“What happened last night?” she asked.
“Someone found a dead man in the woods.”
“Can’t you tell me any more than that?”
“The body was found by an orienteer who was out running. He practically tripped over it.”
“Who was it?”
“The orienteer or the dead man?”
“The dead man.”
“A florist.”
“Did he commit suicide?”
“No, unfortunately.”
“Unfortunately?”
“He was murdered, and that means a lot of work for us.”
She was silent for a while.
“I don’t see how you stand it,” she said.
“I don’t either. But I have to. Somebody has to.”
The question she asked next astonished him.
“Do you think I would make a good policewoman?”
“I thought you had other plans.”
“I do, but answer the question.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “You might.”
They didn’t say any more. Wallander pulled into the car park. She had only a backpack, which he lifted out of the boot. When he went to follow her in, she shook her head.
“Go home now,” she said. “You’re so tired you can hardly stand up.”
“I have to work,” he replied. “But you’re right, I am tired.”
Then there was a moment of sadness. They talked about his father, her grandfather. They said goodbye, and he watched her vanish through the glass doors that slid open and closed behind her.
He sat in the car and thought about something she had said. Was what made death so terrifying the fact that you had to be dead for such a long time?
He drove off. The grey landscape seemed just as dismal as the entire investigation. Wallander thought through what had happened. A man is impaled in a ditch. Another man is tied to a tree and strangled. Could deaths be any more repellent than those? It hadn’t been any better seeing his father lying among his paintings. He needed to see Baiba again soon. He was going to call her. He couldn’t stand the loneliness any more. It had been going on long enough. He had been divorced for five years. He was on the way to becoming an old, shaggy dog, scared of people. And that’s not what he wanted to be.
He arrived at the police station, getting himself some coffee straight away. Then he called Gertrud. Her voice was cheerful. His sister was still there. Since Wallander was so busy with the investigation, they had agreed that the two of them would go through his father’s meagre estate. His assets consisted mainly of the house in Loderup, but there were almost no debts. Gertrud asked if there was anything special that Wallander wanted to have. At first he said no. Then he changed his mind and said he’d like a painting, with a grouse, from the stacks of finished canvases leaning against the walls of the studio. Not the one his father had almost finished when he’d died.
He turned into a policeman again, starting by quickly reading a report on Hoglund’s conversation with the woman who delivered the post to Eriksson. Hoglund wrote well, without awkward sentences or irrelevant details, but there was nothing that seemed to have direct significance for the investigation. The last time Eriksson had hung out the little sign on his letter box that meant he needed to talk to the postwoman was several months ago. As far as she could remember, it had had something to do with money orders. She hadn’t noticed anything unusual at Eriksson’s farm recently, or seen any strange cars or people in the area.
Wallander put the report aside, pulled over his notebook, and wrote some notes on the investigation. Someone had to interview Anita Lagergren at the travel agency in Malmo. When had Runfeldt reserved his trip? What was this orchid safari all about? They had to chart his life, just as they had to for Eriksson. It was especially important that they talked to his children. Wallander also wanted to know more about the equipment Runfeldt had bought. What exactly was it for? Why would a florist have these things? He was convinced that it was crucial to an understanding of what had happened. Wallander pushed the notebook away and sat hesitantly with his hand on the telephone. It was 8.15 a.m., and it was possible that Nyberg was asleep. But it couldn’t be helped. He dialled his mobile phone. Nyberg answered at once, still out in the woods. Wallander asked him how it was going.
“We’ve got dogs here,” Nyberg said. “They’ve picked up the scent from the rope at the logging site. But that’s not so strange, since it’s the only way up here. I think we can assume that Runfeldt didn’t walk. There must have been a car.”
“Any tyre tracks?”
“Quite a few. But I can’t tell you which is which yet.”
“Anything else?”
“The rope is from a factory in Denmark.”
“Denmark?”
“I should think it could be bought just about anywhere that sells rope. Anyway, it seems new. Bought for the occasion,” said Nyberg, to Wallander’s disgust.
“Have you been able to find any sign that he resisted being tied to the tree? Or that he tried to work his way loose?”
“No. I haven’t found any traces of a struggle nearby, the ground wasn’t disturbed. And there are no marks on the rope or the tree trunk. He was tied up there, and he stood still.”
“How do you interpret that?”
“There are two possibilities,” Nyberg replied. “Either he was already dead, or at least unconscious, when he was tied up, or else he chose not to resist. But that’s hard to believe.”
Wallander thought about it.
“There’s a third possibility,” he said finally. “Runfeldt simply didn’t have the strength to put up any resistance.”
That was also a possibility, and maybe the most likely, Nyberg agreed.
“Let me ask one more thing,” Wallander said. “I know you can’t be certain, but we always imagine how something might have happened. Nobody guesses more often than policemen do, even though we might deny that we do. Was there more than one person there, do you think?”
“There are plenty of reasons why there should have been more than one person. Dragging a man into the woods and tying him up isn’t that easy. But I doubt that there was.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, to be honest.”
“Go back to the ditch in Lodinge. What sort of feeling did you have there?”
“The same. There should have been more than one. But I’m not sure.
“I have that feeling too,” Wallander said. “And it bothers me.”
“At any rate, I think we’re dealing with a person of great physical strength,” Nyberg said. “There are plenty of indicators.”
Wallander had no more questions.
“Otherwise nothing else at the scene?”
“A couple of beer cans and a false nail. That’s it.”
“A false nail?”
“The kind that women use. But it could have been here quite a while.”
“Try to get some sleep,” Wallander said.
“And when would I have time for that?” Nyberg answered. Wallander could hear him suddenly getting annoyed. He hung up, and the phone rang instantly. It was Martinsson.
“Can I come and see you?” he asked. “When are we supposed to have another meeting?”
“Nine o’clock. We’ve got time.”
Wallander hung up. Martinsson must have come up with something. He could feel the tension. What they needed most of all right now was a breakthrough.