'I think everybody's pleased you've come back,' she said as a parting shot.
Wallander felt immediately that it wasn't true, that it was more of an attempt to cheer him up, but he muttered his appreciation.
Then he drove straight home to Mariagatan, flung his wet jacket over the back of a chair, and lay on the bed, still in his dirty shoes. He dozed off and dreamed that he was asleep among the sand dunes at Skagen.
When he woke up an hour later, he did not know where he was at first. Then he took his shoes off and went to the kitchen to make coffee. He could see through the window how the street light beyond was swaying in the gusting wind.
Winter is almost upon us, he thought. Snow and storms and chaos. And I am a police officer again. Life tosses us all hither and thither. Is there anything we can truly decide for ourselves?
He sat for a long time staring into his coffee cup. It was cold by the time he got up to fetch a notepad and pencil from a kitchen drawer.
Now I really must become a police officer again, he told himself. I get paid for thinking constructive thoughts, investigating and sorting out cases, not for worrying about my own petty problems.
It was gone midnight by the time he put down his pen and stretched his back. Then he pored over the summary he had written in his notepad. All about his feet the floor was littered with crumpled-up sheets of paper.
I can't see any pattern, he admitted. There are no obvious connections between the accident that wasn't an accident and the fact that a few weeks later Sten Torstensson was shot dead in his office. It doesn't even necessarily follow that Sten's death was a direct result of what happened to his father. It could be the other way round.
He remembered something Rydberg had said in the last year of his life, when he was stuck in the middle of an apparently insoluble investigation into a string of arson cases. 'Sometimes the effect can come before the cause,' he had said. 'As a police officer you have always to be prepared to think back to front.'
He lay on the living-room sofa.
An old man is found dead in his car in a field on a morning in October, he thought. He was on his way home from a meeting with a client. After a routine investigation, the case is written off as a car accident. But the dead man's son starts to question the accident theory. For two crucial reasons: first, that his father would never have been driving fast in the fog; second, that for some time he had been worried or upset, but had kept whatever it was to himself.
Wallander sat bolt upright. His instinct told him he had hit upon a pattern, or rather, a non-pattern, a pattern falsified so that the true facts would not come to light.
He continued his train of thought. Sten had not been able to prove that his father's death had not been a straightforward accident. He had not seen the chair leg in the field, nor had he thought about the broken chair itself in the boot of his father's car. Precisely because he had not been able to find any proof, he had turned to Wallander. He had gone to the trouble of tracking him down, of coming to see him.
At the same time he had laid a false trail. A postcard from Finland. Five days later he was shot. No-one could doubt that it was murder.
Wallander had lost the thread. What he thought he had sensed - a pattern created to cover up another one - had drifted off into no man's land.
He was tired. He wasn't going to get any further tonight. He knew, too, from experience that if his suspicions had any basis they would come back.
He went to the kitchen, washed the dishes and cleared up the crumpled papers lying all over the floor. I have to start all over again, he told himself. But where is the start? Sten or Gustaf Torstensson?
He went to bed, but could not sleep despite being so tired. He wondered vaguely about what had happened to make Ann-Britt Hoglund decide to become a police officer.
The last time he looked at the clock it was 2.30 a.m.
He woke up shortly after 6.00, still feeling tired; but he got up, with a sense that he had slept in. It was almost 7.30 by the time he walked through the police-station door and was pleased to see that Ebba was in her usual chair in reception. When she saw him she came to greet him. He could see that she was moved, and a lump came into his throat.
'I couldn't believe it!' she said. 'Are you really back?'
'Afraid so,' Wallander said.
'I think I'm going to cry,' she said.
'Don't do that,' Wallander said. 'We can have a chat later.'
He got away as quickly as he could and hurried down the corridor. When he got to his office he noticed that it had been thoroughly cleaned. There was also a note on his desk asking him to phone his father. Judging by the obscure handwriting, it was Svedberg who had taken the message the previous evening. He reached for the telephone, then changed his mind. He took out the summary he had prepared and read through it. The feeling he had had of being able to detect an obscure but nevertheless definite pattern linking the various incidents would not resurrect itself. He pushed the papers to one side. It's too soon, he decided. I come back after 18 months in the cold, and I've got less patience than ever. Annoyed, he reached for his notepad and found an empty page.
It was clear that he would have to start again from the beginning. Apparently nobody could say with any certainty where the beginning was, so they would have to approach the investigation with no preconceived ideas. He spent half an hour sketching out what needed to be done, but all the time he was nagged by the idea that it was really Martinsson who ought to be leading the investigation. He himself had returned to duty, but he did not want to take on the whole responsibility right away.
The telephone rang. He hesitated before answering.
'I hear we've had some great news.' It was Per Akeson. 'I have to say I'm delighted.' Akeson was the public prosecutor with whom Wallander had, over the years, established the best working relationship. They had often had heated discussions about the best way of interpreting case data, and Wallander had many times been angry because Akeson had refused to accept one of his submissions as sufficient grounds for an arrest. But they had more or less always seen eye to eye. And they shared a particular impatience at cases being carelessly handled.
'I have to admit it all seems a bit strange,' Wallander said.
'Rumour had it that you were about to retire on health grounds,' Akeson said. 'Somebody ought to tell Bjork to put a stop to all these rumours that keep flying around.'
'It wasn't just a rumour,' Wallander said. 'I had made my mind up to chuck it in.'
'Might one ask why you changed your mind?'
'Something happened,' Wallander said evasively. He could tell that Akeson was waiting for him to continue, but he did not oblige.
'Anyway, I'm pleased you've come back,' Akeson said, after an appropriately long silence. 'I'm also certain that I'm expressing the sentiments of my colleagues in saying that.'
Wallander began to feel uncomfortable about all the goodwill that was flowing in his direction, but which he found hard to believe. We go through life with one foot in a rose garden and the other in quicksand, he thought.
'I assume you'll be taking over the Torstensson case,' Akeson said. 'Maybe we ought to get together later today and work out where we stand.'
'I don't know about 'taking over',' Wallander said. 'I'll be involved, I asked to be. But I suppose that one of the others will be leading the investigation.'
'Hmm, none of my business,' Akeson said. 'I'm just pleased you're back. Have you had time to get into the details of the case?'
'Not really.'
'Judging by what I've heard so far, there doesn't seem to have been any significant development.'
'Bjork thinks it's going to be a long haul.'
'What do you think?'
Wallander hesitated before replying. 'Nothing at all as yet.'
'Insecurity seems to be on the increase,' Akeson said. 'Threats, often in the form of anonymous letters, are more common. Public buildings which used to keep open house are now barricading themselves like fortresses. No question, you'll have to go through his clients with a fine-tooth comb. You might find a clue there. Someone among
