Svedberg got up. He paused in the doorway and turned round.
“There was one other thing,” he said. “Do you remember Peter Hanson?”
“The thief?”
“That’s the one. You may remember I asked him to keep his eyes open in case the things stolen from your apartment turned up on the market. He called me yesterday. Most of your stuff has no doubt been disposed of, I guess. You’ll never see it again. But oddly enough he managed to get hold of a CD he claims is yours.”
“Did he say which one it was?”
“I wrote it down.”
Svedberg searched through his pockets and eventually came across a crumpled scrap of paper.
“Rigoletto,” he read. “Verdi.”
Wallander smiled.
“I’ve missed that,” he said. “Send my regards to Peter Hanson, and thank him.”
“He’s a thief,” said Svedberg. “You don’t thank guys like that.”
Svedberg left the room with a laugh. Wallander started going through the remaining stacks of paper. It was nearly eleven by now, and he hoped to be finished by twelve.
The telephone rang. At first he thought he would ignore it. Then he picked it up.
“There’s a guy here who wants to talk with Chief Inspector Wallander,” said a female voice he did not recognize. He assumed it was the stand-in for Ebba, who was on vacation.
“Transfer him to somebody else,” said Wallander. “I’m not receiving visitors.”
“He’s very insistent,” said the receptionist. “He’s adamant he wants to talk with Chief Inspector Wallander. He says he has important information for you. He’s Danish.”
“Danish?” said Wallander in surprise. “What’s it about?”
“He says it has something to do with an African.”
Wallander thought for a moment.
“Send him in,” he said.
The man who came into Wallander’s office introduced himself as Paul Jorgensen, a fisherman from Dragor. He was very tall and powerfully built. When Wallander shook hands with him, it was like being gripped by an iron claw. He pointed to a chair. Jorgensen sat down and lit a cigar. Wallander was glad the window was open. He groped around in his drawers before finding an ashtray.
“I have something to tell you,” said Jorgensen. “But I haven’t yet made up my mind whether I’m going to or not.”
Wallander raised his eyebrows.
“You should have made your mind up before coming here,” he said.
In normal circumstances he would probably have been annoyed. Now he could hear that his voice was far from convincing.
“It depends whether you can overlook a minor breach of the law,” said Jorgensen.
Wallander began to wonder whether the man was making a fool of him. If so, he had chosen a most unfortunate moment. He could see he had better get a grip on the conversation, which looked like it was going off course almost before it had begun.
“I was told you had something important to tell me about an African,” he said. “If it really is important, I might be able to overlook any minor breach of the law. But I can’t promise anything. You must make up your own mind. I have to ask you to do so right now, though.”
Jorgensen screwed up he eyes and gazed at him from behind a cloud of smoke.
“I’ll risk it,” he said.
“I’m listening,” said Wallander.
“I’m a fisherman on Dragor,” Jorgensen began. “I make just about enough to pay for the boat, the house, and a beer in the evenings. But nobody turns down the chance for some extra income, if the opportunity arises. I take tourists out for little sea trips now and then, and that produces some pocket money. Sometimes I’m asked to take somebody over to Sweden. That doesn’t happen often, just once or twice a year. It could be some passengers who have missed a ferry, for instance. A few weeks ago I did a trip over to Limhamn one afternoon. I had just one passenger on board.”
He stopped abruptly, as if expecting a reaction from Wallander. But he had nothing to say. He nodded to Jorgensen, telling him to go on.
“It was a black guy,” said Jorgensen. “He only spoke English. Very polite. He stood in the wheelhouse with me all the way. Maybe I should mention there was something special about this trip. It had been booked in advance. There was this Englishman who spoke Danish, and he came down to the harbor one morning and asked if I could do a little trip over the sound, with a passenger. I thought it sounded a bit suspicious, so I asked a pretty high fee in order to get rid of him. I asked for five thousand kronor. The funny thing was he took out the money right away and paid in advance.”
Wallander was extremely interested by this. Just for a moment he forgot all about himself and concentrated exclusively on what Jorgensen had to say. He indicated he should continue.
“I went to sea as a young man,” said Jorgensen. “I learned quite a bit of English. I asked the guy what he was going to do in Sweden. He said he was going to visit some friends. I asked how long he’d be staying, and he said he’d probably be going back to Africa in a month, at the latest. I suspected there was something fishy going on. He was probably trying to get into Sweden illegally. Since it’s not possible to prove anything now that happened so long ago, I’m taking the risk of telling you.”
Wallander raised his hand.
“Let’s dig a little deeper,” he said. “What day was this?”
Jorgensen leaned forward and studied Wallander’s desk diary.
“Wednesday, May 13,” he said. “About six in the evening.”
That could fit, thought Wallander. It could have been Victor Mabasha’s replacement.
“He said he would stay for about a month?”
“I guess.”
“Guess?”
“I’m sure.”
“Go on,” said Wallander. “Don’t leave out any details.”
“We chatted about this and that,” said Jorgensen. “He was open and friendly. But all the time I somehow felt he was on his guard. I can’t really put it any better than that. We got to Limhamn. I docked, and he jumped ashore.
“Since I’d already been paid, I backed out again right away and turned back. I wouldn’t have given it another thought if I hadn’t happened to come across an old Swedish evening paper the other day. There was a photo on the front page of a guy I thought I recognized. A guy who got killed in a gun battle with the cops.”
He paused briefly.
“With you,” he said. “There was a picture of you as well.”
“When was the paper from?” asked Wallander, although he already knew the answer.
“I guess it was a Thursday paper,” said Jorgensen hesitantly. “It could have been the next day. May 14.”
“Go on,” said Wallander. “We can check up on that later if it’s important.”
“I recognized that photo,” said Jorgensen. “But I couldn’t place it. I didn’t catch on to who it was until the day before yesterday. When I dropped that African off in Limhamn, there was a giant of a guy waiting for him on the quayside. He stayed in the background, as if he didn’t want to be seen. But I have pretty good eyes. It was him. Then I started thinking about it all. I thought it might be important. So I took a day off and came here.”
“You did the right thing,” said Wallander. “I’m not going to pursue the fact that you were involved in illegal immigration into Sweden. But that assumes, of course, that you have nothing more to do with it.”
“I’ve already packed it in,” said Jorgensen.
“That African,” said Wallander. “Describe him to me.”
“About thirty,” said Jorgensen. “Powerfully built, strong and supple.”
“Nothing else?”
“Not that I can remember.”
