‘No. How are things going for you?’
‘Nothing new worthy of mention.’
‘Nothing at all?’
‘No. Do you have anything to report?’
Wallander had been planning to tell Ytterberg about his visit to Boko and the remarkable cylinder he had found, but he changed his mind at the last minute. He didn’t know why. Surely he could rely on Ytterberg.
‘Not really.’
‘I’ll be in touch again.’
When the short and basically pointless call was over, Wallander drove to the police station. He needed to devote the whole day to going through a depressing assault case in connection with which he’d been called as a witness. Everybody blamed everybody else, and the victim, who had been in a coma for two weeks, had no memory of the incident. Wallander had been one of the first detectives to arrive at the scene, and would therefore have to testify in court. He had great difficulty recalling any details. Even the report he’d written himself seemed unfamiliar.
Linda suddenly appeared in his office. It was about noon.
‘I hear you had an unexpected visit,’ she said.
Wallander slid the open files to one side and looked at his daughter. Her face now seemed less puffy than it had been, and she might even have lost a few pounds.
‘Mona’s been knocking on your door, has she?’
‘She called from Malmo. She complained that you’d been nasty to her.’
Wallander reacted in astonishment.
‘What did she mean by that?’
‘She said you only reluctantly let her in despite the fact that she was feeling sick. Then you gave her hardly anything to eat, and locked her in the bedroom.’
‘None of that is true. The bitch is lying.’
‘Don’t call my mum that,’ said Linda, her face darkening.
‘She’s lying, whether you like it or not. I welcomed her, I let her in, I dried her tears, and I even made up the bed with clean sheets for her.’
‘She wasn’t lying about her new man, at least. I’ve met him. He’s just as charming as psychopaths usually are. Mum has an odd talent for choosing the wrong man.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I don’t mean you, of course. But that lunatic golf player wasn’t much better than the guy she’s with now.’
‘The question is: what can I do about it?’
Linda thought for a moment before answering. She rubbed her nose with the index finger of her left hand. Just like her grandfather used to do, Wallander thought. He’d never noticed that before, and now he burst out laughing. She looked at him in surprise. He explained. Then it was her turn to laugh.
‘I have Klara in the car,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to have a quick word about this business with Mum. We can talk later.’
‘You mean you left the baby alone in the car?’ Wallander was upset. ‘How could you do such a thing?’
‘I have a friend with me; she’s looking after Klara. How could you think I’d leave her alone?’
She paused in the doorway.
‘I think Mum needs our help,’ she said.
‘I’m always here,’ said Wallander. ‘But I’d prefer her to be sober when she visits. And she should call in advance.’
‘Are you always sober? Do you always call before you visit somebody? Have you never felt sick?’
She didn’t wait for a reply but vanished into the hallway. Wallander had just started reading his report again when Ytterberg called.
‘I’m taking a few days off,’ he said. ‘I forgot to mention that.’
‘Going anywhere interesting?’
‘I’ll be staying in an old cottage in a lovely location by a lake just outside Vasteras. But I wanted to tell you a few of my thoughts about the von Enkes. I was a bit curt when we spoke a few minutes ago.’
‘I’m all ears.’
‘Let me put it like this. I have two theories about their disappearance, and my colleagues agree with me. Let’s see if you’re thinking along the same lines. One possibility is that they planned their disappearance in advance, but for some reason they decided to vanish at different times. There could be various explanations for that. For instance, if they wanted to change their identity, he might have gone ahead to some unknown place in order to prepare for her arrival. Meet her on a road filled with palm fronds and roses, to use a biblical image. But there could be other reasons, of course. There’s really only one other plausible possibility: that they’ve been subjected to some sort of attack. In other words, that they’re dead. It’s hard to find a reason why they might have been exposed to violence, and if so, why it should happen at different times. But apart from those two alternatives, we have no idea. There’s just a black hole.’
‘I think I’d have reached the same conclusions as you.’
‘I’ve consulted the leading experts in the country about possible circumstances associated with missing persons, and our job is simple in the sense that there’s only one way for us to approach this.’
‘Find them, you mean.’
‘Or at least understand why we can’t find them.’
‘Have there been any new details at all?’
‘None. But there is one other person we have to take into account.’
‘You mean the son?’
‘Yes. We can’t avoid it. If we assume that they engineered their disappearance, we have to ask why they’d subject him to such horrors. It’s inhuman, to put it mildly. Our impression is that they are not cruel people. You know that yourself; you’ve met them. What we’ve dug up about Hakan von Enke indicates that he was a well-liked senior officer, unassuming, shrewd, fair, never temperamental. The worst we’ve heard about him is that he could occasionally be impatient. But can’t we all? As a teacher, Louise was well liked by her pupils. Uncommunicative, quite a few said. But refraining from speaking non-stop is hardly grounds for suspicion - you have to listen now and then too. Anyway, it doesn’t seem credible that they could have lived double lives. We’ve even consulted experts in Europol. I’ve had several phone conversations with a French policewoman, Mlle Germain in Paris, who had a lot of sensible things to say. She confirmed my own thought, that we also need to look at the matter in a radically different light.’
Wallander knew what he was getting at.
‘You mean what role Hans might have played?’
‘Exactly. If there was a large fortune at stake, that might have provided us with a lead. But there isn’t. All in all, the Enkes have about a million kronor - plus their apartment, which is probably worth seven or eight million. You could argue that it’s a lot of money for an ordinary mortal. But given contemporary circumstances, you could say that a person with no debts and the assets I’ve referred to is well off, but hardly rich.’
‘Have you spoken to Hans?’
‘About a week ago he was in Stockholm for a meeting with the Financial Supervisory Authority. He was the one who took the initiative and got in touch with me, and we had a chat. I have to say that he seemed genuinely worried, and that he simply couldn’t understand what had happened. Besides, he earns a pretty substantial salary.’
‘So that’s where we are, is it?’
‘Not exactly a strong position to be in. But we’ll keep digging, even if the ground seems very hard.’
Ytterberg suddenly put down the receiver. Wallander could hear him cursing in the background. Then he picked up the receiver again.
‘I’m leaving in two days,’ said Ytterberg. ‘But you can always contact me if there’s an emergency.’
‘I promise to call only if it’s important,’ said Wallander, and hung up.
After that phone call Wallander went down to sit on the bench outside the entrance to the station. He thought through what Ytterberg had said.
