would have been some natural explanation.”
“Who?” said Robert Akerblom.
“We don’t know,” said Wallander. “But we shall not rest until we do know.”
“You’ll never know,” said Robert Akerblom.
Wallander looked at him inquiringly.
“Why do you think that?” he said.
“Nobody could have wanted to kill Louise,” said Robert Akerblom. “So how could you possibly find whoever is guilty?”
Wallander did not know what to say. Robert Akerblom had put his finger on their biggest problem.
A few minutes later he stood up. Pastor Tureson accompanied him into the hall.
“You have a few hours in which to contact all the closest relatives,” said Wallander. “Call me if you can’t locate them. We can’t keep this secret for ever.”
“I hear what you’re saying,” said Pastor Tureson.
Then he lowered his voice.
“Stig Gustafson?” he asked.
“We’re still looking,” said Wallander. “We don’t know if it is him.”
“Have you any other leads?” asked Pastor Tureson.
“Could be,” said Wallander, “but I’m afraid I can’t answer that either.”
“For technical reasons?”
“Exactly.”
Wallander could see Pastor Tureson had one more question.
“Well,” he said. “Fire away!”
Pastor Tureson lowered his voice so far that Wallander could hardly hear what he was saying.
“Rape?” he asked.
“We don’t know yet,” said Wallander. “But of course, that’s not an impossibility.”
Wallander felt a strange mixture of hunger and uneasiness when he left the Akerbloms’ house. He stopped on the Osterleden highway and forced down a hamburger. He couldn’t remember when he had last eaten. Then he hurried along to the police station. When he got there he was met by Svedberg, who informed him that Bjork had been forced to improvise a press conference at short notice. As he knew Wallander was busy informing relatives of Louise Akerblom’s death and he didn’t want to disturb him, he had enlisted the help of Martinson.
“Can you guess how the news leaked out?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Wallander. “Peter Hanson?”
“Wrong! Try again!”
“One of us?”
“Not this time. It was Morell. He saw the chance to squeeze some money from one of the evening papers if he tipped them off. He’s obviously a real bastard. At least the guys in Malmo have something to pin on him now. Ordering somebody to steal four water pumps is a criminal offense.”
“He’ll only get probation,” said Wallander.
They went to the canteen and poured a mug of coffee each.
“How did Robert Akerblom take it?” asked Svedberg.
“I don’t know,” said Wallander. “It must feel like half your life has been taken away. No one can imagine what it’s like unless they’ve been through something similar themselves. I can’t. All I can say just now is that we’ll have to have a meeting as soon as the press conference is over. I’ll be in my office till then, writing a summary.”
“I thought I could try and put together an overview of the tipoffs we’ve had,” said Svedberg. “Somebody might have seen Louise Akerblom on Friday with a man who could be Stig Gustafson.”
“Do that,” said Wallander. “And let us have all you know about the man.”
The press conference dragged on and on, eventually ending after an hour and a half. By then Wallander had tried to compose a summary under various headings and draw up a plan for the next phase of the investigation.
Bjork and Martinson were totally exhausted when they came to the conference room.
“Now I understand how you usually feel,” said Martinson, flopping down into a chair. “The only thing they didn’t ask about was the color of her underwear.”
Wallander reacted immediately.
“That was unnecessary,” he said.
Martinson opened his arms wide in apology.
“I’ll try and give you a summary,” said Wallander. “We know how it all started, so I’ll jump over that bit. Anyway, we’ve found Louise Akerblom. She’s been murdered, shot through the forehead. My guess is she was shot at close range. But we’ll know for sure later. We don’t know if she was subjected to sexual assault. Nor do we know if she was ill-treated or held prisoner. We don’t know where she was killed, either. Nor when. But we can be sure she was dead when she was put down that well. We’ve also found her car. It’s essential we get a preliminary report from the hospital as soon as possible. Not least as to whether there was a sexual assault. Then we can start checking up on known criminals who might have done it.”
Wallander took a slurp of coffee before continuing.
“As for motive and murderer, we only have one track to follow so far,” he went on. “The engineer Stig Gustafson, who’s been persecuting her and pestering her with hopeless declarations of love. We still haven’t found him. You know more about that, Svedberg. You can also give us a summary of the tipoffs we’ve had. Further complications in this investigation are the severed black finger and the house that blew up. Things have been made no easier by the fact that Nyberg found the remains of an advanced radio transmitter in the ashes, and the butt of a handgun used mainly in South Africa, if I understood him properly. In one sense the finger and the pistol are linked by that fact. Not that it helps much. We still don’t know if the two incidents are connected.”
Wallander was through, and looked at Svedberg, who was leafing through the stack of papers he was constantly fiddling with.
“I’ll start with the tipoffs,” he said. “I’m thinking of writing a book one of these days called People Who Want to Help the Police. It’ll make me a rich man. As usual we’ve had curses, blessings, confessions, dreams, hallucinations, and the occasional sensible tip. As far as I can see, though, there’s only one of immediate interest. The warden of the Rydsgard estate is quite certain he saw Louise Akerblom driving past last Friday afternoon. The time is about right. That means we know which route she took. Apart from that there’s very little of interest. Now we know, of course, it’s often a day or two before the best tipoffs come in. They come from sensible people who hesitate before getting in touch. As for Stig Gustafson, we haven’t managed to discover where he’s moved to. But he’s supposed to have an unmarried female relative in Malmo. Unfortunately we don’t know her first name. The Malmo telephone directory is full of Gustafsons, of course. Stacks and stacks of them. We’ll just have to get down to it and divide the list between us. That’s all I have to say.”
Wallander sat in silence for a moment. Bjork looked expectantly at him.
“Let’s concentrate our efforts,” said Wallander at length. “We have to find Stig Gustafson, that’s the first priority. If the only lead we have is that relative in Malmo, then that’s the one we’ll have to follow up. Everybody in this station who’s capable of picking up a phone will have to help. I’ll join in and assist with the telephoning, as soon as I’ve dealt with the hospital.”
Then he turned to Bjork.
“We’d better keep going all evening,” he said. “It’s essential.”
Bjork nodded in agreement.
“Do that,” he said. “I’ll be around if anything important happens.”
Svedberg began organizing the hunt for marine engineer Stig Gustafson’s relative in Malmo, while Wallander went back to his office. Before calling the hospital, he dialed his father’s number. It was a long time before he answered. He assumed his father had been in his studio, painting. Wallander could hear right away that he was in a bad mood.
“Hi! It’s me,” he said.
“Who’s me?” asked his father.
“You know full well who it is,” said Wallander.
“I’ve forgotten what your voice sounds like,” said his father.
