closed his eyes. But just as he was about to doze off, he would wake up again with a start. He started pacing up and down once more, and it was like reliving the whole of his life. Toward dawn he stood staring at a solitary hare sitting motionless in the courtyard.
It was now Tuesday, May 19.
Shortly after five o’clock it started raining.
The message came just before eight.
A taxi from Simrishamn turned into the courtyard. Wallander heard the car approaching from some way off, and went out onto the steps when it came to a halt. The driver got out and handed over a fat envelope.
The letter was addressed to his father.
“It’s for my father,” he said. “Where is it from?”
“A lady handed it in at the taxi station in Simrishamn,” said the driver, who was in a hurry and did not want to get wet. “She paid for it to be delivered. It’s all fixed. I don’t need a receipt.”
Wallander nodded. Tania, he thought. She has taken over her husband’s role as errand boy.
The cab disappeared. Wallander was alone in the house. His father was already out painting in his studio.
It was a padded envelope. He examined it carefully before starting to open it along one of the short sides. At first he could not see what was inside. Then he saw Linda’s hair, and the necklace he had once given her.
He sat still as a statue, staring at the cropped hair lying on the table in front of him. Then he started crying. His pain had passed another limit, and he could not fight it any more. What had Konovalenko done to her? It was all his fault, getting her involved in this.
Then he forced himself to read the enclosed letter.
Konovalenko would be in touch again in exactly twelve hours. They needed to meet in order to sort out their problems, he wrote. Wallander would just have to wait until then. Any contact with the police would put his daughter’s life in danger.
The letter was unsigned.
He looked again at his daughter’s hair. The world was helpless in the face of such evil. How could he stop Konovalenko?
He imagined these were exactly the thoughts Konovalenko wanted him to be having. He had also given him twelve hours with no hope of doing anything other than what Konovalenko had dictated.
Wallander sat frozen like a statue on his chair.
He had no idea what to do.
Chapter Twenty-seven
A long time ago, Karl Evert Svedberg had decided to become a cop for a very particular reason, and one reason only-a reason he tried to keep secret.
He was terrified of the dark.
Ever since he was a child he had slept with the bedside lamp lit. Unlike most other people, he did not notice his fear of the dark receding as he grew older. On the contrary, it had become worse when he was a teenager. And so had his feeling of shame at suffering from a defect that could hardly be classified as anything other than cowardice. His father was a baker who rose at half past two every morning; he therefore suggested his son should follow him into the business. As he would sleep in the afternoons, the problem would solve itself. His mother was a milliner, considered by her dwindling circle of customers to be very skillful at creating individual and expressive ladies’ hats, and she regarded the problem as altogether more serious. She took her son to a child psychologist, who was convinced the problem would disappear in time. But the opposite occurred. He became even more scared. He could never figure out what was the cause of it all, though. In the end he decided to become a cop. He thought his fear of the dark might be countered by boosting his personal courage. But now, this spring day, Tuesday, May 19, he woke up with his bedside lamp on. Moreover, it was his custom to lock the bedroom door. He lived alone in an apartment in central Ystad. He was born in the town, and disliked leaving it-even for short periods.
He put the light out, stretched, and got up. He had slept badly. The developments concerning Kurt Wallander had made him upset and scared. He could see that he had to assist Wallander. During the night he had worried about what he could do without breaking the vow of silence Wallander had imposed upon him. In the end, shortly before dawn, he made up his mind. He would try to track down the house where Konovalenko was hiding. He guessed it was highly likely that Wallander’s daughter was being held prisoner there.
He got to the police station just before eight. The only starting point he had was what had happened at the military training ground a few hours previously. It was Martinson who had gone though the few belongings he found in the dead men’s clothes. There was nothing remarkable. Nevertheless, as dawn broke, Svedberg decided to go through the material one more time. He went to the room where the various pieces of evidence and other finds from several crime scenes were kept, and identified the relevant plastic bags. Martinson had found nothing at all in the African’s pockets, which seemed significant in itself. Svedberg replaced the bag containing nothing more than a few grains of dust. Then he carefully tipped out onto the table the contents of the other bag. Martinson had found cigarettes, a lighter, grains of tobacco, unclassifiable bits of dust, and other odds and ends one would expect to find in the fat man’s pocket. Svedberg contemplated the objects on the table in front of him. His interest was immediately focused on the cigarette lighter. It had an advertising slogan that was almost completely worn away. Svedberg held it up to the light and tried to figure out what it said. He replaced the bag, and took the lighter to his office. At ten-thirty they were due at a meeting to establish how things were going in the attempt to capture Konovalenko and Wallander. He wanted the time before that meeting to himself. He took a magnifying glass from a drawer, adjusted the desk lamp, and started to study the lighter. After a minute or so, his heart started beating faster. He had managed to figure out the text, and it presented a clue. If the clue would lead to a solution was too early to say, of course. But the lighter sported an advertising slogan for ICA in Tomelilla. That was not conclusive evidence in itself. Rykoff could have picked it up more or less anywhere. But if Rykoff had in fact been at the ICA store in Tomelilla, it was not impossible that a checkout assistant might be able to remember a man who spoke broken Swedish, and most obviously of all, was incredibly fat. He put the lighter in his pocket and left the police station without saying where he was going.
He drove to Tomelilla, went into the ICA store, showed his ID, and asked to see the manager. This turned out to be a young man by the name of Sven Persson. Svedberg showed him the lighter and explained what he wanted to know. The manager thought for a while, then shook his head. He could not remember a fat guy being in the store recently.
“Talk to Britta,” he said. “The girl at the check-out. But I’m afraid she has a pretty bad memory. Well, she’s scatterbrained at least.”
“Is she the only check-out person?” wondered Svedberg.
“We have an extra one on Saturdays,” said the manager. “She’s not in today.”
“Call her,” said Svedberg. “Ask her to come here at once.”
“Is it that important?”
“Yes. Immediately.”
The manager disappeared to make the call. Svedberg had left no doubt about what he wanted. He waited until Britta, a woman in her fifties, was through with the customer she was dealing with and who had produced a wad of various coupons for discounts and special offers. Svedberg identified himself.
“I want to know if you’ve had a big, fat guy shopping here recently,” he said.
“We get lots of fat guys shopping here,” said Britta unsympathetically.
Svedberg rephrased the question.
“Not just fat,” he said. “Positively obese. Absolutely enormous. And a guy who speaks bad Swedish as well. Has anyone of that description been here?”
She tried to remember. At the same time Svedberg could see her growing curiosity was affecting her concentration.
“He hasn’t done anything in the least exciting,” said Svedberg. “I just want to know if he’s been in here.”
