“Whereabouts?”
The girl explained, and Wallander could see it was just as close to the bank as the one where he was now. He thanked her, and left. He made his way to the bakery on the other side of the square. An elderly lady asked him what he wanted as he entered the shop. Wallander showed her the photograph and explained who he was.
“I wonder if you recognize her?” he asked. “She might have been here shopping shortly after three o’clock last Friday.”
The woman went to fetch her eyeglasses in order to study the photo more carefully.
“Has something happened?” she asked, curious to know. “Who is she?”
“Just tell me if you recognize her,” said Wallander gently.
The woman nodded.
“I remember her,” she said. “I think she bought some pastries. Yes, I remember quite clearly. Napoleons. And a loaf of bread.”
Wallander thought for a moment.
“How many pastries?” he asked.
“Four. I remember I was going to put them in a carton, but she said a bag would be OK. She seemed to be in a hurry.”
Wallander nodded.
“Did you see where she went after she left?”
“No. There were other customers waiting to be served.”
“Thank you,” said Wallander. “You’ve been a great help.”
“What happened?” the woman asked.
“Nothing,” said Wallander. “Just routine.”
He left the store and walked back to the rear of the bank where Louise Akerblom had parked her car.
Thus far but no further, he thought. This is where we lose track. She sets out from here to see a house, but we still don’t know where it is. After she’d left a message on the answering machine. She’s in a good mood, she has pastries in a paper bag, and she’s due home at five o’clock.
He looked at his watch. Three minutes to three. Exactly three days since Louise Akerblom was standing on this very spot.
Wallander walked to his car, which was parked in front of the bank, put in a music cassette, one of the few he had left after the break-in, and tried to summarize where he’d gotten so far. Placido Domingo’s voice filled the car as he thought about the four pastries, one for each member of the Akerblom family. Then he wondered if they said grace before eating pastries as well. He wondered what it felt like to believe in a god.
An idea occurred to him at the same time. He had time for one more interview before they were gathering at the station to talk things through.
What had Robert Akerblom said?
Pastor Tureson?
Wallander started the engine and drove off towards Ystad. When he came out onto the E14, he was only just within the speed limit. He called Ebba at the station switchboard, asked her to get hold of Pastor Tureson and tell him Wallander wanted to speak to him right away. Just before he got to Ystad, Ebba called him back. Pastor Tureson was in the Methodist chapel and would be pleased to see him.
“It’ll do you no harm to go to church now and again,” said Ebba.
Wallander thought about the nights he’d spent with Baiba Liepa in a church in Riga the previous year. But he said nothing. Even if he wanted to, he had no time to think about her just now.
Pastor Tureson was an elderly man, tall and well built, with a mop of white hair. Wallander could feel the strength in his grip when they shook hands.
The inside of the chapel was simple. Wallander did not feel the oppression that often affected him when he went into a church. They sat down on wooden chairs by the altar.
“I called Robert a couple of hours ago,” said Pastor Tureson. “Poor man, he was beside himself. Have you found her yet?”
“No,” said Wallander.
“I don’t understand what can have happened. Louise wasn’t the type to get herself into dangerous situations.”
“Sometimes you can’t avoid it,” said Wallander.
“What do you mean by that?”
“There are two kinds of dangerous situations. One is the kind you get yourself into. The other just sucks you in. That’s not quite the same thing.”
Pastor Tureson threw up his hands in acknowledgment. He seemed genuinely worried, and his sympathy with the husband and their children appeared to be real.
“Tell me about her,” said Wallander. “What was she like? Had you known her long? What sort of a family were the Akerbloms?”
Pastor Tureson stared at Wallander, a serious expression on his face.
“You ask questions as though it were all over,” he said.
“It’s just a bad habit of mine,” said Wallander apologetically. “Of course I mean you should tell me what she is like.”
“I’ve been pastor in this parish for five years,” he began. “As you can probably hear, I’m originally from Goteborg. The Akerbloms have been members of my congregation the whole time I’ve been here. They both come from Methodist families, and they met through the chapel. Now they’re bringing up their daughters in the true religion. Robert and Louise are good people. Hard-working, thrifty, generous. It’s hard to describe them any other way. In fact, it’s hard not to talk about them as a couple. Members of the congregation are shattered by her disappearance. I could feel that at our prayer meeting yesterday.”
The perfect family. Not a single crack in the facade, thought Wallander. I could talk to a thousand different people, and they would all say the same thing. Louise Akerblom doesn’t have a single weakness. Not one. The only odd thing about her is that she has disappeared.
Something doesn’t add up. Nothing adds up.
“Something on your mind, Inspector?” asked Pastor Tureson.
“I was thinking about weakness,” said Wallander. “Isn’t that one of the basic features of all religions? That God will help us to overcome our weaknesses?”
“Absolutely.”
“But it seems to me like Louise Akerblom didn’t have any weaknesses. The picture I’m getting of her is so perfect, I start getting suspicious. Do such utterly good people really exist?”
“That’s the kind of person Louise is,” said Pastor Tureson.
“You mean she’s almost angelic?”
“Not quite,” said Pastor Tureson. “I remember one time when she was making coffee for a social evening the chapel had organized. She burnt herself. I happened to hear that she actually swore.”
Wallander tried going back to the beginning and starting again.
“There’s no chance she and her husband were fighting?” he asked.
“None at all,” replied Pastor Tureson.
“No other man?”
“Of course not. I hope that isn’t a question you’ll put to Robert.”
“Could she have felt some kind of religious doubt?”
“I regard that as being out of the question. I’d have known about it.”
“Was there any reason why she might have committed suicide?”
“No.”
“Could she have gone out of her mind?”
“Why ever should she? She’s a perfectly stable character.”
“Most people have their secrets,” said Wallander after a moment’s silence. “Can you imagine that Louise Akerblom might have had some secret she couldn’t share with anybody, not even her husband?”
Pastor Tureson shook his head.
“Of course everybody has secrets,” he said. “Often very murky secrets. All the same, I’m convinced Louise
