'What do you think now?'
'That it's true, but still completely incomprehensible.'
'You and Karl Evert must have talked at some point about why he had never married. What did he say?'
'That he was a confirmed bachelor and happy that way.'
'Was there anything unusual about the way he said this?'
'How do you mean?'
'Did he seem nervous? Could you tell if he was lying?'
'He was completely convincing.'
Wallander detected a note of hesitation in her voice.
'I have the feeling you might just have thought of something.'
She didn't answer immediately. The tape recorder was whirring in the background.
'Occasionally I wondered if he was different . . .'
'You mean, if he was gay?'
'Yes.'
'Why did that occur to you?'
'Isn't it a natural reaction?'
Wallander recalled that he himself had sometimes been conscious of this possibility.
'Yes, of course it is.'
'It came up in conversation once. He was invited over for Christmas dinner, quite a few years ago. We were discussing whether or not a person that we both knew was homosexual. I remember very clearly how vehemently disgusted he was.'
'By the friend's supposed homosexuality?'
'By homosexuality in general. It was very unpleasant. I had always considered him a tolerant person.'
'What happened after that?'
'Nothing. We never spoke of it again.'
Wallander thought for a moment. 'How do you think we could go about finding this Louise?'
'I have no idea.'
'Since he never left Ystad, she must live here or in the near vicinity.'
'I suppose so.'
She looked at her watch.
'When do you have to be at work?' Wallander asked.
'In half an hour. I don't like to be late.'
'Just like Karl Evert. He was always very punctual.'
'Yes, he was. What's that saying? Someone you could set your watch by.'
'What kind of a person was he, really?'
'You've already asked me that.'
'Well, I'm asking you again.'
'He was nice.'
'How do you mean?'
'Nice. A nice person. I don't know how else to put it. He was a nice person who could sometimes fly into a rage, although that didn't happen very often. He was a little shy. Dutiful. Some people probably thought him boring. He might have seemed a bit aloof and slow, but he was intelligent.'
Wallander thought her description of Svedberg was accurate and close to something he might have said if their roles had been reversed.
'Who was his best friend?'
Her answer shocked him.
'I thought you were.'
'Me?'
'He always said so. 'Kurt Wallander is the best friend I have.''
Wallander was dumbstruck. For him Svedberg had always been a colleague. They never saw each other outside of work. He hadn't become a friend in the way that Rydberg had been, and that Hoglund was slowly becoming.
'That comes as quite a surprise,' he said finally. 'I didn't think of him in that way.'
'But he may have considered you his best friend, regardless of what you thought.'
'Of course.'
Wallander suddenly realised how lonely Svedberg must have been. His definition of friendship had been grounded on the lowest common denominator, an absence of animosity. He stared into the tape recorder, then forced himself to continue.
'Did he have any other friends or people he spent a lot of time with?'
'He was in contact with a society for the study of Native American culture. I think it was called 'Indian Science'. But their activities were mainly conducted by correspondence.'
'Anything else?'
'Sometimes he mentioned a retired bank director who lives in town. They shared an interest in astronomy.'
'What was his name?'
She thought for a moment. 'Sundelius. Bror Sundelius. I never met him myself.'
Wallander made a note of the name.
'Anyone else you can think of ?'
'Just me and my husband.'
Wallander changed the subject.
'Do you recall anything unusual during his last weeks? Was he anxious, or did he seem distracted?'
'He didn't say anything except that he felt overworked.'
'But he didn't say why?'
'No.'
Wallander realised he had forgotten to ask her something. 'Did it surprise you that he said he was overworked?'
'No, not at all.'
'So he usually mentioned how he was feeling?'
'I should have thought of this before,' she said. 'There's one more thing I would add to my description of him - that he was a hypochondriac. The smallest little ache would worry him enormously. And he was terrified of germs.'
Wallander could see him, the way he was always running to the bathroom to wash his hands. He always avoided people with colds. She looked at the clock again. Time was running out.
'Did he own any weapons?'
'Not that I know of.'
'Is there anything else you would like to tell me, anything that seems important?'
'I'm going to miss him. Maybe he wasn't such an extraordinary person, but he was the most honourable person I knew. I'm going to miss him.'
Wallander turned off the tape recorder and followed her out. For a moment she seemed helpless.
'What am I going to do about the funeral?' she asked. 'Sture thinks the dead should be scattered to the wind without priests and rites. But I don't know what his own thoughts were.'
'He didn't leave a will?'
'Not that I know of. I'm sure he would have told me.'
'Did he have a safe-deposit box at the bank?'
'No.'
'Would you have known about it?'
'Yes.'
'The police will attend the funeral, of course,' Wallander said. 'I'll ask Lisa Holgersson to be in touch.'
Ylva Brink went out through the front glass doors. Wallander returned to his office. Yet another name had
