He knew what it was. Loneliness. The increasingly anaemic latenight hours with Emma Lundin.
Instead of driving to the station he decided to pay a visit to his father out in Löderup. It was always a risky proposition to arrive without prior notice. But right now Wallander felt the need to experience the smell of oil paints in the studio. The dream from last night still haunted him. He drove through the grey landscape and wondered where he should begin in order to achieve a change in his existence. Perhaps Martinsson was right and he should seriously consider whether or not he should remain a police officer for the rest of his life. Sometimes Per Åkeson would speak dreamily about a life beyond all charges, all leaden and uniform hours in courtrooms and questioning chambers. Even my father has something that I lack, he thought as he turned into the driveway. The dreams that he has decided to stay faithful to. Even if they cost his only son a small fortune.
He got out of the car and walked towards the studio. A cat strutted out through the half-open door and regarded him suspiciously. When Wallander bent down to pet it, it slunk away. Wallander knocked and went in. His father was leaning forward in front of his easel.
'You here?' he said. 'That's unexpected.'
'I was in the neighbourhood,' Wallander said. 'Am I disturbing you?'
His father pretended not to hear the question. Instead he talked of his trip to Egypt. As if it were a vivid but already very distant memory. Wallander sat down on an old sledge and listened.
'Now only Italy remains,' his father concluded. 'Then I can lie down to die.'
'I think we'll wait with that trip,' Wallander said. 'At least a couple of months.'
His father painted. Wallander sat quietly. Now and again they exchanged a few words. Then more silence. Wallander noticed that he was more relaxed. His head felt lighter. After about half an hour he stood up to leave.
'I'll come by for New Year,' he said.
'Bring a bottle of cognac,' his father replied.
Wallander returned to the police station, which still gave the impression of being almost completely deserted. He knew that everyone was now lying low in preparation for New Year's Eve, when there would be a flurry of activity, as usual.
Wallander sat down in his office and reviewed the Eberhardsson sisters' trips during the past year. He tried to discern a pattern, without being sure of what he was really looking for. I know nothing about Holm, he thought. Or these pilots. I have nothing that I can apply like a grid to these trips to Spain. There are no fixed points, other than this single trip that Holm made at the same time as Anna Eberhardsson.
He put all the papers back into the envelope and put that into the folder where he kept all the documents having to do with the murder investigations. Then he wrote himself a reminder to buy a bottle of cognac.
It was already past noon. He felt hungry. In order to break his habit of downing a couple of hot dogs at a stand, he walked down to the hospital and had a sandwich at the cafe. Then he leafed through a ripped magazine that had been left on the table next to him. A pop star had almost died of cancer. An actor had fainted during a performance. Photographs from the parties of the rich. He tossed the magazine aside and started walking back to the station. He felt like an elephant lumbering around in a ring bounded by the city of Ystad. Something has to happen soon, he thought. Who has executed these three people, and why?
Rydberg was sitting in the reception area, waiting for him. Wallander sat down on a sofa next to him. As usual Rydberg got right to the point.
'Heroin is flowing into Malmö,' he said. 'In Lund, Eslöv, Landskrona, Helsingborg. I talked to a colleague in Malmö. He said that there were clear signs that the market had received a boost in supply. It could, in other words, coincide with a drug drop from the plane. In this case, there is only one important question.'
Wallander understood.
'Who was there to receive it?'
'In this, we can play with several different scenarios,' Rydberg went on. 'No one counted on the fact that the plane would crash. A wreck of a plane from Asia that should have been junked a long time ago. Something must then have happened on land. Either the wrong person picked up the package that was dropped in the night. Or else there was more than one predator stalking this prey.'
Wallander nodded. He had also thought this far.
'Something went wrong,' Rydberg said. 'And this led to the execution-style slayings of the Eberhardsson sisters and subsequently Holm. With the same weapon and by the same hand, or hands.'
'But I still resist this thought,' Wallander said. 'We know by now that Anna and Emilia were not nice old ladies. And yet from there, the step of saying they were involved in illegal narcotics transactions feels too great.'
'I actually think so too,' Rydberg said. 'But nothing surprises me any longer. Greed knows no bounds when it sinks its claws into people. Perhaps the sewing shop was doing worse and worse? If we analyse their tax returns we'll get a clearer picture. It should also be possible to tell from the numbers when something happens. At which point they no longer have to care about the profitability of the sewing shop. Perhaps they dreamed of a life in a sunny paradise. They could never have achieved this by selling snaps and silk thread. Suddenly something happens. And they are caught in the web.'
'You can also look at it from the reverse perspective,' Wallander said. 'A better cover than two older women in a sewing shop can hardly be imagined. They were the personification of innocence.'
Rydberg nodded.
'Who was there that night to receive the package?' he repeated. 'And one more question: who was behind all this? More precisely: who is behind it?'
'We're still searching for a midpoint,' Wallander said. 'The apex of the pyramid.'
Rydberg yawned and got up from the sofa with some effort.
'We'll figure it out sooner or later,' he said.
'Has Nyberg returned yet?' Wallander asked.
'According to Martinsson he's still in Tingsryd.'
Wallander returned to his office. Everyone seemed to be waiting for something to happen. Nyberg called at four o'clock and said that his car had finally been fixed. They had a meeting at five. No one really had anything new to bring to the table.
That night Wallander slept heavily, without dreaming. The next day it was sunny and five degrees above zero Celsius. He left the car at home and walked to the station. But when he was halfway there, he changed his mind. He thought of what Martinsson had told him, about the two people who lived in the house where Holm had a room. It was only a quarter past seven. He would have time to drive up there and see if they were in before his meeting at the station.
He turned into the front yard at a quarter to eight. The dog was in its fenced run, barking. Wallander looked around. The house appeared as abandoned as the day before. He walked up to the door and knocked. No answer. He felt the handle. It was locked. Someone must have been there. He stepped away in order to walk around the house. Then he heard the front door open behind him. He jumped involuntarily. A man wearing an undershirt and sagging jeans was standing there staring at him. Wallander walked over and introduced himself.
'Are you Rolf Nyman?' he asked.
'Yes, that's me.'
'I need to speak to you.'
The man looked hesitant.
'The house is a mess,' he said. 'And the girl who lives here is sleeping.'
'My place is also messy,' Wallander said. 'And we don't need to sit next to her bed.'
Nyman stepped aside and led Wallander to the cluttered kitchen. They sat down. The man made no gesture to offer Wallander anything. But he appeared friendly. Wallander assumed he was embarrassed at the mess.