“Don’t do that,” Wallander said. “We can have a chat later.”
He got away as quickly as he could and hurried down the corridor. When he got to his office he noticed that it had been thoroughly cleaned. There was also a note on his desk asking him to phone his father. Judging by the obscure handwriting, it was Svedberg who had taken the message the previous evening. He reached for the telephone, then changed his mind. He took out the summary he had prepared and read through it. The feeling he had had of being able to detect an obscure but nevertheless definite pattern linking the various incidents would not resurrect itself. He pushed the papers to one side. It’s too soon, he decided. I come back after eighteen months in the cold, and I’ve got less patience than ever. Annoyed, he reached for his notepad and found an empty page.
It was clear that he would have to start again from the beginning. Apparently nobody could say with any certainty where the beginning was, so they would have to approach the investigation with no preconceived ideas. He spent half an hour sketching out what needed to be done, but all the time he was nagged by the idea that it was really Martinsson who ought to be leading the investigation. He himself had returned to duty, but he did not want to take on the whole responsibility right away.
The telephone rang. He hesitated before answering.
“I hear we’ve had some great news.” It was Per Åkeson. “I have to say I’m delighted.” Åkeson was the public prosecutor with whom Wallander had, over the years, established the best working relationship. They had often had heated discussions about the best way of interpreting case data, and Wallander had many times been angry because Åkeson had refused to accept one of his submissions as sufficient grounds for an arrest. But they had more or less always seen eye to eye. And they shared a particular impatience at cases being carelessly handled.
“I have to admit it all seems a bit strange,” Wallander said.
“Rumor had it that you were about to retire for health reasons,” Åkeson said. “Somebody should tell Björk to put a stop to all these rumors that keep flying around.”
“It wasn’t just a rumor,” Wallander said. “I had made my mind up to throw in the towel.”
“Might one ask why you changed your mind?”
“Something happened,” Wallander said evasively. He could tell that Åkeson was waiting for him to continue, but he did not oblige.
“Anyway, I’m pleased you’ve come back,” Åkeson said, after an appropriately long silence. “I’m also certain that I’m expressing the sentiments of my colleagues in saying that.”
Wallander began to feel uncomfortable about all the goodwill that was flowing in his direction but which he found hard to believe. We go through life with one foot in a rose garden and the other in quick-sand, he thought.
“I assume you’ll be taking over the Torstensson case,” Åkeson said. “Maybe we should get together later today and work out where we stand.”
“I don’t know about ‘taking over,’” Wallander said. “I’ll be involved, I asked to be. But I suppose that one of the others will be leading the investigation.”
“Hmm, none of my business,” Åkeson said. “I’m just pleased you’re back. Have you had time to get into the details of the case?”
“Not really.”
“Judging by what I’ve heard so far, there doesn’t seem to have been any significant development.”
“Björk thinks it’s going to be a long haul.”
“What do you think?”
Wallander hesitated before replying. “Nothing at all yet.”
“Insecurity seems to be on the increase,” Åkeson said. “Threats, often in the form of anonymous letters, are more common. Public buildings which used to be open to the public are now barricading themselves like fortresses. No question, you’ll have to go through his clients with a fine-tooth comb. You might find a clue there. Someone among them might have a grudge.”
“We’ve already started on that,” Wallander said.
They agreed to meet in Åkeson’s office that afternoon.
Wallander forced himself to return to the investigation plan he had started to sketch out, but his concentration wandered. He put his pen down in irritation and went to fetch a cup of coffee. He hurried back to his office, not wanting to meet anybody. It was 8:15 by now. He drank his coffee and wondered how long it would be before he lost his fear of being with people. At 8:30 he gathered his papers together and went to the conference room. On the way there it struck him that unusually little had been achieved during the five or six days that had passed since Sten Torstensson had been found murdered. All murder investigations are different, but there always used to be a mood of intense urgency among the officers involved. Something had changed while he had been away. What?
They were all present by 8:40, and Björk tapped the table as a sign that work was about to commence. He turned at once to Wallander.
“Kurt,” he said, “you’ve just come into this case and can view it with fresh eyes. What do you think we should do now?”
“I hardly think I’m the one to decide that,” Wallander said. “I haven’t had time to get into it fully.”
“On the other hand, you’re the only one who’s so far come up with anything useful,” Martinsson said. “If I know you, you stayed up last night and sketched out an investigation plan. Am I right?”
Wallander nodded. He realized that in fact he had no objection to taking over the case.
“I have tried to write a summary,” he began. “But first let me tell you about something that happened just over a week ago, when I was in Denmark. I should have mentioned it yesterday, but it was all a bit hectic for me, to say the least.”
Wallander told his astonished colleagues about Sten Torstensson’s trip to Skagen. He tried hard to leave out no detail. When he finished, there was silence. Björk eventually spoke, making no attempt to conceal the fact that he was annoyed.
“Very odd,” he said. “I don’t know why it is that you always seem to find yourself in situations that are out of normal procedures.”
“I did refer him to you,” Wallander objected, and could feel his anger rising.
“It’s nothing for us to get excited about now,” Björk said impassively. “But it is a bit strange, you must agree. What is of course clear is that we have to reopen the investigation into Gustaf Torstensson’s accident.”
“It seems to me both natural and necessary that we advance on two fronts,” Wallander said. “The assumption being that two people have been murdered, not one. It’s a father and a son, moreover. We have to think two thoughts at the same time. There may be a solution to be found in their private lives, but it might also be something to do with their work, two lawyers working for the same law firm. The fact that Sten came to see me to talk about his father being on edge might suggest that the key concerns Gustaf Torstensson. But that is not a foregone conclusion—for one thing, there’s the postcard Sten sent to Mrs. Dunér from Finland when at the time he was in Denmark.”
“That tells us something else as well,” Höglund said.
Wallander nodded. “That Sten also thought that he was in danger. Is that what you mean?”
“Yes,” Höglund said. “Why else would he have laid a false trail?”
Martinsson raised his hand, indicating he wanted to say something. “It would be simplest if we split into two groups,” he said. “One to concentrate on the father, and the other on the son. Then let’s see if we come up with anything that points in the same direction.”
“I agree with that,” Wallander said. “At the same time I can’t help thinking there’s something odd about all this. Something we should have discovered already.”
“All murder cases are odd, surely,” Svedberg said.