. The style was old-fashioned and shaky but completely legible. It was about cleaning. He browsed ahead: preparations for a dinner in May. All the courses were noted.
He picked up the next book, January 1, 1943, was at the top of the first page. After a few pages about the weather the entry described the aftermath of a New Year’s celebration. Here was a more personal text. The woman, because he assumed that it was a woman’s diary, commented on the guests who had been at the New Year’s dinner the day before. A certain building contractor D had evidently “declaimed,” ended up in a quarrel with P about the “awful war,” and left the company in anger.
Sammy Nilsson closed the notebook. Almost-seventy-year-old diaries could not give any explanation for why Karsten Haller was missing.
He remained standing in the room. Should he continue? It was definitely not his area to ferret out missing persons, but it was a situation that bordered on the unsolved mystery of his own grandfather.
On his way to the car Lindell called. No Haller had been admitted to a hospital. Sammy told about the ticket to South Africa. He heard from her voice that she was becoming more interested. She’s bored and needs a mystery too, he thought, smiling to himself.
“Shall I pick you up?”
Lindell laughed. He took that as a yes.
They had been in his tower before. That time the associate professor had been enthusiastic; now he looked worried, almost tormented.
“You see,” he said, pointing.
“What?” asked Sammy.
“You see those small green plants, those are wintergreen. They don’t sit in formation, zigzag if I may say so. It’s so amateurish that I don’t think Haller would have planted that way. Unless he was in a really big hurry… but no… an experienced landscaper will still plant zigzag. You do it automatically. Do you understand what I mean?”
Sammy nodded. Lindell looked the most thoughtful.
“It’s not the homeowner who-”
“I asked,” the associate professor interrupted, shaking his head, “but he hasn’t touched the flower beds. He didn’t even understand the question.”
“And Haller’s bicycle is still there,” Sammy noted.
They stood quietly, pondering the fact that the landscaper seemed to have disappeared into thin air.
“So if it’s not Haller or the homeowner-”
“Then it’s someone else!” the associate professor exclaimed.
Sammy saw how irritated Lindell was at having been interrupted a second time.
“Did he say anything about Africa to you, that he was going to travel?”
The associate professor looked completely uncomprehending and shook his head.
“So many strange things are happening here now,” he said.
“I saw the article you wrote,” said Sammy. “That was brave. Criticizing an old colleague and neighbor can’t be easy.”
“Of course,” was the associate professor’s curt reply.
“What other strange things have happened?” asked Lindell.
“Well, the housekeeper at the professor’s has quit. That alone. She has worked there for however many years. And quitting now when he’ll get the Nobel Prize… I mean… and then this thing with Haller. He seemed so unbalanced… you understand, he was the one who threw that stone at Ohler’s house. I shouldn’t reveal that, but this feels so strange.”
Sammy and Lindell gave each other a look. Lindell nodded. What was that I said? she seemed to want to say.
“Did he talk about why?”
“No, not really,” said the associate professor.
“Was he the one who put the skull by Ohler’s gate too?”
The associate professor’s face suddenly turned bright red.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” said Lindell.
The associate professor nodded.
“A silly prank, I admit that, but it’s an old doctor’s joke. I was subjected to it myself in the fifties. Now in retrospect I admit that perhaps it wasn’t so well-advised.”
“So Ohler understood that it was someone in his field, so to speak?”
“I would presume so,” said the associate professor.
Sammy Nilsson grinned.
“Did he know it was you?”
“No, he doesn’t think I have the courage. I did it more for my own amusement. To prove something, not sure what. I am an old man but not without…”
He hesitated but shook his head when Lindell suggested the word “passion.”
“That’s too strong a word,” he said with a cautious smile, which more expressed sorrow than anything else. “Am I going to be charged?”
“No,” Sammy Nilsson decided. “Do you know whether Ohler is at home?”
The associate professor nodded.
“And his daughter too, and her… girlfriend. They seem to be living there now.”
The two police officers left the associate professor. If it weren’t for the gloomy background and Haller’s disappearance, Sammy would have made fun of the whole situation. But now there was something heavy and ominous about it all. They recognized it: discomfort. They felt it as a scent. Without commenting on the visit with the associate professor they walked toward Professor von Ohler’s house.
A middle-aged woman answered the door. Sammy Nilsson immediately saw the resemblance. It must be the daughter, he thought, and introduced himself. Lindell stood passively by his side. That was the division they always used. One active and the other waiting, observing.
“We’re investigating a disappearance,” he continued. “There is a landscaper who has worked in the area and who now has disappeared without a trace.”
The woman stared at him. Her face expressed nothing. Passive, waiting for a continuation.
“Karsten Haller. Is the name familiar?”
She shook her head.
“You are Ohler’s daughter, I understand,” Sammy continued indefatigably.
“Why do you understand that?”
“You remind me of your father. Haller? Doesn’t ring any bells? He worked on the neighbor’s yard. I thought possibly that-”
“No, as I said, that’s not anyone I know. Was there anything else?”
“Perhaps your father knows Haller. Perhaps he’s done work here?”
“I would have known about that,” said the woman.
She was shaking.
“Perhaps we can continue to speak inside?” Sammy suggested.
“I don’t think so. I’m a little busy and as I said, we don’t know who this Haller is. No one in this house knows anything of interest.”
“We have reason to believe that he knows someone in the house.”
“My father is a public person.”
Sammy remembered when he and Haller met. Haller’s undisguised anger when he brought up Professor von Ohler. An anger that he did nothing to conceal.
“We believe that Haller has reason to feel a certain animosity toward your father. A feeling that does not seem to originate from any type of general indignation but rather seems to have a personal connection.”