“Yes.”
“How long have you been with him?”
“Almost three years. I wasn’t working. This house costs money so I was forced to look for cleaning work. I found the job in the paper.”
“How often did you go to his house?”
“Twice a month. Every other Thursday.”
Wallander made a note.
“Always on Thursdays?”
“Always.”
“Did you have your own keys?”
“No. He never would have given them to me.”
“Why do you say that?”
“When I was in the house he watched every step I took. It was incredibly nerve-wracking. But he paid well.”
“Did you ever come across anything odd?”
“Such as?”
“Was there ever anyone else there?”
“No, never.”
“He didn’t have people to dinner?”
“Not that I know of. There were never any dishes waiting for me when I came.”
Wallander paused for a moment before continuing.
“How would you describe him as a person?”
Her reply was swift and firm.
“He was the type you’d call arrogant.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“He patronised me. To him I was nothing more than a cleaning woman. Despite the fact that he once belonged to the party that supposedly represented our cause. The cleaning women’s cause.”
“Did you know that he referred to you as a charwoman in his diary?”
“That doesn’t surprise me in the least.”
“But you stayed on with him?”
“I told you, he paid well.”
“Try to remember your last visit. You were there last week?”
“Everything was as usual. He was just the way he always was.”
“Over the past three years, then, nothing out of the ordinary happened?”
She hesitated before she answered. He was immediately on the alert.
“There was one time last year,” she began tentatively. “In November. I don’t know why, but I forgot what day it was. I went there on a Friday morning instead of Thursday. As I arrived, a big black car drove out of the garage. The kind with windows you can’t see through. Then I rang the bell at the front door as I always do. It took a long time before he came to open the door. When he saw me he was furious. He slammed the door. I thought I was going to get the sack. But when I came back the next time he said nothing about it, just pretended that nothing had happened.”
Wallander waited for her to go on.
“Was that all?”
“Yes.”
“A big black car leaving his house?”
“That’s right.”
Wallander knew that he wouldn’t get any further. He finished his coffee and stood up.
“If you remember anything else that might be helpful to the enquiry, I’d appreciate it if you’d call me,” he said as he left.
He drove back to Ystad.
A big black car had visited Wetterstedt’s house. Who was in the car? A strong wind began to blow, and the rain started again.
CHAPTER 9
By the time Wallander returned to Wetterstedt’s house, Nyberg and his crew had moved back inside. They had carted off tons of sand without finding what they were looking for. When it started raining again, Nyberg immediately decided to lay out the tarpaulins. They couldn’t carry on until the weather improved. Wallander returned to the house feeling that what Sara Bjorklund had said about showing up on the wrong day and the big black car meant they had knocked a small hole in Wetterstedt’s shell. She had seen something that no-one was supposed to see. Wallander couldn’t interpret Wetterstedt’s rage in any other way, or the fact that he didn’t fire her and never spoke of it again. The anger and the silence were two sides of the same temperament.
Nyberg was in Wetterstedt’s living-room drinking coffee from an old thermos that reminded Wallander of the 1950s. He was sitting on a newspaper to protect the chair.
“We haven’t found the murder site yet,” said Nyberg “And now there’s no point in looking because of the rain.”
“I hope the tarpaulins are securely fastened,” Wallander said. “It’s blowing harder all the time.”
“They won’t move,” said Nyberg.
“I thought I’d finish going through his desk,” said Wallander.
“Hansson called. He has spoken to Wetterstedt’s children.”
“It took him this long?” said Wallander. “I thought he’d done that a while ago.”
“I don’t know anything about it,” said Nyberg. “I’m just telling you what he said.”
Wallander went into the study and sat down at the desk. He adjusted the lamp so that it cast its light in as big a circle as possible. Then he pulled out one of the drawers in the left-hand cabinet. In it lay a copy of this year’s tax return. Wallander placed it on the desk. He could see that Wetterstedt had declared an income of almost 1,000,000 kronor, and that the income came primarily from Wetterstedt’s private pension plan and share dividends. A summary from the securities register centre revealed that Wetterstedt held shares in traditional Swedish heavy industry; Ericsson, Asea Brown Boveri, Volvo, and Rottneros. Apart from this income, Wetterstedt had reported an honorarium from the foreign ministry and royalties from Tidens publishing company. Under the entry “Net Worth” he had declared 5,000,000 kronor. Wallander memorised this figure.
He put the tax return back. The next drawer contained something that looked like a photo album. Here are the family pictures Ann-Britt was missing, he thought. But he leafed through the pages with growing astonishment: old-fashioned pornographic pictures, some of them quite sophisticated. Wallander noted that some of the pages fell open more easily than others. Wetterstedt had a preference for young models. Martinsson walked in. Wallander nodded and pointed to the open album.
“Some people collect stamps,” said Martinsson, “others evidently collect pictures like this.”
Wallander closed the album and put it back in the desk drawer.
“A lawyer named Sjogren called from Malmo,” said Martinsson. “He said he had Wetterstedt’s will. There are rather large assets in the estate. I asked him whether there were any unexpected beneficiaries. But everything goes to the direct heirs. Wetterstedt had also set up a foundation to distribute scholarships to young law students. But he put the money into it long ago and paid tax on it.”
“So, we know that Gustaf Wetterstedt was a wealthy man. But wasn’t he born the son of a poor docker?”
“Svedberg is working on his background,” said Martinsson. “I gather he’s found an old party secretary with a good memory who had a lot to say about Wetterstedt. But I wanted to have a word about the girl who committed suicide.”
“Did you find out who she was?”
“No. But through the computer I’ve found more than 2,000 possibilities for what the letter combination might mean. It was a pretty long print-out.”
“We’ll have to put it out on Interpol,” said Wallander after a pause. “And what’s the new one called? Europol?”
“That’s right.”
“Send out a query with her description. Tomorrow we’ll take a photo of the medallion. Even if everything else is getting pushed aside in the wake of Wetterstedt’s death, we have to try and get that picture in the papers.”
“I had a jeweller look at it,” said Martinsson. “He said it was solid gold.”
“Surely somebody is missing her,” said Wallander. “It’s rare for someone to have no relatives at all.”
Martinsson yawned and asked whether Wallander needed any help.
“Not tonight,” he said, and Martinsson left the house. Wallander spent another hour going through the desk. Then he turned off the lamp and sat there in the dark. Who was Gustaf Wetterstedt? The picture he had of him was still unclear.
An idea came to him. He looked up a name in the telephone book. He dialled the number and got an answer almost at once. He explained who it was and asked whether he could come over. Then he hung up. He found Nyberg upstairs and told him he’d be back later that evening.
The wind and the rain lashed at him as he ran to his car. He drove into town, to a block of flats near Osterport School. He rang the bell and the door was opened. When he reached the third floor Lars Magnusson was waiting for him in his stockinged feet. Beautiful piano music was playing.