“The trip might be fun,” said his father. “You never know.”
Wallander left him and went over to the girl at the front desk.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It was quite right of you to let my father wait in my office.”
He went back to his room, tears welling in his eyes. Even though his relationship with his father was strained, coloured by guilt, he felt a great sorrow. He stood by the window and looked out at the beautiful summer weather.
There was a time when we were so close that nothing could come between us, he thought. That was back when the silk knights, as we called them, used to come in their shiny American cars that we called land yachts and buy your paintings. Even then you talked about going to Italy. Another time, only a few years ago, you actually set off. I found you, dressed in pyjamas, with a suitcase in your hand in the middle of a field. And now we have to make that trip. I won’t allow anything to stop us.
Wallander returned to his desk and called his sister in Stockholm. The answer machine informed him that she wouldn’t be back until that evening.
It took him a long while to push aside his father’s visit and collect his thoughts. He couldn’t seem to accept that what his father had told him was true.
After talking to Hansson he made an extensive review of the investigation. Just before 11 a.m. he called Per Akeson at home and gave him an update. Then he drove over to Mariagatan, took a shower, and changed his clothes. By midday he was back at the station. On the way to his room he stopped to see Ann-Britt Hoglund. He told her about the paper he’d found behind the road workers’ hut.
“Did you get hold of the psychologists in Stockholm?” he asked.
“I found a man named Roland Moller,” she said. “He was at his summer house outside Vaxholm. But Hansson must make a formal request as acting chief.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“He’s done it.”
“Good,” said Wallander. “Now, something else. Do criminals return to the scene of the crime?”
“It’s both a myth and a truth.”
“In what sense is it a myth?”
“In that it’s supposed to be something that always happens.”
“And what’s the reality?”
“That it actually does happen once in a while. The most classic example in our own legal history is probably from here in Skane. The policeman who committed a series of murders in the early 1950s and was later on the team investigating what happened.”
“That’s not a good example,” Wallander objected. “He was forced to return. I’m talking about the ones who return of their own accord. Why?”
“To taunt the police. To gloat. Or to find out how much the police actually know.”
Wallander nodded thoughtfully.
“Why are you asking me this?”
“I had a peculiar experience,” said Wallander. “I got a feeling that I saw someone out by Carlman’s farm that I’d also seen outside the cordon near Wetterstedt’s villa.”
“Why couldn’t it be the same person?” she asked, surprised.
“No reason. But there was something odd about this person. I just can’t put my finger on what it was.”
“I don’t think I can help you.”
“I know,” said Wallander. “But in the future I want someone to photograph everyone standing outside the cordon, as discreetly as possible.”
“In the future?”
Wallander knew that he had said too much. He tapped on the desk three times with his index finger.
“Naturally I hope nothing else will happen,” he said. “But if it does.”
Wallander accompanied Hoglund back to her office. Then he continued out of the station. His father was gone. He drove to a restaurant on the edge of town and ate a hamburger. On a thermometer he saw that it was 26 °C.
The press conference on Midsummer Day at the Ystad station was memorable because Wallander lost his temper and left the room before it was over. Afterwards he refused to apologise. Most of his colleagues thought he did the right thing. But the next day Wallander got a phone call from the director of the national police board, telling him that it was highly unsuitable for the police to make abusive comments to journalists. The relationship was strained enough as it was, and no additional aggravation could be tolerated.
Towards the end of the press conference, a journalist from an evening paper had stood up and started to question Wallander about the fact that the offender had taken the scalps of his victims. Wallander tried hard to avoid going into the gory details. He had replied that some of the hair of both Wetterstedt and Carlman had been torn off. But the reporter persisted, demanding details even when Wallander said that he couldn’t give more information because of the forensic investigation. By then Wallander had developed a splitting headache. When the reporter accused him of hiding behind the requirements of the investigation, and said that it seemed like pure hypocrisy to withhold details when the police had called the press conference, Wallander had had enough. He banged his fist on the table and stood up.
“I will not let police policy be dictated by a journalist who doesn’t know when to stop!” he shouted.
The flashbulbs went off in an explosion as he left the room. Afterwards, when he had calmed down, he asked Hansson to excuse his behaviour.
“I hardly think that it will change the way the headlines will read tomorrow morning,” Hansson replied.
“I had to draw the line somewhere,” said Wallander.
“I’m on your side, of course,” said Hansson. “But I suspect there are others who won’t be.”
“They can suspend me,” said Wallander. “They can fire me. But they can’t ever make me apologise to that reporter.”
“That apology will probably be discreetly given by the national police board to the editor-in-chief of the newspaper,” said Hansson. “And we won’t ever hear about it.”
At 4 p.m. the investigative group shut themselves behind closed doors. Hansson had given strict instructions that they were not to be disturbed. At Wallander’s request a squad car had gone to pick up Akeson.
He knew that the decisions they made this afternoon would be crucial. They would be forced to go in so many directions at once. All options had to be explored. But at the same time Wallander knew that they had to concentrate on the main lead.
Wallander borrowed a couple of aspirin from Hoglund and thought again about what Lars Magnusson had said, about the connection between Wetterstedt and Carlman. Was there something else he’d missed? He searched his weary mind without coming up with anything. They would concentrate their investigation on art sales and art thefts. They would have to dig deep into the rumours, some almost 30 years old, surrounding Wetterstedt, and they would have to move fast. Wallander knew they wouldn’t get help along the way. Lars Magnusson had talked about the collaborators who cleaned up the mess left by those wielding power. Wallander would have to find a way of throwing light on these activities, but it would be very difficult.
The investigative meeting was one of the longest Wallander had ever attended. They sat for almost nine hours before Hansson blew the final whistle. By then everyone was exhausted. Hoglund’s bottle of aspirin was empty. Plastic coffee cups covered the table. Cartons of half-eaten pizza were piled in a corner of the room.
But this meeting was also one of the best Wallander had ever experienced. Concentration hadn’t flagged, everyone contributed their opinions, and logical plans for the investigation had developed as a result.
Svedberg went over the telephone conversations he had had with Wetterstedt’s two children and his third ex-wife, but no-one could see a possible motive. Hansson had also managed to talk with the 80-year-old who had been party secretary during Wetterstedt’s term as minister of justice. He had confirmed that Wetterstedt had often been the subject of rumours within the party. But no-one had been able to ignore his unflagging loyalty.