and closed the door. Then he went out to his studio and carried on painting. But now he had returned to his usual motif. He was putting the finishing touches on a wood grouse.
Martinson arrived at the railroad station in Tomelilla soon after eight. He got out of his car and greeted Svedberg.
“What’s so important, then?” he asked, not bothering to conceal the fact that he was annoyed.
“You’ll see,” said Svedberg. “But I must warn you it’s not a pretty sight.”
Martinson frowned.
“What’s happened?”
“Konovalenko,” said Svedberg. “He’s struck again. We have another body to deal with. A woman.”
“Good Lord!”
“Follow me,” said Svedberg. “We have a lot to talk about.”
“Is Wallander mixed up in all this?” asked Martinson.
Svedberg did not hear. He was already on the way to his car.
Martinson did not discover what had happened until afterwards.
Chapter Thirty
Late on Wednesday afternoon she cut her hair.
That was how she hoped to erase her unpleasant memories.
Then she started talking about what had happened. Wallander had tried in vain to persuade her to see a doctor. But she refused.
“My hair will grow again in its own good time,” she said. “No doctor can make it grow any faster than it wants to.”
Wallander was afraid of what was coming next. What scared him was that his daughter might blame him for what had happened to her. He would find it hard to defend himself. It was his fault. He was responsible for dragging her into all this. It was not even an accident. But she had made up her mind not to see a doctor for the moment, and he did not try to convince her.
Only once during the course of the day did she start crying. It happened unexpectedly, just as they were going to sit down to eat. She looked at him and asked what had happened to Tania. He told her the truth, that she was dead. But he avoided saying she had been tortured by Konovalenko. Wallander hoped the newspapers would leave out the details. He also told her Konovalenko was still at large.
“But he’s on the run,” he said. “He’s a hunted man; he can’t attack whenever he likes any more.”
Wallander suspected what he said was not completely true. Konovalenko was probably just as dangerous now as before. He also knew that he himself, once again, would be setting out to find him. But not yet, not this Wednesday, when his daughter had come back to him from the darkness, silence and fear.
At one point on Wednesday evening he spoke with Svedberg on the telephone. Wallander asked for the night in order to catch up on sleep and do some thinking. He would come out into the open on Thursday. Svedberg told him about the search going on at full scale. There was no trace of Konovalenko.
“But he’s not alone,” said Svedberg. “There was somebody else in that house. Rykoff is dead. Tania too. The man called Victor Mabasha died some days ago. Konovalenko ought to be on his own. But he isn’t. There was somebody else in that house. The question is: who?”
“I don’t know,” said Wallander. “A new, unknown henchman?”
Shortly after Svedberg had hung up, there was a call from Sten Widen. Wallander assumed he and Svedberg were in touch with each other. Sten Widen asked about Wallander’s daughter, and Wallander replied she would no doubt be OK.
“I’m thinking about that woman,” said Sten Widen. “I’m trying to understand how anybody could do something like that to a fellow human being.”
“There are such people,” said Wallander. “Unfortunately there are more of them than we care to think.”
When Linda had fallen asleep, Wallander went out to the studio where his father was painting. Although he suspected it was just a temporary change of mind, he felt they had both found it easier to talk with each other during the goings-on of the last couple of days. He also wondered how much of what had happened his father had really understood.
“Are you still determined to get married?” asked Wallander, sitting on a stool out in the studio.
“You shouldn’t joke about serious matters,” replied his father. “We’re getting married in June.”
“My daughter has been invited,” said Wallander. “But I haven’t.”
“You will be,” said his father.
“Where are you going to get married?”
“Here.”
“Here? In the studio?”
“Why not? I’m going to paint a big backcloth.”
“What do you think Gertrud will have to say about that?”
“It’s her idea.”
His father turned around and smiled at him. Wallander burst out laughing. He couldn’t remember the last time he had a good laugh.
“Gertrud is an unusual woman,” said his father.
“She must be,” said Wallander.
On Thursday morning Wallander woke up feeling refreshed. His joy at the fact his daughter had emerged unscathed filled him with renewed energy. At the back of his mind, Konovalenko was a constant presence. He began to feel once again that he was ready to go after him.
Wallander called Bjork just before eight. He had prepared his excuses meticulously.
“Kurt,” said Bjork. “For God’s sake! Where are you? What’s happened?”
“I guess I had a bit of a breakdown,” said Wallander, trying to sound convincing by speaking softly and slowly. “But I’m better now. I just need a few more days of peace and quiet.”
“You must take sick leave, of course,” said Bjork firmly. “I don’t know if you realized we’ve had an official search on for you. All very unpleasant. But it was necessary. I’ll call off the search for you right away. I’ll issue a press statement. The missing detective chief inspector has returned after a short illness. Where are you, by the way?”
“In Copenhagen,” Wallander lied.
“What the hell are you doing there?”
“I’m staying at a little hotel and getting some rest.”
“And no doubt you’re not going to tell me what that hotel is called? Or where it is?”
“I’d rather not.”
“We need you as quickly as possible. But in good health. Some horrible things are happening here. Martinson and Svedberg and the rest of us feel helpless without you. We’ll be asking for assistance from Stockholm.”
“I’ll be back on Friday. And sick leave won’t be necessary.”
“You’ll never know how relieved I am. We’ve been extremely worried. What actually happened out there in the fog?”
“I’ll be writing a report. I’ll be with you on Friday.”
He hung up, and started thinking about what Svedberg had said. Who was this unknown person? Who was hanging on Konovalenko’s coattails now? He lay on his back in bed, staring up at the ceiling. Slowly, he went over all that had happened since the day Robert Akerblom came to his office. He recalled all the summaries he had tried to write, and attempted to find some kind of path through all the confusing tracks. The feeling of being caught up in an investigation that could never quite be pinned down came to him once more. He still had not gotten behind it all, it seemed to him. He hadn’t found the starting point of all the things that had happened. He still did not know the real cause of it all.
He called Svedberg late in the afternoon.
“We haven’t found anything to suggest where they’ve gone,” answered Svedberg to Wallander’s question.
