“And you won’t tell us the father’s name?”
“No.”
Wallander cast a glance at Svedberg, who was staring at the floor. Birch was looking out the window. Wallander knew they were both on tenterhooks.
“Who do you think might have killed Eugen Blomberg?”
Wallander sent off the question at full force. Birch moved at the window. The floor creaked under his weight. Svedberg switched to staring at his hands.
“I don’t know who would have wanted to kill him.”
The child started fretting again. She got up at once and left them. Wallander looked at the others. Birch shook his head. Wallander tried to evaluate the situation. It would create big trouble if he took a woman with a three-day-old baby in for interrogation. And she wasn’t suspected of a particular crime. He made a quick decision. They huddled at the window once again.
“I’ll stop the questions there,” Wallander said. “But I want her put under surveillance. And I want to know everything you can possibly dig up on her. She seems to have a business that sells hair products. I want to know all about her parents, her friends, what she did earlier in her life. Run her through all the databases. I want her life completely mapped out.”
“We’ll take care of it,” Birch said.
“Svedberg will stay here in Lund. We need someone who’s familiar with the earlier murders.”
“Actually, I’d prefer to go home,” Svedberg said. “You know that I don’t do well outside Ystad.”
“I know that,” Wallander answered. “I’m afraid that right now it can’t be helped. I’ll ask someone to relieve you when I get back to Ystad. But we can’t have people driving back and forth unnecessarily.”
Suddenly the woman was standing at the door, holding the baby. Wallander smiled. They went over and looked at the boy. Svedberg, who liked children even though he didn’t have any of his own, started playing with him.
Something struck Wallander. He thought back to when Linda was a baby, when Mona had carried her around and when he had done it himself, always terrified of dropping her. Then it came to him. She wasn’t holding the baby against her body. It was as if the baby was something that didn’t really belong to her. He was getting angry, but he managed to hide it.
“We won’t trouble you any longer,” he said. “But we’ll be in touch again, no doubt.”
“I hope you catch the person who murdered Eugen,” she said.
Wallander looked at her carefully. Then he nodded.
“Yes, we’re going to solve this. I can promise you that.”
When the three men reached the street, the wind had picked up.
“What do you think of her?” Birch asked.
“She’s not telling the truth, of course,” Wallander said. “But it didn’t seem like she was lying, either.”
Birch gave him a quizzical look.
“How am I supposed to take that? That it’s as though she was lying and telling the truth at the same time?”
“Something like that. What it means I don’t know.”
“I noticed a little detail,” Svedberg said suddenly. “She said she hoped we caught ‘the person’, not ‘the man’ who murdered Eugen Blomberg.”
Wallander nodded. He had noticed it too.
“Does that necessarily mean anything?” Birch asked sceptically.
“No,” Wallander said. “But both Svedberg and I noticed it. And that might mean something in itself.”
They decided that Wallander would drive back to Ystad in Svedberg’s car. He promised to send someone to relieve Svedberg in Lund as soon as he could.
“This is important,” he told Birch once again. “Katarina Taxell had a visit at the hospital from this woman. We have to find out who she is. The midwife she knocked down gave a good description.”
“Give me the description,” said Birch. “She might show up at her home too.”
“She was quite tall,” said Wallander. “Ylva Brink herself is five-nine. She thought this woman was about five-eleven. Dark, straight, shoulder-length hair. Blue eyes, pointed nose, thin lips. She was stocky without looking overweight. No prominent bust. The power of her blow shows that she’s strong. And we can assume that she’s in good physical shape.”
“That description fits quite a few people,” Birch said.
“All descriptions do,” Wallander said. “Even so, you know right away when you find the right person.”
“Did the woman say anything? What was her voice like?”
“She didn’t say a word. She just knocked her to the ground.”
“Did she notice the woman’s teeth?”
Wallander looked at Svedberg, who shook his head.
“Was she wearing make-up?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“What did her hands look like? Was she wearing false nails?”
“We know for certain that she wasn’t. Ylva said she would have noticed.”
Birch had made some notes. He nodded.
“We’ll see what we can come up with,” he said. “We’ll do the surveillance very discreetly. She’s going to be on her guard.”
They said goodbye. Svedberg gave Wallander his car keys. On the way to Ystad Wallander tried to comprehend why Katarina Taxell didn’t want to reveal that she’d had night-time visits while she was in the Ystad maternity ward. Who was the woman? How was she connected to Taxell and Blomberg? Where did the threads lead from there? What did the chain of events look like that led to his murder?
He was afraid that he might be on a completely wrong track, leading the investigation way off course. Nothing caused him more torment. Prevented him from sleeping, gave him an upset stomach. The thought that he could be heading at full speed towards the collapse of a criminal investigation. He’d been through it all before, the moment when an investigation suddenly shattered. There would be nothing to do but start again from the beginning. And it would be his fault.
It was 9.30 a.m. when he parked outside the Ystad police station. Ebba stopped him in reception.
“It’s total chaos here,” she said.
“What happened?”
“Chief Holgersson wants to speak to you right away. It’s about that man you and Svedberg found on the road last night.”
“I’ll go and talk to her,” Wallander said.
“Do it now,” Ebba said.
He went straight to her office. The door was open. Hansson was sitting inside, looking pale. Lisa Holgersson was more upset than he had ever seen her. She motioned him to a chair.
“I think you should hear what Hansson has to say.”
Wallander took off his jacket and sat down.
“I had a long conversation with Ake Davidsson this morning.”
“How is he?” Wallander said.
“It looks worse than it really is. It’s still bad, but nowhere near as bad as the story he had to tell.”
Afterwards he knew that Hansson hadn’t been exaggerating. Wallander listened first in surprise, then with growing indignation. Hansson was clear and to the point. Wallander could hardly believe what he was hearing; it was something he never thought could happen. Now they’d have to live with it. Sweden was steadily changing. Usually these changes were subtle, nothing obvious at the time. But sometimes Wallander, when he observed these changes as a policeman, felt a shudder pass through the entire framework of society. Hansson’s story about Ake Davidsson was one such shudder, and it shook Wallander to the core.
Ake Davidsson was a civil servant in the social welfare office in Malmo. He was classified as partially disabled because of bad eyesight. After struggling for many years, he had finally got a restricted driver’s licence. Since the late 1970s, Davidsson had a relationship with a woman in Lodinge. It had ended the previous evening. Usually Davidsson would sleep over in Lodinge, since he wasn’t allowed to drive in the dark. But this time he had no choice. He got lost, and finally stopped to ask directions. He was attacked by a night patrol of volunteers who had gathered in Lodinge. They accused him of being a burglar and refused to believe his explanation. His glasses vanished; maybe they were crushed. He was beaten senseless and didn’t wake up until the ambulance men lifted him onto the stretcher.