“A ferry sinks one stormy night and suddenly death is visible in Sweden again,” she said. “After it’s been hidden away and ignored for so long.”
“You’re right, I suppose. Although I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
He heard her clearing her throat. After a pause she returned.
“We discussed organisational problems,” she said, “and the eternal question of what should take priority.”
“We ought to spend our time catching criminals,” said Wallander. “Bringing them to justice and making sure we have enough evidence to get them convicted.”
“If only it was that simple,” she sighed.
“I’m glad I’m not the chief,” Wallander said.
“I sometimes wonder myself,” she said, and left the rest of her sentence unfinished. Wallander thought she was going to say goodbye, but she had more to say.
“I promised that you would come up to the police academy in early December,” she said. “They want you to give a talk on the investigation of last summer. The trainee officers requested it.”
Wallander was shocked.
“I can’t do that,” he said. “I just can’t stand up in front of a group of people and pretend I’m teaching. Somebody else can do it. Martinsson’s a good speaker. He ought to be a politician.”
“I promised you’d come,” she said, laughing. “It’ll be fine, really.”
“I’ll call in sick,” Wallander said.
“December is a long way off,” she said. “We can talk more about this later. I really called to hear how your holiday was. Now I can tell it turned out fine.”
“And everything’s quiet here,” Wallander said. “All we have is a missing person. But my colleagues are handling it.”
“A missing person?”
Wallander recounted his conversation with Sven Tyren.
“How often is it something serious when people go missing?” she asked. “What do the statistics say?”
“I don’t know about the statistics,” said Wallander. “But I do know that there’s very seldom a crime or even an accident involved. When it comes to old or senile people, they may have simply wandered off. With young people there’s usually a rebellion against their parents or a longing for adventure behind it. It’s rare that anything serious is involved.”
They said goodbye and hung up. Wallander was dead set against giving lectures at the police academy. It was flattering that they had asked for him, but his aversion was stronger. He would try to talk Martinsson into taking his place.
He went back to the smuggling operation. Just after 8 a.m. he went to get some more coffee. Since he felt hungry, he also helped himself to a few biscuits. His stomach no longer seemed upset. Martinsson knocked on the door and came in.
“Are you feeling better?”
“I feel fine,” Wallander said. “How’s it going with Holger Eriksson?”
Martinsson gave him a baffled look.
“Who?”
“Holger Eriksson. The man I wrote a report on, who might be missing? The one I talked to you about?”
Martinsson shook his head.
“When did you tell me? I can’t have heard you. I was pretty upset about the ferry accident.”
Wallander got up from his chair.
“Is Hansson here yet? We have to get started on this immediately.”
“I saw him in the hall,” Martinsson said. They went to Hansson’s office. He was sitting staring at a lottery ticket. He tore it up and dropped the pieces in his waste-paper basket.
“Holger Eriksson,” Wallander said. “The man who may have disappeared. Do you remember the oil truck blocking the driveway here? On Tuesday?”
Hansson nodded.
“The driver, Sven Tyren,” Wallander went on. “You remembered that he’d been mixed up in some assaults?”
“I remember,” Hansson said.
Wallander was concealing his impatience with difficulty.
“He came here to report a missing person. I drove out to the farmhouse where Holger Eriksson lives. I wrote a report. Then I called here yesterday morning and asked the rest of you to take on the case. I considered it serious.”
“It must be lying around here somewhere,” said Martinsson. “I’ll take care of it myself.”
Wallander knew he couldn’t be angry about it.
“Things like this shouldn’t happen, you know,” he said. “But we can blame it on bad timing. I’ll go out to the farm one more time. If he’s not there, we’ll have to start looking for him. I hope we don’t find him dead somewhere, considering we’ve wasted a whole day already.”
“Should we call in a search party?” Martinsson asked.
“Not yet. I’ll go there first. But I’ll let you know what I find.”
Wallander went to his office and looked up the number for O.K. Oil. A girl answered on the first ring. Wallander introduced himself and said he needed to speak to Sven Tyren.
“He’s out on a delivery,” the girl said. “But he has a phone in the truck.”
Wallander dialled his number. The connection was fuzzy.
“I think you may be right,” Wallander said. “Holger Eriksson is missing.”
“You’re damn right I’m right,” Tyren shot back. “Did it take you this long to work that one out?”
“Is there anything else you wanted to tell me about?” Wallander asked.
“And what would that be?”
“You know better than I do. Does he have any relatives he visits? Does he ever travel? Who knows him best? Anything that might explain where he’s gone.”
“There isn’t any reasonable explanation,” Tyren said. “I already told you that. That’s why I went to the police.”
Wallander thought for a moment. There was no reason for Sven Tyren not to tell the truth.
“Where are you?” Wallander asked.
“I’m on the road from Malmo. I was at the terminal filling up.”
“I’ll drive up to Eriksson’s place. Can you stop off there?”
“I’ll be there within an hour,” Tyren said. “I have to deliver some oil to a nursing home first. We don’t want the old folks to freeze, do we?”
Wallander left the station. It was drizzling again. He felt ill at ease as he drove out of Ystad. If he hadn’t been sick, the misunderstanding wouldn’t have happened. He was convinced that Tyren’s concern was warranted. He had already sensed it on Tuesday, and now it was Thursday.
By the time he reached the farmhouse the rain was coming down hard. He pulled on the gumboots he kept in the boot of his car. When he opened the letter box he found a newspaper and a few letters. He went into the courtyard and rang the bell, then used the spare keys to open the door. He tried to sense whether anyone else had been there. But everything was just as he had left it. The binocular case in the hall was still empty. The lone sheet of paper lay on the desk.
Wallander went out to the courtyard, and stood pondering an empty kennel. A flock of rooks cawed out in the fields. A dead hare, he thought absently. He got his torch out of the car and began a methodical search of the entire house. Eriksson had kept everything tidy. Wallander stood and admired an old, well-polished Harley-Davidson in part of one wing that served as a garage and workshop. Then he heard a truck coming down the road, and went out to greet Sven Tyren.
“He’s not here,” he said.
Wallander took Tyren to the kitchen and told him that he wanted to take a statement.
“I have nothing more to say,” said Tyren belligerently. “Wouldn’t it be better if you started looking for him?”
“People generally know more than they think,” said Wallander, not hiding his irritation at Tyren’s attitude.
“So what do you think I know?”
“Did you talk to him yourself when he ordered the oil?”
“He called the office. A girl there writes up the delivery slips. I talk to her several times a day.”
“And he sounded normal when he called?”
“You’ll have to ask her.”
“I will. What’s her name?”
“Ruth. Ruth Sturesson.”
Wallander wrote this down.
“I stopped here one day in August,” said Tyren. “That was the last time I saw him. He was the same as always. He offered me coffee and read me some new poems. He was a good storyteller too. But in a crude kind of way.”