PART 2
Incidents Under the Surface
11
Wallander was annoyed. So, unusually for him, he decided to launch a direct attack. He felt duped by this family in which two members had disappeared and a third had just been discovered. He thought he’d been a victim of the lies that come naturally to the upper classes, concerning family details that must be hidden at any cost from the rest of the world, which probably wouldn’t be particularly interested anyway. After the phone call to Atkins and the long evening spent going over yet again everything that had happened and been said since Hakan von Enke’s seventy-fifth birthday party, he slept soundly until shortly after seven the next morning, when he called Linda. He had hoped to talk to Hans, but Hans had already left, at about six.
‘What can he find to do at that time?’ Wallander asked, irritated. ‘Surely there aren’t any banks open now, nor any dealers buying and selling shares.’
‘What about Japan?’ Linda suggested. ‘Or New Zealand? There’s a lot of movement in the exchanges all over Asia. It’s not unusual for Hans to leave for work this early. But it’s unusual for you to call at seven o’clock. Don’t take it out on me. Did something happen?’
‘I want to talk about Signe,’ Wallander said.
‘Who’s she?’
‘Your boyfriend’s sister.’
He could hear her heavy breathing. Every breath a new thought.
‘But he doesn’t have a sister.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
Linda knew her father, and she realised right away that he was serious. He wouldn’t call her this early to play a cruel joke.
Klara started crying.
‘You’d better come over,’ Linda said. ‘Klara just woke up. She tends to be difficult in the morning. I wonder if she inherited that from you?’
An hour later Wallander pulled up on the gravel drive outside her house. By then Klara had been fed and was content, and Linda was up and dressed. Wallander thought she still looked pale and out of sorts, and he wondered if she was ill. But he didn’t ask. She took after him, and didn’t like people interfering in her affairs.
They sat down at the kitchen table. Wallander recognised the tablecloth. He remembered it from his childhood, then from his father’s house in Loderup, and now here it was again. As a small boy he had often traced the complicated pattern in the border, running his finger over the red thread.
‘Explain,’ she said. ‘I repeat what I said before: Hans doesn’t have a sister.’
‘I believe you,’ said Wallander. ‘I’m sure you’re not aware of any sister, just as I wasn’t. Until now.’
He told her about his conversation with Atkins and the sudden reference to a sister called Signe. Presumably it was pure coincidence that the secret sister was mentioned. If the conversation had been slightly different, her existence would still be totally unknown. Linda listened intently to what he had to say, her frown growing more pronounced the whole time.
‘Hans has never said anything to me about a sister,’ she said when Wallander had finished.
Wallander pointed at the phone.
‘Call him and ask a simple question: Why haven’t you told me that you have a sister?’
‘Is she older or younger?’
Wallander thought for a moment. Atkins had said nothing about that. Nevertheless he felt sure that she must be an older sister. If she’d been born after Hans it would have been more difficult to keep her secret.
‘I don’t want to call him,’ Linda said. ‘I’ll take it up with him when he gets home.’
‘No,’ said Wallander. ‘We have two missing persons we have to track down. This is not a private matter, but police business. If you don’t call him, I will.’
‘That might be best,’ she said.
Wallander dialled the number she gave him for the office in Copenhagen. Classical music was playing when he got through. Linda leaned forward in order to listen.
‘It’s his direct line,’ she said. ‘I chose the music. Before, he had some awful American country junk. Somebody named Billy Ray Cyrus. I forced him to change it by threatening to stop calling. He’ll probably answer soon.’
She had hardly finished the sentence when Wallander heard Hans’s voice. He sounded harassed, almost out of breath. Wallander wondered what on earth had been happening on the Asian stock exchanges.
‘I have a question for you that can’t wait,’ he said. ‘I’m sitting at your kitchen table, by the way.’
‘Louise,’ said Hans. ‘Or Hakan? Have you found them?’
‘I wish we had. But this is about an entirely different person. Can you guess who?’
Wallander could see that Linda was annoyed by what she probably saw as an unnecessary cat-and-mouse game. He conceded that she was right. He should get straight to the point.
‘It’s about your sister,’ he said. ‘Your sister, Signe.’
There was silence at the other end of the line, and a pause before Hans spoke again.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Is this some kind of joke?’
Linda had leaned forward over the table, and Wallander held up the receiver so she could hear. He could tell that Hans was telling the truth.
‘It’s not a joke,’ he said. ‘Are you seriously telling me you don’t know anything about a sister called Signe?’
‘I don’t have any brothers or sisters. Can I speak to Linda?’
Wallander handed the receiver over to Linda, who repeated what her father had told her.
‘When I was a kid I used to ask my parents why I didn’t have any brothers or sisters,’ Hans said. ‘They always told me they thought one child was enough. I’ve never heard of anyone named Signe, never seen any photographs of her. I’ve always been an only child.’
‘It’s difficult to believe,’ said Linda.
Hans exploded and yelled at the phone.
‘What the hell do you think it’s like for me?’
Wallander took the receiver out of Linda’s hand.
‘I believe you,’ he said. ‘So does Linda. But you must understand that it’s important to find out how this fits in, assuming it does. Your parents vanish. And now an unknown sister suddenly turns up.’
‘I don’t understand it,’ said Hans. ‘I feel sick.’
‘Whatever the explanation is, I’ll find it.’
Wallander handed the receiver back to Linda. He listened to her trying to calm Hans down. He didn’t want to hear exactly what they said to each other. Since the conversation seemed set to continue for a while, he scribbled a few words on a scrap of paper and put it on the kitchen table in front of her. She nodded and handed him a bunch of keys from the windowsill. He left the house after taking a look at Klara, lying asleep on her stomach in her cot. He gently stroked her cheek with one of his fingers. Her face twitched, but she didn’t wake up.
When Wallander got back to the police station he called Sten Nordlander even before he had taken off his jacket. He immediately received the confirmation he had been hoping for.
‘Oh yes, there’s certainly another child,’ Nordlander said. ‘A girl who was severely handicapped from birth. Completely helpless, if I understood Hakan correctly. There was no possibility of them keeping her at home; she needed special care from the very first day of her life. They never spoke about her, and I thought I had to respect that.’
