‘What did she look like?’
‘She was lying on her side, a bit hunched up, wearing a skirt, socks, a grey blouse and an overcoat. Her shoes were next to her body. There was also a handbag with various papers and keys. Some animal or other had been sniffing around, but the body hadn’t been nibbled at.’
‘No sign of Hakan?’
‘None at all.’
‘But why would she choose that particular place? An open area where all the trees had been cut down?’
‘I don’t know. It wasn’t to die in idyllic surroundings. The spot is full of dry twigs and dead tree stumps. I’ll send you a map. Call if you have any comments.’
‘What about your holiday?’
‘It’s not the first time in my life that a holiday has been shot down.’
The map arrived a few minutes later. With his hand on the phone, it occurred to Wallander that this was something he shared with every other police officer he knew: the reluctance to be the one to inform relatives about a death. That was never routine.
Death always causes havoc, no matter when it comes.
He dialled the number, and noticed that his hand was shaking. Linda answered.
‘You again? We just hung up. Is everything all right?’
‘I’m fine. Are you alone?’
‘Hans is busy changing a nappy. Didn’t I tell you I gave him an ultimatum?’
‘Yes, you did. Listen carefully now - you might want to sit down.’
She could hear from his voice that this was serious. She knew he never exaggerated.
‘Louise is dead. She committed suicide several days ago. She was found last night or this morning at the side of a woodland path where they’d been clear-cutting in the Varmdo forests.’
She was dumbstruck.
‘Really?’ she asked eventually.
‘There doesn’t seem to be any doubt. But there’s no trace of Hakan.’
‘This is awful.’
‘How will Hans take it?’
‘I don’t know. Are they completely certain?’
‘I wouldn’t have called if Louise hadn’t been identified, obviously.’
‘I mean that she committed suicide. She wasn’t like that.’
‘Go and talk to Hans now. If he wants to speak to me he can call me direct. I can also give him the number of the police in Stockholm.’
Wallander was about to hang up, but Linda wasn’t finished.
‘Where has she been all this time? Why did she take her life only now?’
‘I know as little about that as you do. Let’s hope, in the midst of all the tragedy, that this can help us to find Hakan. But we can talk about that later.’
Wallander hung up, then called Niklasgarden. Artur Kallberg was on holiday, and so was the receptionist, but Wallander eventually managed to get hold of a temp. She knew nothing about Signe von Enke’s background, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that he was talking to a brick wall. But maybe that was an advantage under the circumstances.
Wallander had barely finished the conversation when Hans von Enke called. He was shaken, and close to tears. Wallander answered all his questions patiently, and promised to let him know as soon as any more information became available. Linda took the phone.
‘I don’t think it’s sunk in yet,’ she said quietly.
‘That goes for all of us.’
‘What did she take?’
‘Sleeping pills. Ytterberg didn’t say what kind. Maybe Rohypnol? Isn’t that what it’s called?’
‘She never took sleeping pills.’
‘Women often use sleeping pills when they want to take their own life.’
‘There’s something you said that makes me wonder.’
‘What?’
‘Did she really take her shoes off?’
‘According to Ytterberg, yes.’
‘Don’t you think that sounds odd? If she was indoors I could have understood it. But why take your shoes off if you’re going to lie down and die outside?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did he say what kind of shoes they were?’
‘No. But I didn’t ask.’
‘You have to tell us absolutely everything,’ she said after a pause.
‘Why would I hold anything back?’
‘You sometimes forget to mention things, possibly because you’re trying to be considerate when you don’t need to be. When will the press get hold of this?’
‘At any moment. Check teletext - they’re usually the first to know.’
Wallander waited, phone in hand. She came back a minute later.
‘They’ve got it already. “Louise von Enke found dead. No trace of her husband.”’
‘We can talk again later.’
Wallander switched on his own television and saw that the news had been given prominence. But if nothing else happened to change or complicate the situation, Louise von Enke’s death would no doubt soon fade into the background again.
Wallander tried to devote the rest of the day to his garden. He had bought a pair of hedge clippers on sale in a DIY store, but he soon discovered that they were more or less unusable. He trimmed a few bushes and cut back some branches on various old, parched fruit trees, well aware that they shouldn’t be pruned in the middle of summer. But the whole time, he was thinking about Louise. He’d never got close to her. What did he actually know about who she was? That woman who listened to the conversations taking place around the dinner table with the trace of a smile on her lips, but very rarely said anything herself? She taught German, and maybe other foreign languages as well. He couldn’t remember offhand, and had no desire to go inside and search through his notes.
And she gave birth to a daughter, he thought. When she was still in the maternity ward she had been told about the child’s severe handicaps. The daughter they named Signe would never lead a normal life. She was their first child. What effect does something like that have on a mother? He wandered around with his useless hedge clippers in his hand and failed to find an answer. But he didn’t feel much genuine sorrow. You couldn’t feel sorry for the dead. He could understand what Hans and Linda felt. And there was also Klara, who would never get to know her grandmother.
Jussi limped up with a thorn in one of his front paws. Wallander sat down at the garden table, put on his glasses, and with the aid of a pair of tweezers managed to pull it out. Jussi displayed his thanks by racing off like a flash of black lightning into the fields. A glider flew low over Wallander’s house. He watched its progress, squinting. He simply couldn’t feel like he was on holiday. He could see Louise in his mind’s eye, lying on the ground next to a path that meandered through a felled area of the forest. And by her side a pair of shoes, neatly on parade.
He threw the clippers into the shed and lay down on the garden hammock. Tractors were hard at work in the distance. The buzz from the main road came and went in waves. Then he sat up. This was pointless. He wouldn’t be able to relax until he had seen it all with his own eyes. He would have to go to Stockholm again.
Wallander flew to Stockholm that same evening, having handed over Jussi once again to his neighbour, who asked somewhat ironically if Wallander was beginning to get tired of his dog. He called Linda from the airport; she said she wasn’t surprised - she had expected no less of him.
‘Take lots of photos,’ she said. ‘There’s something here that doesn’t add up.’
‘Nothing adds up,’ said Wallander. ‘That’s why I’m going to Stockholm.’
His flight was ruined by a screeching child in the seat behind him. He spent nearly the entire journey with his fingers in his ears. He managed to find a room in a little hotel not far from the Central Station. As he walked in the
