“She asked him.”
Wallander looked at the kitchen clock.
“You’d better make the call,” he said. “My father might answer. He’s probably eating just now. Ask to talk to my daughter. Then I’ll take over.”
Wallander gave him the number. It rang for a long time before anybody answered. It was Wallander’s father. Svedberg asked to speak to his granddaughter. When he heard the reply, he cut the conversation short.
“She went down to the beach on her bike,” he said.
Wallander felt a stabbing pain in his stomach.
“I told her to stay indoors.”
“She left half an hour ago,” said Svedberg.
They took Svedberg’s car, and drove fast. Wallander did not say a word. Svedberg occasionally glanced at him. But he said nothing.
They came to the Kaseberga exit.
“Keep going,” said Wallander. “Next exit.”
They parked as close to the beach as they could get. There were no other cars. Wallander raced onto the sands with Svedberg behind him. The beach was deserted. Wallander could feel panic rising. Once again he had the invisible Konovalenko breathing down his neck.
“She could be behind one of the sand dunes,” he said.
“Are you sure this is where she’ll be?” wondered Svedberg.
“This is her beach,” said Wallander. “If she goes to the beach, this is where she comes. You go that way, I’ll go this way.”
Svedberg walked back towards Kaseberga while Wallander continued in an easterly direction. He tried to convince himself that he had no need to worry. Nothing had happened to her. But he couldn’t understand why she hadn’t stayed inside the house as promised. Was it really possible that she did not understand how serious it was? In spite of all that had happened?
Occasionally he would turn around and look toward Svedberg. Nothing as yet.
Wallander suddenly thought of Robert Akerblom. He would have said a prayer in this situation, he told himself. But I have no god to pray to. I don’t even have any spirits, like Victor Mabasha. I have my own joy and sorrow, that’s all.
There was a guy with a dog on top of the cliff, gazing out to sea. Wallander asked him if he had seen a solitary girl walking along the beach. But the guy shook his head. He had been on the beach with his dog for twenty minutes, and had been alone the whole time.
“Have you seen a man?” asked Wallander, and described Konovalenko.
The guy shook his head again.
Wallander walked on. He felt cold even though there was a trace of spring warmth in the wind. He started walking faster. The beach seemed endless. Then he looked around again. Svedberg was a long way away, but Wallander could see somebody standing by his side. Suddenly, Svedberg started waving.
Wallander ran all the way back. When he got to Svedberg and his daughter he was shattered. He looked at her without saying anything while he waited to get his breath back.
“You were supposed not to leave the house,” he said. “Why did you?”
“I didn’t think a walk along the beach would matter,” she said. “Not when it’s light. It’s nighttime when things happen, isn’t it?”
Svedberg drove and the other two sat in the back seat.
“What shall I tell Grandad?” she asked.
“Nothing,” answered Wallander. “I’ll talk to him tonight. I’ll play cards with him tomorrow. That will cheer him up.”
They separated on the road not far from the house.
Svedberg and Wallander drove back to Stjarnsund.
“I want that guard starting tonight,” said Wallander.
“I’ll go and tell Martinson right away,” said Svedberg. “We’ll arrange it somehow.”
“A police car parked on the road,” said Wallander. “I want it to be obvious the house is being watched.”
Svedberg got ready to leave.
“I need a few days,” said Wallander. “Until then you can keep on looking for me. But I’d like you to call me here occasionally.”
“What shall I tell Martinson?” wondered Svedberg.
“Tell him you got the idea of guarding my father’s house yourself,” said Wallander. “You can figure out how best to convince him.”
“You still don’t want me to fill Martinson in?”
“It’s enough for you to know where I am,” said Wallander.
Svedberg left. Wallander went to the kitchen and fried a couple of eggs. Two hours later the horse trailer returned.
“Did she win?” asked Wallander as Sten Widen came into the kitchen.
“She won,” he replied. “But barely.”
Peters and Noren were in their patrol car, drinking coffee.
They were both in a bad mood. They had been ordered by Svedberg to guard the house where Wallander’s father lived. The longest shifts were when your car was standing still. They would be sitting here until somebody came to relieve them. That was many hours away yet. It was a quarter past eleven at night. Darkness had fallen.
“What do you think’s happened to Wallander?”
“No idea,” said Noren. “How many times do I have to say the same thing? I don’t know.”
“It’s hard not to think about it,” Peters went on. “I’m sitting here wondering whether he might be an alcoholic.”
“Why should he be?”
“Do you remember that time we caught him drunk?”
“That’s not the same as being alcoholic.”
“No. But still.”
The conversation petered out. Noren got out of the car and stood legs apart to urinate.
That was when he saw the fire. At first he thought it was the reflection from a car’s headlights. Then he noticed smoke spiraling up from where the fire was burning.
“Fire!” he shouted to Peters.
Peters got out of the car.
“Can it be a forest fire?” wondered Noren.
The blaze was in a clump of trees on the far side of the nearest group of fields. It was hard to see where the center was because the countryside was undulating.
“We’d better drive over and take a look,” said Peters.
“Svedberg said we weren’t to leave our posts,” said Noren. “No matter what happened.”
“It’ll only take ten minutes,” said Peters. “We have a duty to intervene if we find a fire.”
“Call Svedberg first and get permission,” said Noren.
“It’ll only take ten minutes,” said Peters. “What are you scared of?”
“I’m not scared,” said Noren. “But orders are orders.”
They did as Peters wanted even so. They found their way to the fire via a muddy tractor track. When they got there, they found an old oil drum. Somebody had filled it with paper and plastic to make a good blaze. By the time Peters and Noren arrived, the fire was almost out.
“Funny time to burn garbage,” said Peters, looking round.
But there was no sign of anybody. The place was deserted.
“Let’s get back,” said Noren.
Barely twenty minutes later they were back at the house they were supposed to be guarding. All seemed to be quiet. The lights were out. Wallander’s father and daughter were asleep.
Many hours later they were relieved by Svedberg himself.
