Akeson had a highly developed knack for acquiring inside information. Wallander had no idea how he did it. He was always well informed, for instance, as to what was being discussed in the various committees in Parliament, or in the most elite and confidential circles of the national police board.
“If all goes well, I’ll be leaving in the new year,” he said. “I’ll be gone for at least two years.”
“Let’s hope we solve the Eriksson case before then. Do you have any directives you want to give me?”
“You should be telling me what you want.”
Wallander thought for a moment before replying.
“Chief Holgersson thinks that we ought to call in Mats Ekholm. You remember him from this summer, the man who does psychological profiles? He hunts insane people by trying to classify them. He’s pretty talented.”
Akeson remembered him, of course.
“But I think we should wait,” Wallander said, “until we are sure that we’re dealing with an insane person.”
“If you think we should wait, then so be it,” Akeson said, getting to his feet. He pointed at the box.
“I have a particularly complicated case today,” he excused himself. “I have to prepare.”
Wallander got up.
“What is it you’re actually going to do in the Sudan?” he asked. “Do refugees really need Swedish legal advice?”
“Refugees need all the help they can get,” Akeson replied as he accompanied Wallander to reception. “Not just in Sweden.”
Suddenly he said, “I was in Stockholm for a few days while you were in Rome. I ran into Anette Brolin. She asked me to say hello to everyone down here. But especially to you.”
Wallander gave him a wary look, but didn’t reply. A few years earlier, Anette Brolin had filled in for Akeson. Despite the fact that she was married, Wallander and she had spent a night together. It was something he preferred to forget.
He walked out of the prosecutor’s wing. There was a gusty wind blowing and the sky was grey. Wallander guessed that it was no more than 8 °C. He ran into Svedberg in reception, and remembered the note.
“I took one of your notes with me by mistake the other day,” he said.
Svedberg looked surprised. “I didn’t notice anything missing.”
“Something about a woman in the maternity ward at the hospital.”
“Oh, you can bin that,” Svedberg answered. “It was just someone who saw a ghost.”
“You bin it if you want to,” Wallander said. “I’ll put it on your desk.”
“We’re still talking to people in the area around Eriksson’s farm,” Svedberg said. “I’m going to see the postman.”
Wallander nodded. They went their separate ways.
By the time Wallander entered his office he had already forgotten about Svedberg’s note. He took Berggren’s diary from his inside jacket pocket and put it in a desk drawer. He left the photograph of the three men posing by the termite mound lying on his desk. As he waited for Tyren he read quickly through a stack of papers the other investigators had left for him. At 8.45 a.m. he went to get some coffee. Hoglund passed him in the hall and told him that Runfeldt’s disappearance had been formally recorded and was being given priority.
“I spoke to one of his neighbours,” she said. “A teacher who seemed reliable. He claimed he had heard Runfeldt in his flat on Tuesday night. But not after that.”
“Which suggests that he left that night,” said Wallander, “although not for Nairobi.”
“I asked the neighbour whether he had noticed anything unusual about Runfeldt. But he seems to have been a reserved man with regular, discreet habits. Polite but no more than that. And he seldom had visitors. The only thing out of the ordinary was that Runfeldt sometimes came home very late. The teacher lives in the flat below his, and the building is not well insulated.”
Wallander stood there with his cup in his hand, thinking about what she had said.
“We have to find out what the stuff in that box means,” he said. “Could someone call the mail-order company today? And have our colleagues in Boras been informed? What was the name of that company? ‘Secure’? Nyberg knows. We need to discover whether Runfeldt bought other things from them. He must have placed the order because he was going to use it for something.”
“Bugging equipment,” she said. “Fingerprints. Who uses things like that?”
“We do.”
“But who else?”
Wallander saw that she was thinking of something in particular.
“Of course a bugging device could be used for unauthorised purposes.”
“I was thinking more of the fingerprints.”
Wallander nodded. Now he got it.
“A private investigator,” he said. “A private eye. The thought crossed my mind too. But Runfeldt is a florist whose only passion is orchids.”
“It was just an idea,” she said. “I’ll call the mail-order company myself.”
Wallander went back to his office. The telephone rang. It was Ebba. Tyren was waiting in reception.
“He didn’t park his truck across the driveway, did he?” Wallander asked. “Hansson will have a fit.”
“I don’t see a truck,” Ebba said. “Are you coming to get him? And Martinsson wants to talk to you.”
“Where is he?”
“In his office, I should think.”
“Ask Tyren to wait a few minutes while I talk to Martinsson.”
Martinsson was on the phone when Wallander walked in. He ended the conversation. Wallander assumed he’d been speaking to his wife. They talked several times a day, nobody knew what about.
“I got in touch with the forensic medicine division in Lund,” Martinsson told him. “They have some preliminary results. The problem is, they’re having trouble determining the thing that we most want to know.”
“Time of death?”
Martinsson nodded.
“None of the stakes went through his heart. And none of the main arteries was perforated. That means he could have hung there for quite a while before he died. The immediate cause of death can be given as drowning.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Wallander asked in surprise. “He was hanging in a ditch, wasn’t he? He couldn’t have drowned there.”
“The doctor I talked to was full of gruesome details,” Martinsson said. “He told me that Eriksson’s lungs were so full of blood that finally he couldn’t breathe. Technically, he drowned.”
“We have to find out when he died,” Wallander said. “Contact them again.”
“I’ll see to it you get the report as soon as it comes in.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it. Considering how stuff keeps disappearing around here.”
He hadn’t meant to criticise Martinsson. When he was out in the hall he realised that his words could have been misconstrued. But by then it was too late to do anything about it. He went out to reception and greeted Tyren, who was sitting on a vinyl sofa, staring at the floor. He was unshaven and had bloodshot eyes. The smell of oil and petrol was strong. They went to Wallander’s office.
“Why haven’t you arrested whoever killed Holger?” Tyren asked.
“If you can tell me who did it, I’ll drive out and arrest him right now,” Wallander answered, trying to hide his irritation.
“I’m not a policeman.”
“You don’t have to tell me that. If you were, you wouldn’t have asked such a stupid question.”
When Tyren opened his mouth to protest, Wallander held up his hand. “I’m the one asking the questions.”
“Am I under suspicion for something?”
“Not a thing. But I’ll ask the questions. And you have to answer them. That’s all.”
Tyren shrugged his shoulders. Wallander sensed that he was on his guard. He could feel his instincts sharpening. His first question was the only one he had prepared.
“Harald Berggren,” he said. “Does that name mean anything to you?”
Tyren looked at him.
“I don’t know any Harald Berggren. Should I?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am.”