Wallander opened a curtain to let in more light, and saw a lone deer grazing among the trees in the garden. He stood quite still. The deer raised its head and looked at him. Then it calmly went on grazing. Wallander stayed where he was. He had a feeling that he would never forget that deer. How long he stood there and watched it, he didn’t know. Finally a sound that he himself didn’t notice caught the deer’s attention. It vanished. Wallander kept on looking out the window for a time and then went back to the two photographs. The plane carrying the camera had come in from due south. All the details were clear. In 1965 Eriksson hadn’t yet built his tower, but the hill was there and so was the ditch. He couldn’t make out a bridge. He followed the contours of the fields. The picture was taken early in the spring. The fields had been ploughed, but nothing was growing yet. The pond was quite clear in the photograph. A grove of trees stood next to a narrow tractor path separating two of the fields. He frowned. He couldn’t remember those trees. This morning he wouldn’t have seen them because of the fog, but he didn’t remember them from his previous visits. The trees looked tall. He studied the house, which was in the centre of the picture. An outbuilding that might have been used as a pigsty had been torn down. The approach road was wider. But otherwise everything was much the same. He took off his glasses and sat down in a leather armchair. Silence surrounded him.
A Chevrolet goes to Svenstavik. A woman comes back to Skane. Then she vanishes and 27 years later the man who may have gone to Svenstavik to get her is murdered. Now they were looking for no less than three different women. Krista Haberman, Katarina Taxell, and one without a name. One who drives a red Golf, smokes handrolled cigarettes and might wear false nails.
He wondered whether two of the women could be in fact be one and the same, whether Krista Haberman, in spite of everything, was still alive. If so, she would be 65 years old by now, and the woman who knocked down Ylva Brink was a lot younger.
It didn’t add up. Nothing did.
He looked at his watch. It was 8.45 a.m. He stood up and left the house. The fog was still just as thick. He thought about the deserted kennel. Then he locked up and drove away.
At 10 a.m. Wallander called the investigative team together for a meeting. Martinsson was still away, but he had promised to come in that afternoon after he had been at Terese’s school. Hoglund said that he’d called her late the night before. She thought he sounded drunk, which was out of the ordinary. Wallander felt vaguely jealous. Why had Martinsson called her and not him? It was the two of them who had worked together all these years.
“He still seems determined to quit,” she said. “But I got the feeling that he also wished I would talk him out of it.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Wallander said.
They closed the door to the conference room. Per Akeson and Chief Holgersson were the last ones to arrive. Wallander had a feeling that they had just completed their own meeting. Lisa Holgersson took the floor as soon as the room was quiet.
“The whole country is talking about the citizen militia,” she said. “From now on Lodinge is firmly on the map. We’ve had a request for Kurt to participate in a discussion programme on TV tonight, to be broadcast from Goteborg.”
“Not on your life,” Wallander replied, horrified. “What would I say?”
“I’ve turned them down on your behalf already,” she replied with a smile. “But I’m thinking of asking for a favour in return later on.”
Wallander realised that she was referring to the lectures at the police academy.
“There is a huge debate taking place,” she went on. “We can only hope that something good comes out of it, now that the issues are actually being discussed.”
“It might also force the senior members of the police administration in this country to be a little more self-critical,” Hansson said. “We’re not entirely without blame for the way things have developed.”
“What are you suggesting?” Wallander asked, curious. Hansson rarely participated in discussions about the police force.
“I’m thinking about the scandals in which the police have been involved,” Hansson said. “Maybe they’ve always existed, but not as often as they do now.”
“That’s something we should neither exaggerate nor ignore,” Per Akeson said. “The big problem is the gradual shift in what the police and the courts see as a crime. What would have brought a conviction yesterday is suddenly considered a trifle today, and the police often don’t even bother to investigate. I think that’s offensive to the national sense of justice, which has always been strong in this country.”
“They’re probably related,” Wallander said. “But I have strong doubts that a discussion of the citizen militia will have any effect on this, even though I’d like to believe otherwise.”
“I’m thinking of prosecuting these men with as serious charges as I can,” Akeson said. “The assault was vicious, that’s something I can emphasise. There were four men involved and I think I can convict at least three of them. I should also tell you that the chief prosecutor wants to be kept informed. I consider that quite surprising, but it indicates that at least this is being taken seriously at a high level.”
“Ake Davidsson sounds intelligent and articulate in an interview in Arbetet,” said Svedberg. “He’s not going to have any permanent injuries by the way.”
“Then there’s Terese and her father,” Wallander said. “And the boys at the school.”
“Is it true that Martinsson is thinking of resigning?” Akeson asked.
“That was his first reaction,” Wallander replied. “Which seems both reasonable and natural. But I’m not sure he’s really going to go through with it.”
“He’s a good policeman,” Hansson said. “Doesn’t he know that?”
“Yes,” Wallander said. “The question is whether that’s enough. Other things can come up when something like this happens. Especially with our workload.”
“I know,” Chief Holgersson said. “And that’s not going to get any better.”
Wallander remembered that he still hadn’t done what he had promised Nyberg: talk to Holgersson about his workload. He made a note of it.
“We’ll have to take up this discussion later,” he said.
“I just wanted to inform you,” Holgersson said. “That’s all, except that Bjork called to wish you luck. He was sorry to hear about what happened to Martinsson’s daughter.”
“He resigned in time,” Svedberg said. “What did we give him as a leaving present? A fishing rod? If he was still working here, he wouldn’t have time to use it.”
“He probably has a lot on his hands now too,” Holgersson said.
“Bjork was a good chief,” Wallander said. “Now let’s move on.”
They started with Hoglund’s timetable. Next to his notepad Wallander had placed the plastic bag containing the Swedish Railways timetable that he had found in Katarina Taxell’s desk.
Hoglund had done a thorough job. The times of the various events were mapped out and listed in relation to each other. Wallander knew that this was an assignment he wouldn’t have done as well. In all probability he would have been sloppy. All policemen are different, he thought. It’s only when we can work with something that brings out our strengths that we’re of any real use.
“I don’t really see a pattern emerging,” Hoglund said as she neared the end of her presentation. “The pathologists in Lund have established the time of Eriksson’s death as late on the evening of 21 September. Runfeldt also died at night. The times of death correspond, but one can’t draw any conclusions from this. There’s no correspondence in terms of the days of the week. If we add the two visits to the Ystad maternity ward and the murder of Blomberg, there might be a fragment of a pattern.”