Then he corrected himself, “No, there’s one other thing,” he said. “The light by the garden gate isn’t working.”
“It may have just burned out,” she said, surprised.
“Right,” said Wallander, “but it still breaks the pattern.”
There was a knock on the door. When Wallander opened it, Hansson was standing there, raindrops streaming down his face.
“Neither Nyberg nor the doctor are going to get anywhere unless we turn that boat over,” he said.
“Turn it over,” said Wallander. “I’ll be right there.”
Hansson disappeared into the rain.
“We have to start looking for his relatives,” Wallander said. “He must have an address book somewhere.”
“There’s one thing that’s odd,” said Hoglund. “This house is full of souvenirs from a long life with lots of travel and countless meetings with people. But there are no family photographs.”
They were back in the living-room. Wallander looked around and saw that she was right. It bothered him that he hadn’t thought of it himself.
“Maybe he didn’t want to be reminded that he was old,” Wallander said without conviction.
“A woman would never be able to live without pictures of her family,” she said. “That’s probably why I thought of it.”
There was a telephone on a table next to the sofa.
“There’s a phone in his study too,” he said, pointing. “You look in there, and I’ll start here.”
Wallander squatted by the low telephone stand. Next to the phone was the remote control for the TV. Wetterstedt could talk on the phone and watch TV at the same time, he thought. Just like me. We live in a world where people can’t bear not to be able to change channel and talk on the phone at the same time. He riffled through the phone books, but didn’t find any private notes. Next he pulled out two drawers in a bureau behind the telephone stand. In one there was a stamp album, in the other some tubes of glue and a box of napkin rings.
As he was walking towards the study, the phone rang. He stopped. Hoglund appeared at once in the doorway to the study. Wallander sat down carefully on the corner of the sofa and picked up the receiver.
“Hello,” said a woman’s voice. “Gustaf? Why haven’t you called me?”
“Who’s speaking, please?” asked Wallander.
The woman’s voice suddenly turned formal. “This is Gustaf Wetterstedt’s mother calling,” she said. “With whom am I speaking?”
“My name is Kurt Wallander. I’m a police officer here in Ystad.”
He could hear the woman breathing. He realised that she must be very old if she was Gustaf Wetterstedt’s mother. He made a face at Hoglund, who was standing looking at him.
“Has something happened?” asked the woman.
Wallander didn’t know how to react. It went against all written and unwritten procedures to inform the next of kin of a sudden death over the telephone. But he had already told her his name, and that he was a police officer.
“Hello?” said the woman. “Are you still there?”
Wallander didn’t answer. He stared helplessly at Hoglund. Then he did something which he couldn’t decide was justified. He hung up.
“Who was that?” she asked.
Wallander shook his head. He picked up the phone and called the headquarters of the Stockholm police.
CHAPTER 7
Later that evening, Gustaf Wetterstedt’s telephone rang again. By that time Wallander had arranged for his colleagues in Stockholm to tell Wetterstedt’s mother of his death. An inspector who introduced himself as Hans Vikander was calling from the Ostermalm police. In a few days, 1 July, the old name would disappear and be replaced by “city police”.
“She’s been informed,” Vikander said. “Because she was so old I took a clergyman along with me. I must say she took it calmly, even though she’s 94.”
“Maybe that’s why,” said Wallander.
“We’re trying to track down Wetterstedt’s two children,” Vikander went on. “The older, a son, works at the UN in New York. The daughter lives in Uppsala. We hope to reach them this evening.”
“What about his ex-wife?” asked Wallander.
“Which one?” Vikander asked. “He was married three times.”
“All three of them,” said Wallander. “We’ll have to contact them ourselves later.”
“I’ve got something that might interest you,” Vikander went on. “When we spoke with the mother she said that her son called her every night, at precisely nine o’clock.”
Wallander looked at his watch. It was just after 9 p.m. At once he understood the significance of what Vikander had said.
“He didn’t call yesterday” Vikander continued. “She waited until 9.30 p.m. Then she tried to call him. No-one answered, although she claimed she let it ring at least 15 times.”
“And the night before?”
“She couldn’t remember too well. She’s 94, after all. She said that her short-term memory was pretty bad.”
“Did she say anything else?”
“It was a little hard to know what to ask.”
“We’ll have to talk to her again,” Wallander said. “Since she’s already met you, it would be good if you could take it on.”
“I’m going on holiday the second week in July,” said Vikander. “Until then, that’s no problem.”
Wallander hung up. Hoglund came into the hall. She had been checking the letter box.
“Newspapers from today and yesterday,” she said. “A phone bill. No personal letters. He can’t have been under that boat for very long.”
Wallander got up from the sofa.
“Go through the house one more time,” he said. “See if you can find any sign that something is missing. I’ll go down and take a look at him.”
It was raining even harder now. As Wallander hurried through the garden he remembered that he was supposed to be visiting his father tonight. With a grimace he went back to the house.
“Do me a favour,” he asked Hoglund. “Call my father and tell him I’m tied up with an urgent investigation. If he asks who you are, tell him you’re the new chief of police.”
She nodded and smiled. Wallander gave her the number. Then he went out into the rain.
The cordoned area was a ghostly spectacle, lit up by the powerful floodlights. With a strong feeling of unease, Wallander walked in under the temporary canopy. Wetterstedt’s body lay stretched out on a plastic sheet. The doctor was shining a torch down Wetterstedt’s throat. He stopped when he realised that Wallander had arrived.
“How are you?” asked the doctor.
Wallander hadn’t recognised him until that moment. It was the doctor who had treated him in hospital a few years earlier when he’d thought he was having a heart attack.
“Apart from this business, I’m doing fine,” said Wallander. “I never had a recurrence.”
“Did you take my advice?” asked the doctor.
“Of course not,” Wallander muttered.
He looked at the dead man, who gave the same impression in death as he had on the TV screen. There was something obstinate and unsympathetic about his face, even when covered with dried blood. Wallander leaned forward and looked at the wound on his forehead, which extended up towards the top of his head, where the skin and hair had been ripped away.
“How did he die?” asked Wallander.
“From a powerful blow to the spine with an axe,” the doctor replied. “It would have killed him instantly. The spine is severed just below the shoulder blades. He was probably dead before he hit the ground.”
“Are you sure it happened outside?” Wallander asked.
“I think so. The blow to the spine must have come from someone standing behind him. It’s most likely that the force of the blow made him fall forwards. He has grains of sand in his mouth and eyes. It probably happened right nearby.”