case for the three police officers. The solution and the truth might be found through the combination of the most inconsequential information.
They isolated the loose ends that had to be dealt with first.
'You take Lovgren's trip to Ystad,' Wallander said to Martinsson. 'We need to know how he got to town and how he got home. Are there other safe-deposit boxes? What did he do during the hour between his appearances at the two banks? Did he go into a shop and buy something? Who saw him?'
'I think Naslund has already started calling around the banks,' said Martinsson.
'Call him at home and find out,' said Wallander. 'This can't wait until he's feeling better.'
Rydberg was to pay a visit to Lars Herdin and Wallander to drive over to Malmo again to talk to the man called Erik Magnusson, the one Goran Boman thought might be Lovgren's secret son.
'All the other items will have to wait,' said Wallander. 'We'll start with these and meet again at five o'clock.'
Before he left for the hospital, Wallander called Boman in Kristianstad.
'Erik Magnusson works for the county council,' said Boman. 'Unfortunately, I haven't discovered exactly what he does. We've had an unusually rowdy weekend up here with a lot of fights and drunkenness. I haven't had time for much besides hauling people in.'
'No problem. I'll find him,' said Wallander. 'I'll call you tomorrow morning at the latest.'Just after midday he set off for the hospital. His sister was waiting in the reception. They took the lift up to the ward where their father had been moved after the first 24 hours of observation.
By the time they arrived, he had already been discharged and was sitting in the corridor, waiting for them. He had his hat on, and the suitcase full of dirty underwear and tubes of paint was by his side. Wallander didn't recognise the suit he was wearing.
'I bought it for him,' his sister said. 'It must be 30 years since he bought himself a new suit.''How are you Dad?' asked Wallander.
His father looked him in the eye. Wallander could see that he had recovered.
'It'll be nice to get back home,' he said curtly and stood up.
Wallander picked up the suitcase as his father leaned on Kristina's arm. She sat with him in the back seat on the drive to Loderup.
Wallander, who was in a hurry to get to Malmd, promised to come back around 6 p.m. His sister was going to stay the night, and she asked him to buy food for dinner. His father had immediately changed out of his suit and into his painting overalls. He was already at his easel, working on the unfinished painting.
'Do you think he'll be able to get by with home care?' asked Wallander.'We'll have to wait and see,' replied his sister.
It was almost 2 p.m. when Wallander pulled up in front of the county council's main building in Malmo. He parked his car and went into the large reception.
'I'm looking for Erik Magnusson,' he told the woman who shoved the glass window open.
'We have at least three Erik Magnussons working here,' she said. 'Which one are you looking for?'
Wallander took out his police identity card and showed it to her.'I don't know,' he said. 'But he was born in the late 1950s.'The woman behind the glass knew at once who it was.
'Then it must be Erik Magnusson in central supply,' she said. 'The two other Erik Magnussons are much older. What did he do?'Wallander smiled at her undisguised curiosity.
'Nothing,' he said. 'I just want to ask him some questions.'
She told him how to get to central supply. He thanked her and returned to his car. The county council's supply warehouse was located on the northern outskirts, near the Oil Harbour. Wallander wandered around for a long time before he found the right place.
He went through a door marked
The office was empty. He went down some stairs and into the enormous warehouse. A young man with hair down to his shoulders was piling up big plastic sacks of toilet paper. Wallander went over to him.'I'm looking for Erik Magnusson,' he said.
The young man pointed to a yellow fork-lift which had stopped next to a loading dock where a van was being unloaded.
The man in the cab of the yellow fork-lift had fair hair. It seemed unlikely that Maria Lovgren would have thought about foreigners if this blonde man was the one who put the noose around her neck. He pushed the thought away with annoyance. He was getting ahead of himself again.
'Erik Magnusson!' he shouted over the engine noise. The man gave him an inquiring look before he turned off the engine and jumped down.'Erik Magnusson?' asked Wallander.'Yes?'
'I'm a policeman. ‘I’d like to have a word with you for a moment.'
Wallander scrutinised his face. There was nothing unexpected about his reaction. He merely looked surprised. Quite naturally surprised.'Why is that?' he asked.
Wallander looked around. 'Is there somewhere we can sit down?' he asked.
Magnusson led the way to a corner with a coffee vending machine. There was a dirty wooden table and several makeshift benches. Wallander fed two one-krona coins into the machine and got a cup of coffee. Magnusson settled for a pinch of snuff.
'I'm from the police in Ystad' he began. 'I have a few questions for you regarding a particularly nasty murder in a village called Lunnarp. Maybe you read about it in the papers?''I think so. But what does that have to do with me?'
Wallander was beginning to wonder the same thing. The man named Erik Magnusson seemed completely unruffled by a visit from the police at his place of work.'I have to ask you for the name of your father.'The man frowned.'My dad?' he said. 'I don't have a dad.' 'Everybody has one.' 'Not one that I know about, at any rate.' 'How can that be?''Mum wasn't married when I was born.'
'And she never told you who your father was?' 'No.''Did you ever ask her?'
'Of course I've asked her. I bugged her about it my whole childhood. Then I gave up.''What did she say when you asked her about it?'
Magnusson stood up and pressed the button for a cup of coffee. 'Why are you asking about my dad? Does he have something to do with the murder?'
'I'll get to that in a minute,' said Wallander. 'What did your mother say when you asked her about your father?''It varied.''How do you mean?'
'Sometimes she would say that she didn't really know. Sometimes that it was a salesman she never saw again. Sometimes something else.''And you were satisfied with that?'
'What the hell was I supposed to do? If she won't tell me, she won't tell me.'
Wallander thought about the answers he was getting. Was it really possible to be so uninterested in who your father was?'Do you get along well with your mother?' he asked.'What do you mean by that?''Do you see each other often?'
'She calls me now and then. I drive over to Kristianstad once in a while. I got along better with my stepfather.'
Wallander gave a start. Boman had said nothing about a stepfather.'Is your mother remarried?'
'She lived with a man while I was growing up. They probably weren't ever married. But I still called him my dad. Then they split up when I was about 15.1 moved to Malmo a year later.' 'What's his name?'
'You'd have to look hard to find two people as unlike each other as we were.'
Wallander tried a different tack. 'The man who was murdered at Lunnarp was named Johannes Lovgren,' he
