"My husband's an honest man," the woman said.
"I've no doubt about that," Wallander said. "This is just a routine inquiry. When exactly do you expect him back?"
"He's on a senior citizens' excursion to Ven," the woman said. "They're due to have dinner in Landskrona, but he's bound to be home by ten. He never goes to bed before midnight. That's a habit he got into when he ran the hotel."
"Tell him I'll get back to him," Wallander said. "And there's absolutely nothing to be worried about."
"I'm not worried," the woman said. "My husband's an honest man."
Wallander hung up. "I'll drive out and visit him tonight," Wallander said.
"Can't it wait until tomorrow?" Martinsson asked.
"I'm sure it can," Wallander said. "But I've nothing else on tonight."
An hour later they met to assess the situation. Bjork had left a message to say he could not be there as he had been summoned to an urgent meeting with the District Police Chief. Hoglund suddenly put in an appearance. Her husband had come home and was looking after the sick child.
Everybody agreed they should concentrate on the threatening letters. Wallander could not escape the nagging thought that there was something odd about the dead solicitors, something he ought to have cottoned on to. He remembered that Hoglund had had the same feeling the previous day.
After the meeting they bumped into each other in the corridor.
"If you're going to Helsingborg tonight, I'll go with you," she said. "If I may."
"It's not necessary," he said.
"But I'd like to, even so."
He nodded. They agreed to meet at the police station at 9.00.
Wallander drove to his father's house at Loderup shortly before 7 p.m. He stopped on the way to buy some buns to eat with the coffee. When he got there his father was in his studio, painting the same old picture: an autumn landscape, with or without a grouse in the foreground.
My father's what people call a "kitsch" artist, Wallander thought. I sometimes feel like a kitschy police officer.
His father's wife, who used to be his home help, was visiting her parents. Wallander expected his father to be cross when he heard that his son could only stay an hour, but to his surprise, he simply nodded. They played cards for a short while and Wallander told him in detail why he returned to work. His father did not seem interested in his reasons. It was an evening when, just for once, they did not quarrel. As Wallander drove back to Ystad, he racked his brains to remember when that had last happened.
At 8.55 they were in Wallander's car, heading for the Malmo road. It was still windy, and Wallander could feel a draught from the ill-fitting rubber strip round the windscreen. He could smell the faint aroma of Hoglund's discreet perfume. When they emerged on to the E65 he speeded up.
"Do you know your way around Helsingborg?" she said.
"No."
"We could call our colleagues in Helsingborg and ask."
"Best to keep them out of it for the time being," Wallander said.
"Why?"
"When police officers intrude into others' territory there are always problems," Wallander said. "No point in making things difficult for ourselves unnecessarily."
They drove on in silence. Wallander thought reluctantly about the conversation he would have to have with Bjork. When they came to the road for Sturup airport, Wallander turned off. A few kilometres further on he turned off again, towards Lund.
"Tell me why you became a police officer," Wallander said.
"Not yet," she said. "Another time."
There was not much traffic. The wind seemed to be getting worse all the time. They passed the roundabout outside Staffanstorp and saw the lights from Lund. It was 9.25.
"That's odd," she said suddenly.
Wallander noticed straight away there was something different about her voice. He glanced at her face, which was lit up by the glow from the dashboard. He could see she was staring intently into the mirror on her side. He looked in his rear-view mirror. There were headlights some way behind.
"What's odd?" he asked.
"I've never experienced this before," she said.
"What?"
"Being chased," she said. "Or, at least, being followed."
Wallander could see that she was serious. He looked again at the lights in his mirror.
"How can you be so sure the car is following us?" he said.
"That's easy. It's been behind us ever since we set off."
Wallander looked at her doubtfully.
"I'm positive," she said. "That car has been following us ever since we left Ystad."
Chapter 7
Fear was like a beast of prey.
Afterwards, Wallander remembered it as being like a claw clamped round his neck - an image that seemed even to him childish and inadequate, but it was the comparison he eventually used even so. Who would he describe the fear to? His daughter Linda, and perhaps also Baiba, in one of the letters he sent regularly to Riga. But hardly to anyone else. He never discussed with Hoglund what he had felt in that car; she never asked, and he was never sure whether she had noticed he was frightened. Nevertheless, he had been so terrified that he was shaking, and was convinced he would lose control of the car and plunge into the ditch at high speed, perhaps even hurtle to his death. He remembered with crystal clarity that he wished he had been alone in the car. That would have made everything much simpler for him. A large part of his fear, the weight of the giant beast, was the worry that something might happen to her, the woman in the passenger seat. Superficially, he had played the role of the experienced police officer who was unmoved by a minor matter like discovering that he was being followed from Staffanstorp to Lund, but he had been scared out of his wits until they reached the outskirts of the city. Shortly after crossing the boundary, when she had announced that the car was still following them, he had pulled in to one of the big petrol stations that had 24-hour service. They had seen the car drive past, a dark blue Mercedes, but had been unable to catch the registration number or make out how many people were inside. Wallander had stopped by one of the pumps.
"I think you're wrong," he said.
She shook her head. "The car was following us," she said. "I can't swear that it was waiting for us outside the police station, but I noticed it early on. It was there when we passed the roundabout on the E65. It was just a car then, any old car. But when we'd turned off a couple of times and it still hadn't overtaken us, it started to be something else."
Wallander got out and unscrewed the petrol cap. She stood by his side, watching him. He was thinking as hard as he could.
"Who would want to follow us?" he asked as he replaced the pipe.
She remained standing by the car while he went to pay. She couldn't possibly be right, he thought. His fear had started to wear off.
They continued through the town. The streets were deserted, and the traffic lights seemed very reluctant to change. Once they had left Lund behind them and Wallander increased speed along the motorway heading north, they started to check the traffic behind them once again. But the Mercedes had gone, and it didn't reappear. When they took the exit for Helsingborg south, Wallander slowed down. A dirty lorry overtook them, then a dark red Volvo. Wallander pulled up at the side of the road, released his safety belt and got out. He walked round to the back of the car and crouched down, as if he were inspecting one of the back wheels. He knew she would keep an eye on every car that passed. He counted four cars overtaking them, and a bus which had a fault in one of its cylinders, to judge by the sound of its engine. He got back into the car and turned to her.
"No Mercedes?"