for a while. After the ambulance left, he tried the doors of the main house, but they were locked. Then he heard an approaching car. A man wearing rubber boots and overalls got out of a little Fiat.
'I saw the ambulance,' he said.
Wallander saw the look of worry in his eyes. After telling him who he was, Wallander said that Isa Edengren was ill. That was all he could say for the moment.
'Where are her parents?' he asked.
'Away.'
The answer seemed deliberately vague.
'Can you be more specific? We'll have to notify them.'
'They may be in Spain,' the man said. 'But they could also be in France. They own houses in both countries.'
Wallander thought about the locked doors.
'Does Isa live here even when they're away?'
The man shook his head.
'What do you mean by that?'
'It's really none of my business,' the man said and started backing towards his car.
'You've already made it your business,' Wallander said firmly. 'What's your name?'
'Erik Lundberg.'
'Do you live close by?'
Lundberg pointed to a farm that lay south of where they were.
'Now I want you to answer my question: did Isa live here while her parents were away?'
'No, she wasn't allowed to.'
'What do you mean by that?'
'She had to sleep in the gazebo.'
'Why wasn't she allowed in the main house?'
'There had been trouble in the past. Some parties where things had either been broken or stolen.'
'How do you know this?'
The answer came as a surprise.
'They don't treat her very well,' Lundberg said. 'Last winter when it was ten degrees below zero, they went away and locked up the house. But there's no heating in the gazebo. She came down to our place completely frozen and told us about it. Not me directly, that is, but my wife.'
'Then we'll go back to your place,' Wallander said. 'I'd like to hear what she told your wife.'
He asked Lundberg to go ahead of him. Wallander wanted to check the gazebo before he left. He found no trace of sleeping pills or letter, and nothing else of consequence. He looked around one more time then headed back to the car. His phone rang.
'She's just been admitted,' Hoglund said.
'What are the doctors saying?'
'Not very much for now.'
She promised to call as soon as she heard anything. Wallander relieved himself next to the car before he went down to Lundberg's farm. A wary dog met him on the front porch. Lundberg came out and chased it away, and invited Wallander into a cosy kitchen. Lundberg's wife was making coffee. Her name was Barbro and she spoke in a Gothenburg dialect.
'How is she?'
'My colleague will let me know as soon as she hears anything.'
'Did she try to kill herself?'
'It's too soon to know,' Wallander said. 'But I wasn't able to wake her up.'
He sat down at the table and put the phone beside him.
'I take it she's attempted suicide before, since you immediately assumed that was the case,' he said.
'It's a suicidal family,' Lundberg said with distaste.
Then he stopped talking, as if he regretted his remark.
Barbro Lundberg put the coffee pot on the table. 'Isa's brother passed away two years ago,' she said. 'He was only 19 years old. Isa and Jorgen were only one year apart.'
'How did he do it?'
'In the bathtub,' Lundberg said. 'He wrote a note to his parents telling them to go to hell. Then he plugged a toaster into the wall and dropped it in the water.'
Wallander felt sick to his stomach. He had a vague recollection of the incident. It came to him that Svedberg had been the one in charge of the investigation. A newspaper lay on an old sofa under the window. Wallander caught sight of a photo of Svedberg on the front page. He reached out for it and showed them the photograph.
'You may have heard about the policeman who was killed,' he said. He got his answer before he even asked the question.
'He was here about a month ago.'
'Did he come to see you or the Edengrens?'
'First to see them. Then he came here, just like you did.'
'Were her parents gone that time as well?'
'No.'
'So he met Isa's parents?'
'We don't know exactly who he spoke to,' Lundberg said. 'But her parents weren't gone then.'
'Why did he come down here? What did he ask you about?'
Barbro Lundberg sat down at the table.
'He asked us about the parties they had when Isa's parents were gone, before they started locking her out,' she said.
'That was the only thing that interested him,' Lundberg said.
Wallander grew more attentive. He realised that this might give him an insight into the way Svedberg had spent his summer.
'I want both of you to try to remember exactly what he said.'
'A month is a long time,' she said.
'But you sat here at the kitchen table?'
'Yes.'
'And you had coffee?'
Barbro Lundberg smiled. 'He liked my bundt cake.'
Wallander proceeded carefully. 'It must have been right after Midsummer.'
The couple exchanged looks. Wallander saw that they were trying to help each other remember.
'It must have been right at the beginning of July. I'm sure of it,' she said.
'So he came here at the end of June. First to see the Edengrens and then to see you.'
'Isa came with him. But she was sick with some kind of stomach bug.'
'Did Isa stay here the whole time?'
'No, she only came down with him to show him the way. Then she left.'
'And he asked you about the parties?'
'Yes.'
'What exactly did he ask?'
'If we knew the people who used to come. But of course we didn't.'
'Why do you say 'of course'?'
'They were just young people who came in cars and then left the same way.'
'What else did he ask?'
'If any of these parties were masquerades,' Lundberg said.
'Did he use that word?'
'Yes.'
His wife shook her head. 'No, he didn't. He just asked if the people who attended the parties used to dress up.'
