“What line of business is this Morell in?” asked Wallander.
“To tell you the truth, I think he’s a little shady,” said Sten Widen. “Or so rumor has it. But he pays his training bills on time. No business of mine where the money comes from.”
Wallander had no more questions.
“I don’t think I’ll come, thanks all the same,” he said.
“Ulrika bought in some food,” said Sten Widen. “We’ll be taking the horses off in an hour or two. You’ll have to look after yourself.”
“What about the Duett? asked Wallander. ”Will you leave it here?”
“You can borrow it if you like,” said Sten Widen. “But remember to fill the tank. I keep forgetting.”
Wallander watched the horses being led into the big horse boxes, and driven off. Not long afterwards he was also on his way. When he got to Ystad he took the risk of driving down Mariagatan. It looked pretty desolate. A yawning hole in the wall, surrounded by filthy bricks, showed where the window used to be. He stopped only briefly, before driving right through town. As he passed the military training ground he noted a squad car parked a long way from the perimeter. Now the fog had disappeared, the distance seemed shorter than he remembered it. He drove on and turned off down to the harbor at Kaseberga. He knew there was a risk he might be recognized, but the photo of him in the newspapers was not a particularly good likeness. The problem was he might bump into somebody he knew. He went into a phone booth and called his father. Just as he had hoped, his daughter answered.
“Where are you?” she asked. “What are you up to?”
“Just listen,” he said. “Can anybody overhear you?”
“How could anybody? Grandad’s painting.”
“Nobody else?”
“There’s nobody here, I told you!”
“Haven’t the police stationed a guard yet? Isn’t there a car parked on the road?”
“There’s Nilson’s tractor in one of the fields.”
“Nothing else?”
“Dad, there’s nobody here. Stop worrying about it.”
“I’ll be with you in a few minutes,” he said. “Don’t say anything to your grandad.”
“Have you seen what they put in the papers?”
“We can talk about that later.”
He replaced the receiver, thinking how pleased he was nobody had yet confirmed that he killed Rykoff. Even if the police knew, they wouldn’t release the information until Wallander returned. He was quite sure of that, after all his years in the force.
He drove straight to his father’s house from Kaseberga. He left the car on the main road and walked the last bit, taking a path where he knew he could not be seen.
She was standing at the door, waiting for him. When they got into the hallway, she hugged him. They stood there in silence. He did not know what she was thinking. As far as he was concerned, though, it was proof that they were on the way to establishing a relationship so close that words were sometimes unnecessary.
They sat in the kitchen, opposite each other at the table.
“Grandad won’t show up for quite some time yet,” she said. “I could learn a lot from his working discipline.”
“Or stubbornness,” he said.
They both burst out laughing at the same time.
Then he grew serious again. He told her slowly what had happened, and why he had decided to accept the role of a wanted man, a half-crazy cop on the loose.
“Just what do you think you’ll achieve? All by yourself?”
He could not make up his mind whether fear or skepticism lay behind her question.
“I’ll lure him out. I’m well aware I’m no one-man army. But if this thing is going to be solved, I have to take the first step myself.”
Quickly, as if in protest at what he had just said, she changed the subject.
“Did he suffer a lot?” she asked. “Victor Mabasha?”
“No,” Wallander replied. “It was over in a flash. I don’t think he had any idea he was going to die.”
“What’ll happen to him now?”
“I don’t know,” said Wallander. “I guess there’ll be an autopsy. Then it’s a matter of whether his family want him buried here, or in South Africa. Assuming that’s where he comes from.”
“Who is he, in fact?”
“I don’t know. I sometimes felt I’d established some kind of contact with him. But then he slipped away again. I can’t say I know what he was thinking deep down. He was a remarkable man, very complicated. If that’s how you get when you live in South Africa, it must be a country you wouldn’t even want to send your worst enemy to.”
“I want to help you,” she said.
“You can,” said Wallander. “I want you to call the police station and ask to speak with Martinson.”
“That’s not what I mean,” she said. “I’d like to do something nobody else can do.”
“That’s not the kind of thing you can plan in advance,” said Wallander. “That just happens. When it happens.”
She called the police station and asked to speak with Martinson. But the switchboard could not track him down. She put her hand over the mouthpiece and asked what she should do. Wallander hesitated. But then he realized he could not afford to wait, nor pick and choose. He asked her to get Svedberg instead.
“He’s in a meeting,” she said. “Not to be disturbed.”
“Tell her who you are,” said Wallander. “Say it’s important. He has to leave the meeting.”
It was a few minutes before Svedberg came to the phone. She handed the receiver to Wallander.
“It’s me,” he said. “Kurt. Don’t say anything. Where are you?”
“In my office.”
“Is the door closed?”
“Just a moment.”
Wallander could hear him slamming the door.
“Kurt,” he said. “Where are you?”
“I’m somewhere where you’ll never be able to find me.”
“Damn, Kurt.”
“Just listen. Don’t interrupt. I need to meet you. But only on condition you don’t say a word to anybody. Not to Bjork, not to Martinson, nobody. If you can’t promise that I’ll hang up right away.”
“Right now we’re in the conference room discussing how to scale up the search for you and Konovalenko,” said Svedberg. “It’ll be absurd if I can’t go back to that meeting and not say I’ve just been talking with you.”
“That can’t be helped,” said Wallander. “I think I have good reason for doing what I’m doing. I’m intending to cash in on the fact that I’m wanted.”
“How?”
“I’ll tell you when we meet. Make up your mind now!”
There was a long pause. Wallander waited. He could not predict what Svedberg would decide.
“I’ll come,” said Svedberg eventually.
“Sure?”
“Yeah.”
Wallander described the way to Stjarnsund.
“Two hours from now,” said Wallander. “Can you make that?”
“I’ll have to make sure I can,” said Svedberg.
Wallander hung up.
“I want to be certain somebody knows what I’m doing,” he said.
“In case something happens?”
Her question came so suddenly Wallander had no time to think of an evasive answer.
“Yes,” he said. “In case something happens.”
