Hoglund had come to tell him that she had gone through Runfeldt’s flat with one of Nyberg’s forensic technicians. The result was negative. They had found nothing that would explain why he had bought bugging equipment.
“Gosta Runfeldt’s world consists of orchids,” she said. “I get the impression of a kindly and intense widower.”
“His wife seems to have drowned,” Wallander said.
“She was quite beautiful,” Hoglund said. “I saw their wedding picture.”
“Maybe we ought to find out what happened to her,” Wallander said. “Sooner or later.”
“Martinsson and Svedberg are getting in touch with his children.”
Wallander had already talked to Martinsson on the phone. He had been in touch with Runfeldt’s daughter. She was utterly astonished at the idea that her father might have deliberately disappeared. She was extremely worried. She knew he was supposed to fly to Nairobi and had assumed that’s where he was.
“There’s too much that doesn’t add up,” he said. “Svedberg was supposed to call when he’d spoken to the son. He was out at a farm somewhere in Halsingland where there wasn’t a phone.”
They decided to hold a meeting of the investigative team early on Sunday afternoon. Hoglund would make the arrangements. Then Wallander recounted to her the contents of the diary. He took his time and tried to be thorough. Telling her about it was like reviewing it in his own mind.
“Berggren,” she said when he was through. “Could he be the one?”
“I don’t know, but at any rate as a young man he committed atrocities on a regular basis and for money,” Wallander said. “The diary makes horrifying reading. Maybe these days he’s living his life in fear that the contents might be divulged.”
“We’ll have to find him,” Hoglund said. “The question is where to start looking.”
“The diary was in Eriksson’s safe,” Wallander said. “For the moment that’s the clearest lead we have. But we must continue to work with an open mind.”
“You know that’s impossible,” she said, surprised. “When we find a clue it shapes the search.”
“I’m just reminding you,” he replied evasively, “that we can be wrong in spite of everything.”
She was about to leave when the telephone rang. It was Svedberg, who had reached Runfeldt’s son.
“He was pretty upset,” Svedberg said. “He wanted to jump on a plane and come here right away.”
“When was the last time he heard from his father?”
“A few days before he was due to leave for Nairobi. Everything was normal. According to the son, his father always looked forward to his trips.”
Wallander handed the phone to Hoglund, who set a time for the meeting of the investigative team. Wallander didn’t remember until she hung up that he had a note that was written by Svedberg. A report of a woman acting strangely in the Ystad hospital maternity ward.
Hoglund went home to her children. When Wallander was alone he called his father. They decided that he would go out on Sunday morning. The pictures that his father had taken with his ancient camera had been developed.
Wallander devoted the rest of Saturday evening to writing up a summary of Eriksson’s murder. As he worked he mulled over Runfeldt’s disappearance. He was uneasy and restless and found it difficult to concentrate. The feeling that they were skirting something very big was growing stronger. The feeling of anxiety wouldn’t let up. By 9 p.m. he was so tired that he couldn’t think any longer. He shoved his notebook aside and called his daughter Linda. The phone rang into a void. She wasn’t home. He put on a heavy jacket and walked to a Chinese restaurant on the square. The place was unusually packed, even for a Saturday night. He indulged in a carafe of wine. After he’d eaten, he walked home in the rain, his head aching.
That night he dreamed that he was in a huge dark place, it was very hot, and somewhere in the dense night Berggren was pointing a gun at him.
He woke early. It was clear again. He got into his car at 7.15 a.m. and drove out to Loderup to see his father. In the morning light, the curves of the countryside were sharp and clear. Wallander thought he would try to tempt his father and Gertrud to come with him down to the beach. Soon it would be too cold to go.
He thought with displeasure about the dream he’d had. As he drove he also decided that at the investigative team’s meeting that afternoon they would have to make a schedule of the order in which various questions were to be answered. Locating Berggren was important. Especially if it turned out that that trail led to a dead end.
His father was standing on the steps waiting for him. They went into the kitchen, where Gertrud had set out some breakfast. They looked through the photographs. Some of them were blurred, and in some the subject was only partly inside the frame, but since his father was obviously pleased and proud of them, Wallander nodded appreciatively.
One picture stood out from the rest. It was taken by a waiter on their last night in Rome. They had just finished their dinner. Wallander and his father were squeezed close together. A bottle of red wine stood on the white tablecloth. Both of them were smiling straight at the camera.
For an instant the faded photograph from Eriksson’s diary flashed into Wallander’s mind, but he pushed it away. Right now he wanted to look at himself and his father. He realised that the picture confirmed once and for all what he had discovered on the trip. They were a lot alike. They even looked alike.
“I’d like to have a copy of this picture,” Wallander said.
“I’ve already taken care of it,” his father replied contentedly, handing him an envelope.
After breakfast they went to his father’s studio. He had nearly finished a landscape with a grouse in it. The bird was always the last thing he painted.
“How many pictures have you painted in your life?” Wallander asked.
“You ask me that every time you come here,” his father said. “How am I supposed to keep track? What would be the point? The main thing is that they’re all the same.”
Long ago Wallander had realised that there was only one explanation for his father painting the same subject over and over. It was his way of keeping at bay all the things that were changing around him. In his paintings he even controlled the path of the sun. It was motionless, locked in time, always at the same height above the forested ridges.
“It was a great holiday,” Wallander said as he looked at his father, who was busy mixing colours.
“I told you it would be,” said his father. “If it wasn’t for me you would have gone to your grave without ever seeing the Sistine Chapel.”
Wallander wondered briefly whether to ask about the solitary walk he’d taken on that night in Rome, but decided not to. It was nobody’s business but his father’s.
Wallander suggested that they drive down to the sea. To his surprise his father agreed at once. Gertrud preferred to stay home. They got into Wallander’s car and drove down to Sandhammaren. There was almost no breeze. They headed for the beach. His father took him by the arm when they passed the last cliff. The sea spread itself out before them. The beach was almost deserted. In the distance they could see some people playing with a dog. That was all.
“It’s beautiful,” his father said.
Wallander sneaked a look at him. Rome seemed to have made a fundamental change in his mood. Maybe it would also have a positive effect on the insidious disease the doctors had diagnosed. But he would never fully understand what the holiday had meant to his father. It had been the journey of a lifetime, and Wallander had been given the honour of accompanying him.