“What month?” asked Wallander.
“February or March.”
Wallander patted his jacket pocket. His pocket calendar didn’t have the previous year in it. Sjosten shook his head. Larsson couldn’t help.
“Might there be an old calendar somewhere in the house?” asked Wallander.
“It’s possible that one of the grandchildren’s Christmas calendars is still in the attic,” Heineman said. “My wife has the bad habit of saving a lot of old junk. I’m the opposite. Also a trait I picked up at the ministry. On the first day of each month I threw out everything that didn’t need to be saved from the previous one. My rule was, better to throw out too much than too little. I never missed a thing I had discarded.”
Wallander turned to Larsson. “Call and find out what day is the name day for Frida,” he said. “And what day of the week it was in 1993.”
“Who would know that?” Larsson asked.
“Damn it,” said Sjosten. “Call the station. You have five minutes to get the answer.”
“There’s a telephone in the hall,” said Heineman.
Larsson left the room.
“I must say that I appreciate it when clear orders are given,” Heineman said contentedly. “That ability seems to have been lost.”
To fill in time, Sjosten asked where Heineman had been stationed abroad. It turned out that he had been posted to many places.
“It got better towards the end,” he said. “But when I started my career, the people who were sent overseas to represent this country were often of a deplorably low calibre.”
When Larsson reappeared, almost ten minutes had passed. He was holding a piece of paper.
“Frida has her name day on February 17th,” he said. “In 1993 it fell on a Thursday.”
Police work was just a matter of refusing to give up until a crucial detail was confirmed in writing, Wallander thought.
He decided to ask Heineman the other questions he had for him later, but for appearances’ sake he raised a few more queries: whether Heineman had observed that anything could have indicated a “possible traffic in girls” as Wallander chose to describe it.
“There were parties,” Heineman said stiffly. “From our top floor, seeing into some of the rooms was unavoidable. Of course there were women involved.”
“Did you ever meet Ake Liljegren?”
“Yes,” replied Heineman, “I met him once in Madrid. It was during one of my last years as an active member of the foreign office. He had requested introductions to some large Spanish construction companies. We knew quite well who Liljegren was, of course. His shell company scam was in full swing. We treated him as politely as we could, but he was not a pleasant man to deal with.”
“Why not?”
Heineman paused for a moment. “To put it bluntly, he was disagreeable. He treated everyone around him with undisguised contempt.”
Wallander brought the interview to an end.
“My colleagues will be contacting you again,” he said, getting to his feet.
Heineman followed them to the gate. The police car opposite was still there. The house was dark. After saying goodbye to Heineman, Wallander went across the street. One of the officers in the car got out and saluted. Wallander raised his hand in response to the exaggerated deference.
“Anything going on?” he asked.
“All’s calm here. A few curiosity-seekers is about it.”
Larsson dropped them off at the station. Wallander started by calling Hansson, who told him that Ludwigsson and Hamren from the National Criminal Bureau had arrived. He had put them up at the Hotel Sekelgarden.
“They seem to be good men,” said Hansson. “Not at all as arrogant as I feared.”
“Why would they have been arrogant?”
“Stockholmers,” said Hansson. “You know how they are. Don’t you remember that prosecutor who filled in for Per? What was her name? Bodin?”
“Brolin,” said Wallander. “But I don’t remember her.”
In fact Wallander remembered quite well. Embarrassment crept over him when he recalled totally losing control when drunk and making a pass at her. It was one of the things he was most ashamed of. And it didn’t help that she had later spent the night with him in Copenhagen.
“They’re going to start working the airport tomorrow,” said Hansson.
Wallander told him what had happened at Heineman’s house.
“So we’ve got a break,” said Hansson. “So you think that Liljegren sent a prostitute to Wetterstedt in Ystad once a week?”
“I do.”
“Could it have been going on with Carlman too?”
“Maybe not in the same way. But I should think that Carlman’s and Liljegren’s circles have overlapped. We still don’t know where.”
“And Fredman?”
“He’s the exception. He doesn’t fit in anywhere. Least of all in Liljegren’s circles. Unless he was one of his enforcers. I’m going to go back to Malmo tomorrow to talk to his family. I especially want to meet his daughter.”
“Akeson told me about your conversation. You’ll have to tread carefully. We don’t want it to end as badly as your meeting with Erika Carlman, do we?”
“Of course not.”
“I’ll get hold of Hoglund and Svedberg tonight,” Hansson said. “You’ve finally found a real lead.”
“Don’t forget Ludwigsson and Hamren,” Wallander said. “They’re also part of the team now.”
Wallander hung up. Sjosten had gone to get coffee. Wallander dialled his own number in Ystad. Linda answered at once.
“I just got home,” she said. “Where are you?”
“In Helsingborg. I’m staying here overnight.”
“Has something happened?”
“We went over to Helsingor and had dinner.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“We’re working.”
“We are too,” Linda said. “We rehearsed the whole thing again tonight. We had an audience too.”
“Who?”
“A boy who asked if he could watch. He was standing outside on the street and said he’d heard we were working on a play. I think the people at the hot dog stand must have told him about it.”
“So it wasn’t anyone you know?”
“He was just a tourist here in town. He walked home with me afterwards.”
Wallander felt a pang of jealousy.
“Is he in the flat now?”
“He walked me home to Mariagatan. Then he went home.”
“I was only wondering.”
“He had a funny name. He said it was Hoover. But he was very nice. I think he liked what we were doing. He said he’d come back tomorrow if he had time.”
“I’m sure he will,” Wallander said.
Sjosten came in with two cups of coffee. Wallander asked him for his home number, which he gave to Linda.
“My daughter,” he said, after he hung up. “The only child I have. She’s going to Visby shortly to take a theatre course.”
“One’s children give life a glimmer of meaning,” Sjosten said, handing the coffee cup to Wallander.
They went over the conversation with Heineman. Wallander could tell that Sjosten was not convinced that Wetterstedt’s connection to Liljegren meant they were closer to finding the killer.
“Tomorrow I want you to find all the material about the traffic in girls that mentions Helsingborg. Why here, anyway? How did they get here? There must be an explanation. Besides, this vacuum surrounding Liljegren is unbelievable. I don’t get it.”
“That stuff about the girls is mostly speculation,” said Sjosten. “We’ve never done an investigation of it. We simply haven’t had any reason to. One time Birgersson brought it up with one of the prosecutors, but he said we had more important things to do. He was right too.”
“I still want you to check it out,” Wallander said. “Do a summary for me tomorrow. Fax it to me in Ystad as soon as you can.”
It was late by the time they drove to Sjosten’s flat. Wallander knew he had to call Baiba. There was no escaping it. She would be packing. He couldn’t postpone telling her the news any longer.
“I have to make a phone call to Latvia,” he said. “Just a couple of minutes.”
Sjosten showed him where the phone was. Wallander waited until Sjosten had gone into the bathroom before he dialled the number. When it rang the first time he hung up. He had no idea what to say. He didn’t dare tell her. He would wait until tomorrow night and then make up a story: that the whole thing had come up suddenly and now he wanted her to come to Ystad instead. He couldn’t think of a better solution. At least for himself.