The wind was still blowing hard. Wallander was cold. He hunched up his shoulders as he hurried across the street.
It wasn’t Hoglund but Svedberg who opened the door to Runfeldt’s flat.
“She had to go home,” said Svedberg. “One of her children is sick. Her car wouldn’t start, so she took mine. But she’ll be back.”
Wallander went into the living room and looked around.
“Is Nyberg finished already?” he asked in surprise.
Svedberg gave him a baffled look.
“Didn’t you hear?” he asked.
“Hear what?”
“About Nyberg’s foot.”
“I haven’t heard a thing,” said Wallander. “What happened?”
“He slipped on some oil outside the station. He fell so hard that he tore a muscle or a tendon in his left foot. He’s at the hospital right now. He called and said he can still work, but he’ll have to use a crutch. He was really pissed off.”
Wallander thought about Tyren’s truck. He decided not to mention it.
Vanja Andersson arrived. She was very pale. Wallander nodded to Svedberg, who disappeared into Runfeldt’s study. He took her into the living room. She seemed frightened to be in the flat, and hesitated when he invited her to sit down.
“I know this is unpleasant,” he said. “But I wouldn’t have asked you to come here if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.”
She nodded. Wallander doubted whether she really understood.
“You’ve been to this flat before,” Wallander said. “And you have a good memory. I know that because you remembered the colour of Mr Runfeldt’s suitcase.”
“Have you found it?” she asked.
Wallander realised that they hadn’t even started looking for it. He excused himself and went to find Svedberg, who was methodically searching the contents of a bookshelf.
“Have you heard anything about Runfeldt’s suitcase?”
“Did he have a suitcase?”
Wallander shook his head. “Never mind. I’ll talk to Nyberg.”
He went back to the living room. Vanja Andersson was sitting uneasily on the sofa. Wallander could see that she wanted to get out as soon as possible. She looked as if she had to force herself to breathe the air in the flat.
“We’ll come back to the suitcase,” he said. “What I’d like to ask you now is to go through the flat and try to see if anything is missing.
She gave him a terrified look.
“How could I tell? I haven’t been here very often.”
“I know,” Wallander said. “But you still might see that something is missing. Right now everything is important, if we’re going to find the person who did this. I’m sure you want that as much as we do.”
She burst into tears. Svedberg appeared in the door. As usual in this kind of situation, Wallander felt helpless. He wondered if new officers were better trained in how to comfort people. He must ask Hoglund about it.
Svedberg handed Vanja Andersson a tissue. She stopped crying as suddenly as she had started.
“I’m terribly sorry,” she said. “It’s so difficult.”
“I know,” Wallander said. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. I don’t think people cry often enough.”
She looked at him.
“That goes for me too,” Wallander said.
After a brief pause she got up from the sofa. She was ready to begin.
“Take your time,” Wallander told her. “Try to remember how it looked the last time you were here.”
He followed her but kept his distance. When he heard Svedberg cursing in the study, he went in and held a finger to his lips. Svedberg nodded; he understood. Wallander had often thought that significant moments in investigations occurred either during conversations or during periods of absolute silence. He had seen it happen countless times. Right now, silence was essential. He could see that she was really making an effort.
Even so, nothing came of it. They returned to the living room. She shook her head.
“Everything looks the same as usual,” she said. “I can’t see that anything is missing or different.”
Wallander was not surprised. He would have noticed if she had paused during her survey of the flat.
“You haven’t thought of anything else?” he asked.
“I thought he had gone to Nairobi,” she said. “I watered his flowers and took care of the shop.”
“You did both of those things very well,” Wallander said. “Thank you for coming. We’ll be in touch.”
He escorted her to the door. Svedberg reappeared just as she left.
“Nothing seems to be missing,” Wallander said.
“He seems to have been a complicated man,” Svedberg said thoughtfully. “His study is a strange mixture of chaos and order. When it comes to his flowers, there’s perfect order. I never imagined there were so many books about orchids. But when it comes to his personal life, his papers are a big mess. In his account books from the shop for this year, I found a tax return from 1969. By the way, in that year he declared a dizzying income of 30,000 kronor.”
“I wonder how much we made back then,” Wallander said. “Probably not much more than that. Most likely less. I seem to remember that we were getting about 2,000 kronor a month.”
They pondered this until Wallander said, “Let’s keep searching.”
Svedberg went back to what he was doing. Wallander stood by the window and looked out over the harbour. The front door opened. It was Hoglund. He met her out in the hall.
“Nothing serious, I hope?”
“An autumn cold,” she said. “My husband is in what used to be called the East Indies. My neighbour rescued me.”
“I’ve often wondered about that,” said Wallander. “I thought helpful women neighbours became extinct back in the 1950s.”
“That’s probably true. But I’ve been lucky. Mine is in her 50s and has no children. Of course she doesn’t do it for free. And sometimes she says no.”
“Then what do you do?”
She shrugged.
“I improvise. If it’s in the evening I might be able to find a babysitter. Sometimes I wonder myself how I cope, and you know that there are times when I come in late. I don’t think men really understand what a complicated business it is trying to handle your job when you have a sick child.”
“Probably not,” Wallander replied. “Maybe we should see to it that your neighbour gets some kind of medal.”
“She’s been talking about moving,” Hoglund said gloomily. “What I’ll do then, I don’t even dare think about.”
“Has Vanja Andersson been here?” Hoglund asked.
“Nothing seems to have disappeared from the flat,” Wallander replied. “But she reminded me of something completely different. Runfeldt’s suitcase. I have to admit I forgot all about it.”
“Me too,” she said. “They didn’t find it out in the woods. I talked to Nyberg right before he broke his foot.”
“Is it that bad?”
“Well, it’s badly sprained, anyway.”
“Then he’s going to be in a foul mood for a while. Which is not good at all.”
“I’ll invite him over for dinner,” Hoglund said cheerfully. “He likes boiled fish.”
“How do you know that?” Wallander asked in surprise.
“I’ve had him over before,” she replied. “He’s a very nice dinner guest. He talks about all kinds of things, and never about his job.”
Wallander wondered briefly whether he would be considered a nice dinner guest. He knew that he tried not to talk about work. But when was the last time he had been invited somewhere for dinner? It was so long ago that he couldn’t even remember.
“Runfeldt’s children have arrived,” Hoglund said. “Hansson is looking after them.”
They were now in the living room. Wallander looked at the photograph of Runfeldt’s wife.
“We should find out what happened to her,” he said.
“She drowned.”
“I mean the details.”
“Hansson understands that. He’s usually thorough in his interviews. He’ll ask them about their mother.”