He scribbled his signature and pushed the papers aside. It was 8.45 a.m.
The day before, he had picked up the keys from the estate agent. It was a two-storey brick house in the middle of a big old garden to the north of Ystad. From the upper floor there was a view of the sea. He unlocked the door and went in. The rooms were empty. He walked around in the silence, opened the terrace door to the garden, and tried to picture himself living there.
To his surprise, it was easier than he had imagined. It was obvious that he wasn’t as attached to Mariagatan as he had feared. He asked himself whether Baiba might be happy there. She had talked about her own longing to get away from Riga — to the countryside, but not too far away, not too isolated.
It didn’t take him long to make up his mind that morning. He would buy the house if Baiba liked it. The price was also low enough that he could manage to get the necessary loans.
Just after 10 a.m. he left the house. He promised to give the estate agent a definite answer within the week. After looking at the house, he went on to look for a dog. The kennel was located along the road to Hoor, right outside of Sjobo. Dogs barked from various cages when he turned into the courtyard. The owner was a young woman who, much to his surprise, spoke with a strong Goteborg accent.
“I’d like to look at a black Labrador,” Wallander said.
She showed them to him. The puppies were still too small to leave their mother.
“Do you have children?” she asked.
“None that still live at home unfortunately,” he replied. “Do you have to have children to buy a puppy?”
“Not at all. But this breed of dog is better with children than almost any other.”
Wallander explained that he might buy a house outside of Ystad. If he decided to do that, he also wanted to have a dog. One depended on the other.
“I’ll hold one of the puppies for you. Take your time, but not too long. I always have buyers for Labradors.”
Wallander promised to let her know within the week, just as he had promised the estate agent. He was shocked at the price she mentioned. Could a puppy really cost that much? But he knew that he would buy the dog if the house purchase went through.
He left the kennel at midday. When he came out onto the main road, he suddenly didn’t know where he was going. Was he on his way anywhere at all? He wasn’t going to see Yvonne Ander. For the time being they had no more to say to each other. They would meet again, but not now. Per Akeson might ask him to expand on some of the details but he doubted it. They had more than enough evidence to convict her.
The truth was that he had nowhere to go. No-one really needed him. Without being fully aware of what he was doing, he headed towards Vollsjo and stopped outside Hansgarden. Yvonne Ander owned the house, and would presumably continue to do so during all the years she would spend in prison. She had no close relatives, only her deceased mother. Whether she even had any friends was questionable. Katarina Taxell had been dependent on her, had received her support, just like the other women. But friends? Wallander shuddered at the thought. Yvonne Ander didn’t have a single person who was close to her. She stepped out of a vacuum and she killed people.
Wallander got out of his car. The house emanated desolation. When he walked around it, he noticed a window stood slightly open. That wasn’t good. Someone could easily break in. Wallander found a wooden bench and put it under the window, climbed inside and looked around. The window had been left open out of carelessness. He walked through the rooms, and looked at the baking oven with distaste. There was the invisible boundary. Beyond it he would never be able to understand her.
Now the investigation really was over. They had drawn a final line through the macabre list, interpreted the murderer’s language, and found the solution. That was why he felt superfluous. He was no longer needed. When he returned from Stockholm he would go back to the investigation of car smuggling to the former Eastern bloc countries. Not until then would he truly feel real to himself again.
A phone rang in the silence. Only on the second ring did he realise that it was ringing in his jacket pocket. He took it out. It was Per Akeson.
“Am I interrupting anything?” he asked. “Where are you?”
Wallander didn’t want to tell him where he was.
“I’m sitting in my car,” he said. “But I’m parked.”
“I assume you haven’t heard the news,” Akeson said. “There’s not going to be a trial.”
Wallander didn’t understand. The thought had never occurred to him, although it should have. He should have been prepared.
“Yvonne Ander committed suicide,” Akeson said. “Sometime last night. She was found dead early this morning.”
Wallander held his breath. There was still something resisting, threatening to burst.
“She seems to have had access to pills. She shouldn’t have had them. At least not so many that she could take her own life. Spiteful people are going to ask whether you were the one who gave them to her.”
Wallander could hear that this was not a veiled question, but he answered it anyway.
“I didn’t help her.”
“The whole thing had a feeling of serenity about it. Everything was in perfect order. She seems to have made up her mind and carried it out. She died in her sleep. It’s easy to understand, of course.”
“Is it?” Wallander asked.
“She left a letter. With your name on it. I have it here on the desk in front of me.”
“I’ll be there in half an hour,” he said.
He stood where he was, with the silent phone in his hand, and tried to gauge what he was really feeling. Emptiness, maybe a vague hint of injustice.
He checked that the window was closed properly and then left the house through the front door.
It was a clear December day. Winter was lurking somewhere nearby.
Wallander went into Per Akeson’s office. The letter was lying in the middle of the desk.
He took it with him and went down to the harbour. He walked out to the sea rescue service’s red shed and sat down on the bench. The letter was short.
Somewhere in Africa there is a man who killed my mother. Who is looking for him?
That was all.
Who is looking for him?
She had signed the letter with her full name. In the upper right-hand corner she had written the date and time.
5 December, 1994, 2.44 a.m.
The next-to-last entry in her timetable, he thought. She wouldn’t write the last one herself, the doctor would do that, when he put down the time of her death. Then there would be nothing more. The timetable would be closed, her life concluded.
Her departure was formulated as a question or accusation. Or maybe both.
Who is looking for him?
He tore the letter into strips and tossed them into the water. He remembered that once, several years ago, he had torn up a letter that he had decided against sending to Baiba. He had tossed that one into the water too. There was a great difference. He would see Baiba again, and very soon.
He watched the pieces of paper float away over the water. Then he left the harbour and went to the hospital to visit Ann-Britt.
Something was over at last. The autumn in Skane was moving towards winter.