Wallander sat in the courtroom and stared at the men he had been hunting for so long. He remembered that early morning in January when he stepped into the farmhouse in Lunnarp. The double murder had now been solved and the criminals would soon be sentenced, Wallander still wasn't happy. Why the noose around Maria Lovgren's neck? Why such violence?
He shuddered. He couldn't answer these questions, and that left him feeling unsatisfied.
Late on Saturday, 11 August, Wallander took a bottle of whisky over to Rydberg's. On Sunday Anette Brolin was going to go with him to visit his father. Wallander thought of the question he had put to her. Would she consider getting a divorce for him? Of course she had said no, but he knew that she hadn't been offended by his asking.
As he was driving to see Rydberg, he listened to Maria Callas on the tape deck. He was taking the next week off, as time off in lieu of the extra hours he had worked. He was going to Lund to meet Herman Mboya, who had come back from Kenya, and then planned to spend the rest of the time repainting his flat. Maybe he would even treat himself to that new stereo. As he parked, he caught a glimpse of the yellow moon overhead. Autumn was on its way.
Rydberg was sitting as usual in the dark on his balcony. Wallander poured two glasses of whisky.
'Do you remember when we sat around worrying about Mrs Lovgren's last words?' said Rydberg. 'That we would be forced to search for some foreigners? Then, when Erik
Magnusson came into the picture, we desperately wanted him to be the murderer. But he wasn't. So we got a pair of foreigners after all. And the wretched Somali died for no good reason.'
'You knew all along,' said Wallander. 'Didn't you? You were sure that it was foreigners.''I wasn't positive,' said Rydberg. 'But I thought so.'
Slowly they went over the investigation, as if it were already a distant memory.
'We made lots of mistakes,' said Wallander thoughtfully. 'I made lots of mistakes.'
'You're a good policeman,' said Rydberg emphatically. 'Maybe I never told you that. But I think you're a damned fine policeman.''I made too many mistakes,' replied Wallander.
'You kept at it,' said Rydberg. 'You never gave up. You wanted to catch whoever committed those murders in Lunnarp. That's the important thing.'
The conversation gradually petered out. I'm sitting here with a dying man, thought Wallander in despair. I don't think I ever took in that Rydberg is actually going to die. He remembered the time he was stabbed. He also thought about the fact that a little less than six months ago he had driven his car while drunk. He should have been dismissed from the force.
Why don't I tell Rydberg about that? he wondered. Why don't I say anything? Or perhaps he already knows?
The incantation flashed through his mind.
'At the moment I don't have any pain,' he said. 'But tomorrow it'll be back. Or the next day.'
It was almost 2 a.m. when Wallander left Rydberg sitting on his balcony. Wallander left his car where it was and walked home. The moon had disappeared behind a cloud. Now and then he skipped. The voice of Maria Callas resounded in his head.
Before he went to sleep, he lay in bed for a while in the darkness of his apartment with his eyes open. Again he thought about the violence. The new era, which demanded a different kind of policeman. We're living in the age of the noose, he thought. Fear will be on the rise.
He forced himself to push these thoughts aside and sought out the black woman of his dreams. The investigation was over. Now he could finally get some rest.
