'Did they?'
They both looked at Wallander with surprise.
'How on earth would we know?' Lundberg asked. 'We weren't there, and we don't go around peeking through the curtains.'
'But didn't you see something?'
'The parties were sometimes in the autumn, and it was usually dark. We couldn't see how people were dressed.'
Wallander sat quietly and thought for a moment. 'Did he ask anything else?'
'No. He sat for a while scratching his forehead with his pen. He was only here for about half an hour. Then he left.'
Wallander's mobile phone rang. It was Hoglund.
'They're pumping her stomach.'
'So it was a suicide attempt?'
'I don't think people can ingest this many sleeping pills by accident.'
'Are the doctors saying anything at this stage?'
'The fact that she's unconscious suggests she may already be poisoned.'
'Will she make it?'
'I haven't heard anything to the contrary.'
'Then why don't you go on to Trelleborg?'
'That's what I was thinking. I'll see you later back at the station.'
They hung up, and the couple looked at Wallander with anxious eyes.
'She'll make it,' he said. 'But I will need to contact her parents.'
'We have a couple of phone numbers,' Lundberg said, and got up.
'They wanted us to call if anything happened to the house,' his wife explained. 'They didn't say anything about this kind of situation.'
'You mean what to do if anything happened to Isa?'
She nodded. Lundberg gave Wallander a piece of paper with the phone numbers.
'Can we visit her in the hospital?' Barbro Lundberg asked.
'I'm sure you can,' Wallander answered. 'But I think it would be best if you waited until tomorrow.'
Erik Lundberg saw him out.
'Do you have any keys to the house?' Wallander asked.
'They would never entrust them to us,' the man said.
Wallander said goodbye, returned to the Edengren house, and walked over to the gazebo. He searched it again thoroughly for about half an hour, unsure as to what exactly he was looking for. He ended up sitting on Isa's bed.
Something's repeating itself, he thought. Svedberg came to talk to the girl who didn't make it to the Midsummer celebration and did not go missing. Svedberg asked about parties, and about young people dressing up in costumes. Now Isa Edengren has tried to kill herself and Svedberg has been murdered.
Wallander got up and left the gazebo. He was worried. He wasn't finding anything reliable to point him in the right direction. There seemed to be clues pointing in many directions, but none of them seemed to lead anywhere. He got into his car and headed back to Ystad.
His next aim was to have another talk with Sture Bjorklund. It was almost 4 p.m. when he pulled into Bjorklund's yard. He knocked on the door and waited, but no one answered. Bjorklund had probably gone to Copenhagen, or else he was in Hollywood discussing his latest ideas for a monster. Wallander banged hard on the door but didn't wait for anyone to open it. Instead he walked around to the back. The garden was neglected. Some half-rotting pieces of furniture were scattered in the long grass. Wallander peered in through one of the windows of the house, then continued down to a little shed. Wallander felt the door. It was unlocked. He opened it wide and pushed a piece of wood underneath it to keep it in place. It was a mess inside. He was about to leave when his attention was caught by a tarpaulin folded over something in the corner. There seemed to be some kind of equipment under it. He carefully pulled off part of the cover. It was a machine all right; or more precisely, an instrument. Wallander had never seen one like it before, but he still knew immediately what it was. A telescope.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When Wallander walked back outside he noticed the wind had picked up. He turned his back to it and tried to collect his thoughts. How many people owned telescopes? Not many. The telescope had to be Svedberg's. He couldn't think of any other possible explanation. That brought up other questions: why hadn't Sture Bjorklund said anything?
Did he have something to hide, or didn't he know that the telescope was on his property? Could Sture Bjorklund have killed his own cousin? He doubted it.
He returned to his car and made some calls, but neither Martinsson nor Hansson was in his office. He asked the officer on duty to send a car out to Hedeskoga.
'What's happened?' he asked.
'I need some people to keep this place under surveillance,' Wallander said. 'For now you can simply say that it has to do with Svedberg's case.'
'Do we know who shot him?'
'No. This is a routine matter.'
Wallander asked for an unmarked car and described the intersection where he would meet it. When Wallander reached the intersection the car was already waiting for him. He explained to the patrol officers where they should wait, and that they should call him as soon as Sture Bjorklund turned up, then he started back to Ystad. He was very hungry and his mouth was dry. He stopped at a takeaway restaurant on Malmovagen and ordered a hamburger. While he was waiting for his food, he drank some soda water. After eating much too quickly he bought himself a litre of mineral water. He needed time to think, but knew he would inevitably be disturbed if he returned to the station, so he drove out of town and parked outside the Saltsjobaden hotel. The wind was quite strong now but he walked on until he found a sheltered spot. For some reason there was an old toboggan there and he sat down on it and shut his eyes.
There has to be a point of entry into this mess, he thought. A point of connection that I am overlooking. He went through everything that had happened so far as carefully and clearly as he could, but despite his efforts, the facts remained as muddled and obscure as before.
What would Rydberg have done? When Rydberg had been alive, Wallander had always been able to ask him for advice. They would take a walk on the beach or sit in the station late into the night discussing the facts of a case until they arrived at something important. But Rydberg was gone now. Wallander strained to hear his voice in his head, but there was nothing there.
Sometimes he thought Ann-Britt Hoglund was on her way to becoming his new partner. She listened as well as Rydberg and didn't hesitate to change track if she felt it could help them break through a new wall.
In time it may work out, he thought. Ann-Britt is a good police officer. But it takes time.
He got up heavily and started walking back to the car. There's only one thing that really sets this investigation apart, he thought. People dressed up in costume. Svedberg wanted to know about parties where people dressed up in costume. We have a photograph of people at a party dressed up in costume. There are people in costume at every turn.
Wallander knew it would be a long night. As soon as everyone had returned from their assignments, they would hunker down in the conference room. He went into his office, hung up his coat, and called the hospital. After being transferred a couple of times he finally reached a doctor who told him that Isa Edengren was in a stable condition and was expected to make a full recovery. He knew this doctor, having met him at least a couple of times before.
'Tell me something I know you aren't allowed to say,' Wallander said. 'Was it a cry for help or was she really trying to end it all?'
'I'm told you were the one who found her, is that right?' the doctor said.
