He waited for five minutes before he went back. Ylva Brink was not there. Svedberg stood leaning over several papers lying on the desk.
“What did you say to her?” Wallander asked.
“That she shouldn’t embarrass the family,” Svedberg replied. “I also explained that she could spend a year in jail.”
“For what?” Wallander asked in surprise.
“Obstructing the discharge of official duties.”
“There isn’t such an offence, is there?”
“She doesn’t know that. Here are all the names. I think we’d better read fast.”
They went through the list. None of the women had the initials K.A. Wallander realised it was as he had feared. Another dead end.
“Maybe those weren’t someone’s initials,” Svedberg said thoughtfully. “Maybe K.A. means something else.”
“What would that be?”
“There’s a Katarina Taxell here,” Svedberg replied, pointing. “Maybe the letters K.A. are just an abbreviation of Katarina.”
Wallander looked at the name. He went through the list again. There was no other name with the combination K.A. No Karin, no Karolina.
“You may be right,” he said. “Write down the address.”
“It’s not here,” he said. “Only her name. Maybe you’d better wait downstairs while I talk to Ylva one more time.”
“Stick with the line that she shouldn’t embarrass the family,” Wallander said. “Don’t mention bringing charges. That could cause us trouble later on. I want to know if Katarina Taxell is still here. I want to know if she’s had any visitors. I want to know if there’s anything special about her. Family relationships, that sort of thing. But especially, I want to know where she lives.”
“This is going to take a while,” Svedberg said. “Ylva is busy with a birth.”
“I’ll wait,” Wallander said. “All night if I have to.”
He took a biscuit from a plate and left the ward. When he passed the casualty ward downstairs he caught sight of a drunk man, covered in blood, who was being brought in from an ambulance. Wallander recognised him. His name was Niklasson, and he owned a junkyard outside Ystad. Normally he was sober, but occasionally he went on binges and got into fights.
Wallander knew the two medics bringing him in.
“Is it bad?” he asked them.
“Niklasson is tough,” said the older of the two. “He’ll survive. He got into a fight in a pub in Sandskogen.”
Wallander went out to the car park. It was chilly. They’d also have to find out if there was a Karin or Katarina in Lund. Birch could handle that. It was 11.30 p.m. He tried the doors of Svedberg’s car. It was locked. He wondered if he should go back and ask for the keys. He might have to wait a long time. Instead, he began pacing back and forth in the car park.
Suddenly he was back in Rome again. Ahead of him, in the distance, was his father, out on a secret midnight excursion towards an unknown destination. A son tailing his own father. The Spanish Steps, then the fountain. His eyes glistened. An old man alone in Rome. Did he know that he was going to die soon?
Wallander stopped. He had a lump in his throat. When would he ever have the peace and quiet that he needed to work through his grief over his father? Life tossed him back and forth. He would soon be 50. It was autumn now. Night. And he was walking around in a hospital car park, freezing. What he feared most was that the world would become so hostile and alien that he’d no longer be able to handle it. What would be left then? Retire early? Ask for a desk job? End up spending 15 years going around to schools giving talks about drugs and traffic accidents?
The house, he thought. And the dog. And maybe Baiba too. An outward change is necessary. I’ll start with that. Later we’ll see what happens with me. My workload is too heavy. I can’t continue like this.
It was past midnight. He paced the car park. The ambulance had left. Everything was quiet. He knew there were a lot of things he needed to think through, but he was too tired. The only thing he could manage to do was wait. And keep moving so he wouldn’t freeze.
Finally Svedberg appeared. He was walking fast. Wallander could see that he had news.
“Katarina Taxell is from Lund,” he said.
Wallander felt his excitement rise.
“Is she here?”
“She had her baby on 15 October. She’s gone home already.”
“Do you have the address?”
“I’ve got more than that. She’s a single mother, there’s no father listed in the records. And she didn’t have any visitors while she was here.”
Wallander realised that he was holding his breath. “Then it could be her,” he said. “The woman called K.A.”
They hurried back to the station. At the entrance Svedberg braked hard to avoid hitting a hare that had wandered into town. They sat down in the empty canteen. The phone rang in the duty officers’ room. Wallander filled a cup with bitter coffee.
“She couldn’t be the one who stuffed Blomberg in a sack,” Svedberg said, scratching his scalp with a coffee spoon. “There’s no way that a new mother would go out and kill someone.”
“She’s a link,” Wallander said. “If what I’m thinking is true. She fits in between Blomberg and the person who seems most important right now.
“The nurse who knocked Ylva down?”
“That’s the one.”
Svedberg strained to follow Wallander’s thoughts.
“So you think this nurse showed up at the maternity ward to see her?”
“Yes.”
“But why did she come at night? Why didn’t she come during normal visiting hours? There must be visiting hours, surely? And no-one writes down who visits patients, or who has visitors, do they?”
Wallander saw that Svedberg’s questions were important. He had to answer them before they could continue.
“She didn’t want to be seen,” he said. “That’s the only conceivable explanation.”
“Seen by whom?” Svedberg said stubbornly. “Was she afraid of being recognised? Did she not want even Katarina Taxell to see her? Did she visit the hospital at night to look at a woman asleep?”
“I don’t know,” Wallander said. “It’s strange, I agree.”
“There’s only one conceivable explanation,” Svedberg continued. “She comes at night because she could be recognised in the daytime.”
Wallander pondered this. “So you’re saying that someone who works there during the day might have recognised her?”
“You can’t ignore the fact that she has twice visited the maternity ward at night. And then she gets involved in a situation where it’s necessary to assault my cousin, who was doing nothing wrong.”
“There might be an alternative explanation,” Wallander said
“What’s that?”
“Night could be the only time she is able to visit the maternity ward.”
Svedberg nodded thoughtfully.
“That’s possible, of course. But why?”
“There could be lots of reasons. Where she lives. Her work. Maybe she wants to make these visits in secret.”
Svedberg pushed his coffee cup away.
“Her visits must have been important. She went there twice.”
“We can put together a timetable,” Wallander said. “The first time she came was on the night of 30 September. At the hour when everyone is at their most tired, and least alert. She stays a few minutes and then disappears. Two weeks later she repeats the whole thing. At the same hour. This time she’s stopped by Ylva Brink, who is knocked down. Then she disappears without a trace.”
“Katarina Taxell has her child several days later.”
“And the woman doesn’t come back. On the other hand, Eugen Blomberg is murdered.”
“Do you think a nurse is behind all this?”
They looked at each other without saying anything.
Wallander suddenly realised that he had forgotten to tell Svedberg to ask Ylva Brink about an important detail.
“Do you remember the plastic holder we found in Gosta Runfeldt’s suitcase?” he said. “The kind used by the hospital staff?”
Svedberg nodded. He remembered.
“Call the maternity ward,” Wallander said. “Ask Ylva if she remembers whether the woman who knocked her down was wearing a name tag.”