'Just what I said,' replied Wallander and hung up.
At that moment he saw one of the horses come galloping back across the field. It was a beautiful white stallion. He didn't think he'd ever seen such a beautiful horse.
When he got back to Ystad the news of Strom's death had already made the rounds. The woman who was his wife had collapsed, and a doctor refused to let the police interrogate her.
Rydberg told Wallander that Bergman denied everything. He hadn't stolen his own car and then ditched it. He hadn't been at Hageholm. He hadn't visited Strom the night before. He demanded to be taken back to Malmo at once.'What a damned weasel,' said Wallander. 'I'll crack him.'
'Nobody is doing any cracking here,' said Bjork. 'That ludicrous high-speed chase through Lund has caused enough trouble already. I don't understand why five full-grown policemen can't manage to bring in one unarmed man for questioning. By the way, do you know that one of those horses was run over? Its name was Super Nova, and its owner put a value of a hundred thousand kronor on it.'
Wallander felt anger welling up inside him. Why couldn't Bjork grasp that it was support he needed? Not this officious whining.
'Now we're going to wait for the Romanian woman's identification,' said Bjork. 'Nobody talks to the press or the media except me.''Thank heavens for that,' said Wallander.
He went back to his office with Rydberg and closed the door.'Do you have any idea how you look?' Rydberg asked. 'Don't tell me, please.''Your sister called. I asked Martinsson to drive out and collect her from the airport. I assumed that you had forgotten. He said he'd take care of her until you were free.'
Wallander nodded gratefully. A few minutes later, Bjork barrelled in.
'The identification is positive,' he said. 'We've got the murderer we were looking for.' 'She recognised him?'
'Not a shadow of a doubt. It was the man who was eating the apple out in the field.' 'Who was he?' asked Rydberg.
'Strom called himself a businessman,' replied Bjdrk. 'He was 47. But the Security Police in Stockholm didn't take long to answer our inquiry. He has been engaged in nationalist movements since the 1960s. First in something called the Democratic Alliance, later in much more militant factions. But how he ended up a cold-blooded murderer is something Bergman may be able to tell us. Or his wife.'Wallander stood up. 'Now we'll tackle Bergman,' he said.
All three of them went into the room where Bergman sat smoking. Wallander led the interrogation. He went on the offensive at once.'Do you know what I was doing last night?' he asked.
Bergman gave him a look of contempt. 'How would I know that?''I tailed you to Lund.'
Wallander thought he caught a fleeting shift in the man's face.
'I followed you to Lund,' repeated Wallander. 'And I climbed up on the scaffolding outside the building where Strom lived. I saw you exchange your shotgun for another one. Now Strom is dead. But a witness has identified him as the murderer at Hageholm. What do you have to say to all that?'
Bergman didn't say anything. He lit another cigarette and stared into space.
'OK, we'll take it from the top,' said Wallander. 'We know how everything happened. There are only two things we don't know yet. First, what did you do with your car? Second, why did you shoot the Somali?'
Bergman wasn't talking. Just after 3 p.m. he was formally put under arrest and assigned a legal aid lawyer. The charge was murder or accessory to murder.
At 4 p.m. Wallander briefly questioned Valfrid Strom's wife. She was still in shock, but she answered his questions. He learned that Strom imported exclusive cars. She told him that Strom was violently opposed to Sweden's policy on refugees. She had been married to him for just a little over a year. Wallander formed the conviction that she would get over her loss rather quickly.
After the interrogation he talked with Rydberg and Bjork. Then they released the woman with a warning not to leave Lund and she was taken home.
Wallander and Rydberg made another attempt to get Bergman to talk. The legal aid lawyer was young and ambitious, and he claimed that there were no grounds for submission of evidence, and that in his opinion the arrest was equivalent to a preliminary miscarriage of justice.They talked some more, and Rydberg had an idea.
'Where was Strom trying to escape to?' he asked Wallander.He pointed at a map.
'The chase ended at Staffanstorp. Maybe he had a warehouse there or somewhere in the vicinity. It's not far from Hageholm, if you know the back roads.'
A call to Strom's wife confirmed that Rydberg was on the right track. He did indeed have a warehouse between
Staffanstorp and Veberod. It was where he kept his imported cars. Rydberg drove there in a squad car. Very soon he called Wallander.'Bingo,' he said. 'There's a pale-blue Citroen here.'
'Maybe we ought to teach our children to identify cars by their sound,' said Wallander.He tackled Bergman again. But the man said nothing.
Rydberg returned to Ystad after a preliminary examination of the Citroen. In the glove compartment he found a box of shotgun shells. In the meantime the police in Malmo and Lund searched Bergman's and Strom's apartments.
'It seems as though these two gentlemen were members of some sort of Swedish Ku-Klux-Klan movement,' said Bjdrk. 'I'm afraid this is going to be difficult to untangle. There might be more people involved.'And Bergman still wasn't talking.
Wallander was greatly relieved that Bjork was back and could deal with the media. His face stung and burned, and he was very tired. By 6 p.m. he finally had time to call Martinsson and talk to his sister. Then he drove over and picked her up. She was startled when she saw his battered face.
'It might be best if Dad didn't see me,' said Wallander. 'I'll wait for you in the car.'
His sister said she had already visited their father. The old man was still tired, but he brightened up a little when he saw his daughter.
'I don't think he remembers much about that night,' she said as they drove up to the hospital.'Maybe that's just as well.'
Wallander sat in the car and waited while she visited their father again. He closed his eyes and listened to a Rossini opera. When she opened the car door, he jumped. He had fallen asleep. Together they drove to the house in Loderup.
Wallander could see that his sister was shocked at their father's decline. Together they cleaned out the stinking rubbish and filthy clothes.
'How could this happen?' she asked, and Wallander felt that she was blaming him.
Maybe she was right. Maybe he could have done more. At least recognised his father's decline earlier. They stopped and bought groceries and then returned to Mariagatan. Over dinner they talked about what would happen to their father.'He'll die if we put him in a retirement home,' she said.
'What's the alternative?' asked Wallander. 'He can't live here. He can't live with you. The house in Loderup won't work either. What's left?'
They agreed that it would be best, all the same, if their father could keep on living in his own house, with regular home visits.
'He has never liked me,' said Wallander as they were drinking coffee.'Of course he does.''Not since I decided to be a policeman.'
'You think maybe he had something else in mind for you?''Yes, but what? He's never said.'
Wallander made up the sofa for his sister. When they had no more to say about their father, Wallander told her everything that had happened. And in the telling he realised that the old sense of intimacy, which had always
